Kalam Cosmological Arguments of Huduth and Imkan in light of Modern Scientific Discoveries

Humankind has grappled with the questions surrounding God, life, and creation for as long as we can remember (Gülen 2006, 3-4). Historically, philosophers and theologians have sought to produce systematic and rigorous arguments to rationally prove the existence of the Divine through the means of logical deduction (Gök 2018, 10). One such argument that has been synthesized is that of the kalam (the Islamic theology), a cosmological argument which has provided a historical and modern basis for those seeking to validate the existence of God (Gök 2018, 10-13). This argument has come under particular examination in contemporary circles where modern scientific discoveries are seen to both challenge, and support, the existence of God and hence establish a valid basis upon which to argue either case. This essay will thus seek to discuss the validity of the kalam cosmological argument, and its subsets, in relation to two modern scientific discoveries: the Big Bang theory, and the concept of virtual particles.

The kalam cosmological argument consists of two subset arguments: the huduth (cosmological) argument and the imkan (contingency) argument (Craig & Moreland 2009, 101-102). Historically, notable Muslim theologians, such as Imam Al-Ghazali, utilized this argument as a testament to the proof of God’s existence (Copan & Craig 2017, 5-7). Within the modern Western philosophical and theological context, this theory has been refined by the works of William Lane Craig (Waters 2015). Regarding the huduth (cosmological) argument, Craig summarised the premise of the argument as follows: the universe either had, or did not have, a beginning; if the universe had a beginning then it was either caused or not caused; if there was a cause then this was because of an external and powerful being (Doko 2018). As can be inferred, the argument is based on a question of origins, causality, and in regard to the two preceding arguments, validating that the cause of the universe is external.

In assessing the validity of the huduth argument, the Big Bang theory can be utilized. In modern science, the Big Bang theory has been established as the leading paradigm for the origins of the universe (Paulson et al, 2015). The theory purports that the universe, and all that is contained within it, had a singular starting point whereby from this singularity, the universe has been inflating for what has been calculated as 13.8 billion years (Gonzalo 2008, 207-240). The first premise of the huduth argument is one of origins. The Big Bang postulates that the universe was derived from a singular starting point, with the key being that it indeed had a starting point. Scientists have been able to calculate the age of the universe through utilising data obtained through calculation and observation (Paulson et al, 2-3). In knowing that the universe has an age, and therefore a beginning, one can thus logically deduce that it must have had a point of origin. This complies with the first component of the huduth argument in that the universe indeed must have had a “beginning,” thus validating the first premise.

The Big Bang theory also complies with the second premise of causality. It is accepted by scientists and philosophers alike that in order for an effect to manifest itself within the natural world, there must be a cause to bring about the effect (Rabins 2013, 6-25). Upon accepting the first premise that the universe had a beginning, the universe itself must, therefore, be the manifestation or effect of a preceding cause. Though models such as Stephen Hawking’s “no-boundary-proposal” have been theorized to provide contradictory explanations for the causation of the universe, these have been later disproven by physicists (Wolchover 2019). In this regard, the notion that the universe came into existence without a cause is not logical, thus validating the second premise of the huduth argument.

The last premise argues that once it is accepted that the universe has a cause then this cause must be an external, all-powerful being. Studies into the observed universe are based largely on natural laws and observations that are measurable (Paulson et al, 2-3). Any cause beyond these natural laws of the known universe would thus be “unnatural” and potentially Divine (Ergi 2015). Though the multiverse theory has been proposed as an alternative to a transcendent, external being, the fact still remains that there logically must have been a first universe with an external cause that would then cause the proceeding universes that follow. As such, the third premise of the huduth argument proves itself to be valid, thus validating the argument as a whole.

