The truths of metaphysics and what we understand of it have the utmost effects on the other major disciplines in philosophy such as epistemology (how we know what we know), axiology (study of principles and values), and logic (organization of reasoning). Metaphysics tied with epistemology and logic is ultimately the foundation of all philosophy. In this section, we do not parse metaphysics further into cosmology and theology, but address metaphysics altogether. This analysis which is already in address to ontology (the nature of being), epistemology, and Islam eliminates unnecessary pluralities.
Overall, this analysis is not simply an ontological argument, as we move towards an explicit analysis of Islam and the Quran. Moreover, it is not an ontological proof in the way that the term has sometimes been used to describe God as necessarily existing when already given the a priori clause that He exists, a kind of fallacious reasoning. We will not discuss God’s existence or nonexistence from the a priori premises of God’s necessary or accessory Being, which is a reasoning process founded on assumptions. Instead, it must be understood that while both of the assertions that God is existent or nonexistent can be described as similarly egocentric, since they are based on the reasoning process, the one with greater rational force and epistemological soundness is the ontological assessment for God’s existence, especially with regards to Islamic monotheism.
Understanding ontology and epistemology plays a key part in our metaphysical understanding of reality. The ontological argument from Islam is founded in a comprehensive assessment of reason, and it is markedly different in soundness from the assumed premises of purely materialistic explanation since it arises by necessity from the quality of Being whereas materialistic explanation does not. In fact, materialistic explanation, or naturalistic explanation without God, is recognized as a prior level of metaphysical understanding from within the ontological argument.
To comment on the ontological argument and expound upon its philosophical foundation:
When funneling down from the outside physical world inwards to our conscious experience, we can say that consciousness is part of the natural world. Yet, from inwards to the outside, the metaphysical affect of experiential consciousness is born out of a variety of things that cannot simply be attributed to nerve fibers – since we experience a consciousness – not nerve fibers. In fact, nerve fibers form a subsect of our conscious experience then, such as with pain, so where exactly does the entire flow of consciousness – the perfect assimilation of all such subdivided feeling or experience through biological structures – emerge? Serotonin?
Thus, language, morality, the recognition of cause and effect, coordinated actions, structure, etc. outside of the self contribute to our psychological affect, conscious experience, and metaphysical reality in addition to our biology which allows us to render these things. In fact, one could say that without such things provided for us to understand, like what is right or wrong, our biology alone would not be sufficient enough to form a consciousness. And this is one way, already, that metaphysics and naturalism points to the direction of the Divine and the actual reality of abstract Being and attributes that are just as real as physical Being. Regardless, this is the foundation of metaphysics. Not only physical being, but the reality of those abstract ideas and “experiences” to be grasped are essential to our experiential consciousness and Self Being. The meaning-making components of life contribute to knowledge and metaphysical understanding, and the meaning-making process is recognized and refined through the Self over time in reality with reason and experience.
What this all means is, simply, that we internalize information within ourselves in metaphysical form. We do this through reason, and more broadly, recognizing the connection between things in a form of organization as it both pertains to and is distinguished from our Selves, between our mind and body, and from which we assimilate things with coherence to the mind’s processed reality and cognizance.
What we term metaphysics can be a sense of the experiential conscious self with potential implications beyond physical reality, but necessarily in relation to physical reality and physical being. Given the Self’s internalization of metaphysical reality, inherent to the nature of Being is that organization, coherence, and cause is more recognizable and knowable than disorganization or something with an apparent lack of cause. From this emerges both disbelief in God, such as in saying that life is from an emergent natural occurrence, or belief in God, that God is the ultimate Creator. Both are points of cause, and therefore, in an organizational hierarchy within metaphysical understanding.
To comment on organization now, if we are shown a series of colored blocks flying across a computer screen in no discernible pattern, what can we conclude about this? We cannot definitively claim that the order of the colors is random, because perhaps it has a pattern or algorithm we are simply unable to identify, or arises from something we do not know, which if known, would make the sequence of colors predictable. Focusing less on the organizational-patternable context of this phenomenon and on the very causation of it, we also cannot say that the the blocks flying across the screen are without cause, because we know that for them to be flying across the screen, there is something that has caused this to appear so, such as a program, perhaps even a visual delusion on our part, or any number of things that causes this instance of us seeing this. Therefore, we say that the pattern or order presented here is unknown to the observer, but it seems to us disorganized, or is disorganized within the contingents that we are currently aware of, although we know that there is some sort of cause to the presence of this disorganized phenomenon. These are the two levels of metaphysical disorganization that can manifest: disorganization of pattern/structure/purpose and disorganization of Being. To reiterate what we know of disorganization of Being, we inherently do not know the explanation to something that emerges from an unknown cause, although we can still recognize that it is caused by necessity of Being as something recognized as disorganized. This is not simply a demonstration of rhetoric with some choice words, but a more deep understanding of how knowledge is related to what we can identify and build up with organized logic, although such things are obvious in day to day life.
