The Council of Nicaea was convened to resolve the Arian controversy and establish orthodox Christian doctrine. Although Arians were anathematized and pushed out of the Roman Catholic Church, the heresy remained widespread across the region as it moved east and south. Over four centuries later, Arius would have his revenge on Nicene Trinitarianism through Muhammad, who adapted the Arian heresy to launch his own theological polemic against the Trinity. The Islamic doctrine of Tawhīd (strict oneness of God) lies at the bedrock of Muhammad’s theology and represents the supreme manifestation of the Islamic faith, as over ninety percent of Muslim theology is concerned with Allah’s oneness and indivisible nature. To associate Jesus or anyone with God (shirk) is an unforgivable blasphemy because God is absolutely transcendent and without partners. As Muslims sought to construct a systematic theology from their sacred texts after the death of their prophet, they were mired in the philosophical tensions surrounding the nature and implications of God’s undifferentiated unity.
This paper argues that Muslim scholars have failed to resolve the philosophical tensions surrounding: (1) the problem of the one and the many in Allah’s essence vis-à-vis his 99 attributes, (2) the cosmological, relational, and epistemological implications of Tawhīd, and (3) the Sunni claim of the Qur’an’s eternality. The analysis will begin by defining Tawhīd according to Sunni orthodoxy and reviewing interpretive approaches to problematic passages in the Qur’an and hadith before examining these philosophical challenges through the works of Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, and Cornelius Van Til. Providing a philosophical critique of Tawhīd through the lens of classical Christian theology, this paper posits Nicene Trinitarianism as the solution to perennial Islamic conundrums. Thus, the conclusion will be that Christians can retrieve an effective apologetic for the Trinity by appealing to the wisdom of the Great Tradition.