Review
Summary
This section presents counter-arguments to the arguments based on reference to the scientific method, psychology, history and Marxism presented by modern atheist thinkers who seek to reject religious truths. The author affirms that such claims might have been accepted before the splitting of the atom, but that after the splitting of the atom, in the first quarter of the 20th century, man’s conceptions about matter have been drastically altered. In fact, the advance of science in the past century has culminated in a knowledge explosion, the likes of which have never before been experienced in human history and in the wake of which many ancient ideas about God and religion have had to be re-examined.
In this section the author counters these arguments, based on scientific facts, to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, that far from having a damaging effect on religion, modern knowledge has served to clarify and consolidate its truths. Many modern discoveries support Islamic claims made 1400 years ago that what is laid down in the Quran is the ultimate truth, and that this will be borne out by all future knowledge. This has been alluded to in the Quran in these words: “Soon We will show them Our signs in all the regions of the earth and in their own souls, until they clearly see that this is the truth.” (41:53)
The author explains that science postulates that whatever events take place in the world of Nature happen in accordance with specific laws of Nature. Some people may take this argument to imply that there is no need for the existence of an ‘unknown’ God in order to explain these events, since known laws already exist to explain them. Julian Huxley says this with great conviction: “If events are due to natural causes, they are not due to supernatural causes.” Analysing this argument, the author concludes that science, which seeks to provide explanations for the laws of Nature, cannot replace religion, because for this, it would need to discover the ultimate and absolute explanation, which it is not in a position to. The best answer to this argument, the author explains, is given by American biologist Cecil Boyce Hamann: ‘Nature does not explain, she is herself in need of an explanation’. The fact is that the entire body of modern scientific enquiry is concerned only with the question ‘What is it that exists?’ The question ‘Why does it exist?’ is far beyond its purview.
The argument against religion based on psychology that atheist ideologues present holds that, far from being realities, the concept of God and of the life hereafter are myths, mere fictions, a stretching of the human personality and human wishes to the cosmic scale. Refuting this claim, the author explains that the psychological point of view is that the unconscious mind stores only those experiences to which people have been exposed at one time or the other. However, the religion proclaimed by the prophets contains a great body of knowledge that touches, in one way or the other, all branches of learning, such as astronomy, physics, biology, psychology, history, culture, politics and sociology. In its approach, reasoning and decisions, it encompasses all of the human sciences. The truths which are enshrined in authentic religion are admirably and miraculously free of inconsistencies and remain unchallenged to this day. As such, it cannot be a creation of man’s subconscious self, as atheists might contend.
The author proceeds to examine the argument from history that claims that man invented God or gods to overcome his helplessness. Atheist thinkers conclude that the idea of God can be dispensed with, because the history of religion presents the example of Buddhism—a religion without a God as a form of religious structure that is more suitable to the needs of society. To some atheist thinkers, society, along with its political and economic objectives, is itself the ‘God’ of the modern age. Whereas ‘Parliament is the Prophet of this God, through which He informs mankind of His will, and dams and factories rather than mosques and churches are His places of worship. Religion, in this scheme of things, comes to be regarded as a mere social process, rather than as a revelation of reality. The study of religion by the evolutionary method, they claim, holds it to be progressing from belief in God to denial of God. In this section the author reveals how baseless such claims are. He shows that man has not invented God or gods to overcome his helplessness and that God and religious truths are indeed a reality.
Refuting yet another argument of atheistic thinkers, the author explains that the Marxist approach to history is deeply problematic. Based on the hypothesis that it is the economic conditions that are the real factors that shape man’s consciousness, Marxist ideology maintained that tyrannical systems fostered exploitation and that the moral and religious concepts which evolved under them reflected their environment and were a product of it. Refuting this argument, the author explains that this theory is based on a denial of the human will and regards man simply as a product of economic conditions. It is as if like soap-cakes manufactured in a factory, man is moulded in the factory of the environment he finds himself in. It is as if he does not act with an independent mind but simply conforms to whatever conditioning he has been subjected to. Since man has a free will and acts based on his choices, it can be said that the Marxist understanding of religion does not hold true with regard to authentic Divine revelation. (The author has penned a book in Urdu to refute the Marxist ideology itself, Marxism: Tarikh Jisko Rad Kar Chuki Hai [‘Marxism: Rebutted by History’]).
This chapter concludes that the veracity of religious truths is proved beyond doubt by scientific facts themselves. The picture of life and the universe which takes shape in our minds on accepting religious truths is a very beautiful and gladdening one. This, in itself, establishes the truth of authentic religion. It conforms to the noble ideas of man in the very same way as the material universe is echoed in mathematical formulae. In contrast to this, the picture of reality that emerges in accordance with an anti-religious philosophy is completely out of sync with the human mind.
In his book Man Does not Stand Alone, Cressy Morrison rightly asks, ‘How much must man advance before he fully realizes the existence of a Supreme Intelligence, grasps His goodness that we exist, assumes his full part in destiny and strives to live up to the highest code he is capable of understanding without attempting to analyze God’s motive, or describe His attributes?’ The fact of the matter is that things are as they are. We cannot change the hard reality: we simply have to acknowledge it and accept it. Now, if we are not to adopt an ostrich-like attitude, our best course is to acknowledge the reality of religious truths and accept them. By denying religious truths, it is man who loses. His denial of religious truths in no way alters, harms, or diminishes these truths. The truth is the truth, whether or not someone accepts it to be so.
