He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth, and when He decrees something, He says only, ‘Be,’ and it is. (Al Quran 2:117)
Have they been created from nothing, or are they their own creators? Have they created the heavens and the earth? In truth they put no faith in anything. (Al Quran 52:35-36)
Epigraph: بَدِيعُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۖ وَإِذَا قَضَىٰ أَمْرًا فَإِنَّمَا يَقُولُ لَهُ كُن فَيَكُونُ He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth, and when He decrees something, He says only, ‘Be,’ […]
Epigraph: بَدِيعُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۖ وَإِذَا قَضَىٰ أَمْرًا فَإِنَّمَا يَقُولُ لَهُ كُن فَيَكُونُ He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth, and when He decrees something, He says only, ‘Be,’ […]
Epigraph: بَدِيعُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۖ وَإِذَا قَضَىٰ أَمْرًا فَإِنَّمَا يَقُولُ لَهُ كُن فَيَكُونُ He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth, and when He decrees something, He says only, ‘Be,’ […]
Epigraph Which is harder to create: you people or the sky that He built, raising it high and perfecting it, giving darkness to its night and bringing out its morning […]
He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth, and when He decrees something, He says only, ‘Be,’ and it is. (Al Quran 2:117)
Have they been created from nothing, or are they their own creators? Have they created the heavens and the earth? In truth they put no faith in anything. (Al Quran 52:35-36)
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD
Imagine a world where there are no material things, no universe, now imagine yourself in deep anesthesia a feeling of nothing, you do not exist and no other consciousness exists, no humans, no God, no angels, no Satan, nothing at all!
My main suggestion to the open minded readers is to read on and in the words of Sir Francis Bacon, “Read not to contradict … but to weigh and consider.”
Now, go to minute 2.30 of the above video, What is Nothing by Closer to Truth and locate a 15 seconds comment of the Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, who shared his 1979 Nobel Prize in physics with Dr. Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow. He clearly states and I may be paraphrasing a little that even if we find a theory of everything, some mathematical explanation, we will still not know where mathematics came from.
With his statement it is also easy to explain the position of the majority of the mathematicians that mathematics is discovered and not invented by humanity. What we discover would exist in the mind of the eternal creator, who created our universe with truth, justice and mathematics: Allah created the universe or the multiverse through mathematics بِالْحَقِّ.
A precise and open discussion about nothing, I believe, brings us to the conclusion that God is necessary. An eternal creator of our universe is necessary.
We merely have to imagine nothing precisely, no materials, no space, no time, nothing abstract like numbers or logic, then we arrive at the truth painlessly. If you do reach the end of the above video, the moderator Robert Lawrence Kuhn describes 9 levels of nothing and to me the total blank is his highest level nine of nothing. We cannot get our universe from the highest blank: nothing comes out of nothing. By imagining nothing in all its essence, ultimately leads us to our creator, and He had told us about Himself in that light in the verses of the Quran quoted as epigraph.
