Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth

Last updated

Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth is a book written by Mirza Tahir Ahmad, the fourth Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Published in 1998, it was originally written in English and was subsequently translated into Urdu and Arabic. The book explores religious thought and the role of revelation throughout different ages of human civilization. It is a comprehensive thesis on the phenomenon of revelation in different faiths and seeks to argue for the existence of God through rationality.

Mirza Tahir Ahmad caliph of the Ahmadiyya

Mirza Tahir Ahmad was the fourth caliph and the head of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. He was elected as the fourth successor of the founder of the community Mirza Ghulam Ahmad on 10 June 1982, the day after the death of his predecessor, Mirza Nasir Ahmad.

Urdu National language and lingua franca of Pakistan; one of the official languages of India; standardized register of Hindustani

Urdu —or, more precisely, Modern Standard Urdu—is a Persianised standard register of the Hindustani language. It is the official national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. In India, it is one of the 22 official languages recognized in the Constitution of India, having official status in the six states of Jammu and Kashmir, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, as well as the national capital territory of Delhi. It is a registered regional language of Nepal.

Arabic Central Semitic language

Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language, and linguists widely agree that the language first emerged in the 1st to 4th centuries CE. It is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. It is named after the Arabs, a term initially used to describe peoples living in the area bounded by Mesopotamia in the east and the Anti-Lebanon mountains in the west, in northwestern Arabia, and in the Sinai Peninsula. Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage comprising 30 modern varieties, including its standard form, Modern Standard Arabic, which is derived from Classical Arabic.

Contents

Background

This book was a further development on a talk that Ahmad gave in Switzerland. In Zurich in 1987 Professor Karl Henking, Professor of Ethnology, at the University of Zurich invited Mirza Tahir Ahmad the fourth Head of the Worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community to deliver a lecture on Ahmadiyya Islam. On Thursday, the 14 June 1987 at 8.15 p.m., the proposed lecture was delivered under the title 'Rationality, Revelation, Knowledge, Eternal Truth'. The students, evidently intrigued by the title, thronged Oule (the great auditorium) which became filled to capacity so that additional arrangements had to be made in another hall with provisions for relaying the proceedings through television screens and loudspeakers.

Ethnology social science that deals with ethnies (Peoples)

Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them.

University of Zurich university in Switzerland

The University of Zurich, located in the city of Zürich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 25,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy.

Ahmadiyya An Islamic religious movement

Ahmadiyya is an Islamic revival or messianic movement founded in Punjab, British India, in the late 19th century. It originated with the life and teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), who claimed to have been divinely appointed as both the promised Mahdi and Messiah expected by Muslims to appear towards the end times and bring about, by peaceful means, the final triumph of Islam; as well as to embody, in this capacity, the expected eschatological figure of other major religious traditions. Adherents of the Ahmadiyya—a term adopted expressly in reference to Muhammad's alternative name Aḥmad—are known as Ahmadi Muslims or simply Ahmadis.

Main themes

This is a very diverse and wide-ranging book discussing such subjects as the concept of revelation in different religions, history of philosophy, cosmology, extraterrestrial life, the future of life on earth, natural selection and its role in evolution. The main emphasis is on the ability of the Quran to correctly discuss all important events of the past, present and future from the beginning of the universe to its ultimate end.

Philosophy intellectual and/or logical study of general and fundamental problems

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. The term was probably coined by Pythagoras. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation. Classic philosophical questions include: Is it possible to know anything and to prove it? What is most real? Philosophers also pose more practical and concrete questions such as: Is there a best way to live? Is it better to be just or unjust? Do humans have free will?

Cosmology Academic study of the Universe

Cosmology is a branch of astronomy concerned with the studies of the origin and evolution of the universe, from the Big Bang to today and on into the future. It is the scientific study of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe. Physical cosmology is the scientific study of the universe's origin, its large-scale structures and dynamics, and its ultimate fate, as well as the laws of science that govern these areas.

Extraterrestrial life Lifeform that does not originate from Earth

Extraterrestrial life, also called alien life, is life that occurs outside of Earth and that did not originate from Earth. These hypothetical life forms may range from simple prokaryotes to beings with civilizations far more advanced than humanity. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life in all its forms is known as exobiology.

Scope and impact of the book

The book is an argument for the existence of God. In the author's own words:

To cut a long story short, we request the reader to realise that even if the creation of the universe and the subsequent evolution of life had actually started a trillion years ago, it could still be mathematically impossible for evolution to reach the stage of man.

