Is there a creator?

You hear it all the time- arguments for and against the existence of a higher being and everyone comes with their different perspectives. I've come across loads of wacky arguments (e.g. if God exists then why all this suffering in the world? or even one guy who was praying for a "sign" of proof and found it when he got splashed by a passing car driving through a puddle that day! and then you get the pseudo-intellectuals that you meet at university who haven't even questioned the rubbish that you might learn nowadays in an elementary philosophy course-coming out with their versions of existentialism like "maybe this is all a dream");and those trying to defend the existence of a creator aren't much better either- using some self-fulfilling arguments that my 8 yr old would use (e.g.a creator must exist because it says it in the Quran!).
It seems that growing up in these secular societies has taught people that there are no absolute truths (as such societies have been built on compromise between those calling for the mandatory role of the church in life and those philosophers that denied the existence of God) and thus that everyone should have their own opinion and just live and let live without being too sure. (I hope to elaborate on the error of this perspective in another article). Science has even replaced God in these secular societies in the hope that it will offer the truth of the meaning of life to us. Hence the celebration we see of the anniversary of Darwin's evolutionary theory of life, or even the fascination with programmes such as "The X-files" in the hope that it could offer some sort of meaning to our existence!

I hope to show you below that there is an absolute way of proving the existence of a creator. But first we must ask ourselves what do we mean by proof? If we understand this then we can establish our criteria for discussing correctly. Or to put it another way- what would be the correct way to arrive at our answer- since different methodologies at seeking proof could provide different results. (Philosophers refer to this as epistemology- the foundation of knowledge).So for the person who is basing his answer on his "feelings" when he goes and prays and feels "spiritual" when he is in a church, mosque or a bingo hall- he may arrive to a different conclusion than say young Einstein (or young Penrose) who is waiting to empirically measure God in a test-tube using the "scientific" way of thinking- creating a hypothesis for the existence or non-existence of God and then seeking empirical proof to verify or falsify their "theory". We could talk about someone basing his proof on his dreams during sleep (he saw Buddha come to him), or the number of vegetables they have cut and found the Arabic word for Allah inside a holy tomato and how that outnumbers the number of toast with the face of Jesus sold on eBay- the list is endless! (google "Allah tomato" and "Jesus toast" if you don't know what I'm talking about).

So where do we start? What is proof that is good enough that everyone will accept? What can we find truth in? The answer is simple. Truth is what cannot be denied. So ask yourself - what is it that nobody can deny?
To give a working example- if I told you not to go home tonight as there was an alien spacecraft parked on top of your house waiting to suck you into its spacecraft and whisk you away to its galaxy-what would you believe and hence how would you react? (a side note- incidentally some cults believe in a variety of UFO explanations of our existence!)Would you just have blind faith in what I said and just stay away from home? Would you sit down, close your eyes, meditate, and wait for your feelings to tell you if my statement "felt" true? Would you develop a "scientific" speculative hypothesis and look for speculative evidence that may speculatively be interpreted as proof of aliens- perhaps by investigating for mutated humans i.e. any abnormality that exists within say 0.1% of the general population (especially looking for dwarfs with large domed heads and pointy eyes) and use this as the "missing link" to prove that aliens could exist?
Isn't there a doubt as to the accuracy of all these methods in knowing if my statement was true or not? Of course there is! All of these proofs could be doubted and denied by another individual as being subjective and interpreted subjectively. To start with- someone could deny what I said accusing me of lying! Someone else could have different "feelings" when he meditated. In interpreting the evidence for the existence of mutated abnormalities existent within an extreme sample of the population someone could offer a counter theory to your "missing link" explanation and develop their own speculative hypothesis e.g. a chemical spill in their parents generation- causing their gametes (the cells used in reproduction by both sexes to produce an offspring) to mutate thus producing abnormal offspring etc.
So what is it then that nobody could deny if they wanted to know if my belief about alien spacecraft on your house was correct or not?
They would have to check the reality! That's right - go and take a peep with your eyes for any aliens parked up! The only thing that we humans have to trust is the reality around us that our five senses inform us about. And no one can deny the reality in which they live in. We accept it all the time as we function within it- no one dares deny it! Nobody would look outside his window before going to work/college and see that its cold and raining but deny that reality - thinking instead, "maybe its an illusion, or possibly it could instantly turn hot and sunny- so I think I'll wear my Bermuda shorts and my sunglasses!" If they did deny it- they would be mad! And then they would end up suffering (getting cold, wet and sick). And anyone who tried to keep on denying his reality would indeed keep on suffering and would probably be dysfunctional very quickly as he does actions that disagree with his reality (e.g. crossing a busy road whilst denying the reality of the cars hurtling towards him)- and then end up dead very quickly! Therefore the limits for our discussion must be built around the reality of the world around us that we sense - and not feelings, dreams, speculative hypothesis or blind faith etc!

