The Ways Leading to Knowledge of God
There are four ladders or ways to reach knowledge of the Creator, which is the highest point human beings can reach:
The first is the way of the scholarly Sufis, which is based on purification of the soul, refinement of the heart, and intuition or inner observation.
The second is the way of the theologians. It is based on two arguments. The first is that the existence of the universe is possible, but not necessary. This is because it is contained in time and space, or is accidental or contingent. So there must be One Who willed its existence and brought it into existence. The second argument is that the universe is not timeless or without beginning; it has a beginning, and this requires the existence of a timeless One Who brought it into existence.
Both of these ways are derived from the Qur’an, but human thought has given them their own forms and therefore elaborated on them.
The third way belongs to the people of wisdom or the believing philosophers. This way is open to controversy and the attack of whims or suspicion.
The fourth is the way of the Qur’an, which is the most direct and the clearest of ways, one which shows the peerless eloquence of the Qur’an and is possible for everyone to follow. The following argument explains the two most important steps on this ladder:
THE FIRST QUR’ANIC ARGUMENT
The first is the argument of assistance, beneficence, and purposefulness. All the Qur’anic verses that mention the benefits of things and the purposes they serve indicate or are comprised of this argument. This argument is based on the fact that the perfect universal order takes into account beneficence and purposefulness. Whatever exists serves many benefits and purposes and has many instances of wisdom. This categorically rejects and negates the assertions of chance or coincidence.
Everyone may not be able to reach the Creator through the way of the order of the universe or the purposes of its existence; it is also possible that they may not be able to perceive this order or these purposes. But it is a fact that human thought and the investigations that support one another over the course of history have led to the foundation of sciences, each of which examines one part of the Book of the Universe or a species of existence, and comprises the general rules and principles concerning that species. Where there is no order, it is impossible to deduce or discover general rules and principles. So, since there are such rules and principles that are in effect in the existence and lives of every species, this clearly shows that there is a specific order in every corner of the universe. The sciences based on general rules and principles are proof for the perfect order of the universe.
By showing the benefits and purposes attached to the chains of things and beings and the instances of wisdom in the series of changes and revolutions that occur over the course of the days, months, seasons, years, centuries, and ages, the sciences indicate and testify to the universal purpose and wisdom of the Maker, functioning as meteors that destroy the devils of doubts and whims.
AN INDICATION
Familiarity causes compounded ignorance and superficial views. Purposeful opposition and the attitude maintained to silence others for the sake of obstinacy, caused by a refusal to accept the truth, is a nest of whim and suspicion that blocks the way of reason. If you are saved from such familiarity and purify your soul of sheer opposition in the name of obstinacy due to a refusal to accept the truth, you will not be able to persuade your soul that the miraculous mechanism working in the form of a microscopic animal is the product of what you call natural causes and laws. Clearly, these causes or laws are blind, lifeless, and unconscious, and they have no knowledge about what they must do and where, when, why, and how they will do it. Nor do they have free will. Were you to attribute to them creativity, then you would have to accept that every atom has much greater consciousness and wisdom than Plato and much more knowledge than Galileo, and believe that every atom communicates directly with all other atoms, and that the forces of attraction and repulsion in atoms form, on their own, a channel through which they meet. If your soul can consider the possibility of such inconceivable things, can you really be considered to be a human being endowed with a well-functioning mind? Rather, you should think that what you call natural causes and laws are the results or descriptions of God’s acts or the veils He has made before His actions; the laws, which have a nominal existence, should not be seen as active natural forces that have a creative effect in the universe.
A REMINDER
Look yet again: can you see any rifts? (67: 3)
Look around the universe; where can you see a fault or a rift? One who has sound eyes will not be able to see any. If you like to, turn to the Qur’an. You can find in it the argument of assistance, beneficence, and purposefulness in the most perfect fashion. For the Qur’an both orders that we reflect on the universe and mentions the benefits of things and God’s innumerable blessings. All the relevant verses are mirrors of the argument of assistance, beneficence, and purposefulness.
THE SECOND QUR’ANIC ARGUMENT
The second basic Qur’anic argument for God Almighty’s existence and Oneness is that of creation or origination. Its summary is as follows:
Every species and all members of every species have been given an existence according to the function or purpose assigned to each and the capacity accorded to each. In addition, no species is a link in a chain that stretches back to the eternity of the past, for their existence is contingent or accidental, not absolute. There is a Will that makes a choice between their existence and nonexistence, and a Power that gives them existence. Existence is clearly not timeless but is contained in time and space, and therefore has a beginning.
