The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page lii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION to look and long for a book which should be free from and immune to all kinds of human interference? If even after these books had become contaminated, God had not revealed to the world a book which could be regarded as the very word of God, and protection of which from human interference could not be doubted, then we would have had to admit that God is not concerned to guide man and that He sows the seed of faith not in the soil which brings forth certainty and conviction but in the soil which brings forth uncertainty and doubt and that He wishes to confer upon belief not even the measure of certainty which disbelief enjoys. But can we entertain such a thought? Is it worthy of God? If it is not true, and it certainly is not true, that God is not concerned to guide man, then we have to look for the book which superseded the Bible and replaced this garbled and interpolated version of the word of God. Contradictions in the Old Testament Further internal evidence bearing on the proposition that books of the Bible no longer reproduce the original revelation is provided by the contradictions which exist between different parts of its text. (1) For example in Genesis 1:27 we read: So God created man in his own image. And further on in 2:17 we read: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. These two quotations are contradictory. If they are to be reconciled, we have to assume that even God is ignorant of the knowledge of good and evil. Because Adam being the image of God, if he was ignorant of the knowledge of good and evil, then God also will have to be assumed as devoid of the power of discriminating good from evil, the possession of which, in fact, constitutes the highest divine attribute. All other attributes are subordinate to it. If man was incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, he was incapable of anything worthy. What is worthy and valuable is that which is done intentionally and out of full consciousness. What is done unintentionally and unconsciously is not morally valuable. If man is incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, then he is not a moral being, being unable either to choose good or to avoid evil. Is God also devoid of this moral attribute according to Jewish and Christian scholars? Does not God know what is good and what is evil? If He does not know this, then why does He send the Prophets, and what does He seek to teach through them? Is not God concerned to establish good and to destroy evil? If we forget for the moment that the very object for which man xxvi