Refuted - Jake Brancatella Does Not Understand The Islamic Dilemma

Islam & Epistemology

In this article I dismantle Jake Brancatella’s authority argument that he used in recent debates against Avery (GodLogic) and David Wood (Apologetics Roadshow) supposedly refuting the Islamic Dilemma. You can watch those debates here:

My particular line of argumentation relies on epistemology in order to fortify the Islamic Dilemma and make the Muslim objection absolutely futile.

Firstly, the Islamic Dilemma does not have to be argued from all vantage points of inspiration, preservation, and authority. On principle, only one successful avenue of attack is necessary to establish the dilemma.

Jake is arguing from the erroneous vantage point that if one avenue is defended successfully, then the whole thrust of the Islamic Dilemma fails. That’s like saying that as long as a person defends himself from the front, then he does not have to guard himself from attacks coming from the sides and/or back. It’s the ostrich burying his head in the sand.

The Islamic Dilemma can be presented in various ways. In my opinion, the simplest and most robust way to present it is as follows:

1. The Quran establishes the validity and reliability of previous Scriptures, e.g., the Tawra (Torah) and the Injīl (Gospel), as they existed at the time of Muhammad in the possession of Jews and Christians, respectively. The Quran makes this absolutely clear:

ٱلَّذِينَ يَتَّبِعُونَ ٱلرَّسُولَ ٱلنَّبِىَّ ٱلْأُمِّىَّ ٱلَّذِى يَجِدُونَهُۥ مَكْتُوبًا عِندَهُمْ فِى ٱلتَّوْرَىٰةِ وَٱلْإِنجِيلِ

“Those who follow the messenger, the Prophet who can neither read nor write, whom they will find described in the Torah and the Gospel (which are) with them.” (tr. Pickthall)

Quran 7:157

The Arabic text of the Quran is unambiguous in the claim: Muhammad is to be found written (يَجِدُونَهُۥ مَكْتُوبًا) in the Gospel (فِى ٱلْإِنجِيلِ) that Christians had with them (عِندَهُمْ) at the time of Muhammad.

2. It is illogical for the Quran to then claim that Muhammad is the ‘seal of the prophets’ (خاتم النبيين) following in the line of Jesus yet contradict the message found in the Injīl on fundamental matters of aqīda (عقيدة).

3. Since the Quran contradicts what it affirms as valid and reliable, the Quran cannot be Divine revelation.

It is impossible on epistemic grounds for the Quran to:

• Use a corrupted source (Injīl) in order to justify a belief with absolute certainty.

• Merely assert its truthfulness absent of any proof.

This is basic epistemology.

The first point severs epistemic ties with prior Scripture and prophets. The second point engages epistemic circularity and/or arbitrariness.

In order to avoid the epistemic problem of the first point, Muslims must provide independent reasons apart from prior Scripture and traditions why Muhammad is a prophet. That fails miserably and only makes the epistemic problem worse because Muslims have no independent epistemic grounds on how to define a prophet, i.e., Muslims MUST root their notion of prophethood in prior Scripture in order to have epistemic justification.

But then that gets Muslims into the second problem of epistemic circularity and/or arbitrariness because then they must reject the very sources they depend on. You can read a detailed explanation in the following articles I wrote:

The Quran forces Muslims to use the Injīl as it was in the possession of Christians at the time of Muhammad as the epistemic source in order to prove the Quranic claim that Muhammad is written therein. Merely asserting that such-and-such verse of the Injīl refers to Muhammad is not sufficient. Muslims must PROVE any assertions made. And this is why there is desperation among Muslims to find Muhammad in the Injīl, i.e., they must validate the Quranic claim. If the Quranic claim cannot be proven, then the Quran is false.

Moreover, any attempt to invoke textual corruption of the Injīl results in epistemic arbitrariness, thereby rendering the Quranic claim unprovable — a horn of the dilemma.

