Is There A God - Part-01

Is There A God? - Part 1 of 2

Shaykh Abdur Raheem Green

Opening Recitation and Introduction

Quranic Recitation:

Translation: He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity. Knower of the unseen and the witnessed. He is the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful. He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity. The Sovereign, the Pure, the Perfection, the Bestower of Faith, the Overseer, the Exalted in Might, the Compeller, the Superior. Exalted is Allah above whatever they associate with Him. He is Allah, the Creator, the Inventor, the Fashioner. To Him belong the best names. Whatever is in the Heaven and the Earth is exalting Him. And He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise.

Khutbah Opening

الحمد لله رب العالمين. اللهم صل على محمد وعلى آله وصحبه وسلم

All praise is due to Allah, and we praise Him and we seek His help and we ask for His forgiveness. And we seek refuge with Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil consequence of our evil actions. Whomsoever Allah guides, there is none to misguide. And whomsoever Allah leads to go astray, there is none to guide. And I testify that Allah alone is worthy of worship and that Muhammad ﷺ is His servant and His messenger.

What Is A God?

My brothers and sisters, today may not be exactly what you're going to expect. I suspect some people may be thinking I'm going to be trying to prove and give some rational proofs of the existence of a creator. And I won't ignore that altogether, but that's actually not what I'm really, it's not the main focus of what I'm going to be talking about today. But I promise you that I'm going to talk on the topic. Actually, it's my principle, I talk on the topic. I always talk on the topic. Is there a God?

The thing I'd like to really ask everyone is: what is a God? If we want to know whether there's a God or not, what is a God? To ask whether there is such a thing as a God or not, we must first understand what we mean by a God.

Some might say a God is a supreme being. But the Hindus have several million gods. Do they believe every one of these several million gods are supreme beings? No, they don't. So that's not a complete definition.

Others say one worthy of worship. That's good. Something that is worthy of worship. But this leads us to ask: what is worship? Why do people worship things? What makes people worship things?

Understanding Worship and Its Motivation

We all agree that a God is something that people worship. Why do people worship things? Because we are weak. Because we're in need. We believe, or the person who's worshipping that God, they believe that by worshipping it, they're going to get what they need and get what they want.

Someone worships a statue, or some idol, or some god, and they pray to it and they sacrifice to it. They believe that by praying to it, and sacrificing to it, and worshipping it, they are going to get what they want and what they need. They believe that in some way, this thing has the ability to give them what they want and what they need.

Many religions, pagan religions, have different gods for different things. If you want to win your battle, or you're fighting a war, and you want to win the war, you worship the god of war. And if you want the rain to fall, you worship the god of rain. And if you want to have a child, you worship the fertility god. And if you want the crops to grow, you worship the crop god, or whatever.

People believe that by worshipping these gods, by worshipping these things, they will get what they need and what they want. That's the god, and that's the worship of the god.

The Broader Definition of God

A god can be defined more comprehensively than just idols and statues. Your god, whether you call yourself a Muslim or not, your god is the thing that you think is going to give you what you want and what you need. That is your god.

For some people, the god takes on the form of a manifestation of some physical thing, an idol, a statue. Maybe that idol or statue represents a spirit or a power. But for other people, their god is something more abstract. For some people, their god is something not quite so clear.

For example, wealth. We could quite understand that for many people, wealth is just as much a god as Krishna or Ganesh or Zeus or Aphrodite or whatever other gods that people worship. Because how many people imagine that by having wealth, I will get what I want and what I need? How many people believe that money is the means to achieve what I want and what I need? Lots of people. If you believe that money is going to give you what you want and what you need, if you believe that money somehow has that power to give you what you want and what you need, then indeed your god is money.

If you believe beauty is going to give you what you want and what you need, or fame, or fashion, or music, or anything else—in fact, if we think about it, the answer to this question is quite simple. Is there a god? There are millions of gods. Whatever people believe is going to give them what they need and what they want, that's their god.

