What are the main traditional arguments for God's existence?
The doors
to God’s existence are open to everybody, provided that they sincerely intend
to enter through them. Some of those doors—the demonstrations for God’s existence—are
as follows.
Contingent nature of the creation
Whether as
a whole or separately, all things are contingent, that is, it is equally possible
for something to come into existence or not. Also, it is possible for any thing
to come into existence at any time, in any place and in any form and with any
character.
We see that
nothing or no-one in the world, whether conscious or unconscious, living or
non-living, has any role to determine the way, and the date and place of its
coming into existence, and its character and features. So, there must be some
power that chooses between the existence and non-existence of any particular
thing and gives it its distinguishing, individual characteristics. This
power must be infinite, have absolute will and all-comprehensive knowledge.
Necessarily, this power is God.
Finite nature of things
Everything
in the universe is changeable. Anything changeable is contained by time and
space; it has a beginning and end. Anything which has a beginning needs a beginningless
one who brings it into existence. For the one who has a beginning cannot be
the originator of things, since such a one will, evidently, need another originator.
As an unending regress through the originator of each originator, is unacceptable,
reason demands one who is infinitely self-existent and self-subsistent, who
undergoes no change, namely God.
Life
Life
(*)
is a riddle but transparent. It is a riddle in that scientists, who cannot explain
it with material causes, are unable to discover its origin. It is transparent
because it shows or reflects a creative power. Through both its transparency
and its being a riddle, life declares: ‘The one who creates me is God.’
Orderliness
in creation
From
tiniest particles to huge spheres and galaxies, everything in the universe and
the universe as a whole display a magnificent harmony and order. Not only in
things themselves but also between all things there is a harmonious relation,
so much so that as the existence of a single part necessitates the existence
of the whole, so also the whole requires the existence of all its parts for
its existence. The deformation of a single cell may lead to the death of a whole
body; similarly a single pomegranate demands for its existence the collaborative
and co-operative existence of air, water, earth, and the sun and a well-balanced
co-operation between them. This harmony and cooperation in the universe point
to a creator of order, who knows everything in all its relations and with all
its characteristics, and who is able to put everything in order. That creator
of order is God.
Artistry in creation
The whole
of the creation exhibits an overwhelming artistry of dazzling worth. Yet it
is brought into being, as we see it, easily and in a very short time. Furthermore,
creation is divided into countless families, genera and species and even more
smaller groups, and each of these exists in great abundance. Despite the variety
and abundance, we see only orderliness and art and ease in creation. This shows
the existence of one with an absolute power and knowledge, who is God.
Finality in creation
Nothing
in the universe is for nothing, pointless. As ecology in particular shows, everything
in creation, no matter how apparently insignificant, has a very significant
role in existence and serves a certain purpose. The chain of creation up to
man, the last link in creation, is evidently directed to a final purpose. Just
as the purpose for growing a fruit-bearing tree is to obtain fruits and the
life of that tree is directed toward the fruit, so too the ‘tree of creation’
has yielded as its final and most comprehensive fruit. So, nothing is in vain
in the universe. There are many purposes for every thing, every activity, and
every event in it. Since this requires a wise one who pursues certain purposes
in creation, and since nothing in the world—except for man—has the consciousness
to pursue those purposes, the wisdom and purposiveness in creation necessarily
point to God.
Mercy and providence
All living
and even non-living beings are in continuous need of many things, even a small
portion of which they are unable to supply by themselves. For example, the operation
and maintenance of the universe demand the existence of certain universal laws,
such as growth, reproduction, gravitation and repulsion. However, these laws,
which we call ‘natural laws’, have no external, visible or material existence;
they exist nominally. Something with a nominal existence only, which has no
knowledge and consciousness, can evidently not be responsible for a miraculous
creation, which requires absolute power and absolute knowledge, wisdom, and
power of choice and preference. So, one who has all these attributes has established
these ‘natural laws’ and uses them as veils before His operations for a certain
purpose.
Also,
plants need air, water, heat and light for their life, none of which they are
able to meet by themselves. As for the needs of man, they are too many to enumerate.
Fortunately, all his essential needs, from the very beginning of his earthly
existence in his mother’s womb to his death, are met beyond his own capacity
and intervention. When he enters into the world, he finds everything prepared
to meet all the needs of his senses and intellectual and spiritual faculties.
This clearly shows that one who is infinitely merciful and knowledgeable provides
for all created beings in the most extraordinary way and causes all things to
collaborate to that end.