In addition to the Big Bang, the theory of virtual particles can be used to attest to the validity of the huduth argument. Virtual particles are quantum fluctuations that shift between observed existence and non-existence (Daywitt 2009, 27-28). Historically thought to be empty and full of “nothing,” the vacuum of space has been theorised to contain these finite particles [16]. Through calculation, virtual particles come into existence with a measurable beginning and not out of what appears to be nothing (Jaeger 2009, 144). Physicists have conceived that the particles themselves are in fact not independent, rather that they rely on other quantum interactions and certain laws of physics in order to manifest (Falkenburg 2007, 258-260). In this regard, they have a beginning point of origin. As such, they can be seen to comply with the first premise of the huduth argument. Though virtual particles do appear to come in-and-out of existence there are a number of causal factors that must provide the right conditions for their appearance such as the vacuum-like conditions of interstellar space, the interactions of surrounding “real” particles as well as the mass of these “real” particles (Falkenburg 2007, 58). It is thus perceivable that the particles are caused by several factors and do not come into existence out of non-existence without a cause which adheres to the second premise. The third premise of the huduth argument points to an external cause or creator. As was argued above, virtual particles have a cause and this cause is external to themselves. They cannot create themselves from nothingness and manifest due to the interactions of the real particles around them, which give rise to conditions that are conducive to their appearance. As such, this complies with the logic of the third premise of the huduth argument, as virtual particles require external causes in order to come into existence. Thus, the validity of the huduth argument holds firm when applied to this concept.  

The example of the Big Bang Theory and the concept of virtual particles can also be used when assessing the validity of the imkan (contingency) argument. This argument posits that everything that exists is either necessary or contingent (Ergi, 9). When classified as contingent, it is postulated that something can either exist or not exist, and that if it does exist then this existence is dependent upon factors that are external to it (Gülen 2006, 3-4). The idea that creations within the known universe are contingent is logical, as it can be deemed that nothing exists without a cause (Doko 3-4). In this regard, it is possible to say that contingent items within the universe, including the universe itself, are dependent upon that which is “necessary” and outside of themselves (Yaran 2003, 181-187). The Big Bang Theory provides a solid basis on which to assess the validity of the imkan argument. Everything within the universe originated from that moment, thus the universe is perceivable as having temporal existence (Walles 2016). In being a temporal entity, it is thus contingent on a cause that is external to itself. It would seem illogical that time, space, energy, and matter created themselves as they are contingent elements devoid of consciousness and reliant on physical laws hence would not have been able to exist beyond the Big Bang prior to it occurring. As such, the universe, being contingent and unable to necessitate its own existence, must have been created by a necessary agent. Though this necessary agent has been speculated to be a preceding universe, such as in the multiverse theory, this would propel reality into an infinite regress, a chain of causes contingent on the one before it, a notion deemed to be implausible (Yaran, 181-183). Accordingly, these multiverses would also have to be temporal in disposition and hence the same issue of an eventual point of origin manifests. The logical conclusion is thus that the necessary agent must exist beyond what is known, namely a transcendent being that is beyond temporality and materiality, and thus the logic of the imkan argument is valid.

This principle is similarly seen within the example of virtual particles. These particles are observed to come in-an-out of existence within the vacuum of space (Jaeger, 144). However, this activity is contingent upon necessary conditions, such as the existence of the vacuum itself, quantum interactions based upon the uncertainty principle, as well as surrounding real particles (Greene, 424-425). If any of the aforementioned factors were not present then the existence of virtual particle would only be a probable outcome and not a necessary outcome, similar to that of the universe, in a way that these particles do not necessitate their own existence and are dependent on an external and necessary cause. In this regard, the concept of virtual particles demonstrates the validity in the logic of the imkan argument thus demonstrating the validity of the kalam cosmological argument.

The success of whether an argument is logically valid can be assessed based on the plausibility of the premise presented by the argument (Doko, 4). As is evident, the kalam cosmological argument has been examined with a discussion of its two subset arguments. These arguments have been contrasted against the two scientific discoveries of the Big Bang Theory as well as the concept of virtual particles. Evidently, by its very nature, the kalam cosmological argument is based on sound deductive logic where both its branches contain premises that reach their respective conclusions using logic and rationality. As such, the kalam cosmological argument proves itself to be valid and this has been exemplified by superimposing the matrix of this argument onto real, modern-day scientific discoveries.