Everyone Has A God

Everybody has a god. Everybody puts their faith, their hope, their trust in someone or something. You can't help it. In fact, it's part of human nature. It's part of the human condition. Part of what it means to be human is exactly that thing. You put your faith in things. You put your hope in them. You put your trust in them. You rely upon them. And you worship them.

But worship doesn't necessarily have to be some sacrifices and some rituals in front of an idol. Worship can take on many different forms. Worship is the actions and the things that you do in order to get your god to give you what you want. That's what you do. In order to get your god to give you what you want and what you need, worship is what you acquire that.

Social Class As Religion

I came from a part of society, what you could call maybe the upper middle class British, white, English society. I don't sound like it anymore because it's from mixing around too many Arabs and Pakistanis and East Londoners and stuff like that. But believe me, if you met me twenty years ago, I sounded like Prince Charles. But my accent is—I can slip back into it when I need to. But I used to talk like that the whole time, through my nose.

That's the sort of society I was brought up in. And there is this great, and let's be frank about it, this great quasi-religious ritual. Perhaps not so popular anymore, but a great quasi-religious ritual of the white upper middle class is called the dinner party.

I was brought up with lots of dinner parties. And everything was about being you and being non-you. My mum was always going on about, oh, you shouldn't do that, it's very non-you. You shouldn't say that, it's very non-you. There was a whole set vocabulary. There were certain words that we were never supposed to use.

We were never, for example, supposed to say toilet. You'd never say, excuse me, where's the toilet? Oh my God. It was nouveau riche, new rich, as opposed to old, traditional, established. You see, in English there's a good, solid word: loo, lavatory, bog, anywhere. You can say anything, but don't say toilet. Because when you say toilet, you're trying to make yourself sound sophisticated, but all you've really done is show that you're just ignorant.

You don't say serviette. It's like you're trying to make it sound French or something. Serviette—no, napkin. It's not a settee, it's a sofa. And this is very important.

Then the dinner party. It's all very important to be able to say the right word, and wear the right clothes. My dad taught me how to dress. You don't wear, for example, you never wear brown shoes with a dark suit. Look at someone wearing brown shoes with a dark suit—this person does not know how to dress. It's all these etiquettes.

You probably have no idea about these things at all. But if you keep on consistently getting turned down for job interviews, and the people who are giving the interviews are white, middle class, ex-public school boys. I remember reading this article from this journalist. The interviewer, all he ever did is look—what public school did he go to? If the applicant went to a public school, meaning a private school, went to a public school, okay, we'll think about giving him the job. The old school tie network.

For them, it's a God. Because they think that by belonging to this part of society, by following its etiquettes, by following its rituals, by following its rules, they will get what they want and get what they need. Security, job, a place in society. And they think that that's success. They think that's what they need and what they want in life. It's their God. It's their religion. It's a type of religion, in a way.

The dinner party. You have this array of forks and knives, maybe three or four or even five or six, depending. And spoons as well. And well-betided, the person who uses the fish knife to eat their beef. I mean, there's no fish and you've got a fish knife.

There's even a special way to butter your bread roll. I was taught how to butter my bread roll properly. Absolutely. You have to break your bread on your side plate. Not on your main plate, you've got a side plate. You break the bread on the side plate and you take a bit of butter. Not take a bit of butter—you take a bit of butter with the butter knife from the butter dish, put it on your plate, and then you use your own personal butter knife, which is the small one. And then you butter it on the plate, not up in the air. You can't get the bread roll, get a bit of butter, slap it on. That's not proper. What's wrong with him? Her?

And it's funny that these same people will often call themselves, we're not religious at all. They might even make fun of people who have a devotional life. But look at them. They're devoted. They have rituals. They have a type of religion. And they have a God. Something they believe is going to give them what they want and what they need. This is another type of God.

The Real Question

So, is there a God? Answer, of course there's a God. There's millions of Gods. Whatever people worship is a God. Whatever people put their faith and their hope and their trust in is a God. And everyone has it. Even atheists, they have Gods. They have a God.

