Nature Or The Creator

The Second Impossibility

If these extraordinarily well-ordered, balanced, artistic, and purposeful beings are not attributed to One Who possesses infinite power and wisdom, but instead to nature, then nature would have to contain in every handful of earth as many printing presses and factories as all the printing presses and factories of Europe, so that each handful of earth could become the source for the formation and development of countless flowers and fruits for which it serves as a seedbed.

For it is clearly observed that a bowl of earth has the ability to form and shape the distinct forms and structures of all the different flower seeds planted in it. If this is not attributed to Qadīr-i Dhul-Jalāl, then those flowers could not come into existence unless, within that bowl of earth, there existed for every flower a distinct immaterial and natural machine.

For seeds, like zygotes and eggs, consist of the same basic elements; that is, they are composed of an unordered, formless, dough-like mixture of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. Moreover, air, water, heat, and light are also simple and unconscious, and flow over everything like a flood. Thus, the emergence from the earth of those countless flowers in such varied, highly ordered, and artistic forms necessarily requires the presence within that bowl of earth of as many immaterial and minute printing presses and factories as there are in Europe, so that such a vast number of living fabrics and thousands of different woven patterns may be produced.

Indeed, judge for yourself how far the atheistic reasoning of the naturalists has strayed beyond the limits of reason. See how these people, who regard nature as the creator and call themselves people of science and reason, are in fact far removed from true intelligence and science. They embrace an untenable superstition that is in no way possible. Dismiss it with scorn and leave it aside.

Objection: It becomes clear that great unresolved questions and insurmountable difficulties arise when the existence of beings is attributed to nature. How, then, are these questions and difficulties resolved by attributing everything to Ahad-i Samad? And how is this problematic impossibility transformed into an easy necessity?

The Answer: As mentioned in the First Impossibility of the Third Path, the manifestations and reflections of the sun can easily be observed on every shining object, from tiny pieces of glass to the surface of the greatest ocean, each functioning as a miniature sun. If the connection of these beings with the sun is severed, one would have to accept the practically impossible presence of a natural and physical manifestation of the sun in every particle.

Likewise, if every being is directly attributed to Ahad-i Samad, then through its connection with Him and through the manifestations of His names, every need of that being can be fulfilled in an inevitably simple manner.

If that connection is severed, those beings no longer serve as devoted functionaries, but are instead considered as lawless individuals left to themselves or to nature. In that case, one would have to assume—with countless difficulties and obstacles approaching the limits of impossibility—that blind nature, deep within the wondrous and beautiful machine of a living being such as a fly, which serves as a small index of the universe, possesses the power and wisdom not only to create that fly but also to create and administer the entire universe. This contains not one impossibility, but thousands.