Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part IV — Page 276
BarĀhĪn-e-a H madiyya — Part Four 276 filtered water so that no living organisms should enter their mouths, lest they be considered guilty of killing a life. Judge for yourselves: Where in the Gospel do we find such a degree of mercy and forgive- ness? And yet no Christian expresses the view that this teaching of the Hindu Sh a star is incomparable and beyond the capabilities of man! How, then, can the teaching of the Gospel be incomparable, when it is in no way greater than this [teaching] with regard to forbearance, forgiveness, and compassion? Regrettably, the Christians do not realize that putting somewhat excessive stress upon moral teachings does not necessarily mean that no man can stress them to the same degree; if it does, then they should advance some logical argument on the strength of which the teach- ing of the Gospel or the Pustak of the Hindus may be established to be incomparable. But until such an argument is presented, how can we admit the incomparability of those teachings that we find human potential to be fully capable of bringing forth? Should we accept a mere claim without any proof, or accept a matter which is evidently false as the absolute truth? What should we do? Now it is obvious what point- less wrangling and what height of foolishness it is that they insist upon something so baseless and unproven and refuse to tread upon the path that appears to be clear and straight. The interesting thing is that the teaching of the Gospel is by no means complete, let alone deserving to be called incomparable. All scholars are agreed that the perfect stage of morals cannot be con- fined to exercising forgiveness and clemency at all times and on every occasion. If man were commanded only to forgive and show clem- ency, then hundreds of endeavours that rest on wrath and retribution would come to naught. The natural form upon which one must be established to deserve being called a human being is that just as God has gifted his nature with capabilities of forgiveness and clemency, so has He endowed him with the sentiments of wrath and retribution; and He has placed intellect as the authority over all of these capabili- ties. Hence, man attains his true humanity when, in accordance with