False Arguments About the Origin of Existence: Arguments For The Existence of Invisible Beings.Part3

Starting from the clues above, it should be possible to do formal studies to determine the worth of such propositions as the following:

• God first created “pure light” (nur) and then light. The process of creation followed a gradual, regular accumulation of identities and/or an evolutionary sequence of abrupt leaps. Fire followed light, and then came water and soil. God spread one existence through another, compounding and interweaving, and created liv-ing beings appropriate for each phase of creation. When the universe was in a state of pure fire or some other high energy, He created appropriate life forms. When the Earth became suitable for life, He created plants, animals, and humanity. He adorned every part and phase of the universe with creatures, including living ones, appropriate for that part and phase.

• Finally, just as He created innumerable beings from light, ether, air, fire, water, and soil, so does He create Paradise or Hell from each of our words and deeds. In other words, just as He grows a tree from a tiny seed through particles of soil, air and water, so will He build the other world, including Paradise and Hell, from the material of this world by adapting it for the other world during the convulsions of the Day of Judgment. [The Fountain, No. 13 (Jan.-March 1996), pp. 36–37.]

• Angels are pure spirit beings that represent the purely good aspect in existence, while Satan and his minions represent the purely evil aspect. God is One and Infinite, without opposite. All other beings and existents have an opposite. Therefore, angels represent our good aspect while Satan represents our evil aspect. Angels invite us to our purely spiritual or “angelic” aspect, while Satan tempts toward evil. The resulting struggle, both in us and in the universe as a whole, has been ongoing since the beginning of existence. Everyone feels a stimulus toward good and evil at the same time. The former comes from the angels or our unpolluted spirit; the latter comes from Satan collaborating with our carnal self, which represents our animal aspect.

• This spiritbody relation can be likened to that between electrical power and a factory run by electricity. If there is no electricity, the factory is reduced to heap of junk. Likewise, when the spirit leaves the body because of some rupture or disconnection (e.g., illness or death), we become no more than a mass of tissue and bone that decomposes in the soil. This shows that our real existence and uniqueness depend on this spirit.

• We accept the existence of natural laws and forces unquestionably, and even go so far as to attribute all phenomena to them. We ascribe a tiny seed’s growth into a huge, elaborate tree to the law of germination and growth in that seed, and the universe’s incredible balance to the laws of gravitation and repulsion. But we ignore the absolute will, knowledge, power, and wisdom necessary for the universe’s very existence, operation, and balance. The One Who has absolute Will, Knowledge, Power, and absolute Wisdom uses such powerful invisible beings (angels) as winds or gales, and others much more powerful than natural forces or laws, behind natural forces and laws to make them operative.

• In addition to religious scholars, almost all Muslim philosophers and even all Oriental philosophers agree that angels and spirit beings exist. They just have different names for them. The Peripatetic (Mashshaiyyun) school of philosophy, although quite inclined toward rationalism and even materialism, admitted the existence of angels on the grounds that each species has a spiritual, incorporeal essence. The Illuminists (Ishraqiyyun) also accepted the existence of angels, calling them (wrongly) the “Ten Intellects and Masters of Species.” On the other hand, followers of all Divine religions, guided by Divine Revelation, believe that there is an angel in charge of each type of existence, and name them accordingly: the Angel of the mountains, the Angel of the seas, the Angel of rain, and so on. Even naturalists and materialists, who restrict themselves to what they see, admit the meaning of angels, which they call pervasive forces.