Conclusion: An Appeal To Reason

The belief that our wondrous universe could have evolved by blind chance is crazy. And I do not at all mean crazy in the sense of a slangy invective but rather in the technical meaning of psychotic. Indeed such a view has much in common with certain aspects of schizophrenic thinking.  Karl Stern, University of Montreal Psychiatrist100

At he beginning of this book we made mention of something called the anthropic principle and said that it was gaining widespread acceptance in the scientific world. As we pointed out then, the anthropic principle holds that the universe is not a purposeless, pointless, or random conglomeration of matter and that, on the contrary, it was created to serve as a home for human life.

Since then we have seen a host of evidence demonstrating that the anthropic principle is indeed a fact: evidence ranging from the speed at which the Big Bang was propagated to the physical balances of atoms, from the relative strengths of the four fundamental forces to the alchemy of stars, from the mysteries of the dimensions of space to the layout of the solar system. And everywhere we've looked we have seen an extraordinarily precise arrangement in the structure of the universe. We saw how the structuring and dimensioning of the world in which we live and even of its atmosphere are exactly what they need to be. We witnessed how the light sent to us by the Sun, the water we drink, and the atoms that make up our bodies and the air that we inhale constantly into our lungs are all amazingly fit for life.

In short, any time we observe anything in the universe we encounter an extraordinary order whose purpose is to nurture human life. To deny the reality of this apparent Creation is, as the psychiatrist Karl Stern put it, to overstep the bounds of reason.

The implications of this order and harmony are also obvious. The order concealed within every detail of the universe is most certainly proof of the existence of a Creator who is in control of every detail and whose power and wisdom are infinite. As the Big Bang theory has revealed, this same Creator created the universe from nothingness.

This conclusion that has been reached by modern science is a fact imparted to us in the Qur'an: Allah created the universe from nothingness and gave it order:

Your Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then settled Himself firmly on the Throne. He covers the day with the night, each pursuing the other urgently; and the Sun and Moon and stars are subservient to His command. Both Creation and command belong to Him. Blessed be Allah, the Lord of all worlds. (Surat al-A'raf: 54)

Unsurprisingly, the discovery of this truth by science upset quite a few scientists and it continues to do so. These are scientists who equate science with materialism; they are people who are convinced that science and religion can never get along and that being "scientific" is synonymous with being an atheist. They have been trained to believe that the universe and all the life in it can be explained as the product of chance events that are completely devoid of any intention. When such people encounter the obvious fact of Creation, their great dismay and confusion are natural.

In order to understand the consternation of materialists, we need to take a brief look at the question of the origin of life.

The Origin of Life

There are 2,000 types of proteins in a simple bacterium. The probability of their all coming into existence by accident is 1 in 1040.000. In a human being there are 200,000 types of proteins. The word "impossible" is too tame to describe the likelihood of such an event occurring by chance.

The origin of life, which is to say, the question of how the first living things came into being on Earth, is one of the biggest dilemmas confronting materialists in the last century and a half. Why should that be so? It's because even a single living cell, the smallest unit of life, is incomparably more complex than even the greatest technological achievements of the human race. The laws of probability make it clear that not even a single protein could ever have come into existence by mere chance; and if this is true of proteins–the most basic building-blocks of cells–the accidental formation of a complete cell is not even thinkable. This is of course proof of Creation.

Because this is a subject that is discussed in more detail in other books of ours, we will just present a few simple examples here.

Earlier in this book we showed how the accidental formation of the balances that prevail in the universe was impossible. We will now show how the same is true for the accidental formation of even the simplest life-form. One study on this subject that we can refer to is a calculation made by Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry and expert on the subject of DNA at New York University. Shapiro, who is both a Darwinist and an evolutionist by the way, calculated the probability that all 2,000 of the different types of proteins that it takes to make up even a simple bacterium (the human body contains about 200,000 different types), could have come into being completely by chance. According to Shapiro, the probability is one in 10^40.000. 101 (That number is "1" followed by forty thousand zeros. and it has no equivalent in the universe.)

