Dawah to Atheists and Deists Part II

Consequently, of the many verses in the Qur’aan addressing God’s attributes, only few address His existence. In Soorah at-Toor (52):35-6, Allaah said:

“Were they created from nothing or did they create themselves. Or did they create the heavens and earth? Indeed, they are uncertain.”

Logic and reason is used to convince humans that
there must be a Creator. Allaah gives the three logical possibilities for human creation in these verses:

a) Humans were created from nothing or by nothing. This proposal violates basic reason. Something cannot come from nothing. Nothing cannot create something.

b) Humans created themselves. This is also an illogical and contradictory proposition. To create ones’ self, one must already exist. But to be created one must first not exist.

c) Humans were created by something already created. This implies in infinite regression of causes which ultimately means that humans do not exist. If C1 were caused by C2, and C2 by C3 to CN, then C1 cannot exist

unless C2 does, etc. And CN means that it has no beginning. Consequently, C1 cannot exist. In other words, if human existence is preceded by an infinite amount of causes requiring an infinite amount of time to take place, it is the same as saying that they will never take place. Human existence thus becomes impossible. The Greek philosopher Aristotle argued similarly that the infinite regression of the cause and effect chain was impossible.

The only remaining possibility is that humans and other created things were created by a

being which is not itself created.

Belief in God includes the belief that God alone is the Creator and Sustainer of this world.

Nothing takes place in the universe without His permission. No good can be obtained nor harm avoided unless Allaah decrees it. Humans are enjoined to seek refuge in the Lord of the Dawn from the evil of what He created.2 Allaah does not attribute evil directly to Himself, because He is Good and all which comes from His is Good. The evil which comes from Allaah is relative evil. It may be good from other perspectives but evil in one perspective. For example, sunshine is essential for plants to grow and synthesize chlorophyll, yet it causes the rivers and lakes to dry up leading to drought, famine and death. Rain is also essential for plants to grow, yet it also causes floods, drowning and death. Pure evil, on the other hand, is a result of human activity. Humans think evil and, if Allaah permits it, they do evil. Allaah on the other hand does not oppress anyone.

“Your Lord does no wrong to anyone.” Soorah al-Kahf (18):49

The evil which humans do is by Allaah’s permission, so that that degree it is from Allaah. But humans are responsible for their evil because it is a product of their choice. Regarding God’s permission, Muslim scholars of the past have distinguished between God’s wish and His will. His wish is sometimes referred to as His Legal Wish, meaning that He wishes for humans Islaam; the right way of life consisting of submission to whatever God has instructed. However, He also gave humans the ability to accept His wish or reject it. Consequently, humans may go against God’s Legal Wish. His will, on the other hand, is referred to as His Creational Will, meaning that what takes place is by his permission alone. Among the things which take place are events beyond human will and events which are in accordance with human will. For example, humans are governed by the laws of “nature” which they cannot escape. If one jumps up, he or she must fall back down. If one’s knee is struck by the doctor, the foot kicks out, no matter how hard the mind fights the reaction. Humans cannot go against Allaah’s Creational Will.

When those who deny God’s existence are asked why they are successful and others who have made similar or greater efforts are not, they reply that it is due to their good-fortune and the others’ bad fortune. And when human life is analyzed it is easily concluded that all of it is controlled by good and bad luck. Consequently, life is looked at as being controlled by the goddess of chance, Tyche, in Greek religion, and Fortuna in Roman. Religious rites involve, knocking on wood, crossing fingers, wearing amulets like four-leaf clovers, rabbits’ feet, and horse shoes, while, at the same time, avoiding black cats, breaking mirrors, spilling salt, and the number 13. The goddess of fortune is more appealing to Western atheism because it is a blind force which does not require obedience nor assign obligations.

As a result of modern Western Civilization’s preoccupation with good luck, business men like Donald Trump, have been reported to fly over Feng Shui experts from Main-land China to guide their architects in the design of their buildings. And the commander of Apollo 13 responded to questions about any doubts he had concerning the lift-off by insisting that he should have known it was going to happen because the flight was Apollo number 13, which took off at 1300 hours (i.e. 1 o’clock) on Friday the 13th.Likewise, most high rise hotels, apartment buildings and office blocks do not have 13^th floors, nor are houses numbered 13. Instead, floor 13 is renamed 14, and house 13 is labeled 12 ½.

