THE PHILOSOPHY OF UNITY 1-7/21

 

 Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

Chapter 6

THE PHILOSOPHY OF UNITY

 

The Holy Qur’an has laid the greatest emphasis on the concept of Unity (Tawhid). It is not found there, however, merely as a concept among concepts but as an all-pervading principle which governs all the fundamental domains of human faith and action. As such, it is vitally necessary to understand it in all its dimensions for the sake of understanding the basic Qur’anic approach to the vital human problems.

 

(1)  Unity of God:

The Qur’anic view of life is grounded in the purest monotheism—the doctrine of the Unity of God. God is One. He is indivisible, and He has no partner in the godhead. He is the Reality. He is all-in-all. Belief in Him demands indivisible loyalty and devotion to Him. This emancipates the human beings from every cosmic and earthly bondage and elevates them to the highest pinnacle of glory. 

 

(2)  Unity of the Universe:

The universe has come into existence through creation, and God alone is its Creator. Therefore, it is a unity—in existence as well as in purpose. And, as such, it is a cosmos and not a chaos. It is a Reign of Law and not a Chance Order. Moreover, it is a Moral Order and not an amoral conglomeration of wayward particles. 

 

Subjectively pitched on the denial of the existence of God by hook or by crook, the materialistic philosophies assume,—assume only, because they have no proof—the origin of the world in chance— a ghostly and meaningless term in that respect. Postulation of chance shuts the door to the affirmation of any Meaning, or of the necessary existence of a Monistic Principle as the starting point. But the affirmation of a Meaningful Monistic Principle is the condition of believing in the universe as a cosmos, as opposed to chaos; and the affirmation of the universe as a cosmos is necessary for regarding the human life as meaningful. Then, unless human life is meaningful, all talk of philosophy, science, economics, politics, social improvement, justice and truth is, to say the least, beside the point. 

 

The principle of Evolution may be presented by the Materialists as the monistic principle underlying the working of the cosmos. But, how, where, why and by whom was that process originated? Evolution remains devoid of any genuine meaningfulness without satisfactory answers to those questions? Indeed, it remains a blind process, even though we may notice some method in it. The difficulties inherent in the hypothesis of Evolution have been commented upon by an eminent French scientist thus:

“One of the greatest successes of modern science was to link the fundamental Carnot Clausius law (also called the second law of thermodynamics),^[1] key-stone of our actual interpretation of the inorganic world, with the calculus of probabilities. Indeed, the great physicist Boltzmann proved that the inorganic, irreversible evolution imposed by this law corresponded to an evolution toward more and more ‘probable’ states, characterized by an ever increasing symmetry, a levelling of energy. The universe, therefore, tends towards an equilibrium where all the dissymmetries existing today will be flattened out, where all motion will have stopped and where total obscurity and absolute cold will reign. Such will be the end of the world—theoretically.

“Now, we men at the surface of the earth are witnesses to another kind of evolution: that of living things. We have already seen that the laws of chance, in their actual state cannot account for the birth of life. But now we find that they forbid any evolution other than which leads to less and less dissymmetrical states, while the history of the evolution of life reveals a systematic increase in dissymmetries, both structural and functional. Furthermore, this trend can hardly be attributed to a ‘rare fluctuation’ destined to be ironed out statistically, as it has manifested itself steadily for over one thousand million years (probable age of life on this globe), and as the dissymmetries, gloriously unconcerned about the law set by man, became greater as eons passed by until they culminated in the brain of man.

“Once more we repeat that there is not a single fact or a single hypothesis, today, which gives an explanation of the birth of life or of natural evolution. As far as the origin of life is concerned, we have briefly studied the problem in the first part of this book. Willy-nilly, we are, therefore, obliged either to admit the idea of a transcendent intervention, which the scientist may as well call God as anti-chance, or to simply recognize that we know nothing of these questions outside of a small number of mechanisms. This is not an act of faith, but an undisputed scientific statement.”^[2]

 