An account has been given in the preceding pages of those anti-religionist arguments which are generally put forward in order to prove that modernity leaves no room for religion.
Let us first examine the argument which is based on research carried out in the field of the physical sciences, i.e. that studies of the universe have shown that whatever events take place do so in accordance with specific laws of nature. This argument would have it that there is no necessity to assume the existence of an unknown God in order to explain these events, since known laws already exist to explain them. The best answer to this argument is the one given by a Christian theologian: ‘Nature is a fact, not an explanation’.
Physicists, of course, are right in saying that they have discovered the laws of nature, but what they have discovered is not, in essence, the answer to the problems for whose solution religion has come into existence. It is religion, which points towards the real causes of the creation of the universe, whereas the findings of physicists are confined to determining the outward structure of this universe, as it appears to exist before us. What modern science tells us is only an elaboration upon, rather than an explanation of reality. The entire body of modern scientific enquiry is concerned only with the question: ‘What is it that exists?’ The question: ‘Why does it exist?’ is far beyond its purview. Yet it is upon this second issue that we should be seeking enlightenment.
To illustrate this point, let us consider how a chick comes into this world. The embryo develops inside the smooth, hard shell of an egg, then the chick emerges when the shell breaks up. How does it come about that the shell breaks up at the right moment and the fledgling, which is no more than a small lump of flesh find its way into the outer world? In the past, the obvious answer was: ‘It is the hand of God.’ But now, microscopic studies have shown that on the completion of twenty-one days, when the chick is ready to emerge, there appears on its beak a small hard horn with which this ‘lump of flesh’ is able to break through the walls of its shell. The horn, having done its job, falls off a few days later. This observation, from the point of view of the anti-religionists, contradicts the old concept that it is God who brings the chick out of the shell, because the microscope has clearly shown that a 21-day law exists which is responsible for creating conditions which make it possible for the chick to emerge from the shell. This is a mere fallacy. What modern observation has done is to add a few more links to the chain of factors which lead up to an event. It does not tell us the real cause of the occurrence. It has just shifted the problem of the breaking up of the shell to the development of the horn. The breaking of the shell by the chick is simply an intermediate stage in the occurrence rather than its cause. Will the cause of the event be understood only when we learn what made the horn appear on the chick’s beak? In other words, when we have traced the event back to its primary cause, the cause which ‘knew’ that the chick required some hard instrument to break through the shell and, therefore, in exactly twenty-one days, compelled a hard substance to appear on the beak in the form of a horn and to fall off after having discharged its function?
‘How does the shell break?’ was the question that faced man previously. Now, in the light of recent observations, instead of an answer, we have another question: ‘How does the horn develop?’ In the context of perceived phenomena there is no difference in the nature of these two questions. At the most, questions of the type that lead us from one link to another in the chain of cause and effect, demand an extension of the observation of facts, if they are to be answered at all. On this basis, they do not elicit any valid explanation. The American biologist, Cecil Boyce Hamann, has this to say:
Where the mysteries of digestion and assimilation were seen as evidence of Divine intervention, they now are explained in terms of chemical reactions, each reaction under the control of an enzyme. But does it rule God out of His universe? Who determined that these reactions should take place, and that they should be so exactly controlled by the enzymes? One glance at a present-day chart of the various cyclic reactions and their interaction with each other rules out the possibility that this was just a chance relationship that happened to work. Perhaps here, more than any place else, man is learning that God works by principles that He established with the creation of life.1
From this, one can understand the actual value of modern discoveries. Science and technology having vastly increased the practicability and precision of human observation, it has been possible to deduce the natural laws that bind the universe and according to which it functions to perfection. For instance, in ancient times, man simply knew that drops of water fell out of the clouds on to the earth. But now the whole process of rainfall is widely understood, from the evaporation of sea-water to the precipitation of rain and the final journeying of the fresh water back to the sea. But the kind of understanding brought by these discoveries is nothing but the possession of more highly detailed information, which does not tell us ultimately why these physical processes take place. Science does not tell us how or why the laws of nature came into being, how or why they continue to exist or why they cause the earth and the heavens to function with such unfailing precision that, simply by observing them, it was possible to establish immutable scientific laws. The claim that by learning the laws of nature one could arrive at an explanation of the universe was a mere delusion. It provided an answer to the question, but it was an irrelevant one in that it accepted the intermediary physical links in the chain as primary causes. As Cecil Boyce Hamann so aptly says, ‘Nature does not explain, she is herself in need of an explanation’.
‘Why is blood red in colour?’ If you were to ask a doctor the reason, he would answer, ‘Because your blood contains millions of little red discs (5 million to each cubic centimeter), each some seven thousandths of an inch in diameter, called the red corpuscles.
‘Yes, but why are these discs red?’
‘Because they contain a substance called haemoglobin, which, when it absorbs oxygen from the lungs, becomes bright red. That is why the blood in the arteries is scarlet. As it flows through the body, the blood gives up its oxygen to the organs of the body and the haemoglobin becomes brownish—this is the dark blood of the veins.’
