Complete Guide to Refuting Islam

When many Catholic or Christian apologists are dealing with Islam they tend to focus only on internal critiques, such as the Islamic dilemma. But there is an argument which has a deep historical foundation in great figures like St John of Damascus and the Angelic Doctor, St Thomas Aquinas which has been somewhat neglected as of late. Now Divine Revelation essentially deals with all that God has revealed, such truths are thus hidden mysteries that cannot be reasoned to as in an argument without God revealing it to man. For example, a hidden divine truth may be when God will judge mankind for its sins and iniquity. For there is nothing in the natural order of reality, such that man could ever reason to the day of God’s judgment on mankind. Thus God almighty must reveal such a truth, either in scripture or in a private revelation.

Now of course there are many claims from many religions that they truly possess God’s revelation to mankind. For example, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, ect… And for anyone discerning the truth of such religions, it can seem overwhelming to some extent. But man’s intellect can know certain truths that automatically exclude certain religions, for example, man’s intellect can reason to God’s existence, such that God is the first cause and sustainer of reality itself, and this God is immutable or cannot change. Thus, we can exclude Mormonism, since they have a polytheistic conception of God or gods, and further these gods go through metaphysical changes. These characteristics automatically exclude Mormonism as being true, since it violates the truth that God is an immutable or changeless being, and only one such being can exist.

But what about a religion that possesses monotheism, such that there is only one God. Well then the conversation changes to the actual distinctive claims of this religion, and specifically the certain motives that incline man to accept it as truly being revealed by God. Islam is one of the religions that does accept monotheism, but their issue lies not ‘necessarily’ in their views on God as with Mormonism, but the actual validity of the religion as truly being revealed by God through Muhhamad, whom they claim is the final Prophet of mankind. For with any religion, we must look for certain motives of credibility that incline man to accept it as being truly revealed by God. As Fr. Matthias Scheeben writes: “Again, reason precedes in order to convince the soul of the existence and credibility of supernatural revelation, and hence of the licitness and obligation of belief in it. (Mysteries of Christianity, pg 780, Scheeben). For as Fr. Scheeben argues, the intellect of man desires certain motives of credibility that will incline man to accept a certain supernatural revelation, and thus see the obligation that they have to follow it.

When we look at Christianity, we may see two distinctive types of external criteria: miracles and prophecy. For example, of the greatest of miracles we can look at the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which was documented extremely early for ancient history. This miracle was so profound that it essentially launched the Apostles to spread the truths that Christ revealed, and eventually it ended up in the conversion of the whole Roman Empire. Not any sword was raised, nor was any war ever fought in order for early Christians to convert all of Europe, only the truth of Christian teaching itself. In fact, the Apostles suffered greatly on account of Christ, and spreading the truth of the resurrection that they were willing to die for their beliefs, and in fact did die as martyrs. Secondly, of the prophecies of Christianity, we may look at the destruction of the temple by Christ himself, and the book of Daniel which came centuries before Christ. These prophecies foretold when the temple would fall, and the circumstances that surrounded it, and history falls in line with the truth of these prophecies. Of course, this is but the very brim of the motives of credibility for the validity of Christianity, for we have barely even gone into the arguments that make up the truth of the resurrection or destruction of the temple. Suffice to say, Christianity clearly has many motives which the rational man can look at, and thus be convinced that God truly revealed the hidden mysteries through his Church and Sacred Scripture.

But when we turn to Islam, we can have strong certitude that the spread of Islam, was not a spread invoked by divine fervor, but one that can easily be explained by natural means. And not only that, but Islam itself lacks any clear or distinctive motives of credibility that would incline man to accept it as being revealed by God almighty. And this was all shown and proven by the intellectual giant, St Thomas Aquinas. Thus does St Thomas call out the teachings of Muhammad, for Muhammad invoked carnal pleasures of the flesh in his preaching which he claimed came from God. St Thomas writes:

“On the other hand, those who introduced the errors of the sects proceeded in contrary fashion, as is clear from Mohammed, who enticed peoples with the promise of carnal pleasures, to the desire of which the concupiscence of the flesh instigates. He also delivered commandments in keeping with his promises, by giving the reins to carnal pleasure, in which it is easy for carnal men to obey.”(SCG1.C6).