Tahir Ahmad also examines the atheist argument presented by Professor Richard Dawkins, particularly in his book The Blind Watchmaker . In the chapter entitled 'The 'Blind Watchmaker' Who Is Also Deaf and Dumb'. He argues that Dawkins has completely overlooked the complexity in biological structures and the undeniable purpose behind evolutionary changes. [1] He writes:

<i>The Blind Watchmaker</i> Book by Richard Dawkins

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins, in which the author presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. He also presents arguments to refute certain criticisms made on his first book, The Selfish Gene. An unabridged audiobook edition was released in 2011, narrated by Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward.

It is exasperating to find Professor Dawkins pointing his finger at a mere principle, without a personal identity, to be the deity—a principle which is deaf, dumb and blind, and has no physical or spiritual existence. That most certainly is not the creator. If Professor Dawkins persists in denying the existence of any Creator, while he has no right to replace him with a principle, he once again has only two logical options. Either he should admit that creation exists, yet he has failed to identify the creator; or he should proclaim that there is no Creator yet the creation exists. This would be tantamount to saying that there is the book The Blind Watchmaker but there has never been a Professor Dawkins who penned it!

He also argued that Socrates was a prophet of the ancients. The apparent prophetic qualities of Socrates are indeed a subject for debate. His constant reference to the oracle and how it performs the active function of a moral compass by preventing him from unseemly acts could easily be taken as a reference to - or substitute for revelation. Similarly, Socrates often refers to God in the singular as opposed to the plural.

Socrates classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Socrates was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and as being the first moral philosopher, of the Western ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, he made no writings, and is known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers writing after his lifetime, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. Other sources include the contemporaneous Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Aeschines of Sphettos. Aristophanes, a playwright, is the only major source to have written during his lifetime, though a fragment of Ion of Chios' Travel Journal provides important information about his youth.

Oracle in classical antiquity, person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future

An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination.

God Divine entity, supreme being and principal object of faith

In monotheistic thought, God is conceived of as the supreme being, creator deity, and principal object of faith. The conceptions of God, as described by theologians, commonly include the attributes of omniscience (all-knowing), omnipotence (all-powerful), omnipresence (all-present), and as having an eternal and necessary existence. Depending on one's kind of theism, these attributes are used either in way of analogy, or in a literal sense as distinct properties. God is most often held to be incorporeal (immaterial). Incorporeality and corporeality of God are related to conceptions of transcendence and immanence of God, with positions of synthesis such as the "immanent transcendence". Psychoanalyst Carl Jung equated religious ideas of God with transcendental aspects of consciousness in his interpretation.

Related Research Articles

Richard Dawkins English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Clinton Richard Dawkins, is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.

The teleological or physico-theological argument, also known as the argument from design, or intelligent design argument is an argument for the existence of God or, more generally, for an intelligent creator based on perceived evidence of deliberate design in the natural world.

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Religious figure

Mirzā Ghulām Ahmad was an Indian religious leader and the founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam. He claimed to have been divinely appointed as the promised Messiah and Mahdi—which is the metaphorical second-coming of Jesus (mathīl-iʿIsā), in fulfillment of Islam's latter day prophecies, as well as the Mujaddid of the 14th Islamic century.

The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion and popular culture.

<i>Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya</i>

al-Barāhīn al-Ahmadīyyah 'alā Haqīqatu KitābAllāh al-Qur'ān wa'n-Nabūwwatu al-Muhammadīyyah is a five-part book written by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement. The first two parts were published in 1880 CE, the third volume was published in 1882, the fourth volume in 1884 and the fifth volume in 1905. In writing the book, Ghulam Ahmad sought to rejuvenate Islam by arguing for the validity of its principles and vindicating its teachings in response to Christian and Hindu polemics against Islam as well as atheistic philosophies. In this context, a significant portion of the subject matter of the book is dedicated to the defence of Islam as a whole against the criticism of Muhammad, the Qur'an and Islam that was raised in the 18th and 19th centuries predominantly by Christian missionaries and Hindu revivalists.

Watchmaker analogy

The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument which states, by way of an analogy, that a design implies a designer. The analogy has played a prominent role in natural theology and the "argument from design," where it was used to support arguments for the existence of God and for the intelligent design of the universe, in both Christianity and Deism.

