Christianity - A Journey from Facts to Fiction — Page 36
36 Christianity – A Journey from Facts to Fiction ‘Divine Son’ differ so drastically from his Father? Should such a conflict be taken as a genetical defect or an evolutionary change or was this Christian attitude of absolute forgiveness, as diametri- cally opposed to the Judaic emphasis on revenge, an example of a change on the part of God the Father? He seems to have dearly repented of what He had taught Moses as and the people of the Book and seems to have wanted very much to redress His own wrong. As Muslims, we observe this fundamental shift in emphasis and see no contradiction because we believe in a God who combines in Him both the attributes of justice and forgiveness, without there being any inner conflict between the two attributes. We understand the transfer from Judaic teachings to those of Jesus Christ as , not as a corrective measure of the original teachings but of their misapplication by the Jews. According to our belief, God is not only Just but is also Forgiving, Merciful and Beneficent. If He so desires, He does not stand in need of any outside help to forgive the sinful. But from the Christian point of view the problem acquires gigantic proportions. It appears that the God of the Torah was a God who knew only justice and had no sense of compassion or mercy. Apparently He was unable to forgive, however much He may have desired to do so. Lo, then came to His help ‘God the Son’ and extricated Him from His infernal dilemma. It seems that the ‘Son’ was ‘All-Compassionate’ as against the ‘All-Vengefulness’ of his Father. It is not just the apparent absurdity of this vision of the ‘Son’ which disturbs the human conscience. It also raises the question once again of the