To many of us may be the answer is "No, it's not possible." But in reality it is possible and we conclude on many different things 'beyond doubt' using only rational (intangible) proof. For example, can anyone prove me that I had a great great ........ great grandmother 1000 years ago through tangible proof? To prove this through tangible evidences, one has to get the remains of all my previous grandmothers and extract DNAs to link it with my DNA. It's not possible to find the remains of all my grandmothers, hence we are unable to link my DNA with my grandmother who lived long back in time. Does that mean my grandmother didn't exist 1000 year ago ? Obviously not. Cause we know from the reality that every human being need a mother to be born and from this reality we can make a rational conclusion that I had a grandmother 1000 year ago. And we derive this conclusion without any doubt through rational proof but not through tangible proof.
Similarly when we find ancient drawings on the rock from thousands of years ago, we don't come to conclusions that elephants or monkeys did these drawings, rather we conclude that humans did it without having any tangible evidence to link that to a human being. So, the point I am trying to make is, we can and we do derive decisive conclusions in our daily life on things without having tangible proof. In other words, using only rational proof we can believe in something with certainty. Hence it is evident from the discussion above that we don't need tangible proof to come to a decisive conclusion about the existence of God.
Now, the next point I would like to address is "Tangible proof is not applicable to prove the existence of God." Simply because we can NOT comprehend through our senses anything beyond the time and space of this universe. And God by definition has to be an independent eternal being who is beyond the limits of this universe. So how can we measure or test something eternal with our non-eternal capabilities ?? God has to be eternal and absolutely independent by necessity, otherwise He would be dependent on something else. And if He is somehow dependent on anything, then that other thing has to exist for His existence. And that nullifies Him being an eternal being, hence He can't be the almighty God. So we can't have tangible evidence to prove the existence of God.
Again, One might argue "If God is beyond this universe and human mind incapable of comprehending something beyond this universe, then how can one believe in His existence ?" This argument is false cause comprehending the existence of God and comprehending His essence is two different things. Ability to comprehend the existence of God is not dependent on comprehending His essence. For example, if someone knocks at your door then you are sure of somebody outside your door (existence of a person) but you don't know whether it is he or she, what is his/her height, what is the color of his/her dress ......etc (characteristics of that person). Similarly we can rationally comprehend that Creator exists by analyzing the creations in this universe without comprehending His essence. These creations are within the limits of what the mind can comprehend and thus, from comprehending the creations, man can comprehend the existence of the Creator for these things, who is God the almighty (this point is explained further in subsequent paragraphs). So comprehending the essence of God is not necessary to comprehend His existence.
I would like to remind the readers few important points discussed so far:
a. Rational proof can provide us with certainty on believing things. Tangible proof is not necessary to derive conclusion with certainty.
b. Seeking tangible evidence for the existence of God is irrational as tangible God would mean He is within the limits of this universe and thus nullifies Him as being a creator. Hence we need to use rational proof to prove the existence God.
c. Comprehending the essence of God is not necessary to comprehend the existence of God.
Now let us discuss how we can rationally comprehend the existence of God through comprehending the creations on this universe.
* "Let’s take a shirt for example. Let’s say it’s a black cotton shirt, with a little logo on the front, with two short sleeves and is about 60cm in height, 40cm in width and has a 50cm collar (in diameter), and the ends of the sleeves are folded in and sewn, as is the bottom of the shirt. Now why would we immediately conclude that a human made this shirt, even if it was with the help of a machine, but definitely a human was involved at some point? A simple answer is the degree of “design” and “purpose” behind every aspect of the shirt, and the fact that every aspect of the shirt has a particular purpose, which immediately negates any possibility of chance being the cause of every aspect of its design. This clearly indicates the existence of an intelligent being behind the existence of the shirt (i.e. a human). "
The above example makes perfect sense to anyone without any doubt but when it comes to nature or this universe suddenly things changes and people start to think irrationally. The degree of design and complexity in nature is far more greater than we can even think of but still we somehow think it came into existence by chance or by itself. Consider the following example to understand how irrational it is to think that life forms came to exist by chance.
