6. Knocking on Heaven’s door: The second type of knowledge

The second type of knowledge: Transmitted from the creator

Now, to know anything about this creator by just thinking about it would not lead to any certain knowledge and it would all be speculation. This is because we can only give a correct judgement based on what we can sense in our reality as mentioned above. As this creator is not directly sensed by us then we cannot make any judgements about it using our mind- it would all be guesswork and full of doubt. This is the problem that the ancient philosophers would face as highlighted previously.

 

But as we have demonstrated, you do not need to see it directly to know that it exists, and it is completely correct to believe in a creator as it is a conclusion based upon the sensed reality. This is similar to the following situation:

You hear a knock on the front door of your house.

You know from reality that doors do not have the power to knock themselves.

You link this information to the sensed reality and conclude that there is something on the other side of the door, however you cannot describe what this thing is that is outside your door because it is out of your sensed reality- is it a man, woman, boy, girl, a stone that was thrown, or a branch from a tree that fell? The only way to know is if you could open the door and check or if someone outside could tell you (if you could verify that they were not lying). 

 

This then brings us to another type of knowledge that we can say can be used to establish truth. If the reality that we want to discuss is not sensed then any information we have about it from our own minds will be speculation. The only reliable information will only come transmitted to us from that object itself if it can communicate it to us.

 

This is the reality of our situation: we can rationally establish the existence of a creator for this universe- but we cannot observe it directly. However  we still need to establish our purpose of creation and we need to know what happens at the end of life. As it is out of the reach of our senses- to be able to communicate with it and ask it then the only way we can acquire this knowledge is if it communicates it to us – this is known as transmitted knowledge (naqli in Arabic). This of course will need to be verified with some form of proof.

  

How to access this transmitted knowledge? 

Now from reality we know that this creator has not communicated with each one of us directly otherwise we would all have the same idea and answer about the question of purpose and life after death as well as other details about this creator. Clearly this is not the case- humans do differ about these ideas. However, some people may claim to have such communication from the creator. Now if that is how the creator has chosen to communicate to us then we will need to verify such claims as the person could be  lying or delusional. The question is how? Is it enough that they claim divine communication without offering any proof? What kind of proof would we require?

 

The proof would have to establish that this so-called messenger from the creator, has indeed been authenticated by the creator. Now if the messenger is a human being like us then the proof should be simple. We live within a universe which exhibits certain physical laws. For instance human beings do not have the ability to fly or breathe under water. Objects on Earth are influenced by its force of gravity so if you jump you will be pulled back to Earth by its force of gravity. Water will freeze at 0 degrees Celcius (at a pressure of 1 atm) and act differently as a solid ice than when it is a liquid (for example flowing in its liquid state). These laws of the universe are not within the ability of  the human being to change. They are part of the characteristics or design of the universe that we have already established has been created. (In fact this in itself is another proof of a creator, for if these characteristics came from the universe itself- i.e. that the universe created itself with these characteristics- then the universe should be able to change these rules and laws that they obey. Why should they be bound to them if they are its maker? Why should the Earth for example rotate around the sun in a fixed pattern- that gives us a predictable time for sunrise and sunset? The Earth if it created itself should be able to stop rotating around the sun if it wants to. Why does the sun have to use its gravity to keep pulling on the Earth for its orbit? Why does the Earth have to use its gravity to keep you or this book from not floating away? Why doesn’t water decide to  boil at 200 degrees instead of 100 degrees? The entire universe is all bound by laws that are  beyond its ability to break free from! Laws that must have therefore been instigated by an external force to the universe- the creator that we have already established!)

 

It is these laws that we are forced to abide by that will also be able to prove to us the proof of messengership. Since it is beyond the ability of the human being to break free from the laws of the universe, then if he was able to do so then it would demonstrate that he must have some form of authority to do so from the one who established those laws (and can lift them if  it chooses to do so). This is true if there is some challenge to other human beings to copy such an action that broke the natural law- in order to show that it is beyond the ability of a human being to perform such an action.

For example if a human being could start to freely fly and other human beings could not do so after being challenged to do the same in the same way as he. This would indicate that this law of the human not being able to fly had been broken – not because of the human being but because of the creator of the human being that chose to design the human as not being able to fly. This is what we would term a “miracle”.