‘Yes. But where do the red corpuscles with their haemoglobin come from?’
‘They are made in the spleen.’
‘That’s marvellous, Doctor. But tell me, how is it that the blood, the red corpuscles, the spleen, and the thousand other things are so organised into one coherent whole, work together so perfectly that I can breathe, run, speak, live?’
‘Ah! That is nature.’
‘Nature!’
‘When I say ‘‘nature”, I mean the interplay of blind physical and chemical forces.’
‘But, Doctor, why do these blind forces always act as if they were pursuing a definite end? How do they manage to coordinate their activities so as to produce a bird which flies, a fish which swims, and me…. who ask questions?’.
‘My dear friend, I a scientist, can tell you how these things happen. Do not ask me why they are like that.’
While there is no gainsaying the fact that science has set up for us a vast storehouse of knowledge, this dialogue clearly shows that it has its limits. There is a point beyond which it can offer no further explanations. Its discoveries then fall very far short of giving us the kind of answers provided by religion. Even if the quantum of scientific discoveries were increased by billions, the necessity for religion would in no way be obviated, for such discoveries throw light only on what is concrete and observable. They tell us what is happening. They do not provide answers to the question, ‘Why is it happening?’ and ‘What is the primary cause?’ All such discoveries are of an intermediate, subsidiary and non-absolute nature.
If science is to replace religion, it shall have to discover the ultimate and absolute explanation. Let us take the example of a machine which is functioning without our being able to see how it works, because it is enclosed in a metallic casing. When we remove this casing, we can see how the various cogwheels move in conjunction with a number of other parts of the mechanism. Does this mean that, in discovering the mechanics of the thing, we have truly understood the cause of its motion? Have we really grasped its secrets? And does the possession of knowledge about the functioning of a machine give us proof that it is self-manufacturing, self-replicating and works automatically? If the answer to this is ‘No’, then how do a few glances at the mechanism of the universe prove that this entire system came into existence unaided and of its own accord, and is continuing to function independently? Criticizing Darwinism, A. Harris made a similar remark: ‘Natural Selection may explain the survival of the fittest but cannot explain the arrival of the fittest.’2
Now take the psychological argument, which holds that far from being a reality, the concept of God and the life hereafter is a myth, a mere fiction, a stretching of the human personality and human wishes to the cosmic scale. I fail to understand what possible basis there can be for this claim. Moreover, if I were indeed to claim that human personality and human wishes did, in fact, exist on a cosmic plane, I doubt if my antagonists would have sufficient factual data to refute my claim.
If we are to talk of scales, let us see what is happening at the atomic level, where we are dealing with infinitesimally small distances. According to the Bohr theory, an invisible atom possesses an internal structure similar to our solar system, with electrons revolving around a nucleus in the same way that planets revolve around the sun. How vastly different the scales, for in the solar system, distances are measured in millions of miles. Yet, in spite of the scales being so different as to boggle the imagination, the systems are exactly the same. Would it be any wonder then if the consciousness, which we as human beings experience existed on a cosmic scale but in a totally perfect form? As an intellectual exercise, it is no more difficult to accept this, than to accept the notion that genes, although only microscopic elements in the human embryo, control the growth and development of a six-foot-tall man. Might not the human and natural desire for a world immeasurably vaster than our own be an echo—spiritual and otherworldly—of a world already existing in this universe in a form invisible to human eyes?
Psychologists are right in holding that sometimes ideas are repressed in our minds during childhood, which erupt at a later stage in an extra-ordinary form. But to infer that it is this very characteristic in humans which has given birth to religion is to jump to wrong conclusions. It is a misinterpretation, if not an actual distortion of a perfectly ordinary fact. It is as if observing a potter designing an image of clay, I deduce that it must be he who has created human beings. Image making and the creation of the human body differ from each other in so qualitative a fashion that to draw any parallels with God’s creativity would be utterly preposterous. It is only minds which see fit to make such analogies which look upon religion as a result of the inchoate ramblings of mentally deranged individuals.
It is a general weakness of modern thought that it jumps to extraordinary conclusions on the basis of facts which carry no weight from the logical point of view. An emotionally disturbed individual may babble abnormally under the influence of thoughts repressed in the unconscious, but how does this prove that the knowledge of the universe revealed to the prophets is also a ‘babbling’ of the same nature—a ‘miracle’ of the unconscious? It is possible to accept incoherence in sleeping and in waking as the result of mental disturbance, but to assert that this is the true source of divine revelation is to descend to illogical and unscientific argument. It merely shows that those who reason in this way are hard put to find any other criterion by which to judge the extraordinary words of the prophets. It does not follow that because agnostics possess only one yardstick by which to measure reality, there exists, de facto, one and only one such yardstick.
Let us suppose that a group of creatures, who possessed the faculty of hearing, but not that of speech, landed on earth from a distant planet. On hearing the conversation and discourses of human beings they started to investigate sound. What was it, and where did it come from? In the course of their research, they came across a tree whose branches, being interlocked, produced grating, squeaking noises because of the friction accidentally created by sudden, squally winds. As soon as the wind stopped blowing, the noise stopped too. This phenomenon was repeated with each gust of wind. Now an ‘expert’ from amongst them, on careful observation of this phenomenon, conveyed telepathically that the secret of human speech had been discovered, namely, that the teeth in the upper and lower jaws in the human mouth were responsible for producing sound. When the upper and lower teeth came close together – causing friction – a sound was produced called human speech. The friction between two objects does, in fact, produce sound, but just as it is incorrect to explain the origin of human speech by referring to this friction, it is likewise ludicrous to explain prophetic words as garbled utterances welling up from a deeply troubled unconscious.