The real question, actually—this is not a real question and we've answered it already. So, I'm going to turn this question and put it in a different way. Out of all the things that people worship, out of all the things that people

put their faith and their hope and their trust and they rely upon them, and they believe that these things are going to give them what they want and what they need, which one, which ones, if any, are actually worthy of worship?

In other words, which of all of these Gods that human beings worship, which one can actually give us what we need and what we want? Which or what actually has the capability to provide us, to fulfill our needs and our desires? Which one is worthy of putting our faith and our hope and our trust in? This is the real question.

So, the true God, a true God is one that is worthy of being worshipped. Something that can truly give us what we need and what we want. And now what I plan to do is to destroy the false Gods. That's my intention. I don't mean it in a very aggressive way. That just sounds a bit dramatic. But my intention really is rather less dramatic than that. But what I do hope to do is just go through some of the main categories of things.

The Fundamental Islamic Statement

Most of my arguments are going to be taken from the Quran. In fact, the very basis of the religion of Islam is a statement:

لا إله إلا الله

(La ilaha illa Allah)

What does that mean? It means there is no God except Allah. It means that there is nothing worthy of worship except the God. Translated into what we've been talking about, that all the things that people put their faith in and their hope in and their trust in, except the creator of the heavens and the earth, except Allah, they are all useless.

And the Quran is not a book that just says that. It gives some good arguments why that's the case. The Quran talks about things that people worship, the gods that they worship. And the Quran talks about why these things are not worthy of being worshipped.

The Proof of the Creator's Existence

I said that I wasn't really going to talk about the proof of the creator's existence. And the reason is because I personally think it's not much of an issue. But, let's spend some time on it.

The Quran mentions some discussion concerning those people who believe that this universe is a product of some random event, chance or coincidence. Who maybe just think the universe happened to just be here.

But before we even go into some of these discussions, I'd like to lay down the premise on which our discussion is based. In other words, what is the point of view that we're coming from? Well, the point of view is really one of common sense.

The Mobile Phone Analogy

That's why when I tell you this extraordinary story that I'm going to unfold here today. Here is something that is made essentially of two important components: plastic and silicon. Plastic. Where does plastic come from? Crude oil. It comes from oil. Plastic comes from oil. And silicon is? Sand.

Tell me a place where there's lots of oil and sand. Well, you got it. Because one day I was walking along in the desert in Saudi Arabia, and I found this. It is a product of thousands and thousands and thousands of years of random events. Oil spewed out, lightning struck, the sun shined, the wind blew, and the sand and the oil after, by complete coincidence, managed to transform itself into this thing that I have here.

It was actually really amazing because I switched this button, I can do all sorts of things with it as well. Make phone calls and write messages and even take photographs, but it's a product of a random event. A very unlikely one, I admit, but you have to believe me.

And who will believe such a story? No one is going to believe it. No one will believe it. Yet we are, some people are asking human beings to believe something absolutely more incredible than this. And the amazing

thing is, they actually pretend that they're rational. That they have a rational argument. That their position is reasonable. That this universe is a product of chance and coincidence.

Yet this universe is infinitely more complex than my mobile phone. The human brain is infinitely more complex. And when I say infinitely, I don't mean it absolutely infinitely, but it is incredibly more complex than my mobile phone.

The Computing Power of the Human Brain

The computing power of the human brain is absolutely astronomical. If you compare the computing power of the human brain with the world's fastest supercomputer, if we display it in a sense of a graph, if the human brain, its computing power is represented by a meter squared, the world's fastest supercomputer would be in comparison the size of my thumbnail. So that's the supercomputer, that's its computing power, and the human brain is like one meter squared.

And what's the computing power of this thing? Very little. I don't think it needs an argument.

The Irrationality of Atheism

I think atheists, people who, by the way, an atheist is not someone who doesn't know whether there's a God or not. They are people who say, I believe there is not a God. They are perhaps some of the most irrational people on the face of this earth. Some of the most irrational people.

What they are proposing is so irrational, so improbable, so outside the realm of human everyday experience, that I don't see how such an idea could be portrayed as a rational one. How do they get away with convincing people that their position is reasonable or rational? Because according to what we understand reason to be, and rational to be, it doesn't fit in.

