‘Why?’ is perhaps the most amusing, but important question children ask that adults seem to have little use for. There is no shortage of things to ask ‘Why?’ about, but like countless souls before you, at some point of your life, you must have asked yourself questions such as, Who am I? Why am I here? How did the universe come into being? What am I doing here? Where do I go from here? These are fundamental questions about human life and about meaning and purpose. These are questions about our universe and where we fit into it.
Your answers to these questions, or lack thereof, shapes your worldview, that is how you see and explain the world around you and your place in it.
People turn to other people for answers. Fear and superstition rule the life of people who see the world as a dark and mysterious place. They end up turning to astrologers, horoscopes, or a popular guru for answers to their life’s problems.
Others, especially those born into plenty, see the world as a bright and beautiful place to eat, drink, and enjoy life in. They care less where it came from and what will happen to it.
Some people see the world as a battleground of good and evil, of light and darkness. Chinese philosophy, also popular among New Agers, sees world in terms of yin (dark, cold, and bad) and yang (light, warm and good). In the Zoroastrian religion, Ahura Mazda, the force of good, is in battle with Angra Mainyu, the force of evil, to control the world.
There are people whose worldview holds a Creator of the universe, but they differ about the nature of this supreme being. Most people believe that angels, demi-gods, demons, or spirits share in His power.
Among the most educated, there is total revulsion from belief in God and a feeling that God exists only in the figment of human imagination. Morality is shifted to human mind’s ability to discern right and wrong. Such people variously describe themselves as atheists, agnostics, or humanists. An atheist is someone who outright rejects the existence of God, an agnostic does not care, it does not matter to him if there is One, many, or none; and a humanist insists that only human beings can decide what is best for them. The common thread among all of them is reliance on science as what is ‘true’ and the scientific method as the only method of finding that ‘truth.’
The vast majority of people are totally confused about truth and separating right from wrong. Clearly all the ways of looking at the world cannot be true.
However, the clearest answers can be found in messages God has send us through prophets. God, in His mercy, answered the most fundamental questions for us because we need help. We cannot answer the most questions of our existence by ourself. All prophets of God answered the question, ‘Why did God make us?’
The most common Christian answer to the big question is that human beings inherited ‘original’ sin from Adam’s disobedience of God’s command. God’s rulebook states that as we all deserve to die because of our sinfulness. At the same time God loves us, so He send His son to die on the cross instead, thus ‘paying’ for all our sins. God’s ‘rulebook’ required that someone die for sins and God’s love decided that instead of us – the real ‘criminals’ – it will be His son. To be saved, thus, all you have to do is believe in Jesus’ atonement for your sins on the cross.
The Hindu scripture teaches that there are multiple gods, incarnations of God, and sometimes everything is God. Despite the belief that God permeates in all creatures, Hindus developed a very oppressive caste system in which the Brahmins (the priests) are the supreme class by birth and the caste of human beings called Sudras (or Shudras) are excluded from religious status. The only purpose of Sudras is to serve the other three castes! 24% of Indian population today belongs to the class of ‘Dalits’ or the ‘untouchables’! According to Hindu philosophers, our purpose is to realize that we are divine and thereafter follow a path to free ourselves from the cycle of rebirth, ultimately getting absorbed in the great, ultimate reality known as Brahman.
In the Islamic worldview, God provides clear answers to the biggest questions we have ever asked. He does so through His last prophet. Creation points to the Creator by telling us of what the Creator is like. That is not to say God needs His creation, God, after all, does not rely on anyone. His perfection becomes clear through His creation. Islam teaches that creation is the act of the Creator, ‘God created all things.’ (Quran 39:62) The belief is in stark contrast to the philosophic suggestion that the creation is part of God Himself, an idea inspired by the Hindu belief in Brahman. In the last book of the Rigveda, in the “Hymn of the Cosmic Man”, the universe is said to be created out of the parts of the body of a single cosmic man when his body was burned and dismembered at the primordial sacrifice. The four castes emerge from his body: the priest (Brahman) from the mouth, the warrior (Rajanya) from the arms, the peasant (Vaisya) from the thighs, and the servant (Shudra) from the legs.
Is there a way of knowing what is true from false? Of any worldview, we can ask:
- Is it reasonable and satisfying to the intellect?
- Does it address human needs and desires as individuals and as a society?
Does it provide values to live by and strive for?
- Does it nourish the soul and ‘talk’ to the heart without contradicting rationality?
The Quran encourages us to use our reason:
‘Will you not use your reason?’
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Do you not then reflect?’
Can Science Be The Answer?
A lot of people learn about psychology and evolution from popular magazines, and ‘scientific explanations’ replace ‘creation by God’ in their mind. As a result, people increasingly are made to feel that they are closer to the apes than to God.
Louis Pasteur wrote a century ago, ‘A little science takes you away from God, but more of it takes you to Him.’
There are few simple facts about science to keep in mind.
One, science can inform us about some of the workings of the universe, and do so very well, after all we owe our modern technology to scientific advancements. But, science cannot even attempt to answer the origin and destiny of our universe. No matter how advanced science may get, there will be a point where it will say, ‘We do not know.’ The scientific worldview gives us knowledge of part of reality, not the whole. For a scientific worldview, the universe is like a book from which the first and the last page have been removed. Science is like your car’s headlight beam - it is powerful, but is unable to show you what lies beyond it’s border.
Where Do We Come From?
