Heaven, hell, retribution and God, do these have some rational proof or are these just figment of our imagination? The natural harmony in the world, the rise and fall of sun at the precise moment, the death of old plants and the growth of new by the same seeds can be explained by science. But the question that who is deciding the properties given to everything still remains unquestioned. Who is making anything that particular thing? This power is certainly not with the man, like I never decided to be a boy. It rests with someone else. This hints the existence of some supernatural being. I believe that god does exist and he can be proven rationally.
The existence of God is one of the most contested points in philosophy. Why? Because the belief or disbelief in god is a core principle upon which all philosophies are built. It is the foundation of the way to live life. Some like Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach and Karl Marx see religion as the projection of the human essence onto an ideal. According to them God does not make man. Rather “God” is the invention of human consciousness. Marx also sees that religion is part of capitalistic view that encourages the oppressed to accept their fate. As he says, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Yet others like Blaise Pascal, Immanuel Kant and 20th century Muslim scholars like Abu Ala Mududi and Taqiuddin an-Nibahani, through “cosmological” and “design” proofs have established the existence of God.
The rational argument I found most convincing was the one proposed by Taqiuddin an-Nibahani. This is an extension of the cosmological argument which states that there is a cause for everything. The prime cause behind all causes is God. Nibahani starts by saying that everything that is part of our reality is limited. Our reality includes Universe, Man and life. He writes in his book, the System of Islam, “Man is limited, because he grows in every aspect to a certain limit that he cannot surpass, so he is limited. Life is limited, because it manifests itself only in individuals, and what is noticed by the senses is that it is concluded with the individual, thus it is limited. The universe is limited, because it is the sum of celestial bodies, and each body is limited; and the sum of limited things is self-evidently limited. Thus, man, life, and the universe are definitely limited.”
Nibahani then proceeds that every limited thing requires some cause to exist. There needs to be a creator for everything created. A knock on the door means that someone or something behind the door knocked it. If we just focus at man, every human was created by parents, who were again created by their parents. So, we go all the way back to the first parents. They need to be created by some external force. Same analogy can be made for Universe and life. This leads to the concept that there exists a creator. Now, according to Nibahani, “This Creator is either created by someone else, creator of himself, or eternal – limitless whose existence is indispensable. It is absolutely false that he is created by someone else, because he would then be limited. It is also false that he is the creator of himself and could not be rationally considered as the Creator. As for being self-created, the ramification of which would be he is created by himself and creating himself simultaneously. This is simply absurd. Hence, the creator must be eternal – limitless whose existence is indispensable.” Finally, this creator is also one and only. There are no two gods, as two entities with limitless power cannot exist together, because limitless power includes power over each other. But this will undermine power of the other god. Thus there exists only one God.
Moreover, there is “teleological argument” that god exists. Immanuel Kant and G. K. Chesterton are supporters of this argument. It establishes on the principle that complexity needs a designer. For example, everyone by looking at a computer, comprehend that someone built it. Likewise the universe is extremely complex. We can show this by looking at anything from the movement of the nucleus to the revolution of planets and stars, from the intricate human body to the universal physical constants. Therefore, the universe must have a designer. As G. K. Chesterton said in 1908: “So one elephant having a trunk was odd; but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot.”
However, there are many theories which oppose the idea of God. Names like Richard Dawkins, a staunch atheist regularly ridicules those who believe in a creator and look upon any person who believes in God as effectively contradicting the very make-up of a human being. Many scientific theories propose that all that exists is matter and that as god is never seen or heard, therefore he does not exist. Adnan Khan proves this wrong in his article “Islamic Belief and Rationality” by stating “There are just atoms which are arranged in a particular way and when a human dies as an example, they turn into dust which is another form of matter. However it is physically impossible for anything to change from one state to another on its own. Water cannot change into steam on its own, and ice cannot turn into liquid on its own. Both of these need something else to make the transition. For water to transform into steam it requires heat, and for ice to turn into liquid it requires a certain amount of cold. For transformation to occur any amount of heat or cold is not enough, but a specific amount is needed i.e. steam will not be generated from water unless the heat is 100 degrees; 80 degrees will not generate steam. Why will this only occur at 100 degrees? Why not at any other temperature? This is because the water, the heat and the steam have no will on deciding things. The rule of changing from water to steam at 100 degrees was imposed on them – they had no choice; if they did then they could transform at any temperature, not only at 100 degrees. This shows that it is wrong to suggest things are merely matter or an atom as something other than them is laying rules and controlling things, this can only be the creator.”
Another theory which the atheists present when proving that no god exists is the Theory of Evolution. Charles Darwin proposed in “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” in 1859 that living beings have evolved over the passage of time. Man was an ape at one time, and even fish before that. Thus there need no god to create a man, as it was result of an evolution. However, many scientists have proven him wrong. Molecular biologist Michael Denton wrote, “Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world, thus evolution is not possible.”
Other approaches taken by the atheists are either logical questions or cult theories. Questions like can god make a brick, heavy enough that he himself cannot lift? Or can god make a ladder big enough that he himself cannot climb? But a second look at such questions show that they just go in cycles and are illogical. Its same as saying is Germany the Biggest Continent? This question is wrong from its basis. Likewise we cannot debate what god can do or he cannot. Such questions contradict the definition of what a creator is. So lifting, climbing, throwing etc are attributes of humans. How can humans use their attributes to describe God? This would be the same as one of us creating a drink, giving it a colour and taste and then the drink imposing restriction and rules for us. The created does not affect the creator.
The cult theories can also be proven wrong. Keanu reeves film about the struggle of Neo against some supernatural force called the Matrix which controls everything raised the possibility that life as we see it may not be what it seems. Some even say that humans were created by aliens. These theories are absurd and irrational as Matrix and Aliens are not part of our conceivable reality. If someone believes in Matrix, he can then also believe in Superman, which is ridiculous.
By using our mind and senses we can conclude nothing in the universe exists on its own. All of them rely on other things to work and survive and all of them are restricted by universals laws which they cannot go beyond. When the correct process of thinking is used it is inevitable that all people would come to the conclusion of a creator. Therefore, I believe that it is wrong method of thinking that has allowed evolutionary ideas to gain mainstream attention. God does exist.
(The writer is a student at LUMS, Pakistan)
Works CitedChesterton, G.K. “Teleological Argument.” Teleological Argument. Wikipedia, 30 Nov. 2009. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument>.Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. 1859. Print.Denton, Michael. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. 1986. Print.p-256Islamic Belief and Rationality. 28 Feb. 2009. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. <http://what-iz-islam.blogspot.com/2010/02/islamic-belief-and-rationality.html>.Nibahani, Taqiuddin. Nidham-ul-Islam. London, 2002. Print.p-7
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