Rational pathways that lead to Allah

The core knowledge of the Divine is both natural and necessary. It is more firmly established in the souls than the fundamentals of mathematics such as “One is half of two”, or the fundamentals of natural knowledge such as “A body cannot simultaneously exist in two places”.
This is because such items of knowledge are expressions that the innate predispositions of most people can disregard. As for the knowledge of the Divine, it is unimaginable that any natural predisposition is able to disregard it.

This knowledge clings onto the soul. It cannot be separated from it any more than the instinctive knowledge of tangibles and natural matters, such as “One is a third of three”, and “A body cannot simultaneously exist in two places”.
This is because the latter is knowledge that they simply do not need; in fact, it may never even occur to a person.
As for the knowledge of the highness of Allah, I would say that – in addition to people needing it – people are also in need of what it necessitates and means, which is supplication, asking, self-effacement, and humility unto the Divine – the One Above Who is being invoked.

Allah, Glory to Him, predisposed His servants to two things: that their hearts affirm Him in terms of knowledge, and that they love Him and are humble in front of Him in terms of practice, worship, and seeking assistance.
They are thus predisposed to having knowledge of Him and acting for His sake.

Our evidences to establish belief in Allah are:
1) The Intellect
2) Physical signs & proofs
3) The Natural Disposition
4) The Shari'ah

The more people are in need of knowing something, Allah facilitates for them the evidence for its knowledge, such as the proofs for knowing Who He is, the proofs of His Messenger’s prophethood ﷺ, the proofs of His Power and Knowledge, etc.
Such proofs are numerous and conclusive. Revelation points out the main rational arguments in this issue and others.
The tools of logic-based reasoning in the Qur’an and the prophetic tradition are distinctly simple and clear. They are easy to digest and are in absolute alignment with the innate disposition of humankind. These tools are the most beneficial of rational proofs and are congruent with most souls.

One aspect of the argument from logic for the existence of Allah is that the effect is indicative of the cause, and revelation came to remind us of this argument with various wordings and in multiple contexts. With this in mind, it is then possible to prove Him through His entire creation, as they are all one of His effects.
The effect being indicative of the cause is an umbrella argument for numerous sub-arguments, which number the amount of variety found in the creation. And in this type are many indicators as per the number of invented things.
In fact, there is no creation that is not in itself a sign pointing to its Creator, in a manner which disallows any partnership associated unto Him.

How could have these creations – having not been in existence – been created without a Creator?
This would be considered impossible by anyone with understanding and rationality, that there can be something made without a maker, or something created without a creator. If a person passes by a wasteland without any building, then he passed by it again and saw solid buildings and castles, he would have no doubt that these had a maker.

Many rational pathways that lead to Allah have been facilitated by His Wisdom for the intellect.

The first of the most salient rational pathways that lead to Allah that we will explore is known by many names and has many forms.
They all revolve around the central idea that whatever comes into existence after having been non-existent must have a cause that preferred its existence over its non-existence. They also comprise of the idea that whatever is possible is most definitely contingent on a non-contingent cause that created it. That cause is Allah.

• First proposition: Temporal events exist.
• Second proposition: Every temporal event has someone who caused it.
• Conclusion: Allah is the cause of temporal events.

The proof of the first proposition is the senses and observation.
On the temporality of the universe (and everything within it), both its existence and non-existence can be envisaged, and thus its existence is not considered necessary – it is only contingent.
Contingent entities are most certainly temporal, as they require the existence of a non-contingent being for them to come into existence.

The senses are cognitive transmitters, not cognitive arbiters.
A man’s recognition of the emerging things he witnesses and senses around him is necessary. With this, there is no need to offer evidence for the temporality of specific emerging things, but rather they are to be admitted into evidence for the existence of the Originator.

The proof of the second proposition is rational instinctiveness, as represented in the principle of causality.
It is a self-evident and instinctive issue whose opposite scenario cannot be envisaged: It is not possible to imagine the existence of a temporal matter without knowing there was a cause that brought about its emergence.
Knowing that an originated entity must have an originator is innate and instinctive knowledge.
Therefore, this is an issue that does not require a process of evidence-based reasoning.

Rather, it would be accepted as fact, for it is basic knowledge, upon which theoretical knowledge is based. Rational necessities are to be used as evidence for other things. They are not there to be proven. They acquire their decisiveness from their innateness.
There must be some basic facts – or cognitive concepts – upon which the process of evidence-based reasoning is founded. One of these instinctive cognitive concepts is the principle of causality.

It is interesting that the process of evidence-based reasoning requires that rational necessity is acknowledged. The connection between evidence and what it points to is governed by this rule, for evidence is the cause of gaining knowledge about what it points to.

It is known by the innate natural disposition (the fitrah) – upon which Allah predisposed his slaves with clear logic – that an emerging event does not occur without something originating it, and that the emergence of a temporal event without an originator can be automatically ruled out as false. This is entrenched in all children of Adam, even small children. If a child were struck and said, "Who hit me?", and he was told, "Nobody", his mind would not accept that the strike occurred without someone perpetrating it.
This is why if someone posited that writing, construction, implantation, or similar can occur without someone doing these, rational people would consider him to be either a madman or a sophist, just like someone who denied self-evidence and instinctive knowledge.

Based on this, we say that there is nothing that comes into existence without a cause that preferred its existence over its non-existence. It is impossible that this cause is non-existent, as nothingness does not exist as an entity.
The principle is rational and self-evident.

Based on the two propositions, it follows that there must be a pre-eternal, non-contingent existence that is the cause of all temporal events and possibilities.