And to Allah belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth; and Allah has power over all things. In the creation of the heavens and the earth and in the alternation of the night and the day there are indeed Signs for men of understanding; Those who remember Allah while standing, sitting, and lying on their sides, and ponder over the creation of the heavens and the earth: “Our Lord, You have not created this in vain without the truth. (Al Quran 3:189-191)
At top universities, institutes of Catholic thought focus on science and religion A multi-million dollar grant will support a new three-year plan for creating a national network of independent institutes […]
Source: Muslim Sunrise 2015 winter volume Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times Are science and religion at odds with each other? Cary […]
Alexander Pope‘s couplet: “Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in Night. God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light!” Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of […]
Epigraph: What is the matter with you? Why will you not fear God’s majesty, when He has created you stage by stage? Have you ever wondered how God created seven […]
Francis goes against Benedict XVI’s apparent support for ‘intelligent design’ – but does hail his predecessor’s ‘great contribution to theology’ By Adam Withnall, @adamwithnall for Independent October 2014 The theories […]
Pope Francis offers Mass in Gyumri, Armenia June 25, 2016. Credit: Vatican Media/CNA. Aug. 15, 2020 Courtney Mares Catholic News Agency VATICAN CITY — On the Solemnity of the Assumption […]
Promoted post: Video: How Jesus Became God, by Prof. Bart Ehrman? Source: Swiss Info The non-religious proportion of the population is steadily growing in Switzerland, as in most Western countries. […]
To Know more how you can benefit from the Muslim Times, go to our Homepage or About Us page. Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times Giordano Bruno […]
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, as a chapter of upcoming book: The Quran and the Biological Evolution Galileo Galilei famously said, “Mathematics is the language in which […]
Epigraph: And as to the people of Noah when they rejected the Messengers, We drowned them, and We made them a Sign for mankind. And We have prepared a painful […]
Epigraph: We will show them Our Signs in the universe and also among their own selves, until it becomes manifest to them that the Quran is the Truth. (Al Quran […]
Source: Aeon Social scientists predicted that belief in the supernatural would drift away as modern science advanced. They were wrong. By Peter Harrison, who is an Australian Laureate Fellow and […]
Epigraph “We think that since God is the author both of his Word the Bible and of this universe, there must ultimately be harmony between correct interpretation of the biblical […]
Epigraph: And you (Muhammad) shall assuredly find those who say, ‘We are Christians,’ to be the nearest of them in love to the believers. That is because amongst them are […]
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times
The most well known scientist in the West from the era of renaissance is none other than Isaac Newton. Many do not know that he was a Unitarian and opposed the dogma of Trinity.
Encyclopedia Britannica says about Newton and Trinity:
Newton found time now to explore other interests, such as religion and theology. In the early 1690s he had sent Locke a copy of a manuscript attempting to prove that Trinitarian passages in the Bible were latter-day corruptions of the original text. When Locke made moves to publish it, Newton withdrew in fear that his anti-Trinitarian views would become known. Reference.
Generally, I am for pluralism and talking about common goals and objectives, but, once in a while I want to highlight the differences if those are of some high academic or other value.
My trigger for this article was an Islamophobic comment by a well known atheist scientist Richard Dawkins, who came out swinging for Christianity and against Islam, despite his clear and loud proclamations for atheism:
The scientists that I have particularly in mind today are those who are member of the Intelligent Design Movement (ID).
I became one of the early members of an online discussion group for ID around 2000. After I quoted a Quranic verse in line with the theme of discussion, I was silenced that it was in bad taste because of some other fairly benign comment in the same paragraph. I understood, I was not welcome there with my Muslim faith in the Quran.
I have, nevertheless, periodically followed their activity and kept pace with their work. I believe their work is good theology in as far as they present a Creator for our universe and ourselves. Unlike their concepts I believe that their work is good metaphysics, but not good science. Their work is in line of the following verses of the Quran:
He is Allah, the Creator, the Maker, the Fashioner. His are the most beautiful names. All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifies Him, and He is the Mighty, the Wise. (Al Quran 59:24)
We shall show them Our signs in every region of the earth and in themselves, until it becomes clear to them that this Quran is the Truth. Is it not enough that your Lord witnesses everything? (Al Quran 41:53)
Such is Allah, your Lord. There is no God but He, the Creator of all things, so worship Him. And He is Guardian over everything. Eyes cannot reach Him but He reaches the human consciousness. And He is the Incomprehensible, the All-Aware. (Al Quran 6:102-103)
In their ambition for their political and other agenda they forget that human eyes cannot reach God in a scientific or any other paradigm, unless He chooses to reveal Himself to the prophets and the saints through different veils.
ID has an institute called Discovery Institute. Their online store has a dozen or more books on sale that are very helpful for understanding the metaphysics of God the Creator of Judaism, Islam and Unitarian Christianity, once we understand the limitations and misunderstandings that all of them have.
