ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Islamic Doctrine A Rational Discussion of the Revelation Statement Belief in God: Islam does not require faith without being logically convinced. In this section, the con- sistency and the rational positivity of the doctrine will be shown. Existence of God and His Characteristics: There are four ways to prove the existence of the Creator: a.

Personal Experience There are some events which we encounter in our lives that cannot be explained except by the existence of God. Many people en- counter incidents which convince them of the existence of God. It must be admitted that this type of conviction is applicable on a small scale and hardly considered by others who are not related to that particular event. But its importance cannot be discarded, specially if we are to use probability measures. b.

Religion Many good people have appeared through- out history and preached belief in God. Those people are called prophets. Prophets must have unique qualities such as wisdom, piety, truth- fulness, trustworthiness, etc. These qualities must be known to people before they are sent as prophets. All prophets claimed to have some extraordinary communication with God. It is established that their intentions and works were consistent and support their claims. c.

Philosophy (The first cause, argument) Considering the "Law of cause and effect," take matter in general. It certainly needs a cause for its existence now. This argument might be objected to by saying that its cause needs a cause, and that will end up in an infinite series. However, this objection can be countered by proving that the chain of causes must terminate in an ultimate cause. This ulti- mate cause should be self-sustained and requires no cause for its existence.

In other words, there should be a cause different in nature and essence from those in the chain. Now, let the cause of the existence of matter be A and its effect be B and so on. Thus a chain (A, B, C, D, E, F, . . . .) is formed. If A disappears then matter disappears. Similarly the existence of D is necessary for the existence of A and so on. Now take an arbitrary link in the chain say N; however, the status of N in the series is subjected to three possibilities: i) Must not exist.

ii) May exist. iii) Must exist. The first and second assumptions require the non-existence of matter as explained above. Hence, we are left with the last assumption. The circle argument can be disproved also.