Session 40 Notes
We have been examining the universe from a human perspective which diametrically differs from the materialist perspective. The Qur’an invites us to communicate with the Creator of the universe through observing His act of creation all around us. The Quran does not compel people to believe in God from its literal statements (verses), rather, the Author of the Quran asks us to reflect, think, contemplate and investigate His work in the universe so that we may understand who this Creator of the universe is. You will understand that you are a conscious deliberate piece in this universe, and you are created and given existence. See the connection between yourself and what you see around in creation and you will necessarily conclude that all created beings necessitate an Absolute Being to give them existence. The Qur’an is encouraging everyone to see the work of the universe’s Creator. It is only after I observe the work do I get convinced that the universe and I belong to the Creator of the whole universe. I do not exist by myself but have an Owner. Unfortunately, it is uncommon in Islamic cultural heritage to explain that one communicates with their Creator through His work. Although the Quran highlights this relationship of communicating and getting to know your Creator through His act of creation, it is not emphasized enough in mainstream culture.
How about the prayers and supplication that God asks us to do? Even the prayers and supplications one does has to be the result of going through the observation of the universe and presenting one’s conclusions. We cannot avoid the creation of the universe when we study any Revelation which are, by definition, the Speech of the Creator of the universe..
Let’s examine the following verses:
خَلَقَ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ بِغَيْرِ عَمَدٍۢ تَرَوْنَهَا ۖ وَأَلْقَىٰ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ رَوَٰسِىَ أَن تَمِيدَ بِكُمْ وَبَثَّ فِيهَا مِن كُلِّ دَآبَّةٍۢ ۚ وَأَنزَلْنَا مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءًۭ فَأَنۢبَتْنَا فِيهَا مِن كُلِّ زَوْجٍۢ كَرِيمٍ هَـٰذَا خَلْقُ ٱللَّهِ فَأَرُونِى مَاذَا خَلَقَ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن دُونِهِۦ ۚ بَلِ ٱلظَّـٰلِمُونَ فِى ضَلَـٰلٍۢ مُّبِينٍۢ
“He created the heavens without any pillars that you can see and He placed firm mountains on the earth — in case it should shake under you — and He spread all kinds of animals around it. We sent down water from the sky, with which We made every kind of good plant grow on earth.
All this is God’s creation: show Me then what others might have created! No, the disbelievers are clearly astray” (31:10-11)
These are very beautiful, clear and simple verses that invite us to pay attention to the things we see in the universe but may not be contemplating on. The whole universe is God’s creation which is what we are being reminded of. Materialist science never concludes that these beings have an Owner. When the Qur’an says the heavens are created without any pillars, it is pointing to something that I can easily observe. We do see the relationships between the planets, stars, and the solar system as being suspended in the sky. I am being asked to question what is holding them in their places? The Materialist scientists would explain by saying there is the power of attraction and repulsion that is responsible for this suspension. They would add terms such as magnetism, repulsion, laws of gravity to explain this existence of suspension. This doesn’t explain what these laws are and why the universe has to exist in this way. Materialist scientists can only describe their observations as we see it, giving them names as an explanation. For example, by naming a fruit as “peach”, does that explain the existence of that “peach”? How did that being get all its qualities such as texture, taste, smell as distinguished from all other fruit? We have discussed that their trick is to avoid concluding about something transcendent, so everything will be explained within the material universe.
The Illusion of Independent Laws
In social life, when we speak of traffic laws, we are referring to principles that people have collectively agreed to follow. There is no such thing as a “law of traffic” existing independently from a lawmaker. Without executive agents (police, lawyers, judges, courts) to enforce it, the written law will be nothing more than ink on paper. It carries no authority of its own.
The same logic applies to what we call the “laws of nature”. When scientists observe that objects consistently attract one another and name this regularity “the law of gravity” for example, they are doing something similar to what we do with traffic laws: giving a name to a principle or pattern. But naming a principle or pattern is not the same as discovering an independently existing force. No one has ever seen gravity itself — only how the universe is being created. The perfectly ordered and unvarying behavior of the universe is real as we observe it; but concluding from that order that independent self-sufficient laws exist out there, operating on their own authority, is an assumption, not an observation. A law without a lawgiver is, in the end, no different from ink on paper without an author— a description that carries no power of its own.
We must understand that the Qur’an speaks to human beings as they observe and experience the universe. When the scientists speak about laws such as gravity, they speak as if it is something that exists independently and externally. Many physicists describe it as a geometric property of spacetime, a mathematical relationship, or a field. Does that explain the existence of this order? Why is there such a relationship? Why does it have to be that way? Unfortunately, many of us have been conditioned with our years of secular education to think that way and it becomes hard to say that there is no such external thing as “gravity.” We experience a pulling force but that force works within an order that does not exist externally. This orderly creation we live in must have an agent that structures and organizes everything in a harmonious manner. The order does not change. Orderliness is always there. Although everything within the order continues to change, this continuous change also is taking place within an order because everything is wisely arranged. The Quranic message of 1450 years ago keeps challenging its reader to physically demonstrate and show anything in the universe that might be created by something other than the Creator of the universe. Impossible! Every materialist, physicist or biologist, knows that matter has no power of itself, from itself to choose, to create, to know anything. Everything acting in creation is endowed with power within an order established by the Orderer.
