In fact, the Universe doesn’t even know you have a back. The Universe is made of largely inanimate matter no more intelligent than an armchair. The vast majority of the Universe is cold, dark space which would kill you in an instant if you were ever exposed to it.
Okay, let’s back up. Before I go further, let me preface this by saying:
“I get it.”
Many of my spiritual-not-religious sisters and brothers have a kind of phobia of the “G-word”, and for good reason. A lot of people have had very negative experiences with people claiming to be speaking on behalf of religion.
And many religious people talk about “god” in a completely non-sensical way – like it’s some kind of judgemental, magical man in living on a cloud, waiting for an opportunity to punish you for being imperfect.
However, of all the words we could use to describe the “Divine Source of All That Is”… “The Universe” is perhaps the least accurate and most illogical.
Words like “Universal Intelligence”, “Divine Mind”, “Source”, “Spiritual Energy Behind Life”, “Infinite Intelligence”, “Love”, “Consciousness” and so on, are all equally neutral, and seem to me to be more logical than the word, “Universe”..,
…And then, of course, there’s my personal favourite label for it: “Allah”
Here’s why I wouldn’t call it “The Universe” (at least not if I wanted to be accurate). You might want to take a moment to slow down and let this sink in:
- Everything that exists within time has a beginning. The Universe exists within time and therefore has a beginning. Allah transcends time and has no beginning.
- Everything that has a beginning has a Cause outside of itself. Allah has no beginning, is the cause of everything, and has no cause outside of itself. (Because Allah exists outside of time and has no beginning, there is no logical requirement for an external ‘cause’ of Allah).
- The Universe is made of time, space and matter. Allah transcends time, space & matter.
- Simply put, the Universe is creation. Allah is the Creator.
So no, I don’t worship “The Universe” and I never will. I whole-hearted devote myself to that which brought the Universe and all it contains into being.
Of course, you can use any word you want to talk about Allah – and I’ll translate it to “Allah” in my head, as I do for the countless personal growth seminars and books I’ve been through.
The only caveat I want to point out is: our spirituality doesn’t have to be at odds with logic. There’s a reason the great minds of the past, in different religious, spiritual and philosophical traditions, didn’t conflate ‘God’ with ‘Universe’. Doing so implicitly limits God to existing within the boundaries of time, space and matter. If God existed in such a limited way, its existence would be easily disprovable to a discerning thinker.
Logic is the friend of the true believer, as it has the power to lead us to “the Transcendent”.
It’s possible to have a deeply intelligent, transcendently logical spiritual life – one which, I dare say, is completely aligned with actual reality.
What They Don’t Teach At School
I went to a great school and did well. At school they taught us about the “Cause and Effect” argument of St Thomas Aquinas. What I didn’t learn was that it’s based on a translation of the “Kalam Cosmological Argument” first articulated by al-Ghazali, which is very briefly presented above.
The version by St Thomas Aquinas, misses the key premise that everything that has a beginning has a cause – which is what avoids ‘infinite regression’. If we were to simply say “every effect has a cause”, then someone could say, “Okay, so what caused God?”. This is, unfortunately, as far as most of my very well-educated class mates could go, based on what we were taught.
However, al-Ghazali’s argument (which he astonishingly proved long before the “Big Bang” theory, using logic derived from deep spiritual insight into the nature of the present moment), is that everything that exists within time has a beginning, and everything that has a beginning has a cause. Thus proving that the Universe was caused by something which itself has no beginning and therefore has no cause.
Al-Ghazali goes further, after establishing the Necessary Existence of the Primary Cause of all that exists:
- The Primary Cause of the Universe must Itself have no beginning and exist outside of time, space & matter.
- To cause the Universe, it must have Power.
- To create the infinite complexity we see around us, it must have Knowledge.
- To create the Universe in the way it is, at the time it came into being, not in any other way, not any sooner nor later, means it must have Will.
- Anything with Power, Knowledge & Will must have Life.
These are among what Muslims consider to be the ‘essential’ attributes of Allah – those which can be arrived at through reason, without requiring revelation. A combination of revelation and experience lead us to the other Attributes of Allah, such as ‘The Most Loving’ and ‘The Most Forgiving’.
You can call it whatever you want.
But I fully devote my life to this Primary Cause, not the thing it caused; to the Necessarily Existent, not a figment of my imagination; to the Creator, not creation; to the Infinitely Powerful, Knowledgeable & Living Being, not inanimate space and matter.
Just to be clear: I absolutely believe that Allah, the Transcendent, DOES have your back.
In an infinitude of time, space and matter, you’re here, in this moment, breathing away. That is a miracle and a blessing.
I’m certain that the Creator loves you much more than you’re even capable of loving yourself. You’re so much more beautiful and brilliant than a planet, or a star, or a tree – all of which are sustained through Allah’s Loving Intention.
And I’m certain that no matter what you believe, you’ll find an abundance of love, light and wisdom, by combining a logical approach to psychology and spirituality with the deeply touching, uplifting wisdom of the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad, peace & blessings upon him, some of which can be found in this book:
If you’d like your spiritual life to be grounded in logic and wisdom and lead into a deeper dimension of devotion that you’ve ever known before, maybe it’s time you take a glimpse “Inside the Soul of Islam”.