The thoughts suppressed in the unconscious mind are mostly those reprehensible wishes which could not be realized for fear of social and familial castigation. For instance, if someone felt a desire to have incestuous relations with his sister or his daughter, he should repress such feelings, lest their expression should bring down upon him the full weight of social censure. Similarly, if any one felt inclined to commit murder, the fear he would have of being put behind bars and the ensuing feelings of frustration would very likely cause him to repress his initial impulses.
In other words, the wishes, suppressed in the unconscious, are mostly such evil designs as could not be realized for fear of punishment and/or social ostracism. Now, if the subconscious part of the mind of a mentally disturbed person begins to find an outlet, what is likely to come gushing out of it? Obviously the afflicted person will talk incoherently while attempting to give expression to those same hostile feelings and evil desires, which had remained suppressed in his subconscious. And, if we are to think of him as a prophet, it will be as a prophet of evil, certainly not of good. Religious thoughts expressed in prophetic diction are, by comparison, virtue and purity par excellence. The true prophet is, himself, the epitome of virtue and his purity in thought, word and deed has no parallel. His ideas, moreover, exercise such a powerful influence upon people that the very society from which, at one time, the prophet had initially to conceal his ideas – out of fear – is now so greatly attracted towards them, that even after a lapse of centuries together, it still steadfastly adheres to them.
From the psychological point of view, the unconscious mind is actually a vacuum. In it, nothing initially exists. It receives all impressions through the conscious part of the mind. This implies that the unconscious stores only those experiences to which people have been exposed at one time or the other. The unconscious can never become a repository for facts which have not been experienced. But, surprisingly, religion as proclaimed by the prophets, contains truths which were previously unknown to them and for that matter, to the entire human race. It was only with the advent of the prophets that certain facts could be propagated. Had the unconscious been the repository on which they drew, they could not have become the purveyors of great, but unknown truths which they were.
The religion proclaimed by the prophets contain a great body of knowledge, touching, in one way or the other, all branches of learning, such as astronomy, physics, biology, psychology, history, civilization, politics and sociology. No individual, however gifted, whether drawing on the conscious or subconscious minds, has ever been able to produce such an all-embracing discourse, free from erroneous decisions, vain conjectures, unreal statements, miscalculations and unsound logic. But religious scriptures are admirably and miraculously free of such deficiencies. In their approach, reasoning and decisions, they encompass all of the human sciences. Over the centuries, succeeding generations have sifted through the finding of their predecessors, examined them, considered them from all angles, and often disproved and rejected what their forebears had considered truths as firm as rocks. But the truths, which are enshrined in religion, remain unchallenged to this day. So far, it has not been possible to point out a single error, or even discrepancy in them worth the name. Those, who have ventured to attack the bastions of religion have eventually been forced to fall back without scaling its battlements, for they, themselves, have finally been proved to be in the wrong.
At this point, I think it would be pertinent to give the gist of an article in which James Henry Breasted, an astronomer, has claimed, beyond all question of doubt, to have discovered a technical error in the Quran. He points out that, among the West Asian nations, age-old custom and the dominance of Islam in particular, gave currency to the lunar calendar, and that Muhammad (peace be on him) carried the difference between the solar and lunar years to the furthest extreme of absurdity. Breasted claims that he was so ignorant of the nature of the problems of a calendar that, in the Quran, he categorically prohibited the addition of inter-calary months. The so-called lunar year of three hundred and fifty four days lags behind the solar year by eleven days. This being so, during the course of each of its cycles, it exceeds the solar year by one year in every 33 years, and by three years in every century. If a religious practice such as fasting, (in the month of Ramadhan) falls at this time in June, then after six years it will fall in April. Now (in 1935 A.D.) 1313 years have elapsed since the migration which initiated the Hijri era. Each century of ours consists of 103 years according to the Lunar year of the Muslims. After 1313 years of the Solar Calendar, the Muslim Calendar records approximately 41 years more. In this way, the Hijri era of Muslims, at the time of this writing has reached upto 1354, i.e., according to the solar scale, there is an addition of 41 years in 1313 years. The Jewish church of the oriental countries have done away with this type of absurdity, and have adopted the practice of Intercalation, thus bringing its lunar calendar in line with the solar year. Because of this disparity, the entire West Asia has to suffer from this most antiquated practice of using the lunar calendar.3
I shall not at this point go into the intricacies of the solar and lunar calendars. I would merely point out that the charge of ‘extremely absurd ignorance’ levelled against the Prophet of Islam is based upon a misunderstanding of the Qur’an, and is, therefore, without foundation. It is not ‘intercalation’ which is prohibited by the Quran, but the practice of nasa’ (9:37). Nasa’ in Arabic, means delay, i.e. to postpone, or place in a different order. For example, if an animal is drinking at a fountain and you take it away and put your own animal on its place so that it may drink first, this would amount to an unwarrantable seizure of a privilege. In Arabic, this act of placing animals in different order or replacing animals would be termed:
This interpretation of the expression has a direct bearing on the ordering of the Islamic calendar, with special reference to the four months out of the twelve designated as sacred by the Prophet Abraham (blessings on him). These months were known as Zu’l-Qa’dah, Zu’l-Hijjah, Muharram and Rajab, during which fighting and bloodshed were totally prohibited. People could then travel about freely, knowing that they could carry on their trading in complete safety. They could also go on the Hajj pilgrimage without fear of brigandage.