For example, a child finds breakfast on a table in the house ready at 7 AM in the morning every day since he was aware of time. The child would say that this is the law where breakfast is always there at 7 AM and names it as “law of breakfast”. There is no such law but it is a conscious, intentional, caring arrangement by the child’s mom or someone else who is consciously preparing the breakfast at that precise time to provide nutrition that perfectly meets the child’s needs.
Nowadays, we hear that DNA and RNA are responsible for changes to a thing. There is nothing in them to be the source of change in a being. These are nothing but codes that themselves are subject to change and in need of being given existence. They belong to different categories of existence. For example, the paper sheets of a book belong to one category of existence, whereas the information contained in them belongs to another. Matter and information belong to different orders of existence.. If one asks a physicist can matter be the source of information? They will say no because matter and information are completely different ontological categories of existence. Codes are like information inscribed in a form of symbols on a piece of paper that human beings can decipher through experiences. The codes need to be written by a conscious author who has knowledge. The symbols cannot be the author which has knowledge. When we buy a machine like a computer, for example, we find the operating system installed on it. Neither the electric power nor the operating system can be the producer of the material body of the machine. They belong to completely different categories of existence. Matter and life also are completely different orders of existence; life cannot produce anything material, matter cannot be the source of existence of life.
The ontological gap between matter and what transcends it
A magnet does not generate electricity — electricity belongs to an entirely different category. When a magnet rotates, electricity comes into being through it, not from it. The magnet is the occasion, not the source. The same principle applies to the human body and its inner life. The body does not produce emotions, consciousness, or thought. These belong to a different order of being. A person is not a body that somehow generates a soul; rather, a person is created as a unified being in whom body and soul are distinct but inseparable — the one is material, the other is not.
The body as instrument, the soul as user
This distinction between body and soul becomes clear when we consider how perception actually works. A telescope does not see — the person looking through it sees. The eye, composed of matter, is an instrument; it is the human being who perceives. The brain does not think — it is the instrument through which the human soul thinks. What thinks, feels, and gives meaning is the soul, which uses the body. For example, the way a human being uses a computer. A computer left unused by any conscious being holds no value regardless of how well it functions — its existence is, in itself, meaningless. When life departs from the body, and with it the soul that was its user, the body is revealed for what it always was: an instrument without an operator. None of its organs ever possessed any inherent capacity for perception. That capacity belonged to something else entirely.
Let’s remind ourselves that the universe is like a living conscious body. The meaning in the universe is the spirit of the universe, the manifestations of the qualities of its Creator. Similar to how I get the information from a book, the information I get from the demonstrations in the universe, the meaning of the universe are the manifestations of the qualities of the universe’s Author.
ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِى سَخَّرَ لَكُمُ ٱلْبَحْرَ لِتَجْرِىَ ٱلْفُلْكُ فِيهِ بِأَمْرِهِۦ وَلِتَبْتَغُوا۟ مِن فَضْلِهِۦ وَلَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ وَسَخَّرَ لَكُم مَّا فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَمَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ جَمِيعًۭا مِّنْهُ ۚ إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَـَٔايَـٰتٍۢ لِّقَوْمٍۢ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ
“It is God who subjected the sea for you – ships sail on it by His order so that you can seek His bounty and give Him thanks. He has subjected all that is in the heavens and the earth for your benefit, as a gift from Him. There truly are signs in this for those who reflect.” (45:12-13)
The sea and the whole universe is consciously arranged for me by the Creator of the universe, called God. He is the One who administers the whole universe where everything is his subject, dependent on Him. The relationships between me and the universe are consciously and purposefully arranged for me. I am benefitting from these relationships with all the bounties that I enjoy for which I must be thankful to my Creator, God. All these are signs for me to reflect upon. Examine Figure 1 and 2 where the flowers are presented to a cow who eats them as a delicious snack and a person who appreciates the gift which symbolizes love and care. The human being reflects on the flowers and establishes a loving warm connection to the one presenting those flowers.
Figure 1
Figure 2
The cow does not reflect on receiving the gift of beautiful, colorful flowers – does not see any meaning in those flowers. Unfortunately, the animalistic attitude is represented by how materialist people interpret the universe. They say, here we exist in this universe which just happened to be; we have to benefit from it and enjoy it as much as we can until we die meaninglessly and become compost. But the Quran says: That is not the point of existence, you can benefit from the bounties of course, but the universe is a gift to you, purposefully presented by the Creator of the universe. This Creator encourages me to have a good relationship with Him through the universe where I must be thankful to Him. The Qur’an does not ask for anything extra, it encourages just to be a human being who does not contradict their reality. I must be careful not to condition myself to reject my reality as a human being who wonders, questions, reasons and reflects.
We currently live in a time where the culture or the civilization is taking us towards animality. The Quran is actually inviting us to use our full potential to understand the meaningful side (angelic side) of creation and in a way ascend to the highest level, be among the best creations. For example we say that human beings think. No, I am created with the ability to think. I am not the source of the existence of thinking. I am created in this way with the ability to think. The language we use matters and we must be careful with it. We need these reminders from the Qur’an regularly which act as the antidote to the poisonous secular ideas we encounter.