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   THIRD QUESTION
The former enemy and now rightly-guided friend then asked: “Philosophers, who have made many advances these days, claim that nothing is created out of nothing, and nothing is annihilated and goes to nothing; there is only compostion and decomposition, and this makes the factory of the universe run. Is this correct?” T h e A n s w e r : Since the most advanced philosophers who did not consider beings in the light of the Qur’an saw that the formation and existence of beings by means of nature and causes was so difficult as to be impossible – in the manner proved above, they diverged into two groups. One group became Sophists; abdicating reason, which is exclusive to human beings, and falling lower than mindless beasts, they found it easier to deny the universe’s existence and even their own existences, than to follow the way of misguidance, which claims that causes and nature have the power to create. They therefore denied both themselves and the universe and descended into absolute ignorance. The second group saw that in misguidance, according to which causes and nature are creator, the creation of a fly or a seed, even, entails innumerable difficulties and requires a power unacceptable to reason. They were therefore compelled to deny the act of creation and to say: “Nothing can exist out of nothing.” Seeing total annihiliation also to be impossible, they declared: “What exists cannot go to nothing.” They fancied an imaginary situation in which combining and decomposition, gathering together and dispersion, occur through the motion of particles and the winds of chance. Now, see! Those who consider themselves to be the most intelligent are the most profoundly ignorant and stupid. Understand just how ludicrous, debased, and ignorant misguidance makes man, and take a lesson! Indeed, a Pre-Eternal Power created the heavens and the earth in six days, ever y year creates four hundred thousand species simultaneously on the face of the earth, and in six weeks every spring constructs a living world more full of art and wisdom than the world itself. Thus, it is more foolish and ignorant than the Sophists, the first group above, to deny the act of creation and deem it unlikely that, like a chemical that when applied shows up invisible writing, Pre-Eternal Power should give external existence to beings, which, though externally non-existent, exist as knowledge, and whose plans and measures are determined in the realm of a Pre-Eternal Knowledge. Double click for meaning of the world. | |||