** "Proteins are the building blocks of a cell. These proteins again consist of smaller units called "amino acids" that are arranged in a particular sequence in certain quantities and structures. These units constitute the building blocks of a living protein. The absence or replacement of a single amino acid in the structure of a protein causes the protein to become a useless molecular heap. An average-sized protein molecule composed of 288 amino acids and contains 12 different types of amino acids, which can be arranged in 10300 different ways (1 followed by 300 zeros). Of all these possible sequences, only one forms the desired protein molecule and the rest are useless or potentially harmful for living things. Again one single protein means nothing by itself. One of the smallest bacteria ever discovered H39, contains 600 types of proteins. In this case, we would have to repeat the probability calculations we have made above for one protein for each of these 600 different types of proteins. The result beggars even the concept of impossibility ( In practice, probabilities smaller than 1 over 1050 - 1 followed by 50 Zeros- are thought of as "zero probability). English mathematician and astronomer sir Fred Hoyle (an evolutionist himself) stated in "Nature Magazine" November 12, 1981 that the chance that higher life forms might have emerged by chance is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein. In other words, it is absolutely impossible for the universe to have come into existence by chance. If someone still claims that it is still a possibility, then there is no point discussing with that person, as the basis of our discussion should be rational proof, not far-fetched, imaginary and irrational arguments.
One can also rationally conclude the existence of a creator by reflecting on the things that the mind can comprehend i.e. man, life and universe. All of them are inherently limited, weak, imperfect, and depend on other than themselves to exist. Man is limited because he grows in every aspect to a certain limit that he cannot surpass and depends on food, water, oxygen and numerous other things to survive.
Sometimes life is perceived to be “eternal”, but there is nothing to support this theory at all. Life is completely dependent on the being it lives in. It cannot be transferred, or returned to a dead body once it leaves. It starts with a body, and ends with that body, and we all know that everything on this earth dies. Therefore, life is limited and it comes to an end. Anyone who claims that “life is transferred to others” then he needs to provide evidence for that. It is clear that the population of the earth is increasing, so how is this possible if life is just being transferred? The numbers do not add up. Clearly, that theory is baseless and is just a figment of someone’s imagination.
*** Again some claims ' Matter exists with no beginning and it is eternal. Since this universe is composed of different forms of matter, this universe as a whole is eternal.' Let us point our attention to the things that exists in this universe to answer this false claim as well. All matters that exists are incapable of creating anything from nothingness, whether individually or collectively. It's incapability to create from nothingness is tangibly conspicuous. This means that it is not eternal, because an eternal thing must not be characterized with incapability. In order for the creator to be deemed eternal, It must have the ability to create things from nothing, that means the created things must depend on the creator for it's creation. Consequently, the universe is not eternal because it is incapable of creating anything from nothing. Incapability of something to create from nothingness is definite evidence that it is not eternal.
We can clearly observe that everything on this universe is limited, weak, imperfect and in need of something other than itself for it's existence (non-eternal). Anything that is not eternal requires a beginning (starts to exist at some point in time), and anything that starts to exist must be caused/initiated by something other than itself (nothing can create itself when itself doesn't exist). Hence something uncaused/uninitiated, eternal existed before anything that exists in this Universe and that is the almighty God who created everything from nothing.
This is the rational proof of the existence of the Creator .
Conclusion:
It appears to us that believing in the existence of God is something complex and in need of high intellect. But in fact it is just the opposite. Few years back I went to Bangladesh and asked a person who is not literate "Why do you think God exists?" She was at once astonished to hear such question from me. I could see her expressions on the face which gave me the feeling that I was asking her a stupid question. She gave me a short but profound reply which I still remember and that is "Do you think this world came into existence by itself?" All on a sudden I realized that It's an obvious conclusion to anyone with a clear set of mind irrespective of his/her educational status. It is the current secular world which has corrupted our mind to the point that we can't even think straight. In the Quran Allah (swt) addresses us :
" Were they created of nothing, or were they themselves the creators? Or did they create the heavens and the earth? Nay, they have no firm belief." [At-tur, Verse 35-36]
"Behold! In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alteration of night and day, these are indeed signs for men of understanding." [Al-E-Imran, Verse 190]
* http://awaremuslim.blogspot.com/2007/05/rational-proof-in-existence-of-creator.html** http://www.harunyahya.com/evolution_specialpreface.php
*** Ash-Shakhsia al-Islaamiya Volume I by Sheikh Taqiuddin an Nabhani
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