REFERENCES

• Copan, Paul and Craig, William Lane. The Kalam Cosmological Argument: Philosophical Arguments for the Finitude of the Past. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=LtI2DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Kalam+Cosmological+Argument:+Philosophical+Arguments+for+the+Finitude+of+the+Past&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjuxfDOt5fpAhU4lEsFHePeBNIQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
• Craig, William Lane and Moreland, James Porter. The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2009. https://www.difa3iat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/William_Lane_Craig__J._P._Moreland_The_BlackwellBookZZ.org_.pdf
• Daywitt, William. “The Source of the Quantum Vacuum.” Progress in Physics 2, 1 (2009): 27-28, http://www.ptep-online.com/.
• Doko, Enis. “Kalam Cosmological Argument and the Modern Science.” Kader 16, 1 (2018): 3, doi: 10.18317/kaderdergi.417640.
• Ergi, Omer Atilla. 2015. Is it Possible to Conclusively Prove the Existence of God? Melbourne: Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilization Charles Stuart University
• Falkenburg, Birgitte. Particle Metaphysics: A Critical Account of Subatomic Reality. Berlin: Springer, 2007.https://books.google.com.au/books?id=EbOz5I9RNrYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Particle+Metaphysics:+A+Critical+Account+of+Subatomic+Reality&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7lt3f8JbpAhWKc30KHbIcDNwQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
• Gok, Hakan. Atheism or Theism? The Perspective of Said Nursi. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2018.
• Gonzalo, Julio. The intelligible universe: an overview of the last thirteen billion years. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 2008. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csuau/reader.action?docID=1193384&ppg=222
• Greene, Brian. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory Surrey: Vintage, 2000.
• Gulen, Fethullah. The Essentials of the Islamic Faith. Sommerset, New Jersey: The Light Inc., 2006.
• Jaeger, Gregg. “Are Virtual Particles Less Real?. ” Entropy 21, 2 (2009): 144, doi: 10.3390/e2102014.
• Paulson, Steve., Albert, David., Holt, Jim and Turok, Neil. “The origins of the universe: why there is something rather than nothing?,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 13611, 1 (December 2015): 2-17, doi: 10.1111/nyas.12859.
• Rabins, Peter. The Why of Things: Causality in Science, Medicine and Life. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csuau/reader.action?docID=1103422
• Walles, Mathew. “The Existence of God- According to Muslim Theologians and Thinkers.” Fountain Magazine, 1 May, 2016. https://fountainmagazine.com/2016/issue-111-may-june-2016/the-existence-of-god-according-to-muslim-theologians-and-thinker
• Waters, Benjamin Victor. “Toward a new kalam cosmological argument.” Cogent Arts and Humanities 2, 1 (2015): 2, doi: 10.1080/23311983.2015.1062461.
• Wolchover, Natalie. “Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No Beginning.” Quantamagazine, Jun 6, 2019. https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-debate-hawkings-idea-that-the-universe-had-no-beginning-20190606/.
• Yaran, Cafer S. Islamic Thought on the Existence of God. Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2003. https://fountainmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IIA-16-Contents-4f8.pdf

Atheism or Theism: The Perspective of Said Nursi, Wipf & Stocks
By Hakan Gok
2018
9781532646799

The existence of God has been long debated in philosophical circles. Mankind doesn’t seem to have settled the question yet. Although scientific circles almost all agree on the assumption that the universe is not eternal and has a beginning, there seems to be no clear scientific explanation of the Big Bang. What was there before it? How did it happen? Is there a divine force behind it? Although theories such as the expansion of the universe are commonly agreed upon, there is still a major gap between the views on how life as we see it came into its current form.

Philosophers have gathered around two philosophical positions to explain the universe and human existence. Those who argue that the universe began with the Big Bang and life has come into existence as a result of some random events without any divine intervention are considered to be atheists. Others, who argue that the universe is the product of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving deity, are called theists. Arguably almost all thinking human beings are inclined towards one of these two positions, although the degrees and the specific philosophical positions are varied. While atheism had never been a trend almost until the seventeenth century, the theistic view, which was the mainstream thought, did not really concern itself much to bring evidence for the existence of God. Although there has been a very dynamic discussion on this topic in the last three centuries, one tends to accept belief in the existence of God as a matter of personal conviction rather than a result of empirical evidence.

