Islamic Doctrine

A Rational Discussion of the Revelation Statement

Belief in God:

Islam does not require faith without being logically convinced. In this section, the con- sistency and the rational positivity of the doctrine will be shown.

Existence of God and His Characteristics: There are four ways to prove the existence of the Creator:

a. Personal Experience

There are some events which we encounter in our lives that cannot be explained except by the existence of God. Many people en- counter incidents which convince them of the existence of God.

It must be admitted that this type of conviction is applicable on a small scale and hardly considered by others who are not related to that particular event. But its importance cannot be discarded, specially if we are to use probability measures.

b. Religion

Many good people have appeared through- out history and preached belief in God. Those people are called prophets. Prophets must have unique qualities such as wisdom, piety, truth- fulness, trustworthiness, etc.

These qualities must be known to people before they are sent as prophets. All prophets claimed to have some extraordinary communication with God. It is established that their intentions and works were consistent and support their claims.

c. Philosophy (The first cause, argument)

Considering the "Law of cause and effect," take matter in general. It certainly needs a cause for its existence now. This argument might be objected to by saying that its cause needs a cause, and that will end up in an infinite series.

However, this objection can be countered by proving that the chain of causes must terminate in an ultimate cause. This ulti- mate cause should be self-sustained and requires no cause for its existence. In other words, there should be a cause different in nature and essence from those in the chain.

Now, let the cause of the existence of matter be A and its effect be B and so on. Thus a chain (A, B, C, D, E, F, . . . .) is formed. If A disappears then matter disappears. Similarly the existence of D is necessary for the existence of A and so on.

Now take an arbitrary link in the chain say N; however, the status of N in the series is subjected to three possibilities: i) Must not exist. ii) May exist. iii) Must exist.

The first and second assumptions require the non-existence of matter as explained above. Hence, we are left with the last assumption.

The circle argument can be disproved also. The circle of causes implies a series A, B, C, D, . . . . then back to A, B.... etc., going round in a circle. Take any pair in the circle, say A and D. There are three possibilities: i) A exists before D. ii) D exists before A. iii) A and D exist simultaneously.

If A exists before D then there is no meaning in saying that A is dependent on D, simply because D used to have no existence before it was caused to exist by A.

The second assumption can be disproved by a similar argu- ment. The third assumption means that neither of the two are the cause of the existence of the other. Hence they require a cause beyond their existence.

A further objection might be raised on the account of the arbitrary proposition of N for it might be taken as the very matter itself. This assumption contradicts the premises of logic, namely the apriori proposition like causality.

It is needless to go further, but it can be proved easily that matter has the same essence but different forms, then it may be asked, "What are the causes which have given different forms to the same essence?" If it is said that there was no original form, then matter needs a factor beyond its essence to provide its present form. If it is said that these forms were eternal, then what were the causes which made them differ- ent.

If they were intrinsic, then they must have been either potential or active. The former requires an agitating cause, while the latter needs the existence of contradictory things simultaneously, which is against the premises of logic. Hence the fact that matter has both an essence and a form necessitates that it is contingent.

d. Science

It is known by intuition that for every intelligent work there is a maker. Consider any example in nature such as the human brain.

Then compare it with a highly sophisticated invention, like the computer. It is obvious that the latter is a product of the human brain. It is then impossible for the brain to exist without an intelligent maker. Some people like to escape towards an imaginary thing called accident. If accident can be discarded as an impossibility, then the only way left is to attribute it, as Max Planck, the great physicist puts it: "to God."

Probability and chance is a very well defin- ed branch of mathematics. If a specific card is to be drawn from a pack of ten cards at random, then the probability of drawing that card is 1/10.

Consider the cards are numbered from one to ten, and it is required to find the probability of drawing the cards in sequence.

The probability of that event is 1 / 10 1°. In com- paring the peculiarity of this simple operation with that of a living cell, the denominator becomes very large. In other words, the proba- bility of its being born by accident becomes very remote.

However, if the comparison pro- ceeds to the creation of a human being, it becomes much more remote. To clarify this point, imagine someone tells you that his car came about by an accident through some peculiar circumstances. One would think that he is mad. Going further in comparing the peculiar- ity of the whole universe, the denominator approaches infinity.

It might be objected that the universe is finite. The answer is that ap- proaching infinity is sufficient for a mathemati- cal proof. Also we are dealing with design and not the finite material used in the design.

Indeed, there is no place rationally or emotionally for a blind accident to make a human eye, that is, putting its lens and pupil in their positions, a retina to reflect light, two types of fluid and millions of cones and rods behind the retina to analyse light.

There is no place for a blind accident to make the genes which transfer the biological characters of the ancestors to the descendents. It is said that the genes of the whole human population would not fill a thimble used by a tailor!