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with all that are prepared for it. God then looking down and turning Himself to
each of us, it comes to pass that our bodies live and are nourished, receiving
strength from the outer rays that come from Him. But, when God turns from us to
the contemplation of Himself, it comes to pass that these things are worn out
and consumed, but that the reason lives, being made partaker of a blessed life.'
Hindu philosophers too had in very early times their own theories about the
nature of the Deity and the manner in which the universe came into existence.
In some respects what they have written differs much from what Muslim sages
have said, because these latter have clung to belief in a personal God: yet in
the theory that the original entity
(وجود) must be considered to be a mere barren
unit (وحدة) and that plurality was gradually evolved therefrom, we find not a
slight resemblance between Hindu, Greek, and Muslim philosophy. This will be
clear from the two following extracts:
In the Rig-Veda it is said, 'That 1
(ذلك) one thing breathed
breathless by itself: other than it there was nothing beyond.'
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DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY
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And in one of the Upanishads we find these words, 'In 1 the
beginning there was that only which is, one only, without a second. It thought,
"Let me become many, let me grow forth: it sent forth fire."' The passage goes
on to say that in the same way water emanated from fire and earth from water,
and thus 'the one became the many'.
All these philosophical attempts to explain God's nature and the existence of
the universe are marked by certain common features, by which, in spite of some
minor differences, they resemble each other and unite together as man's highest
effort to teach that which he cannot understand, and of which his knowledge is
so very defective that it almost amounts to ignorance. In illustration of this
we venture to recall to our readers the old story of the blind men who described
the elephant, each according to the part of its body which he had touched. All
men are blind with reference to God Most High, until He graciously opens the
eyes of our spirits to see 'the Light of the World'. Their intellectual
knowledge of Him who is invisible must therefore be very far from perfect,
unless God has revealed Himself. We Christians and our Muslim brothers believe
that He has given us a revelation in His holy word. True wisdom then teaches us
to learn and accept the statements about the nature
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