There is no god but Allah, and He can prove it! Part II

Does God Exist?

What is it to exist?  How have we defined this concept over time?  Is existence to be present in Creation?  If so, then God, Allah, does not exist.  Even though Christian philosophers have seemed to place God in creation, having done so, their proofs of the existence of God seem to go around in circles. Leaving aside arguments based on design and the ordering of the universe, and arguments based on morality, for the time being we will focus on the two primary arguments of philosophy, the ontological argument and the cosmological argument.

Starting with Saint Anselm, many have tried to prove the existence of God using ontological arguments.  Ontological arguments, such as the one devised by Rene Descartes, posit that once we understand the concept (tasawir) of God, then we must admit that it is impossible for Him not to exist.  If God is defined as Omnipotent, Omnipresent, the First Cause of all Things, then He must exist.  It is not possible that God not exist.  However, this argument is circular.  Certainly, a thing that is so defined as so necessarily existing, could not be proven to be anything else but, necessarily existing.

Rene Descartes also used himself as proof of God’s existence. How arrogant really.  “Cogito Ergo Sum.”  “I think, therefore I am.”  He felt that we cannot deny our own existence.  And we cannot deny that we think.  And we can think of a being that is infinite as to extent and duration, and that this is God.  And we could not have come up with this idea ourselves, since we are finite as to extent and duration.  And a thing cannot create something greater than itself.  So there must be a God that caused me to have such a concept in my mind.

Others have put forth what has been referred to as the Cosmological Argument.  Here, we acknowledge that the universe exists and that it could not have come from nothing.  Therefore, there must be something outside of Creation that created it, and that this Creator transcends time and space – ie Allah SWT. This is closer to the Islamic argument, and many Muslims have held such an idea.  In fact, science would seem to prove something of this sort.  One scientist actually stated that if there was a God, then the universe would have come into existence in one instant.  When the Big Bang Theory was first posited in my youth, it was extremely controversial and many scientists refused to even think about it.  Now it is accepted widely, and is posited by evolutionists as well.  They seem to have forgotten it actually proves the existence of Allah SWT.  (More on this later, inshaa llah).

Finity and Infinity

These arguments depend on something being greater than finity – what we call infinity. But is infinity possible - nothing within creation or nature is infinite.  The universe had a beginning, so it cannot be infinite as to duration. But what about extension.  Nothing can be infinitely big or small within Creation.  Something infinitely big would take up all the space in the Universe.  However, not even the Universe is infinite – according to science, the Universe is expanding.  What is it expanding into?  How can it expand?  If it has limits, be it expanding ones, then it still has limits and is not infinite.  And whatever vacuum it is expanding into is also not infinite, since there is a place that is not a vacuum. 
What about Allah?  Is He infinite?  He is not finite. He has no beginning or end.  Allah has also described Himself as a singularity – witr.  To be infinite would imply that Allah SWT is infinite as to extension and duration.  But Allah SWT has said that He is Time (Asr).  As noted before in Part I, Asr also means middle, as in Asr Prayer – the Middle Prayer. Allah SWT created Creation; He is absolutely distinct from it.

Qul Huwa Allah Ahad

Allahu As-samad

Lam yulid wa lam yulad

Wa lam yakun llahu kufuwan ahad

Say He Allah is One, Allah is the Self-sufficient upon which all depends.

He begets not nor is He begotten, and there is nothing like unto Him

So Allah SWT informs us in Surah Al-Ikhlas that He is self-sufficient and everything depends on Him.  In Greek thought, Creation, by definition, is dependent.  Anything which is dependent is created, and the only thing that is self-sufficient, God, is the only Creator.  The Greek concept of creation is different from the Arabic concept of “kawn.”  “Kawn” is Creation, so anything that existed before the creation of the universe is not created, although it may be dependent upon the Creator for its existence.  For example, the Lawh al-Mawfuz, the “Tablet” upon which Allah inscribed His Blueprint for the Universe, existed before the creation of the Universe.   It is dependent upon Allah for existence, so in Greek, it is created; but in Arabic, it is not part of the Kawn.

Allah begets not – He has not children.  And He is not begotten.  He is not the son or daughter of anyone.  He is singular.  There is nothing like Him.  He is absolutely unique. 