Rather, reason tells us that where we see things working according to the laws, there is something that has made those laws and made that thing work according to those laws. In other words, our universe is evidence, at least if nothing else, of some great intelligence and some extremely capable power.

Reason alone will not tell us very much about that intelligence and that power. But certainly that it exists, that is evident.

The Nature of the Creator

I'm not really going to go much more deeply into the concept of there being a creator. There are some arguments that we could develop about how we could understand that there could only be one such creator, and that this creator is eternal and self-sufficient.

In other words, the creator of this universe must be different from the universe. One of the reasons being, if the creator of the universe, if the nature of God, or the creator, was the same as the creation, then the creator would actually be still creation. If its nature is the same, then it would be the same creation. In other words, it doesn't really answer, and it doesn't really give us an explanation of how did this universe come into existence, how did it come to be the way it is.

That's why it's really quite rational and reasonable to assume that the being that has brought this universe into existence, it is very rational and easy to conceive how that being must be eternal, self-sufficient, of a different nature from the creation.

And that, by the way, automatically answers the question that people pose: well, if everything needs a creator, who created the creator? Because something that's eternal and self-sufficient doesn't need a creator.

The universe, however, is not evidence. From what we can see, it's not self-sufficient. The creator, however, we can't examine in the same way that we can examine the universe, but it's a perfectly rational understanding to come to. An explanation that we can give about the universe that's in front of us and that we can see.

The Worship of Idols - The Story of Prophet Ibrahim

The next thing that I want to examine is the worship of idols. Now, I'm going to give some examples from the Quran. And I'm going to use as a paradigm a very famous story that Muslims know about in the Quran of the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham).

Now, the Prophet Ibrahim (إِبْرَاهِيمَ), peace be upon him, in Arabic, his father actually was one of the people who made idols. His father was actually one of the people who made idols, many thousand years before the time of Jesus. And he used to see his dad making these idols. And from the same wood that he is carving the idols, he would see his dad throw into the fire and cook with it.

So, from a very young age, he began to really question: why do we worship these things? Why do we worship these carvings of wood and stone? The same wood and stone that my father uses to cook with is put up on a pedestal and then people worship it. Didn't make any sense to him.

And he began to think a lot about this. And he began to question other things that his people used to worship. Some of them used to worship the stars and the sun and the moon.

Ibrahim's Search for Truth

He began to realize that these things really were not worthy of that worship. The sun and the moon and the stars, all of them seemed to follow some laws, some patterns. They came and they went. They themselves needed some creator, some director. They were dependent.

And he tried to explain that and show that to his people in a simple way. One day, he saw the stars. He was pointing out to them, look, this is the God. These stars, this is one of these stars, this is the God. And then the moon came. And the moon was so bright, it outshone the stars. He said, no, no, then surely this one is the brightest of all. This has got to be the God.

And then the sun rose. And of course, all the stars and the moon disappeared. He said, no, surely this is the Lord. This is the one. And then of course the sun set.

And Ibrahim said, how can I worship something that sets? He said this to make them think. To make them think, how can we worship these things? That these things themselves are incapable.

And he tried to explain to them. Why should you worship some stone and some wood? But he was very frustrated. They were very obstinate. They were very arrogant. These people were set in their ways.

It wasn't really so much about whether he was speaking the truth or not. It was more of a question like so many people: this is the religion of our ancestors. This is what we found our forefathers doing. We don't question it. Who are you? Who are you to say something different?

Ibrahim Destroys the Idols

But Ibrahim was very determined. So one day, the people were going on one of these processions. You know, religious processions. When they go and maybe take some of the idols through the city and stuff like that.

So Ibrahim said to those people, I'm sick. He meant by that, I'm sick of what you're doing. He wasn't actually sick. He meant I'm sick. And he was saying to them, I'm going to show you and I'm going to prove to you that your religion is a false religion.

So as they were all on this procession, he went into the temple. He went into the temple where they worship the idols and he smashed all of them. Except the chief idol. He took his axe and he hung it around the neck of the chief idol.

