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.
Oh Prophet, when your Lord took out the offspring from the loins of the Children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves, He said, ‘Am I not your Lord?’ and they replied, ‘Yes, we bear witness.’ So you cannot say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘We were not aware of this.’ (Al Quran 7:172)
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Collected by Zia H Shah, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times
Dr. Yasir Qadhi is no hero of mine. I strongly disagree with his scientific stance about evolution and Jinns and his religious tolerance stance about other faiths and sects of Islam. Having said that I completely agree with his presentation about the Primordial Covenant above.
This is how I understand the Quran teaches us about our academic and real life adversaries:
And let not the adversity of a people, that they hindered you from the Sacred Mosque, incite you to transgress. And help one another in righteousness and piety; but help not one another in sin and transgression. And fear Allah; surely, Allah is severe in punishment. (Al Quran 5:2)
Below is the commentary of the above verse by Seyyed Hossein Nasr et al. This is a recently published multiauthor commentary, published in USA, which has incorporated more than 40 traditional Islamic commentaries and has chosen one or two alphabets to reference them. I am going to divide Nasr’s commentary into four parts.
The first part brings out those traditional commentators that interpret the verse literally and suggest a literal meeting:
This verse is in many ways the cornerstone of Islamic sacred history and anthropology and establishes that the fundamental relationship between God and all human beings is premised upon the simple, unmediated recognition of His Lordship at the moment of their pretemporal creation (see the essay “The Quranic View of Sacred History and Other Religions”). The event recounted in this verse is widely referred to as a pretemporal covenant (mīthāq) or pact (ʿahd)—although these terms do not appear in the verse itself—made by God with all of humanity prior to their earthly existence (Aj, R, Ṭ). It is connected by commentators with a pretemporal covenant between God and the prophets (3:81; 33:7) and considered by some to be subsequent to it (ST). The Quran mentions covenants or pacts between God and the believers generally (5:1, 7; 6:152; 13:20, 25; 16:91, 95; 57:8) as well as covenants with Abraham (2:124–25), the Israelites (2:40, 63, 83–84, 93; 4:154; 5:70), the Christians (5:14), and the People of the Book collectively (3:187). But the making of the covenant described in the present verse is unmediated and universal—contracted directly between God and all humanity—and can thus be interpreted as the basis of all later and specific covenants mediated by the prophets. This verse is also connected with the Quranic notion of the fiṭrah (IK, Ṭ), the primordial nature (30:30) with which all human beings were originally endowed, indicating that the innate recognition of God’s Oneness constitutes the essence of being human (see 30:30c). Even though human beings do not remember the pretemporal covenant, their testimony to God’s Lordship is understood to have left an indelible imprint upon their souls and to have established moral responsibility for them (Q). When these souls are engendered in earthly bodies and reach the age of moral understanding and accountability, the innate knowledge is reawakened in those who believe by their encounter with prophetic teachings, scriptures, and Divine laws, which serve as a reminder and renewal of their initial covenant with God (Aj). Therefore, if a child dies before reaching the age of moral and religious responsibility, he or she is considered to have died according to the first covenant (mīthāq) and the original fiṭrah, and so in a state of moral purity. However, for those who fail to affirm the original covenant by rejecting the later covenant—that is, by denying the messages brought to them by their prophets and scriptures—their initial covenant will not benefit them (IK, Q, Ṭ, Ṭs). Some describe this pretemporal event as one in which God brought forth all the progeny of Adam from his loins, specifically; some argue that this was done immediately after God had blown His Spirit into Adam (15:29; 32:9; 38:72; Ṭ), and others debate whether it occurred before or after his fall to earth (Mw, Q).