In the hypothesis of the Dialectical Process also the Materialists fail to see that the emphasis should lie not on the process as such but on the monistic principle inherent in it. If the world-process is conceived to have started with the simultaneous emergence, through chance, of the thesis and the anti-thesis, leading through their interaction to synthesis, that would explain nothing. If it is said that only a thesis emerged first and the anti-thesis was born out of it, that would give us a monistic principle at the start. But the emergence of the original thesis by chance makes the entire process blind and does not provide any sanction for any meaningful philosophy of life. The fact is that if it is inferred on the basis of certain phenomena that the world-process consists in repitition ad-infinitum of a triad in terms of ‘thesis—anti-thesis—synthesis’, then we are compelled to accept the monistic principle as the controlling force running through the process, because of the culmination of the interaction of the ‘thesis’ and the ‘anti-thesis’ in ‘synthesis’ every time that the cycle is conceived to be repeated,—the repitition giving to the world-process the form of a chain wherein every new ‘synthesis’ assumes the form of two prongs in terms of ‘thesis’ and ‘anti-thesis’ that finally merge themselves into a ‘synthesis’. In other words, dualism is repeatedly reducing itself into monism. This gives the clue to the existence of a monistic principle as the starting point and of the spirit of ‘monism’ pervading twice the dialectic. 

 

The Qur’an also speaks explicitly, and not just implicitly, of the presence of the dialectic in the world-process in terms of the perpetual conflict of the ‘Reality’ and the ‘un-reality’, or of Truth and Falsehood (21:18; etc.), and it emphasises its importance for human beings in its ethico-religious dimensions. It affirms its origin and starting point, however, not in chance, nor in a blind monistic principle, but in the Will of the Supreme Being Who possesses all the attributes of Perfection. 

 

It may also be observed in passing that while the so-called Scientific Materialism emphasises the transformation of Quantity into Quality as the mode of the world-process, the Qur’an emphasises the transformation of Quality into Quantity. The former view was actually built on certain wrong scientific notions of the nineteenth century in respect of Matter, which have now undergone radical change— lending ever-growing support to the Qur’anic view.  

 

We might state the Qur’anic view thus: Because God is the Absolutely Transcendental Being, His fundamental Attribute is ‘Absolute Quality’. The cosmos has emerged in existence, in terms of evolutionary creation—as opposed to ‘spontaneous’ creation— through the activity of His Will. Quality is ‘intangible’. Quantity relates to tangibility. The world-process is the progressive crystallisation of in-tangibility into tangibility. The intangible is space-less and time-less,—we may call it ‘Idea’ in the fundamental sense. The tangible is spatio-temporal. We know that we proceed progressively towards intangibility as we move from ‘appearance’ to ‘reality’ in the physical analysis of Matter, which means that intangibility, or space-lessness and time-lessness, or Qualitativeness, is the basis of the existence of Matter.   

 

(3)  Principle of ‘Unity’ in respect of the relation of God with the      Cosmos:

According to the Qur’an: God is Eternal and Absolute, and the cosmos is Transient and Relative. Now, the Relative is not the Absolute. But it has originated in the Will of the Absolute and is sustained by the Absolute. Thus, the Relative has no independent existence of its own, while the Absolute neither excludes nor includes the Relative. (Cf. the philosophical doctrine of the “Ahl-as-Sunnah wal Jama ‘ah”: la ‘ain wa la ghair).  

 

(4)  Unity of Life:

Taking ‘life’ in the universe as a whole, or ‘life’ as such, all ‘life’ forms a unity. In other words: Because the Holy Qur’an projects the universe as an organic whole which has come into existence through the unitary action of the Divine Will, all the projections and manifestations of ‘life’ exist within a single unitary evolutionary principle—human life being distinguished as unique and overpowering because it functions within the framework of Personality.

With respect to the human being, as such, his life before his birth on the earth, his earthly life, and his life after death—all these three phases form a unity. Indeed, life is tied to a continuous evolutionary process. 

 

(5)  Unity of the ‘Natural’ and the ‘Super-Natural’:

The Basis of Existence for all phenomena and things in the entire universe being one, and the Source of all laws pertaining to every aspect and every part of the universe being one, the ‘natural’ and the ‘super-natural’ are only two levels of the activity pervading the cosmos, involving no contradiction. The distinction is actually grounded only in the human framework of reference. 

 

(6)  Unity of Knowledge:

Because the universe is a unity, knowledge should be pursued in terms of ‘unity’ in the sense that it should form one ‘Whole’. The different branches of knowledge should be viewed in the relationship of inter-dependence. This leaves no ground in the Qur’anic view of knowledge for the time-honoured division in terms of ‘religious’ and ‘secular’.  

 

(7) Unity of Faith and Reason:

It is not, however, only the different branches of knowledge that are complimentary among themselves. The time-honoured dichotomy of Faith and Reason, which has played havoc in the history of Christian West, is also a false notion. Cognition (knowing) and conation (feeling) are not anti-thetic, both being the dimensions of the same human Consciousness. Faith and Reason have also, therefore, to go together: to function in unity. Faith without Reason lands human beings in superstition. Reason without Faith deprives humanity of the highest values. Taking up this problem in the very first Revelation, the Holy Qur’an has emphasised the unity of Faith and Reason and has projected the ideal of Rationally-orientated Faith.

