Early Writings — Page 37
HADRAT MIRZA GHULAM AHMAD AS 37 [A Reply from the Promised Messiah (as)] Respected Pundit Sahib! I have received your kind letter. I was eagerly waiting for your response. I must write with the deepest disappointment that you were made to suffer such inconvenience, yet I have not received a proper response either. My point, in nutshell, was that since the means of our salvation (which even you accept is something for which we must search) is based on our discovering the right set of beliefs, the right morals and good deeds, which are absolutely free of all forms of falsehood. Therefore, we cannot achieve salvation until our religious knowledge and insight of the divine law has been acquired through such a secure source as is completely free from all forms of corruption and error. In response to this, if you had followed the right path and kept in view the etiquettes of debate (in the case that you reject my arguments) you ought to have formulated your rebuttal, as ration- ality dictates, in accordance with one of the three principles that follow. Firstly, you could have outright refused to acknowledge that there was any such thing as salvation and declared the means for its attainment to be non-existent and unobtainable, and thus con- sidered its need to be merely as useless a pursuit as one's desire to have four eyes. Secondly, you could have said that you believed in salvation but did not believe that the doctrine and deeds required for sal- vation must be free from all forms of falsehood and corruption, and thus you considered such means as are absolutely false, or