The members of ID sometimes hide their true colors but at others it is completely apparent that they want to promote the Triune God of Christianity as the Intelligent Designer or the Creator. For example, William Dembski is a leading member and in December 2007, he told Focus on the Family that “The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.”[90]
As a final thought every thing good that the Jewish, Muslim, Unitarian Christians and Jehovah Witnesses have written against Trinity becomes a powerful argument for my thesis that any good religious work by the Trinitarians in fact is only for the sake of the One God, Who has no father or any son or daughter.
We also have a fairly large collection of articles about Trinity.
God’s is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth; He gives life and He causes death; and He has power over all things. He is the First and the Last, and the Manifest and the Hidden, and He knows all things full well. He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in six periods, then He settled Himself on the Throne. He knows what enters the earth and what comes out of it, and what comes down from heaven and what goes up into it. And He is with you wheresoever you may be. And Allah sees all that you do. (Al Quran 57:2-4)
By Zia H Shah MD
We have around 9 million living species on our planet earth and many more extinct are all part of a common ancestry. The atheist believe evolution to be a blind process. But, those theists who are not creationists and believe in guided evolution. They have been hard pressed to pin point when and how God guided evolution.
This has been a challenge and even a trap for the theists. The above video is a suitable answer to this challenge. The ideas mentioned in the above video not only help us understand guided evolution better but also God’s Providence in granting our prayers.
There is quite a diversity of beliefs when it comes to evolution.
According to a new Pew Research Center analysis, six-in-ten Americans (60%) say that “humans and other living things have evolved over time,” while a third (33%) reject the idea of evolution, saying that “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” The share of the general public that says that humans have evolved over time is about the same as it was in 2009, when Pew Research last asked the question.
About half of those who express a belief in human evolution take the view that evolution is “due to natural processes such as natural selection” (32% of the American public overall). But many Americans believe that God or a supreme being played a role in the process of evolution. Indeed, roughly a quarter of adults (24%) say that “a supreme being guided the evolution of living things for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today.”
These beliefs differ strongly by religious group. White evangelical Protestants are particularly likely to believe that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. Roughly two-thirds (64%) express this view, as do half of black Protestants (50%). By comparison, only 15% of white mainline Protestants share this opinion.
There also are sizable differences by party affiliation in beliefs about evolution, and the gap between Republicans and Democrats has grown. In 2009, 54% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats said humans have evolved over time, a difference of 10 percentage points. Today, 43% of Republicans and 67% of Democrats say humans have evolved, a 24-point gap.
These are some of the key findings from a nationwide Pew Research Center survey conducted March 21-April 8, 2013, with a representative sample of 1,983 adults, ages 18 and older. The survey was conducted on landlines and cellphones in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.0 percentage points.
A majority of white evangelical Protestants (64%) and half of black Protestants (50%) say that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. But in other large religious groups, a minority holds this view. In fact, nearly eight-in-ten white mainline Protestants (78%) say that humans and other living things have evolved over time. Three-quarters of the religiously unaffiliated (76%) and 68% of white non-Hispanic Catholics say the same. About half of Hispanic Catholics (53%) believe that humans have evolved over time, while 31% reject that idea.
Those saying that humans have evolved over time also were asked for their views on the processes responsible for evolution. Roughly a quarter of adults (24%) say that “a supreme being guided the evolution of living things for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today,” while about a third (32%) say that evolution is “due to natural processes such as natural selection.”
Just as religious groups differ in their views about evolution in general, they also tend to differ in their views on the processes responsible for human evolution. For instance, while fully 78% of white mainline Protestants say that humans and other living things have evolved over time, the group is divided over whether evolution is due to natural processes or whether it was guided by a supreme being (36% each). White non-Hispanic Catholics also are divided equally on the question (33% each). The religiously unaffiliated predominantly hold the view that evolution stems from natural processes (57%), while 13% of this group says evolution was guided by a supreme being. Of the white evangelical Protestants and black Protestants who believe that humans have evolved over time, most believe that a supreme being guided evolution.