On the other hand, if we are shown a series of colors that are organized, or in a discernable pattern, what could we conclude from this? Would we be able to say that it is random? No. Simply by seeing a discernable construction of something, or organization, we can acknowledge that there is an evident organizational property manifesting, even if it is not known why it came to be there. If we found out the computer was infected with a virus, that would be the organization of Being for why the organized colors were there, although again, another organizational point of Being arises now as in how that virus infected the computer when we had just bought a very expensive antivirus program. There is a continuous string of how’s and why’s around the uncovered what’s populating our reasoning faculties such that we would attain ultimate knowledge of everything if every how, why, and what we could ever ask was able to be answered and perfectly understood by us. This is the drive of Reason that we discuss in various parts. But overall, for now, upon seeing organized or coherent things, we can say with validity that they are organized with an identifiable pattern/structure/purpose, have an identifiable underlying property that causes us to recognize them as organized, or, if nothing else, are caused to be organized within a hierarchy of organization and coherent Being.
In summary, while knowledge of pattern/structure/purpose or causes is implicit in the definition of organization, the inverse is not true of disorganization, where a lack of cause is not central to disorganization, but rather, a lack of pattern/structure/purpose, because it can be known how such disorganized configurations, such as a messy room, come to be, or how a configuration of disorganization may be purposefully caused as well. Organization of Being is a fulfillment of cause while disorganization of Being is at the same time not necessarily a lack of fulfillment of cause, since disorganization can be caused purposefully or from clearly known causes. Instead, disorganization of Being is a distortion or ambiguity in identifiable causes. It is a scary thought, but perhaps nothing in the world can be said to ever be truly disorganized due to the nature of knowledge and logic, which is why we can ask questions about the nature of reality and advance in various sciences upon discovering the organizational hierarchy behind things.
From our perspectives, these demonstrations of organizational properties in relation to knowledge hold true and apply to every instance of metaphysical reality. Observations moving continuously towards the microscopic or most infinitesimal details still tend to asymptotically move towards identifying organizational Being, what with the advancement of our current physical sciences, and thereby the refutation of randomness or displacement of organization. As discussed already, the very concept of there being an underlying principle to anything, whether organized or disorganized, also inherently entails by necessity the uncovering of organization of Being, or causation itself. What is found to be an underlying uncovered property in organization of Being manifests as something organized within a hierarchy of further organization of Being again.
Thus, we paradoxically continue to uncover an element of the unknown underneath every subsequent explanation of the known, until we might in a state of the unknown incorrectly presume that randomness, the unknown, or lack of cause comes organizationally before even what can be known, and in other words, what can even be questioned. To state this while maintaining the physical reality of Being is actually to deny the use of Reason. This is why it is remarkable to understand how disorganization of Being is not the very lack of cause, but a lack of identifiable cause, as even disorganization is caused.
We can never know if we hit a roadblock that would suggest that something is random without contingents, but to the contrary, we might upon inspection of an explanatory layer of existence and organizational Being actually identify causal or organizational properties given the proper tools or assessment, leading to yet another explanation and so on and so forth. Reason compels us to understand that there is, in fact, an explanation behind all points of Being, which is why the question as to what that explanation is arises in the first place. Altogether, this is how the very act of coming to know precedes the act of understanding that there is a kind of construction (or how the questions why and how can be asserted before knowing anything about the next what). Somehow, the element of coming to know precedes the element of understanding there is a certain type of existing construct behind something at all, because we do not know what that construction could be, metaphysically implicating that the ability to recognize Being precedes an existence’s actual recognition of Being, or actualization, in metaphysical reality.