But notice how the Quran specifically singles out that it is in the Injīl where Muhammad is to be found written. The Quran does not say the ‘Bible’ or some larger body of work. The Quran specifically says ‘Injīl’. Hence, Muslims must find Muhammad in the Injīl, and this is where you get the nonsensical ‘Paraclete’ argument. You can see a detailed explanation in the following article I wrote on how the Paraclete claim backfires:

Failure to find Muhammad referenced in Christian Scripture as a prophet of God means that the Quranic claim is false, thereby demonstrating the falsity of the Quran as Divine revelation.

To further the epistemic case against the Quran, consider the Muslim claim that the title ‘Son of God’ was once acceptable but later the Quran forbade its usage because it supposedly took on a meaning contrary to its initial acceptable context.

Well, in the very Injīl that the Quran considers valid and reliable, the Jews explicitly attempted to stone Jesus for claiming Divinity as the Son of God. Moreover, the Injīl states that all that was created was through the Son, meaning that the Son Himself transcends creation. This is a fundamental matter of aqīda demonstrating that the Quran does not actually understand what it is affirming of the Injīl. So the Quran forbidding the usage ‘Son of God’ is not a later abrogation, but rather a fundamental irreconcilable contradiction on aqīda, namely, the nature of God’s oneness.

Lets take another epistemic problem for the Quran: use of the title ‘Messiah’ for Jesus. Muslims have no idea what this title even means because the Quran never defines or explains it. When you say ‘King David’, you understand what ‘king’ means because you already have the requisite context apart from the Quran, so the Quran does not need to define or explain it.

In the same manner, what does ‘Messiah’ mean? As soon as you provide the context of Messiah, and the only place from where you can get that context is Christian Scripture, then the entire Quranic claim of Muhammad’s prophetic status crumbles. Why? Because with the coming of Jesus as the Messiah and the Gospel message, no further prophets are necessary (because of the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete). So the Quran is in contradiction with the Injīl on a fundamental point of aqīda.

Muslims do not understand that Christians rejecting Muhammad as a prophet rests on a fundamental point of Christian aqīda: with the coming of Jesus as the Messiah there is no purpose for anymore prophets. So the fundamental Quranic claim that Muhammad is the so-called ‘seal of the prophets’ is nonsensical given the context of what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah. The understanding of what ‘Messiah’ means is a fundamental matter of aqīda taught in the Injīl that the Quran affirms.

Matters of aqīda cannot be abrogated because they represent fundamental metaphysical truths.

If the Quran recognizes Christian Scripture, calls Christians to accept Muhammad, uses the title of Messiah when referring to Jesus, yet never provides a definition or understanding of what Messiah means, then it assumes that the Christian understanding provides the necessary context. This is fundamental epistemology.

We do not even need to address the supposed authority argument of Jake (but I do anyways, at the end). If the fundamental claim of finding Muhammad in the Injīl as the Quran claims cannot be established, meaning epistemically justified, then the entirety of the Quran is rejected. All other arguments are nullified. This is what makes the Islamic Dilemma so devastating. It really is as simple as that. Jake is attempting to throw up a smoke screen and redefine the Islamic Dilemma because he knows he cannot actually respond to it.

In order to demonstrate Jake’s general lack of knowledge and illogical argumentation, lets look at some points he made.

Jake brought up Quran 14:4, i.e., that each prophet spoke in the language of their own people, as proof that the language of the Injīl the Quran refers to is not Greek, so the Quranic understanding of what constitutes the Injīl does not subject itself to the Islamic Dilemma.

This is a beautiful example to demonstrate Jake’s ignorance. Have you ever heard of the Diatessaron, a harmonized Gospel account into a single book in Syriac (Aramaic), or the Peshitta Gospel accounts in Syriac (Aramaic), i.e., the language Jesus spoke?

Furthermore, you know the Christians of Najran that the Quran refers to and who historically interacted with Muhammad (the mubahala)? Do you know with which Christian group numerous Muslim tafasir (commentaries) identify the Najranis? The so-called Jacobites (Oriental Monophysites), who were Syriac speakers, i.e., who wrote and read the Injīl in Syriac (Aramaic). Invoking Quran 14:4 backfires.

Not only that, but the word ‘Injīl’ that the Quran itself uses comes from the Greek ‘evangelion’, either through Syriac or Ethiopic, (ev)angel(ion) > ingil. The Quran itself recognizes that the Injīl is ultimately from Greek sources.

