Epigraph:

بَدِيعُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۖ وَإِذَا قَضَىٰ أَمْرًا فَإِنَّمَا يَقُولُ لَهُ كُن فَيَكُونُ

He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth, and when He decrees something, He says only, ‘Be,’ and it is. (Al Quran 2:117)

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

Modern cosmology now suggests that our universe came to being some 13.7 billion years ago and that there are two trillion galaxies in our universe.

The Muslims take the Quran to be the literal word of All-Knowing God. The non-Muslims either are unsure about it, don’t have an opinion on this, or may think of it as word of Muhammad, his own words or borrowed from some helper.

I am writing a series of articles on this theme, discussing one verse at a time. The first two article of this series are: Quran: Is This God Speaking or Muhammad? and: The Quran and the Expanding Universe: Is This God Speaking or Muhammad?

Creatio ex nihilo (Latin for “creation out of nothing”) is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act.^[1] It is a theistic answer to the question of how the universe came to exist. It is in contrast to Ex nihilo nihil fit or “nothing comes from nothing“, which means that all things were formed from preexisting things; an idea by the Greek philosopher Parmenides (c. 540 – c. 480 BC) about the nature of all things, and later more formally stated by Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 – c. 55 BC).

According to Maimonides, Aristotle believed that the world is eternal and that it has always existed in the form in which it now exists.[1] The God of the Bible and the Quran created from nothing or ex nihilo. While Aristotle refuses ex nihilo as well as de novo creation. Plato suggested de novo creation. Platonic view is that although the material component of the world is eternal, its form or structure was imposed by God during creation, as de novo.

The Big Bang theory may be one way for the verse, quoted as epigraph, to be true. Even if there were prior Big Bangs before our Bang some 13.7 billion years ago, it does not change the truth of this verse.

Let me now quote a commentary of the verse: “He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth, and when He decrees something, He says only, ‘Be,’ and it is.” (Al Quran 2:117) The commentary is from, The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary, by Seyyed Hossein Nasr:

Decrees translates qaḍā, which can also mean ‘to accomplish,’ ‘to complete,’ or ‘to judge.’ The creative command Be! is also found in 6:73; 16:40; 36:82; 40:68. In each case, all that is necessary to bring a thing into being is for God to say Be! In connection with the previous verse, similar language can also be found with regard to Jesus’ creation in 3:59: Truly the likeness of Jesus in the Sight of God is that of Adam; He created him from dust, then said to him, ‘Be!’ and he was; and 19:35: It is not for God to beget a child. Glory be to Him! When He decrees a thing, He only says to it, ‘Be!’ and it is. For some commentators such as al-Rāzī, the command Be! is meant to convey the ease and power by which God creates, requiring no preparation, practice, or effort. This view rejects the idea of a sequence of (1) a thing’s nonexistence, (2) God’s saying Be! and (3) its existence, since one cannot address nothing, and if something exists, it does not need the Be! in order to exist. Others say Be! neither precedes nor follows the creation of a thing, but is coterminous with it (Q). This verse is also understood as confirming that God knows things prior to their creation, and hence before their existence (Q).

This latter idea is expanded upon by Ibn ʿArabī and many members of his school, who explain that God says Be! to the forms (or “immutable essences,” al-aʿyān al-thābitah) in His Knowledge, meaning His Knowledge of His own Qualities and Attributes. That is to say, God knows what He will create and brings His Will and Power to bear upon that object of knowledge in order to create it by saying Be! Being within God’s Knowledge, it is not nothing, but neither is it yet created, nor does it possess existence. Ultimately, these views converge on the unity of God’s Knowledge, Will, and Power as His inseparable Attributes and on God’s complete self-sufficiency in relation to what He creates. Be! (kun) also corresponds to the Biblical fiat lux (“Let there be light,” Genesis 1:3) and serves to emphasize the fact that the existence of everything comes from God and His Will and that human beings do not have the power to bring anything into being out of nothing.

Muhammad, may peace be on him, could have known Aristotle’s view as well as what is in the Bible. Now, in an age of Google, I am able to quickly pick up Biblical verses about creation ex nihilo. Here they are:

• Psalms 33:6 (RSV) By the word of the LORD [i.e., not by existing matter] the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
• Isaiah 44:24 . . . “I am the LORD, who made all things . . . “
• Wisdom 1:14 For he created all things that they might exist, . . . 
• John 1:3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
• Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. . . .
• 1 Corinthians 8:6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
• Ephesians 3:9 . . . God who created all things;
• Colossians 1:16 for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and for him.
• Hebrews 2:10 . . . he, for whom and by whom all things exist . . .
• 2 Peter 3:5 . . . by the word of God [i.e., not by existing matter] heavens existed long ago . . . 
• Revelation 4:11 “. . . our Lord and God, . . . didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created.”