However, at a later period, when rebellious tendencies were beginning to make themselves felt, among the Arab tribes, the latter devised the custom of postponement in order to evade this law. Whenever any powerful Arab tribe was determined to do battle during the month of Muharram – which was a sacred month – the tribal chief would declare that they had deleted Muharram from the list of sacred months and had replaced it with the month of Safar, which was now to be regarded as sacred. This practice of tampering with the sacred months was called nasa’ and it is this practice which the Quran has called ‘an act more ignoble than infidelity,’ for it gave tamperers an undue advantage over others, who would obviously hesitate to fight during the sacred months.
Certain scholars have written that it was the general practice among Arabs to regard particular years as consisting of fourteen months instead of twelve. A commentator of the Quran, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, points out that: The intercalation of a month after every three years as practised by some nations in order to make an adjustment in the calculation of months does not come under the heading of nasa’, which is prohibited.
‘It also upset the security of the Month of Pilgrimage. In the verse (9:36) this arbitrary and selfish conduct of the pagan Arabs which abolished a wholesome check on unregulated warfare which is condemned.’
Another commentator, George Sale remarks:
This was an invention or innovation of the idolatrous Arabs, whereby they avoided keeping a sacred month, when is suited not their convenience, by keeping a profane month in its stead; transferring, for example, the observance of Muharram to the succeeding month, Safar.
This clearly shows that, even in an age of ignorance, the Prophet of God said nothing that ‘smacked of ignorance’. Had his words emanated from his unconscious mind, he would inevitably have uttered such words as would have revealed such ignorance.
Scholars, who study religion in the context of history or the social sciences suffer from the fundamental drawback of not looking at religion in the correct perspective. In doing so, their views become thoroughly distorted. They are like people, who stand in a crooked position in order to look at a square, and, viewing it from an acute angle, decide it is rectangular. The square is still a square, it is just that the viewers’ standpoint is wrong, or merely irrelevant.
It was from just such a skewed angle that T.R. Miles asserted that ‘the religion is the product of a certain type of interaction between man and his environment.’ The basic mistake these scholars make is to study religion as an objective issue (Julian Huxley, Man in the Modern World, p. 129). That is, they collect indiscriminately all the historical material that goes under the name of religion, and then form an opinion about religion in the light of whatever material has come their way. Thus they take up a wrong position at the very outset.
Miles’ summing up is that ‘religion’ like any other subject, can be treated as an objective problem, and studied by the method of science. The first step is to make a list of the ideas and practices associated with different religions—gods and demons, sacrifice, prayer, belief in a future life, taboos and moral rules in life. It is like making a collection of animals and plants. Science always begins in this way, but it cannot stop at this level; it inevitably seeks to penetrate deeper to make an analysis.
This analysis may take two directions. It may seek a further understanding of religion as it now exists, or it may adopt the historical method and search for an explanation of the present in the past.
With regard to the historical approach, it is clear that religion like other social activities evolves. Further, its evolution is determined by momentum, its inner logic and the influence of the material and social conditions of the period. As an example of the first, take the tendency from polytheism towards monotheism: granted the theistic premise, this tendency seems almost inevitably to declare itself in the course of time.4
Religion, consequently, comes to be regarded as a mere social process, rather than as a revelation of reality. That which is a revelation of reality is an ideal in itself, and its history with all its manifestations has to be studied in this light. On the other hand, that which is only a social process has no inherent ideal. The response of society alone determines its position. Anything which enjoys the status of a social norm or social tradition can retain its position so long as society gives it a de facto status. If society discards it and adopts any other practice in its place, then its historical interest only can survive and its importance as a social tradition falls into oblivion.
But the case of religion is vastly different from this. As the eminent physician, Fred Hoyle puts it, “This moral or religious impulse, whatever we choose to call it, is extraordinarily strong. When faced by opposition, and even by powerful political attempts at suppression, it obstinately refuses to lie down and die. One often comes on statements that religion is a primitive superstition that modern man can well do without. Yet if the impulse were truly primitive in a biological sense (as for instance patriotic loyalty to the group in which one happens to live is primitive), we would surely expect to see it in other animals. As far as I know, no one has advanced any evidence for this idea. The religious impulse appears to be unique to man, and indeed to have become stronger in pre-history the more advanced man became in his intellectual attainments. Admittedly the trend has reversed over the recent past, but the change over the past two centuries may well prove to be impermanent… Stripped of the many fanciful adornments with which religion has become surrounded, does it not amount to an instruction within us that expressed rather simply might read as follows: You are derived from something “out there” in the sky. Seek it and you will find much more than you expect.”5
We cannot, therefore, study religion in the same fashion as we take stock of our household goods, modes of conveyance, clothing, housing, etc. This is because religion is an entity in itself, which is either accepted, rejected or accepted in a partial or distorted form by society of its own free will. As a result, religion remains the same in its essence while assuming a diversity of forms which evolve according to the practices of particular societies. It is wrong, therefore, to classify all the different forms of religion prevalent in different societies under the common heading of “religion”. We shall illustrate this with reference of democracy.
