The divine Attributes in John of Damascus and their influence on Islam

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show that John of Damascus’ understanding of the Trinitarian Doctrine is founded on his purpose to argue for an essential unity of the Three Persons, so that the doctrine could be accepted by the Muslims, considering the Second and the Third Persons as God’s attributes, as they are described in the Qur’an. So the origin of the Muslim’s theory of divine attributes can be traced back to his book, De Fide Orthodoxa, as some scholars attempted to demonstrate during the 20th century.