The second part brings out some difficulties or contradictions in a literal understanding and suggests a metaphorical interpretation:
Many observe, however, that God takes the progeny not from Adam, but from the Children of Adam and from their loins (plural; IK, R, Ṭ), indicating simply that He brought forth all future generations that have appeared and will appear until the end of time (Mw). Progeny translates dhurriyah (or in some readings, the plural dhurriyāt), which derives from a root that in its most literal sense denotes small particles, atoms, or seeds that are scattered, but also connotes ‘progeny’ or ‘offspring’ in over a dozen Quranic verses (e.g., 2:124; 3:34; 4:9). Some commentators indicate that the progeny were drawn forth in the form of ‘particles’ or ‘seeds’ (dharr; IK, R, Ṭ), suggesting the physically unformed state of the children of Adam during this encounter. But some questioned how it was possible for the progeny as ‘particles’ to hear and respond to God’s question; and because the intellect was not considered to manifest itself in human beings until years after birth, they also questioned how these ‘particles’ knew what they were saying or could be held accountable for it (R). Given these issues, some commentators consider this verse a symbolic description of an innate covenant (Z) or a symbolic description of the temporal process by which human beings realize Divine Oneness—arguing that as individuals grow in intellect and contemplate the world around them, the existence of a single God becomes innately clear to them, and they witness to this truth inwardly (Q, R, Ṭs, Ṭū), since they bear this knowledge already in their primordial nature.
The third part reasserts the literal interpretation, while bringing out other details suggested by Rumi and others:
Others, however, reject this interpretation as against the plain meaning of the text and argue that God temporarily bestowed faculties of intellect, hearing, and speech on the ‘particles,’ or human ‘seed,’ just as He did when He caused the heavens and the earth to respond to Him (41:11; R, Ṭ); see also 41:21, where God endows bodily organs and faculties with the ability to testify. God causes the Children of Adam to bear witness concerning themselves, or ‘against themselves.’ The Quran mentions human beings bearing witness against themselves, in both this world and the Hereafter, through their deeds and their very bodies (cf. 6:130; 7:37; 24:24; 36:65; 41:20–22). In the present verse, their witnessing takes the form of a response to God’s question Am I not your Lord? (A-lastu bi-rabbikum?), understood to be a declarative statement in the form of a question, requiring the hearers to bear witness to its truth. Poetically, some Muslim authors, such as Rūmī, have described the event in this verse as the ‘Day of Alast,’ referring to the first part of the question Am I not your Lord?; ‘Day of Alast’ therefore refers in Islamic thought to a day beyond all days reckoned in time. Their response is Yea (balā, a classical affirmative connoting certainty), we bear witness. Some reports consider we bear witness to have been spoken by other witnesses to their testimony—identified variously as the angels, Adam, the heavens and the earth, or God Himself (IJ, IK, Q, R, Ṭ)—although most consider this a less likely reading. The verse ends by explaining that the purpose of this questioning and witnessing was so that human beings could not come on the Day of Resurrection claiming to have been unaware of God’s Lordship or their duty to worship Him. One may question how one can be responsible, during earthly life, for a testimony one cannot remember having made prior to coming into this world (R). Some commentators have argued that it is precisely this human inability to remember the event described in this verse that points to its symbolic nature and thus reject the idea that a pretemporal covenant, of which most human beings are not conscious and that they cannot recall, could be the basis of a responsibility that is binding upon them (R). When this verse is read in the wider Quranic context and juxtaposed with Quranic prophetic history, however, this pretemporal recognition of God’s Lordship can be understood as creating an innate disposition in human beings toward recognizing and worshipping God during earthly life and toward accepting the prophets and the messages they bring as ‘reminders’ of what human beings already know inwardly, but have merely forgotten. Those who reject the prophets, therefore, are considered willfully ignorant, denying truths that should, in any sincere and morally uncorrupted soul, resonate with a deep but forgotten knowledge of God that nevertheless still exists within them. In this sense, those who deny and reject the prophetic messages sent to them are described as kuffār, a word most commonly translated ‘disbelievers,’ but whose etymological meaning signifies the ‘covering over’ of something, which in the religious sense refers to covering over the innate awareness of the truth of God’s Lordship and Oneness that they bear within themselves. The pretemporal covenant, then, in conjunction with God’s sending of messengers to all people serves as a ‘proof’ against the disbelievers who capriciously or cynically deny prophetic messages that they know deep within themselves to be true.