Democracy is a system of government by the people, directly or by representation, and a country may be said to be truly democratic only when its political organization abides by this criterion. Now if an approach to the understanding of democracy is made by examining all those countries who call their governments democratic, and then trying by a process of induction to form a clear picture of it on the basis of whatever common denominators present themselves, the image which will emerge, rather than being crystal clear, will be like muddied water stirred up by some floundering animal. Democracy, as a term, will then be meaningless. Consider the democracies of Britain, America, China and Egypt. Do they really have anything in common? In what way is the democracy of India similar to the democracy of Pakistan? The term democracy becomes even more confusing if all the varieties of democracy in the world today are placed within an evolutionary framework. A study of the development of democracy in France—its very birthplace—will show that at a later stage of its evolution, it was synonymous with the military dictatorship of General de Gaulle (1890-1970).
Such a study of religion, in which the process of induction is unlikely to yield correct results, might well bring one to the conclusion that the idea of God can be dispensed with, because the history of religion presents the example of Buddhism—a religion without a God. Today, the idea is widely advocated that religion should be studied, but that God, as a possibility, should be excluded. Advocates of this course tend to argue that even if religion is necessary for the inculcation of discipline, belief in God should not be regarded as compulsory. They feel that a godless religion serves the same purpose. Citing Buddhism, they maintain that, in the present advanced age; such a form of religious structure is more suitable to the needs of society. To such thinkers, society, along with its political and economic objectives is itself the God of the modern age. ‘Parliament is the Prophet of this God, through which He informs mankind of His will, and dams and factories rather than mosques and churches are His places of worship.’6
The study of religion, by the evolutionary method holds it to be progressing from belief in God to denial of God (e.g. Buddhism). Scholars, who adhere to this view first collect all the material which has been attributed over the ages to religion, then, independently of those, whose approach is essentially an internal one, they arrange this material in an evolutionary sequence, intentionally omitting any details which might cast doubt on its validity.
For instance, after extensive research, anthropologists and sociologists ‘discovered’ that the concept of God began with polytheism and, progressing gradually, was developed into monotheism. But, according to them, this cycle of evolution has turned in the reverse direction, turning the concept of monotheism into contradiction. The concept of a ‘multiplicity of gods’, according to them, at least had a certain intrinsic value in that, while putting their faith in ‘different gods’, people could live in harmony; acknowledge the existence of the gods of other communities. But the doctrine of ‘one God’ has naturally negated all other gods and their believers, thus giving birth to the concept of a ‘Higher Religion’ which, in turn, gave rise to unending wars among the various groups and nations. Thus the concept of God, having evolved in the wrong direction, has dug its own grave in accordance with the law of evolution.7
The fact that the concept of God started with monotheism has been totally omitted in this evolutionary sequence. According to known history, Noah (blessings on him) was the first prophet who, it has been established, exhorted people to believe in one God. Moreover, ‘Polytheism’ does not mean a multiplicity in the absolute sense, as is commonly understood. No nation has ever been ‘polytheist’ in the sense that it believed in many gods of the same order. In fact, polytheism implies a hierarchy with one ‘Supreme God’ at the top and his entourage of demi-gods spreading downwards from Him on the rungs of the divine ladder. Polytheism has always carried with it the concept of a ‘God of gods’. This shows how baseless are the claims of this so-called evolutionary religion.
The Marxist approach to history is even more bereft of meaning, being based on the hypothesis that it is economic conditions, alone, which are the real factors which shape man. According to Marx, religion came into existence in an age of feudalism and capitalism. Since these systems were tyrannical and fostered exploitation, the moral and religious concepts which evolved under them had, of necessity, reflected their environment. They were no more than doctrines which condoned and upheld exploitation. But this theory does not, academically, carry any weight. Nor does experience testify to it. This theory, based on a total denial of the human will, regards man simply as a product of economic conditions. Like the soap-cakes manufactured in a factory, man is moulded in the factory of environment. He does not act with an independent mind, but simply conforms to whatever conditioning he has been subjected to. If this were an incontrovertible fact, how could it have been possible for Marx, himself the product of a ‘capitalist society’, to revolt against the economic conditions prevailing in his time? If the contemporary economic system gave birth to religion, why not believe then, according to the same logic, that Marxism too is the product of the same conditions? If the stand taken by Marxism on religion is correct, why should this not be applicable to Marxism itself? It follows that this theory is absurd. There is no scientific and rational proof to support it.
Experience too has exposed the false premises of this theory. The example of the Erstwhile U.S.S.R., where this ideology had been predominant for sixty-five years, will serve to illustrate our point.
