Take, for example, the zeal with which many Muslim apologists proclaim the truth of the Qur’an on the back of modern scientific discoveries. They contend that certain verses of the Qur’an are proven to be of divine origin because they tally with particular findings in embryology, geology, or astronomy, for example. In other words, they hang their faith in God’s authorship on evidence from the scientific community that may not reflect any consensus or anything conclusive. Then the inevitable riposte from the debunkers arrives, and suddenly we find that those ‘scientific’ verses are either not accurate, according to the latest science, or already common knowledge at the time of revelation, or too vague to be considered amazing proof of anything. The atheist commentators go further, and point to other parts of the Qur’an that are clearly unacceptable to mainstream science, such as Nuh (peace be upon him) living for 950 years, the virgin birth of ‘Isa (peace be upon him), or the frequent mention of seven heavens. Anyone with a nonpartisan capacity for looking at both sides of the issue will conclude that the proponents of a ‘scientific’ Qur’an have wagered unconditional faith in GOD on a conditional outcome where results are always changing, and have, moreover, been narrowly selective in the verses that they chose to bolster their case. This kind of pious partiality will finally be seen for what it is – bad faith.
A similar dilemma is experienced by those who make their faith in God dependent on the inerrancy of the Bible or success in the battle for intelligent design. If they have placed all their faith there in the front line, where reason and evidence hold sway, then they may have nothing left in reserve, in the realm of the Transcendent where rationalist attacks are futile.
Why do I say futile? Because just as religious faith is of little use in proving things, so is empiricism never the decisive factor in the domain of absolutes. Ideals such as truth, justice, love, beauty, and, above all, GOD are imperatives of the human spirit beyond the reach of scientific reason. Reason itself is one such absolute, and therefore not exclusively privileged in judging its peers. We may ask whether peace is rational, or whether there is evidence for equality, but we may also ask whether reason is fair, authoritative, or compassionate.
We may also question the assumption that empirical evidence = truth. Analogous to the naïve faith I mentioned earlier, I call this naïve rationality. We can admit that the scientific model of hypotheses, tests, observations, theories, and laws provides a beautiful system or frame of interlocking explanations of what is testable and observable without denying that truth has always meant much more to humanity than facts, or that the desire for truth and the recognition of truth as true are themselves neither testable nor observable, and yet are powerful motivators for those who claim that empirical evidence = truth. The human yearning for truth is itself not transparently open to empirical scrutiny, and yet ‘truth’ would be useless to us without it. Once again, we can see that beyond the frame of ‘science’ there are other, higher frames that endow it with ultimate meaning. GOD as the Ultimate Frame and Framer is only meaningless for atheists because they worship at the altar of a smaller god called Science and temporarily ignore all those other absolutes and values, such as Love, Beauty, and Self, which they unscientifically accept as given.
Just as believers insensibly abandon the ineffability of GOD for smaller objects of faith, so do rationalists tend to retreat from the majestic scope of Reason as an expression of Divine Intelligence in all its forms to the petty demand that everything be a thing, i.e. that it fit within the confines of the contemporary materialistic world-view. When narrow faith meets narrow reason, reason always wins. This is because the home of faith is GOD Himself, the First Believer, while scientism is home inside any box, no matter how small. The aim of the believer should be to expand the breast and point up beyond the limits of the mind in endless opening – to motivate, in other words. The physicalist aims downward, to the most definite and concrete conclusion possible. Heights terrify him.
For one whom GOD desires guidance, He expands his breast to acquiescence. And for one whom GOD desires deviation, He constrains his breast with narrowness, as if he were ascending skyward. Thus does GOD affix disgrace on those who have no faith. (Q6:125)
فَمَنْ يُرِدْ اللَّهُ أَنْ يَهدِيَهُ يَشْرَحْ صَدْرَهُ لِلإِسْلاَمِ وَمَنْ يُرِدْ أَنْ يُضِلَّهُ يَجْعَلْ صَدْرَهُ ضَيِّقًا حَرَجًا كَأَنَّمَا يَصَّعَّدُ فِي السَّمَاءِ كَذَلِكَ يَجْعَلُ اللَّهُ الرِّجْسَ عَلَى الَّذِينَ لاَ يُؤْمِنُونَ
The GOD You Already Know 