Certainly it is plain what Shapiro's number must mean: The materialist (and its companion Darwinist) "explanation" that life evolved as an accident is certainly invalid. Chandra Wickramasinghe, a professor of applied mathematics and astronomy at the University of Cardiff commented on Shapiro's result:

The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 1040.000 noughts after it…It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.102

The astronomer Fred Hoyle makes the same point:

Indeed, such a theory (that life was assembled by an intelligence) is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self- evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.103

The creation of the heavens and earth is far greater than the creation of mankind. But most of mankind do not know it. (Surah Ghafir: 57 )

Both Wickramasinghe and Hoyle are men who, during much of their careers, approached science with a materialist bent; but the truth that confronted them was that life was created and both had the courage to admit this. Today, many more biologists and biochemists have put aside the fairy-tale that life could have emerged as an accident.

Those who are still loyal to Darwinism–those who still contend that life is a result of chance–are indeed in a state of consternation as we said at the beginning of this chapter. Just as the biochemist Michael Behe meant while he said, "The resulting realisation that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws."104, the shock that such people feel is the shock of having to come to terms with the reality of the existence of Allah, Who created them.

The dilemma that these adherents of materialism have fallen into was inevitable because they are struggling to deny a reality that they can clearly see. In the Qur'an, Allah describes the perplexity of those who believe in materialism like this:

By the Sky with its oscillating orbits. Most surely, you are at variance with each other in what you say. Averted from it is he who is averted. Cursed be the conjecturers; those who flounder in a glut of ignorance. (Surat adh-Dhariyat: 7-11)

At this point, our duty is to summon those who, influenced by materialist philosophy, have overstepped the bounds of reason, to reason and commonsense. We have to call them to cast aside all their prejudices and to think, to ponder the extraordinary order in the universe and of the life in it and to accept it as the plainest proof of the fact of Allah's Creation.

Allah, Who created heaven and Earth from nothing, summons the human beings He created to exercise their reason:

Your Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then established Himself firmly on the Throne. He directs the whole affair. No one can intercede except with His permission. That is Allah your Lord, so worship Him. Will you not pay heed? (Surah Yunus: 3)

In another verse, mankind is addressed thus:

Is He Who creates like him who does not create? So will you not pay heed? (Surat an-Nahl: 17)

Today's science has proven the truth of Creation. It is now time for the scientific world to see this truth and derive a lesson from it. Those who deny or ignore the existence of Allah, and this is especially true of those who pretend that they are doing so in the name of science, should realize how deeply misled they are and turn away from this path.

On the other hand, this truth revealed by science has another lesson to teach to those who say that they already believed in the existence of Allah and that the universe was created by Him. The lesson is that their belief may be superficial and that they have not fully thought about the evidence of Allah's Creation or about its consequences and that, for this reason, they may not be fulfilling all the responsibilities incumbent upon their belief. In the Qur'an, Allah describes such people like this:

Say: "To whom does the earth belong, and everyone in it, if you have any knowledge?"
They will say: "To Allah." Say: "So will you not pay heed?"
Say: "Who is the Lord of the Heavens and the Lord of the Mighty Throne?
They will say: "Allah." Say: "So will you not have taqwa?"
Say: "In Whose hand is the dominion over everything, He Who gives protection and from Whom no protection can be given, if you have any knowledge?"
They will say: "Allah's." Say: "So how have you been bewitched?" (Surat al-Muminun: 84-89)

Having come to the realization that Allah exists and that He created everything, to remain indifferent to this truth is indeed a sort of "bewitched". It is Allah Who created the universe and the world in which we live perfectly for us and then brought us into being as well. The duty of every person is to regard this as the most important fact of his life. Heaven and earth and everything in between belong to Allah the Sublime. Humanity should regard Allah as its Lord and Master and serve Him as is due. This is the truth revealed to us by Allah in the words:

He is the Lord of Heavens and the earth and everything in between them, so worship Him and persevere in His worship. Do you know of any other with His name? (Surah Maryam: 65)

They said "Glory be to You!
We have no knowledge except what You have taught us.
You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise."
(Qur'an, 2: 32)

Footnotes

100. Jeremy Rifkin, Algeny, New York: The Viking Press, 1983, p 114 

101. Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Sceptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, New York, Summit Books, 1986. p.127 

102. Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1984, p. 148 

103. Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, s. 130 

104. Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, New York, The Free Press, 1996, p. 252-53