And St Thomas is truly right in his observation of Islamic teaching, since the Islamic view of heaven for example is very carnal and based upon the desire of the senses or passions of the flesh. For thus does the Quran describe the manner of the blessed in Heaven:

"Serving them [The blessed in Heaven] will be immortalized youth. With cups, pitchers, and sparkling drinks. Causing them neither headache, nor intoxication.And fruits of their choice. And meat of birds that they may desire. And lovely companions. The likenesses of treasured pearls." (Quran, 56:17-23).

Mohammad’s view of heaven can be contrasted with the intellectual and spiritual view of the Holy Bible or Sacred Scripture, which describes man as experiencing or intellectually see God in his divine essence, and thus satisfying the intellect of man. For temporal things, like jewlery, sexual relations, and food do not truly satisfy man, but only seeing God himself can do so. As St Augustine writes: “God is the goal of our desires, He is the one whom we shall see without end, whom we shall love without weariness, whom we shall glorify forever without fatigue.” (De Civ. Dei).

And further Mohammad taught that polygamy was not only allowed, but is an actual good which God intends for man to have with various women. The issue with this is that certain aspects of polgamy violate the natural law of man such that man is to have one living spouse, and properly rear up children. For this natural law is an objective law established by God in the natural order of man’s nature. Even modern studies show universally that polygamy has a terrible effect on children and marriages, and thus it is contrary to the nature of man that God has so created. And for clarification, many Muslims egregiously appeal to the Old Testament, for example Solomon was known for having hundreds of wives. The issue with this appeal to the Old Testament is that just as God allowed for a bill of divorce, He also allowed for some of the Patriarchs or Kings to have polygamous relations. But it must be noted that this was not God’s intention in the natural law, for example speaking of the bill of divorce, Christ states:

“‘For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery.’” (Matthew 19:8-9).

Nonetheless, this would already suffice to explain away Mohammad as a false prophet since a prophet cannot err in his teachings that supposedly come from God, yet Mohammad propounds the carnal desires of man, and his teachings goes against the natural law which God has created. And further this shows evidence that the spread of Islam is not one like we see with the early Christians who spread the teachings of Christ and called men to repent of his disordered passions, but one which is infused with a carnal nature. Nonetheless, St Thomas goes further in his critique:

“Also, the lessons of truth which he inculcated were only such as can be easily known to any man of average wisdom by his natural powers—in fact, he mingled the truths which he taught with many fables and most false doctrines.”(SCG1.C6).

For example, Mohammad taught there is only one God, but he combined this with the false teaching that God is not the father or cannot be called the father of mankind since it would imply that he has literal sons or a wife. But this a failure on the part of Muhammad, or the Quran, for clearly man can speak by analogy to say that God is the father of mankind since he created mankind, just as he is an author of mankind, for we commonly speak of God by analogy. Similarly the Quran, or Muhammad teaches that God could only be a father of a Son, as in the Trinity, if he had a wife. But this is a laughable notion, as St Thomas writes:

"First of all we must observe that Muslims are silly in ridiculing us for holding that Christ is the Son of the living God, as if God had a wife. Since they are carnal, they can think only of what is flesh and blood. For any wise man can observe that the mode of generation is not the same for everything, but generation applies to each thing according to the special manner of its nature.” (De Rationibus Fidei, C. 3).

St Thomas continues further: 

“Nor did he add any signs of supernatural agency, which alone are a fitting witness to divine inspiration, since a visible work that can only be from God proves the teacher of truth to be invisibly inspired, but he asserted that he was sent in the power of arms, which sign is not lacking even to robbers and tyrants…and it was by a multitude of such men and the force of arms that he compelled others to submit to his law.” (SCG1.C6).

