False Arguments About the Origin of Existence: Nature, Natural Laws and Causes.Part1

Mediaeval European conceptions about the universe’s nature and existence were underpinned by the Catholic Church’s authority. The Church, relying upon a Divine Revelation (the Bible) that had been altered over time, considered modern science a threat to its authority and so viewed it with great hostility. The resulting science-religion rift deepened steadily until the two became irreconcilable. Eventually, religion was relegated to a domain of blind belief and consolatory rituals considered alien to science. Thus, science no longer had to defer to the Divine Revelation’s authority. The Darwinian account of evolution sealed and popularized the idea that existence was self-originated and self-sustained, a process that had unfolded by itself according to laws that one day would be understood fully (and therefore to some degree could be manipulated) by humanity.

Not all scientists maintain that natural causes or so-called laws of nature can explain all phenomena. Before discussing this issue, we should point out that all Prophets, regardless of place or time, agree on how existence originated and is sustained, and on all other essential issues pertaining to life and existence. While a considerable number of scientists agree with the Prophets, scientists and philosophers who favor naturalism and materialism differ greatly in their explanations. Some attribute creativity and eternity, as well as life and consciousness, to matter. Others argue that nature is eternally self-existent and that everything can be explained by natural causes and laws. Still others, unable to explain the origin of life, fall back on such notions as chance and necessity.

The following points section points out the impossibility of explaining existence without affirming God’s existence and Unity.

• Natural laws have nominal, not real, existence. They are propositions tendered as explanations of particular events or phenomenon, and allude to imaginary forces inferred from the motions or relationships of events or phenomena. The laws of gravity, reproduction and growth in living organisms, magnetic attraction and repulsion, and others are not entities whose existence can be verified by our external senses or scientific instruments. For example, whatever truth the law of gravity may have, can we claim that the real universe (the one in which this law operates) has (or must) come about because of it? Is it reasonable to ascribe anything’s existence, let alone intelligent and conscious living beings, to propositions?