However, as Muslims, we do believe that the material universe has a true and absolute beginning. It’s the point where Allah (SWT) wills it to be, and it is. This is interpreted by Ulamas and Traditional scholars inspecting verses like, “Do the disbelievers not realize that the heavens and earth were once one mass then We split them apart? And We created from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?” [Quran 21:30]
Philosophical arguments historically support the beginning of the universe. Long before any sort of theories emerged about the beginning of the universe from scientists, philosophers developed sophisticated arguments to support the notion of a true beginning of the material universe. And this “beginning of the universe” has implications about the nature of GOD. Which is a subtle reason, the early atheists like Bertrand Russell) rejected there being a true beginning. It’s not that they did this intentionally, but it genuinely seemed to them that there was no true beginning. It’s also true that anyone who holds the belief “the universe had a beginning” must face the question of GOD’s nature. One such argument developed in the mediaeval Islamic period was by Imam AL Ghazzali (Rahimahullah).
Popularized by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig, this argument came to be known as the “Kalam Cosmological Argument”. The purpose of the argument is to prove the existence of a “GOD” by logical progression without any previous notion of there being a GOD or without any help from any religious scripture. The premises of this argument are being debated till this day back and forth by people of various belief systems or people who lack a belief system. At the core of the argument lies the notion that anyone who accepts that there is a true beginning of the material universe must accept the concept of a being/cause/existence beyond time (without beginning and end), beyond space, an immaterial, powerful, singular agent having a free will. So let’s see why it is the case. The Kalam cosmological argument is surprisingly quite simple to state in a deductive form, although the original core syllogism was in the form of something called modus ponens.
The argument has two premises and is stated as follows:
1. Everything that “begins to exists” must have a cause
2. The universe began to exist Conclusion: The universe has a cause. Let’s consider the first premise. What does “begin to exist” mean? For example, when do we say a chair “begins to exist”? When wood is cut? When wooden pieces are arranged to look like a chair? When the paint on the chair has dried? When the materials for the chair were forming in the stars?
To simplify, we would say – X begins to exist at time T if 1) X exists at time=T and, 2) T is the first time at which X exists. Here, T does not necessarily have to be an instant. In this way, we simplify questions about beginning to exist.
For example, the World Trade Center didn’t begin to exist during the Jurassic period; it began to exist in 1970. Secondly, the first premise does not say “For every event there has to be a cause”.
The first premise can feel that way because, in our ordinary daily experience, “all events have a cause” or “all effects have a preceding cause”. An ordinary person will see a door half-opened and assume something must have opened it (whether it’s a person or air or a robot), i.e., there is a cause behind that event and associate a cause to every event experienceable. The argument, however, does not require all events to have a cause (which is our everyday life experience). Only those events where something “begins to exist” are considered for the first premise to hold.
This premise might look like a no-brainer claim (one can feel that it’s true just instinctively); however, there are complexities associated with this premise that we are overlooking for now. Now we can look into the most controversial premise of the argument (the one that receives the most criticism, since the 1st premise is almost always agreed upon). “The universe began to exist”.
Here, the universe simply means material physical existence—all existing matter and space considered as a whole. How do we prove this philosophically? Let’s consider the following: If the universe didn’t have a beginning, then the number of past events in the universe’s history is infinite. But this is metaphysically impossible. It’s not a logical problem, by the way. The problem is simply metaphysical. We do not deny the potential of infinity as seen in mathematics, but nothing is infinite in physical material reality (infinite number of chairs, buildings, people, or anything material or physical in reality).
Since an actual infinite number of things can not exist, there can not be an actual number of infinite past events in the universe’s history. Hence the universe has an actual finite number of past events, hence the universe had a beginning. To maintain the scientific consistency, we will extend that the universe began to exist at time T=0. I.e., there was no time “sans” the existence of the universe.
The beginning of the universe is also the beginning of time itself. (We are oversimplifying a lot of things, especially the counterarguments and supportive arguments, because the goal is to convey the core idea). Here if we have agreed to the premises: Everything that begins to exist must have a cause, and the universe began to exist; the conclusion follows that the universe has a cause. But what is the nature of the cause?
It can not be material since anything material is by definition, included in the universe. It can not be bound by space since all of space is considered within the universe. It can not be time-bound since time itself began with the universe, and sans universe, there was no existence of time. So, the cause is without a beginning or an end (since it’s beyond time), it’s spaceless, immaterial, and obviously “powerful enough to cause the universe”. Let’s consider another property of the cause. What caused the cause?
Let’s say the cause is named A and A is caused by B and B is caused by C and C is caused by ……. and so on. What we reach here is something called an “infinite regress” which is philosophically unsound, since this infinite series of causes leads to the problem that there is no reason for anything.
Infinite regress is a logical proposition continuously reapplied to itself without reaching a conclusion. There has to be a first cause. (This “infinite regress” is not the same as the “metaphysical infinity” problem). And it is this first cause which is by definition uncaused, that is beyond time, beyond space, powerful and immaterial (a jump in claim for simplicity).
At this point, one must dive into the relation of this cause with respect to time. Concepts like “non-metric time” have been proposed by philosophers to account for this relation (where one instance of time is not differentiable from another instance and can not be measured.
In this state, 2 million years or 2 seconds means absolutely nothing since there is no metric), we will not dive into the details. Since our cause is beyond time, i.e.
Eternal in nature, and it caused the universe which is finite (has a beginning), the question arises how can an eternal cause give rise to a limited/finite effect?
To downsample the problem, consider the Newtonian proposition that – in the absence of any obstacle, an object in motion will stay in motion. Consider someone constantly pushing a car in a frictionless plane which is potentially infinite (ironic, right?). As long as one keeps pushing, if the force is present (the cause), the car stays moving (the effect is present). But here, we have an eternal cause whose effect is limited (the universe). How can that be? The only solution is something must have changed the nature of the cause to cause it to begin the universe. But IT IS THE FIRST CAUSE. Nothing can change its nature. So the change must have come from within the cause itself. The cause has a will of its own. (Again simplified for the sake of discussion).
We have arrived at the point where the universe has a cause which
1) Has no beginning
2) Has no end
3) Has no cause of itself, i.e., uncaused
4) Not bound by space
5) Not material in nature
6) Has a will of its own
7) Powerful enough to cause the universe Sounds more like a GOD, doesn’t it? These arguments for the existence of GOD are formulated for over 1000 years with changes in terminology and forms and premises. Clearly, the version presented here has way more complexities and nuances than presented. (It’s not easy to compactify at least 50 years of modern arguments in a simple few-page writeup).
The goal, however, of this presentation is to demonstrate how simply “the universe having an absolute beginning” can be logically used in arguments to propose the existence of GOD. Scholars, thinkers, philosophers are till date trying to come up with refined versions of arguments to prove the existence of GOD without any religious scripture. Science is trying to come up with an explanation for the existence of the universe. Sometimes they are in line, and other times they are in conflict. Whatever the state of affairs are, it is a duty for us Muslims to contribute in both aspects. “And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the difference of your tongues and colours. Surely in this, there are signs for the persons having knowledge.”- [Quran 30:22]