Hakan Gok’s recent book is another fresh contribution to this everlasting debate. Gok explains the scene to the layman in his fairly extended introduction. It is, in a way, an executive summary of what has been said since the time of the Ancient Greeks. The book gives a special emphasis on the kalam version of the argument for the existence of God, in particular the views of Al Kindi, Al Farabi, Ibn Sina, Al Ghazzali, and Ibn Rushd. Although the kalam arguments sound fairly similar to that of the Western tradition, the reader can feel the flavor of Islamization of these common arguments. It is clear in Gok’s writings that there is a close correlation between Western and Islamic ways of arguing in favor of theism. The book also shows how Muslim philosophers, particularly the ones mentioned above, were influenced by the Ancient Greek tradition.

What is unique in Gok’s book is the fact that it examines Said Nursi’s approach to atheism and theism, as Nursi extensively did in the Risale-i Nur (The Epistles of Light). Gok tries to demonstrate that, like many of his predecessors, Nursi employed main philosophical arguments to prove that there is God and the universe is not the product of chance. The teleological argument, or the argument from design, which is the offshoot of the cosmological argument, is Nursi’s main proof to demonstrate the existence of God. Gok breaks down Nursi’s design argument and scrutinizes it thoroughly. Arguments from religious experience and from revelation appear in two different chapters in Gok’s book. The book seems to be at pains to demonstrate how Nursi gives a twist to these two arguments by focusing intensely on Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and the Quran.

Gok’s book doesn’t only focus on proving that these two arguments make a compelling argument for believing in God, but also studies how Nursi answers the skeptical questions posed over time by many thinkers. It feels more like a defense of Nursi’s position than a systematic presentation of them as they appear in William Lane Craig and the like.

The moral argument is another Nursian way of proving the existence of God, as Gok’s book shows. Human beings are the best judges of any given situation. If all the philosophical arguments fail to convince them, their primordial conscience (wijdan) can lead them into believing in a creator-maintainer God. This, Gok claims, is what makes Nursi’s Risale-i Nur unique among many pieces written on the subject.

Gok’s book puts all the main theistic arguments, kalam arguments, and the atheist’s arguments into the same frame. Readers can clearly see all three positions and where Nursi sits on this spectrum. Gok does not only look at the historic arguments, but also analyzes recent ones. Specifically, he compares Nursi’s views in the Risale-i Nur with Richard Dawkins’s views in The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens’s in God Is Not Great, and Daniel C Dennetts’s assessments in Consciousness Explained: Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and Breaking the Spell. In a well-balanced and fairly objective way, Gok puts the arguments against each other and encourages the reader to form their own judgement.

Atheism and theism are two colossal schools of thought. One should not expect Gok to settle all the scores in 270 pages. His work is easy to read and easy to understand; it merely rekindles one’s interest in independently reading and scrutinizing these thoughts while also making the subject more digestible for those who have an interest in them. Gok sums up Nursi’s position in the Risale-i Nur with a degree of critical analysis.

Each of the Nursian arguments certainly deserve further scrutiny. Yet Gok works to avoid bogging readers down with too many specific philosophical details. Among many books which have been published on the subject, Gok’s makes the subject more enjoyable and digestible for the general readership. It is a fresh contribution to the literature written on Said Nursi’s Risale-i Nur and the subject of theism and atheism.

Now I am going to ask you a “Fill in the Blank” question. There are political, economic, cultural, oppressive, feminist-based, family guidance-based, place of birth-based, religious, sociological reasons why woman… (Fill in the blank with: Cover or not cover their hair)

To understand the issue of head covering it is important to realize not all women choose to cover or not cover based on the same reasons. For example a woman may cover simply because she was born in a village in Sivas, Turkey, and this may come naturally. She will see it as something people in her family have been doing for hundreds of years, and might not even give a second thought to the practice. A woman born in Utah, USA may not cover because she has never seen anyone doing it in her family and might not even think about it. Both of these women are not consciously given decisions. They are just the way they are.