In the fourth part discussion incorporates predestination and status of leaders in Shiite and sufi tradition:
This verse is also the basis for more elaborate narrations, some of which are attributed to the Prophet, that connect the pretemporal covenant with predestinarian notions. Although the literal reading of this verse suggests that all human beings have made the same covenant recognizing God’s Lordship and therefore have the same possibility for realizing it in earthly life, several reports suggest that human moral destiny is linked to distinctions made among the covenanters on the occasion of this pretemporal covenant. Some reports assert that God removed some progeny from the right side of Adam or with His Right Hand, and these human beings were destined for the Garden, while others were removed from Adam’s left side or with God’s other Hand and were thus destined for Hell (Q, Ṭ). Still other reports indicate that some covenanters bore witness only reluctantly or deceptively (IJ, Qm, ST, Ṭ), although this interpretation is rejected by other authorities. Some early Twelver Shiite traditions indicate that the covenanters on this day were also asked to bear witness to the prophethood of Muhammad and the spiritual authority of the Shiite Imams, but that only some accepted the latter (ʿAy, Qm). Similarly, some early Sufi authors, including al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (third/ninth century), referred to the pretemporal covenant as a moment in which the spiritual elect (khawāṣṣ) were distinguished from the common people (‘awāmm). Given the great importance in Islamic thought of this verse and the event it describes, it was natural for some thinkers to link it with various notions of a spiritual hierarchy among human beings and with the concept of predestination. Yet, although this pretemporal covenant may indeed be linked to human moral destiny in a foundational way, because it created in human beings an innate ability to recognize religious truth, the plain meaning of the verse more plausibly indicates the universal potential in all human beings for moral and spiritual attainment and the acceptance of revelation.
The complexities of these discussions, make it easier to consider the biological development of the fetus and realize that souls do not exist pretemporally and come to being during the fetal development as the brain develops. Therefore, the metaphorical interpretation of this verse and Covenant is not only simple, but scientifically and philosophically coherent.
In the past centuries many Muslims believed that all the human souls were created first and they are sent into fetus at some suitable time. However, here is a clear passage from the Quran to understand that souls get created as the human brains develop in the wombs of the mothers:
It is God who created the heavens and the earth and everything between them in six Days. Then He established Himself on the Throne. You [people] have no one but Him to protect you and no one to intercede for you, so why do you not take heed? He runs everything, from the heavens to the earth, and everything will ascend to Him in the end, on a Day that will measure a thousand years in your reckoning. Such is He who knows all that is unseen as well as what is seen, the Almighty, the Merciful, who gave everything its perfect form. He first created man from clay, then made his descendants from an extract of underrated fluid (semen). Then He molded him; He breathed from His Spirit into him; He gave you hearing, sight, and minds. How seldom you are grateful! (Al Quran 32:4-9)
The truth of this primordial covenant we can often see in our own psychology and of others. One example that I want to quote here is Robert Lawrence Kuhn, who seems to be an agnostic, yet cannot shed the thought of God and has made thousands of videos on the subject of God, theology, freewill, consciousness, cosmology, religion and science. His series is called Closer to Truth and most of them are available in YouTube.
The Quran is a dynamic book and as human understanding evolves so does our appreciation of the holy scripture. And as we see our understanding evolving in one area we can use it sometimes as an example or metaphor to understand other teachings in the modern light.
For instance the understanding of Primordial Covenants have application on human evolution and the meeting of Adam with God, angels and Satan.
We have saved one of the above videos in the Muslim Times as well:
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)
Presented by Zia H Shah MD
The subject matter of all these videos, when the useful is separated from the froth or the contradictions excluded, becomes a wonderful commentary of the verses quoted above as epigraph.
I think logical discussion of this most important question ultimately leads to God. To achieve this one has to learn from all the philosophers presented here. Jim Holt defines the issues very well and his book on the subject is linked below.
In the above video John Leslie lays out 5 different possibilities and to me the last one, a possible mind behind the universe, is the only one that makes sense.
So, the first 18 minutes of discussions above seem to be rationalizations of atheist minds. But, it is important to suffer through them to know the contemporary philosophical debates.
