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 tolive 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 ofthe existence of
a supreme Creator ruling over the whole universe.
This is an indisputable truth that we may reach by using our
intelligence. God 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.
God invites people to consider this truth in thefollowing 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 God and derive a lesson fromhis 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
specifiedtime. That is God, 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 recognized that the structure of universe, the
design of the solar system, the laws of physics and theirstates of
equilibrium were all created by God 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 anappearance from
time totime 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 oftime. From these tenets, it claims that the universe has
also"always" existed and was not created.
In addition to their claimthat 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 whenthe question of
how human beings came intobeing 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 createdand
organized by God. 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 scientificworld.
The findings of modern science however undeniably demonstratehow false
the claims of materialism really are.
The Findings of 20th-Century Science
Let us recall the two assertions of materialismabout the universe:
The universe exists in infinite time and, because it has no beginning
or end, it wasnot 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. Scientistsare 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 God.
The 20th century has also witnessed the demolition of the secondclaim
of materialism: that everything in the universe is the result of
chance and not design. Research conducted since the 1960s consistently
demonstrates that all thephysical 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 thathuman 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 itsposition as the dominantscientific view of
the 19th century, materialism collapsed into fiction in the 20th.
How could it have been otherwise? As God indicates "We did not create
heaven and earth and everything betweenthem 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.
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