Another example may be that a woman in Pakistan, going to a more religious school, may cover not to stand out because she is afraid of peer pressure. And a woman in England going to a liberal school may be afraid of covering because she will stand out and be subjected to a different form of peer pressure.

In different sects of Christianity, Judaism, or Sikhism women may choose to cover their hair. Similarly, they may choose to shave their head if they are practicing Buddhism. Some Muslim women may cover, and others may not. So as you see, the argument about to cover or not to cover is really endless, and as far as I am concerned, is a time consuming debate which could go both ways depending on who is arguing it, and why they are arguing it. Arguments will usually take people nowhere because people going into the argument already have a predetermined opinion. During an argument, the only thing they are focusing on is defeating their opponent. So they are constantly thinking of coming up with new ways to prove why “they are right”, and even if they have not been able to convince their opponent by the end of the argument, they have convinced themselves even further by finding 100 more reasons on why “they are right.” So no, I am not here to offer you my argument on the topic. But instead I am here to share. I will share why I choose to cover and what I feel when I cover, realizing this is utterly personal. I am not speaking on behalf of all Muslim women, nor am I speaking on behalf of what is the right thing to do. I am speaking on behalf of my experience with the Muslim veil; so I can grow, and perhaps you can grow, and by the end perhaps we might be a little more inspired compared to our starting point before this article.

I come from an international family, so I was not raised Muslim. I embraced Islam at the age of 22, only a couple of years ago. My encounter with Islam didn’t come from my family or friends, but it was rather personal. I see it as something that was meant to be and so it happened.

In the days when I used to do makeup and my hair, I would say I could bring some attention to myself; yet no matter how much I dressed up, there was always a woman more beautiful than me in my immediate surroundings. Before submitting to Islam, I did try to compete and shine and draw attention, and I really think that was necessary for me to understand the meaning behind veiling.

It happened very suddenly. I was a student, doing my bachelor’s in the USA. I didn’t really think about it, nor did I really weigh the consequences. One night, I was turning in my bed, from left to right, right to left, unable to sleep and the next day I went out of the house with a black scarf on my head combined with a Victoria’s Secret hoodie and loose jeans, to meet my friend. I texted my friend before meeting her; my text said: “Hey, so I don’t want to shock you, but I am coming to meet you with a Muslim head scarf.” So that is how my story started. But I am not writing to tell you my story; I want to write about the state of worship I feel after I covered.

There is no doubt that female beauty was created by God in such a manner that it almost screams out the beauty of the Divine. And yet, just as many ideologies such as Feminism have pointed out, female beauty and sexuality has been turned into a matter of pure arrogance between woman, dictated by an industry run by men, whose only desire is to make money out of it. To use it and abuse it. Unfortunately, something so Divine, has been turned into something so shallow. They have used it to sell their products and they have used it to control power. And I had bought their story: this is how I know the amount of damage it can cause to a woman. Because it also damaged me. A lot.

I was created fairly beautiful, but instead of being thankful for it, I always competed with it. Sexuality and beauty had turned into things I would compete for, things that I would look at jealously in other women, and realize other women envied in me. It was a cruel competition, when women’s magazines constantly bombarded me beauty products, fashion, surgical and non surgical ways to beautify myself so that I could hold my man’s eyes upon myself. Things I needed to do so he wouldn’t cheat on me. Then I would turn the page, simply turn one thin layer of paper to come across an article about self confidence and the keys to feel beautiful and sexy the way you are. Between two millimeters of thickness lay two incredibly huge concepts that women have been enslaved to. We’ve produced this race that nobody will ever win; and that is the exact point of producing it in the first place. Feeding our ego that makes us feel so good when we declare our beauty to the world, and betrays us when something better comes along.