The discussion of the fifth option starts at minute 19 of the video and makes better sense to someone with theist inclinations as we get to hear two theologians, John Polkinhorn and Richard Swinburn. The moderator of the above video, Robert Lawrence Kuhn in his concluding remarks favors the fifth option. He lays out God as a possibility but does not take the final leap.
He suggests mathematical laws as a competitor creator, but, how can that be? According to Stephen Hawking, “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”
Three quarter of top mathematicians believe that mathematical equations exist necessarily in a platonic sense. But how can mathematical equations exist in a mindless vacuum?
Obviously, God existing necessarily can be discussed in greater lengths from different perspectives and that should be handled as a separate and independent discussion, divorced from anything else one may be discussing in the moment. Here is a suggested article: Video: Is God Necessary or Who Made God?
God being the Creator is the most important discussion to establish the Monotheism of Abrahamic faiths. It is not only the key to present Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the agnostics and atheists, but is ultimately the main argument to understand our accountability and Afterlife: Surah Qaf: The First Creation as the Foremost Proof for Afterlife.
In other places in the Quran also, God is presented as the Originator, with the additional emphasis of refuting the Christian dogma and that it is an easy task for the All-Powerful God:
The Originator of the heavens and the earth! How can He have a son when He has no consort, and when He has created everything and has knowledge of all things? 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 6:101-103)
See they not how Allah originates creation, then repeats it? That surely is easy for Allah. Say, ‘Travel in the earth, and see how He originated the creation. Then will Allah provide the latter creation.’ Surely, Allah has power over all things. (Al Quran 29:19-20)
So, now in light of all these verses, let us listen to the philosophers below. When their eyes cannot reach God, because of limits of human knowledge and science, they begin to propose some irrational ideas in the name of science, philosophy, physics and mathematics.
But, if we examine the question, why is there anything at all, with an open mind, we are inevitably led to God.
For a greater in depth understanding please review what follows:
Colin McGinn first examines the quality of the question. He ultimately comes to the conclusion that something needs to exist necessarily or as self existence. He further goes onto say that logic, numbers and mathematics exist necessarily and we examined the futility of that above. Only thing in my opinion that necessarily exists is God: Video: Is God Necessary or Who Made God?
David Bentley Hart is a Christian theist philosopher, so among all the interviewees here he makes the strongest case for God.
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Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story
By Jim Holt
“I can imagine few more enjoyable ways of thinking than to read this book.” —Sarah Bakewell, New York Times Book Review, front-page review
Tackling the “darkest question in all of philosophy” with “raffish erudition” (Dwight Garner, The New York Times), author Jim Holt explores the greatest metaphysical mystery of all: why is there something rather than nothing? This runaway best seller, which has captured the imagination of critics and the public alike, traces our latest efforts to grasp the origins of the universe. Holt adopts the role of cosmological detective, traveling the globe to interview a host of celebrated scientists, philosophers, and writers, “testing the contentions of one against the theories of the other” (Jeremy Bernstein, Wall Street Journal). As he interrogates his list of ontological culprits, the brilliant yet slyly humorous Holt contends that we might have been too narrow in limiting our suspects to God versus the Big Bang. This “deft and consuming” (David Ulin, Los Angeles Times) narrative humanizes the profound questions of meaning and existence it confronts.
