سید عبدالله حسینی

سلسله نشست های دوره "فلسفه عقاید؛ نگاهی منطقی و استدلالی به دین" توسط حجت الاسلام و المسلمین دکتر سید عبدالله حسینی با حضور دانشجویان غیر ایرانی و خارجیان مقیم تهران و ایرانیان علاقمند به زبان انگلیسی در روزهای پنجشنبه بعد از اذان مغرب و عشاء (نیمه دوم سال) با اقامه نماز جماعت و قرائت دعای کمیل در تالار اشراق ایوان شمس برگزار می گردد

جلسه هفتم:

A'udhu Billahi min ash-shaytaan-i'r rajeem. Bismillah-i'r Rahman-i'r Raheem.

On the anniversary of the demise of our great Prophet, and the martyrdom of Imam Hassan Mojtaba, the grandson of our Prophet, and also the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Reza (as) the great 8th Imam, I would like to extend my condolences to all of you brothers and sisters. InshaAllah, let us strive for the moments we are spending here together to be full of remembrance of Allah as He is watching us, and the sawab/reward of the zikr/remembrance of Allah should be included in our program. If during this session of the program I speak for the sake of Allah, you should hear for the sake of none but Allah (SWT). InshaAllah the moments that we are spending here are going to be superb and they will be rich in rewards from Allah (SWT). One salawat please.

The topic of our discussion today is the unity of the necessary being. We have discussed the reasons and the argument of the existence of the necessary being, existence of God, followed by the characteristics of the necessary being which we discussed about last week, and tonight we are going to actually emphasize on just one more characteristic of this being, called necessary being, which for the sake of the brothers and sisters who are joining us for the first time:

Beings have been divided into three: 

1. Impossible being                           e.g. 2+2=5 ; 2 < 1 ; 3 > 4

Impossible beings are not even possible by God. Even God, please remember this is a very fine sentence that you may not have heard before, … Even God cannot perform impossible things. When something is impossible, so simple, it is impossible. Even God cannot under any circumstances do something about it. You cannot say two plus two is five if God willing, you cannot say so. So simple, it hasn’t happened.

2. Possible being

Everything which is possible, and is waiting for a reason. If there is a reason for its existence, it exists, and if not it doesn’t exist. Dinosaurs were not in existence in some part of history, there was a reason for dinosaurs to come to existence, and so they existed, and today there is a reason for dinosaurs  to not exist and so they are not existing. It depends on reason. 

3. Necessary being

Necessary being is the being whose existence is necessary. And the example we have given before, everything is sweet because of sugar, but inevitably sugar is sweet. Sugar is necessarily sweet. So philosophers instead of saying sugar say ‘necessary sweetness’, but when it comes to beings, to existence, everything exists because of God and God exists necessarily and we have proven it philosophically, and logically, and from a rational point of view we have given enough reasons, we've spent time here, and we've discussed it. 

The brothers and sisters who missed those programs can listen to the audio files if they are members of the group, please go back and listen. And if you are not a member of the group, please just provide your number today and you are going to be added to our group tonight. Brothers are here, brother Zakaria is here, my son (Mahdi) is here, brother Rabie is here… anyone can add you tonight to the group.

Now, last week we discussed about some characteristics of the necessary being. We continue that discussion on this issue, and that is another characteristic of the necessary being and that is unity.

There are some religions that talk about trinity, God being in three forms, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Our Christian brothers and sisters believe in one God in three forms, and there is also a diagram which if you look on the Internet or if you google it, you will find that there is like a proof for trinity, that when we say that the Christians say that that is one God, at the same time you can see the reflections of three lights and that is why I say it is logical to have one God and three demonstrations of one God, so that is the one idea which is actually dominating the world, majority of religious people are Christians, about 32, 33 percent of the followers of Ibrahimi religions are Christians, and then we have  about 20, 24 percent of Muslims and then the rest are the other religions. 

But now there is a problem with that diagram, first of all you know it's misleading to say only three colors are shining through that glass, it's unlimited colors, because it's just the separation of colors, as soon as you reflect it, that glass, the immediate effect of that is the separation of the  light rays from each other, and then you can see all of the layouts of light and the demonstration is very clear here. So it is not only three colors but thousands of colors.

Secondly, each will have its own color, so it is separate from the others, you can differentiate between this and the other one, so as soon as you can differentiate, then there is a body, and then there is a physic involved, and as soon as a physic is involved, then a physical thing for its existence needs a reason and as soon as you need a reason, you will be falling into the circle of possibilities, no more are you a necessary-being. And as soon as you are not a necessary-being, then you cannot be God. 

