They must therefore choose one of two paths. Either they concede that, when the Holy Spirit is mentioned in connection with anyone other than the Messiah, it never means the life of Allah. Once that is acknowledged, it follows that the expression has another sense altogether; hence, even if it were hypothetically used for Allah’s life as well, that would not oblige us to take it that way in the Messiah’s case—especially since it has never actually been used of Allah’s life with respect to him.

Or they may claim that, for the prophets and the disciples, the term does in fact denote the life of Allah. But if they say so, they are compelled to affirm that the divine nature indwells every prophet and every disciple; in that event there would be no difference between those figures and the Messiah. They would also have to allow that two divinities reside in the Messiah: the divinity of the Word and the divinity of the Spirit—so that two hypostases have united with him.

Furthermore, in the Almighty’s words, “and We supported him with the Holy Spirit” ⦗Al-Baqarah 2:87⦘ (87), it is impossible to take the phrase as referring to Allah’s life. The life of Allah is an attribute inherent in His Essence, subsisting in none besides Him, nor restricted to certain creatures. Yet according to their doctrine the Messiah is himself Allah the Creator; how, then, could he be supported by something other than Himself? Besides, the entity claimed to have united with the Messiah is the Word, not life, so it is unsound to say that he was “supported” by life.

It is thus evident that they seek to distort the Quran just as they distorted the earlier Scriptures, and that their manner of interpreting the ambiguous passages in the divine books is all of one kind.