Epigraph: He is the First and the Last, and the Manifest and the Hidden, and He knows all things full well. (Al Quran 57:3) We have created the heavens and […]
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 […]
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times This is an article describing the Transcendent, yet Personal God of the Abrahamic Faiths in the present […]
Source: TheQuran.Love Introduction The Surah very precisely and concisely highlights a very common theme in the Quran of a Creator God, Who has created humans and this universe for a […]
Suggested reading Trinity: An apple cannot be a rock and a monkey at the same time … Video: The most famous Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, accepts there is no Trinity […]
Epigraph: And He (Allah) gave you all that you wanted of Him; and if you try to count the favors of Allah, you will not be able to number them. Indeed, […]
Source: The Muslim Sunrise Fall 2019, the longest running Muslim publication of North America, since 1922 Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times Let […]
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: He is the First and the Last, and the Manifest and the Hidden, and He knows all things full well. (Al Quran 57:3) We have created the heavens and […]
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times In the very beginning of the Quran we read: This is the perfect Book, free from all doubt; […]
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: 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: 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 […]
Epigraph: أَمْ خُلِقُوا مِنْ غَيْرِ شَيْءٍ أَمْ هُمُ الْخَالِقُونَ أَمْ خَلَقُوا السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ ۚ بَل لَّا يُوقِنُونَ Have they been created from nothing, or are they their own creators? Have they created […]
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times One of my insights of presenting different videos of Robert Lawrence Kuhn, Closer to Truth, about God it […]
Epigraph The Creator of the heavens and earth! How could He have children when He has no spouse, when He created all things, and has full knowledge of all things? […]
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times This is an article describing the Transcendent, yet Personal God of the Abrahamic Faiths in the present […]
Source: TheQuran.Love Introduction The Surah very precisely and concisely highlights a very common theme in the Quran of a Creator God, Who has created humans and this universe for a […]
Suggested reading Trinity: An apple cannot be a rock and a monkey at the same time … Video: The most famous Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, accepts there is no Trinity […]
Allah — there is no God but He, the Living, the Self-Subsisting and All-Sustaining. Slumber seizes Him not, nor sleep. To Him belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth. Who is he that will intercede with Him except by His permission? He knows what is before them and what is behind them; and they encompass nothing of His knowledge except what He pleases. His knowledge extends over the heavens and the earth; and the care of them burdens Him not; and He is the High, the Great. (Al Quran 2:255)
Research suggests a belief in oneness has broad implications for psychological functioning and compassion for those outside of our immediate circle.
We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness.” — Albert Einstein
“In our quest for happiness and the avoidance of suffering, we are all fundamentally the same, and therefore equal. Despite the characteristics that differentiate us – race, language, religion, gender, wealth and many others – we are all equal in terms of our basic humanity.” — Dalai Lama (on twitter)
The belief that everything in the universe is part of the same fundamental whole exists throughout many cultures and philosophical, religious, spiritual, and scientific traditions, as captured by the phrase ‘all that is.’ The Nobel winner Erwin Schrodinger once observed that quantum physics is compatible with the notion that there is indeed a basic oneness of the universe. Therefore, despite it seeming as though the world is full of many divisions, many people throughout the course of human history and even today truly believe that individual things are part of some fundamental entity.
Despite the prevalence of this belief, there has been a lack of a well validated measure in psychology that captures this belief. While certain measures of spirituality do exist, the belief in oneness questions are typically combined with other questions that assess other aspects of spirituality, such as meaning, purpose, sacredness, or having a relationship with God. What happens when we secularize the belief in oneness?
In a series of studies, Kate Diebels and Mark Leary set out to find out. In their first study, they found that only 20.3% of participants had thought about the oneness of all things “often” or “many times”, while 25.9% of people “seldom” thought about the oneness of all things, and 12.5% of people “never” had thought about it.
The researchers also created a 6-item “Belief in Oneness Scale” consisting of the following items:
Beyond surface appearances, everything is fundamentally one.
Although many seemingly separate things exist, they all are part of the same whole.
At the most basic level of reality, everything is one.
The separation among individual things is an illusion; in reality everything is one.
Everything is composed of the same basic substance, whether one thinks of it as spirit, consciousness, quantum processes, or whatever.
The same basic essence permeates everything that exists.
Those who scored higher on this scale were much more likely to have an identity that extends beyond the individual to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, nature, and even the cosmos. In fact, a belief in oneness was more strongly related to feeling connected with distant people and aspects of the natural world than with people with whom one is close! Also, while a belief in oneness was related to actual experiences of oneness (“mystical experiences”), there was no relationship between a belief in oneness and feeling closer to God during a spiritual experience.
In their second study, the researchers looked at values and self-views that might be related to the belief in oneness. They found that a belief in oneness was related to values indicating a universal concern for the welfare of other people, as well as greater compassion for other people. A belief in oneness was also associated with feeling connected to others through a recognition of our common humanity, common problems, and common imperfections. At the same time, there was no relationship between a belief in oneness and the degree to which people endorsed self-focused values such as hedonism, self-direction, security, or achievement. This means that people can have a belief in oneness and still have a great deal of self-care, healthy boundaries, and self-direction in life.
