How Can We Argue For God’s Existence and Unity in A Convincing Way?
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
God is the Creator of all things, and He is guardian and watcher over everything. To Him belong the keys of the heavens and Earth. (39:62-3)
Glory be to Him in Whose hand is the kingdom and inner dimensions of all things. (36:83)
There is nothing but with Us are the stores thereof. (15:21)
There is not a moving creature but He has grasp of it by the forelock. (11:56)
The role of material or natural causes in creation
O you who attribute all things and events in this world to the law of causality. The causes to which you ascribe creativity are only veils covering the operation of Divine Power, for God’s Dignity and Grandeur require such veils. However, the Eternal Divine Power, absolutely independent of everything, is ever-active and creates, for Divine Unity and Glory require that it be so.
The Eternal Monarch has officers, but they have no authority of their own to execute His orders independently. Thus they are not partners to His Sovereignty; rather, their only functions are to serve as media through which His Lordship’s acts and executions are watched and known, and as observers and witnesses. By doing so, they obey His laws and commands of creation and thereby perform their duty of worship, which is required by their nature and disposition. In short, they exist because they must manifest the dignity of Divine Power and majesty of Divine Lordship and Sovereignty. Human monarchs, on the other hand, need officers and other means to help them enforce their rule. There is no resemblance or relation between these two kinds of officers.
Since most people cannot discern the beauty and wisdom behind events, they complain and object. In order to divert such complaints from God, causes are placed as an intervening veil (between people and God’s acts). However, those who see the real beauty and wisdom in events know the truth of what is going on. A parable clarifies this point: The Angel of Death complained to God that His servants would complain of his role as the taker of souls. God answered him: “I will put illness and misfortune between you and them so that they will complain of them, not of you.”
In sum, God’s Dignity and Grandeur require apparent causes to prevent complaints and to hide, from those who reason superficially, the hand of Power’s involvement in certain seemingly insignificant or vile things and affairs. At the same time, God’s Unity and Glory require that these apparent causes have no part in either the creation or disposition of things.
Belief in God’s Unity has two degrees
Belief in God’s Unity has two degrees. The first degree is believing superficially that God has no partners, and that the universe belongs only to Him. Such believers may be susceptible to deviation and confusion. The second degree is being firmly convinced that God is One, that everything belongs to Him exclusively, and that only He creates. Such believers see His seal and observe His stamp on all things. Free from all doubt, they feel themselves always and everywhere in His Presence. Their conviction cannot be diluted by deviation or doubt.
For you to acquire such conviction in God’s Unity, consider the following arguments:
Life is the brightest evidence of God, Who makes everything out of one thing and makes one thing out of many things
God Almighty sets a special seal on each thing He makes, showing that He is the Creator of all things. He sets a special stamp on each creature, demonstrating that He is the Maker of all things. On each “letter” that the Power “writes,” there is an inimitable signature specific to the Eternal Monarch.
For example, look at the seal He has put on life. Consider how, through life, one thing is made into many, and many things are made into one. For example, God transforms the water we drink into a means for forming innumerable animal organs and systems. Through His command, a single entity becomes “many.” Conversely, He changes many varieties of foods into a particular body or skin, a whole system or subsystem. Thus “many” things become, by God’s command, a single entity. Whoever has an intellect, consciousness, and a heart must conclude that making a single, simple entity from many things and using a single entity to make many things is a seal special to the Creator of all things.
The one who made the honeybee an index of most things, and who inserted in human nature most parts of the Book of Creation, must be the same and single Creator.
Being complex and inclusive in character, a living thing is a miniature universe, a shining fruit of the tree of creation, a nucleus of creation made by the Creator as a sample or pattern for most species. It is as if that living thing is a drop filtered through wisdom from creation with absolutely exact measures, an all-inclusive point extracted from existence through knowledge with absolutely precise calculations. As one who does not have the supreme disposition of creation cannot create anything, the one who made the honeybee an index of most things, and who inserted in human nature most parts of the Book of Creation, must be the Creator. He encoded the future life of a fig tree in its tiny seed, and made the human heart a small-scale copy of thousands of worlds, as well as a window opening onto them. He recorded humanity’s past life and everything related to it in human memory. The One Who has done these and many similar things can only be the Creator of all things, and His doing so is a stamp specific to the Lord of the Worlds.
This article has been adapted from Risale- i Nur Collection.