It has been claimed for a long time now that material conditions in the Soviet Union have changed. The system of production, exchange and distribution have all become non-capitalistic. But after the death of Stalin, it was admitted by the Russian leaders themselves that Stalin’s regime was one of tyranny and coercion, and that the masses had been exploited in the same manner as in capitalist countries. It should be borne in mind that it was absolute control of the press by the government which made it possible for Stalin to project his tyranny and exploitation as justice and fair play to the rest of the world. As the press is still under complete government control, we must infer that the same drama, which was staged with such success in Stalin’s times, is still going on today under the cloak of blatantly misleading propaganda. The 20th Congress (February 1956) of the Russian Communist Party exposed the tyrannical acts of Stalin. It will not be surprising if the 40th Congress of the party brings to light the barbarity of his successors. This half-a-century old experience clearly shows that the systems of production and exchange have nothing to do with the shaping of ideas. Had the human mind been subservient to the system of production, and had ideas taken shape in accordance with it, a communist state like Russia ought, strictly speaking, to have curbed the tendencies to oppress and exploit. Thus the whole argument of the modern age is nothing short of sophistry in the garb of scientific reasoning—a patchwork, a hotchpotch of discordant elements. Of course, the ‘Scientific Method’ has been adopted to study these ‘facts’, but this, by itself, cannot arrive at the correct results. Other essential factors must be taken into account. That is to say, that, if the scientific method is applied, but applied only to half-truths and one-sided data, in spite of its ostensible bona fides from the intellectual standpoint, it is bound to yield results which are far from being accurate.
Here is an apt illustration of this point. In the first week of January 1964, an International Congress of Orientalists held in New Delhi, was attended by 1200 participants. On this occasion, one of the Orientalists read a paper in which it was claimed that several of the Muslim monuments of India had actually been built by the Hindu Rajas and not by the Muslim rulers. The paper claimed that the Qutb Minar, a tower, known to have been built by Sultan Qutbuddin Abek, was originally ‘Vishnu Dhwaj’, a symbol of Lord Vishnu built by Samudra Gupta 2300 years ago. ‘Qutb Minar’ was a misnomer, the brainchild of Muslim historians of a later period. The main argument in support of the claim was that the stones used in the construction of the Qutb Minar were very ancient and that their carvings had been done centuries before the period of Qutbuddin Abek. Prima facie, the argument is scientific in that such ancient stones are to be found in the structure of the Qutb Minar. But the study of the Qutb Minar with reference only to its stones cannot give support to any truly scientific argument. Over and above this, several other aspects of the question have to be borne in mind, the most important one being that old stones from the ruins of ancient buildings were often used in new structures by subsequent builders, including the Muslims. This, together with the Qutb Minar’s architectural design, the technique of placing the stones in position, the incomplete mosque in the vicinity of the tower, the remaining traces of the parallel tower, plus other pieces of similar historical evidence, points to Sultan Qutbuddin as being the actual builder, and shows the Orientalist’s contentions to be totally fallacious. The theories of the anti-religionists are no better. Just as in the above example, an attempt has been made to make a show of ‘scientific’ reasoning by a willful misinterpretation of the presence of certain ancient stones, similarly, by presenting certain half-truths and a large number of irrelevant facts viewed from a distorted angle, the enemies of religion claim that their so-called scientific method of study has actually done away with religion. On the contrary, if the factual data on the subject is studied in its entirety and from the correct angle, an entirely opposite conclusion will most certainly be arrived at.
Indeed, the veracity of religion is proved by the fact that even the most intelligent of thinkers begin to talk nonsense when they refuse to make any reference to religion. Do away with religion and you do away with the essential framework within which your problems may be discussed and solved. Most of the scholars whose names figure on the list of anti-religionists are very intelligent and learned persons. These geniuses have entered the arena of religious debate, equipped with the most valuable of contemporary sciences. But judging from the poor performance of these ‘intelligent’ people, one wonders what had so blighted their minds that they should have committed such absurdities on paper. Their outpourings are notorious for their waverings, contradictions, tacit admissions of ignorance and ‘reasoning’ which is, to say the least of it, haphazard. They make tall claims on flimsy grounds with an almost total disregard for facts. Their case must unquestionably fall to the ground, because it could only be a false case which is ‘supported’ by such erroneous statements and patently flawed arguments. A case which had the slightest merit would never be beset by such serious shortcomings.