For everything that has a beginning in time, and that includes us human beings, there can only be three ways of trying to explain how it came into existence:
1. It was made by nothing at all. It came from absolutely nothing.
2. It created itself.
3. It has a Creator or a Maker outside of itself who caused it
“Were they created by nothing? Or were they themselves the creators? Or did they create the heavens and the earth? Nay, but they have no firm Belief.”
Nothing produces nothing because it is nothing! Also, if your house did not build itself, your car did not assemble itself, your food did not grow on its own, and your clothes did not get stitched without a tailor, obviously this universe did not just pop into existence by itself. Therefore, we are left with only the third possibility: the universe and all that is in it owes its existence to a Creator outside of it. If someone says, well the Big Bang produced it, the question would be who caused the ‘bang’? If someone says, it is all evolution, the question is, who produced the first cell with life against all odds? We can therefore conclude that a worldview that denies a Creator is not likely to be a true worldview.
Nature of the Creator
The Creator must be different than what He created. Creation, by its nature, has a beginning and an end. If the Creator is of the same nature as the creation, it will need to have a beginning and an end, and thus a maker. Another word for what has a beginning and an end is ‘temporal.’
If the Maker is not temporal, He must be ‘eternal,’ meaning without a beginning or an end. This immediately means that He does not age or grow old.
If the Maker is eternal, nothing caused Him into existence, therefore, He does not rely on anything outside for His continued existence. What this means is that He must be self-sufficient. Self-sufficient means that He does not depend on anyone or anything to exist.
If He does not depend on anything to exist, then His existence cannot have an end. Thus, the Maker is eternal from the ‘past’ and everlasting into the ‘future.’
‘He is the First and the Last and the Outward and the Inward and He knows infinitely all things.’
Similarly, all His qualities must be eternal and everlasting. So, if He has knowledge, He will always stay knowledgeable. If He is powerful, He cannot cease to be powerful. If He is wise, He must always have been wise. He cannot acquire wisdom, strength, and knowledge at some point and loose them at another. He is ‘above’ time and different from His creation.
Therefore, the Creator does not ‘grow’ with time and acquire new qualities. Qualities that do not evolve with time are absolute qualities and last forever. Another word for divine qualities is ‘attributes.’
“Had there been therein gods besides God, then verily, both would have been ruined. Glorified be God, the Lord of the Throne, (High is He) above all that (evil) they associate with Him!”
Can there be another Creator with absolute qualities? Is it possible to have multiple, absolute, and equally powerful gods? This is impossible, why? If a Maker is absolutely powerful, He must be absolutely free to do whatever He wills. But, if another maker with similar powers exists and they do not agree over something, then only one of two things can happen. First, either one will overcome the other, in which case the latter cannot be absolutely powerful. Two, they will neutralize each other, in which case their powers are limited.
Can the two not come in agreement on everything or better yet, complement each other? Both cannot be absolutely powerful because at least one will need to assume that the other will not interfere or is not capable of interfering. We will be forced to assume that the other is either simply redundant or the power of the other is limited.
In summary, the Creator must be One with no others like Him, so He must be unique. The Creator must be All-Powerful and able to execute His will and do as he pleases. It is also reasonable to say that the Creator must be Eternal, Everlasting, and Self-Sufficient. These are some of the attributes and qualities of Creator when we think or talk about God that do not change and are absolute.
Say, ‘He is God the One, God the eternal. He did not give birth nor was He born. No one is comparable to Him.’
Since the Creator is different than His creation, it follows that a man cannot be God. Since, God is not human, God cannot have a mother of father. Neither the heavenly bodies nor mountains, trees, or fire can be God either, because they are all temporal objects.
“He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth. How can He have children when He has no wife? He created all things and He is the All-Knower of everything.”
Thus, any religion that regards human beings or any created being as God or as part of God cannot be a ‘true’ religion. A worldview that gives God human characteristics who suffers like human beings, gets tired, needs rest and sleep, cannot conform to reason.
“God: there is no true God but Him.
The Ever-Living, the Eternal Master of all.
Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him.
His is all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth.
Who is there that can intercede with Him, except by His permission?
He knows all that lies open before them and all that lies hidden from them;
whereas they cannot attain to anything of His knowledge save as He wills.
His throne extends over the heavens and the earth,
and the preservation of both does not tire Him.
He is the Most High, the Most Great.”
From what has been written, it is natural that human beings acknowledge the existence and power of the Creator. It is reasonable to acknowledge that creation, all of it, is preserved by God’s absolute will and mercy, also known as ‘providence.’ If God’s ‘providence’ were withdrawn for a moment, the very world would cease to exist. Thus, it is natural for human beings to give thanks to the Creator for all their blessings in life, including life itself. It is natural for human beings to show gratitude to God.
“What! Can there be a doubt about God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth?”
‘It is God who has given order and proportion, and who has measured everything.’
It is unnatural to think of oneself as independent and self-sufficient. It invariably leads to pride and develops vanity, turning a humble human being into a showcase of vanity. An ungrateful person forgets the powerful eyes and ears he uses to sense the world around him, the perfectly proportioned air he inhales, the nutrition-packed food that fuels his body, the tongue that gives expression to his words, and lips that add beauty to his face by covering exposed teeth.
“Indeed, it is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts which are in the breasts that grow blind”
To a man in the desert the sun is more than simply apparent, it is blazingly hot and undeniably present. He cannot escape it. Such is the presence of God to a Muslim. In the Islamic worldview, God is plain and clear.