Fountain of Christianity — Page 37
37 believe God to be the Creator has no right to believe that He is the sustainer. Here the concept of sustenance im- plies that everything would cease to exist if His sustenance was withdrawn. Things which have not been created by Him can obviously not be dependant upon Him for their sustenance. And if they do, they surely owe their creation to Him as well. In short, both these attributes of God, H ayy i and Qayy u m , are interrelated and can never be separated from each other. If those who believe that God has not created the particles and souls were to employ their thought and reason, they would have to admit that God is also not their Sustainer, i. e. , they cannot say that particles and souls are dependent upon God for their sus- tenance, because only those things depend upon His sustenance as have been created by Him. Why would something require His sustenance when it has no need for His creation? Such a claim will, therefore, have to be con- sidered baseless. I have just stated that if we consider particles and souls to be eternal and self-existent, it will be impossible to prove that God has knowledge of their hidden and intrinsic pow- ers and faculties. To say that He does have knowledge about their hidden faculties and powers because He is their Parmeshwar [God] is a mere claim which is neither sup- ported by any argument, nor corroborated by any evidence, nor established on the basis of a relationship between the Creator and His creation. In fact, He is not even their Parmeshwar. How can he be their Parmeshwar of particles and souls when He is not their Creator? And on