Can It Be Matter?
 A very
popular question among atheists is, ‘Granted that the existence of temporal
things necessitates the existence of an eternal cause, why should that cause be
the God of religion? Why can’t matter be eternal and be therefore in no need
of an eternal creator?’ I shall argue, on an Islamic basis but at the same
time also on a rational basis, that the attribute of eternity entails other
attributes, which matter does not and cannot have, and cannot, in view of this,
play the role of the original and ultimate cause of temporal things. Muslim
theologians say that eternity of existence logically implies everlastingness. This
is true because, if something is eternal then it does not depend for its
existence on anything outside itself. If this is so then it can never pass
away, because only those things pass away that lose some of the external
conditions on which they depend for their existence. If the ultimate cause of
temporal things is eternal and everlasting, it must of necessity be
self-sufficient, [in Arabic] qayyoom and ghanee.
Can there be more than one such creator? The Quran
tells us that this is impossible:
“God never had a child, nor have there been any gods beside
him. [Had there been any], each of them would have appropriated to himself
what he created, and some would have overcome others…” (Quran 23:91)
This Quranic argument was paraphrased by some Muslims
theologians in a way somewhat like the following:
The assumption that there are gods beside the one true
God leads to false consequences and must therefore be false. If there is more
than one god, then:
(a) if every detail of everything in the world
was the result of the action of one of the gods, it cannot at the same time be
the result of the action of another god. But if,
(b) some things in the world were created by some
gods, and others by other gods, then each god would rule independently over
what he created, which means that nothing in his world can even in principle,
be influenced by anything outside it. But this contradicts the observed unity
and interdependence of the world. And if that is impossible, then
(c) some gods will overcome others, but if that
happens then the ones who are vanquished cannot be true gods. There can,
therefore, be no more than one creator.
How does this creator create? Since He is
self-sufficient, He cannot be said to depend on anything outside Himself in any
actions, and cannot therefore be said to produce His effects the way natural
causes do. But if He is not a natural cause, He must be a volitional agent. And
since intention implies knowledge, and knowledge and intention imply life, he
must be a living being. Since He is an eternal and everlasting being, all His
attributes must reflect this quality; thus He must be not only knowing, but
all-knowing, not only powerful, but all-powerful, etc.
Since no matter in any form can answer to these
attributes, and since all these attributes are implied by the two attributes of
eternity and everlastingness, no form of matter can be either eternal or
everlasting, and thus no matter of any form can play the role of that ultimate cause.
This much of the attributes that an eternal and everlasting creator must have
is enough, I suppose, to show that it cannot be matter.
But this conclusion can be further confirmed by what
modern science tells us about the nature of matter.
Why should He be the God of Islam?
Some might say, ‘Granted that this god is a personal and
living God, and that He has the attributes which you mentioned, why should He
be the God of Islam and not, say the Christian or Jewish God?’ The God of
Islam is the God of all true prophets of God from Adam down to Moses, Jesus and
Muhammad. But it is a basic claim of the religion with which Muhammad came
that previous religions (including Christianity and Judaism) have not been kept
in their pristine form which those prophets advocated, but have been tampered
with and distorted. The only religion whose book has taken upon itself to be
preserved from any such distortions is the religion of the last of God’s
prophets, namely Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him. This
is not to say that everything in those religions is false or bad. No! There
is much in them that is good and true; it is only those elements in them that
contradict Islam which must be false or bad. But even if they were to be
purged of everything that is not in consonance with Islam, they would still be
less perfect than Islam is, especially in their conceptions of God, therefore
unsuitable for being universal religions.
Having said this, let me give one example of a non-Islamic
religious belief which the Quran considers to be a stupendous blasphemy against
God, namely that He has children. At the time of the Prophet, some Arabs
believed that the angels were the daughters of God, while some Christians
believed that Jesus was the son of God, and some Jews believed that Ezra was
the son of God. Just as the Quran gave arguments for the impossibility of
there being any gods besides the one true God, it also gave elaborate arguments
to show the impossibility of Him having a child, whether male or female. If
the Creator is one and self-sufficient, then He is also unique, ahad:
“…Nothing is like Him...” (Quran 42:11)
But if so then:
“He neither begets nor is He begotten.” (Quran 112:3)
“…How can He have a child if He has no wife, and if He created
everything?...” (Quran 6:101)
The Quran is here saying that the claim that God has
children contradicts the facts (acknowledged by those who make this claim) that
He is the Creator of everything, that He is self-sufficient, and that He has no
spouse. Now if He is the creator of everything, this necessarily includes the
one who is claimed to be His child. But if this is created by Him, it cannot
be His child; it has to be one of His creations. One does not create one’s
child; one begets it. If it is insisted that the child is actually begotten
and not created by God, this will entail the following false consequences:
The begotten child must be of the same nature as its
father, in which case God will not be unique or one.
God will not be the creator of everything.
God will have to have a spouse, who must of course be of
the same nature as He is, otherwise they cannot beget anything.
But in that case the number of beings who are of the
same nature as God will be raised to three.
If the child is begotten then it cannot be eternal, i.e.
it cannot be of the same nature as the father.
It must therefore be temporal; but in that case it has
to have a creator. But if the God who is its father cannot at the same time be
its creator, then there must be its creator, then there must be another creator
besides that God the father; but in that case, this other creator will be the
one true creator because it was through his power that the first one was able
to beget its son. This will raise the number of gods to four.
No wonder than that the Quran said about those who
claimed that God has a child:
“You have indeed come with something most monstrous, of which
the skies almost burst, the earth split asunder, and the mountains fall down in
utter ruin. All this because of their attributing a child to God.” (Quran 19:89-91)
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