Denying God, Denying Reality

Does God Exist (VERY BRIEF) - Khalid Yasin

Self-Evident Truths

Does God exist? If God exists, what evidence is there to support this belief?
I believe we have many good arguments which support a belief in God. We don’t require any evidence for His existence. God is an axiomatic belief. God’s existence is self-evidently true.
Science takes the world’s reality as a self-evident truth; it believes that the world is real. In other words, the physical world is separate and external from our minds and our thoughts.

Objection #1: What about the ‘spaghetti monster?’ Is it self-evident truths?
Self-evident truths is known as a ‘basic belief’ in the language of philosophy. Self-evident truths, axioms and basic beliefs are cross cultural in that they are not culturally bound. They are also innate in that they are not acquired via any form of information transfer, and they are also foundational.

 
A Cross Cultural Belief
If I believe in a spaghetti monster, I would have to have been brought up in a culture in which you are taught about spaghetti and monsters. The idea of God, the basic underlying idea of a creator, of a supernatural cause for the universe, is cross-cultural. It is not contingent on culture but transcends it, just like the belief in causality and the existence of other minds.

 
An Innate Belief
Properly basic beliefs, axiomatic beliefs, and self-evident truths, do not require information transfer. For me to understand what a spaghetti monster is, I require information to be transferred to me. I require knowledge of western cuisine and Italian culture. The idea of God’s existence as the creator of the universe do not require any information transfer, whether from culture, or education. This is why sociologists and anthropologists argue that even if atheist children were stranded on a desert island, they would come to believe that something created the desert island.

 
A Foundational Belief
Trusting our minds and the very fact that we can reason to the truth is a basic belief. If we did not hold such a belief then how could we trust our minds? How could we reason to the truth? How could we understand the universe and ourselves? These questions are indicative of the foundational nature of the validity of our reasoning. God’s existence, explains conscious emergence, the fact that we have consciousness within a material world.[1] It answers the questions for which we have no answer, like the question of language. [2] It also explains the existence of objective moral truths and offers a foundation for explaining why things happen.

 
Objection #2: Science
A flat earth was once a self-evident truth, it was a basic belief. As science has progressed we have found that this is not the case. We now know that the world is round.
Science is based on a theory of knowledge called Empiricism. Empiricism stems from the idea that you can only have knowledge of something from experience based on direct or indirect observation. God, by definition, is a non-observed being and is outside of His universe. Science can never directly reject God’s existence because science can only deal with things that you can observe. Either stay silent on the matter or suggest some evidence that can be used to infer His existence.

Objection #3: The belief in God is not universal
Millions of atheists worldwide suggests that the God’s existence is not self-evident because it’s not universal.

 
Individualised

Self-evident truths do not have to be universal. They can be individualised. Take for example your mother; you have a basic belief that the lady that you call your mother is the one that gave birth to you. You do not have a home DNA test kit and accept the fact that she is your mother because for you it is self-evidently true. However, to someone else, the lady that you call your mother could be your aunty, step-mother or adopted guardian.

Universal
In spite of the number of atheists in the world, the belief in God is universal. A universal belief does not mean every single person on the planet must believe in it. A cross cultural consensus is enough evidence to substantiate the claim that God’s existence is a universal claim. Evidently there are more theists than atheists in the world, and this has always been the case from the beginning of recorded history

Our Innate Nature (Fitrah)

The fitrah is an Arabic word that essentially means the natural state, the innate nature, or the innate disposition of the human being. This innate nature acknowledges God and wants to worship Him.

Fitrah can be ‘veiled’ or ‘spoiled’ by external influences. External influences can include parenting, society and peer pressure. These influences can cloud the fitrah and prevent it from acknowledging the truth. Anthropological evidence shows the atheism of communist Russia and communist China still had signs of what you would call a worship instinct, a sanctification instinct, awe of a greater being, which relates to the fitrah. For example their big statues of Stalin and Lenin were almost revered.

[3] As the Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be peace) said in an authentic prophetic tradition, “that every child is born in a state of fitrah. Then his parents make him a Jew, a Christian or a Magian…”.[4]

In this light Ibn Taymiyyah argues that when the natural state of someone is “altered” that person may need “other evidences” for God’s existence. These evidences will act as a trigger to wake up the fitrah. In addition to this, a key principle is that the Qur’anic arguments ‘unveil’ or ‘uncloud’ the fitrah. These Quranic arguments include encouraging reflection, pondering, and introspection.