Mutual helping in the universe
As is
mentioned above, all things in the universe, including those remotest from each
other, run to the help of one another. This mutual helping in the universe is
so comprehensive that, for example, as almost all things including air, water,
fire, earth, the sun and skies, help man in the extraordinarily pre-arranged
manner, so also the cells, members and systems of his body co-operate for the
maintenance of his life. Earth, air, water and heat and bacteria in earth co-operate
for the life of plants. This co-operation and mutual helping, observed among
unconscious beings but displaying knowledge and conscious purpose, show the
existence of one who arranges them in that miraculous way.
Cleanliness in the universe
Until
recently, when human beings began to over-pollute air, water and earth, the
natural world has been continually cleansed and purified. Even now, it still
preserves its original purity in many regions, mostly where the ways of modern
life have not yet taken hold. Have you ever considered why nature is so clean,
why forests, for example, are so clean although many animals die there every
day? Have you ever considered if the flies born in a single season of summer
were all to survive, the face of the earth would be covered with many layers
of fly bodies? Have you ever reflected on the fact that nothing is wasted in
nature? Every dying is the beginning of a new birth. For example, a dead body
is decomposed and integrated into earth. Elements die to be revived in plants;
plants die in the stomachs of animals and human beings to be promoted to the
higher rank of life.
This
cycle of death and revival is one of the factors which maintain the cleanliness
and purity of the universe. As well as bacteria and insects, the winds and rain,
and black holes in the heavens, and oxygen in organic bodies, all serve to sustain
the purity in the universe. This purity points to one who is all-wholly one,
whose attributes include cleanliness and purity.
Countenances
Thousands
of millions of human beings have lived since man’s first appearance on the earth.
Despite their common origin—a sperm and ovum, which are formed from the same
sort of foods taken by parents—and although they have all been composed of the
same kind of structures or elements or organisms, every human being has an individual
countenance distinguishing him or her from the others. Sciences are unable to
explain this miraculous difference between countenances. It cannot be explained
by attributing it to DNA or chromosomes, since this difference dates back to
the first differentiation of men in the world. Moreover, this difference is
not only in countenances but all human beings are different from one another
in character, desires, ambitions, and abilities, etc. While the members of an
animal species are almost the same, without displaying any difference in behavior,
each member of human race is like a different species and has a particular world
of his own within the world of humanity. This obviously shows one with an absolutely
free choice and all-encompassing knowledge, and He is God.
Divine teaching and directing
For man
to direct himself in life and distinguish between what is good or bad for him
needs a minimum of around fifteen years. However, many animals can do this very
soon after they come into the world. A duckling, for example, can
swim as soon as it hatches. Ants start to dig nests into the earth when they
get out of their cocoons. It does not need a long time for bees and spiders
to learn how to make their honeycombs and webs respectively, which are each
marvels of handiwork beyond the capacity of man. Who teaches young eels born
in the waters of Europe to find their way to their home in the Pacific? Is the
migration of birds not still a mystery for man? (**)
How can you explain all these astounding facts other than by attributing
them to the teaching or directing of one who knows everything and has arranged
the universe with all creatures in it in a way that enables every creature,
big or small, to direct its life?
Are all
these habits or distinctive ‘instinctive’ acts, which must have their origin
deep at the beginning of life on earth, the result of chance or of an intelligent
provision? Should we reflect on why certain animals are more developed than
man in having certain faculties? Among all living creatures that have roamed
the earth none has a record of reasoning power which may compare with that of
man. What we call nature is utterly blind, senseless, unconscious and ignorant.
Man, who is the only intelligent being on the earth, can do nothing other than
to try to explain all these miraculous phenomena and he has no control over
his own body even. Does all this not display a supreme determination, all-encompassing
knowledge, and an absolute power and thereby One Who has these?
The spirit and the conscience
Despite
enormous advances in the sciences, man is unable to explain life. Life is the
gift of the Ever-Living One, Who ‘breathes’ a spirit into each embryo. We know
little concerning the nature of the spirit and its relation with the body but
our ignorance of its nature does not mean it does not exist. The spirit is sent
to the world to be perfected and acquire a state appropriate for the other life.