The nature of this reality is also demonstrated in the Mary example put forth by Frank Jackson. Mary has lived in only a black and white room her entire life and has been exposed to only black and white. When she leaves her room, she is able to perceive a vast array of colors more than black and white. Mary has eyes that were able to perceive more colors, but she was never aware of this in the conscious, experiential sense because she was never exposed to these colors, although she could conceptualize in thought that there was somehow still more “color” than black and white. Mary already contained within her the receptors and ability to grasp different colors, and merely required the stimulus, or thing to grasp. In downstream effect, this also illustrates how the colors she is currently seeing now outside of her room are not necessarily the only ones to truly exist. Perhaps she can actualize different colors, or that actualization in the recognition of different colors is possible. The mantis shrimp, for example, invariably sees a different reality of “colors” than humans can because it has 16 types of photoreceptor cells whereas humans only have 3 types of photoreceptor cells. Meanwhile the bee sees most of the same wavelengths of color as humans can, excluding red but with the addition of the ultraviolet spectrum. Dogs only have 2 photoreceptor cell types. What if we happened to be dogs? But what does that mean about color as detached from the contingency of individual sight? Do those colors, or the conceptualized existence of colors beyond which any receptor can capture, truly exist? This would be a reversal of our experiential abilities, and implicates that construction exists prior to or without regard to actualization, since no matter what questions we ask, we will never be able to actualize those colors we do not have the receptors for, or that our receptors will never be able to capture. In positing that there is construction before ability for actualization, it is not necessarily that those colors do not exist, since perhaps there is something that can actualize such things, but that if we determine that they are classified as existing to us, they exist without perception or their contingent reality of sight. To again demonstrate reality by actualization, this is similar to how when observing reality even beyond the microscopic, all the way to the subatomic, Quantum Mechanics introduces a variable aspect to reality present in a contradictory, though observable wave-particle duality constituting existence at a fundamental level, although there are very real physical implications and obviously complex organizational structures resulting from these ambivalent quanta that would imply the firm existence of some more discrete phenomena rather than what otherwise appears to be a superpositioning of physical possibilities that are only actualized upon observation, observation then becoming the superpositioned contingent upon which there is fixed and actualized existence. But as it is, this uncovered layer of physics, simply for example, suggests that physical reality itself essentially exists as a series of possibilities to be actualized, as with the example of Schrodinger’s Cat.
Like Quantum Mechanics is to physics about physical reality, the Mary example is hard to imagine as applying to physically implicated abstract concepts, such as color perception. However, it is important to note as we continue that with God, we already do not require construction to exist before ability for actualization simply because God as a Being is without the contingency of even construction, as we understand God to be the metaphysical founder of all physical and metaphysical construction, including the metaphysical construct of ability for actualization. This reaffirms that God is not dependent on us actualizing God for God to actually exist. It may be hard to wrap one’s mind around when first thinking about God metaphysically. Regardless, we are already necessarily in the state of experientially having the ability for actualization when considering God as conscious beings. But, referring back to the Mary example and the nature of organizational structure, recognizing the truth of how organizational properties manifest in relation to knowledge is the inner nature of the ontological argument and the proof of God being self evident, because only God can be able to be actualized as the ultimate, singular organizational predicate to existence as an uncaused cause, in contrast to constructs such as color, a recognized component or construction of Being, with which we could oppositely, unnecessarily conceptualize the existence of there being more colors that can be actualized. And as we have discussed already with regards to layers of construction in Being, all points of construction will be from another organizational construct of Being and cause.
Thus, God as the ultimate Creator does not exist from construction, and is actually outside of the Hierarchy of Being as something that is utterly Transcendent. To make a note on the causation of God, because God does not exist from construction, God never needs construction to be actualized and does not need construction itself to exist. Meanwhile, while we can initially suppose that an inanimate physical law or physical construct was the original uncaused cause to existence, by being part of the physical construction of existence itself, it has become subject to an organizational hierarchy whereby another cause or organizational point of Being for it is necessary, meaning that its direct relationship to the rest of existence has rendered it impossible as being an originating, independent beginning, as it itself is dependent on construction.
As Shaykh Hamza Yusuf relates from Islamic understanding, “As God’s reality is articulated, every other reality vanishes into falsehood or nonexistence. This is utter Transcendence.“
When contemplating Being, there is no alternative to the fact that metaphysical inference and reason drive to the conclusion that there must exist something separate from Being to have originated Being. This is an interesting thought, but how does it relate more firmly to God?
Move on to Part 2 of the Deductive Proof of Islam by Metaphysical Finality
Reference from a lecture available on Youtube: Articles of Faith – Part 1 of 2 – Hamza Yusuf (Foundations of Islam Series: Session 3)
Muslim Lad 