IX.The Moral Proof
IX)The Moral Proof
Moral values, such as honesty, loyalty, justice, and more, are qualities necessary for the existence of human society. Without these values, there could be no social relations or any relations of any kind. Honesty and other virtues and moral values are a societal necessity. The more virtuous its members, the more cohesive the society will be, and the greater the incentive for the sciences, technology, and economy to flourish, all other conditions provided.[1]
In the absence of God-worship and religion, there is a void of such moral values, in that:
The incentives necessary to make it imperative to hold such values are not present.
For example:
An honest man finds no reward for his honesty. In fact, there might not be anyone else who holds these values to reward him for his adherence and reciprocate these values and virtues.
Lying might be a means (though it is wrong) to prevent harm from reaching a person or it might be a means of attaining something to which he has no right. In that case, the individual would not hesitate to lie or commit any other vice in order to prevent any harm from coming to him or to get something he is not entitled to, since the motivation required for this restraint and avoidance of vice is not present.
For he is not on the path shown to us by a Wise, Just, Creator God…
The valiant and good would not be rewarded and the wicked and corrupt would not be punished, and there would be no other realm for either one to be rewarded or recompensed in.
As such, whoever upholds these virtues and moral values, even at the loss of some worldly benefit, would say to himself:
For what do I sacrifice such worldly benefits and lose such temporary pleasures, if there is no reward for the virtues and moral values I uphold?
At that time, the light of goodness would be stripped from this universe, and nothing would remain but perilous darkness which annihilates all standards of good and evil. Even exterminating whole peoples with bombs would not be considered unjust, for they themselves would one day meet their death. There would be no God to bring the unjust to account for their actions or to restore the rights of those who had been wronged.
Though the atheist who denies the Existence of God the Creator upholds some of these moral values, such as honesty, loyalty, and justice, for example, he contradicts the essence of his principles when he refuses to believe something true if it would cost him some benefit, for he temporarily abandons his principles and reason.
On the other hand, the true believer—who has faith in Allah (Glorious & Exalted), the Creator of all things—is completely the opposite.
When he lies, for example, he has chosen a path contradictory to his principles and reason, and when he tells the truth, he is in harmony with them, and therefore with his pristine nature.
For all human beings are created to know instinctively that these moral values are something he should uphold and adhere to, for they are a part of his rational nature. People therefore feel happiness and pleasure when they uphold these virtues (as long as their sound nature has been preserved), and if they do not uphold these moral values, they feel sad and dejected.
This proves that the placement of such moral values in man's nature must necessarily have been done by a Wise Planner, and that there must necessarily be a Creator of this sound nature.
In other words, there must exist a God Who Created this universe and everything in it, and He (Glorious & Sublime) must be the One Who designed man with such a perfect, sound nature.
To conclude this current section, we would like to point out that:
If it were possible that the universe created itself, that would mean that it enjoys the attributes of the Creator, in which case we would have to believe that the universe is God, and we would have to stop admitting that the universe has a God. However, that would be strange because it would be a material and immaterial god all at once![2]
So we see that this statement is invalid and corrupt.
Yet we believe in the God Who created the material world, Who is not a part of this universe, but Who is, in fact, its Sovereign and Designer.
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[1]Summarized from the book, Physics and the Existence of the Creator (Al-Fisiyaa' wa Wujood al-Khaaliq), by Dr. Ja`far Shaikh Idris
[2]The Challenge of Islam (Al-Islam Yatahadaa), by Wahiduddin Khan