A FALSE SUPPOSITION AND A REMINDER
A truth cannot become its opposite, nor can its nature change. There cannot be any intermediary species between existing species. The transformation of a species into another means the complete transformation of an established truth, which is impossible.
AN INDICATION
Every species came into existence separately and has an original ancestor. Sciences such as zoology, geology, and botany testify to this fact. Besides, neither the material causes, nor nature, nor any other “law,” supposed, nominal, or real, can have any creative part in the things that come into existence. Every species and every member of a species is created by the All-Wise Maker, individually and separately. The All-Majestic Maker has put on the forehead of everything the stamps of “contingency” and “having a beginning” or “being contained in time and space.”
A REMINDER
Claiming that matter is eternal and the motion of particles or atoms is the origin of all species that exist is contingent upon an unawareness of or indifference to the Creator, or results from being caught up in a false state of unawareness while searching for the truth, or is the intentional appropriation of a contradictory stance due to certain motives. If a person who had accepted this fallacy can reevaluate it after having found the truth, they can understand what a false, impossible proposition they had accepted.
A REMINDER
Humanity is noble by creation; it is for this reason that we always want to take hold of the truth and pursue happiness. Humans find falsity or misguidance in their hands unawares while searching for the truth; or at a time when they are tired of searching for the truth, their soul will be forced to accept something unreasonable or impossible because of a misguided or deflected view or glance. Pay attention to this point. You will see that human conscious nature categorically rejects those who attribute eternity to matter and movement when explaining the origin of existence by ignoring the perfect order of the universe; and those who maintain that all is coincidence or chance, despite the amazing, miraculous art and embroidery in every single thing and in the entirety of creation; and those who ascribe creativity to material causes and what they call laws, in spite of sound thought and reasoning and an unbiased scientific approach; and those who think that they have found consolation in attributing existence to nature because of the regularity in things and events, despite the opposite judgment of their conscience. The reason why they act in opposition to their conscious nature is that while they are advancing on the path to the truth, false whims and suppositions attack them from both sides. Since they advance with the aim of reaching out the truth awaiting them at the end of the path, they only take a side glance at those whims and suppositions. Therefore, they cannot see their corrupt or putrid nature. If they were aware, they would not purchase such ideas, nor would they even lower themselves to glance at them.
The conscience or human conscious nature rejects such assertions and sound reason sees them as being impossible. But demagogy and addiction to opposition and controversy may lead one to accept them, while this means that one asserts that in each atom exists the intellect of the wisest philosophers and scientists and the administrative ability and sagacity of the most eminent rulers, and that all atoms are in continuous consultation and communication with one another. This is the basic characteristic of falsehood. When people take a sideways look at or have an imperfect view of something or when that thing captures the corner of their eye, they may then assert that falsehood is true. But if they concentrate on it, examining it directly and soundly, they will see its true nature.
AN INDICATION
Matter cannot be thought of as being separate from the changing form and the movement which appears and disappears over time. So it is not eternal; it is contained in time. How ridiculous then that there are those who cannot accept the existence and eternity of the Maker, Whose existence is absolutely necessary for the universe to come into existence and for it to continue to exist, yet, at the same time, they can attribute eternity and creativity to matter, which is lifeless, unconscious, and absolutely devoid of knowledge and will-power. How strange it is that some, who although members of humanity, cannot ascribe the universe, which is wonderful in all its parts and in its totality, to the Maker, Who has all the attributes of perfection, but rather ascribe it to lifeless, unconscious, and blind chance and the motion of atoms, which are also lifeless, blind, and unconscious.
AN EXPLANATION
With respect to their essence, the species are different from one another. Neither the forms nor the forces, which are claimed to be produced through the motion of atoms, nor the nuclei of cells, can be responsible for this essential difference. For all of these are accidental to the essence; they themselves are the results of the differences of the essence. This shows that all the species with their differences were brought into existence separately by a Creator, Who does whatever He wills however He wills. If you desire further explanations concerning the argument of creation or origination, you can enter the paradise of the Qur’an, where you can find every truth, either in the form of blossoming flowers or as buds or as seeds.
