Epigraph:

Oh Prophet, when your Lord took out the offspring from the loins of the Children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves, He said, ‘Am I not your Lord?’ and they replied, ‘Yes, we bear witness.’ So you cannot say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘We were not aware of this.’ (Al Quran 7:172)

We shall show them Our signs in every region of the universe and in themselves, until it becomes clear to them that this Quran is the Truth. Is it not enough that your Lord witnesses everything? (Al Quran 41:53)

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

Robert Lawrence Kuhn is a high achiever and has been my obsession for the last few months. He, in turn, is obsessed with the questions of God, religion, Afterlife, freewill, human consciousness and why is there anything at all? His healthy obsession reminds me of the first verse quoted above as epigraph. The imprint of God is very deep in human psyche, as if in our very BIOS, to use a metaphor from personal computers. We simply cannot shake off God from our thinking especially as we get older and approach our mortality. Born in 1961, I am 16 years younger than Kuhn but can easily step into his shoes.

He has interviewed the top theologians of the Abrahamic faiths, philosophers, mathematicians and scientists in pursuit of these questions and has made almost 5000 videos.

I am using the theistic interviewees and refuting some of the atheistic interviewees to present my case for Muslim theism, freewill and Afterlife. The question naturally pops up that something which I find so useful and worth preserving, hasn’t apparently helped Kuhn in the direction of theism. Why is that?

I believe that a few clips from his own collection reveal the secret. Firstly, his interaction with Sarah Coakley, who also happens to be an insightful Anglican priest. This interview is part of the following longer video and she is the first interviewee:

Next we meet Rebecca Newberger Goldstein to understand what is belief:

We prioritize certain ideas or certain beliefs and refute others based on those but this process could lose objectivity or truth sometimes. In the above video Kuhn confesses some of his biases as well.

Kuhn has set the bar too high for himself in pursuit of truth with capital T, he asks for a direct sign or miracle from God and then goes on to saying that even if he received a celestial email or a miracle, he will not believe it:

God has a model of guiding mankind through the prophets and does not offer miracles on demand. For example, Allah says in the Quran:

No messenger have We sent before you [Muhammad] who did not eat food and walk about in the marketplace. But We have made some of you a means of testing others –– will you stand fast? Your Lord is always watching. Those who do not fear to meet Us say, ‘Why are the angels not sent down to us?’ or ‘Why can we not see our Lord?’ They are too proud of themselves and too insolent. (Al Quran 25:20-21)

Can the Quran with its most progressive and the best commentaries, not the fundamentalist ones be a guide for Kuhn? He has interviewed Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Hamza Yusuf at length. I want to present humbly my attempt of a Quranic commentary as well, where I have obsessed over science and Quran correlation: TheQuran.Love.

Let me also introduce to him a translator of the Quran, who came from the Jewish background: Muhammad Asad.

I hope and pray that some day Kuhn rises to live within the Divine model rather than proposing and demanding one of his own making. I hope some day he benefits as much from his own 5000 videos as I have from them.

So long!

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