Belief in Allaah requires the purification of the heart from any dependency on these and similar superstitions.

Belief in God also means that God alone deserves human worship.

From an Islamic perspective, worship is not merely praising, honoring and offering sacrifices to a deity. To call on the deity for help is a fundamental part of worship. Consequently, calling on anyone other than Allaah in prayer is to worship them. The Prophet’s companion, Nu‘maan ibn Basheer quoted him as saying, “[Calling on anyone in] prayer is worship.”3 If one believes that nothing takes place except by God’s will alone, it makes no sense to call on anyone other than God.

Design Indicates a Designer

The variety and complexity of the intricate systems which constitute the fabric of both human beings and the world in which they exist indicate that there must have been a Supreme Being who created them. Design indicates a designer. When human beings come across footprints on a beach, they immediately conclude that a human being had walked by there some time previously. No one imagines that the waves from the sea settled in the sand and by chance produced a depression looking exactly like human footprints. Nor do humans instinctively conclude that they were brought into existence without a purpose. Since purposeful action is a natural product of human intelligence, humans conclude that the Supreme Intelligent Being who created them must have done so for a specific purpose. Therefore, human beings need to know the purpose for their existence in order to make sense of this life and to do what is ultimately beneficial for them.

Throughout the ages, however, there has been a minority among humans who have denied the existence of God. Matter, in their opinion, is eternal and mankind is merely a chance product of accidental combinations of its elements. Consequently, to them, the question “Why did God create man?” had and still has no answer. According to them, there simply is no purpose to existence. However, the vast majority of humankind over the ages have believed and continue to believe in the existence of a Supreme Being who created this world with a purpose. For them, it was and still is important to know about the Creator and the purpose for which He created human beings.

Many others, as was previously mentioned, claimed and continue to claim that there is no purpose at all. Human existence is merely a product of chance. There can be no purpose if life evolved from inanimate matter which only became animate by pure luck. Humankind’s supposed ‘cousins’, the monkey and apes are not bothered with questions of existence, so why should human beings be bothered with them?

Darwinism Fails

The attempt to explain the origin of life using Darwin’s theory fails at every step. The first step of creating the precursors of life from non-living chemicals has not been experimentally replicated.

Stage One: From inorganic to organic – from the gases which presumably surrounded earth to the simplest amino acids, containing about ten atoms, which are the most basic of the biochemical universals. Experimentally, Stanley Miller in the United States showed in 1953 that by passing an electrical discharge through the appropriate gases, surprisingly large amounts of amino acids were formed. The experiments are acknowledged as a major break through in understanding how life got under way. Since then other essential chemicals have been synthesized. However, until today, five of the twenty amino acids common to all living beings have resisted human attempts to create them artificially. A Russian biochemist by the name of Aleksandr Oparin (1894-1980)7 first proposed in 1924 a model of the atmosphere of the primitive earth free of oxygen (oxygen literally eats up any primitive organic chemicals such as amino acids) containing hydrogen, methane, ammonia and water. Life on earth is shielded from certain death due to ultraviolet cosmic rays by the ozone layer, which blankets the earth between fifteen and thirty miles above the surface. Without oxygen in the atmosphere of the primitive there would have been no ozone layer and the first living organisms would have been wiped out by cosmic rays, and with oxygen present, the first amino acid could not have been produced. Imaginative and elaborate solutions have been written to solve this riddle. But for every suggestion, there is an insurmountable objection.

Stage Two: Assuming that there was (around 4 billion years ago) a sea with a 10% solution of amino acids, sugars, phosphates, and so on, two major steps have to take place simultaneously. Amino acids must link together to form proteins and other chemicals must join up to make nucleic acids, including the vital DNA. Proteins depend on DNA for their formation and DNA cannot form without pre-existing protein. Nor is it relatively easy chemistry. Proteins are highly complex molecules. Where an amino acid typically has ten atoms, a protein may have thousands.

Stage Three: The formation of the nucleus.

Stage Four: The formation of the cell wall.

Deism. 1. The belief that God exists and created the world but thereafter assumed no control over it or the lives of people.

2. In philosophy, the belief that reason is sufficient to prove the existence of God, with the consequent rejection of revelation and authority. (Webster’s, p. 479)

For deists, there is no need to worship because our purpose in this world is unknown. We find our own purposes and whatever we do is okay as long as we do not harm others. The way to deal with this belief is to stress that the need to worship is a natural instinct in all human beings.