It shows that God is a compound. You can see one light there but when you reflect it there, you can see that it was not one light, it is a compound of so many colors, and we discussed about this that God cannot be a compound-being because of those reasons that we have discussed and also each one part needs the other parts, and you cannot separate these parts, they are all together, the first light which enters, the white one, it's the combination of these, and if you separate, you are not going to have the original one anymore, and the characteristics of each are going to be completely different.

The Holy Spirit and the Son definitely need God, because you cannot say that God needs the Son, Son needs the Holy Spirit, the Holy spirit needs the Son, God, God again needs the Son, the Son needs the Holy Spirit, you can't go in that circle because we discussed about that logically that is impossible. We discussed about it also before that dominoes have got a beginning and have got an end, you can't go back to the first domino, domino is only in line, one, two, three and four which go forward, they don't come backwards, one-way of course!

And between the three, the Holy Spirit and the Son are the ones which need God, so basically there is one God, because the other two need the first one, the first one doesn't need the Son, God was God before Jesus Christ was born, and God was God after Jesus Christ's crucifixion also, He remains God, He was God before the birth of Jesus Christ, He was God before the Holy Spirit and even had been created by the same God, so God is the creator of the Holy Spirit and the creator of the Son, Jesus Christ, so the Son and the Holy Spirit need God so God is One, not three, God in fact is One, not three! 

And then there's another idea concerning having two gods, specially in the Zartoshtism, the Zartoshtian religion here specially in Iran, they have got a confused philosophy, they've  realized that in this world there are evils existing, and remember we are going to talk separately about the existence of evil one night, does evil exist or not? And if evil exists, who has created it? Why should God create Satan? Why should God create Evil? What a wonderful world we are going to have without the existence of evil, so why should God even create it for us to have so many problems and tribulations and this and that... we'll discuss about it, all of them have got philosophical reasons, all of them have got answers, I'm not going to enter  that now, in its own time we are going to discuss about it.

 But they realized evil exists, they can see a lot of sicknesses, earthquakes happen, the plague comes, millions of people are dying,  poverty exists, unhealthy things exist, people are being oppressed and slaved, and the list goes on and so evil exists, and from the other side, they realize goodness also exists, and then they thought ok, God can't be the creator of evil, the God of Goodness can't be the creator of evil so we should have two Gods, one which is called Ahriman which is the God of evil, and the other one which is the creator of goodness and that is Yazdan. So we have a God of goodness and a God of evil, so they didn't go for trinity, they're talking about having two Gods which both of them are wrong and we'll discuss about that issue properly in a later session.

Okay, we've discussed about the unity of God, reasons for monotheism ,the reasons for Tauheed and the oneness of God .Those are two opinions that we've learnt about, there are a lot of other ones also, but we don't want to discuss it now. If you go to India some of them are worshipping cows ,the other one is worshipping idols ,the other one who is worshipping I don't know statues, even sometimes an ordinary person has been presented as a God, so yes thousands of gods are there .Now we are not going to discuss about this.

 The whole issue is that ok If God is one what is the reason? That is the topic that we are going to talk about.

 One simple examination , if I ask you to build a house , the greatest house, I just demand one thing, build the biggest and greatest house in the land ,how many houses can you make? Of course impossible as soon as you give the smallest space to another house then It's not going to be the greatest  So If I give you a page  and I ask you to draw a the greatest,biggest rectangle line on it, how many can you make? Only one,it's only one ,it's not possible to have two.

  And God being the greatest being , when you say Allah Akbar meaning God is the greatest ,the greatest being means whatever capacity this universe ,the existence has, God has maxed them out. His greatness is beyond measure. as we've discussed , you remember ,we said, up to this time all of these scientists have not managed to discover the smallest and biggest particle in this world.

 We received lights from a star which is eighteen billion light years away , eighteen billion light years in distance from us , eighteen billion light years is the distance from us ,Do you know what that means? When the light travels from the sun and reached the earth , It is only eight seconds , eight seconds , the same light travelled eighteen billion light years, It means the star was born and It is dead now but the light of the burst of that sun arrived to us now ,that is the extent ,and If technology allows when we reach the same planet ,to the same star ,then those people who are dead , they say ,you are right at the beginning of the universe you are just right at the beginning , because there is so much more to discover ,so immediately when you say God is the greatest ,you can't be the greatest if you are limited , you have to be one ,the greatest has to be one.

