 Materialism
can no longer claim to be a scientific philosophy.
Arthur Koestler, the renowned Social Philosopher.
1
How
did the endless universe we live in come into
being?
How
did the equilibrium, harmony, and order of this
universe develop?
How is
it that this Earth is such a fit and sheltering
place for us to live in?
Questions such
as these have attracted attention since the dawn
of the human race. The conclusion reached by scientists
and philosophers searching for answers with their
intellects and common sense is that the design
and order of this universe are evidence of the
existence of a supreme Creator ruling over the
whole universe.
This
is an indisputable truth that we may reach by
using our intelligence. Allah declares this reality
in His holy book, the Qur'an, which He inspired
as a guide for humanity fourteen centuries ago.
He states that He has created the universe when
it was not, for a particular purpose, and with
all its systems and balances specifically designed
for human life.
Allah invites people to consider this truth in
the following verse:
Are
you stronger in structure or is heaven? He built
it. He raised its vault high and made it level.
He darkened its night and brought forth its
morning light. After that He smoothed out the
earth… (Surat an Naziat: 27-30)
Elsewhere it
is declared in the Qur'an that a person should
see and consider all the systems and balances
in the universe that have been created for him
by Allah and derive a lesson from his observations:
He
has made night and day subservient to you, and
the sun and moon and stars, all subject to His
command. There is certainly Signs in that for
people who pay heed. (Surat an-Nahl: 12)
In yet another
verse of the Qur'an, it is pointed out:
He
makes night merge into day and day merge into
night, and He has made the sun and moon subservient,
each one running until a specified time. That
is Allah, your Lord. The Kingdom is His. Those
you call on besides Him have no power over even
the smallest speck.(Surah Fatir: 13)
This plain truth
declared by the Qur'an is also confirmed by a
number of the important founders of the modern
science of astronomy. Galileo, Kepler, and Newton
all recognised that the structure of universe,
the design of the solar system, the laws of physics
and their states of equilibrium were all created
by Allah and they arrived at that conclusion as
a result of their own research and observations.
Materialism: A 19th-Century
Fallacy
The reality of the creation of which we speak
has been ignored or denied since the earliest
times by a particular philosophical point of view.
It is called "materialism". This philosophy, which
was originally formulated among the ancient Greeks,
has also made an appearance from time to time
in other cultures and has been advanced by individuals
as well. It holds that matter alone exists and
that it has done so for an infinity of time. From
these tenets, it claims that the universe has
also "always" existed and was not created.
In addition to
their claim that the universe exists in an infinity
of time, materialists also assert that there is
no purpose or aim in the universe. They claim
that all the equilibrium, harmony and order that
we see around us are merely the product of coincidence.
This "coincidence assertion" is also put forward
when the question of how human beings came into
being comes up. The theory of evolution, widely
referred to as Darwinism, is another application
of materialism to the natural world.
We just mentioned
that some of the founders of modern science were
faithful people who were in agreement that the
universe was created and organised by Allah. In
the 19th century, an important change took place
in the attitudes of the scientific world with
respect to this matter. Materialism was deliberately
introduced to the agenda of modern science by
various groups. Because the 19th century's political
and social conditions formed a good basis for
materialism, the philosophy gained wide acceptance
and spread throughout the scientific world.
The findings of modern science however undeniably
demonstrate how false the claims of materialism
really are.
The Findings of 20th-Century
Science
Let us recall the two assertions of materialism
about the universe:
Modern science proves the reality of the
creation of the universe by Allah, contrary
to what outdated materialist philosophy
maintains. Newsweek made "Science Finds
God" the cover story of its July 27th 1998
issue. |
The universe exists in infinite time and, because
it has no beginning or end, it was not created.Everything
in this universe is merely the result of chance
and not the product of any intentional design, plan,
or vision.Those two notions were boldly advanced
and ardently defended by 19th-century materialists,
who of course had no recourse other than to depend
upon the limited and unsophisticated scientific
knowledge of their day. Both have been utterly refuted
by the discoveries of 20th-century science.
The first to
be laid in the grave was the notion of the universe
existing in infinite time. Since the 1920s, there
has been mounting evidence this cannot be true.
Scientists are now certain that the universe came
into being from nothingness as the result of an
unimaginably huge explosion, known as the "Big
Bang". In other words, the universe came
into being–or rather, it was created by Allah.
The 20th century
has also witnessed the demolition of the second
claim of materialism: that everything in the universe
is the result of chance and not design. Research
conducted since the 1960s consistently demonstrates
that all the physical equilibriums of the universe
in general and of our world in particularly are
intricately designed to make life possible. As
this research deepened, it was discovered each
and every one of the laws of physics, chemistry,
and biology, of the fundamental forces such as
gravity and electromagnetism, and of the details
of the structure of atoms and the elements of
the universe has been precisely tailored so that
human beings may live.
Scientists today
call this extraordinary design the "anthropic
principle". This is the principle that every detail
in the universe has been carefully arranged to
make human life possible.To sum up, the philosophy
called materialism has been utterly refuted by
modern science. From its position as the dominant
scientific view of the 19th century, materialism
collapsed into fiction in the 20th.
How could
it have been otherwise? As Allah indicates "We
did not create heaven and earth and everything
between them to no purpose. That is the opinion
of those who are disbelievers." (Surah Sad: 27)
it is wrong to suppose that the universe was created
in vain. A philosophy so utterly flawed as materialism
and systems based on it were doomed to failure
from the very beginning.
Creation is a
fact. In this book we will be examining the evidence
for this fact. We will see how materialism has
collapsed in the face of modern science and also
witness how wonderfully and perfectly the universe
has been designed and created by Allah.
| Notes |
 |
| 1. Arthur Koestler,
Janus: A Summing Up, New York: Vintage Books,
1978, p. 250. |
|
