God: From Seeking God to Faith in God

Classifying People based on Their Belief in God

According to their belief in God, humans can be divided into three groups:

1-Believers in God: This group is dominant both qualitatively and quantitatively, for most scientists and great thinkers throughout history have believed in God.

2-The Indifferent: These people do not seem to have any belief in God, nor do they believe in the existence of any absolute being as God, either.

This group includes anyone who has no inclination, tendency or actions based on belief – anyone who doubts the existence of God, those who defy God in imitation of others, and those who may realize deep inside that there must be some kind of extreme origin or force, but fail to associate it with God.

These people have not turned indifferent about God in spite of their research, awareness or knowledge, for if they are provided with suitable instructions and guidance, they abandon their defiance and doubts.  

3-Those who have turned against God: Some people lose their belief in God, and claim that they scientifically or philosophically doubt that God exists. Based on why they turn away from God, these people can be categorized as:

a)Personal: These people turn away from God because they fail to achieve the goals or ideals they set for themselves. For example, those who attempt to gain wealth, fame, or power, sulkily abandon their faith when they are unable to get what they aim for; in fact, they suffer from a multi-personality syndrome.

b)Ideological: Some people claim that the reasons theists have for the existence of God are baseless, because we cannot see or feel God or evil and suffering has filled the world. 

Despite the philosophical and/or scientific justification these people have for their criticism, an intellectual will never accept them as reasons that can prove that there is no God; even if the theists' reasoning is baseless or the world is full of evil and suffering, it cannot mean God does not exist. How can such people claim that they have studies the universe carefully and found no God? If their criterion is feeling that God exists, why do they not observe their own thoughts, which is the base of all their activities?

Each human being knows that he/she has a "self," an ego. In spite of this, the human body becomes ill, and suffers a lot at times. Does that mean that man has no ego, no "self," for if he did, he would never suffer? Although man's ego adjusts his actions and behavior, it also warns him about things that might harm him physically or mentally. The ego's functions are not limited to man's physical, worldly life; yet, it is not comparable to God's role in the universe, for God influences everything about man infinitely, even things far beyond man's control. Thus, even the slightest attention to the human "self" will never lead to defiance of the existence of God.

Factors Inhibiting Obvious Recognition of God

Man can achieve faith and knowledge about the existence of God, for there are a great many logical reasons supporting it. There are, on the other hand, various veils that inhibit it. We can categorize the inhibiting factors as:

1-Those arising from practical deviations, like drowning in sins and lusts, which make man both fail to recognize God and communicate with Him, and darken the most obvious reasons supporting God's existence, changing them into a bunch of meaningless, ineffective words. There are many thinkers and intellectuals who are highly proficient in divine philosophy and have mastered the reasons that clearly prove that God exists, but still do not believe in God. Such people are empty of any supreme human-divine sense of responsibility. Their points of view have been blinded by both scientific factors and practical deviations.

2-Some scientific perceptions about the universe have also hindered true belief in God. As we know, there are many aspects to the universe, and man has made contact with it with specific aims and viewpoints. Sometimes our discoveries make us associate one characteristic of one component of the universe with all its other components. For example, when we observe the dominance of quantity, we may regard it as an absolute fact that dominates all aspects of the universe.

The less man's mental development, the more natural occurrences and appearances penetrate into his mind, which he uses to evaluate all facts about the universe.

The inhibitions caused by incorrect scientific receptions are due to mental and spiritual weaknesses of individuals themselves, for they are incapable of freeing their intelligence of the superficial occurrences and issues of nature. The most significant of "scientific veils" is absolutist perceptions of the law of causality, which the normal mind saturates with absolute concepts and destroys his sense of absolutism toward discovering the basic principles of the universe. Inaccurate comprehension of the law of causality changes it into a thick barrier.

As we know, there is some definite information at hand on the law of causality. Some of these facts are:

●Every effect has a cause.

●A cause cannot transfer something it does not have to its effect.

●The principle of "same kinds" between the cause and its effect.

The problem with causality in regard to God starts when we extract the causes of things from nature, and suppose there is no room left for God as the creator of the whole world of nature. Thus, we put God aside from nature, considering Him as the cause of all causes among the chain of nature's components. In other words, God is regarded as the creator of the first natural reason, the manager of the whole of nature, and nature is considered to be the one controlling itself directly.

We see in the Holy Koran that every event and motion in the universe is directly related to God. All of nature is an act of God:

The big mistake is that we – consciously or unconsciously – derive the main operative cause out of material and superficial causes, concluding their independence of the direct creator, and putting God at the very beginning of the creation chain. Interestingly, we even call God the primary cause – the cause of all causes. 

That, indeed, is the real point. We must realize that God, though being the primary reason and the cause of all causes, is in fact the actual creator of the whole universe." 

Jalal-addin Mohammad Molawi (Rumi) says that as long as we human beings are imprisoned in our natural senses and theoretical intelligence, all of our receptions will be confined to natural appearances; only if we can step far beyond these superficial causes may we find God, the direct truth behind all events:

بی سبب بيند چو ديـده شـد گذارتو که در حبسی، سبب را گوش دار

با سببــــها از مسبـّـب غافلــیسـوی اين روپوشـها زآن ‌مايلــی

هين ز سايه شخص را ميکن طلبدر مسبــب   رو گذر کـن از  سبب

(Those who have made great effort in life and succeeded in ignoring the pleasures of natural life, stepping beyond their natural self, achieve the level in which the causes and reasons of the world are revealed to them. Their penetrative eyes can now see the underlying foundation of the universe which is independent upon the cause-and-effect relationships. But you, drowning in your mortal lusts and animal-like desires! You, who have sold the gem called 'your life' for meager selfishness! Now that you are indeed imprisoned in this ring of senses and superficialities, keep struggling in the fatal whirlpool of causalities, and just go on desperately grabbing for something to cling to. You are so absorbed in causes and effects that you are ignoring the creator of them all; all you see is superficial effects. From these shadows you see (in fact, man's existence), you can find the shadow-maker; indeed, these apparent causes can lead you to the Master of All Causes.)

Our theoretical intelligence sometimes pays attention only to superficial reasons, failing to penetrate deep into the mysterious ways the universe works.

اين سبــب را محـرم آمد عقــل ماو آن سبـب‌ها راسـت  محـــرم انبيا 

وآن سببــها  کانبيـا را رهبــر استآن سبب‌ها زين سبـب‌ها  برتـر است

(It is indeed the very hidden causes that guide prophets on their mission. By contact with these causes, they can perform miracles in this world. The hidden causes are much greater than their natural counterparts in this world. We can only realize these natural causes, whereas prophets of God can use those supreme causes and reasons.)

Jalal-addin Mohammad Molawi (Rumi)