My aim with my veil is to internalize the philosophy of Rumi, who said, “Die before you die.” I tell myself: “It’s ok, there is no race, step aside. Be humble. Keep your beauty within. Liberate yourself from things that don’t matter. Be afraid that one of your sisters may feel pain in her heart because she feels less because of your beauty. Understand that the most precious creation in this Universe is a human heart. Be sensitive toward the women who have lost their families because of the cruel sexuality games. Be sensitive to those who are going through the pain of anorexia. Care for the ones who are depressed because of their weight. Care for the women who have been used and abused by rich business man only to be thrown away like a piece of garbage and who are feeling lost and empty inside. Don’t judge the women who don’t cover. Don’t judge women who have sexual relationships in return for money. Don’t judge anorexic women trying to models. But instead, care for them. Be sensitive to their feelings, to their inner battles. Step aside from the silent completion that is going on between them, hide your sexuality and let women who are in the competition feel safe in your presence. Be their shelter. Allow her to look at you and know that you are out of the game. Try to give her a moment of peace while she is with you because only God knows the struggles she is going through. Suppress your ego. Know that your value does not depend on how you look but depends on your spirituality. Take every part of ego in your heart and crush it. Crush your desire to be superior to other human beings, in every single aspect. Internalize it in every possible aspect of your life, including spirituality, physical beauty, success, fame or money. Love them, care for them, nourish them. So before going out from your house, first wear your veil over your heart that will protect it from the evil in the world, then complete it with your physical veil. Be at peace. Smile like the Virgin Mary…”

And quite surprisingly, when I was in the Western world, the moment I tried smiling like Mary, I would encounter people acting like Jesus. I am in no means saying veiling is the only way to accomplish this, but I am saying that veiling, together with other practices, has led me to this path and I am very thankful for it. Veiling has become a means of healing for my heart. And for the first time in my life, I felt satisfied with how I looked, which led to self confidence and internal peace. No matter what I say, I can’t express myself better than Rumi did, so I will finish with a quote from him:

“With God two ‘I’s cannot form. You say ‘I’ and he says ‘I’. Either you die before him, or let him die before you, then duality would not remain. But it is impossible for him to die, either subjectively or objectively, since he is the ever living God, the undying. He possesses such gentleness, that if it was possible, He would die before you so that duality may vanish. But since it is impossible for him to die, you die, so He may manifest himself to you and duality may vanish.”

Many articles and books have been published to refute Dawkins’ opinions, but most of them focus merely on defending the author’s own religion or sect of religion. I would like to take a different approach: pass Dawkins’s claims through the test of reason without invoking any religious references, and see how they withstand critical scrutiny.

Richard Dawkins, the author of The Selfish Gene, has gained even more public prestige since his latest book, The God Delusion, became a best seller worldwide. This book has become the most popular tract on atheism in recent times. However, its popularity is due neither to its originality, nor its academic quality, but rather to the nature of its rhetoric. The God Delusion is written in a passionate, provocative, merciless and often bullying voice. The kind of writing he adopts creates fury in the hearts of many religious people and a joy among many atheists; and from this ability to arouse readers’ emotions comes the popularity of the book, at the cost of furthering division and hatred between believers and non-believers.

Despite the media’s excitement, Dawkins’ claims are mostly repetition of very old arguments against religion and God’s existence, put in a different context, and supported with different examples. Many articles and books have been published to refute Dawkins’ opinions, but most of them focus merely on defending the author’s own religion or sect of religion. I would like to take a different approach: pass Dawkins’s claims through the test of reason without invoking any religious references, and see how they withstand critical scrutiny.

Dawkins’ claims in the book can be reduced to two thesis statements.

1. Religion is evil.

2.“There almost certainly is no God” (p. 137).

The logical reasoning he uses to prove his first thesis statement is poor and biased. He points to some Christian fanatics who burn down abortion clinics and concludes that Christianity is evil because it inspires individuals to perform such despicable acts of violence. According to this same faulty logic, Islam is evil because some terrorists and suicide attackers who claim to be Muslims participated in the September 11 attacks. To Dawkins, it does not matter if there are billions of well-behaved Christians and Muslims who are motivated by religion to become better human beings. By this logic, if billions of people drink water from the same water source for centuries and in that time just a few among them fall ill, then the source of illness must be the water. Had Dawkins approached the matter like a true scientist and carefully examined the scientific studies on violence, he would have learned that violence has almost nothing to do with faith, and that terrorists are rarely motivated by religious beliefs, but rather by political and nationalistic impulses. One such study was conducted by Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago. Pape has compiled the most comprehensive data on suicide bombings and attacks around the globe over the past twenty years. He published his broad study, which analyzed the root causes of such attacks, in a book called Dying to Win and summarized his findings as follows: “The data show that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions. In fact the leading instigators of suicide attacks are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are from Hindu families but who are adamantly opposed to religion. … Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland.”¹

While scientific studies such as Pape’s prove that a it is a specific set of factors unconnected with religion that leads to violence, it is peculiar to see Dawkins make the unjustified claim that “Only religious faith is a strong enough force to motivate such utter madness” (p. 343).

