Title: Convincing others of God's Existence Question: I don't think that if I were living in Pakistan, I would encounter the kind of obstacles I encounter here in the United States in terms of increasing awareness of Islam -- and such obstacles have been compounded by the events that took place on September 11th -- but I think you might be able to provide some helpful advice. As you know, everything in Islam ultimately rests on the underlying foundation of "Tawheed" or the Oneness of God. Obviously, this doctrine necessitates the existence of God. Many people here at my university take issue with this alone, so sometimes when I try to explain what Islam is about to people, rather than being able to clarify the meaning of jihad or relate to them the wonderful experience of prayer, I end up spending all my time with them arguing about whether or not God exists at all. Like you, I feel there are rational justifications for God's existence. Below, I will list these grounds as well as the most common objections to them. I was hoping you could help me address and tackle the objections: A) THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT: Whatever begins to exist must have a cause for its existence, for something cannot come from nothing without a cause (Premise 1); The universe had a beginning in time (Premise 2); Therefore, the universe has a cause for its existence; this cause we call "God." (Conclusion) Objection : The form of the argument is sound and if one accepts the premises the conclusion is inevitable, but we take issue with Premise 1. Why must everything that begins to exist have a cause for its existence? Not everyone in the world accepts Premise 1, so theists can hardly say that it is "common sense." B) THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN: In his bestseller "A Brief History of Time," the famous physicist Stephen Hawking writes: "The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been finely adjusted to make possible the development of life. For example, if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars either would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium, or else they would not have exploded. Of course, there might be other forms of intelligent life, not even dreamed of by writers of science fiction, that did not require the light of a star like the sun or the heavier chemical elements that are made in stars ... Nevertheless, it seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers that would allow the development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, they would contain no one to wonder at that beauty. One can take this either as evidence of a divine purpose in Creation and the choice of the laws of science or as support for the strong anthropic principle" (129-30). Hawking is certainly no theist, but the above excerpt adequately presents the argument from design in a nutshell. If it is true that the cosmic constants and fundamental numbers relating to the laws of physics and chemistry have been "finely adjusted," they must logically have had a fine adjuster. Scientists seem to be divided on this issue in terms of its implications for the role of God in the creation of the universe: some are not at all convinced by the argument from design and find it totally irrelevant to our understanding of the universe while others believe it entails compelling evidence for the role of a conscious designer. Objection : The fact of cosmic constants is undeniable, but this can be explained by a simple probability argument. There may have been millions of universes apart from our own, all with different cosmic constants, and ours was the one that had just the right values for the development of intelligent life. There is no need, therefore, to posit a designer. C) WHY THE UNIVERSE EXISTS: As you have written, there is no explanation to the question of why the universe exists except the existence of a Creator, who purposefully crafted the universe. Science can tell us precisely when, where and how, but never why, which is best answered by metaphysics and religion. Objection : The question of why there is something instead of nothing -- why something as marvelous as the universe should go to bother of existing -- remains very much alive. However, we do not think positing the existence of God actually helps. Positing the existence of a particular kind of god, with particular powers, and a particular character does help, but then we have only raised the question up one more level, to "What explains why there is a God?" "What explains why He has the power to create things?" "What explains why He chose to create a universe like this one as opposed to another?" Theists have to concede that there are no religious answers to the above questions, the required kind of God just is. However, this is no different than naturalists saying that the universe just is. Both accept the existence of brute facts, naturalists about nature and theists about God. It is simply a matter of where one chooses to draw the line. In keeping with our general use of Occam's razor, we would draw the line at the origin of space time itself, the Big Bang singularity. However, since we see no reason for Occam's razor to remain strictly in accordance with natural realities, we do not consider theists irrational for drawing the line at God. We simply hope we are extended the same tolerance. D) THE MORAL ARGUMENT: It is obvious to most theists that the reason humans have a sapiential sense and have a moral capacity is because God, the originator of these morals, instilled them in us. Once again, this explanation seems far more convincing than the idea that some species just had to have them and ours got lucky or that somewhere along the evolutionary ladder, a bunch of bipedal apes decided to become or fortuitously became moral and intelligent. Objection : Theists cannot answer how God conceived of morality. Till such time