A FALSE SUPPOSITION AND A REMINDER
If you ask what “nature” is, a question that is frequently asked, and if you ask what are those things that they call “forces of nature” to which they attribute everything, my reply is as follows:
God has a collection or an assembly of His laws called “the laws of creation and the operation of the universe,” which are in fact God’s acts of creating and regulating and putting in order the corporeal world with whatever is in it and the functions of its “members” and “organs.” This assembly of the laws of the creation and the operation of the universe is like an immaterial Divine printing machine, but they call it nature. What they call “the laws of nature” are those acts of God or the sum of their effects; and what they call “the forces” are the ways they are carried out. The regularity of their execution or the formation of a collective, imaginary body in the mind that is caused by their execution, or by the incessant, rapid movement of their execution that cannot be observed, causes people to attribute external existence to this assembly of laws and the effects of their implementation. What they call nature is this imagined external existence.
AN INDICATION
Those things they call nature and natural forces are not able to be the origin of existence, nor can they be accepted as such by a sound mind or by the truth. But the obstinacy of not accepting the existence of the Creator and the regularity of His acts which are responsible for the creation and operation of the universe may lead some to attribute these amazing works of the Divine Power to what they call nature. However, nature is, in fact, a print; it is not the printer; it is a tune, not the composer; it is a design, not the designer; it is a recipient, not the agent; it is an order, not that which gives the order. It is a collection of laws established by the Divine Will, not a power.
AN ILLUMINATION
If a being were to come to this world from another planet and be totally ignorant of this world, they might see the socio-political order or the laws which order human social actions as a spiritual guide or an invisible ruler who prevents conflicts and sedition in the society. Similarly, if such a one were to see the ordered, repeated actions or movements of a soldier or a troop of soldiers, they might think that there were invisible ropes between the members of the troop that connected them to one another; could we honestly say that this is strange? Likewise, do people criticize a Bedouin or a natural poet who gives a bodily existence in his mind to the system that connects people and regulates their actions, which he regards as a spiritual sovereign? So, therefore, if the collection of Divine laws or the regulations of the Divine acts responsible for the miraculously ordered operation of the universe—and there are no exceptions to these apart from God’s special dispensations to be used as miracles to prove the Prophethood of His Prophets in the sight of people or as wonders to honor His saints—if that collection of laws or the regulations of Divine acts are clothed in a body in some imaginations, we should not deem it strange. What is really strange is that some attribute to it the acts of the All-Knowing, All-Willing, and All-Powerful Creator and Lord of the worlds.
A FALSE SUPPOSITION AND A REMINDER
Humanity is usually unable to see or study something in its totality or as a complete entity. It tends to compartmentalize everything or divide it into parts, and then examine it. Humanity first concentrates on a single part, and then passes onto the other parts. In addition, the value of humans is proportional to the nature and greatness of their ideals and the exertion of their efforts to realize them. They are usually lost in their aspirations and the things with which they are occupied. It is for this reason that insignificant things and deeds are not attributed to a great being. It is generally accepted that greatness does not allow one to be occupied with insignificant things. Further, humans search for the standards of evaluating the thing with which they are occupied first in themselves and, if they cannot find it in themselves, then they search for the same in others like themselves. Even if they think about the Necessarily Existent Being, Who does not resemble any of the created in any way, they attempt to judge Him according to the particular standards they find in themselves or in others. However, the All-Majestic Maker can never be “observed” or judged from the viewpoint of human beings. His Power has no limits at all. His Power, Knowledge, and Will encompass and penetrate everything. Consider that even the sun, which is a material body among numberless heavenly objects that have been created by God, Who has nothing in common with matter or being material, penetrates everything within the vast expanse of the reach of its light. We do not have anything with which we can weigh or compare the All-Majestic Maker’s Knowledge, Will, and Power. They simultaneously penetrate and encompass every single thing, no matter how vast or how minute. As they penetrate and encompass the universe as a whole, they also penetrate and encompass all individual parts of it at the same time. So, to compare the Necessarily Existent Being to any of the created entities is completely erroneous. Nevertheless, falling into this error, naturalists ascribe creativity to material causes or what they call nature and natural forces; the Mu‘tazilites held that living beings were the creators of their own actions; the Muslim Peripatetic philosophers asserted that Divine Knowledge does not encompass individual small entities or particles of existence; the Zoroastrians believed in two separate deities, one as the creator of good, and the other as the creator of evil. They deemed it unbecoming to the limitless Grandeur and Dignity of the All-Majestic Maker that He should occupy Himself with what they regard as small and insignificant. This false notion captivated them. O brothers and sisters! Some believers can be vulnerable to such false notions in the form of unintentional suggestions.
AN INDICATION
You can say: “The evidence of creation from non-existence is creation itself or giving existence to something non-existent, and giving existence to something non-existent is a brother or sister of making something existent non-existent. But we cannot comprehend the possibility of creation from non-existence or the making of something existent non-existent.”
