Nature Or The Creator

In a printing press, as many iron printing letters must already exist as the number of required letters of the alphabet; only then can the letters in the book come into existence. In that case, instead of one pen, as many pens are needed as the number of letters used. And if, as sometimes occurs in calligraphic works, an entire page of text is written in fine script inside one large letter with a small pen, then thousands of pens would be needed for that single letter.

If the letters of the book also combine with one another and assume an orderly form, as in the case of your body, then in every place and for every part there would be a need for as many printing blocks as the number of components used. Even if you were to regard these hundred forms of impossibility as possible, there would still again be a need for as many printing blocks and letters as the number of those orderly, artistic iron letters and perfect printing blocks, so that those iron letters and blocks could themselves come into existence. For they too are made, and they too are artistically ordered. This would continue endlessly.

Indeed, understand that this way of thinking contains as many impossibilities and superstitions as there are atoms in your body.

O obstinate denier! Be ashamed and abandon the path of misguidance.

The Third Path

This is the claim that everything is natural and that nature brings everything into existence. This claim contains many impossibilities. By way of illustration, we shall discuss three of them.

The First Impossibility

If the extraordinarily beautiful and purposeful artistry and creative formation seen in existence, especially in living beings, are not attributed to the pen of the divine determining of Shams-i Azalī and to His divine power, but instead are attributed to blind, deaf, and unthinking nature and natural forces, then nature would have to place countless immaterial machines and printing presses within everything, or else possess within everything a power and wisdom capable of creating and administering the universe.

For example, the reflections and images of the sun are seen in tiny pieces of glass and drops of water on the face of the earth. If these reflected “miniature suns” are not attributed to the single sun in the sky, then one would have to accept that within every piece of glass—so small that even the tip of a matchstick could not fit inside it—there exists a natural sun, physically small yet immense in meaning, possessing qualities similar to the real sun. In other words, by denying one sun, one would have to accept as many suns as there are pieces of glass.

In exactly the same way, if all things, especially living beings, are not attributed to the manifestations of the names of Shams-i Azalī, then one would have to accept that within every creature, especially every living being, there exists a nature or natural force—indeed, a kind of deity—possessing infinite power, will, knowledge, and wisdom. Such a way of thinking is the most absurd and superstitious of all impossibilities in the universe. A person who attributes the art of the Creator of the universe to an imaginary, insignificant, and unconscious nature shows that he is less conscious than an animal.