Now that we've agreed what we can agree upon, let us move onto the burning question of our existence. The question that we are asking is where did we all come from? Now, you can answer this in a shallow way and say "my parents" which does agree with the reality- but it also ignores other parts of it too (where did your parents come from?). Now in a question like this which is the most important question in life as it will shape your identity and what you do with your life- you don't want to make any mistakes. so you don't want to leave any bit of the reality out when you examine it. In a question like this, you need to include all of the reality so that there is no room for error.
We can thus categorise the whole of the reality into three: mankind, other life, and the entire non-living universe. So the question is: where did it all come from?

If we study all of these things we will find that none of them have the ability to create. In the context of this discussion by 'create', we mean 'to make out of nothing' as this is what we are asking. We do not mean 'manipulation' of existing elements as in cloning or reproduction (which manipulates sex cells already present). If anything in this universe was able to create itself (or for that matter other things) then we should be able to perceive such phenomena in our reality- however this is not the case. I have never been able to zap a burger into my open hand instead of getting up off my lazy backside to make a sandwich. Have you ever walked down the street and into a lamppost that just came out of nowhere after creating itself? No “scientist” has ever discovered any living or non-living object creating anything else.

Some may try to argue however that the universe needs no creator because it in itself is self-created or has always existed and we were not around at its time of self-creation to witness it and so cannot exclude it as a possibility. As part of this argument that the universe just always existed, they imply that in fact the universe itself has got the ability to create itself because it goes on for infinity occupying an infinite space with no restrictions to it- in effect just growing and getting bigger from nothing!
This argument can easily be tackled in a number of ways. To begin with, the universe itself is just the sum of all of it's celestial bodies as well as the life forms that we can perceive within it. So if all of these bodies have no ability to create then the universe too by definition of what it is -has no ability to create! (Five apples plus five apples will always give you apples and never can you get oranges from adding as many more apples as you want!).
Secondly, David Hilbert the famous mathematician discussed this and concluded that absurdities arise when an infinite sum of finite things (such as the celestial bodies within the universe) is assumed. In order to understand this, imagine if you will an infinite sum of marbles. If we were to halve the marbles then both halves would be equal to infinity. In fact any fraction of the infinite sum of marbles would equal infinity. This then produces an apparent contradiction that the part is equal to the whole. Further if we were to take three marbles out of the infinite sum of marbles then the remaining marbles would still equal to infinity. But the 3 marbles that have been taken out would be a fraction of the overall marbles. Yet this contradicts the principle we established earlier which is that every fraction of the infinite sum of marbles would equal to infinity. Yet the three marbles do not equal infinity. Thus something cannot be infinite and finite at the same time, because of this and many other contradictions it is absolutely clear that the sum of finite things must be finite. And because the universe is made up of finite bodies within space, and because we can measure parts of the universe which are finite distances then the whole universe is finite even though it be very large indeed!
Thirdly, no scientist could ever prove using hard facts that the universe has no bounds. How would you measure it?- by sending out a pulse and waiting for the response (like they do for measuring the depths of the ocean) or by sending a satellite probe to the edges of the universe and waiting for it to report back- however we would be dead by the time any of them came back if the universe was infinite- and this would still not indicate infinity as it could just mean that the universe expands further than the time it takes for us to measure it! so it would be speculation (and theory) to say that the universe expands to infinity. However, we know from reality that everything about the universe is that it has no power to self-create. So if we have to choose reality or theory which are we to take? (If you are to cross a road which thought would you use -built on reality or theory? reality tells you a car will hurt you if it hits you and speculation/theory would be that the driver will swerve out the way). Only a mad man would ignore the hard facts of reality to base his actions on speculation!
Finally when they say the universe arose from a Big Bang and is expanding they inherently admit it is finite in size, otherwise it could not expand! The universe is large, but is still a 'finite' space. There is nothing in reality which is infinite. No matter how hard we try, man is unable to find anything infinite around him. All we can perceive is the finite and limited that has not the power to create.
This leads us to therefore conclude that if everything in our reality has no ability to create itself (or indeed other things), then all of our reality must have been created by some thing unlike anything we can perceive!

The fact that we cannot see it or "empirically" measure this creator (as the scientist's modus operandi will seek to do) has no bearing on this, as the scientific methodology of investigation is limited to only things which are observable- however the creator is clearly not perceivable by any of our five senses (i.e. we cannot see, hear, touch, smell, or taste it). What we have used to discover the creator is our everyday ability to think rationally (based on reality). It is similar to the one who while walking along a beach and sees footprints in the sand thinks to himself, "someone must have been walking here because footprints can't make themselves!".


We can now start to ask the questions that would lead on from this such as- Why did this creator create us and What will happen when we die? (Which is another discussion for another article)
It is only with this type of certainty built on reality and not speculation that a Muslim can build his life so that he is sure about everything he does. And it is this gift of the mind that differentiates us from the animals-a tool that allows us to progress properly when we use it in the correct way to build our thinking on reality rather than doubt and speculation; and then allows mankind to bond together in society producing a great civilisation based on real answers!


"When a finger points to the sky, only a fool stares at the finger!"