Reality of the Unseen
By Seyyed Mujtaba Musavi Lari
Translated by Hamid Algar
 
    One of the characteristics of the unique God to the knowledge and worship
of Whom Prophets and religious leaders summon us is that He is utterly
inaccessible to sense perception. In addition, He possesses the attributes
of pre-eternity 3rd post eternity. Existing everywhere, He is nowhere.
Throughout the world of nature and sensory being His mani-festations have
an objective existence and His will is everywhere manifest in the world of
being. all the phenomena of nature declaring the power of that wise Essence.
 
Those who want to solve the question of existence
of God within the framework of their intellectual
limitations and narrowness of vision, ask how it is
possible to believe in an unseen being.
 
     Of course, such a being that man cannot perceive with his senses, that is not
in any way colored by materiality, and that does not correspond to our normal
experience and observa-tion, is extremely difficult for us to imagine. Once
the existence of a thing is difficult to imagine, it becomes easy to deny.

    Those who want to solve the question of existence of God within the frame-
work of their own intellectual limitations and narrowness of vision, ask how it is
possible to believe in an unseen being.

    They overlook the fact that sense perception, being limited, can help man to
know and perceive only one mode of being; it cannot discover other modes of
being and penetrate all the dimensions of existence. Sensory organs do not
permit us to advance a single step beyond the outer aspects of phenomena,
in just the same way that the empirical sciences cannot carry human thought
beyond the boundaries of the supra sensory.
 

...    If man, through the application of scientific 
instruments and criteria, cannot perceive 
the existence of a thing, he cannot deny its 
existence simply because it is incompatible 
with material criteria, unless he disposes 
of some proof that the thing in question is 
impossible. 
   We discover the existence of an objective 
law from within the totality of phenomena  
that it is capable of interpreting.
If, then, the establishment of scientific truth is possible only by means of direct
sensation, the majority of scientific truths will have to be discarded, since many
scientific facts cannot be perceived by means of sen-sory experience or testing.

    As far as the realities of the material world are concerned, no ra-tional person
will commonly regard his not seeing or not sensing a given thing in his everyday
life as grounds enough to deny it. He will not con-demn as non-existent whatever
fails to enter the sphere of his sense perception. This same will hold true a
fortiori of non-material realities.

    When we are unable to establish the cause of something in a scientific
experiment, this does not lead us to deny the law of causality. We say only that
the cause is unknown to us because the law is independent of a given experi-
ment; no experiment can lead to the negation of causality.

    Is it not true that all the things we accept and believe to exist have an existe-
nce belonging to the same category as our own or as things that are visible to us?
Can we see or feel everything in this material world? Is it only God we cannot see
with our senses?

    All materialists are aware that many of the things known to us con-sist of matters
and realities that we cannot sense and with which are not customarily familiar.
There are many invisible beings in the universe. The progress of science and
knowledge in the present age have uncovered numerous truths of this kind, and
one of the richest chapters in scientific re-search is the transformation of matter
into energy.
 
    When the beings and bodies that are visible in this world wish to pro-duce energy,
they are compelled to change their original aspect and transform it into energy. Now
is this energy — the axis on which turn many of the motions and changes of the
universe — visible or tangible?

    We know that energy is a source of power, but the essence of energy still remains
a mystery. Take electric-ity on which so much of our science, civilization and life
depend. No physicist in this laboratory — or any-one else, for that matter, dealing
with electrical tools and appliances — can see electricity itself or feel and touch
its weight or softness. No one can directly perceive the passage of electricity through
a wire; he can only perceive the existence of a current by using the necessary
equipment.
 

Concepts such as justice, beauty, love, hatred, enmity 
wisdom, that make up our mental universe, do not
have a visible and clear-cut existence or the slightest 
physical aspect; nonetheless, we regard them as realities.
 
