SO WHAT ?

GOD IS.

Someone will ask, "So What ?"

Should we really bother whether God is or is not, or is the question merely an academic one attracting only the interest of theologians and philosophical theoreticians? What is the relevance of the existence or nonexistence of God and the practical implications in our actual life as a human society?

Assuming God is, and that He is the Ultimate Creator, a study of His creation immediately shows that we human beings stand out in clear distinction from the rest of the creation that we have so far been able to study. From atom to galaxy all are obedient to the laws governing them. Our constituent atoms and molecules are the same as in Nature and inside us obey the same laws. As they become more complex and form nucleic acid (the self replicating molecule which is the basic ingredient of life), chemistry merges with biology which also obeys its biological laws. In this respect we are astonishingly similar to higher animals. When I was at school we were taught that Man (generic for men and women) was the head of the animal kingdom. Yet, somehow we do not recognize ourselves as animals. Although we share biology with animals in terms of having the systems of circulation, respiration, digestion, metabolism, immunity, locomotion, sensation, reproduction, etc., we also know that it is not our biology that makes us human beings. Amongst all the species we have studied we are the species who has gone beyond biology. We are suprabiologic beings for whom biology is not the ultimate guide of behavior. We have the same instincts and drives but whereas animals simply respond to these in a simple one-step way, our response is regulated by a complex mechanism that goes beyond inherent programming. Given animals' biology, we went beyond biology into the realm of values, principles and spirituality. Indeed, it is true to say that we are a spiritual creature housed in a biological container which is our body. Those of us whose concern in life is to cater for the needs (and greeds) of their biological component and fall short of the spiritual, might well be described as animals, at least figuratively.

Studying Man, we realize that the Creator endowed us with four cardinal features that are unique to our species:

(1) Knowledge. We have a love of knowledge and seek to acquire more and more of it. Our brain is equipped to observe, imagine, rationalize, analyze, experiment and conclude. We yearn to know past and future and to decipher Nature in and around us, and we record and express our knowledge in various ways.

(2) A concept of good and evil. It would be too simplistic to expect good to always be tempting and evil repulsive. The complexity of human life, the suggestibility of the human mind and its inclination to rationalization and the fact that evil might be very tempting certainly may confound the picture, but the concept is always there.

(3) Freedom to choose. This freedom of choice stems from the "autonomy" the Creator endowed the species with. Obviously this freedom is not absolute and occupies only a space beyond which it ceases to operate. Yet, within this sphere, freedom is a cardinal value that is of supreme importance in human life.

(4) It is this freedom which is the premise for Man's "accountability". It is in our nature that we are held accountable and bear responsibility for our choices. It is not an invention of religion, for even in an atheist society if you break the traffic lights you will be fined. Within the realm of religion, it would imply that unless one was free, then one should not face judgment or the Day of Judgment. Freedom is therefore the core and essence of being human, whether you take it from a religious or a secular point of view. God created a species that will bear responsibility for their actions; therefore, God created a species whose hallmark is freedom. Events that are beyond our sphere of choice or capacity to influence are a matter of "fate", and, of course, we cannot be held accountable for them.

We are therefore the species that leads a life of continual self debate and continual decision making. Quite often we emotionally vacillate between what we know is right and what we know is wrong and have to resort to our will power and our faculty of self-restraint when indicated, or else we fall into wrong and must face the consequences of our acts. Animals are exempt from this continuous battle within oneself; they simply respond to whatever they feel like doing without blame. Scriptures tell us that angels do good all the time, but that is because they do not know what evil is. The others respond to programming, we respond to choice. This is indeed the nobility of humanity. It explains why God, according to the scriptures, ordered the angels to bow to Adam although they are immune to sin and Adam is not, and they obeyed him, except Satan who refused out of arrogance and became the enemy of God and Man.

Now let us digress a little and cast two looks: one specifically aimed at the Universe at large and the other focusing on Man. The more we scientifically study the Universe the more we realize that we live in a universe of equations so delicately balanced that the slightest imbalance would lead to a cosmic catastrophe.