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:
He is the First and the Last, and the Manifest and the Hidden, and He knows all things full well. (Al Quran 57:3)
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times
Why is Intelligent Design Movement (ID) bad science? I will leave that discussion mostly to the contemporary scientists. They have said enough in defense of modern science. I will start off with introducing ID, its scientific lack of merit and then describe two broad categories of reasons why it is bad theology.
ID is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as “an evidence-based scientific theory about life’s origins”.[1][2][3][4][5] Proponents claim that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”[6] ID is a form of creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, and is therefore not science.[7][8][9] The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute, a Christian, politically conservative think tank based in the United States.[n 1]
If my articles are boring to you, it may be that you need to read more of them, as was suggested by John Cage, an American musician, “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”
ID presents two main arguments against evolutionary explanations: irreducible complexity and specified complexity, asserting that certain biological and informational features of living things are too complex to be the result of natural selection. Detailed scientific examination has rebutted several examples for which evolutionary explanations are claimed to be impossible.
One should consider the latter as equivalent to atheism. So, as a devout Muslim, who believes in transcendent Unitarian God of the Abrahamic faiths, I cannot accept metaphysical naturalism, but I fully believe and endorse methodological naturalism. In fact I often use it not only to deny pseudoscience but also bad theology. It is my main weapon against bad theology.
So what are these terms that distinguish me from ID on the one hand and from the atheist scientists on the other?
In philosophy, naturalism is the idea that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe.[1] In its primary sense[2] it is also known as ontological naturalism, metaphysical naturalism, pure naturalism, philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism. “Ontological” refers to ontology, the philosophical study of what exists. Philosophers often treat naturalism as equivalent to materialism.
For example, philosopher Paul Kurtz argues that nature is best accounted for by reference to material principles. These principles include mass, energy, and other physical and chemical properties accepted by the scientific community. Further, this sense of naturalism holds that spirits, deities, and ghosts are not real and that there is no “purpose” in nature. This stronger formulation of naturalism is commonly referred to as metaphysical naturalism.[3] On the other hand, the more moderate view that naturalism should be assumed in one’s working methods as the current paradigm, without any further consideration of whether naturalism is true in the robust metaphysical sense, is called methodological naturalism.[4]
The term “methodological naturalism” is much more recent, though. According to Ronald Numbers, it was coined in 1983 by Paul de Vries, a Wheaton College philosopher. De Vries distinguished between what he called “methodological naturalism”, a disciplinary method that says nothing about God’s existence, and “metaphysical naturalism”, which “denies the existence of a transcendent God”.[23] The term “methodological naturalism” had been used in 1937 by Edgar S. Brightman in an article in The Philosophical Review as a contrast to “naturalism” in general, but there the idea was not really developed to its more recent distinctions.[24]
ID seeks to challenge the methodological naturalism inherent in modern science,[2][16] though proponents concede that they have yet to produce a scientific theory.[17] As a positive argument against evolution, ID proposes an analogy between natural systems and human artifacts, a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God.[1][n 2] ID proponents then conclude by analogy that the complex features, as defined by ID, are evidence of design.[18][n 3] Critics of ID find a false dichotomy in the premise that evidence against evolution constitutes evidence for design.[19][20]
Before we go any further, let me suggest to the open minded readers, to read on and in the words of Sir Francis Bacon, “Read not to contradict … but to weigh and consider.”
Now, moving to the second part of my article as to why ID is bad theology. It is bad theology for they often present God of the gaps. Which means inserting God in gaps of knowledge that are not yet understood by science but over time we begin to have better understanding of these domains. Secondly, they violate a principal tribute of the Unitarian God of the Abrahamic faiths, namely that He is Al Baatin الْبَاطِنُ or the Hidden as documented in the verses quoted as epigraph of this article.
The transcendent God of Abrahamic faiths is beyond time, space and matter and we cannot find his fingerprint or hand in a scientific paradigm.
The mistakes of ID are very evident in the biography of one of its pioneers William Dembski, otherwise a very knowledgeable scholar and his work I can use in Monotheistic metaphysics. Please note my emphasis in metaphysics not in science or physics.