    Modem physics tells us that the things of which we have sense perception are
firm, solid and stable, and there is no visible energy in their motions. But despite
outward appearances, what we, in fact, see and perceive is a mass of atoms
that are neither firm nor solid nor stable; all things are nothing other than trans-
formation, change and motion. What our sense organs imagine to be stable and
motionless lack all stability and permanence and immobility; motion, change and
development embrace them all, without this being perceptible to us by way of
direct sensory observation.

    The air that surrounds us has a considerable weight and exerts a constant
pressure on the body; everyone bears a pressure of 16,000 kilograms of air. But
we do not feel any discomfort because the pressure of the air is neutralized by the
inward pressure of the body. This established scientific fact was unknown until the
time of Galileo and Pascal, and even now our senses cannot perceive it.

    The attributes assigned to natural factors by scientists on the basis of sensory
experiments and rational deduction cannot be directly perceived. For example,
radio waves are present everywhere and yet nowhere. There is no locus that is free
of the attractive force of some material body, but this in no way detracts from its
existence or lessens its substance.

    Concepts such as justice, beauty, love, hatred, enmity wisdom, that make up our
mental universe, do not have a visible and clear-cut existence or the slightest
physical aspect; nonetheless, we regard them as realities.

    Man does not know the essence of electricity, radio waves, energy, or electrons
and neutrons; he perceives their existence only through their results and effects.

    Life very clearly exists; we cannot possibly deny it. But how can we measure it,
and by what means can we measure the speed of thought and imagination?

    From all this it is quite clear that to deny whatever lies beyond our vision and
hearing is contrary to logic and the conventional principles of reason. Why do the
deniers of God fail to apply the common principles of science to the particular
question of the existence of a power ruling over nature?

A certain materialist of Egypt went to Mecca in order to engage in debate, and
there he met Imam Sadiq (AS.).

The Imam said, “Begin your questioning.”

The Egyptian said nothing.

The Imam: “Do you accept that the earth has an above and a below?”

The Egyptian: “Yes.”

The Irnam: “So how do you know what is below the earth?”

The Egyptian: “I do not know, but I think there is nothing below the earth.”

The Imam: “Imagining is a sign of impotence when confronted with what you
cannot be certain of Now tell me, have you ever been up in the skies?”

The Egyptian: “No.”

The Imam: “How strange it is that you have not been to the West or to the East,
that you have not descended below the earth or flown up to the heavens, or
passed beyond them to know what lies there, but nonetheless you deny what
exists there. Would any wise man deny the reality of what he is ignorant of?
And you deny the existence of the Creator because you cannot see him ‘with
your eyes.”

The Egyptian: “No one talked to me before in this way.”

The Imam: “So, in fact, you have doubts concerning the existence of God; you
think He may exist and He may not exist?

The Egyptian: “Perhaps so.”
 
The Imam: “0 man, the hands of one who does not know are empty of all proof;
the ignorant can never possess any kind of evidence. Be well aware that we
never have any kind of doubt or hesitation concerning the existence of God.

“Do you not see the sun and the moon, the day and the night, regularly alternating
and following a fixed course? If they have any power of their own, let them depart
from their course and not return. Why do they constantly return? If they are free in
their alternation and rotation, why does the night not become day and the day not
become night? I swear by God that they have no free choice in their motions; it is
He Who causes these phenomena to follow a fixed course; it is He Who
commands them; and to Him alone belongs all greatness and splendor.”

The Egyptian: “You speak truly.”

The Imam: “If you imagine that nature and time carry men forward, then why do
they not carry them backwards? And if they carry them backwards, why do they
not carry them forward?”

“Know that the heavens and the earth are subject to His Will. Why do the heavens
not collapse onto the earth? Why are the layers of the earth not overturned and
why do they not mount up to the heavens? Why do those who live on the earth not
adhere to each other?”

The Egyptian: “God Who is the Lord and Master of the heavens and earth protects
them from collapse and destruction.”

“The words of the Imam had now caused the light of faith to shine on the heart of the
Egyptian; he submitted to the truth and accepted Islam.”
 

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