Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | The Sunday Guardian | May 17, 2015

An article written by the American Nobel-prize winning physicist Charles Townes (1915-2015) appeared in the Times of India on 31 January 2015. The article was titled: A Physicist's Faith in Science and God. In the article, Townes speaks about the universe and religion. He says: "No one can deny that the universe is the outcome of intelligent placing. It is unusual. We, too, are unusual. To make it possible for life to exist, special physical laws are required. So I would say that this is a very special universe. It has been intelligently planned. How can anyone confute that? So, there is indeed a spiritual world; a Creator. Most people do not realise that science, like Religion, requires faith. We make so many assumptions...I do believe there is a spiritual presence in the universe. It is difficult to define God, but I can feel an Omnipresence everywhere. People ask, if God created the universe, who created God? So there's always a problem with a beginning."

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Everyone admits that our universe is an intelligently designed universe. Thus, there must be a beginning of such a universe. Existence of a meaningful universe is an undeniable fact. The only thing about which people are agnostic is its beginning - how did it begin and who is the beginner? However, when looked at deeply this question seems illogical. It is an obvious fact that where there is a beginning, there is a beginner. The phenomenon of beginning itself proves the existence of a beginner. If we are compelled to believe in the beginning, then we must also, out of the same compulsion, believe in the beginner.

All our knowledge points to the fact that there is a world that exists outside of us. When we accept the existence of the world, it becomes necessary to accept that this world has had a beginning. Since a beginning cannot happen without a beginner, we are compelled to believe that here a beginner, too, exists.