So Jake’s point is pathetically uninformed.

With regards to abrogative authority, the fact that Jesus abrogates some aspects of the Tawra, and the Quran itself abrogates laws as revelation progresses, is not an argument that refutes the Islamic Dilemma.

The tafsir of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, who Jake himself cites, provides the relevant Quranic context of Quran 5:41-48:

One of the (multiple) ways to understand Quran 5:47 that Razi gives is that it was acceptable for the Christians to continue following the authority of the existing Injīl in matters not abrogated by the Quran.

Did you catch that?

Muslim scholars themselves, including ones who Jake cites, recognize that the Injīl is STILL authoritative for Christians, especially in matters that the Quran has not abrogated. And this is EXACTLY how to understand Jesus abrogating aspects of the Tawra, meaning the Tawra is still authoritative over the Jews but contextualized with the Injīl brought by Jesus, for example, the lifting of certain dietary restrictions.

Progressive abrogation of prior revelation does not negate the established fundamental authority of that prior revelation. Rather, it contextualizes its inherent authority.

Consider the example of the Police. They have authority as an institutional principle. Changes to existing laws and abrogation of prior laws never remove that authority. It just contextualizes that authority.

Consider another example, amendments to the US constitution. Though amendments to the US constitution can alter the scope and context of the original authority, the US constitution maintains authority as a principle.

In other words, kitāb (Divine revelation) as a principle maintains authority. The ‘heavenly tablet’ as a principle, on which is inscribed the Injīl, maintains its authority. So to argue that the Tawra and Injīl are no longer authoritative is to argue that kitāb and the ‘heavenly tablet’ as a principle are no longer authoritative.

Jake’s argument logically necessitates rejecting the authority of kitāb and the ‘heavenly tablet’ as a principle. Jake does not realize the relationship between abrogation and principle of authority. He mistakenly takes the current law in effect (Islamic fiqh) as authority and not kitāb and the ‘heavenly tablet’ as the ultimate metaphysical principle of authority.

Moreover, as already mentioned, abrogation cannot apply to matters of aqīda such as God’s oneness or the purpose of the Messiah as these are fundamental metaphysical truths not subject to abrogation. So the Injīl necessarily maintains its authority as kitāb and the ‘heavenly tablet’ alongside revelation of the Quran.

In other words, even while the Quran itself was being revealed it simultaneously recognized the existing metaphysical authority of the Tawra and Injīl because they are kitāb and the ‘heavenly tablet’! The Quran is merely updating judgement-based authority of codified law, i.e., Islamic fiqh. This is why the Quran still recognizes the authority of the Tawra over Jews despite Jesus abrogating certain laws with the Injīl.

The Islamic Dilemma concerns itself with the fundamental metaphysical principle of authority of the Tawra and the Injīl. Either Jake does not understand that this is the Islamic Dilemma (quite likely, since he could not even understand a basic logic truth table in his debate with Dr Beau Branson), or he is purposefully re-framing the Islamic Dilemma so that the concept of authority is reducible to abrogation in the sense of Islamic fiqh. In other words, Jake is not dealing with the actual Islamic Dilemma.

Furthermore, under dhimmitude, Jews and Christians used their own Scriptures and traditions to establish courts and judges amongst their own communities. Dhimmis did not use the Quran and Islamic fiqh to judge internal issues. They used the Tawra and the Injīl. That Islamic law was imposed in a general societal sense on them is no different to how the Jews at the time of Jesus paid taxes to the Romans and had to follow Roman law in a general societal sense, yet maintained their own respective Sanhedrin. That Jesus told His followers to pay taxes to the Romans and follow Roman law in a general societal sense did not negate the authority of the Injīl anymore than paying jizya under dhimmitude does.

Claiming that the Quran has a privileged position because it supposedly follows the Injīl as continued revelation while Roman law does not is a fallacious argument because dhimmitude entails that Jews and Christians continue to judge within their own communities using the Tawra and Injīl. Why? Because the Quran still recognizes that previously-established authority as a metaphysical principle grounded in kitāb and the ‘heavenly tablet’.

The Islamic Dilemma stands.