The Quranic Argument for

Gods Existence

Hamza Andreas Tzortzis. Version 1.0, July 2014.

Makes You Think!

Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, Rosalind Ward Gwynne comments on

this aspect of the Qur'an:
The very fact that so much of the Quran is in the form of arguments
shows to what extent human beings are perceived as needing reasons for
their actions
Rosalind Ward Gwynne. Logic, Rhetoric and Legal Reasoning in the Qur'an: God's
Arguments. Routledge. 2004, p. ix.

This was the obvious motivation behind the desire for Islamic scholars to
development arguments that provided a positive cogent case for Islamic
thought. Gwynne concludes in her book that:
Reasoning and argument are so integral to the content of the Quran
and so inseparable from its structure that they in many ways shaped the
very consciousness of Quranic scholars.
Rosalind Ward Gwynne. Logic, Rhetoric and Legal Reasoning in the Qur'an: God's
Arguments. Routledge. 2004, p. 203

Reason and Gods Existence

Shaykh Ibn Taymiyya writes:

The Salaf and their followers knew that both

revelational and rational proofs were true and
that they entailed one another. Whoever gave
rational and certain proofs the complete enquiry
due them, knew that they agreed with what the
messengers informed them about and that they
proved to them the necessity of believing the
messengers in what they informed them about.
Cited from Jon Hoover. Ibn Taymiyyas Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism. Brill. 2007, p. 31.

Or were they created by nothing?

Or were they the creators (of themselves)?
Or did they create heavens and earth?
Rather, they are not certain.
Quran 52:35-36

Things that began to exist were

1. Created (or
brought into being)
via nothing.

2. Self caused or
self created

3. Created by
something else
that was created

4. Created by
something
uncreated

Applies to Everything that Begins

Or were they created (khuliq) by nothing? Or
were they the creators (of themselves)? Or did they
create heavens and earth? Rather, they are not
certain.

Although these verses specifically refer to the

human being it can also be applied to anything that
began to exist. As the term khuliq means they
were created, made, originated.
Muammad Mohar Ali. A word for word meaning of the Qurn Vol III. JIMAS, p 1713.

Ibn Taymiyyas View

He informed that He created the heavens and the earth in an

interval of time and from matter. The Quran did not mention
the creation of anything out of nothing (min l shay). Instead, it
mentioned that He created the created thing after it was nothing.
Similarly, He said, I have created you before, and you were
nothing (Q. 19. 9), in addition to His informing that He created
him from a drop of semen.
There are two views concerning His statement, Were they
created without anything (min ghayr shay) or were they
themselves the creators? (Q. 52. 35). Most hold that the meaning
is, Were they created without a creator or, even, of pure
nonexistence?
Perpetual Creativity in the Perfection of God: Ibn Taymiyyas Hadith Commentary on God's
Creation of this World. Jon Hoover. Journal of Islamic Studies 15:3 (2004) pp. 323-324

In the Beginning
There was Nothing

The Prophet upon whom be peace - said,

First of all, there was nothing but Allah,
and (then He created His Throne). His
throne was over the water, and He wrote
everything in the Book (in the Heaven) and
created the Heavens and the Earth.
Bukhari, The Beginning of Creation

Did the Universe

Begin to Exist?

Discussion Point
How do we know the universe began?

Some Points

Big Bang
The Argument from Dependency
2nd Law of Thermodynamics
Al-Ghazalis Orbits Argument
Anymore?

Astrophysical Evidence
Nobel-prize-winning Arno Penzias:

Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a

universe which was created out of nothing,
and delicately balanced to provide exactly
the conditions required to support life. In the
absence of an absurdly improbable
accidence, the observations of modern
science seem to suggest an underlying, one
might say, supernatural plan.
Brock 1992, cited in Bradley, Walter L. Designed or Designoid? In
Mere Creation: Science, Faith & Intelligent Design. Inter-Vasity
Press.1998, p.40.

A cosmic beginning
It is said that an argument is what
convinces reasonable men and a
proof is what it takes to convince
even an unreasonable man. With the
proof now in place, cosmologists can
no longer hide behind the possibility
of a past-eternal universe. There is no
escape, they have to face the problem
of a cosmic beginning.
Alex Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other
Universe. Hill and Wang. 2006, page 176.

Remember
1. Created (or
brought into
being) via
nothing.

2. Self caused or
self created

3. Created by
something else
that was created

4. Created by
something
uncreated

Created from/via Nothing?

If there is anything we find inconceivable, it is that

something could arise from nothing.

P. J. Zwart, About Time (Amsterdam and Oxford: North Holland Publishing Co., 1976), p.240.

Ibn Taymiyya, interprets the verse mentioning from

nothing, to mean that Allah created the thing after it
was nothing.
Note: The definition of nothing is the absence of something.
In this case, an absence of the universe.

