contemporary sciences and islamic view
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I C A S Jakarta. Islamic College For Advanced Studies. CONTEMPORARY SCIENCES AND ISLAMIC VIEW. By. Husain Heriyanto. The discourse of the relationship between religion and contemporary science arises mainly as a result of three factors:. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
CONTEMPORARY SCIENCES AND ISLAMIC
VIEW
By. Husain Heriyanto
Islamic College For Advanced Studies
I C A S Jakarta
The discourse of the
relationship between
religion and contemporary
science arises mainly as a
result of three factors:
(1) The amazing development of modern science that
raises many fundamental questions, which are
deeper, radical, and more mysterious, demanding
philosophical and theological discussions. Those
questions have been raised by physicists about
quantum and relativity theory, by cosmologists
about our enormous universe, and by biologists
about our evolutionary past and future.
Ian G. Barbour says,
“Now we know that the cosmos has included stretches of
space and time that we can hardly imagine. What sort of
world is it in which those strange early states of matter and
energy could be the forerunners of intelligent life? Within a
theistic framework it is not surprising that there is
intelligent life on earth; we can see here the work of a
purposeful Creator. Theistic belief makes sense of this
datum and a variety of other kinds of human experience.”
Today many scientists and other scholars have been concerned about both religion and science particularly in order to establish a dialogue and an integrated viewpoint between them. We can list some of them:
Ian G. Barbour, When Science Meets Religion
Ian G. barbour, Religion in an Age of Science
Mehdi Golshani, From Physics to Metaphysics
Mehdi Golshani, Issues in Islam and Science
Osman Bakar, Tauhid and Science
Paul Davies, God and The New Physics
Paul Davies, The Mind of God
Arthur Peacocke, Paths From Science Towards God: The End of All Our Exploring
John Polkinghorne, Beyond Science
John Haught, Science and Religion
John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics
Robert Russell, William Stoeger, and George
Coyne, Physics, Philosophy, And Theology: A
Common Quest for Understanding
(2) The responses of religion to
challenges posed by sciences. New
theories and discoveries in physics,
cosmology, biology and life sciences
(neurology, sociobiology) have brought
challenges to some traditional religious
ideas both in theory (theology,
metaphysics, epistemology) and
practice (ethics).
Arthur Peacock says,
Today it is the scientific worldview that constitutes the challenge to received understandings of nature, humanity and God – in a way that can be initially devastating yet is potentially creative. The credibility of all religions is at stake under the impact of new understandings of the natural world. The impact of science is a challenge primarily to theology, which is concerned with the articulation and justification of religious assertions about God and about God’s relation to nature and humanity.
(3) The responses of wise scholars (scientists, thinkers, philosophers, religious scholars) to problems of humanity, which are set up by science along with its technological implications.
Mehdi Golshani says,
There is no doubt that science and its technological offspring brought a lot of blessing for humanity, but the promised utopia – science can bring felicity and prosperity for humankind – did not materialized. Instead, science produced means of mass destruction and environmental pollution, and it disrupted the balance between the spiritual and the materialistic aspects of life and humanity witnessed world wars, poverty, injustice, moral-void, and violence.
Regarding the relation of science and religion in Islam, Golshani points out that this issue has been one of the hot topics of the last hundred and fifty years. Because the relation of science and religion is a controversial issue in the West meanwhile the progress of science and technology in the West has had a great impact on the Muslim societies, this controversy also is transferred to the Muslim academic circles.
‘ULTIMATE QUESTIONS’
RAISED BY SCIENCE
Perhaps it is out of expectation of many scientists themselves that the development of
modern science has led them to raise philosophical or theological problems, which are called ‘ultimate questions’. Prior to the
20th century the problem of creation has always been exclusively one of the major
problems of theologians and philosophers. But, since the first quarter of the 20th century it became the concern of scientific cosmology circles as well. Why does science come to this
issue?
Theory of relativity and quantum physics, the main pillars of contemporary science, have brought about a lot of questions in which science can’t answer more. One of the most important discoveries of modern cosmology that appeals for theological studies is a conviction – which has been gaining more acceptance – that the universe has a beginning.
