Session 34 Notes
We discussed last time the importance of knowing God first in order to be able to worship Him. How are we really able to know Him? I don’t see God physically present in this universe as He is the creator of the universe. Having knowledge of God’s essence is different from belief in God. Knowing and comprehending the essence is different from describing something which is different from believing. When we look at the universe, we see things cannot exist by themselves, we see the Creator’s work in the universe to come to a logical conclusion about His existence as an Absolute Being and the qualities He possesses. Knowing Him and describing Him is impossible to do according to our capacity, but our responsibility is belief in the Creator of the universe; to come to the conclusion that He must exist.
There is a saying attributed to Abu Bakr, the companion of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) that explains the reality of belief in God if we contemplate on it:
“The incomprehensibility of God is the comprehension of God (to be the Absolute Being).”
Another way of saying this is: Undescribability of an Absolute Being is the only way to describe Him, as being not created, not describable like anything in the universe. For example, can anyone show infinity in this world? If they can then it would become something finite and thus not infinite. How about the content of infinity? A similar challenge to which the answer would be “no” as any number would be finite. The two elements in Mathematics that cannot be described are zero representing non-existence and the other is infinity. When we see something exists, it is the opposite of non-existence. The finite things in the universe exist but they are not infinite. The best way to describe God as the Creator of the universe is to realize that He must be an Absolute Being, not describable by the language we use to describe created beings in the universe. The existence of the universe allows us to conclude that it must have a Creator that exists.
This method of reasoning that there must be an Absolute Being not of the nature of this universe is using the negation method. The Qur’an uses the negation method to describe the “Ghayb”, Absolute Being.
وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُۥ كُفُوًا أَحَدٌۢ
“And there is nothing that could be compared with Him” (112:4)
The verse describes the meaning of the phrase “incomprehensibility of God”. We cannot describe God but we know that such a being must exist. That’s the difference between knowing and concluding that there must be an Absolute Being. The universe declares this message that its creator must be an Absolute Being because everything is created with infinite qualities at every moment with infinite speed with no confusion. I can see myself where I am changing, my cells are changing where they are created perfectly at every moment of my existence. Other beings such as plants, animals, molecular structures, stars, galaxies are also being changed at the same time with no contradiction or confusion. The One who is doing this must be infinite. From the Absolute Being’s perspective, the creation of the universe in spacetime is one command. From my perspective, I cannot hold on to any moment of spacetime as the change is happening with infinite speed. That is why one cannot comprehend the Absolute.
The quality of His Being is beyond the range of human comprehension or imagination. By observing the universe we conclude that the source of existence of this universe must be an Absolute Being. Belief in God is a conclusion and this is called belief in “Ghayb” in the Qur’an:
ٱلَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱلْغَيْبِ
“Who believe in [the existence of ] that which is beyond the reach of human perception (Ghayb)…” (2:3)
قُل لَّا يَعْلَمُ مَن فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ٱلْغَيْبَ إِلَّا ٱللَّهُ ۚ وَمَا يَشْعُرُونَ أَيَّانَ يُبْعَثُونَ
“Say, ‘No one in the heavens or on earth knows the unseen (Ghayb) except God’…” (27:65)
Materialists challenge that if God is incomprehensible then why do you believe in God? This is important as belief is a conclusion. For example, a computer represents the universe and the parts in it are beings that are conscious and thus understand that they are created. Their logical conclusion would be that they are created by someone who made the whole computer and thus cannot be found in the computer. Can the parts comprehend the Engineer? No, but the conscious parts would conclude that they need to be created and located according to the Engineer’s plans. The conscious part would definitely conclude that “I believe we have a conscious, knowledgeable engineer but I cannot comprehend his essence and what kind of being he is, but he must exist. Similarly, as conscious beings in the universe, I understand that I need to be created and thus conclude that there must be an Absolute Being giving existence to the whole universe. An Absolute/Infinite Being cannot be described within the finite world.
Why is this important? Generally, believers speak as if they know “Ghayb”. However, the Qur’an says that you cannot know “Ghayb”, but you can conclude that such a Being, who cannot be definable in any way thinking of him in terms of this world, but He must exist, must necessarily exist. Belief in “Ghayb” is different from knowing “Ghayb”. We must be careful with our language when talking to people as if we know “Ghayb”. In our prayers, it is different because we are presenting our conclusions but while reasoning, we must watch out for our language and not speak as if we know God. We must reason: instead of saying “God created the universe”, my language should be, “the universe exists and needs a creator who must be an Absolute One.”