---

[1] This law can be worded as follows: An isolated material system can never pass twice identically through the same state. Every successive state entails a definite decrease in its available energy. Hence its irreversibility.

[2] Le Comte du Nouy: Human Destiny, pp. 41, 134.

Source

to be continued . . . . . 

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times

PHILOSOPHY

  Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

 

II. PHILOSOPHY

All Philosophy may be broadly classified into four schools, namely: one, Formal Rationalism; two, Empiricism; three, Criticism; and four,  Empirical Rationalism. Of these four, two and three do not deserve consideration in the background of our present problem and that for very definite reasons. No. two, namely, Empiricism, holds that the only source of obtaining knowledge is sense-experience. It means that the empirical philosopher cannot even aim at trying to understand the whole of Reality, because in their very nature the human senses are very limited in their scope and also liable to error, as we have already seen in the section on Science. Indeed, the only natural and logical consequence of Empiricism is Scepticism, namely, that we cannot know Reality. In other words, the philosophy of the Empiricist school itself asserts the incompetence and the failure of philosophical endeavour to answer the ultimate questions. As regards no. three, namely Criticism, it says that both Reason and Senses are sources of knowledge but that both are very limited sources. Hence, the knowledge of the world which we can get through them can only be very limited in its scope as well as character. In other words, according to this school of Philosophy, philosophical effort can succeed only in knowing a part of Reality. This, in its turn, means that comprehensive and sure knowledge, which is the necessary condition for solving the ultimate questions successfully, cannot be obtained from Philosophy. Thus there remain only two schools of Philosophy, namely, Formal Rationalism and Empirical Rationalism where the belief is found that Philosophy can discover the Ultimate Truth, which alone, therefore, deserve our consideration in connection with the present discussion. Let us examine the validity of their claim. 

 

Formal Rationalism holds that human Reason, unaided by anything else, is capable of knowing the ultimate facts of life and the world.    

Empirical Rationalism holds that Reason and Sense Experience should combine to enable human beings to find out the Ultimate Truth and that, through this combination of the sources of knowledge, Philosophy can solve the ultimate problems and guide humanity in that behalf.

Formal Rationalism depends wholly on Logic. Its method is to choose a hypothesis as the starting point of its investigation and on that hypothesis to build up a whole world of philosophical thought by using the instrument of Logic.

Empirical Rationalism may be better named as “Philosophy of Science”. Its method is to collect and arrange the facts discovered by Science and to endeavour, by using the instrument of Reason, to form an integrated picture of the world as a whole and thereby to answer the ultimate questions.

 

If we evaluate Formal Rationalism, we find that, on the face of it, it is incapable of giving us any sure and accurate knowledge of the ultimate problems. This is so, because its starting point is always a hypothesis, which is nothing more than a supposed idea or at best an observation based on common sense, and it has always been chosen by every philosopher arbitrarily. Now, every hypothesis, especially in the realm of abstract thought, is, in the very nature of the case, unverifiable. In other words, it is uncertain. And if it is uncertain, the thought structure built upon it and the conclusions arrived at must also be uncertain. That is, the knowledge of ultimate problems given by Formal Rationalism cannot be sure and accurate. 

 

As regards Empirical Rationalism, its starting point consists in the scientific facts, namely, sensorial observation, and its method is to reason out the ultimate problems on their basis. But, as we have already seen in the discussion of the Scientific Method, scientific facts are at best workable hypotheses or working material on the scale of observation or the system of reference with which they are connected. Hence, for ultimate problems, they have neither finality, nor perfect accuracy, nor absolute certainty. This means that if the starting point and the working material of Empirical Rationalism lack accuracy, certainty and finality, the conclusions arrived at will also suffer from the same shortcomings. In other words, a solution of the ultimate problems on the basis of sure knowledge is impossible even for the Empirical Rationalist school of Philosophy. 

