Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

After bringing Chessie Edwards’ attention to my response, he took the initiative to reply in a new post on his blog. I’d like to thank him for continuing to draw Christian viewership to our website and we pray he continues to do so in the future. Unfortunately, as expected from Biblical Evangelists, Chessie began his response with mockery and insults:

Unfortunately the god of the unregenerate is Satan who is far from having any Rahma

I’m not really sure how his opening statement really answers me or in what way it was relevant to the topic at hand, I’ll leave the floor open for Chessie to address that. If this was his idea of building anticipation for what the rest of his blog post will present, I’m not very much looking forward to it. In any case, let’s examine his claims:

Actually that’s not what I said, I said ” Christ being “sinless”is beyond mere moral conduct it has to do with nature.”. This is just one testament to the Muslim bloggers many reading errors, he seems to see what he would like a text to say, instead of what it really says..he uses the same faulty hermeneutic with the Bible.  My Christology which I believe is orthodox, is Christ did not become sinless by living a sinless life(his not sinning is not the cause of him being a sinless man), He didn’t sin because he was by nature sinless(his sinless nature was the cause of his sinless life).  I did not say Christ sinless behavior had nothing to do with why we consider Him sinless, I said our doctrine go’s beyond that. I am sure the blogger will ignore what I just said and decide I said whatever he feels I said. Yet to fair minded Muslims, know such details are not minor, they are major in Christian Theology.

We agree with Chessie when he says Christ’s nature is to be sinless, which is why I am puzzled when he says I took his statements out of context. Recall from my previous response where I said:

I couldn’t agree more, it’s finally good to see him accepting the Islamic position of all children being born upon the “fitrah” or “pure nature”.

The fitrah or “pure nature” means that a child is born with a clean slate, free of influences, no record, completely new to the word, not a single penalty against the child. When he says this, I am in full agreement:

 He didn’t sin because he was by nature sinless(his sinless nature was the cause of his sinless life).

We also believe as Muslims that the Anbiya (Prophets) are sinless in Islam. So again, I see no reason for him to state that we disagree with his premises. Perhaps he was just finishing for an argument, but I shall not take his bait. He continues:

Christians believe as the Bible teaches that Christ had two natures, His Divinity and the second undefiled human nature He took on. As I clearly explained in the quote, Christ was never contaminated with the sin nature that effects the rest of humanity(or maybe the blogger thinks humans don’t sin?). The Islamic doctrine of fitrah has nothing to do with anything I said , but again the blogger sees what he wants to see.

Some questions need to be asked here:

• Where does the NT teach the hypostatic union, i..e that Christ has two natures?
• That Christs’ nature was undefiled (as we know Christ was abandoned by God on the cross, does God abandon sinless persons, but aids sinful persons?).
• The Fitrah is the nature of being born pure, without sin, how does this have nothing to do with Christ being born free of sin?

In an odd way, he then decides to demonstrate original sin is actually from the Qur’an and not the Bible by posting an article link which I refuted many months ago, which you can read here, “Proving Original Sin from the Qur’an“. Yet the question still stands, can Chessie Edwards ever prove the Original Sin from the Bible? He’s demonstrated that either he cannot read or doesn’t want to fully answer the question. Chessie continues:

We see this from the blogger, he doesn’t have the time to deal with what I(or others) are saying, that would get in the way of him making his point(weather his point has anything to do with Christian doctrine or not). Obviously he gets this from his god who makes all sorts of theological errors in addressing Christians in the Quran. See the following article from bother Sam Shamoun.

Well, now I’m a bit confused:

• I quote Chessie’s article on my website.
• Chessie goes to my websites and quotes my quote of him.
• Chessie writes a response based on my quote of him.

Chessie literally quoted himself and responds to it. I’m not sure if he confused himself, but he seriously quoted himself and then attempted to refute the quote by saying it was nonsensical, made up etc. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry out of pity. He then decided to link to Sam Shamoun’s article, which is refuted here by Br. Bassam Zawadi. Mr. Edwards continues:

The blogger is off in la la land, I am not sure why he didn’t see ” All the promises, types and shadows in the old Testament pointed to the Messiah “, why doesn’t he get ” All the promises, types and shadows in the old Testament pointed to the Messiah” is what I am saying is beyond mere moralism? If the blogger obeyed the moral commands or even ritual commands of the Law(The blogger seems to not know the word Law is used many different ways in the Bible, and there many aspects to the Mosaic commands.. a whole other subject) would that mean he now would fulfill ” All the promises, types and shadows in the old Testament …” ?

As explained in my previous response, and as explained in the video by Rabbi Michael Skobac, there were many Messiahs prophesied by in the Tanach, however according to the Tanach itself, there is no “The Messiah” to come. Of course, this is where we as Muslims would disagree as we do believe ‘Aissa [alayhi as salaam] was the Masih (Christ), but we do agree with the understanding that the Tanach (corrupted as it is), does not point to “a” Messiah.  In fact, if one would notice, he doesn’t reference a single prophecy or promise of the Bible this time. The reason being that I refuted his quote of Isaiah (Yeshayahu) by presenting the Hebrew version as opposed to the modern Christian version. His silence is deafening and a clear indicator that he has no prophecies or promises to present from his Bible. He continues:

That would be a nice quote if by Law what was being discussed was merely moral commands…I feel like I am repeating myself…

The “Law” are “moral commands from God”, unless what he meant by Law, was not the word Law. Since that is the case, he needs to choose his words better. If the word “law” does not mean “law”, then the onus is on your Mr. Edwards to explicitly use the words you wish to convey your message accurately. What does the “law” mean Mr. Edwards, if not “moral commands from God”? He continues:

The rest of this is unworthy of my time, I am quite busy and reading his post induces headaches.

Apparently my posts are now “unworthy of his time”, although by him posting two articles about my arguments he’s stating the opposite! While I am sure my posts give him headaches and while that does please me, I really do wish for him to be guided. He continues:

But, if he is taking ilm from the Jews now, I hope he accepts their reasons for rejecting Muhammad, then again maybe he is now rejecting Jesus or is an Atheist..a Jew..if its expedient will he next be a liberal post modernist? ..who knows.

Fallacy of hasty generalization and a poor ad hominem as well. I’m a Muslim, I follow Qur’an and Sunnah, I’ve never identified myself otherwise. Looking forward to giving Chessie L. Edwards more headaches though.

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best].