Islam Rediscovered
2. Faith and Reason
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sense of being the cause for the whole series
of observable causes.
The Prime Mover or First Cause theory. Although
obviously very sound, it has constantly been under
attack from secular circles, and critics have raised a
variety of objections. To begin with, they say that it
is only guesswork, and not an undeniable fact.
Some critics also object that the actions or free will
of subatomic particles are uncaused; so, why not
also the world as a whole? Moreover, even if all
things in the world are caused, this may not be true
of the world itself, because no one knows whether
the whole is sufficiently like its parts to warrant
such a generalization.
This is why some people think that the faith of
Islam is not based on rational grounds. They say
that Islamic belief can be proved only through
inferential argument and not through direct
argument. They assert that in Islam there is only
secondary
rationalism
and
not
primary
rationalism. But modern science has demolished
this notion, as will be shown in the last part of this
chapter.