The picture of life and the universe, which takes shape in our minds on accepting religion is a very beautiful and gladdening one. This, in itself, establishes the truth of religion and the falsity of anti-religious theories. It conforms to the noble ideas of man in the very same way, as the material universe is echoed in mathematical formulae. On the contrary, the picture of reality which forms in consonance with an anti-religious philosophy is completely out of step with the human mind. On this point, J.W.N. Sullivan has made a very pertinent quotation from Bertrand Russell:
That man is the product of such causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noon-day brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system. And that the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins. All these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.8
This extract sums up the irreligious, materialistic school of thought. According to such thinking, our prospects in life are darkened by gloom and despair. The materialistic interpretation of life also dispenses with any definite criterion for the judgement of good and evil. It justifies the dropping of bombs on human beings, the use of flame-throwers and chemical warfare, to name but a few of the scourges of modern times. This is not considered outrageous, tyrannical or bestially aggressive. After all, human beings have to die one way or another. Religious thought, by contrast, affords a glowing ray of hope, giving to both life and death a joyous and meaningful radiance. In this way it fulfills our psychological needs. When a scientist propounds a theory, which is found to conform to mathematical formula, he is convinced that what he has discovered is a reality. Similarly, when religious concepts find a harmonious echo in the human psyche, this is a proof that this was the reality which human nature was in search of. It gives us such a sense of fulfillment that we are left with no real grounds for denying its truth. To quote the words of Earl Chester Rex, an American mathematician:
I use the accepted principle in science which governs the choice between two or more conflicting theories. According to this principle, the theory which explains all the pertinent facts in the simplest way is adopted. This same principle was used, long ago, to decide between the Ptolemaic, or earth-centered theory and the Copernican theory which claims that the sun is the center of the solar system. The Ptolemaic theory was so involved and so much more complicated than the Copernican that the earth-centered idea was discarded.9
I admit that this argument would not be regarded as foolproof by many. The concept of God and religion will never fit into the narrow frame of their materialistic minds. Yet their dissatisfaction is not really due to any lack of sound reasoning behind religion—of that I am satisfied. No, the actual reason for their disaffection is that their prejudiced minds are not prepared to accept religious reasoning. Sir James Jeans, at the end of his book, Mysterious Universe correctly remarked: ‘Our modern minds have a sort of bias in favour of the materialistic explanation of the facts’ (p. 189).
In his book, Witness, Whittacker Chambers tells of how he was watching his little daughter one day, when he found that he had unconsciously become aware of the shape of her ear. He thought to himself how impossible it was that such delicate convolutions could have come about by chance. They could have been created only by premeditated design. But he pushed this thought out of his agnostic mind, because he realized that the next step in logical sequence would have to be: design presupposes God—a thesis he was not yet ready to accept. With reference to this incident, Thomas David Park, a research chemist, formerly Chairman of the Department of Chemistry, Stanford Research Institute, writes: ‘I have known many scientists among my professors and research colleagues, who have similar thoughts about observed facts in chemistry and physics.10
‘Scientists’ of the ‘Modern’ age are agreed upon the theory of evolution. This concept is becoming dominant in all scientific fields. An enchanting idol of spontaneous evolution has been set up in place of God. If the truth were told, the very dogma of organic evolution, from which all of the evolutionary concepts have been borrowed, is nothing but a hypothesis without any evidence. But this is not all. Some scientists have openly confessed that if they believe in the concept of evolution, it is simply because they can find no other alternative.
Sir Arthur Keith11 (1866-1955) said in 1953 that evolution was unproved and unprovable and that we believed in it only because the only alternative was special creation and that was unthinkable.12
Scientists are thus agreed upon the validity of the evolution theory simply because, if they discard it, they will be left with no option but to believe in the concept of God.
I confess that it is beyond my power to satisfy those scholars whose bias, in favour of materialistic reasoning is so strong that they are unable to keep their minds open to self-evident facts. There is a particular reason for the bias, about which George Herbert Blount, an American physicist has this to say:
Conviction of the reasonableness of theism and the tenuousness of atheism usually in itself does not cause a man to accept practical theism. There seems to be an almost innate suspicion that the recognition of Deity will somehow rob one of freedom. To the Scholar, who cherishes intellectual liberty, any thought of abridged freedom is especially dreadful.13
In much the same vein, the concept of prophethood has been described by Julian Huxley as an ‘intolerable demonstration of superiority’. That is, the acceptance of someone as a prophet implies his elevation to such a high status that his word becomes the word of God, giving him, in consequence, the right to impose his will on the people, the right to make people accept his word as law. But then that is what it means to be a prophet, and when man is the creature and not the Creator, he is in the position of being the humble slave of God, and not God, how can this situation be changed or avoided simply on the basis of concepts which are the result of ignorance or wishful thinking?
Cressy Morrison asks with reason in his book, Man Does not Stand Alone, ‘How much must man advance before he fully realises the existence of a Supreme Intelligence, grasps His goodness that we exist, assumes his full part in destiny and strives to live up to the highest code he is capable of understanding without attempting to analyse God’s motive, or describe His attributes?’
Things are as they are. We cannot change the hard reality: we simply have to acknowledge it, accept it, bow to it. Now, if we are not to adopt an ostrich-like attitude, our best course is to believe in actuality, rather than deny it. By denying the truth, it is man who loses. His denial of the truth in no way alters, harms, or diminishes it. The truth is the truth.
Notes
1. The Evidence of God in an Expanding Universe,
2. A. Lunn, Revolt Against Reason,
3. Time And Its Mysteries, New York, 1962,
4. T.R. Miles, Religion and the Scientific Outlook.
5. Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe,
6. Julian Huxley, Religion without Revelation.
7. Julian Huxley, Man in the Modern World,
8. J.W.N. Sullivan, Limitations of Science,
9. The Evidence of God,
10. The Evidence of God in an Expanding Universe, edited by John Clover Monsma, (New York, 1958),
11. Anatomist and physical anthropologist who specialized in the study of fossil man. A doctor of medicine, science, and law, Keith became a professor at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London (1908), was professor of physiology at the Royal Institution, London (1918-23), and was rector of the University of Aberdeen (1930-33).
12. Islamic Thoughts, December 1961.
13. The Evidence of God,