How did the universe come into
being? How did it begin? Was the
universe created? Why are the laws
of nature what they are? Why is
there complexity in nature? Does
evolution rule out God’s existence?
Does the universe have a design and
purpose? What does it mean to be
human? What are we all here for?
Are we determined or free?
Those cosmological, philosophical, and human questions are beyond science for which philosophy and
theology can play a significant role. Nowadays we witness the effort of
theoretical physicists for the unification of the fundamental
forces of nature. For a believing scientist it is the first step in the
quest for the Creator and the Sustainer of this harmonious
universe.
Cosmology and The Quest for Meaning
In 1929, the astronomer Edwin Hubble published the linear relationship
between the speed of the galaxies and their distance. It was then known the
velocity-distance law or simply Hubble’s law. The law states that the
more distant a galaxy, the faster it moves away. This discovery along with Friedman’s theory on an expansion of
space have been accepted as a generally correct model of universe.
If the space is expanding, we can imagine running the process backward in time to watch the galaxies moving closer to each other. As the shrinking
space compresses its contents together, the temperature
dramatically increases. At about 15 billion years from the age of presently
‘observed’ universe, the whole universe as we know it is squeezed to an ever smaller size with unimaginable
density and temperature.
Cosmologists called the initial
state of maximum concentration
the “primeval atom”. It was the
first scientific of the origin of
the universe, which led to the
presently accepted Big Bang
model.
So, initially, everything was squashed together at a point (t = 0). There was
a Big Bang; the universe expanded and has continued doing so ever since. Considering unavoidable
evidence for the Big Bang cosmology, today almost all cosmologists leave
the steady-state theory and embrace the Big Bang theory on the “problem
of beginning” of the universe.
The Big Bang theory provides a mathematical description for the evolution of the cosmos,
according to which the universe started from an
infinite density and very high temperature and then
expanded, thinned out, and cooled.
This theory explains that the universe has a beginning: after an initial singularity, the
entire cosmos came into existence abruptly in a sort of a gigantic explosion. This explosion
did not occur at a point in space or time. Rather, it marked the ‘beginning of time’.
According to this model, space and time themselves came into being. Therefore, the
question of the Big Bang’s “when” and
“where” is meaningless.
Paul Davies puts it: “.. the question “what happened
before the Big Bang” is meaningless . there was no
such epoch as “before the Big Bang,” because time began
with the Big Bang. Many scientists clarify what it means to think of God as “Creator”.
The beginning of time coming-into-being of the
universe proof of God’s existence
General Theory of Relativity the Big Bang theory t =
0
(and astronomical evidences )
Bruno Guiderdoni Abd-al-Haqq, a French Moslem and a Director of Research at
the French National Center for Scientific Research, points out,
“The fundamental mystery that subtends physics and cosmology is
the fact that the world is intelligible.”
As we know that the primary goal of cosmology is to make the universe
intelligible, but intelligibility raises some philosophical and theological questions.
That is why Guiderdoni says, “For a believer, the world is intelligible because it
is created. The Qur’an strongly recommends to ponder, reflect and
mediate upon the Creation to find the traces of the Creator in its harmony;
hence the so-called cosmic verses, which are frequently quoted as one of the intellectual miracles included in the
Qur’anic text. “
Most surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the
alternation of the night and the day there are signs for men who
understand (men of sense). Those who remember Allah standing and
sitting and lying on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth : Oh Lord! Thou have not created this in vain. Glory be to
You! Save us from then from the chastisement of the Fire.
(Sura Ali Imran verses 190 –191)
We then know that the Holy Qur’an
refers to natural phenomena as the
signs of God and recommends the
study of various phenomenon of
nature as a path towards knowing
and serving God.
Say, travel in the earth and see how He originated the creation (He makes the first creation)
(Sura Al-Ankabut verse 20)
The Islamic tradition itself considers the reflection on God’s Handiwork as one of
the best types of God’s worship. For example, it is narrated from Imam Ali
(as) that:
There is no worship like reflection on God’s creation.