Al-Khattaabi
Or were they brought into being without a creator? That
could not happen, because the creation must inevitable be
connected to the Creator. There has to have been a creator.
If they deny the Divine Creator, but they could not have
come into being without a creator creating them, then did
they create themselves?
Al-Bayhaqi, Al-Asma was-Siffat.

Quantum Vacuum = Nothing?

The term nothingness in this context refers to the absence of the something.
The quantum vacuum is something.

Hence, even in a true vacuum, matter fields may appear briefly. Even if the
matter fields involved in the vacuum state are rather peculiar and certainly not
observable in the sense that real particles are, it is a mistake to think of any
physical vacuum as some absolutely empty void.
Christopher Ray. Time, Space and Philosophy. Routledge. 1991, p. 205.

Professor Krausss Nothing

Krauss seems to be thinking that these

vacuum states amount to the relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical version of
there not being any physical stuff at allBut
thats just not right. Relativistic-quantumfield-theoretical vacuum states no less
than giraffes or refrigerators or solar
systems are particular arrangements of
elementary physical stuff.

David Albert, professor of philosophy at Columbia and the author of

Quantum Mechanics and Experience. See his review of Krausss book
here http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universefrom-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html?_r=0.

Linguistic Gymnastics

Krausss use of the word nothing implies

something, as he admits his nothing is
something.
See here where he claims something and nothing are physical quantities
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0NoqplPyBfQ#t=920s.

It is like saying:

I had a wonderful dinner last night, and it

was nothing.
Nothing is tasty with salt and pepper.

Science Cant Address Nothing

Science cannot address the idea of nothing or nonbeing because science is restricted to problems that
observations can solve. The philosopher of science Elliot
Sober verifies this limitation of science, he writes in his
essay Empiricism:
At any moment scientists are limited by the
observations they have at handthe limitation is that
science is forced to restrict its attention to problems that
observations can solve.
Elliot Sober Empiricism in The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science. Edited by
Stathis Psillos and Martin Curd. 2010, pp. 137-138.

Admission

I stress the word could here, because we may

never have enough empirical information to
resolve this question unambiguously.

Because of the observational and related

theoretical difficulties associated with working out
the details, I expect we may never achieve more
than plausibility in this regard.
Lawrence Krauss. A Universe from Nothing. p. xiii & p. 147.

Self Created?
Can something exist
and not exist at the
same time?
Can your mother give
birth to herself ?

Asexual reproduction?

Misplaced contention; the single

cell is already there, and therefore
assumes the universe was already
there.

Asexual reproduction requires

energy from outside of itself in
order to self-replicate. Thus,
supporting our view.

Fallacious Argument
Al-Khattaabi:

This is even more fallacious argument, because

if something does not exist, how can it be
described as having power, and how could it
create anything? How could it do anything? If
these two arguments are refuted, then it is
established that they have a creator, so let them
believe in Him.
Al-Bayhaqi, Al-Asma was-Siffat.

Created by something else

that was created?
U1 U2 U3 U4 . . .

The Sniper
If a sniper had to shoot the
enemy but before he could
shoot he had to ask permission
from the sniper behind him,
and this went on forever,
would he ever shoot?

Dominoes
Imagine a row of dominoes. The
domino in front of you has
fallen, and the ones behind the
one have also fallen. Does the
row of dominoes have a
beginning? Or does it go on
forever?

Created by something else that

was created?

There would be no series of

actual causes, but only a series of
non-existents, as Ibn Taymiyyah
explained. The fact, however, is
that there are existents around us;
therefore, their ultimate cause
must be something other than
temporal causes.

Dr. Jaafar Idris, read his essay here

http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/491/.

Created by something
uncreated?
The best explanation:

He neither begets nor is

born. Quran 112:3

Eternal & Everlasting

O Allah, You are the First, there is nothing before You.
You are the Last, there is nothing after You Sahih Muslim
As for the authors words, He is Eternal without a
beginning, Everlasting without an end, they explain the
meaning of the Divine names, the First and the LastWho
necessarily exists by Himself in order to avoid an infinite
regress.
Al-'aqidah At-Tahawiyyah. Commentary On The Creed of At-Tahawi. By Ibn Abi
Al 'Izz.

Al-Ghazli
The 11th century theologian and philosopher
al-Ghazli summarised the existence of an
uncaused cause or an uncreated creator in the
following way:

The same can be said of the cause of the cause.

Now this can either go on ad infinitum, which is
absurd, or it will come to an end.

Cited from Lenn E. Goodman. Ghazali's Argument from Creation (I). International Journal of
Middle East Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Jan., 1971), pp. 67-85.