The conscience
of man is the center of his inclinations towards wise choices between
right and wrong and everybody can feel this conscience on some occasions. Also,
almost each human being feels inclination to turn to God especially or certain
occasions. The inclination toward God and even belief in Him are intrinsic in
man. Even if man denies God consciously, his unconscious belief in Him shows
itself on certain occasions. The Qur’an mentions this in some of its verses:
It is He Who enables you to travel on the land and the sea;
and when you are in the ship, and the ships run with a favorable wind and they
rejoice in it, there comes upon them a strong wind, and waves come on them from
every side and they think that they are encompassed. Then they cry unto God,
making their faith pure for Him only, (saying): ‘If you deliver us from this,
we truly will be thankful!’ (Yunus,
10.22)
Then [Abraham] broke them [the idols of his people] into
pieces, all except the large one, so that they might turn to Him. [When they
returned and saw the state of their idols] they said: ‘Who has done this to
our gods. Surely it must be some evildoer.’ They said: ‘We have heard a youth
talk of them; he is called Abraham.’ They said ‘Then, [at once] bring him before
the eyes of the people, so that they may testify.’ [When Abraham was there]
they said: ‘Is it you who has done this to our gods, O Abraham?’ He said: ‘Nay,
this is their chief, has done it, so ask them, if they can speak.’ At once they
turned to themselves and said: ‘You, you are the wrongdoers!’ Then they were
utterly confounded, and said: ‘O Abraham! You have known that these do not speak.’
Abraham said: ‘Do you then worship, besides God, those things that cannot profit
in anything at all, nor harm you?’ ‘Fie upon you, and all that you worship instead
of God! Do you not use your intelligence?’ They said: ‘Burn him (immediately)
and protect your gods, if you are doing anything.’ (al-Anbiya’,
21. 58-68)
So, the spirit
and conscience are a strong argument for the existence of One God.
Man’s innate dispositions and history of mankind
Man is
innately disposed to good and beauty and averse to evil and ugliness. He is
also inclined to virtues and moral values. Therefore, unless corrupted by external
factors and conditions, he seeks the good and moral values which are universal.
The values man naturally seeks are the same virtues and morality which the Divine
inspired religions have promulgated. As history witnesses, mankind have never
lived without a religion. Just as no other system has so far been able to supersede
religion in the life of mankind, so too it has always been the Prophets and
religious people who have been most influential in the life of mankind and left
indelible marks on it. This is another irrefutable proof for the existence of
One God.
Human intuition
Man feels
many intuitions and emotions which are a sort of messages from immaterial realms.
Among them, the intuition of eternity arouses in man a desire for eternity,
for the fulfillment of which he strives in diverse ways. However, this desire
can only be realized through belief in and worship of the Eternal One Who inspired
this intuition and desire in man. It is in the satisfaction of this desire for
eternity that true human happiness lies.
Annotations
*
A. C. Morrison writes:
Life is a sculptor and shapes all living things; an artist
that designs every leaf of every tree, that colors the flowers, the apple, the
forest, and the plumage of the bird of paradise. Life is a musician and has
taught each bird to sing its love songs, the insects to call each other in the
music of their multitudinous sounds.
Life has given to man alone mastery over combined sound vibrations and has furnished
the material for their production.
Life is an engineer, for it has designed the legs of the
grasshopper and the flea, the coordinated muscles, levers and joints, the tireless
beating heart, the system of electric nerves of every animal, and the complete
system of circulation of every living thing.
Life is a chemist that gives taste to our fruits and spices
and perfume to the rose. Life synthesizes new substances which Nature has not
yet provided to balance its processes and to destroy invading life... Life’s
chemistry is sublime, for not only does it set the rays of the sun to work to
change water and carbonic acid into wood and sugar, but, in doing so, releases
oxygen that animals may have the breath of life.
Life is a historian, for it has written its history page
by page, through the ages, leaving its record in the rocks, an autobiography
which only awaits correct interpretation.
Life protects its creations by the abundance of food in the
egg and prepares many of its infants for active life after birth, or by conscious
motherhood stores food in preparation for her young. Life produces life—giving
milk to meet immediate needs, foreseeing this necessity and preparing for events
to come.
‘Matter has never done more than its laws decree. The atoms
and molecules obey the dictates of chemical affinity, the force of gravity,
the influences of temperature and electric impulses. Matter has no initiative,
but life brings into being marvelous new designs and structures.
What life is no man has yet fathomed; it has no weight or
dimensions... Nature did not create life; fire-blistered rocks and a saltless
sea did not meet the necessary requirements. Gravity is a property of matter;
electricity we now believe to be matter itself; the rays of the sun and stars
can be deflected by gravity and seem to be akin to it. Man is learning the dimensions
of the atom and is measuring its locked-up power, but life is illusive, like
space. WHY?
