Early Writings — Page 15
HADRAT MIRZA GHULAM AHMAD AS 15 how great an excellence it would be to create the universe with- out having relied upon any means—for this proves that God pos- sesses infinitely greater power and omnipotence. So this proves the validity of the minor premise in this figure of the syllogism. Evidence of the major premise, i. e. the proposition that the being of God is possessed of all excellences is that if He is not pos- sessed of certain excellences, one may ask whether He is devoid of those excellences on account of His own will or because someone else has forced Him to be so. If it is said that He is devoid of these excellences out of His own volition, this would be false because no one willingly agrees to keep oneself devoid of an excellence. Secondly, if this shortcoming is found in Him from the very beginning, there remains no question of His pleasure or displeas- ure. As such, if one says that He was compelled to be in this con- dition, then one must acknowledge the existence of a coercer, who forced Him and prevented Him from enforcing the writ of His divinity. Or even if we suppose that it is His own weakness and helplessness that forced Him to be so and that there is no external coercer, we would still be forced to conclude that He is helpless and powerless. Hence, under these circumstances, such a being is not worthy of being God. This necessarily proves that God is pure and free from the blemish of compulsion or powerlessness as this renders His divinity false and that He is possessed of the perfect attribute of being capable to create a thing out of nothingness. Quod erat demonstrandum. The Fifth Argument: In the Holy Quran evidence of God Almighty being the Creator is established also by way of excep- tive syllogism. Exceptive syllogism is a form of logical reasoning wherein either the conclusion (quaesitum) or its contradictory are