Now we look at human societies and we see people who live their full life in what we call wrong, evil or sin, and seem to thoroughly enjoy it, and at the end of it they die. Others, by contrast, spend their lives struggling for the truth, fighting for justice and suffering in the cause of their ideals, and finally they die. Can that be all? Can death be the ultimate end to both kinds of life? Something in our innermost feeling refuses to accept it. Where then is the accountability? If death were the end of the story then it would be in conflict with that delicate balance that pervades the whole universe. The only conclusion therefore is that death CANNOT be the end. Death cannot be followed by void but by another life to follow where balance is restored and accountability fulfilled. This is the hereafter that religions tell about, where people will be judged by God, the Ultimate Judge, on the Day of Judgment.

God granted us autonomy and holds us in accountability. We are not perfect creatures, nor were we meant to be. We are required to do our best in the face of difficulty and temptation, and often our "best" is not foolproof. We strive, and our life is a perpetual battle. It is reasonable therefore that God acknowledges our endeavor, appreciates our striving and loves us as His noblest creature. He would certainly love to see us pass the test of accountability, not withstanding our freedom of choice. The best way to do that is to keep us reminded of Him as Ultimate Resort and Lord, of good and evil as He delineates them to us, and of the inevitable Day of Judgment when we will be held accountable. This He has done by selecting certain members of the human family, contacting them in His own way (eg. direct talk, written tablets, inspiration or sending an angel) and giving them the assignment of carrying His message to their fellow humans: worship God and only God, do good and refrain from evil, and always remember your inevitable accountability before Him on the inescapable Day of Judgment. This is the concept of prophethood, and throughout history humanity received a large number of prophets and messengers. Of this long chain some are mentioned by name in the scriptures, some were given scriptures from God, and others were given power from God to perform certain miracles. The last three in this chain of prophets are the principal personalities of the Abrahamic monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Those three figures are all descendants of the Patriarch Abraham, Mohammad by way of Ismail and Moses and Jesus by way of Isaac. Ismail and Isaac were the two sons of Abraham.

It is appropriate, however, at this juncture, to point out that for Jews the line of prophets stops with Judaism. To them Jesus was not the Messiah nor was his mother, Mary, the chaste woman she claimed she was. They still await the Messiah and deny Christianity as a divine religion. To the Christians the line ends with Christianity. They acknowledge Judaism as a divine religion without reciprocity on part of the Jews. Islam, on the other hand, recognizes both Judaism and Christianity as God-sent religions inspite of the fact that neither Jews nor Christians believe Islam to be so, nor that Mohammad was a true prophet and messenger of God. It is part of the faith of every Muslim (the person who professes Islam) to believe in Moses and the Torah and in Jesus and the Gospel, and in the preceding line of prophets. Indeed in the Quran, the scripture of Islam that Muslims believe to be the very words of God, Muslims read: "The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah, that which We revealed unto you, and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses and Jesus: that you should steadfastly uphold the faith and break-not your unity therein." (42:13)

A short briefing about the Quran now would be of help to the non-Muslim readers before moving on to the following pages. The Quran, Muslims believe, is authored by God Himself, verbatim and literally, and conveyed as such to prophet Mohammad by the angel Gabriel. In its completion, it is a book the size of the Bible, but it was not revealed all at once. It came in short passages addressing various topics or commenting on issues and incidents, and its revelation was completed over the span of twenty three years. Whenever prophet Mohammad received a segment of the Quran and wanted to convey it to his followers, he would make the equivalent of the quote (") and unquote ("), at the beginning saying "God says:" and at the end saying "God spoke the truth." This would immediately be committed to the memory of the people as well as written down on the writing materials then available. When the Quran was completed, Mohammad put it in its final arrangement (not necessarily in chronological order but upon divine instruction), and it has been preserved ever since, in its original language and form, word to word and letter to letter. As a scripture the Quran is unique in this respect. Once translated we do not call it the Quran any more but the translation or the meanings thereof because these would be human language and not the original divine words. The language of the Quran is Arabic, where it is considered an inimitable literary miracle. It challenged the Arabs at the time of the prophet to simulate it but they were awed by it, although they prided themselves in their literary power. Some of the staunchest enemies of Islam at the time embraced it just upon listening to passages from the Quran.