Life is fundamental and is the only means by which matter can attain understanding.
Life is the only source of consciousness and it alone makes possible knowledge
of the works of God which we, still half blind, yet know to be good’ (Man Does
Not Stand Alone, New York, 1945, pp.31—6)
The robin that nested at your door goes south in the fall,
but comes back to his old nest the next spring. In September, flocks of most
of our birds fly south, often over a thousand miles of open ocean, but they
do not lose their way. The homing pigeon confused by new sounds on a long journey
in a closed box, circles for a moment and then heads almost unerringly for home.
The bee finds its hive while the wind waving the grasses and trees blot out
every visible guide to its whereabouts. This homing sense is slightly developed
in man, but he supplements his meager equipment with instruments of navigation.
The tiny insects must have microscopic eyes, how perfect we do not know, and
the hawks, the eagle and the condor must have telescopic vision. Here again
man surpasses them with his mechanical instruments.
If you let old Dobbin alone he will keep to the road in the
blackest night. The owl can see the nice warm mouse as he runs in the cooler
grass in the blackest night.
The ordinary scallop whose muscle we eat has several dozen
beautiful eyes very like ours, which sparkle because each eye has unnumbered
little reflectors which are said to enable it to see things right side up. These
reflectors are not found in the human eye. Were these reflectors developed because
of the absence of superior brain power in the scallop? As the number of eyes
in animals ranges from two to thousands, and all are different, Nature would
have had a big job in developing the science of optics unless [God, the All-Knowing,
the All-Determining and the All-Powerful had predestined, predetermined, everything].
The honey bee is not attracted by the gaudy flowers as we
see them, but sees by the ultra-violet light, which may make them even more
beautiful to bees. From the rays of slower vibrations to the photographic plate
and beyond are realms of beauty, joy and inspiration. The honey-bee workers
make chambers of different sizes in the comb used for breeding. Small chambers
are constructed for the workers, larger ones for the drones, and special chambers
for the prospective queens. The queen bee lays unfertilized eggs in the cells
designed for males, but lays fertilized eggs in the proper chambers for the
male workers and the possible queens. The workers, who are the modified females,
having long since anticipated the coming of the new generation, are also prepared
to furnish food for the young bees by chewing and predigesting honey and pollen.
They discontinue the process of chewing, including the predigesting, at a certain
stage of development of the males and females, and feed only honey and pollen.
The females so treated become the workers.
The dog with an inquiring nose can sense the animal that
has passed. No instrument of human invention has added to our inferior sense
of smell, and we hardly know where to begin to investigate its extension.
All animals hear sounds, many of which are outside our range
of vibration, with an acuteness that far surpasses our limited sense of hearing.
The young salmon spends years at sea, then comes back to
his own river, and, what is more, he travels up the side of the river into which
flows the tributary in which he was born. If a salmon going up a river is transferred
to another tributary he will fight his way down to the main stream and then
turn up against the current to finish his destiny. There is, however, a much
more difficult problem in the exact reverse to solve in the case of the eel.
These amazing creatures migrate at maturity from all the ponds and rivers everywhere—those
from Europe across thousands of miles of ocean—all go to the abysmal deeps south
of Bermuda. There they breed and die. The little ones, with no apparent means
of knowing anything except that they are in a wilderness of water, start back
and find their way to the shore from which their parents came and thence to
every river, lake and little pond, so that each body of water is always populated
with eels.
Animals seem to have telepathy. Who has not watched with
admiration the sandpiper flying and wheeling till every white breast shows in
the sunlight at the same instant? A female moth placed in your attic by the
open window will send out some subtle signal. Over an unbelievable area, the
male moths of the same species will watch the message and respond in spite of
your attempts to produce laboratory odors to disconcert them.
Vegetation makes subtle use of involuntary agents to carry
on its existence—insects to carry pollen from flower to flower and the winds
and everything that flies or walks to distribute seed. At last, vegetation has
trapped masterful man. He has improved nature and she generously rewards him.
But he has multiplied so prodigiously that he is now chained to the plow. He
must sow, reap, and store; breed and cross-breed; prune and graft. Should he
neglect these chores starvation would be his lot, civilization would crumble,
and earth return to her pristine state’ (Morrison, 49-57).
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