Creation has duration and extent, time and space.  What about Allah SWT?  When Allah SWT described Himself, He said that He is “Asr.”  As I have noted, this means middle – no beginning or end.  Others have said that it means that He is Time itself.  Creation has finite duration, so something must have existed prior to it.  Hence, Allah SWT who created it, must have existed prior to Creation, and so must have at least greater duration than the Creation.  And if Allah SWT was not begotten, and had no beginning, then He must be infinite as to duration.  However, Allah created both space and time.  The Creation includes both extension and duration – space and time.  How would something within time and space have created them?  If Allah SWT was subject to space and time or had extension or duration, then He could not have created them, and there would have to be something greater than Himself to have created Him.  But, as we noted, He is not begotten and has no beginning, nor end.  

Creation is finite as to duration and extent.  And Allah is singular, having no duration or extent.  He is not infinite.  And nothing in the Universe is infinite.  There is no such thing as infinity.  Infinity is impossible.

Zeno’s Paradoxes and the Proof of the Impossibility of Infinity

As we have discussed, concepts are either possible or impossible.  Cats are possible and unicorns are possible.  Round squares are impossible by their very definition.  For most of the history of human thought, infinity was deemed possible.  Even mathematics has posited infinite number.  As we have noted, people can imagine impossible things.  We have used a symbol to indicate infinity in mathematics, but even though we can image it, is it possible.  

In the case of round squares, the definition renders the tasawir/concept impossible.  It is logically impossible.  Despite thousands of years of belief in infinity, it is actually logically impossible as well.  The proof of this comes from an early source, Zeno.  Zeno (not the Stoic philosopher) discovered four paradoxes involving motion.  

The four most famous paradoxes are the Dichotomy, the Achilles, the Arrow, and the Stadium.

1. The Dichotomy: Motion cannot exist because before that which is in motion can reach its destination, it must reach the midpoint of its course, but before it can reach the middle, it must reach the quarterpoint, but before it reaches the quarterpoint, it first must reach the eigthpoint, etc. Hence, motion can never start.
2. The Achilles: The running Achilles can never catch a crawling tortoise ahead of him because he must first reach where the tortoise started. However, when he reaches there, the tortoise has moved ahead, and Achilles must now run to the new position, which by the time he reaches the tortoise has moved ahead, etc. Hence the tortoise will always be ahead.
3. The Arrow: Time is made up of instants, which are the smallest measure and indivisible. An arrow is either in motion or at rest. An arrow cannot move, because for motion to occur, the arrow would have to be in one position at the start of an instant and at another at the end of the instant. However, this means that the instant is divisible which is impossible because by definition, instants are indivisible. Hence, the arrow is always at rest.
4. The Stadium: Half the time is equal to twice the time. Take three rows. They start at the first position. Row A stays stationary while rows B & C move at equal speeds in opposite directions. When they have reached the second position, each B has passed twice as many C's as A's. Thus it takes row B twice as long to pass row A as it does to pass row C. However, the time for rows B & C to reach the position of row A is the same. So half the time is equal to twice the time.

For ages, no one could solve these paradoxes, until modern mathematics. “To the Greek mathematicians, who had no real concept of convergence or infinity, these reasonings were incomprehensible. Aristotle discarded them as "fallacies" without really showing why and Zeno's paradoxes were hidden away in the mathematical closet for the next 2500 years. For that time, they were reduced mainly as novelties of philosophy. However, they were revived mathematically in the twentieth century by the efforts of people like Bertrand Russell and Lewis Carroll. Today, armed with the tools of converging series and Cantor's theories on infinite sets, these paradoxes can be explained to some satisfaction. However, even today the debate continues on the validity of both the paradoxes and the rationalizations.”  (Interactive Real Analysis, 9.12 Zeno of Elea (495?-435? BC, http://www.mathcs.org/analysis/reals/history/zeno.html).

As noted by the authors of the Interactive Real Analysis website, only concepts of convergence and infinity provide reasonable explanations for these paradoxes.  However, I would propose another possibility, that these paradoxes prove that infinity is impossible.  Because things do move and Achilles does run faster than a tortoise, then infinite duration and extension are not possible.

 So, what are we saying?  Can Allah’s existence be proven?  Certainly the Ontological Argument is circular, and the Cosmological Argument also has problems.  But we said that Allah SWT has proved His own actuality.  So inshaa llah, if Allah SWT gives us life, we will explore this proof, and the ayaat ullah in the Universe.