 If they are two,so if he is not one he is two , then definitely they have to be different form each other, imagine having two gods , two necessary beings ,two almighty , two powerful beings , imagine having two , they can't be exactly like each other. Why? Two things ,if they are from every aspect exactly like each other, they are one, if two things from every aspect exactly like each other, they are actually one, imagine two pictures, one picture that side , one picture has this side exactly like each other, but no they are not exactly like each other. Why ? Because one is pasted on the left and the other is pasted on the right , they are not exactly like each other. But If you take that one ,you copy ,you don't copy ,you delete ,you can cut and paste over the other one to occupy exactly the same space also then you have one picture, you can't imagine having two things from every aspect exactly like each other they should be different, there should be a means to differentiate, they should be something different between the two same one and two and if there is nothing to differ , then there is one , definitely ,for one hundred percent 

Sure all logical people say It is one not two things ,now if that is the case ,then those differences should be something we should differentiate. 

We have to select: God number one and God number two. One is yellow, the other one is red. One is more powerful than the other one is less powerful. One has created 7 billion people the other one has created 6 billion 7 hundred 53 thousand so many. One has created a more intelligent creation and the other one is less intelligent. (So) there created the sun with 4000 degree heat the other one did not manage to get much energy in the other planet so he had a little bit or maybe more, he should be different. One has been given more intelligence so there should be a difference between these two Gods.  One is bigger; the other one is more powerful. The other one is more intelligent. One has existed before the other one has existed less. One is older. The other one is younger.  There should be a difference to differentiate between the two Gods. That has to also be realized. 

Now, if the one that is more powerful decides to do something he cannot because God number two will want to disturb it. God number two says that I've got technology and want to increase the number of my creatures from 6 billion and so many to 10 billion. God number one realizes (and may say) “that could be harmful to my kingdom and I would not allow” and he is able to control. So he is God. Because he can control the other one and he was not able to do what he wants. So God is one. If the one decides to do something, the other one cannot prevent it, and then the second one is God. If the second one can prevent the decisions of the first one, then he is the God. So simple, at the end of the day you cannot have two Gods. God has to be one.

Then if you read Shakespeare’s articles, no matter where, if you are the person who knows literature as soon as you read, you say this has to be Shakespeare’s. Even if you read a quote of Shakespeare written in a book by Mr. B still you can recognize it.

Like writing of Dr.Shariati you’ll say it’s the type of/style of writing of Dr. Shariati or Jalal Alahmad or Simin Daneshvar or this one or that one. You recognize it by the style of the writing of the person. That this poetry looks like Ferdowsi. By reading the text, even if you don’t know this is Ferdowsi, you recognize it because you know the style of Ferdowsi. Because he's got one style in the whole book. By that style you can realize that one was involved. If you look at the universe, you see there is again one style. Wherever you go, the gravity is there. Wherever you go the philosophy of cause and effect is there. Wherever you go everything needs the other one. Wherever you go there is a type of relationship between the planets around the world. Wherever you go there are the same formulas. Water doesn’t change. If you go to America water will boil at 100 degrees. If you go to South Africa water will boil at 100 degrees. It doesn’t change. 

So if there were two Gods then there were 2 laws, two styles of running the whole show. One says I like the distance between moon and the sun be this much, the other one says “No. this is what I have decided.” The One God says my creatures should have 150 years of life, the other says for me 70 is enough. Should be two styles. But where ever we go we find 1 style. You go to the moon, sun, mars, you go to the spiritual world, physical world, everything you discuss/study there is only one hand working and you realize that the creation has got only one creator not two. In the whole world there is only one style. If there were two, there would be a difference in creation. 

The other one argument says, this is called borhan-al-sediqin- the truthful ones’ argument God is the  necessity being, that we've all already proven,we discussed and fully understood why we say God is a necessary being. We also know based on the arguments that we presented before that necessary being has to be absolute, not a compound, not needing any part of its existence. Then an absolute being cannot be limited. As soon as you are absolute then you should not be limited. As soon as you are limited you cannot be absolute. If there are two Gods then each of them should have a creation, then if you have a creation here you actually in another world you have created limitation for the other God. Occupation of a second God by its creation gives limitation for the first God to experience his kingdom. So you actually limit his environment. You invaded his kingdom. And now he is not complete absolute God. So there has to be one God. In his kingdom there should be no limitation. So because there is God, and this God is one, we have one natural ruling in the whole world and necessary being has to be one.