Dembski has written books about intelligent design, including The Design Inference (1998), Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology (1999), The Design Revolution (2004), The End of Christianity (2009), and Intelligent Design Uncensored (2010). The second and revised edition of his first book has appeared in 2023. All his books can be useful for the Abrahamic or the Muslim metaphysics.
Why is he a bad scientist and a bad theologian, while qualifying in my opinion as a very good metaphysician and philosopher?
Dembski objects to the presence of the theory of evolution in a variety of disciplines, presenting intelligent design as an alternative to reductionist materialism that gives a sense of purpose that the unguided evolutionary process lacks[85] and the ultimate significance of ID is its success in undermining materialism and naturalism.[32] Dembski has also stated that ID has little chance as a serious scientific theory as long as methodological naturalism is the basis for science.[86] Although intelligent design proponents (including Dembski) have made little apparent effort to publish peer-reviewed scientific research to support their hypotheses, in recent years they have made vigorous efforts to promote the teaching of intelligent design in schools.[87] Dembski is a strong supporter of this drive as a means of making young people more receptive to intelligent design, and said he wants “to see intelligent design flourish as a scientific research program” among a “new generation of scholars” willing to consider the theory and textbooks that include it.[88]
In December 2007, Dembski told Focus on the Family that “The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.”[90]
So, if he is going to be an apologist for the Triune God of Christianity then every thing I have written against the dogma of Christianity, resurrection, vicarious atonement is a demonstration of his bad theology. Nevertheless, I am an apologist for God of Judaism, Unitarian Christianity and Islam and for Afterlife. I present my arguments as theology, philosophy or metaphysics and never as science and in that domain I would borrow from his scholarship.
I am a firm believer in a quote attributed to the 16th century Christian martyr Michael Servetus:
Dembski is also presenting bad theology because he probably considers miracles as violation of the natural law and I do not. He believes that he can catch the fingerprint or hand of God in the workings of our universe, while I believe in the Most Subtle and the Hidden الْبَاطِنُ God of the Quran, whom eyes cannot reach. But, He chooses to reach human consciousness, when He wills, through veils.
Dembski also knows bad religion or bad theology when he sees it. He once took his family to a meeting conducted by Todd Bentley, a faith healer, in hopes of receiving a “miraculous healing” for his son, who is autistic.[100][101] In an article for the Baptist Press he recalled disappointment with the nature of the meeting and with the prevention of his son and other attendees from joining those in wheelchairs who were selected to receive prayer. He then concluded, “Minimal time was given to healing, though plenty was devoted to assaulting our senses with blaring insipid music and even to Bentley promoting and selling his own products (books and CDs).” He wrote that he did not regret the trip and called it an “education,” which showed “how easily religion can be abused, in this case to exploit our family.”[101]
Shall we say that he has not woken up to the limitations of some of the dogma of Christianity? Let me, very respectfully, suggest additional reading materials:
God may still bring about affection between you and your present enemies – God is all powerful, God is most forgiving and merciful.
He does not forbid you to deal kindly and justly with anyone who has not fought you for your faith or driven you out of your homes: God loves the just.
But God forbids you to take as allies those who have fought against you for your faith, driven you out of your homes, and helped others to drive you out: any of you who take them as allies will truly be wrongdoers. (Al Quran 60:7-9)
Francis Collins talks about Christopher Hitchens towards the end of his above Templeton Award speech.
Below a brief CV of both and let the 21 minute speech do the talking to overcome hatred among Monotheists of different shades among the Abrahamic faiths and the perpetual sectarian prejudice bordering on hatred among the Muslims of different sects.
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British author, journalist and educator.[2][3] Author of 18 books on faith, culture, politics and literature, he was born and educated in Britain, graduating in the 1970s from Oxford with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. In the early 1980s, he emigrated to the United States and wrote for The Nation and Vanity Fair. Known as “one of the ‘four horsemen'” (along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett) of New Atheism, he gained prominence as a columnist and speaker. His epistemological razor, which states that “what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence”, is still of mark in philosophy and law.[4][5]
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:
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times
If God exists strict materialism or physicalism is not true.
