Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 168
168 but love and fear are the only incentives to action and a. man does not do or abstain from doing a deed except from the motive of either love or fear. Therefore it is clear that unless the love or fear of the Divine Being is generated in the heart which depends upon a true and perfect knowledge of God, it is impossible that a man should be released from the bondage of sin: But so far as the Christians are concerned, I am bound to state and that for the sake of truth that their knowledge of God is very imperfect and ambiguous. The doors of Divine revelation are for ever closed and miracles ended with Jesus and his apostles. What is left then in. our hands to judge the truth of the Christian religion except the authority of reason, but the defying of a man has already set reason at naught. If the old stories of miracles as narrated in the Gospels are adduced in support of Christianity, various objections may be put forth against this evidence by one who does not admit the truth of the Christian religion. In the first place, it is impossible to ascertain what amount of truth is contained in these narratives and what reality. For there seems to be no doubt that the evangelists were great exaggerators. For instance, in one of the Gospels it is written that if all the things which Jesus did had been written in books, the world could not have contained those books. This is a most extravagant state- ment. How could the world prove insufficient for the record of deeds which were contained in it in an unrecorded state, deeds done by one man within the limited period of 3J years in a very small province. Secondly, the miracles stated to have been performed by Jesus were in no way superior to the miracles of Moses. Nay, even the miracles of Elijah display a greater power than those of Jesus. If therefore the performance of certain miracles can make a man God, many of the prophets shall be entitled to Divinity.