So when the people came and they found that their idols had been demolished, the people said, who has done this to our idols? This is great blasphemy. Who has destroyed our idols? So they started talking amongst themselves and they remembered, yeah, there's that young man Ibrahim. He was saying, he was going to show us something. He was going to do something.

So they called him and the king said to him, Ibrahim, did you do this to our idols? He pointed and said, ask the big one. Ask him.

When he said that, they said to each other, and they said to Ibrahim, well, but you know that our idols can't speak to us. He said, why? Do you worship something that can't benefit you, it can't harm you. It can't even benefit itself. If it can't benefit itself, how is it going to benefit you?

And when he said that, they knew. They realized in their hearts and in their minds, they knew: we have been wrong. We've been wrongdoers. What we have done is wrong. How could we worship these things?

But that didn't last long. That didn't last long at all. That just lasted, I don't know, a few minutes maybe. Then they started to get angry. Then they started to say, defend your gods. We must defend our gods. So anyway, they tried to kill Ibrahim.

Universal Human Experience Applied to Idol Worship

But the point being, let me go back. Universal human experience. Isn't that a universal human experience, brothers and sisters? Do you go and try and get something from someone or something that has no power and no ability to help you or to benefit you? Is that what we do in our everyday, normal day lives?

You want a student loan. You need to go to university. You need to study. You want to get a loan so you can go to university. Where do you go? Do you go down underneath the arches to find some of those homeless people over there? Are those the people you go and borrow money from? No, seriously.

Do you go down and ask homeless, penniless people to borrow money so you can come and study at university? Yes or no? No, you don't. Why? They haven't got it themselves. They can't even look after themselves. How are they going to lend you money? True or no?

When Kuwait was invaded by Iraq, remember that? So, remember when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait? Did the Kuwaitis phone up Bangladesh and say, can we borrow your one helicopter? Because we need to fight against Saddam? Is that what they did?

No, because Bangladesh, when the floods happen, they can't even look after themselves. They're not going to be able to come and sort out the problems of Kuwait. No one in their life does that.

The Absurdity of Idol Worship

So, why would anyone go and worship a piece of wood or a piece of stone? This is an amazing thing. Listen, it's an amazing thing. A man walks into a shop. He says, oh, he sees all the gods there. He says, I want that god.

So, the man, he picks up the god and brings it down from the shelf. The god can't get down itself. He has to pick up the god and bring it down. Then the man pays money to take this god. And he carries it home. You think maybe the god would carry him home? No. He carries the god home and then he sticks the god up on the shelf. And if the god fell off the shelf, it couldn't stop itself.

Yet, he has to do all of these things for his god. Yet, he stands there saying, oh god, oh such and such, do this for me. Answer my prayers. Do this and do that. How extraordinary. What nonsense is that?

Muslims Who Practice Idolatry

It's also an amazing thing to find many Muslims. You won't find many Muslims worshipping gods like that. You know what they'll do? A man will die. A pious man will die. And they will wash him. They will wash him because he can't wash himself. And they will shroud him and clothe him afterwards because he can't clothe himself. And they will carry him to the grave. He can't walk by himself because he's dead. And they will put him in the grave and bury him.

And then they will go to him and say, oh such and such and this and that, ask Allah for this and that. What's the difference?

You find many Muslims practicing this type of idolatry. The dead cannot hear the living. In fact, the dead can't benefit themselves. When we die, our deeds are finished. We can't benefit ourselves when we're dead. How are we going to benefit others?

So this is just common sense. Universal human experience.

The Remote Possibility Argument

Just to go back as another point. I remember once a brother had written me a letter. I had recommended that when he's talking to people about Islam, he starts about the existence of God and the oneness of God and the things that we were talking about.

And all the people, this is in Cambridge. And all the people at the table who were discussing, they all agreed. They all agreed with him that this universe being a product of chance and coincidence was extremely unlikely. But some of them said, however, it's still possible. It's still possible. And that's what we're going to follow, that possibility.