Something Always Existed

The Philosopher Abraham Varghese in the appendix to

Professor Anthony Flews book There is a God, explains
this conclusion in simple yet forceful way, he writes:
Now, clearly, theists and atheists can agree on one thing:
if anything at all exists, there must be something preceding
it that always existed. How did this eternally existing
reality come to be? The answer is that it never came to
be. It always existed. Take your pick: God or universe.
Something always existed.
Anthony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese. There is a God. HarperOne. 2007, p. 165.

A Created God = Delusion

I can hear an Irish friend saying: We'll, it proves one thing- if they had a
better argument, they would use it. If that is thought to be a rather strong
reaction, just think of the question: Who made God? The very asking of it
shows that the questioner has created God in mind. It is then scarcely
surprising that one calls one's book The God Delusion. For that is precisely
what a created god is, a delusion, virtually by definition - a Xenophanes
pointed out centuries before Dawkins. A more informative title might have
been: The Created-God Delusion. The book could then have been reduced to a
pamphlet - but sales might just have sufferedFor the God who created
and upholds the universe was not created - He is eternal. He was not
made and therefore subject to the laws that science discovered; it was
he who made the universe with its laws. Indeed, the fact constitutes the
fundamental distinction between God and the universe. The universe
came to be, God did not.

John C. Lennox. God's Undertaker : Has science buried God? 2013. p. 183.

My Heart Almost Began to Soar

Jubayr Ibn Mutim:

I heard the messenger of Allah (upon whom be peace)
reciting Surah at-Tur in maghrib [prayer]. When he
reached this passaage[Q52:35-37]my heart almost
began to soar.
Sahih Bukhari

Al-Bayhaqi said that Abu Sulaymaan al-Khattabi said:

The reason why he was so moved when he heard these
ayat was because he understood the ayat so well and
because what he learned from the strong evidence
contained therein touched his sensitive nature, and with
his intelligence understood it.
Al-Bayhaqi, Al-Asma was-Siffat.

Since we have
established there is an
uncreated and eternal
Creator

Transcendent
It would be absurd to assert that a builder of a house
would become part of the house! Or that the maker of a
car would become part of the car.

There is nothing like unto Him, and He

is the Hearing, the Seeing Quran 42:11
Ibn Kathir writes that this means that there is nothing like Allah, He has no peer or equal. He is
unique.
He is external to the universe.

Distinct & Disjoined

To Ibn Taymiyya, the term created
implies something distinct and disjoined
from God...
Perpetual Creativity in the Perfection of God: Ibn Taymiyyas Hadith Commentary on God's
Creation of this World. Jon Hoover. Journal of Islamic Studies 15:3 (2004) pp. 296.

All-Knowing
The Creator created the universe with
physical laws, and a law-giver implies
knowledge or an intelligence.
That is the determination of the Mighty,
the All-Knowing. Quran 6: 96

All-Powerful
Because the creator created the whole universe.
Consider the potential power in one atom

Certainly, God has power over all

things. Quran 2:20

Will
The Creator has a will; since this Creator is eternal,
and it brought into existence a finite effect, it must
have chosen to do so.

And God guides whom He wills to a

straight path. Quran 2:213
Also, consider scientific and personal explanations

One
This can be proven using the argument of
exclusion, which is explained well by Ibn Abi AlIzz in his commentary of Aqeedah at-Tahawiyyah

Say: He is God, [who is] One.

Quran 112:1

The Argument of Exclusion

Will 1

Will 2

Possible scenarios:
1. They both cancel each other out. This is impossible as there must be at
least one will, as creation exists.
2. One of the wills over powers the other. This implies there is only one
will or one is more powerful than the other.
3. Both wills are always in agreement. This still implies only one will,
because if they always agree, then it is only one will.
Whatever happens, it logically implies only one will, therefore one creator.

If Theres No Difference,
Theyre Identical
For two concepts or entities to exist, they must be different in some
way.
For example, if you have two trees, they will differ in size, shape,
colour and age. Even if they had identical physical attributes there
would be at least one thing that allows us to distinguish that they
are two trees. For instance, placement or position.
You can also apply this to two twins; We know there are two twins
because there is something that makes them different. This could
even be their position and the mere fact they cant occupy the same
place at the same time.

Apply This To Polytheism

Suppose we imagine that two Gods exist, called God X and God Y.
Also suppose that whatever is true of God X is true of God Y. For
instance, God X is All-Powerful and All-Wise; so, God Y is AllPowerful and All-Wise.
If A is identical to B, then whatever is true of A is true of B. We can
turn this law into a hypothetical proposition if whatever is true of A is
true of B, then A is identical to B.
Since the polytheist (or sceptic) agrees that whatever is true of God X is
true of God Y, then God X and God Y are identical. This means God
X and God Y are the same entity and not two different entities.