Here St Thomas critiques Muhammad’s mode of spreading the Islamic faith, which was that of war and battles. In fact much of Muhammad’s supposed prophethood was spent in wars and battles that he had with other nations, in which he subjugated the nations to adopt Islam. Thus the spread of Islam was not done by discussions, or by leading a virtuous life and calling others to repent, and thus becoming holy martyrs for the faith as it was with Christianity’s beginnings. In fact the extreme persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, without the Christians ever going to war and nonetheless still converting the entire empire is a motive of credibility of itself for the Christian faith. To which Islam has nothing to compare, and its spread can easily be explained by natural means since it spread by conquest. And we should also note as St Thomas did, that Muhammad offered truly no strong motives of credibility, such that he did not do any miracles. We see cries of the people spoken of in the Quran as asking why Muhammad did not do any explicit miracles to prove his Prophethood. In fact, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: 

“Nothing proves that Mohammed was sent by God. He admitted that he cannot do miracles, adding that they are not necessary: The Quran itself was [supposedly] the greatest miracle.” (De Revelatione, pg 546).

Now there are some supposed explicit miracle claims of Muhammad, but they come not from the Quran, but from much later traditions in the Hadiths that come centuries later. For example, the supposed miracle of the splitting of the moon, in which Muhammad literally splits the moon in half. Of course, this cannot be historically proven as we can with the resurrection of Jesus; and further you would expect such a large event to be witnessed by almost the whole earth, yet we have nothing that would indicate that.

St Thomas continues further:

“Lastly, no divine oracles of prophets in a previous age bore witness to him; rather, he corrupted almost all the teaching of the Old and New Testaments by a narrative replete with fables, as one may see by a perusal of his law. Hence, by a cunning device, he did not commit the reading of the Old and New Testament books to his followers, lest he should thereby be convicted of falsehood. Thus it is evident that those who believe his words believe lightly.” (SCG1.C6).

St Thomas notes that there are no prophecies or oracles which speak of Muhammad. This can be compared to the multitude of prophecies that prophesied the coming of Christ and almost the exact circumstances in which Christ would come, such that after he arrived, the destruction of the temple would ensue, and history bears witness to this fact. In fact, the Quran completely lies about Jesus and fabricates sayings of him, for it claims that Jesus explicitly taught that Muhhamad would come after him.

It states: “And remember when Jesus, son of Mary, said, ‘O children of Israel! I am truly Allah’s messenger to you, confirming the Torah which came before me, and giving good news of a messenger after me whose name will be Aḥmad [Muhammad].’” (Quran 61:6).

The issue is that no one remembers this, because Jesus never claimed this message, in fact it goes completely against Jesus’s actual historical teachings, that there is no other prophet after him that will proclaim general revelation to all mankind as we see with Muhammad. In fact the Quran actually teaches that we should look back to the Biblical texts of Sacred Scripture to confirm Muhammad’s teachings, but when we do look back, we find that the Sacred Scriptures completely go against Muhammad’s teachings, for example, that of polyamy, and the rejection of the Trinity, and the idea of Muhammad as being the true final prophet. That is why many Muslims now claim that the Biblical texts are actually corrupted, and only certain parts, which are not corrupted, confirm Muhammad’s teachings, but who’s to say that those parts are not also corrupted as well. The exception that Muslims make by only accepting the parts of the Bible that prove their position is completely fallacious and begging the question that their position is already true.

As the esteemed Thomist Charles-Rene Billuart remarks on this situation:

“Moreover, since he [Muhammad] in his Quran bears witness to the Gospel, one can argue against his followers from this and from other Scriptures; for there is no reason why they should accept the Gospel in one part and reject it in another, or why they should say that the Gospel is corrupted here but not there, unless they clearly prove it, which is impossible for them.” (Trinitate, Diss. I, Art. I).

This argument can be used to deal with any religion, for the motives of credibility are important in determining which religion God has truly revealed. Clearly Islam has none, and in fact violates basic philosophical principles, like the natural law, for it teaches that polygamy is actually a good thing in totality since they suppose it was God’s intention. Thus Christianity clearly stands out as the greatest and true religion, as Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: 

“From the certain conclusions of the history of religions, it is manifestly clear that Christianity transcends all other religions. Nay, based on this comparison with other religions, its absolute transcendence (that is, its divinity) is confirmed, since no other religion can equal its doctrine, institutions, miracles, prophecies, marvelous propagation, unconquered stability, unity, and fruitfulness in all good things. Thus, through the history of religions and the comparisons that can be drawn from it, all the motives of credibility on behalf of the mysteries of Christianity find themselves to be increasingly corroborated.” (De Revelatione, pg. 549).