 

An eminent scientific thinker of modern times admits this truth in the following words: “Many people wrongly think that logical mechanisms are ‘standard’ and that logical reasoning, and all the more so mathematical reasoning, are inevitably ‘true’. This is not always the case. We must beware of the process of human thought because, in the first place, the starting point is often a sensorial observation (therefore of doubtful value) or an observation based on common sense. Now common sense cannot be trusted. It is common sense that leads us to think that the earth is flat; that two plumb lines are parallel (they are both directed toward the centre of the earth and consequently form an angle); that motion in a straight line exists, which is absolutely false as we have to take into consideration not only the motion of the earth around its axis and around the sun, and that of the entire orbit of the earth, but also the motion of the whole solar system toward the constellation Hercules, etc. As a result, a bullet or an aeroplane, which seems to move in a straight line with respect to the earth, for a certain length of time, in reality follows a trajectory more closely resembling a kind of corkscrew with respect to a vaster system of reference, the nearest stars for instance. Common sense tells us that the edge of a razor blade is a continuous straight line, but if we examine it under a microscope it resembles a wavy line drawn by a child. Common sense tells us that a piece of steel is solid; X-rays show us that it is porus, and the modern theories of matter teach us that it is in reality made up of trillions of animated, miniature universes having extraordinarily rapid movements and no contact with each other.

“If, therefore, the starting point, the premises of a reasoning is false, the conclusion will necessarily, logically, be false.

 

“As we have no other means of knowing and describing nature but those given us by our senses and our faculties—i.e., by our brain cells—we must be extremely cautious and never forget the relativity of the picture which we construct—a relativity with respect to the recording instrument, man.” (Lecomte du Nouy: Human Destiny, pp.5, 6).

 

The competence of Science and Philosophy in unraveling the mysteries of the ultimate problems can be examined through another argument also. As stated in the foregoing, the ultimate problems refer to three main heads, namely: Man, Universe and God. Let us take here the case of Man himself. Can Science or Philosophy, or both combined, provide us true and accurate knowledge of the ultimate problems which refer to Man? If we consider this question cool mindedly and dispassionately, we find that neither the origin nor the constitution nor the functioning of man can be reasonably conceived to exist in a vacuum. 

 

The individual human being is a part of the human race. The human race, in its turn, is part of a larger whole, namely, the animal world. The animal world, in its turn, is part of a larger whole, namely, the organic world (which includes plant life). The organic world, in its turn, is part of a larger whole, namely, the Earth, (which includes both the organic world and the inorganic world). The Earth, in its turn, is part of a larger whole, namely, our solar system. Our solar system, in its turn, is immediately part of a galaxy of unknown number of solar systems and ultimately a part of the entire Universe which is unknown to us as a whole thing and which, according to Modern Science, should be termed as virtually infinite both in Space and Time, and is, therefore, incapable of being grasped in knowledge by our finite powers of perception and reasoning, both logical and mathematical. Thus, the human individual is ultimately part and parcel of a universe which, in its origin, constitution and purpose, is unknowable as a whole thing.

 

Now, if we wish to obtain true, accurate and comprehensive knowledge of the fundamental laws which govern the existence of the human individual, we find that just as the human individual does not exist in a vacuum the laws also which govern his existence do not exist in a vacuum. For, the system of laws which governs the existence of the human individual is part of a larger and higher whole, namely, the system of laws which governs humanity as an entity. This larger and higher system of laws is, in its turn, part of another system which is higher and larger than it; and this series goes on—the levels of laws rise higher and higher, tier after tier, until we reach the level where we are confronted with the laws which govern the entire universe as an entity and fundamentally.

 

We are now heading towards the conclusion. To know the nature and destiny of the part we must know the nature and destiny of the whole. Hence, to know the nature and destiny of the human individual we must know the nature and destiny of the whole of which it is a part. As we have already seen, immediately, it is part of the human race. But the human race itself is not the final whole. Rather, it is a part of a larger whole, and that larger whole is part of a still larger whole, until, if we were to stop even at physical concepts only, we reach the final whole which is known as the Physical Universe. This means that unless we know the nature and destiny of the universe, we cannot know the nature and destiny of anything which forms part of it, including the human individual.

 

All the above discussions lead us positively to the conclusion that neither Science nor Philosophy can ever be capable of giving accurate answers to our ultimate questions on the basis of sure knowledge. And those answers which they have been giving, or might give in future, have been, and shall always be, at best approximations in the nature of partial truths and, in most instances, what the following verse of the Holy Qur’an calls “conjectures”:                                 

“But they have no knowledge thereof. They follow nothing but conjecture; and conjecture avails nothing against Truth.” (53:28).

The question now is: If Science and Philosophy fail in guiding us on ultimate problems, is that the end of the road, or is there a way out? The answer is: Yes, there is a way—the way of Religion. 

Source

to be continued . . . . .