The above video and the articles below give us the needed information that guided evolution is not only in keeping with the Quran and the Bible, but, is fully compatible with modern science:
The Quran invites its readers to reflect on various aspects of the three manifest realms from which it draws most of its arguments: the cosmos (āfāq), the human self (nafs), and history (āthār). This Quranic invitation is directed toward instilling an unshakable certitude about its message in the hearts and minds of its readers. The first and foremost message of the Quran is tawḥīd, the uncompromising Oneness of God—the Originator (al-Mubdiʾ) of everything, the absolute Sovereign, Who has set signs (āyāt) throughout His creation, so that Truth (al-ḥaqq) can be distinguished from falsehood (al-bāṭil): We shall show them Our signs upon the horizons and within themselves till it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. Does it not suffice that thy Lord is Witness over all things? (41:53).
All that exists, the Quran tells us, exists because of God, because unto God belongs sovereignty over the heavens and the earth (e.g., 2:107; 3:189; 9:116). This ontological dependence on the Creator ennobles existing things; they become signs (āyāt) of a transcendent Real (al-Ḥaqq), Who, nevertheless, remains beyond them. Thus the “sign verses” of the Quran have an irresistible urgency,1 drawing our attention to what lies beyond the phenomena they mention. Viewed from the Quranic perspective in this way, the rhythmic alternation of the day and the night (2:164) and the regularities in the movement of the sun and the moon traversing their courses by the decree of the Mighty, the Knowing (36:38–39) are not merely cosmic processes; rather, these are signs pointing toward the existence of the Compassionate (al-Raḥmān) and the Merciful (al-Raḥīm), Who made neither the night nor the day perpetual, for if God should make night come over you unceasingly until the Day of Resurrection, the Quran asks rhetorically, what god other than God would bring you light? (28:71). Likewise,
If God should make day come over you unceasingly until the Day of Resurrection, what god other than God would bring you night, that you might rest therein? Will you not, then, see? Out of His Mercy He made for you night and day, that you may rest therein, and that you may seek of His Bounty, and that haply you may give thanks. (28:72–73)
The Quran presents the entire cosmic order as proof for its message. Observable processes of the manifest cosmos—such as the movement of stars and planets—are not orderly merely because they observe certain laws of nature, but rather because the One Who created them has set a specific course for them. In fact, the concept of “laws of nature” independent of a Lawgiver is essentially a secular concept, because it makes “nature” a giver of law or at least imbues nature with some inherent order independent of the Creator. The Quran asserts, however, that authority to make laws rests with God alone —the Sovereign and Ruler of the Cosmos:
The sun runs to a dwelling place of its own. That is the decree of the Mighty, the Knowing. And for the moon, We have decreed mansions, till it returns like an old palm stalk. It befits not the sun to overtake the moon, nor the night to outstrip the day. Each glides in an orbit. (36:38–40)
Thus placed within the broader thematic structure of the Quran, these references to nature have traditionally been understood as integrally linked to its overall message. These signs were considered worthy of deep reflection, and it was understood also that one cannot fathom the mysteries of these signs without understanding their scientific content in the traditional sense. The sign verses, therefore, remained a central focus of scientific activity in Islam, and generations of scientists and commentators of the Quran wrote on their significance.
Comments by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times
The above is one of the 15 articles at the end of the above commentary and it nicely summarizes the scientific commentary of the Quran till the 20th century.
I believe, it serves as a good foundation for my work of the last two decades, as I continue the never ending task of understanding the word of God, the Quran, in light of His works or creation, which is the cosmos. In my endeavor, I am not only learning from the Muslim theologians and scholars but also the Jewish, Christian, agnostic and atheist philosophers and scientists.