Theory of Everything and The Unity of God (al-Tawhid)
Some contemporary physicists are devoting a lot of efforts to
find a unity behind the apparent multiplicity of the natural order.
They are trying to present a unified picture of the world.
They are seeking the unification of the fundamental forces of
nature and they call a “theory of everything”.
In fact, the unitary view about the created order was common among all celebrated Muslim scientists of the past (the Islamic Civilization Golden Era). It was under the influence of
Qur’anic teachings that Muslim scientists emphasized the organic
interrelatedness of various branches of knowledge and tried to embed all
imported knowledge within the God-centered matrix of Islamic knowledge.
We also know that the idea of oneness of God is the most basic concept in Islam. It implies the unity of the
creation, i.e. the interrelatedness of all parts of
the world. This, in turn, implies the unity of knowledge.
Thus, the goal of scientific
enterprise has to be the
manifestation of the underlying
unity of the created world. This
means that various scientific
disciplines should be
synthesized to give an
harmonious picture of the world.
If there were (in the heaven and the earth) other gods besides Allah, there would have been confusion (in a state of disorder) in both.
(Sura Al-Anbiya: 22)
According to the Holy Qur’an, the unity of nature is a reflection of the unity of the Creator:
The Holy Qur’an mentions the regularities that are present in the world:
You will find no change in the Course of Allah (Sunnatullah).
(Sura Faathir: 43)There is no altering in Allah’s creation(Sura Ar-Ruum: 30)
Clearly, this does not mean that
the Creation is immutable. But,
that there is a stability in the
Creation that reflects God’s
immutability. We know that
there are the numerical aspect
of cosmic regularities. The
Holy Qur’an says:
“The Sun and the Moon (are ordered) according to an exact computation (husban).
(Sura The Beneficent, Ar-Rahman verse 5).
So, a Muslim cosmologist is not surprised that the laws of physics we
design and use to describe cosmic regularities are based on
mathematics. In other word, we can say that the concept Tauhid is the
only viewpoint accommodating intelligibility of the universe,
interrelatedness of all parts of the world, and unity of the world as
scientists today seeking (theory of everything).
Just as the Big Bang theory recommends having a view in which a creation is constantly renewed, there are verses in the Qur’an which have been
interpreted by Muslim scholars (such as Mulla Sadra) to
indicate continuous creation:
All those who are in the heaven and
the earth ask of Him; Every
moment He is in a state (of glory).(Sura The Beneficent, Ar-Rahman: 29)
Were We worn out by the first creation? Yet they are in doubt with regard to a new creation(Sura Qaaf: 15)
Mulla Sadra, a great Sufi and
Muslim philosopher, in fact, has
viewpoint that coincides with
the Big Bang theory, which
based on relativity and
quantum theory. Mulla Sadra
says,
The essence of everything is
continually renewed creation at
every moment. The creation did
not take place in time, but
occurred with time. Time is the
measure of the universal
motion.
Sadra’s viewpoint on space, time and
motion is supported by Einstein’s
relativity theory and quantum physics as
well as the Big Bang theory. As we know
Sadra came to that his viewpoint based
on the Qur’anic teaching and mystical-
philosophical experience.
This phenomenon is amazing why the
mystical experience and philosophical
reflection precede the scientific
discovery.
The Anthropic Principle
There are a lot of data and
cosmological facts leading
cosmologists draw an interesting
principle, namely The Anthropic
Principle, to make sense those data.
Many cosmologists have pointed out
that the possibility of life, as we know
it depends on the value of a few basic
constants and is remarkably sensitive
to them.
Among these fine-tuned
phenomena are following:
Stephen Hawking writes,
If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million it would have collapsed before it reached its present size.
1. The Expansion Rate
On the other hand, if it had been
greater by one part in a million, the
universe would have expanded too
rapidly for stars and planets to
form. The expansion rate itself
depends on many factors, such as
the initial explosive energy, the
mass of the universe, and the
strength of gravitational forces.
