*Reflect on the lines of the universe, for they are missives to you from the High Abode.
The Book of Creation displays orderliness as clearly as the midday sun and exhibits Power’s miracle in every word or letter. Its composition is so miraculous that, even supposing that each natural cause were a free agent, each cause would prostrate humbly before this miraculousness, acknowledging: “Glory be to You. We have no power. Surely, You are All-Mighty, All-Wise.”
This Book’s order is so subtle and delicate that inserting a new point in its exact place requires an absolute power that can create everything, for each letter—especially living ones—has inner relations with sentences and a strong connection with all other words. Thus, whoever created a gnat’s eyes created the sun, and whoever ordered a flea’s stomach ordered the solar system. Refer to: Your creation and resurrection are but as a single soul (31:28), and see how truthful a witness comes from a bee’s tongue, which is only one of Power’s miracles or represents a small word in this Book.
Ponder over a micro-organism that, although invisible to the naked eye, is a sample of creation. The One Who “wrote” it in that miraculous fashion also “wrote” the universe. If you study it and discern its subtle mechanisms and wonderful systems, you will be convinced that its existence and life cannot be attributed to lifeless, simple, natural causes that cannot distinguish between possibilities. Otherwise you must admit that each particle contains the consciousness of sages, the knowledge of scientists, and the genius of statesmen or administrators, and that they communicate with each other directly. Even the superstitious are ashamed of such a claim.
There is no explanation other than to regard it as a miracle of Divine Power, the invention of the One Who invented and arranged the universe. If this were not so, it would be impossible for the two most important natural causes or laws, gravity and repulsion, to come together in an atom. Gravity and repulsion, motion and similar phenomena, are names of Divine principles or ways of operating represented as laws. They may be accepted as laws, provided they are not promoted to being the foundation of an agent nature. Being only names or titles or having nominal existence, they should not be accorded real, external existence.
Question: Why do people believe in matter’s eternity and attribute all species’ formation to random motions of particles or similar things?
Answer: Reasoning or rational judgment does not always lead to belief, as being rationally convinced does not mean believing in God. They cannot perceive their mistake, as their reasoning is based on a superficial view and imitation. If they were to pursue this line of reasoning, they would see how illogical and irrational such a belief is. If, despite this, they still hold such a belief, they are heedless of the Creator. Such a strange deviation! How can those who find it hard to accept the eternity of God, the Glorified, and attribute creation to Him—although eternity and creativity are among the Divine Essence’s indispensable Attributes—attribute eternity and creativity to countless particles and helpless things?
Recall this well-known incident: Once, people were scanning the sky for the new crescent moon to mark Ramadan’s beginning. An old man claimed he had seen it, when what he had really seen was a downward-curving white hair from his eyebrow. It is that hair-like thing that blinds people to the truth. Humanity is of noble character by creation. While pursuing truth, people sometimes encounter falsehood and keep it in their hearts. Other times, while digging out the truth they come across misguidance and, supposing it to be the truth, accept it.
Question: What are those things called “nature,” “laws,” and “forces,” and how are people deceived by them?
Answer: Nature is the comprehensive Divine “Shari‘a” established for the order and harmony among everything contained in the visible, material world. This law of creation also is called the “way of God.” Nature is the result of all nominal laws in creation. Forces are the principles of this “Shari‘a,” and laws are elements of the same “Shari‘a.” The regularity of its principles and elements leads people to see it as “nature” with a real, external existence, and, after that, as an agent. Although the human heart or mind cannot be convinced that nature is a true agent, those who deny the All-Majestic Creator and refuse to understand the Divine Power’s miraculous works might begin to see this blind, ignorant nature as the origin of things.
Nature is something printed, not a printer; a design, not a designer; an object acted on, not an agent; a rule or measure, not an origin; an order, not an orderer. It is a principle without power, a set of laws without real or external existence that issues from the Divine Attributes of Will and Power.
Suppose a young person comes to this exquisite world from another one and enters a beautiful, richly adorned palace. No one to whom this building and decoration can be attributed is seen. So this person, after seeing a comprehensive book containing the blueprint and information on how the palace was built and furnished, and due to his or her ignorance and obsession with the builder, thinks that the book built the palace. In the same way, the heedlessness of some people concerning the All-Majestic Creator allows them to deceive themselves into accepting the natural world as its own originator.
God has two kinds of “Shari‘a.” One issues from the Divine Attribute of Speech and regulates or orders the acts of servants issuing from their free will. The other issues from the Divine Attribute of Will and Power, comprises the Divine commands of creation, and is the result of the Divine Way of acting. The first one comprises comprehensible laws, while the second one consists of nominal laws, wrongly called “laws of nature.” They have no creative or inventive part in existence, for that is unique to the Divine Power.
Everything that exists is connected to all other things; nothing can exist or survive by itself. The one who created a single thing created all things, and can only be the One, Eternally-Besought-of-All. By contrast, natural causes, to which the misguided ascribe creativity, are numerous, do not know one another, and are blind. Attributing creativity to them means accepting that innumerable blind, lifeless things have come together by chance and formed that vast, orderly universe, [the existence, order, and harmony of which manifestly require absolute knowledge and will, power and wisdom]. Then leave them to plunge and play (6:91).
To sum up: The Book of the Universe’s observed order and regularity, and the manifest miraculousness in its composition, are two proofs of Divine Unity showing that the universe and its contents are works of the absolute Power, infinite Knowledge, and eternal Will of God.
Question: How can the order, harmony, and regularity be established?
Answer: Science functions as if humanity’s senses have discovered this order by deduction and induction. Each branch of science is based upon or studies one aspect of existence. Science’s universal principles originate in this order, harmony, and regularity. Each branch comprises the universal principles and rules prevalent in the species it studies. Those principles’ universality and uniformity point to the order’s magnificence, for without it universal rules could not be inferred. Scientists discover that order through science, and by it see that the macro human being (the universe) is as orderly as themselves. There is wisdom in everything, for nothing is purposeless or left to its own devices.
The Book of Creation, with all its systems, worlds of living creatures and particles, proclaims Divine Unity. Altogether they declare: There is no god but God.
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi
* From The Seedbed of Light / The Eleventh Treatise / Second Proof