Why Islam is true - Lesson 4-Science and God

I attended Why Islam Class in person this week.

• Yes
• No

Which verse includes a reference to the argument from contingency?

• “People, it is you who stand in need of God—God needs nothing and is worthy of all praise.” (Quran, 35:15)
• “He is indeed All-Hearing, All-Knowing.” (Quran, 26:220)

Which verse includes a reference to the argument from contingency?

• “ Lo! your Lord is Allah Who created the heavens and the earth in six Days, then mounted the Throne. He covers the night with the day, which is in haste to follow it, and has made the sun and the moon and the stars subservient by His command. His verily is all creation and commandment. Blessed be Allah, the Lord of the Worlds! (Quran, 7:54)
• “Indeed, Allah is All-Hearing and All-Seeing.” (Quran, 40:20)

The footprints in the sand is a sign that someone walked and a camel dropping is a sign that a camel walked. what does this say about the Universe?

• It shows the universe is an effect and is made by a necessary being
• These can be explained by modern science

What are the key traits of the Islamic worldview? Choose two

• The universe is contingent
• God exists necessarily
• Everything that exists can only be described by laws of nature and science

The world view of atheism is defined by which following traits? Choose two

• God doesn't exist
• Laws of nature and science explain everything that exist
• They believe in something else that controls the universe

We return to your two friends, Aldrich the Atheist and Nathan the Christian, drinking their juice and discussing God and science.

Aldrich the Atheist is getting a bit hot under the collar. “The problem is you can’t just go along with whatever the Quran says. I remember reading that it even says that God holds up the birds in the sky! We are back to polytheistic gods like Atlas holding up the sky and Zeus sending down lightning bolts when he is angry! People didn’t know the true causes of things then so they invented gods to explain why things happen. We need to replace this superstitious faith with science.” How do you respond to this?

• “No, Muslims only believe in one God. The ancient religions have a point but they put it in the wrong way. They couldn’t understand what God was doing so they made up their own idols to explain it as best as they could.”
• “Everything that is contingent needs a necessary being to make it exist. Remember the example of a long line of people leaning on each other? That’s why I believe in God. This also shows that God is the one who creates the flapping of the birds’ wings, the air-pressure, etc., and then keeps them in the air.”
• “No, it was explained like that because otherwise, the ancient Arabs wouldn’t understand the argument. Otherwise, the Quran knows all about science.”

“Exactly!” Nathan the Christian confirms. “We believe that God is more powerful than the laws of nature. Jesus was more powerful than the laws of nature and that's why we believe that he is God." What do you say?

• “Yes, both of us believe in the laws of nature and in the existence of a God who can interrupt the laws of nature because He is more powerful than them. Where Islam and Christianity differ is over whether or not Jesus is God.
• “No that’s not correct. The laws of nature don’t have any power. They are regular associations that God has created and maintains in the universe. Jesus and everything in the universe depends on God for its existence. Remember the Argument From Contingency shows that God is the necessary being.”

You have made a regular weekly lunch date with Aldrich the Atheist and Nathan the Christian to talk about each other’s perspectives on different points of belief.

Aldrich the Atheist begins to speak, “It seems to me that the way you see the world is not right. The things in the world are controlled by the laws of nature. Look at our phones. We touch the screen and it lights up. We press the keypad and it makes letters come onto the screen. We then press send and it gets sent and then it appears on the receivers’ phones. It’s simple cause and effect, not an action of a god.” What will you reply to that?

• “Yes, That sounds like plain sense. But there is a God because He created humans and the universe.”
• “Yes, what you are saying is correct, but God is more powerful than any technology and anything in the universe.”
• “Yes, it looks that way, doesn’t it? But remember that long line of people leaning against each other? That’s what the contingent things in the universe are like. They are all being held up by God, not by any other contingent thing. Your phone is electrical impulses, electromagnetic waves etc. are all contingent things, they need a Necessary Being for them to exist."

Aldrich the Atheist puzzles over this for a time and says “Doesn’t that deny the cause-and-effect relationship? That denies science entirely.” How do you respond to this?

• "I am not denying the relationship. I am just showing you that the relationship is a contingent regular association. It doesn’t necessarily have to exist. It is God who creates and maintains these and all other regular associations between things. Its not intrinsic or necessary, it exist because God wills it to be this way”

• “Yes of course the relationship exists that is clear and a fact from the laws of nature. What I am saying is that God is more powerful than any cause-and-effect relationship or any law of nature.”
• “It doesn’t matter if that relationship exists or not. You have to see that there is more to the universe than what you can measure. Muslims know that God will bring us back to life to question us about everything we have done. Doesn’t that worry you?”