I will reply as follows: Your incomprehension issues from a misleading comparison. For you conceive of God’s creation of existence from non-existence, with nothing preceding Him, as an imitation of the acts of the created. No creature is ever able to give existence to something that does not exist or to make something that is existent non-existent. What conscious, living beings can do is imitation or bringing the parts together to form a new composition or a complete entity, or dividing a whole into parts.
Since humans have never seen the like of the Divine Power in the universe, they cannot comprehend God’s creation of existence from nonexistence or His causing something that exists to cease to exist. The rational arguments of human beings and the conclusion they draw are based on observations. They view the Creator’s acts and works from the perspective of the acts and works of the created, and make a misleading comparison between them. However, they should view the Creator’s acts and works with the consideration in mind of His limitless Power.
AN INDICATION
While thinking about the works of a person, we should take their attributes into consideration; we should view their works from the perspective of that person’s personal attributes. If we view God’s acts and works from the perspective of the attributes (power, capacity, and knowledge) of the created, we can only arrive at a wrong conclusion. One of the reasons for conceiving the impossibility of creation from non-existence and the making of something existent non-existent is this incorrect viewpoint. Every day we witness innumerable instances of creation from non-existence. (That material causes have a part in creation from non-existence should not deceive us, for they have no part in the giving of life, which is purely a gift of the Creator. In addition, every day many things occur, the causes of which science cannot explain.) Despite these facts, those who see creation from non-existence as being impossible compare the Divine Being and His Attributes and acts with the created, and want to see that which is essentially invisible.
A REMINDER
If we approach the matter not from the perspective of creation from nonexistence but from the viewpoint of reproduction or creating existence from matter, the most obvious example of the things created or brought into existence from a substance is light. The amazing laws that operate in the existence of light and the light of eyes or the mechanism of sight show the perfection of Divine Power. Thus, if we approach the act of creation from the perspective of the perfection of Divine Power, we will easily be able to accept many things which we are unable to comprehend even superficially.
A REMINDER
Just as in logic theories are produced from premises, which are universally true rules or principles, so too do the “premises” in the works of the Maker suffice to see and explain the hidden points in His Art. This proves creation from non-existence.
AN EXPLANATION
Can reason conceive of something more beautiful, more subtle, more unequaled, or more impossible for the created than the art displayed by the perfect system and orderliness of the universe? Certainly not. Sciences show the benefits of this system with all its parts and the purposes of their existence, thus proving that nothing is in vain or purposeless in creation. This manifest fact testifies to the art and wisdom of the Maker in creation, and leaves reason with no alternative but to accept His existence. When reason is left to its own devices without the enlightenment of such obvious realities, particularly under the influence of the evil-commanding soul, it denies even such clear realities.
Why can the All-Holy Being, Who has created the heavens and the earth and holds them suspended, Who has put everything in order and made them subservient to His commands, not make things easier? It is sheer fallacy to claim that a power that can lift up a mountain cannot move or lift up an inkpot. In short, just as the verses of the Qur’an interpret one another, the book of the universe, or its “verses,” also interpret the art and wisdom that rests under its lines.
AN INDICATION
You say: The words of some Sufis imply agglutination and contiguity with the Divine Being, or Union, or Incarnation. These seem to be identical with ideas like pantheism or monism.
Answer: Such words attributed to the verifying, scholarly Sufis are uttered in a state of spiritual ecstasy and allegorical. Therefore, they require interpretation. Since these people are immersed in the manifestations of the Divine Being’s Existence, they see the result in the evidence on which they concentrate. That is to say, looking through the windows of the universe, they find themselves completely surrounded by the manifestations of the Maker in the channels of coming into and going from existence; concentrated in the realms beyond the veils of things, they see only the flow of Divine gifts in things; and looking into the mirrors of existence, they only observe the manifestations of the Divine Attributes and Names. Due to a lack of appropriate words to express their observations, they use terms such as Pervasive Divinity and Pervasive Life. Those lacking in sufficient knowledge of the matter, those who approach their words only from the perspective of the terms they use, apply their own whims and supposition to these words. The transcending observations and standpoints of the verifying, scholarly Sufis are infinitely superior to the suppositions of materialist imitators. Viewing these two infinitely different approaches and standpoints to be identical or near to each other means the declaration of the death of reason in this age of progress. True humanity feels obliged to say with the tongue of verification and progress in the face of such attitudes, “No, by God, no! How can the Pleiades shining in the sky be found through the bottom of the earth? How can the bright, piercing light be compared with veils of darkness?”