The cosmos seems to be balanced
on a knife edge.
2. The Formulation of the
Elements If the strong nuclear forces had
been even slightly weaker, we
would have had only hydrogen in
the universe. If the force had been
even slightly stronger, all the
hydrogen would have been
converted to helium. In either
case, stable stars and compounds
such as water could not have been
formed.
Similarly, the nuclear force is only barely sufficient for carbon to form, yet it had been slightly stronger, the carbon would all
have been converted into oxygen. As we know the element carbon
has many properties that are crucial to the later development
or organic life.
3. The Particle/Antiparticle Ratio
For every billion antiprotons
in the early universe, there were
one billion and one protons. The
billion pairs annihilated each
other to produce radiation, with
just one proton left over.
A greater or smaller number
of survivors – or no survivors at
all (if they had been evenly
matched) – would have made
our kind of material world
impossible. If the laws of
physics are symmetrical
between particles and
antiparticles, why was there a
tiny asymmetry here?
Now, we raise a question: why
were those data and numerical
facts absolutely matched, fine-
tuned, harmonized,
synchronized? Did they exist
by chance or by purpose?
If we keep our sound reason, it
is necessary for us to draw a
conclusion that all those
cosmological data and facts,
which were entirely fine-tuned
and harmonized, have design
and purpose. This is a most
reasonable and intelligible
choice for human being. Our
life could not have originated
by chance.
So, the universe is purposeful and
meaningful in which God is the
Creator and Designer. The
existence of God has been a
necessity to make the universe
reasonable and intelligible and to
avoid the skepticism and nihilism
(purposeless, meaningless view)
In short, the anthropic principle
states that what we can expect
to observe must be restricted to
the necessary condition for our
presence as observers (an
intelligent being).
Belief in a Purposeful
Universe
In the Qur’anic view, God
created (creates) everything in
measure and decided for it a
telos:
We have not created the heavens
and the earth, and whatsoever is
between them in vain; that is the
opinion of those who disbelieve.
(Sura Shaad: 27)
The Holy Qur’an talks about a
universal notion of purpose and
direction to the created universe:
He (Moses) said: Our Lord is He
Who gave to everything its
creation, then guided it (to its
goal).
(Sura Taa Ha:
50)
The Qur’anic notion of a telos to the
created universe is accompanied by
the notion of Hereafter (Yaum-al-
Qiyamah), where everything meets its
proper destination and the pious feel
the presence of God. Without
Hereafter, the whole creation be in
vain:
Did you think that We had created you
only for sport (in vain) and that you
would not be returned to Us?
(Sura Al-Mu’minun: 115)
So, we can come to the next
conclusion that in order to make our
life intelligible, hopeful, meaningful,
we must believe in Hereafter. This
belief is the reasonable choice for
our human reason.
Commitments to Moral
Values
The Holy Qur’an considers the
commitment to moral values as
one of the main objectives of
the prophetic mission:
He is the One Who raised among the
illiterates a Messenger from among
themselves, who recites to them His
communications and purifies them, and
teaches them the Book and the Wisdom,
although they were before certainly in
clear error.
(Sura Al-Jumu’ah:
2)
The Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said
the same thing:
Verily, I was sent out to complete high moral standards.
With regard relation of science (knowledge) and value (moral
action), Imam Ali said:
The fruit of knowledge is worshipSeek knowledge so that it may
provide you with a decent (straight, well-mannered) means
of living
So, today we need a more integrated
framework, paradigm and viewpoint in which
knowledge, science, and moral or human
values can be integrated and interrelated to
each other. The only paradigm having
capability to meet this need is the Islamic
worldview, which is based on the principle of
unity of God, the principle of unity of the
purposeful universe.
We believe that many contemporary world’s problems
are rooted in the secular and materialistic worldview that has dominated the minds of policy
makers, scientists, and all other agencies affecting the public. We
are required to replace the prevalent secular worldview by
theistic worldview which is centered around God.