Five Ways (Aquinas) 5 logical arguments for the existence of God made by Thomas Aquinas in his book Summa Theologica: the argument from motion; the argument from causation; the argument from contingency; the argument from degree; the argument from final cause

The quinque viae are five logical arguments regarding the existence of God summarized by the 13th-century Catholic philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas in his book Summa Theologica. They are:

  1. the argument from metaphysical motion;
  2. the argument from efficient causation;
  3. the argument from contingency;
  4. the argument from degrees of being;
  5. the argument from final causality.
<i>The God Delusion</i> Book by Richard Dawkins

The God Delusion is a 2006 best-selling book by English biologist Richard Dawkins, a professorial fellow at New College, Oxford and former holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.

<i>Dawkins God</i> book by Alister McGrath

Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life is a book by Alister McGrath, a theologian who is currently Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University. The book, published in 2004, with a 2nd ed. in 2015, aims to refute claims about religion made by another well-known professor at Oxford, Richard Dawkins. McGrath's book does not seek to demonstrate how Dawkins’ claims differ from Christianity, rather, it argues that Dawkins' arguments fall far short of the logical and evidence-based reasoning that Dawkins himself espouses.

The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit is a counter-argument to modern versions of the argument from design for the existence of God. It was introduced by Richard Dawkins in chapter 4 of his 2006 book The God Delusion, "Why there almost certainly is no God".

Mirza Nasir Ahmad caliph of the Ahmadiyya

Hāfiz Mirza Nasir Ahmad was the third caliph, head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. He was elected as the third successor of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad on 8 November 1965, the day after the death of his predecessor and father, Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad.

Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory

Since the emergence of the Big Bang theory as the dominant physical cosmological paradigm, there have been a variety of reactions by religious groups regarding its implications for religious cosmologies. Some accept the scientific evidence at face value, some seek to harmonize the Big Bang with their religious tenets, and some reject or ignore the evidence for the Big Bang theory.

Prophethood (Ahmadiyya)

The view on the Prophets of God in Ahmadiyya theology differs significantly from Orthodox Islam. The main difference centres on the Quranic term Khatam an-Nabiyyin with reference to Muhammad which is understood by Ahmadis in terms of perfection and testification of prophethood instead of chronological finality. Accordingly, Muhammad is held to be the last prophet to deliver a religious law to humanity in the form of the Quran whose teachings embody a perfected and universal message. Although, in principle, prophets can appear within Islam, their prophethood is dependent upon and reflective of that of Muhammad, that is, within his Seal; and their role is merely that of reviving and purifying the faith. They cannot be prophets in their own right and cannot change, add to or subtract from the religious law of Islam. As such, Ahmadis, regard their founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a prophet who appeared as the promised Messiah and Mahdi in accordance with Islam's eschatological prophecies. In contrast to mainstream Muslims who believe Jesus to be still alive and one who would return himself towards the end of time, Ahmadis believe Jesus to have died a natural death and view the coming of such an independent, Israelite prophet to amount to breaking the Seal of Prophethood.

Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, is also venerated as a manifestation of God in Hinduism and the Bahá'í faith. Some Hindu texts regard Buddha as an avatar of the god Vishnu, who came to Earth to delude beings away from the Vedic religion. He is also regarded as a prophet by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Ahmadiyya views on evolution The Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam universally accepts a process of divinely guided evolution

The Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam universally accepts the process of evolution, albeit divinely guided, and actively promotes it. Over the course of several decades, the movement has issued various publications in support of the scientific concepts behind the process of evolution and frequently engages in promoting how religious scripture supports the concept.

Ahmadiyya–Jewish relations

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is an Islamic movement that was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in the late 19th century. Judaism is another Abrahamic religious group. Ahmadis and Jews have not interacted much in the history.

<i>Tadhkirah</i> (Ahmadiyya)

Tadhkira (تذکرة) is a collection of the revelations, dreams and visions of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The English rendering of the Urdu, Arabic and Persian text was initially done by Sir Chaudry Muhammad Zafarullah Khan in 1976. The present revised edition has been published in 2009 under the auspices of Mirza Masroor Ahmad, Imam and Head of the Worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at, fifth successor to the Promised Messiah, by Islam International Publications Ltd.

References

  1. The blind watchmaker, who is also deaf and dumb, Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth, Part V, Chapter 13, Mirza Tahir Ahmad

University College London, which has operated under the official name of UCL since 2005, is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom. It is a constituent college of the federal University of London, and is the third largest university in the United Kingdom by total enrolment, and the largest by postgraduate enrolment.