Christian belief in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation: An anti-Monotheism?

The Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the incarnation according to Muslims and Jews have raised questions on the Christians’ claim on the belief of the monotheistic God. For these religions, how can God be one and the same described with three persons. In their thoughts, it is illogical to describe God with such concept of undivided essence with three distinct persons. Such in their understanding could amount to projecting tritheism , thus yielding to polytheistic belief. In furtherance, it is difficult to understand that Jesus is the revelation of God who is indivisible and still becomes a distinct person. Thus, it becomes difficult to understand that there is a difference between Jesus in God and God in Jesus. This has been the issue which appears to have been stifling the interfaith dialogue as there are yet to establish a point of commonalities and acceptance of differences

The above background was what necessitated the meeting between Volf,Sheikh al-Jifri, and Ford. This meeting could be termed interfaith dialogue. In this meeting Volf tried to respond to the volatile issue that appear to have been obstructing Muslim/ Christian relations. What Volf I think he did here was not much of playing defense and at the same time not yielding to the allegations from Muslim and Jews. Exploring the thoughts of many thinkers like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Nicholas of Cussa, he is of the view that Christians’ belief in Trinity does not imply worship of idols, but could be seen from the point of view of their understanding of God. Though he accepts that such a concept may appear to be weak and inconsequential in such a way that it cannot convince Muslims when they hear of undivided essence and three persons. Volf, therefore, suggested what he called “Numerical identity of divine essence” This seemed to have doused the curious mind of Sheikh al-Jifri. However, his yearning was satisfied. But one thing I think Volf was able to establish was that every concept used to describe God must be inadequate even the words like sustainer and master, and gracious and merciful which Qur’an used. By this he was advocating of tolerance of each other’s belief, while we try to establish a common ground. That is, in trying to seek for a point of commonalities, we should always bear in mind of differences. In the final analysis he established that what Muslims deny is what the Christians deny, that is there is no other god beside God, and also what the Muslims affirm is what the Christians affirm, that is there is only one indivisible God. And I think this what D’Costa was equally trying to establish in his reflection on Volf’s Allah.