Session 31 Notes
The Qur’an as the book of thought and wisdom
The universe we live in including ourselves has been left to be interpreted by material scientists. At one point it was the philosophers taking the lead whereas now the scientists are the ones leading the interpretation of the universe. The Qur’an presents a particular worldview by giving reference to the universe. As we learn from the method that the Qur’an teaches us, without giving reference to creation, one cannot defend any belief idea.
إِنَّ فِى خَلْقِ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَٱخْتِلَـٰفِ ٱلَّيْلِ وَٱلنَّهَارِ لَـَٔايَـٰتٍۢ لِّأُو۟لِى ٱلْأَلْبَـٰبِ ٱلَّذِينَ يَذْكُرُونَ ٱللَّهَ قِيَـٰمًۭا وَقُعُودًۭا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِهِمْ وَيَتَفَكَّرُونَ فِى خَلْقِ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقْتَ هَـٰذَا بَـٰطِلًۭا سُبْحَـٰنَكَ فَقِنَا عَذَابَ ٱلنَّارِ
“Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, the alternation of night and day, are signs for those of understanding/deep reflection (ulil albab) – who remember God while standing or sitting or lying on their sides and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth, [saying], ‘Our Lord, You did not create this for no reason; You are far above that! So protect us from the torment of the fire.” (3:190-191)
Secularist scientists claim that they are investigating the universe with an open mind. Based on their observation and investigation, they tell us how the perfectly ever changing universe appears to be working. What is the trick here? A scientist, for example, working on gene modification makes a change to the DNA and interprets: “I see that because of this modification, the disease is prevented”. Their interpretation starts from this statement which says “this modification makes this”. They fail to realize that they are within the universe and this universe needs to be given existence by a conscious being who must have Absolute qualities so that the universe, despite its being subject to continuous renewal in its existence, never loses its perfect arrangements; they deny this fact and attribute the result of change to the way that it is arranged in a perfect order. Personally, We may also share this interpretation when one uses the stove to cook their meal. The fire and heat is seen as the agent to cook the food forgetting about the ever new creation of every moment and the lack of the ability in the fire to give existence to anything at all.
Why does the Qur’an insist on encouraging human beings to think about the creation of everything?
A few questions that one asks:
“Why does something exist rather than nothing?” For example, why does this DNA exist? Why does this capability to modify genes exist? This question can also be framed as: “Why is there anything at all rather than nothing?” Scientists say that everything is a form of energy. How does this energy exist? The answer is it already existed from the beginning of the universe. The question still is unanswered: What caused the universe to exist? They are looking for answers to come from the universe itself. That is why they say that something caused something else. The interpretation is that something in the universe or the universe itself does it.
The answers vary but all of them are nothing but speculations with no evidence at all. Existence with all the unimaginable qualities manifested in their existence is taken for granted. The existence of anything is not answered by any scientist or their scientific findings. They claim that “something outside the universe” to answer the question of “why” has no meaning. They say, “We don’t know the underlying mechanism yet” or “there is no confirmed theory yet”. Many are superficially carried away by their rhetoric of “why” being outside of science and is a matter of theology. They hold on to the fact that science explains the “how” by referring existence back to the universe. There is no such separation of “how” and “why” at all. The Qur’an never mentions why the universe exists but it always encourages its readers to question how the universe exists. There are many verses asking “how” does anything in the universe exist.
For example:
أَفَلَمْ يَنظُرُوٓا۟ إِلَى ٱلسَّمَآءِ فَوْقَهُمْ كَيْفَ بَنَيْنَـٰهَا وَزَيَّنَّـٰهَا وَمَا لَهَا مِن فُرُوجٍ
“Do they not look at the sky above them – how We have built it and made it beautiful and free of all faults?” (50:6)
أَفَلَا يَنظُرُونَ إِلَى ٱلْإِبِلِ كَيْفَ خُلِقَتْ وَإِلَى ٱلسَّمَآءِ كَيْفَ رُفِعَتْ
“Do they not reflect on how the camel is created? And the sky, how is it raised?”
Nowadays, they see the cell improved in a particular way. How did the cell improve itself? Does it have any quality at all to do anything, to prefer one option rather than any other? Any materialist mind can ever obtain any way of answering these kinds of questions as long as they insist on remaining materialistically minded. Why does gravity exist? They don’t know, and no one knows except those who refer to the Source of existence of the entire universe. There is no scientific explanation at all, they say: “it just happens”. The “why” questions are problematic for the material scientists as they have no answer. The Qur’an also does not ask any why questions but asks the reader to reflect on creation by asking how they exist. Without investigating the universe and how it exists, we cannot benefit from the message of the Qur’an and confirm that it is the Speech of the Creator of the universe.
The main claim of material scientists is this: “the universe did not pop into existence inside some pre-existing time and space; it brought its own time and space with it!” They know that to make a statement “the thing creates itself” sounds illogical, that is why they use a rounded language to escape their logical inconsistency. If one says that I created myself then this person should have already existed first to be able to create themselves. The smart material scientists don’t say that the things create themselves. Although, they say they are explaining how the things exist. But they are not. While they are explaining how the things are working, they are explaining it by referring the existence of what they observe to another object within the universe. They cannot explain how that object -as they call it- “caused” the existence of the “effect”. They just take their observation of the event like we take pictures and present that as an explanation of how it exists. How that event came into existence is not answered. How does magnetic field happen, how do electrons exist? How does molecular attraction exist? How did the universe (or nowadays use the term “Big Bang”) bring time and space into existence? The answer is “That is how we find it within the universe; there is no reason to look for a source that is not within the universe.” Materialist science cannot answer the “how” question because they take existence for granted.
