Early Writings — Page 11
HADRAT MIRZA GHULAM AHMAD AS II premise of the five part argument in favour of the eternity of souls can be seen by the reader to have immediately negated itself. And, the profound points that have been made in the aforementioned verse are as follows: Firstly, the concept of a non-existent coming into being with- out the agency of an agent is false because this would necessitate preference without the agency of a preferer. This is because to don the cloak of existence from nothingness requires a determining cause that would favour existence over non-existence. However, in this case, no credible reason for such a preference has been established. Therefore, without the agency of an active preferer, the occurrence of preference by itself is also impossible. Secondly, it is impossible to be one's own Creator, for this necessitates the existence of a thing prior to one's own existence. The reason for this is that if it is accepted that the causative factor of everything is its own self, then the acceptance of such a notion would essentially require all things to be in existence prior to their own existence, and to exist before coming into existence is an impossibility. Thirdly, if every entity was believed to be the cause of all causes and the creator of the universe in the likeness of God's being, this would necessitate a plurality of Gods, and it has already been agreed that a plurality of Gods is not possible. Secondly, the said process would also result in a circular argument and necessitate an infinite regress, and that too is not possible. Fourthly, it is impossible for man to encompass infinite knowl- edge by virtue of the argument that the being of man, if seen from the standpoint of other entities in external existence, is finite in its