FROM SCIENCE TO
THE REALIZATION OF GOD
The purpose of the creation of man is described in the Quran in these words: “I created the jinn and mankind only so that they might worship Me” (51:56). Here the term, “worship” has been interpreted by Abdullah ibn Abbas, a Companion of the Prophet (Al-Dinawri, al-Mujalasah wa Jawahir al-`Ilm: 225), and his student Mujahid, as obtaining maarifah or realization of God. (Abu Hayyan, Tafsir al-Bahr al-Muhit, Vol. 9, p. 562) In his commentary on the Quran, Ibn Kathir narrated the same thing with reference to Ibn Jurayj. (Vol 7, p. 425)
The realization of God is connected with man’s very being. Man has been fashioned as a creature who possesses free will. One definition of man is a creature with the capacity for conceptual thinking. Conceptual thinking is an ability that no other creature possesses. For man, the realization of God is based on this unique ability. In this sense, for man, the criterion for the realization of God is the self-discovered realization of God. It is this self-discovered realization of God that is man’s actual test. Man must develop his thinking power until he becomes capable of discovering his Creator at the level of self-discovery.
Two Levels of Realization of God
There are two levels of the discovery of God. The first level is discovering the Creator at the level of commonsense. The second level is discovering the Creator at the level of science. For the last thousands of years, man has desired to use his commonsense in an unadulterated manner and obtain the conscious realization of his Creator at the commonsense level. There was only one condition for this discovery—and that was honesty. If a man lives honestly, commonsense will be sufficient for him to discover God.
The second level of realization of God is with the help of science—recognizing the signs of the Creator hidden in Nature and then, through their help, arriving at the rational realization of the Creator. For the scientific realization of the Creator, man needed to have sufficient supporting scientific data about the creation to reflect and ponder on. The scientific realization of God is not possible through mere abstract intellectual thinking. It is possible only when the supporting scientific data is available. The means to acquire this scientific data is knowledge of the laws of Nature. In ancient times, man did not have an adequate understanding of the laws of Nature. That is why the scientific realization of the Creator was not possible for man at that time. However, in today’s age, we have this knowledge, which is why it has become possible for man to arrive at a scientific realization of God.
The Creator who brought man into being also manages human history—that is; while keeping human freedom intact, He guides man to the desired state in line with His Creation Plan. The Creator does this work of His without abrogating human freedom. This is an exceedingly complex work, and the Creator of the universe alone can do this with His great Power and Knowledge. Our job is to understand this Divine plan and not try to change it, which is impossible for us to do.
God repeatedly stated in the Quran that the universe had been subjugated to man. Therefore, it was the responsibility of the believers to discover this fact and attain the level of realization of God through scientific discoveries. This was only possible after the scientific age. However, the believers failed to perform this task. After this, God raised another community for this task (Quran 47:38)—the Christian peoples of Europe. The Europeans were so badly defeated in the Crusades that war no longer seemed an option. After this, they had no choice but to re-plan their affairs and engage in efforts in some other field instead. Thus, instead of the battlefield, they gradually began to shift the direction of their efforts to the discovery of the laws of Nature. In a sense, they turned their efforts from the Violent Crusades to the Intellectual Crusades.
The Italian scientist Galileo Galilei (d. 1642) is called the Father of Modern Science. The reason for this is that he was the first scientist through whom the journey of modern science began systematically. This process continued for almost four hundred years until it reached its culmination. By the 20th century, all the scientific data necessary to discover the Creator at a scientific or rational level had been obtained by human beings. This process continued for some four centuries until its culmination in the 20th century. Now, man has obtained all the scientific data necessary for the Creator’s discovery at the scientific or rational level.
Every particle of the universe that God has created bears the stamp, as it were, of the Creator. Then, he introduced this knowledge to the Angels. After this, He placed this knowledge in the universe in a hidden form so that man could discover it independently through conceptual thinking. It is this hidden knowledge that, after its discovery, is known by the name of ‘modern science.’
The Evidence of Science
What is science? Science means the study of the universe objectively and organized in the light of proven or established principles. Essentially, science is the systematic knowledge of Nature.
Man has always reflected and pondered on the reality of the universe—first of all, in the light of traditional beliefs, after that, in the light of philosophical thinking, and then, in the light of accepted principles of science.
The physical sciences have had three major paradigm shifts in the last four centuries. First, there was the Newtonian hypothesis that matter is the basic building block of the universe. Then, in the early 20th century, this gave way to the Einsteinian energy paradigm, with energy being the basic building block of the universe. The latest paradigm is accepted in the present era when more and more scientists accept consciousness as the basic building block of the universe. These shifts have had inevitable consequences for contemporary philosophy, helping crass materialism to give way, in many circles, to spirituality, another name for which is the authentic version of Divine religion.
What can be called the ‘Modern Scientific Age’ began four centuries or so ago in Western Europe. Gradually, an impression generally prevailed that science was the highest means for knowing reality. It came to be believed that something that was proven through science alone was real, while something that could not be established through science was unreal. Initially, science was considered synonymous with just knowledge of material phenomena that were directly observable. Because religious realities did not appear to be proven through methods used for studying material phenomena, they were deemed to be ‘unscientific.’