An influential atheist scientist claims: “The universe can be self-contained”. This claim has no evidence at all. Within the phrase “self-contained”, it means the universe gives existence to itself. The Qur’an describes only God as the Absolute Being and He is Self-Subsisting (Qaim bi al-dhat) or Self-Existing. The universe cannot be self-subsistence, the continuously changing universe needs a Creator that is Self-Subsistent.
Materialists replace God with the universe.
As a result, they claim that the universe creates itself.
But they cannot prove this claim.
They cannot show that any part of the universe has such qualities on its own.
No part has the power to create by itself.
No part has knowledge by itself.
No part can choose or decide independently.
In fact, they know something else very well.
Every part of the universe is constantly changing.
This change never breaks the order within the universe.
It always follows a precise and consistent pattern.
Even so, they refuse to reconsider their position.
They hold on to their assumptions.
These assumptions limit their thinking.
In the end, they become trapped within their own closed perspective.
Another materialist scientist, Feynman, who is more careful to say: “Show me the equations and experiments for such claims” to which there is no answer. He says in his book “The Value of Science” (1950): “What then is the meaning of it all? What can we say to dispel the mystery of existence? If we take everything into account – not only what the ancients knew, but all of what we know today that they didn’t know then I think that we must frankly admit that we do not know.” And he says, “Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.”
That means: “We do not know yet, we must admit. But we should exploit this unclaimed universe until we die however we please; we found it out of nowhere.”
The Bottom Line: The “self-contained” theory claims that it explains why the Big Bang does not need a prior cause in time – but it doesn’t fully answer why there is existence rather than
non-existence. All these claims are nothing but attempts to brush the matter aside with an evasive response that they are utterly unable to substantiate.
That question sits at the boundary where Physics hands it off to Philosophy. Neither has a complete answer yet. It remains as one of the most profound open questions that humans have ever asked.
The philosopher of language, Wittgenstein (1889-1951) wrote a book “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” in 1921 with only 75 pages. It is considered a difficult book to read and was written with the aim of defining relationships between reality and language, and delineating the boundaries of science:
Proposition 6.5: The question of life’s meaning,”it cannot be put into words, cannot be answered – perhaps cannot even be properly asked.”
This is saying that we have to look for the explanation within the universe itself.
Proposition 7 (the famous closing line): “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” – meaning that questions that transcend language and logic are outside the domain of meaningful discourse.
What do they mean? If I step outside the boundaries of my world, I cannot ask a meaningful question. For example, to answer who made the computer, I cannot go outside the computer to get the answer. I have to find the maker within the computer (representing the universe) which does not make sense. This means: “Meaningful expression is limited to the realm of reality; to ask a question beyond that realm is to push language beyond its natural capacity. The question: “Who created the universe”, is blocked deliberately. This means that a materialist mind does not want to ask any question which takes the human mind outside of the universe. The reason is very simple: They confine themselves within the universe and block the human intellect and consciousness to damp themselves not to question the existence of anything at all. This perspective reduces human beings to the level of entities consisting solely of a mass of matter.
His general argument is that metaphysical questions, including existence itself, falls outside what language can legitimately express. (Notice that using the word “illegitimately” he tries to block any intellectual inquiry which necessitates to accept that the universe itself and everything in it needs for its existence an Absolute, Self-Existing Creator who is the Source of Existence of every single being at every single moment.)
The book Tractatus on why existence itself is a mystical question:
“6.44 – it is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists” (Notice again the same trick is used here with the word “mystical” when we use our human qualities and inquire meaning for our existence and ask why do we exist? Because of his own obstinacy not to accept his reality he denies his human qualities and labels the questions his intellect and consciousness ask as to be “mystical’.)
Let’s be careful here as existence is taken for granted because they cannot explain how it exists and why it exists. How about my human qualities which question, why is that being ignored as mystical? If I get a package at home I just take it, use it, enjoy it, without asking who sent it to me? Why was it sent to me? If a person comes to the house of such deniers and goes into their kitchen and eats their ready food in front of their eyes and burps and leaves their house without acknowledging them and saying nothing, let alone thanking, they will hate this person and will never allow him back into their houses. Do not such people deserve eternal deprivation?
Wittgenstein is saying the fact that anything exists at all – rather than nothing – belongs to the realm of the mystical, which is beyond what language and science can address. Why “beyond”? I am asking and I am wondering about a subject which directly concerns my human feelings. Without any meaning I cannot live. Is there anything in the universe whose existence is meaningless?
On science being unable to touch the deepest questions:
“6.52 – We feel that even if all scientific questions are answered, the problems of life still have not been touched at all. Of course, there is then no question left and this becomes the answer.”
Science cannot explain how something exists. They can only say that it exists and can be studied as it exists. How do the molecules attract? How come this order of attraction exists? These questions are labeled as “mystical”. But while they are explaining how things are working they claim that a certain thing caused another thing to become like this… They attribute the effect to an unconscious thing, may it be matter, energy or electromagnetic fields.
On the inexpressibility of such questions:
“6.5 – For an answer which cannot be expressed, the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered.”
Isn’t this a contradiction since there is a question so it must have an answer. Instead of admitting that they have no answers to questions they cannot answer, these pitiful people imagine that denying the question serves as a solution—a means of evasion.
They are backed into a corner now, soon the bankruptcy will be announced, InshaAllah!