by Hamza Andreas Tzortzis (Islamic Education
and Research Academy)
PART III out of III
Uniqueness
The cause of the universe must be unique,
as the Qur’an says “There is nothing like Him”. If the cause of the universe
was not unique that would mean there are some similarities between the cause of
the universe and the universe itself. This is not possible as that would place
the cause of the universe within the universe (if you define the universe as
the sum of all matter) and this would lead to an absurdity as it would imply
that the universe created itself. Now you may ask the question: why can’t the cause
of the universe resemble the universe? The answer is straight forward; this
cause must be immaterial because it created the sum of all material – which is
the universe itself – and another principle that supports this is the 1st law
of thermodynamics, it states “Energy cannot be created or destroyed”, simply
put energy (in other words matter) cannot create itself. If the cause was
material then it would defy this principle as it would mean matter and energy
self create. So you can conclude that the cause of the universe must be
immaterial and therefore unique.
How does this relate to the oneness of
God? Well if there were more than one cause for the universe that would mean
they are not unique anymore. However you may still argue that there can be two
immaterial causes, and I would reply: what does that mean? It would seem that
you are violating Occam’s Razor and I would refer you to the first argument.
Revelation
A simpler way of providing evidence for
God’s oneness is by referring to revelation. The argument here is that if God
has announced himself to humanity and this revelation can be proven to be from
Him, then what He mentions about himself is obviously true. The daring
assumptions, from an agnostic perspective at least, are how do you know God has
announced himself to mankind and in what form is this revelation?
Let’s take the last assumption first. If
God has announced himself to mankind there are only two possible ways to find
out: externally and internally. What I mean by “internally” here is that you
can find out who God is solely by introspection and internalisation and what I
mean by “externally” is that you can find out who God is via communication
outside of yourself, in other words it is instantiated in the mind-independent
world. Finding out about God internally is implausible for the following
reasons,
1.
Human beings are different. They have, what Psychologists call,
“individual differences”, these individual differences include DNA,
experiences, social context, intellectual and emotional capacities, gender
differences, amongst many more. These differences play a role in your ability
to internalise via introspection or intuition, therefore the results of
introspection or relying on your intuition will differ. So you can see that if
these processes where solely used to find out about God there would be
inevitable differences in our conception of Him. This is true from a historical
point of view, since the ancient world 6000 BCE, there are records of
approximately 3,700 different names and concepts for God!
2.
Since the method used to conclude that God does exist is a “common
sense” method, or what philosophers call rational thought and what Muslim
theologians may call innate thinking, then internally trying to find out about
God would lead to fallacies. This is because what can be concluded using the
universe as evidence for a transcendental independent cause is that it must be
eternal, unique, powerful and personal; anything else would be speculation. The
Qur’an aptly mentions “Why do you say about God of that which you have no
knowledge?”
If you try and internalise what God is
would be equivalent of a mouse trying to conceptualise and think like an
Elephant. It is obvious that the human being is not eternal, unique and
powerful, therefore the human being could not conceptualise who God is. God
would have to tell you via external revelation.
Take the
following example into consideration, you know God exists like the knocking of
the door, you safely assume that something is there, but do you know who it is?
You weren’t expecting anyone, so you cry out “who is it?” in order to find out,
and the only way to find out is if the person behind the door tells you. So you
can conclude that if God has said or announced anything it must be external to
the human being.
From an Islamic perspective this external
communication is the Qur’an as it is the only text to claim to have come from
God that fits the criteria for a divine text, these criteria include,
1. It must be consistence with the
rational and intuitive conclusion on God. For example if a book says God is an
Elephant with 40 arms you could safely assume that this book is not from God,
as God must be external to the universe.
2. It must be internally and externally
consistence. In other words if it says on page 20 that God is one and then on
page 340 its says God is 3 that would be an internal inconsistency.
Additionally if the book says that the universe is only 6,000 years old then
that would be an external inconsistency as reality as we know it s that the
universe is older the 6,000 years.
3. It must have signposts to
transcendence. In simple terms it must have evidence to show that it is from
God.
In the case of the Qur’an – and this post
is not the place to discuss this in any depth – cannot be explained
naturalistically therefore supernatural explanations are the best explanation.
Some of these signposts include:
a. The linguistic and literary
inimitability
b. There are historical accounts that
could not have been known by man at the time of revelation
c. There are some descriptions of natural
phenomena that could not have been known by man at the time of revelation
To conclude, since the only way to know
what God has announced to mankind is via external revelation, and this
revelation can be proven to be the Qur’an – then what is says about God is
true. In the context of this discussion the Qur’an says “Know that your Lord
God is one”.
Conclusion
These are some of the arguments that can
be used to show that God is one; however this topic – once truly understood –
will have some profound effects on the human conscious. The oneness of God is
not only related to the fact that He is uniquely one, rather it refers to His
worship, lordship, names and attributes, something that can only be tasted by
pondering on reality, meditating on the meaning of the Qur’an, and becoming a
manifestation of its message. (THE END)
Source: http://www.hamzatzortzis.com
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