FAITH IN THE UNSEEN
Receive Divine Guidance
This is the Book; there is no doubt in it. It is a guide for those who are mindful of God, who believe in the unseen. (THE QURAN 2 : 3)
FAITH in the unseen is not just a matter of belief. It is directly related to guidance. An unswerving belief in the unseen will help you receive God’s guidance. If you do not believe in the unseen, you will not receive this guidance.
By ‘unseen’ is meant a reality that cannot be seen but still is present. God is apparently invisible, in reality He is more present than all existing things. The above Quranic verse conveys that faith in the unseen, actually refers to faith in God. It includes all those aspects of faith which a believer is required to believe in—prophethood, divine revelation, angels, hereafter etc.
We recognize things in two ways—through observation and through inference. From the scientific point of view, both these methods are reliable.
The universe is so meaningful that it is simply impossible to
explain it without accepting the existence of the Creator.
Today, science is considered a reliable means for analysis. Science has theoretical and technical aspects. Technical science looks only at the appearance of things. But everything that appears to be visible is, in the final analysis, invisible. For instance, you can see a flower, but you can’t see its fragrance, not even through the most powerful microscope. The flower’s fragrance has an existence of its own in the same way as the flower.
Science says all things are collections of atoms, and ultimately all atoms are collections of electrons. Referring to this, a scientist commented that the entire universe is an invisible ‘mad dance’ of electrons! Another scientist describes it as a collection of ‘waves of probability’.
In this sense, one can say that it is not only the apparently invisible Creator who is in the unseen but also the apparently visible creatures. The British scientist A.S. Eddington wrote a book on this topic titled Science and the Unseen World a little less than a century ago.
We see only the external appearance of things that are visible in this world. Their actual reality remains invisible to us. This is true with God as well. In terms of His being, God is unobservable, but in terms of His creation, God becomes visible for us. The creation is itself evidence of the existence of the Creator. The universe is so meaningful that it is simply impossible to explain it without accepting the existence of the Creator.
The test of man is to discover God while He is in the unseen. If God
were plainly visible, there would have been no test at all.
God’s being invisible is in line with the requirements of the test to which we are put. The test is to discover God while He is in the unseen. If God were plainly visible, there would have been no test at all. God preferring to remain unseen, faith in Him is an ‘examination paper’ for us.
For God and other articles of faith to be unseen, is a great blessing. This sets in us the process of thinking, leading us to continuously reflect and ponder on things. God-realization can become a self-discovered reality for us. There is nothing greater in this world than a self-discovered reality. For God and other articles of faith to be in the unseen, is for us an endless source of intellectual development.
Faith in the unseen as a condition for God’s guidance, is no arbitrary condition. In fact, it is a very reasonable condition for a creature like man. To understand a great reality, you need an awakened mind. Only such a mind is capable of understanding a profound truth. God is, undoubtedly, the most profound Truth—the Absolute Truth. And so, only the one who can truly have faith in God and truly realize Him, is the one whose mind has awakened, through study, reflection and deep pondering. An un-awakened mind flounders in intellectual blindness, and can hardly hope to arrive at God-realization.
Jewel in the Crown
Perseverance is a virtue which can be practised at all
times, even by one who is crippled by a disease, and even
by one who had failed to get a degree from a university