The Christian reading of some of the above verses is a Triune creator and John 1:3 may be suggesting Jesus to be the Creator.

Muhammad had no way to find a sublime articulation of creation ex nihilo, while busy fighting for his life and message in a defensive war. Additionally, he was not literate.

This reminds me of the opening verses of Surah Furqan:

Exalted is He who has sent the Differentiator down to His servant so that it may be a warning to all people. It is He who has control over the heavens and earth and has no offspring––no one shares control with Him––and who created all things and made them to an exact measure. Yet the disbelievers take as their gods things beneath Him that create nothing, and are themselves created, that can neither harm nor help themselves, and have no control over death, life, or resurrection.
The disbelievers say, ‘This can only be a lie he has forged with the help of others’––they themselves have done great wrong and told lies––and they say, ‘It is just ancient fables, which he has had written down: they are dictated to him morning and evening.’ Say, ‘It was sent down by Him who knows the secrets of the heavens and earth. He is all forgiving, all merciful. (Al Quran 25:1-6)

For me to demonstrate creation ex nihilo, as suggested in the above commentary of the Quranic verse by Nasr, I need Robert Lawrence Kuhn^[1] (born November 6, 1944), who is a public intellectual, corporate strategist, and investment banker. He is the author and editor of over 25 books, a columnist for major Chinese and international newspapers, and a media commentator on topics related to China. Kuhn is a recipient of the China Reform Friendship Medal and a long-time adviser to the Chinese government.^[2] He has been called “one of the Western world’s most prolific interpreters of Beijing’s policies”.^[3] He has now become a prolific producer of short documentaries, under the title Closer to Truth.

Closer to Truth is a continuing television series on PBS and public television stations, created, executive-produced, written and hosted by Kuhn, and produced and directed by Peter Getzels.^[9] The series premiered in 2000 and is in its 19th season (Closer to Truth: Cosmos. Consciousness. Meaning/God). It offers conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, theologians and scholars on topics such as cosmology, physics, philosophy of science, consciousness (brain/mind), and philosophy of religion. Kuhn’s presentation, “Asking Ultimate Questions”, serves as the foundation of Closer To Truth.^[10]

So, without further adoo, let me present one of his videos:

Now let us proceed to two other documentaries to conceptualize ‘nothing’ better:

…

The last interviewee in the above video David Bentley Hart, starting around minute 16, takes us to God as the Creator ex nihilo of our universe, as a necessity. In the concluding remarks, Kuhn raises four possibilities for why there is anything at all:

1. It is not a valid question, the laws of physics are what they are.
2. The laws of physics can bring universe into existence from quantum heavy nothing.
3. The question cannot be answered within physics and can be tackled only within philosophy.
4. The contingent series of causes, however long, should terminate into something that is an ultimate necessity.

Kuhn did not give a name for the fourth and the last possibility, while picture of David Hart played, who had made the best case for God, as a necessity. Kuhn then said that each of these possibilities is attacked by some.

Now, if we can suitably exclude the first three then in light of David Bentley Hart’s interview in the last video above, the theists have a strong case for creation ex nihilo, as stated in the Quran and Unitarian as opposed to Trinitarian reading of the Bible.

Some scientists and mathematicians take mathematics to be eternal or self existent. But, how can that be? Mathematics are like thoughts that require a conscious being for their very existence. Robert Lawrence Kuhn has created enough videos in his series, Closer to Truth, for me to demonstrate that: Laws of Nature and Mathematics are not Eternal or Platonic.

He has also been obsessed about the mystery as to what is “Nothing,” and in doing so created several videos for a theist to imagine creation ex nihilo better: Robert Lawrence Kuhn’s Videos: Why is There Anything At All?

All these extensive and obsessive discussions, in my opinion are proof enough that the Quran is literal word of God and not of Muhammad.

References

1. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/maimonides-on-the-origin-of-the-world/aristotle-and-the-arguments-for-eternity/81CE67364969F53118F488C4E43363D8