that theists can explain how God came up with morals, we see no reason to validate the moral argument. I'm sure you can see how a discussion of Islam can be impeded by stumbling blocks like these. I know that some of these arguments are not even mentioned in the Qur'an, but they are the only solid rational grounds for God's existence that I can think of. Perhaps, in Muhammad's (pbuh) time, simply pointing one's finger to the sky at night or observing the way in which a vegetable grows were sufficient reminders of the Creator. But I don't think I would succeed in defending God's existence by simply pointing to obvious natural phenomena, even though the Qur'an presents them as proofs of Allah's creative powers. It seems that the demand for proof has increased, in proportion to the difficulty of the task of defending God's existence. At some point in my discussions, I have to admit that belief in God ultimately rests on faith, which is by definition irrational, and it is indeed an embarrassment to make this concession, especially when only moments earlier I was ferociously pursuing arguments A through D as convincing evidence. Please offer whatever advice you can; I could definitely use it. Thank you. Best wishes and God bless, Omar Answer: Before we take a look at the referred arguments and their respective objections, I would like you to appreciate that conviction in the existence of God is primarily an intellectual phenomenon, just as conviction in the "force of gravity" behind the "falling apple" or the existence of a "designer" behind the "World Trade Center". In case of such intellectual and analytical phenomena, all one can do is to present the arguments, which one finds compelling in leading one to the conclusion that he has drawn. However, it is generally beyond one's abilities to "convince" everyone about his analysis and derivations. For instance, if one of my neighbors were to say that his house was not designed by an architect or constructed by an engineer, but existed all by itself (i.e. came into being all by itself), all I can do in return is to present my arguments on the basis of which I consider his statement to be incorrect. My arguments, however convincing they may be for myself, may meet outright rejection from my neighbor. In such a situation, there is hardly anything I can do. I would, therefore, suggest that the objective of our presentations and discussions should not be to convince others about what we believe, as that is clearly beyond our control, but that of presenting the basis of our belief in a clear manner. Keeping this clarification in perspective, let us now turn to the arguments that you have referred. Firstly, I do not fully ascribe to the presentation of the 'Cosmological Argument'. I would prefer slight modifications in the presentation of this argument. For instance, in my opinion, the premises should be: Every thing, which is created, must have a creator; The universe (the human being etc.), by its inherent laws and design, is a created thing; The universe must have a creator. One may, however, ask: what is it in the universe (or the human being), which leads us to believe that it is created? For an answer to this question, we should ask: What is it in a house, which leads us to believe that it is created? I am sure, if you can point out those properties of a house, which lead you to believe that it is created, you should be able to see quite clearly that the same properties, on a much bigger level, are also found in the universe, as a whole. As for the 'Argument from Design', I consider it to be quite straight forward and convincing. The stated objection on this argument is nothing more than conjecture. Anyone, who ascribes to the stated objection, for the sake of consistency, should ascribe to the idea of existence by 'probability' for all things that they see around them. To fully appreciate the fallacy in this argument, imagine a person who reads 'Merchant of Venice' and says: 'Even though I have not met the writer of this piece of work, yet I can tell by the writing that he has excellent literary style and has deep knowledge of human psyche'. A person may reject this analysis and say: 'There is no reason to believe that this is the work of an intelligent and literary person. Maybe it is just a product of one of the millions of monkeys hitting the keys of a typewriter. After all, the probability, however minimal it maybe, is not zero.' Do we really consider the alternative argument to be plausible? As for the objection on the argument of 'Why the Universe Exists', in my opinion, it is a misplaced one. The objection is concisely stated as: Theists have to concede that there are no religious answers to the above questions, the required kind of God just is. However, this is no different than naturalists saying that the universe just is. Both accept the existence of brute facts, naturalists about nature and theists about God. It is simply a matter of where one chooses to draw the line. My answer to this question is the same as I have given for the question ' Who Created God? ' Please take a look at it and let me know if any aspect of my answer requires any further elaboration. The objection on the 'Moral Argument' is stated as: Theists cannot answer how God conceived of morality. Till such time that theists can explain how God came up with morals, we see no reason to validate the moral argument. Even if theists cannot answer how God conceived of morality, it is does not provide an adequate basis for rejecting that He actually did. Suppose I cannot explain how Newton, of all the people, conceived of the theory of gravitation. Would my inability provide adequate grounds to reject ascribing the Theory of Gravitation to Newton? God did not conceive of morality. God is morality. It was, therefore, that God gave His creation a strong sense of morality and goodness. I hope this helps. Regards, Moiz Amjad October 4, 2001