Our language expands with the expansion of the universe which has no limitations as far as our capacity to reach its end is concerned. Today’s physicists agree that the universe has no boundaries. For example, physicist David Gross (Nobel laureate) says in his book “the End of Physics”: “As we answer one question we uncover deeper, more complex questions, suggesting an infinite layer of mysteries”. The “mysteries” are according to the Qur’an, the manifestations of God’s qualities. Another example is Philip Anderson (Nobel laureate) in his book “More is Different” concludes: “the complexity of the universe is infinite”.
The universe is finite but we cannot get to the end. We can only say the complexity of the universe is infinite.The qualities manifested in the universe are infinite. Therefore, this is a sign that the qualities of the Creator of the universe must be infinite. We can apply this to the Qur’anic language. Its content of meaning must be infinite as well because it is the Speech of the Creator of the universe where we observe endless qualities are manifested: “the Names of God must be infinite”.
وَٱلسَّمَآءَ بَنَيْنَـٰهَا بِأَيْي۟دٍۢ وَإِنَّا لَمُوسِعُونَ
“We built the universe with great might and We are certainly steadily expanding it.” (51:47)
When the Qur’an uses “with great might” or “with our hands”, this rhetoric means with Absolute Power. The word “ لَمُوسِعُونَ” translated as “steadily expanding”, i.e. the universe is continuously expanding with no end by the Will of its Absolute Creator to manifest His being and qualities which are Absolute.
قُل لَّوْ كَانَ ٱلْبَحْرُ مِدَادًۭا لِّكَلِمَـٰتِ رَبِّى لَنَفِدَ ٱلْبَحْرُ قَبْلَ أَن تَنفَدَ كَلِمَـٰتُ رَبِّى وَلَوْ جِئْنَا بِمِثْلِهِۦ مَدَدًۭا
“Say, if the whole ocean were ink for writing the words of my Lord, it would run dry before those words were exhausted – even if We were to add another ocean to it.” (18:109)
Every being in the universe is “God’s word” speaking to me. The universe is a book where every being is a word in it pointing to its Creator. Every being declares that my Creator must be an Absolute One.
وَعَلَّمَ ءَادَمَ ٱلْأَسْمَآءَ كُلَّهَا
“He taught Adam all the names….” (2:31)
All the manifested qualities in the universe can be known by man. Human beings are given the capacity to understand that the qualities manifested in the universe point to an Absolute Being.
The universe is physically bounded but effectively infinite. Its expansion is accelerating, and our experience of it is expanding at both the macro and micro levels. Our language and the meaning of the Qur’an must expand to match them both. For example, our understanding of the “smallest” thing has changed from pebbles, to specks, to molecules, to atoms, and now to quarks.
وَلَقَدْ زَيَّنَّا ٱلسَّمَآءَ ٱلدُّنْيَا بِمَصَـٰبِيحَ وَجَعَلْنَـٰهَا رُجُومًۭا لِّلشَّيَـٰطِينِ
“We have adorned the lowest heaven with lamps and made them [missiles] for stoning devils…” (67:5)
Devilish ideas may come saying that this happened naturally, evolved by itself. Each being in the universe destroys that devilish idea: “I am existing here with the Will of the Creator of the whole universe, you cannot separate me from the whole universe”.
ٱلنَّجْمُ ٱلثَّاقِبُ
“It is the star that pierces through darkness [meaninglessness]” (86:3)
Every being in the universe is a “star” that pierces through meaninglessness and any interpretation that ignores or denies the Absolute Creator.
In Hajj, which is a culmination of our life’s worship, we are advised to collect the smallest pebbles in Mash’ar (Muzdalifa). Even the tiniest particle, a single quark is sufficient to demonstrate that the Creator must be an Absolutely Infinite Being.Throwing it in Mina where the pillars are representative of Satan means that the smallest thing is enough to reject and dismantle “satanic” secularist, or atheistic ideas and interpretation of the signs of the universe. Each pebble represents the “word” of God from the book of the universe.