AN INDICATION
The doctrine of the verifying, scholarly Sufis, which is figuratively called the Unity of Being, is, in fact, the Unity of the Witnessed (the existence and absolute Unity of the Divine Being manifested in and testified to by the creation as a whole, united entity and with all its parts interconnected with one another). The Unity of Being in its literal meaning and content is the false doctrine of some ancient philosophers.
A REMINDER
The chief of the Sufis mentioned says, “One who claims contiguity with the Divine Being or Union (with Him) or Incarnation (of Him) has not the least share in knowledge of God.” How can something that is contingent, which is absolutely in need of one who prefers its existence to its non-existence, be in union with the Necessarily Existent Being? The truth is that a contingent being bears some of the manifestations of the Divine Being. But this is in no way proof of a relation between the Sufis’ doctrine of the Unity of the Witnessed with the materialists’ doctrine of the Unity of Being, the latter of which amounts to pantheism or monism. For according to the doctrine of the materialists, matter is essential and the origin of existence. For this reason, materialists who maintain this doctrine are impeded from understanding the truth of Divinity. Since they are lost in matter, they deviate and attribute everything to matter, seeing matter as being the Divine Attribute of Creation. But the exacting, scholarly Sufis concentrate totally on the Existence of the Necessarily Existent One and totally ignore the contingencies. So these two doctrines are completely opposed to each other. Nothing can be worse or more condemnable than perceiving them as being identical with or approximate to each other.
AN ILLUMINATION
Supposing that the earth consists of small, multifarious, multicolored pieces of glass, each of these pieces receives a manifestation of the sun according to its shape, color, and size. But the reflected sun in one of these pieces is not identical to the sun nor is the reflected light same as the light of the sun. Similarly, if the colors of multi-colored flowers, which (according to a theory) reflect the colors in the spectrum of the light of the sun, were able to speak, each would say, “The sun resembles me,” or “I am the sun itself.”
Such images are snares for saints;
They are the reflections of the bright-faced ones in God’s garden.
The way of the people of the Unity of the Witnessed is the way of the saints who live immersed in and intoxicated by the manifestations of the Necessarily Existent Being. The safest way is that of the scholarly saints who can, even though they go into ecstasies with the manifestations of the Divine, maintain the balance between the manifestations of God’s Essential Qualities, Attributes, and Names, and clearly see the infinite dissimilarity between the Creator and the created.
How can a human being, someone who cannot perceive their own nature, perceive what the Eternal, All-Compelling is like? It is He Who brings things into existence with there being nothing preceding to imitate, and gives each thing an exact proportionate form; how can one who has been brought into existence within time perceive Him?
A REMINDER
The preceding notes are a summary of the proofs for the existence of the Maker. If you would like to hear about the proofs of His Oneness, they are infinite. Here, I can mention only one of them, which is expressed in a verse of the Qur’an, Had there been in the heavens and the earth any deities other than God, both (of those realms) would certainly have fallen into ruin (21: 22). The proof derived from this verse is called the Proof of Prevention. Absolute independence is indispensable to Divinity.
AN ILLUMINATION
The facts that there are many essential similarities among existent things and beings; and that all these beings and things and the elements comprising the universe exist together without any confusion; and that all these beings, things, and elements display perfect orderliness, come to the aid of one another in perfect solidarity, and move around the focal point upon which the order of the universe is based—these are all clear proofs for the Oneness of the Maker, the Eternal and All-Wise One.
There is a sign in every and each thing that proves the fact that He is One.
The pages of the Book of the Universe—they are dimensions limitless; The lines written through the events happening within time—they are works countless.
Printed on the press of the Supreme Preserved Tablet, Everything in the universe is a meaningful, embodied word.
In the stanza above, Hoja Tahsin is speaking of a relative infinity and multiplicity; he is not referring to an actual infinitude.
AN INDICATION
However many attributes of perfection there are, the Maker of Majesty has them. Any perfection the creation displays is a dim shadow of His Perfection. He has Attributes of Perfection, Beauty, and Grace beyond all concepts and modalities. All instances of favoring observed in the universe point to His infinite Wealth and Generosity just as all instances of existence indicate His Existence; answering the calls and performing one’s prayers is the response to the absolute necessity of His Existence, and all beauty indicates His Beauty. In addition, the Maker of Majesty is infinitely exempt or free from any defects or shortcomings. He is infinitely free from any defects that originate in the insufficiency of the inherent capacities of creation and from the needs that arise from the contingent nature of the universe.
There is nothing that resembles Him; Exalted is His Majesty.
Said Nursi