Given all my sources, I believe that the 21st century travelers will find it a useful resource. With this in mind and seeking Allah’s Grace, I am presenting my collection on the following themes, to be read in continuity of the above:
And remember when Jesus, son of Mary, said, ‘O children of Israel, surely I am Allah’s Messenger unto you, fulfilling that which is before me of the Torah, and giving glad tidings of a Messenger who will come after me. His name will be Ahmad.’ And when he came to them with clear proofs, they said, ‘This is clear sorcery.’ (Al Quran 61:6)
By Zia H Shah MD
Jeffery Schwartz was a Jew, who became an evangelical Christian. It is not a big stretch to imagine, what if he were a Muslim.
He is a famous research psychiatrist and also a writer. His focus has been on obsessive compulsive disorder but his insights have much wider applications on human consciousness, our habits, personality and practice of mindfulness or meditation.
In the above video he quotes the Biblical verses about Paraclete that means advocate, comforter or councilor in English and Schwart interprets the term to mean our inner voice. The Muslims believe these verses to be a prophecy about the coming of the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be on him, six centuries after Jesus, may peace be on him.
The term Paraclete (παράκλητος) appears four times in the Gospel according to John (Jn 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7):
If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (John 14:15-17)
All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. (John 14:25-27)
When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. (John 15:26-27)
But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:7)
What is referred to as Paraclete in the Gospel of John, the Muslims believe is mentioned in a verse of Surah Saff that has been quoted above as epigraph:
And remember when Jesus, son of Mary, said, ‘O children of Israel, surely I am Allah’s Messenger unto you, fulfilling that which is before me of the Torah, and giving glad tidings of a Messenger who will come after me. His name will be Ahmad.’ And when he came to them with clear proofs, they said, ‘This is clear sorcery.’ (Al Quran 61:6)
Ahmad was another name of the prophet Muhammad, may peace be on him.
We are not going into a Muslim versus Christian debate about these verses. All I am suggesting is that if Muslim readers enjoy the above video in a Muslim paradigm, we can really learn self analysis and meditation from the insightful psychiatrist.
Some of the other videos by Dr. Schwartz to learn how his presentation helps us better understand mindfulness, human conscious, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and a refusal of absolute materialism / physicalism in contemporary philosophy and science:
He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth, and when He decrees something, He says only, ‘Be,’ and it is. (Al Quran 2:117)
The Big Bang in an artist’s imagination
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times
Modern cosmology now suggests that our universe came to being some 13.7 billion years ago and that there are two trillion galaxies in our universe.
The Muslims take the Quran to be the literal word of All-Knowing God. The non-Muslims either are unsure about it, don’t have an opinion on this, or may think of it as word of Muhammad, his own words or borrowed from some helper.
Creatio ex nihilo (Latin for “creation out of nothing”) is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act.[1] It is a theistic answer to the question of how the universe came to exist. It is in contrast to Ex nihilo nihil fit or “nothing comes from nothing“, which means that all things were formed from preexisting things; an idea by the Greek philosopher Parmenides (c. 540 – c. 480 BC) about the nature of all things, and later more formally stated by Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 – c. 55 BC).
According to Maimonides, Aristotle believed that the world is eternal and that it has always existed in the form in which it now exists.[1] The God of the Bible and the Quran created from nothing or ex nihilo. While Aristotle refuses ex nihilo as well as de novo creation. Plato suggested de novo creation. Platonic view is that although the material component of the world is eternal, its form or structure was imposed by God during creation, as de novo.
The Big Bang theory may be one way for the verse, quoted as epigraph, to be true. Even if there were prior Big Bangs before our Bang some 13.7 billion years ago, it does not change the truth of this verse.
