Our God — Page 108
108 creep in slowly and sometimes take over completely, relegating and annihilating belief in God. In the presence of such examples, justice demands that we assume concerning the primitive nations who appear to be steeped in idolatrous beliefs—while we do not have their historical records—that they subscribed to belief in God initially, which later degenerated into idolatrous beliefs. In fact, the examples presented by some to negate our view relate to the nations whose earliest historical records have not been pre- served. In this situation, it would be unfair to ignore other clear- cut instances and conclude that those nations held idolatrous views from the very beginning and that their idolatrous beliefs were based merely on ignorance, fear, and superstition, and that belief in one God never took root among them; such a conclusion would be unacceptable to any unbiased, reasonable person. Moreover, if we ponder, we see that idolatrous beliefs can never arise out of ignorance, fear, and superstition alone; a belief in God must pre-exist. It is natural for one to be awestruck when confronted with something that is more powerful, formidable, magnificent, or beneficial than him; he begins to consider it as an immense thing and is subdued by it and fears it. However, if he is unacquainted with the concept of worship, it is absolutely impossible for him to take something as a deity out of awe or fear only, and regard it as his creator and master; for the thought of worship to occur, the concept of worship must pre-exist in his mind. Human imagination can never create a concept; it can certainly imitate. That is, if someone has seen or heard or experi- enced something, his perception can create its image in his mind, which he can develop and expand further. However, if he has never seen or heard it, nor witnessed the like of it, his perception