Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 173
173 not ever feel its need. On the other hand they are ready to fight /when the truth is told because of their excessive bias towards a particular set of dogmas. The position of the Arya Samaj is extremely deplorable. It denies revelation, heavenly signs and acceptance of prayers, the only means to a perfect knowledge of God, and bases the whole superstructure of its beliefs on the slender bases of reason. But its principles do not hold even when judged from the. standpoint of reason. For, as shown above, the only argument for the exis- tence of God that can be derived from the source of reason, is that this universe could not have come into existence of itself, and that it must have had a creator. But the Arya Samaj teaches the doctrine that matter and soul are self-existent and eternal y and that God has created nothing. Hence the only argument that reason could give for the existence of God fails in view of the principles inculcated by the Arya Sarnaj. This vital objec- tion against the teachings of the Sarna,j. it is sometimes sought to remove by the assertion that though matter and soul are self- existent, yet the combination of the particles of matter and the union of matter and soul could not be effected without the power of God. But the absurdity of this idea is clear on the face of it, for when it is assumed that the particles of matter and the souls have in them the inherent quality which has made them self-existing and self-supporting from eternity, it is nothing but sheer folly to assert that some external power is needed for their union and combination. To assert first that every particle of matter existing in the universe is with all its qualities a self- existing thing, and that similarly every soul with all its attri- butes and powers is self-existent, and to deny then that the power of combination in the particles of matter and the power of union in matter and soul belongs to them, is to contradict