However, the river of knowledge continued to flow ahead until the time came when science recognized the reality of phenomena that cannot be seen or otherwise directly observed—such as the subatomic particle known as the electron, which is always in motion—but whose existence can be inferred only through its effect, that is the heat it generates while in motion. Using the inferential argument, an unobservable particle becomes discoverable indirectly. Science admitted the validity of the inferential method. Moreover, through this same method, the existence of the Creator can be inferred from a study of the creation.
The Creator undoubtedly has His separate existence. However, concerning man, He is indirectly discoverable through reflection and contemplation on His creation. That is to say that we cannot see God directly, but we can infer that God exists by studying its effect—His creation or the universe that is all around us. In this way, we can use the same criterion to prove God’s existence and the veracity of any truth using the inferential argument used to prove anything else scientifically.
Science and the Concept of God
The intellectual history of recent decades shows that scientists are now increasingly accepting that the universe is the handiwork of a Supreme Mind. As Arthur Eddington remarked, “The stuff of the world is mind stuff.”
In 1927, the Belgian scientist Georges Lemaitre (d. 1966) presented the Big Bang theory and the expanding universe concept. Further research was done on this subject until its status became an accepted fact. Finally, in 1965, background radiation was discovered. From it, it came to be known that there are ripple remnants of the Big Bang in outer space. Referring to them, American scientist Joel Primack (b. 1945) remarked that they “are no less than the handwriting of God.”
George Smoot (b. 1945) is an American astrophysicist and cosmologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer. In 1992, when Smoot announced the discovery of ripples in the heat radiation still arriving from the ‘Big Bang,’ he said it was “like seeing the face of God.” (God For the 21st Century, Templeton Press, May 2000, p. 153) As these observations were ‘evidence for the birth of the universe’, Smoot remarked that it was “like seeing the face of God.”
Fine-Tuning in the Universe
The scientific study tells us that the different components of the universe are exceedingly closely interrelated and are characterized by a great degree of fine-tuning. Therefore, there must be some explanation for these mind-boggling phenomena. The following excerpts are taken from a review of the book by physicist Alan Lightman for The Washington Post on April 11, 2014, on this topic.
Fine-Tuning in the Universe
“There is plenty of good scientific evidence that our universe began about 14 billion years ago, in a Big Bang of enormously high density and temperature, long before planets, stars and even atoms existed. But what came before [The physicist Lawrence] Krauss, in his book, discusses the current thinking of physicists that our entire universe could have emerged from a jitter in the amorphous haze of the subatomic world called the quantum foam, in which energy and matter can materialize out of nothing. Krauss’s punch line is that we do not need God to create the universe. The quantum foam can do it quite nicely all on its own. Aczel asks the obvious question: But where did the quantum foam come from? Where did the quantum laws come from? Hasn’t Krauss passed the buck? Legitimate questions. But ones we will probably never be able to answer.” ...[The fine-tuning problem] For the past 50 years or so, physicists have become more and more increasingly aware that various fundamental parameters of our universe appear to be fine-tuned to allow the emergence of life—not only as we know it but the life of any kind. For example, if the nuclear force were slightly stronger than it is, then all of the hydrogen atoms in the infant universe would have fused with other hydrogen atoms to make helium, and there would be no hydrogen left. No hydrogen means no water.
On the other hand, if the nuclear force were substantially weaker than it is, then the complex atoms needed for biology could not hold together. In another, even more striking example, if the “cosmic dark energy” discovered by scientists 15 years ago were a little denser than it actually is, our universe would have expanded so rapidly that matter could never have pulled itself together to form stars. If the dark energy were a little smaller, the universe would have collapsed long before stars had time to form. Atoms are made of stars. Without stars, there would be no atoms and no life. So, the question is: Why? Why do these parameters lie in the narrow range that allows life? (Book: Why Science Does Not Disprove God by mathematician Amir D. Aczel, who is currently a researcher in the history of science at Boston University.)
In recent decades, scientists have revealed plenty of good evidence clearly showing that the universe is not eternal but was created—perhaps some 14 billion years ago, through the ‘Big Bang.’ For several decades now, physicists have become increasingly aware that various fundamental parameters of this created universe appear to be very precisely finely tuned to allow the emergence of life, as exemplified in the excerpt above.
The parameters being so finely tuned for life on Earth indicate the existence of a Fine-Tuner who finely tuned them in such a way as to enable the universe to host life. Another name for this Fine-Tuner is God.
If the theory of Quantum Physics is applied to this issue, it can be said, “Probably there is a God.”
This is a purely scientific position. However, at the level of human intuition, God’s existence is as proven as man’s.
The meaningfulness that pervades the universe, the planning, the flawless design—all of these indicate the existence of a Supreme Mind. In the universe, mathematical precision is found to such a high degree that it can be said to demonstrate the existence of a mathematical Mind.
The presence of intelligent design in the universe created by God and its perfectness were already mentioned in the Quran centuries before modern scientific discoveries that testify to them. However, through current scientific study, we learned many details about them, which are, as it were, a commentary on the brief statements of the Quran on this matter. Now that the river of knowledge has arrived here, the only thing that remains is to give the discovered ‘Intelligence’ or ‘Mind’ behind the universe the name of ‘God,’ as per religious terminology.
