An Important Difference Between Muslim and Christian Polemics

It’s clear that Muslims and Christians have plenty of objections against the other side’s religion, but it’s very important to point out the great disparity in the substance and nature of the majority of these objections raised by each camp.

Muslim objections overwhelmingly concern core Christian doctrines. They concern things like the coherence of the Trinity and incarnation, the fairness of the Atonement, the ambiguity pertaining to Jesus’s claim to divinity, etc.

Contrast this with Christian objections to Islam which overwhelmingly concern ethical issues, as opposed to core Islamic doctrines.[1]

I’m not saying that Muslims and Christians only lodge these arguments, but I’m speaking generally about the most common arguments out there by the majority of the laity. I believe most of my Muslim apologist peers would agree with this observation.

I don’t mention this point for the heck of it. Rather, I think it’s essential that we note that, in reality, at their core, fundamental Islamic doctrines are fairly uncontroversial to theists such as Christians. And thus, there’s a qualitative difference between the two faiths already, whereby Islam proudly and confidently proclaims that it’s core teachings are naturally intuitive, while Christianity itself recognizes that some of its central creeds could appear “foolish.” (1 Corinthians 1:23)

[1] The Mu’tazilite theologian, Al-Qadi ‘Abdul Jabbar (d. 415 A.H.), said while commenting on the desperation of Christian polemicists:

“They claim to adopt ascetism and be against fighting with the sword; they fool the people when they say this. Rather, they couldn’t find any shortcoming in the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), so they tried to defame him by claiming that he fought with the sword and mention his polygamous marriages. They disparage him for this, yet they claim that Allah chose Mary to give birth to His son. He took him as a son despite not calling Mary His wife.” (Tathbeet Dala’il an-Nubuwwah, vol. 1, p. 190)