Let me now quote a commentary of the verse: “He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth, and when He decrees something, He says only, ‘Be,’ and it is.” (Al Quran 2:117) The commentary is from, The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary, by Seyyed Hossein Nasr:
Decrees translates qaḍā, which can also mean ‘to accomplish,’ ‘to complete,’ or ‘to judge.’ The creative command Be! is also found in 6:73; 16:40; 36:82; 40:68. In each case, all that is necessary to bring a thing into being is for God to say Be! In connection with the previous verse, similar language can also be found with regard to Jesus’ creation in 3:59: Truly the likeness of Jesus in the Sight of God is that of Adam; He created him from dust, then said to him, ‘Be!’ and he was; and 19:35: It is not for God to beget a child. Glory be to Him! When He decrees a thing, He only says to it, ‘Be!’ and it is. For some commentators such as al-Rāzī, the command Be! is meant to convey the ease and power by which God creates, requiring no preparation, practice, or effort. This view rejects the idea of a sequence of (1) a thing’s nonexistence, (2) God’s saying Be! and (3) its existence, since one cannot address nothing, and if something exists, it does not need the Be! in order to exist. Others say Be! neither precedes nor follows the creation of a thing, but is coterminous with it (Q). This verse is also understood as confirming that God knows things prior to their creation, and hence before their existence (Q).
This latter idea is expanded upon by Ibn ʿArabī and many members of his school, who explain that God says Be! to the forms (or “immutable essences,” al-aʿyān al-thābitah) in His Knowledge, meaning His Knowledge of His own Qualities and Attributes. That is to say, God knows what He will create and brings His Will and Power to bear upon that object of knowledge in order to create it by saying Be! Being within God’s Knowledge, it is not nothing, but neither is it yet created, nor does it possess existence. Ultimately, these views converge on the unity of God’s Knowledge, Will, and Power as His inseparable Attributes and on God’s complete self-sufficiency in relation to what He creates. Be! (kun) also corresponds to the Biblical fiat lux (“Let there be light,” Genesis 1:3) and serves to emphasize the fact that the existence of everything comes from God and His Will and that human beings do not have the power to bring anything into being out of nothing.
Muhammad, may peace be on him, could have known Aristotle’s view as well as what is in the Bible. Now, in an age of Google, I am able to quickly pick up Biblical verses about creation ex nihilo. Here they are:
Psalms 33:6 (RSV) By the word of the LORD [i.e., not by existing matter] the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
Isaiah 44:24 . . . “I am the LORD, who made all things . . . “
Wisdom 1:14 For he created all things that they might exist, . . .
John 1:3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. . . .
1 Corinthians 8:6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
Ephesians 3:9 . . . God who created all things;
Colossians 1:16 for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and for him.
Hebrews 2:10 . . . he, for whom and by whom all things exist . . .
2 Peter 3:5 . . . by the word of God [i.e., not by existing matter] heavens existed long ago . . .
Revelation 4:11 “. . . our Lord and God, . . . didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created.”
The Christian reading of some of the above verses is a Triune creator and John 1:3 may be suggesting Jesus to be the Creator.
Muhammad had no way to find a sublime articulation of creation ex nihilo, while busy fighting for his life and message in a defensive war. Additionally, he was not literate.
This reminds me of the opening verses of Surah Furqan:
Exalted is He who has sent the Differentiator down to His servant so that it may be a warning to all people. It is He who has control over the heavens and earth and has no offspring––no one shares control with Him––and who created all things and made them to an exact measure. Yet the disbelievers take as their gods things beneath Him that create nothing, and are themselves created, that can neither harm nor help themselves, and have no control over death, life, or resurrection. The disbelievers say, ‘This can only be a lie he has forged with the help of others’––they themselves have done great wrong and told lies––and they say, ‘It is just ancient fables, which he has had written down: they are dictated to him morning and evening.’ Say, ‘It was sent down by Him who knows the secrets of the heavens and earth. He is all forgiving, all merciful. (Al Quran 25:1-6)
For me to demonstrate creation ex nihilo, as suggested in the above commentary of the Quranic verse by Nasr, I need Robert Lawrence Kuhn[1] (born November 6, 1944), who is a public intellectual, corporate strategist, and investment banker. He is the author and editor of over 25 books, a columnist for major Chinese and international newspapers, and a media commentator on topics related to China. Kuhn is a recipient of the China Reform Friendship Medal and a long-time adviser to the Chinese government.[2] He has been called “one of the Western world’s most prolific interpreters of Beijing’s policies”.[3] He has now become a prolific producer of short documentaries, under the title Closer to Truth.
