Most of us are Agnostic without realizing it. Agnosticism seems to be coming out of a lack of understanding of God which does not prompt us to investigate and search for the meaning of our existence. Atheism, denying God is a genre of Agnosticism. Pretending to believe in God (common among followers of monotheistic religions) is “hidden atheism”. Most followers of monotheistic religion think they believe but do not know what they believe in. Jews tend to put emphasis on family lineage and so for some of them there is nothing to confirm as a believer. Christians hide behind “faith” and so there is no evidence to confirm anything. Muslims feel confident in their belief in God because of the straightforward nature of belief in God with nothing to confuse human mind, but when it comes to applying that belief to their practical life, they live as if this belief has nothing to do with their understanding of life and the world.
- Belief requires certainty, which requires evidence.
We need to live with the awareness that at every moment everything is under His control. In order to have a satisfied heart, mind must be satisfied as well. If mind is not satisfied, heart can never be satisfied. Heart and mind are mutually co-dependent and form our reasoning. We mostly jump into having an emotional relationship with the events/objects, which satisfies our ego only.
- We ought to use our reasoning (senses + mind) in its wholesome which searches for objective evidence.
Example: Any Altruistic action (devotion to the welfare of others) is confirmed by the heart. We feel good that we have done something right but it does not mean that the altruistic action is done using proper reasoning i.e. by becoming aware of the Source of these feelings and attributing them to their real Owner. That is the right way of practicing altruisms which is to discover the Source of the feeling to helping out others.
- My feeling to help out others is given to me to acknowledge my Lord.
Attributing my feelings to my own self does not fulfill the purpose of my existence, even though my soul (ego) may feel satisfied. As a result, I may never realize that I am not reasoning properly (the right way) because my satisfied soul fits my humanity. However, if I question the end result of my human values where I realize that I may die, my humanity does not like going into annihilation. As a result, I search for Eternity and my humanity does not get satisfied with transience.
Without attributing the qualities of anything to its real Owner, I cannot seek Eternity, let alone establish belief within myself. Belief requires us to be active and conscious of our existence, it is not a passive act. Therefore, I need to question my every action: Why do I do what I do? Through my every action, I have to confirm that which I am expected to confirm i.e. Eternity. It means that I have to keep questioning my positive actions to satisfy my human existential needs.
Human beings are dignified creatures as oppose to other created beings. To practice every action with proper reasoning, we need to be aware of both our human and animalistic side. When we are hungry, to satiate our hunger with food, we satisfy our animalistic need. Food is a temporary satisfaction which does not satisfy our humanity. Our humanity can only be satisfied when we realize that the Creator of this food is the One who creates us and introduces Himself to us. Ultimately, He is the only One who satiates us. Food is just a means to become acquainted with the Eternal supplier of the food. Food is the evidence that we are being taken care of by an Absolute Being.
After investigation, we can confirm that food cannot come into existence by itself. The food itself is prepared. After understanding this, we should be inclined to be searching for this Eternal One: “I am in need of the food to get acquainted with the Creator of the food and acknowledge Him. He is my Lord, the Eternally Merciful and Generous One taking care of me.” Failure to see this aspect of the food is similar to ignoring your Lord.
- Everything created in this world is a means through which we assure His existence.
As human beings, our needs are much more and beyond satisfying our animalistic needs. It is in our nature that we do not ever want to be hungry, we do not want other people to be hungry and we do not want the plants to be thirsty. As human beings, we want everything Eternally Perfect with no end. Even if someone were to offer us 100 years of happiness, our humanity would never be satisfied as we will be in agony counting the number of years that we have left. We are not created to accept annihilation but on the contrary, we are created to look for Eternity.
Again, accepting anything emotionally does not contradict the expectation of the heart. Our heart is made in a way that already expects a Protector to eternally take care of our existence because He gave us this need for Eternal happiness. In other words, heart is made to confirm Eternity. However, if the mind has not been actively used in the process of confirming the matter, heart is left without any evidence. Therefore, we should be vigilant of such a belief.
- Belief requires complete satisfaction of the heart.
A prominent Islamic scholar once said: “Belief takes place only after one’s free will”. Belief starts with human freewill which we have to use to investigate by using our reasoning (the right way). Only then will the heart feel completely satisfied. Ultimately, Belief is a matter of heart. Even the richest man in the planet needs a sense of security of existence. Requiring an Absolute sense of security fits our humanity; otherwise our existence gets reduced to meaninglessness. To avoid meaninglessness, we ought to investigate and look for evidence; that is the only way we can confirm our belief which requires consciousness.
Scenario: Someone asks you to sign a contract stating that after providing you with 25 years of free and luxurious accommodation and services you will be slaughtered.
- Do you sign the contract? No.
The majority of us spend our entire life working and securing income for retirement. This by no means should be the purpose of our existence. On the contrary, through our actions, we need to search for the Eternal One; otherwise we are wasting our time and unconsciously signing the above contract. In reality, we are not questioning the Source of our existence. We have to stop pretending to be happy; we need to feel comfortable in our own being.
Human freewill uses the tools of reasoning only; heart functions accordingly. When we aim for Eternity, heart directly looks to its Creator with no intermediaries. On the other hand, reasoning functions through an intermediary i.e. freewill. Our freewill needs to be used to investigate our reality; otherwise we will be stuck with signing the above contract. We need to work on ourselves. We are created equal to the whole universe in order to know the Creator. Each one of us is precious, our capacity is endless and we ought to use it wisely. We need to be aware of our existence: “I exist right now”.
Some Philosophers deem it pointless to ask questions that one cannot get the answers to. We cannot ignore the fact that we are human, we have endless questions and we need to investigate. Furthermore, if there is a question, there must be an answer. My Creator would not be giving the ability to ask questions if there were no answers.
- Our responsibility is to keep investigating, learn and study otherwise we are denying our humanity.
We are lucky to have the Speech of God which gives us guidance, examples to reflect on and helps us to think and investigate. We need to use this universe as the act of the Creator in order to understand the purpose of our existence. The Creator doesn’t speak behind a black cloud; He speaks to us with creating the black cloud. We should not hide behind meaninglessness, laziness, ignorance or agnosticism.
Everything in this universe is an effect, only the Source is the Cause. We need to question the Source of existence of every event/object. The more we reflect, the more we become astonished with the discoveries and thus get closer to realizing the truth. The realization process itself has many degrees. As long as we confirm the existence of the Creator, the pathway towards the truth is open to us. Abraham is going to be an example for us on how to do such investigation using our human qualities.