Short answer
Yes. Everything we see depends on something else: you on your parents, the earth on the sun, the sun on its fuel. Things that depend on others cannot explain themselves, however many there are. So in the end there must be One who depends on nothing. The universe also had a beginning, and whatever begins has a cause. Its laws are exact and written in mathematics. And a few of its numbers are set so finely that a small change would leave no stars and no life. Inside us are three more signs: a mind that is aware, a sense of right and wrong, and a natural pull towards a Maker. The Qur'an asks: were they created of nothing, or were they themselves the creators? Islam's answer is God, the One, who needs nothing, while everything needs Him.
Six signs that point to God (﷾)
- Everything depends on something else, so there must be One who depends on nothing.
- The universe had a beginning, and whatever begins has a cause.
- A few of its numbers are set so finely that a small change would leave no stars and no life.
- We have minds that are aware, which no physical account has explained.
- We know that some things are right and others wrong.
- A study in twenty countries found people naturally inclined to believe in gods and an afterlife.
Full explanation
Everything depends on something
Look at anything around you and ask what keeps it in being. A tree needs soil, water and light. You need air and food, and your parents came before you. Each thing borrows its existence from something else. A line of borrowers, however long, never explains where the loan came from. So there must be a being that has existence of itself and depends on nothing. The Muslim philosopher Ibn Sina set out this argument a thousand years ago. The Qur'an puts it in one line: people need Allah (﷾), and Allah (﷾) is free of all needs.
Divides all that exists into what is only possible in itself (mumkin al-wujud), which needs a cause, and what is necessary in itself (wajib al-wujud), which needs none. Argues that a chain of possible things, however long, needs a necessary being outside it, and that this being is one and has no parts.
“O ye men! It is ye that have need of Allah: but Allah is the One Free of all wants, worthy of all praise.”
The universe had a beginning
In 1929 Edwin Hubble found that distant galaxies are moving away from us. The farther away they are, the faster they go. Run that backwards, and the universe began in a hot, dense state. Physicists later showed that a universe that has, on average, been expanding cannot have been expanding for ever. Its past has an edge. Whatever begins to exist has a cause, as al-Ghazali argued in the eleventh century. So the universe has a cause outside it, with the power to make it.
Reports that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away from us: the observation that became the evidence for an expanding universe.
Shows that a universe which has, on average, been expanding cannot have been expanding for ever: its expanding history must have a boundary in the past.
Sets out the proof in short steps: whatever comes into being has a cause for its coming into being; the world came into being; so the world has a cause.
Numbers set on a knife-edge
Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, is not arguing for God (﷾). Yet he showed that a handful of numbers, fixed in the early universe, decide whether there can be stars, chemistry or life. Small changes would leave a dead universe. The physicist Eugene Wigner asked why mathematics, worked out in the human mind, fits nature so exactly. He found no explanation. An exact order, and a mind able to read it, are what a wise Maker would give.
Argues that six numbers fixed in the early universe, among them the strength of the force that binds atomic nuclei, the ratio of the electrical force to gravity, and the energy of empty space, decide the whole shape of the physical world; if several were even slightly different there could be no stars, no complex chemistry and no life. Rees weighs coincidence, providence and a multiverse, and himself prefers the multiverse.
Argues that the power of mathematics to state the laws of physics borders on the mysterious and has no rational explanation, and calls it a wonderful gift that we neither understand nor deserve.
Signs inside us
Three more signs are within each person. First, everyone knows from the inside what it is like to be themselves. No account in terms of matter has explained why the brain's activity comes with experience. Second, almost everyone treats cruelty as really wrong, not as a matter of taste. Third, a large Oxford research project in twenty countries found that people are naturally inclined to believe in gods and an afterlife. The Qur'an says the signs are on the earth and in your own selves. And it says the soul was shown what is wrong for it and what is right.
Argues that an organism is conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism, and that this subjective character of experience is left out of every physical account of the mind so far offered. Nagel does not conclude that physicalism is false, but that we have at present no conception of how it could be true.
Separates the "easy problems" of consciousness (how the brain discriminates, reports and controls behaviour) from the "hard problem": why any of that processing is accompanied by experience at all. Argues that explaining the functions does not explain the experience, so the usual methods of reductive explanation fail for it.
A £1.9 million University of Oxford project of more than 40 studies in 20 countries, covering both religious and non-religious societies. It concluded that human beings are naturally predisposed to believe in gods and in an afterlife.
“On the earth are signs for those of assured Faith, As also in your own selves: Will ye not then see?”
“By the Soul, and the proportion and order given to it; And its enlightenment as to its wrong and its right;-”
Who this God (﷾) is
These reasons point to a Maker who is one, who depends on nothing, and who knows and wills. The Qur'an names Him: Allah (﷾), the One, who begets not and is not begotten, and there is none like Him. It does not ask for blind belief. It asks people to look at the heavens and the earth and to think. Those who do, it says, end by saying: our Lord, You did not create all this for nothing.
“Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him.”
“Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day,- there are indeed Signs for men of understanding,- Men who celebrate the praises of Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the (wonders of) creation in the heavens and the earth, (With the thought): "Our Lord! not for naught Hast Thou created (all) this! Glory to Thee! Give us salvation from the penalty of the Fire.”
“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.”
Perspectives
No good evidence for God
Many atheists and agnostics hold that there is no good evidence for God. Some say physics can explain how a universe could come from nothing. Others, like Bertrand Russell, say the universe is simply there, and needs no explanation.
Physics can describe how a universe could arise from nothing, without a creator.
Rebuttal
The "nothing" in that account is a quantum vacuum, with fields and laws. That is something. A philosopher of physics pointed out that the book explains how a universe could come from those fields. It does not explain why there are fields and laws at all.
The universe is just there, and needs no explanation.
Rebuttal
For no single thing in the universe do we accept that it is simply there, with no explanation. A whole made of dependent parts is no less dependent, so stopping at the universe leaves the question unanswered.
We cannot know
Many agnostics follow T. H. Huxley: do not claim a certainty that has not been shown, so on God the honest course is to suspend judgement.
Huxley's rule forbids claiming certainty about God, so the honest position is to suspend judgement.
Rebuttal
Huxley's rule has two halves. Follow reason as far as it will take you, and do not claim a certainty that has not been shown. The first half allows a conclusion beyond reasonable doubt. And the reasons from dependence, from a beginning and from order reach that far.
Buddhist: no Creator is needed
Buddhism does not teach a Creator. In the Buddhist texts the god who thinks he made the world is only the first being reborn after the cosmos expands.
The god who claims to have made the world was only born first. The beings who came later took him for their creator.
Rebuttal
That story is about a god who is himself born, and Islam agrees that such a being is not God. The God (﷾) of the Qur'an was never born and has no beginning, and there is none like Him. The Buddha also taught that there is something unconditioned, which never arises and never changes. So Buddhism itself accepts that not everything is made.
Jain: the world was never made
Jainism teaches that the world was never created and will never end. So there is no Creator to look for.
Those who say the world was created do not know the truth, and the world will never perish.
Rebuttal
A world with no beginning would mean an endless past already crossed to reach today. That can never be done. And modern science finds that a universe that has, on average, been expanding has an edge in its past.
Shinto: the kami came into being
Shinto honours the kami, the powers felt in nature, places and ancestors. Its oldest book begins with Heaven and Earth already there, and proving one Creator is not part of the faith.
In the Kojiki the first kami came into being when Heaven and Earth began; no single Creator made them.
Rebuttal
Then the kami themselves had a beginning. And whatever comes into being needs a cause. The Qur'an asks of all such things: were they created of nothing, or were they themselves the creators?
Daoist: the Tao, not a Creator
The Tao Te Ching speaks of the Tao, which came before Heaven and Earth and from which all things come. Many Daoists see no need for a personal Creator.
Before Heaven and Earth there was the Tao, standing alone and unchanging, and from it all things came.
Rebuttal
Islam agrees that one source came before heaven and earth, stands alone and does not change. Islam adds that this source is not a blind way but the Creator, who knows and wills. The Qur'an calls Him the One, who was not begotten, with none like Him.
Confucian: right conduct comes first
Confucius spoke of Heaven but did not talk about spiritual beings. Many Confucians put right conduct in this life first and leave the question of God aside.
Confucius did not talk about spiritual beings; what matters is right conduct in this life.
Rebuttal
Confucius did speak of Heaven. He said Heaven produced the virtue in him, and that one who offends against Heaven has none to whom he can pray. Virtue that Heaven gives and wrong that offends Heaven point to One who knows and judges.
Chinese tradition: keep the customs, leave the question
Many Chinese families keep the customs without asking whether God exists. They visit their ancestors' graves, and pray at temples for good fortune.
What matters is keeping the customs and honouring the ancestors, not settling whether God exists.
Rebuttal
People who pray at a temple for good fortune hope that someone can hear them and give. That hope already asks the question of God (﷾). Islam answers it: the places of worship are for Allah (﷾) alone, so call on no one beside Him.
The Islamic perspective
There is a God. The dependence of all things, the beginning of the universe, its exact order, and the mind, conscience and inborn sense within us all point to one Maker. The Qur'an names Him Allah (﷾) and calls people to reflect.
Everything that depends on something else needs, in the end, a being that depends on nothing.
The universe began, and whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The fixed numbers and mathematical laws of the universe point to a wise Maker.
Conscious experience, the moral sense and the inborn sense of a Maker are signs within people.
The Qur'an asks whether people were created of nothing or were themselves the creators, which leaves only a Creator.
God (﷾) is One, begets not and is not begotten, and there is none like Him.