Closer to Truth is a continuing television series on PBS and public television stations, created, executive-produced, written and hosted by Kuhn, and produced and directed by Peter Getzels.[9] The series premiered in 2000 and is in its 19th season (Closer to Truth: Cosmos. Consciousness. Meaning/God). It offers conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, theologians and scholars on topics such as cosmology, physics, philosophy of science, consciousness (brain/mind), and philosophy of religion. Kuhn’s presentation, “Asking Ultimate Questions”, serves as the foundation of Closer To Truth.[10]
So, without further adoo, let me present one of his videos:
Now let us proceed to two other documentaries to conceptualize ‘nothing’ better:
…
The last interviewee in the above video David Bentley Hart, starting around minute 16, takes us to God as the Creator ex nihilo of our universe, as a necessity. In the concluding remarks, Kuhn raises four possibilities for why there is anything at all:
It is not a valid question, the laws of physics are what they are.
The laws of physics can bring universe into existence from quantum heavy nothing.
The question cannot be answered within physics and can be tackled only within philosophy.
The contingent series of causes, however long, should terminate into something that is an ultimate necessity.
Kuhn did not give a name for the fourth and the last possibility, while picture of David Hart played, who had made the best case for God, as a necessity. Kuhn then said that each of these possibilities is attacked by some.
Now, if we can suitably exclude the first three then in light of David Bentley Hart’s interview in the last video above, the theists have a strong case for creation ex nihilo, as stated in the Quran and Unitarian as opposed to Trinitarian reading of the Bible.
Some scientists and mathematicians take mathematics to be eternal or self existent. But, how can that be? Mathematics are like thoughts that require a conscious being for their very existence. Robert Lawrence Kuhn has created enough videos in his series, Closer to Truth, for me to demonstrate that: Laws of Nature and Mathematics are not Eternal or Platonic.
We sent Noah and Abraham, and gave prophethood and scripture to their offspring: among them there were some who were rightly guided, but many were lawbreakers. We sent other messengers to follow in their footsteps. After those We sent Jesus, son of Mary: We gave him the Gospel and put compassion and mercy into the hearts of his followers. But monasticism was something they invented– We did not ordain it for them– only to seek God’s pleasure, and even so, they did not observe it properly. So We gave a reward to those of them who believed, but many of them were lawbreakers. (Al Quran 57:26-27)
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times
The Quranic verses mentioned as the Epigraph before this video are one of the most friendly sections of the Quran for the Christians, so I am starting off on that note to invite them to the above video, which is a polite and insightful, yet fair evaluation of the question of Trinity.
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He calls Trinity an exercise in mental gymnastics and I know that many thoughtful believing Christians will call it a mystery. The only way I can make sense of it is to see it through the prism of Soren Kierkgaard, who was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author:
It is not the business of any Christian writer or preacher to dilute Christianity to suit the general educated public. The doctrine of the incarnation was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, and so will it always be, for the doctrine not only transcends reason; it the paradox par excellence; and it can be affirmed only by faith, with passionate inwardness and interest. The substitution of reason for faith means the death of Christianity.
Christianity is perfectly sandwiched between Judaism and Islam and that is the best argument for unitarian Monotheism. That is how it was and also how it was revealed in the final scripture the holy Quran.
If you are a Christian and have come this far in this post, may I suggest, to read on and in the words of Sir Francis Bacon, “Read not to contradict … but to weigh and consider.”
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Epilogue
In the final analysis, Trinity can only be understood through the history of it’s formulation through the first six Ecumenical Councils, spread over the fourth to the seventh century.
Christianity evolved in presence of large pagan population in the Roman Empire.
In my humble opinion the social and the political coercion during the two millennia of the Christian history, has created the mystery of Trinity.
The most dramatic manifestation of which was the burning on the stake of Michael Servetus in the seventeenth century, he among his other guilts had written two books to demystify Trinity.
The Quranic Compassion 