Critical Analysis: Existence of Allah
It has been argued that given the complexity of the human brain, the human eye, the universe, etc., there must be a God. A similar argument is that given an auto, there must be an automaker, so given a universe there must be a universe maker.
That argument has certain flaws:
1. Since there is a God there must be a Godmaker--so who created God?
2. Because there is an auto, I do not assume that the automaker is all-knowing, most-merciful, all-powerful, eternal, etc. Nor would I assume that the automaker could fly. Further, there are earthquakes, starving infants, painful diseases, etc. This would imply that God is either not merciful or has limited power.
3. The Quran mentions that Allah is all-knowing[1] and all-powerful.[2] Can Allah create a person that can travel trillions of light years in a second? Can Allah calculate the product of a quadrillion large numbers within 1 second? Can Allah recall how many insects existed during each second? Can Allah see thru brick walls or create an item that he cannot lift? Can Allah improve? There is no evidence that Allah has such powers nor does it logically follow from the automaker argument.
4. As an auto can have multiple creators, so a universe can have multiple gods. Further, if Allah is all-powerful, Allah can create other gods. Can Allah create gods greater than himself? So it is hard to prove monotheism.
5. Many different cultures believed in all kinds of gods and prophets. Each culture and sect contradicts the next. So even if a god does exists, it does not necessarily mean that he is aware of what goes on in the universe, that he writes books, and that he wrote the Quran.
Do Miracles prove the Existence of God?
[1](the philosopher David Hume in his “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”) wrote:
In the foregoing reasoning we have supposed, that the testimony, upon which a miracle is founded, may possibly amount to an entire proof, and that the falsehood of that testimony would be a real prodigy: But it is easy to shew, that we have been a great deal too liberal in our concession, and that there never was a miraculous event established on so full an evidence.
For first, there is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good-sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time, attesting facts performed in such a public manner and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable: All which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance in the testimony of men.
As one would expect of a book [Sirat Rasul Allah by Ibn Ishaq] which was written in the eighth century about a great religious reformer, miracles are accepted as a matter of course. It does not matter if a person’s alleged power to work miracles makes his early sufferings and failures unintelligible, nor does it matter if the person concerned expressly disclaimed all such powers apart from the recitation of the Quran itself.[3] The Near East has produced an enormous number of books on the miracles of saints and holy men and it would be strange indeed if Islam had not followed in the footsteps of its predecessors in glorifying the achievements of its great leader at the expense of his human greatness.
Notes
