How Do We Know That God Intervenes in the Running of the Universe?
Q. I recently learned the term “deism” and I was wondering, from an Islamic standpoint, how do we refute or deny the arguments that deists make about how there is a God, but one who doesn’t intervene in the matters of the universe. We’ve learned arguments from contingency, from design, and volitional agency in class, but I was wondering how you would address a deist’s viewpoint.
The Emotional Origins of Deism
Deism is the belief in a God who doesn’t intervene in the affairs of human beings and, more generally, in the workings of the universe. Deists have traditionally appealed to human reason to justify their positions. They believe that the proper organization of the affairs of human beings should be discerned by our human moral sense rather than by revelation. And they believe that the workings of the universe should be discerned by the methods of modern science rather than by revelation. Both the organization of the affairs of human beings and the workings of the universe, they argue, should be determined by the human mind rather than by revelation.
Although deists seem to justify their beliefs by appealing to human reason, their beliefs are actually motivated by an emotional reaction to the trauma of oppressive and corrupt religious institutions of premodern Europe. They reacted to the trauma of oppressive religion by turning away from false divine revelation to common-sense human morality and they reacted to the suffocation of forced dogmatic anti-rational belief by turning away from a Church-imposed Aristotelianism to modern science. You can read a simple explanation of what happened in a conversation that I had with my friend Osama Hassan called, What is the Purpose of Life?
In this answer, I will focus on deist beliefs with respect to divine intervention in the workings of the universe. (I will insha’allah return to the deist beliefs about morality in another answer at a later date.)
There is No Rational Basis For a Deistic Universe
Deists believe that God created the universe and then “stepped back”, leaving it to run on its own, like a watchmaker who makes a mechanical watch, winds it, and then leaves it to tick on its own. We agree with deists that God created the universe. But we disagree with their position that He left it to run on its own after creating it. Before I explain why deists are mistaken, let’s pause for a moment to reflect on the rational basis for their position.
If we are to have a rational discussion with a deist, we have to insist from the outset that he be unbiased and open-minded. That means that he must consider both the possibility that God created the universe and then left it to run on its own, as well as the possibility that He created the universe and ran it directly ever since. He must objectively examine the evidence for each possibility and then follow the evidence wherever it leads him. I find, however, that most deists do not do this. They assume without evidence that God left the universe to run on its own, and dismiss without evidence the possibility that He runs it directly.
Deists don’t really have any evidence that God left the universe to run on its own. Their strongest argument is that when they observe the universe, they see that fire is always followed by burning, that eating food always leads to satiation, that planets always orbit the sun, and so on. Another way of saying this is that they observe a “constant conjunction” between fire and burning, between food and satiation, between the relative masses and positions of planets and the sun and their orbits around the sun, and so on. They infer from this constant conjunction that fire necessarily and intrinsically brings about burning, that food necessarily and intrinsically brings about satiation, and that the relative masses and positions of planets and the sun necessarily and intrinsically bring about planetary orbits around the sun. Since these things, along with everything else in the universe, necessarily and intrinsically bring about their effects, there is no need for God after the initial creation of the universe. The universe runs on its own.
But this argument is flawed.
Muslims theologians have long observed that a constant conjunction between two phenomena does not entail any necessary relation between them. All we know is that one phenomenon happened (fire, food, or the relative masses and positions of planets and the sun) and then another phenomenon happened (burning, satiation, and planetary orbits). We don’t actually see the first phenomenon causing the second one. It is possible that the first phenomenon caused the second one. And it is also possible that there is something apart from the two phenomena that is causing each one of them. These are both equally possible, and we must consider the evidence for each possibility rather than simply assuming that one of them is correct.
Centuries after Muslim theologians made this observation, the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (d. 1776) formulated what has been immortalized in Western philosophy as Hume’s “problem of induction”, in which he problematized scientific reasoning by showing that constant conjunctions do not entail necessary relations. This is an important and, according to most Western philosophers, an unsolved problem in Western philosophy. (Hume’s arguments later motivated Kant to write his Critique of Pure Reason, from which all of Western philosophy later followed.)
Muslim theologians have a solution to the problem of induction. (I hope to explain that in a future course or article.) But that is not the subject of this answer, and that is not why I am citing the problem of induction right now. The reason why I am citing the problem now is to show you that, even according to Western philosophers, the main deistic argument for the fact that the universe runs on its own, even according to Western philosophers, that argument is flawed.
Deists therefore have no evidence for their position that the universe runs on its own. When you therefore ask me to respond to them, there is really nothing to respond to! It only makes sense to respond to someone who is making an argument. But they aren’t really making any argument at all. The deist position, as I explained above, is based more on an emotional response to the trauma of an oppressive and dogmatic Christian church rather than on a clear rational argument.
Since the Christian church believe in a God who intervened in the running of the universe, and since it had an incorrect conception of the universe, and since it oppressed clear-thinking scientists like Galileo and Copernicus, and since belief in a universe in which God does not intervene gets rid of the Church and its incorrect conceptions of the universe at the same time, it must therefore be true that the universe runs independently of God.
God Runs the Universe Directly
The deists are mistaken. The universe is utterly dependent on God. The universe is contingent. To understand what it means for the universe to be contingent and how that is evidence for the existence of God, watch this video: God Exists. In brief, we directly perceive that everything in the universe is contingent (or, in other words, dependent), and that dependency can only be fulfilled by a necessary being on whom everything else depends and who Himself depends on no one.
This argument refutes the deist claim that God created the universe and then left it to run on its own. Were that to be the case, there would be something in the universe that is necessary, that intrinsically brings out its effects, that is not contingent, that doesn’t need God to exist. But nothing in the universe is like that. Rather, everything in the universe is contingent because it needs something else to make it the way that it is--the night needs something to make it dark, the day needs something to make it light, the wind needs something to make it blow, trees need something to make them grow, and so on.
Since everything in the universe is contingent, it cannot be left to run on its own. Because of the dependence of all contingent things in the universe on God, if the universe were left on its own, it wouldn’t keep running; it would stop running. In the words of the Quran, “Truly God sustains the heavens and the earth lest they disappear. And if they were to disappear there is none that can sustain them after Him. Truly He is ever Forbearing, Forgiving.” (Quran, 35:41)
The question that I am answering here--”How do we know that God intervenes in the running of the universe?”--is a loaded question. It assumes that God’s actions in the universe are interventions in a series of necessary and intrinsic causal relationships. But, as I have just shown, that is not the case at all. There are no necessary and intrinsic causal relationships in the universe to begin with. The opposite of the deist claim is not that God intervenes in the running of the universe; it is that the universe is completely dependent on God, who sustains it and directly runs it at every moment. In the words of the Quran, “To Allah alone belongs the dominion of the heavens, the earth, and everything within them [h: i.e., He governs everything and runs it directly], and He has power over all things.” (Quran, 5:120)
The answer to your question is, simply, the universe is contingent, therefore it is completely dependent on God, therefore no part of it is independent of God, therefore God runs it directly.
Every week, Hamza Karamali will select one of your questions to answer in this space. If you’ve any questions that you’d like to ask, please submit them here.