The evidence for this cause being non-contingent is this: Given we know every specific event has a cause, and the cause has a cause, we must stop the sequence of potentially infinite causes by assuming a primary cause that is not dependent on a cause. This is because causal infinity is impossible, as it would mean no individual case of temporality would have ever taken place.

The question you probably have next, is, "Why Allah?" for the conclusion; i.e. even if it is assumed that there is a cause behind the emergence of the world, how is Allah then automatically assumed to be that cause?

If the universe came into existence after nothingness, its cause must be a Creator through Whom this universe was created. He must be pre-eternal, as the series of causes must stop at Him so that a series of infinite causality does not arise.
That is to say that He must not be an effect of another cause, as the universe needs a cause that is atemporal.
Furthermore, the emergence of the universe has unique features to it, which makes it an entity that emerged from will;
this points to an Actor Who carried out this deed through His own volition. This Doer acting with His Own volition must be Alive, as there is a difference between a live Actor and a dead actor.
It also suggests great power, through which this event took place; without power, no such deed could have occurred.
Thus, the act of the universe’s creation suggests in itself some of the perfect attributes of Allah.

The point of this argument is not to prove the existence of Allah with all His perfect attributes. Rather, it is sufficient to prove the least amount that is required, which is that there is a Doer who acts with power and choice. Otherwise, beyond these basic attributes, proving other attributes of the Creator can be achieved through other forms of rational evidence, such as the argument from providence, the teleological argument, or scriptural evidence, like Allah informing His servants of the attributes He has.
It is therefore an error to dupe the recipient of this information that the point of this argument was to prove both the existence of Allah and all His perfect attributes, in which case objections may arise such as ‘But it does not prove xyz attributes’, for that would be totally off-topic and was never the point of the argument to begin with.

For a famous analogy of another form of argumentation such as the above mentioned teleological argument:
"In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever; nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer.
But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for anything I  knew, the watch might have always been there.
Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone?"

The teleological argument is based on the following propositions:

• First proposition: The universe we see and live in is masterfully made and consummate. The signs of care and providence therein are apparent.
• Second proposition: This consummate mastery suggests that there is a Wise, Omniscient Doer who created it in this manner.
• Conclusion: Allah is the Wise, Omniscient Creator who created the universe.

To go into the evidences and proofs involved for these propositions would take volumes.
The discoveries of science continue to add evidences and show any other explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe to be so statistically improbable as to be impossible. Many writings on this issue have appeared, all of which carry the same premise.
The key premise is that when the universe is contemplated, we can see that there are standardised and extremely finely-tuned laws and constants in place for life to exist; in fact, some of these laws are so finely balanced that the existence of the entire universe rests upon it, and that any imbalance in any of these constants would lead to ultimate destruction.
The level of mastery present in the making of the universe is not restricted only to biological living beings or this astonishing planet in which we live. This mastery extends to the laws and constants that govern this universe.
These constants are a set of numerical data that have been very carefully selected, such that if they would have fallen either side of those numbers to even a small extent, the entire system of life – and in fact the entire universe itself – would disappear.
The very existence of the universe is linked to these crucial numbers.

For an analogy, imagine that you are a cosmic explorer who has just stumbled into the control room of the whole universe. There you discover an elaborate "universe-creating machine", with rows and rows of dials, each with many possible settings.
As you investigate, you learn that each dial represents some particular parameter that has to be calibrated with a precise value in order to create a universe in which life can exist.
One dial represents the possible settings for the strong nuclear force, one for the gravitational constant, one for Planck’s constant, one for the ratio of the neutron mass to the proton mass, one for the strength of electromagnetic attraction, and so on.
As you, the cosmic explorer, examine the dials, you find that they could easily have been tuned to different settings. Moreover, you determine by careful calculation that if any of the dial settings were even slightly altered, life would cease to exist.
Yet for some reason each dial is set at just the exact value necessary to keep the universe running. What do you infer about the origin of these finely-tuned dial settings?

The logical conclusion is that there is something that calibrated these dials so that those constants could gain and retain the values that are distinct to them and necessary for the existence of life and the universe.
There are a number of examples showcased in the universe that demonstrate fine-tuning. Scientists offer many other examples and calculations to demonstrate the improbability of these sorts of numbers converging out of coincidence.

One such example would be to look to one gene that is responsible for creating a type of protein and for undertaking some other vital functions. A length of 150 amino acids, a modest length – this gene must be sequenced in an extremely precise fashion in order to create the required protein. The probability of fault therein is 10^77 – only one sequence would be correct.
In other words, in order to access the code of this gene, one must get the ATGC correct out of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possibilities.
This is a number of gargantuan proportions. Just to put it into context, the number of atoms in the Milky Way Galaxy is estimated to be at 10^65. This demonstrates how coincidence is a wholly inadequate explanation for these information codes.

It must also be remembered that, according to the “minimum gene set concept” no living organism, no matter how primary, can go below 200 genes. How is it that any organism, or an initial organism as a common ancestor to all, could then be a product of random chance?

Our human experience reveals that the source of any information must be a knowledgeable entity. This storage of a colossal amount of information in the nucleus of every human cell cannot be explained without a Willing Omniscient being who created and placed all of this code in our cells.

The manifestations of mastery that have been mentioned before reveal that this universe has a purpose to it. From this, we are able to detect wisdoms in things. This nature of the universe is indicative of Allah, Who did not create the universe and all that is in it in vain. Rather, He created it for great wisdoms and objectives.