And what I've said in reply is: imagine, a person comes to university. Doesn't study at all. Doesn't go to any lectures at all. Does not read any books at all. Does not do any preparation at all. Nothing. They just come to university and do not do anything. Will they go and sit in the exam and get a first?

If you really, really think that it's possible—isn't it possible that you could do nothing and sit in the exam and just by coincidence just somehow get the right answers? Isn't it possible? Remotely, that's possible. But who lives their life like that?

Why is it that when it comes to these other matters of God and religion and the creation of what we worship, suddenly, I don't know, some whole different type of standard applies? Why? I don't understand.

The Quranic Argument Against Idols

So, this is really what the Quran's argument against idol worship is. These are things that cannot help themselves. How can they help you? Meaning, worshipping them is useless and worshipping them is futile. It is

of no benefit.

The Worship of Human Beings

The next broad category of things that are worshipped other than God are human beings. Many human beings worship other human beings. They put their faith in them, they trust in them, they rely upon them. Sometimes, in fact quite often, some people make human beings equal with the Creator.

Of course, the example we will use here is that of Jesus. This is the example the Quran gives. There are many other man-gods. Many Buddhists believe Buddha is God. The people who follow Hare Krishna believe he is the manifestation of God. There is a guy in India right now whose name is Sai Baba. People believe he is God. And there is some guy called David Beckham. I don't think anyone really thinks he is the creator of anything.

But as for these others, really, people believe that they are literally the manifestation of God.

The Quranic Argument About Jesus and Mary

But the Quran gives some very beautiful, simple arguments, points to bear in mind. Very simple. One of them is this:

(They both used to eat food - Quran 5:75)

Jesus and Mary, they walked on the earth and they ate food. They walked on the earth and they ate food. You say, where is the argument? That's the argument.

Because by definition, something that walks on the earth and eats food—if it eats food, what happens to that food when you eat it? That food has to be passed out. Something that eats food relies upon food for its existence. Something that needs food in order to exist cannot be self-sufficient.

Something that is on this earth is limited and temporary and finite, whereas God is infinite and eternal. God is eternal and infinite and self-sufficient, not temporary, mortal and needy.

The Quran also says, if Allah or if God, the creator, wanted to destroy Jesus and Mary and everything in the earth, who could stop him? Who could stop him? Meaning, Jesus, Mary and everything in this earth is completely under the control of God.

What is under the control of God cannot be the same as God. What is under the control of God cannot be the same as God. Simple. They don't need anything much more complicated than that.

Something that eats and breathes, that we can see it and is limited, cannot be the creator. In fact, by definition, that thing needs a creator. That thing leads us to believe that there must be a creator. How can it therefore be the creator?

And we could extend the arguments and we could take it further than that, but it's very, very simple. And that applies to any human being. Anyone who claims that another human being is God.

The Claim of Sonship

However, some Christians would say that, and maybe this is more specific to Christianity, I don't know many other religions that make this type of claim, except perhaps some pagan religions, that Jesus is not really God, he's the son of God.

Now, the way the Quran deals with that really is by making us think: what does it mean when you say son of God? What do you mean son of God? What does it mean? Son of God. What is a son? What is a son? I don't mean the sun that shines. My son. My son is a human being like me.

Me and my wife committed an intimate act, and from that intimate act came the child. So, if God has a son, did God have a wife with whom he committed an intimate act? Is that what you're saying? If you say someone is the son of God? In other words, let's say, did God have sex with someone?

Because that's what a son is, a product of an intimate act. Most Christians would say straight away, no. That's not what we mean. So, what do you mean? If you say he's the son of God? If you don't mean that God actually, literally had a wife, and by the way, why would God need a wife? Why would God need to have children?

The Quran addresses this beautifully:

Say: He is Allah, the One. Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born. Nor is there to Him any equivalent.

God does not need children. God does not need a family. These are human needs, created needs. God is above and beyond such limitations. When we truly understand what God means—the Creator, the Eternal, the Self-Sufficient—we understand that attributing such human characteristics to Him diminishes His perfection and majesty.