Wholes & Parts
- From: "Altway" <altway@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:52:03 -0500
Question:-
According to the famous Scientist Richard Dawkins the concept of God has
become redundant ever since Darwin showed that creation was an upward
process, from the bottom up and not a top down process as theists assert.
What does that mean and what would be an Islamic answer to that?
Answer:-
I will answer in four parts:-
(1) Dawkins thinks that Darwin has proved that the things in the world have
arisen from the random combination of parts step by step as a house might
arise brick by brick and not intelligently and purposefully from an idea
in a Creators Mind or by gradual actualisation of potentialities, or by
progressive differentiation within a whole, as a blurred picture might come
gradually into sharp focus. Development proceeds, he implies, from maximum
simplicity towards maximum complexity and from multiplicity towards unity
rather than from Unity to multiplicity and the Whole to the parts.
I think that that is nonsense, a naive view based on inadequate thinking.
Dawkins has not told us which concept of God he has in mind, for whom it is
redundant and on which set of facts the opinion is based. He is, of course,
expressing his own opinion based on his own section of knowledge and it is
obviously false. There are a great many people in the world for whom the
concept is still valid. For Muslims who surrender to Allah, it is central to
their lives. The implication is that they replace the subjective Ego and its
prejudices and fantasies with objective principles of Truth, Compassion and
Justice, the attributes of Allah, in thought, motive and action. Without
this, even science could not exist, and Dawkins would undoubtedly benefit
from adopting it. However, the experience and realisation of Allah are of
greater importance than just having a clear concept.
It is true that science must start by gradually collecting facts and,
therefore, proceed from the parts towards the whole. Dawkins appears to have
mistaken this feature of science, a human activity, for a natural law. He
has also created a dogma based on partial knowledge, ignoring the fact that
scientific research is ongoing and knowledge expands. His attitude is
dogmatic, unscientific and is probably already obsolete.
That is not how things exist in nature. The Universe did not start with a
single particle that multiplied. Even if so, there must have been some
Universal Law before that which allowed that to happen. The set of
fundamental Laws that describe the Universe provide the context in which all
things happen. They constitute the potentialities that are gradually
actualised. Things do not combine randomly, but because of forces between
them. If combinations were random, they would also constantly separate and
combine in different ways at random. Nothing would be constant or
recognisable. But even this set of Laws needs an explanation that is
connected with the nature of existence at a much more fundamental level.
(2) The Islamic point of view, which is incompatible with that of Dawkins,
is given in the following verses:-
"Allah is He Who created seven heavens, and of the earth the like of them.
The Commandment continues to descend among them slowly, that you may know
that Allah has power over all things and that Allah indeed encompasses all
things in knowledge." 65:12
"Do they not reflect within themselves: Allah did not create the heavens and
the earth and what is between them but with Truth, and for an appointed term
(or destined end)? But truly most of the people are disbelievers in the
meeting with their Lord." 30:8
"Surely We have created everything according to a measure. And Our command
is but one, as the twinkling of an eye." 54:49-50
"All praise is due to Allah, unto Whom belongs whatever is in the heavens
and whatever is in the earth, and His is the praise in the Hereafter; and He
is the Wise, the Aware. He knows that which goes down into the earth and
that which comes out of it, and that which comes down from the heaven and
that which goes up to it; and He is the Merciful, the Forgiving." 34:1-2
The implication is something as follows:- Reality consists of various levels
of organisation. The creative force descends down these levels from the
fundamental Absolute Unity to increasing multiplicity, from the subtle to
the gross. Things were created spiritually at first as an idea - they
existed in a World of Potentialities and then were gradually actualised.
That accounts for evolution. There is a descent from unity to multiplicity
as well as an ascent from multiplicity towards unity. The ascent depends on
this descent. For instance, it is solar and other radiations onto the earth
that lead to the ascent, the evolution on earth. (The ascent is mentioned
also in verses such as 90:8-11, 91:7-10.) The development of human beings
from a fertilised egg symbolises this process and offers an example for the
discerning.