What is a true dream? If the content of a dream cannot be explained by the conscious or subconscious mind of the recipient and it carries specific, new and useful information then it suggests a Transcendent source. A source that can communicate with the recipient during his or her sleep.
In philosophy, naturalism is the idea that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe.[1] In its primary sense[2] it is also known as ontological naturalism, metaphysical naturalism, pure naturalism, philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism. “Ontological” refers to ontology, the philosophical study of what exists. Philosophers often treat naturalism as equivalent to materialism.
On the other hand, the more moderate view that naturalism should be assumed in one’s working methods as the current paradigm, without any further consideration of whether naturalism is true in the robust metaphysical sense, is called methodological naturalism.[4]
I believe in methodological naturalism as I aspire to be a scientist, but not in ontological or metaphysical naturalism, as I believe in God and Afterlife. A single true revelation will defeat ontological naturalism, because it suggests a Transcendent source, for the new information in the dream.
Four-Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation in the Bible
I don’t specifically believe in Four-Horsemen of the Apocalypse specifically. But, I found the picture as a suitable representation for revelation in general.
If a Jew or Christian feels sure of a single Biblical verse and is able to demonstrate that it does not have a human explanation then materialism or physicalism is defeated. Likewise, if a Muslim like me knows of a single Quranic verse that rises above human explanation it becomes a defeater for materialism or physicalism. Even a true dream of a scientists, a poet, a musician, which gives him or her any new information that cannot be derived from the subconscious mind of the recipient defeats materialism or physicalism. Three articles are linked at the end of this article.
Below is a recent survey of academic philosophers on 30 different questions including, atheism, naturalism and mind:
In the above survey 72% of the academic philosophers are atheist, 50% are naturalists and 57% regard mind to be also physical.
Now, I quote from the magazine Nature, about demographics of belief in God or Afterlife among the leading scientists:
The question of religious belief among US scientists has been debated since early in the century. Our latest survey finds that, among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever — almost total.
Research on this topic began with the eminent US psychologist James H. Leuba and his landmark survey of 1914. He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 “greater” scientists within his sample1. Leuba repeated his survey in somewhat different form 20 years later, and found that these percentages had increased to 67 and 85, respectively2.
In 1996, we repeated Leuba’s 1914 survey and reported our results in Nature3. We found little change from 1914 for American scientists generally, with 60.7% expressing disbelief or doubt. This year, we closely imitated the second phase of Leuba’s 1914 survey to gauge belief among “greater” scientists, and find the rate of belief lower than ever — a mere 7% of respondents.
Leuba attributed the higher level of disbelief and doubt among “greater” scientists to their “superior knowledge, understanding, and experience”2. Similarly, Oxford University scientist Peter Atkins commented on our 1996 survey, “You clearly can be a scientist and have religious beliefs. But I don’t think you can be a real scientist in the deepest sense of the word because they are such alien categories of knowledge.”4 Such comments led us to repeat the second phase of Leuba’s study for an up-to-date comparison of the religious beliefs of “greater” and “lesser” scientists.
Our chosen group of “greater” scientists were members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality). Overall comparison figures for the 1914, 1933 and 1998 surveys appear in Table 1.
The whole of the article in Nature is available in PDF version:
In this debate very early on Michael Egnor asks David Papineau as to what is the physical cause of Big Bang and does not get a straight forward answer. Around minute 46 he asks Papineau for a cogent explanation of quantum physics in the materialistic framework? Does Quantum physics and / or extra dimensions of string theory provide for materialism to be false ontologically?
I do believe in methodological naturalism and that I believe is perfectly in keeping with the Quranic theology, given the following two very well known verses:
Eyes cannot reach Him but He reaches the eyes. And He is the Incomprehensible, the All-Aware. (Al Quran 6:103)
His 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. (Al Quran 57:2-3)
God being the Hidden implies that he operates through laws of nature and we cannot see Him or His providence directly.
Now, I will share articles to suggest that sometimes scientists, mathematicians and others have received very convincing revelations from the All Knowing:
The Quranic Compassion 