THE AGE OF SCIENCE & RELIGION—PART I
Discover God Through Reason
MAN finds himself in a world where there is a creation, but the Creator of this creation is apparently not in sight. There is design in this world, but apparently there is no visible designer. Great events take place in this world but the cause behind these remains inscrutable. The entire universe functions like a great industry, but the engineer of this industry is nowhere to be seen.
The prophets came to the world to answer these very questions. Prophets have told man that there exists an invisible, intangible being behind this visible, tangible creation; that this invisible being is God, who should be believed in and worshipped. The role of the prophets, was in a sense inferential in nature; they told man that he should use his reason and, by inferring from the visible, come to conviction that there is an invisible God.
To lend credibility to this inferential role, the prophets performed miracles. The Quran has this to say:
We sent Our messengers with evidence. (57: 25)
The prophets performed miracles to convince man that their message is true. For instance, the Prophet Moses came to Egypt between the 15th and 16th centuries BC. At that time, Pharaoh (Ramesses II) ruled Egypt. Pharaoh said to Moses: “Produce a sign if you are telling the truth” (7: 106). On this demand, Moses cast his staff on the ground, and it promptly turned into a live snake that went creeping along the ground.
Science replaces the miracles of ancient times as
evidence to prove the veracity of religion.
The Prophet of Islam was born in Makkah and appointed Prophet in 610 AD. All the prophets who came before him performed miracles of different kinds to prove the veracity of the truth of their message. But the Prophet of Islam was the last of the prophets—the last link in the chain of prophethood. After him the method of performing supernatural miracles was discontinued (17: 59). God stopped sending the prophets after the Prophet of Islam, and with THE AGE OF SCIENCE & RELIGION—PART I Discover God Through Reason Science replaces the miracles of ancient times as evidence to prove the veracity of religion. 20 Spirit of Islam Issue 33 September 2015 him the chain of miracles also stopped. Now the prophetic call has to be given by dayees (those who call people towards God), who are not prophets, but who have to perform the prophetic role. No prophet will come in future. The reason is that the message of the prophets—the divine religion is fully preserved in its original form, there having been no possibility for any change or interpolation. Both the language and text of the religion brought by the last Prophet is preserved. It is in the same language as that in which the revelations were made to him.
Then what is the substitute for miracles? The veracity of dawah that was proved through miracles is currently served by natural facts discovered by modern science. Science replaces the miracles of ancient times as evidence to prove the veracity of religion.
Both these ways of giving evidence in support of religion are stated in the Quran.
Common to miracles and arguments based on scientific evidence
is that they both provide arguments
for religious belief at the level of inference.
We sent Our messenger with evidence. (57: 25) God gave His prophets miracles so that they might prove the veracity of their message. As for the second period of history, the Quran alludes to the matter of supporting evidence in the future tense.
“We shall show them Our signs in the universe and within themselves, until it becomes clear to them that this is the truth.” (41: 53)
The Prophet of Islam came to the world in the first quarter of the seventh century. Modern science came a thousand years after his advent. It did not emerge by chance. It was a direct result of the revolution initiated by the Prophet of Islam aimed at ending polytheism (shirk). After this a new process started in human history, the culmination of which is modern Science.
Polytheism is the worship of more than one god. In ancient times, man had made the phenomenon of nature an object of worship. It became a mental block in the process of research and investigation of nature, for the simple reason that if you hold something as a subject of veneration, you cannot treat it as a subject of scientific investigation.
In the wake of this revolution brought about by the Prophet of Islam, a new process originated in human history. Man devoted himself to the investigation of nature and this study continued leading to scientific discoveries. The secrets hidden in nature were brought to light. The same things had been interpreted in the Quran as the signs of God in the universe and within human beings. Modern science is another name for natural science. Doubtless, this serves to corroborate the prediction of the verses of the Quran.
New discoveries have revolutionized scientific knowledge,
changing the very criterion of scientific argument.
In a way science is the equivalent of the theology of divine religion. It authenticates religion by the criterion of human knowledge. In ancient times, this same task of establishing the authenticity of the divine truth was achieved through miracles.
There are two aspects of modern science—theoretical science and technical science. Theoretical science uses modern resources to discover facts about the universe, while technical science looks at their practical applications. Modern civilization has been greatly influenced by technology. We will deal in this article not with technical science but with theoretical science. For reference, Stephen Hawking, the renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist, has written several books on theoretical science.
The fact that human knowledge authenticates divine religion is mentioned in a tradition of the Prophet.
“All the prophets were given such signs as their contemporaries believed in. And I have been granted the miracle of revelation (the Quran). That is why I hope that those who believed in me would outnumber others.” (Al Bukhari)
In ancient times, knowledge was not as advanced as it is today. This made it impossible to prove the veracity of the divine religion. Prophets of ancient times were hence given such miracles as their contemporaries believed in. For example, the people of Moses believed in magic, so Moses was given the miracle of magic. But the revolution brought about by the Quran resulted in extraordinary progress in human knowledge. It made possible for truth to be proved at the level of established human knowledge.
While the miracle made the contemporaries of the prophets experience their helplessness, they had no rational proof for the divine religion based on established human knowledge of the time. With progress in knowledge, arguments put forward with supporting proofs from established scientific knowledge found universal acceptance. Gradually it was easier for people to understand the message of the Prophet and verify it in the light of its own established principles. The benefit was the increasing numbers of those who believed in it.
Common to ancient miracles and arguments based on scientific evidence is that they both provide arguments for religious belief only at the level of inference. When a prophet performed a miracle, it did not mean that this was a mirror in which one could observe the actual claim of the prophet. One could infer that by performing such miracles which other mortals could not, the miracle worker had received divine succour.
The same is true of scientific proof. The evidence provided by science is not a direct demonstrative proof of any actual claim. It is only through inference that the claim of divine religion becomes understandable and convincing.
This difference is the result of modern nuclear science. But science has made extraordinary progress in the 20th and 21st centuries in the nuclear field. It has given access to the micro world, whereas earlier knowledge had been limited to the macro world. It was believed that every rational thing had a physical body which could be weighed and measured, but the discovery of the micro world has brought about a sea change in scientific knowledge. The level of analysis has progressed to so ‘micro’ a level that now things can only be called waves of probability.
It has become possible for religious beliefs to be
established at exactly the same level at which other things of
this material world are established.
New discoveries have revolutionized scientific knowledge, changing the very criterion of scientific argument. With the discoveries in the micro world, it is now believed that inferential argument is as valid as non-inferential or direct argument. Direct argument has become insufficient to explain all the facts. It has now become necessary to recognise the validity of inferential argument so that laws governing the micro world could be formulated.
With this development of human knowledge, it has become possible for religious beliefs to be established at exactly the same level at which other things of this material world are established. For instance, when we say that the existence of design in this world proves the existence of a designer—it is as valid an argument as other scientific arguments of the material world.
Art of Conversion
To attain success, man has to take stimulus
from his environment, both positive and
negative, his education, whether good or
bad, his moral and physical inheritance
and ‘convert’ these into success in much the
same way that a plant converts nutrients
from the soil into fruits. Even from his
failures, he has to extract such experience
as will set him on a better and more
successful course for the future.