"He it is Who created you from dust, then from a small germ-cell, then from
a clot, then He brings you forth as a child, then that you may attain your
maturity, then that you may be old - though some of you are caused to die
before - and that you may reach an appointed term, and that you may
understand. He it is Who gives life and brings death, so when He decrees an
affair, He only says to it, Be! and it is." 40:67-68
"He directs the ordinance (regulates all affairs) from the heaven to the
earth; then shall it ascend to Him in a Day the measure of which is a
thousand years of what you count. 32:6. This is the Knower of the unseen
and the seen, the Mighty the Merciful, Who made good everything that He has
created, and He began the creation of man from dust. He made his progeny of
an extract, of a fluid held in low esteem. Then He fashioned him and
breathed into him of His spirit, and made for you the faculties of hearing,
and sight and heart; little is it that you give thanks." 32:5 -9
"Your creation and your rising again are but as that of a single soul;
verily, Allah is Hearer, Seer." 31:28
(3) It is true that human beings start from a single fertilised cell that
multiplies, but it contains all the information that produces the adult. And
even so its development depends on the materials, energy and forces of the
rest of the environment. No organism exists in isolation. The mutations in
the genes depend on forces coming from the rest of the Cosmos and the
development and fate of the organism depends on the environment (and the
other creatures in it) that is regarded as exerting a selective effect. The
organism also learns and modifies its environment. Selection can be positive
or negative, but also neutral so that a range of mutations and variations
can co-exist. It is this variation that allows adaptation when the
environment changes and it does so partly because of the activity of the
organisms in it and partly because of factors coming from higher systems.
The environment itself contains a variety and is flexible and variable
allowing a variety of organisms to co-exist and for these organisms to
select.
Human beings have been breeding plants and animals for a long time - we have
artificial selection - but could it be discovered by an ordinary examination
of these plants and animals that the selection has been done by human minds?
Of course no one would be looking for such causes for evolution because it
is not contained in the set of assumptions that drive research. But
certainly the system as a whole can be regarded as having some kind of mind,
even if it is defined only as an electrical field.
In fact, we have to consider three factors:- Apart from (i) the external
causes, it is also necessary to take into consideration (ii) the in-built
strivings of the organism. The striving for self-preservation, reproduction
(which also includes the need for family and community) and self-extension
most certainly affect conduct and the relationship of the organism with its
environment. (iii) A third factor is the degree of the capability of the
organism to process the data of its inner and outer experiences. This can
elaborate and channel the inherent motivating causes as well as affect the
way the environment is perceived and dealt with.
Even human beings, who are parts of nature and who operate by the same
forces and laws as those that exist in nature create and construct things.
But an inventor or Architect who has an idea in mind that has to be
actualised finds that he must bring together the materials and put them
together step by step. This physical process of construction does not prove
the non-existence of the guiding idea that regulates the construction. But
it does show that there is more to the created world than merely the
physical facts.
(4) It is necessary to understand that things, from atoms, to cells, to
organisms, to planets and the Universe form Systems. They are parts of
greater wholes. The whole is more than the sum of the parts owing to the
organisation or order - the Truth in it. It has many causal loops and
feed-back mechanisms such that it is not just a question of a linear
relationship between one variable and another. But there is reciprocity
between a part and its environment such that if one thing changes it brings
about changes in other things that also affect the first. A part must,
therefore, always be considered in relation to its context and not in
isolation. If you dissect the whole, in thought or action, then you "kill"
it. The collection of parts is not the same as the original whole. And when
you put together the parts, in thought or action, you create an invention
that is not the same as the original either. So we have here three different
conditions.
This means that there are three kinds of relationships:- (a) Between the
parts, (b) between the parts and the whole, and (c) between the whole and
the part. There are different degrees of integration or systematisation. The
whole exerts a controlling effect on the parts but does so to different
degrees in different systems. The parts have to adjust to the whole and do
so to different degrees according to a property that can be called
"adaptability" or "intelligence". The relationship between the parts might
seem wholly random if the context or environment is not taken into
consideration. In fact, a collection of particles that do not form a system,
like a pile of sand or a volume of gas, could be regarded as having a random
relationship. But closer research has shown that even then there is a degree
of inter-dependence such that certain statistical rules or laws relate to
masses of that kind.
As systems belong as parts to greater systems and can be sub-divided into
sub-systems, then we have several levels of organisation. There are
horizontal interactions and processes between the parts at each level and
there are vertical process between all levels. There is descent and ascent.
There is construction and destruction and evolution and involution and these
are inter-dependent. Each level is a different balance between these two
opposite processes and requires some third factor to maintain it. Removal of
this Balancing or Maintaining factor would cause the collapse of all systems
into an undifferentiated uniformity.
Facts refer to the parts, but facts are useless by themselves. They acquire
meaning according to their relationship with other facts. And Value or
significance refers to the whole with respect to which they have a function.
We use three faculties for discernment:- (1) Physical facts are normally
dealt with by the sense organs. (ii) It is intelligence that concerns itself
with relationships, and this allows association, comparison,
differentiation, analysis, synthesis, classification and abstraction by
which concepts are formed. (iii) Awareness of the whole requires
consciousness. But these faculties are not entirely separate - they operate
together in different combinations. Dawkins mode of thinking that can be
regarded as atomic, partial or factual is somewhat primitive and rapidly
becoming obsolete as people become more interested in the meaning and
significance of things and a gradual change to a more holistic mode of
thinking takes place.
Hamid S. Aziz
.
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