The fact that the greatest atrocities in human history have been committed by non-religious leaders such as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, or by non-religious groups like the Tamil Tigers, does not alter his conviction. In claiming that “. . . atheists may do evil things but they don’t do evil things in the name of atheism” (p. 315), Dawkins may persuade himself of this double standard, but, the true, logical conclusion regarding evil is an obvious one. If non-religious people do as much evil as (if not more than) religious people, then we cannot blame religion for the actions of a few evil-doers who happen to be, or claim to be religious, especially if billions of other people subscribing to the same religion condemn these acts.

This much suffices to demonstrate the fallacy of his first thesis statement and we now move to his next claim which is about the existence of God.

Definition of God

To be consistent in discussion we should adhere to a common definition. The concept of God used in this article is not the perception of God according to any particular religion. It is God as defined by Dawkins himself. Dawkins defines God as “a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it” (p.52). Although the word “superhuman” is vague and undefined, I accept the rest of the definition as the basis for our discussion.

Dawkins starts with an attempt to reduce the question of the existence of God to a scientific problem and to show that the probability of God’s existence is far less than fifty percent.

What is the probability of God’s existence?

Can we prove God’s existence or non-existence by scientific methods? Dawkins’ definition makes the answer to this question an obvious “No!” How can one make conclusions about a “supernatural” being by using only physical methods? Many philosophers consider the “existence of God” to be neither provable nor disprovable with scientific methods and mathematical certainty. Dawkins is not so naïve as to directly claim otherwise, but he dances around this generally accepted principle by introducing the concept of probability: “Even if God’s existence is never proved or disproved with certainty one way or the other, available evidence and reasoning may yield an estimate of probability far from 50 percent” (p. 73). This is a statement that clearly demonstrates Dawkins’ lack of knowledge in the field of probability, as well as his desperate need to score some points in an otherwise losing argument.

How does one estimate a probability? If I toss a coin and ask you what the probability of tails is, you might be tempted to say fifty percent. But are you sure? How do you know the coin is not irregular? How do you know I cannot toss it with such skill that the outcome is always heads? In fact, you do not know. In mathematics, there are two ways of estimating probabilities. One way is to set some assumptions, which may give you a good estimate if the assumptions are correct. In case of the coin, you may assume that it is a fair coin, with uniform weight distribution, entirely symmetrical, and that it is tossed in a completely random fashion. But if these assumptions are incorrect, the estimate will not be accurate. The second way to estimate the probability is to repeat the experiment many times and record the outcome. You may toss the coin 1000 times. If it lands tails up 300 times and heads up 700 times, then your estimate for the probability of tails would be 30 percent. This result would also show that the assumption about fairness is incorrect. To gain a true estimate would involve tossing the coin indefinitely and taking the limit of this ratio; but, such an experiment is impractical. When Dawkins tries to estimate the probability of God’s existence, he cannot use the second method, for it is not an experiment one can repeat many times. Therefore, he arrives at his conclusion by using the only remaining method: making assumptions. He makes some complicated, un-testable, and unverifiable assumptions (such as “God must have a complex structure”), and then concludes that the existence of God is highly improbable. But I could make my own assumptions and find a different probability. In fact, I could assume that God exists, and with such an assumption my estimate of probability for the existence of God would be 100 percent. In the end, whose assumptions are correct?

Who created God?

Dawkins has only one “strong” argument against God’s existence, which he repeats many times throughout the book: “Who made God?” (p. 136), “Who designed the designer?” (p. 147), “the designer himself immediately raises the bigger problem of his own origin”(p. 146). This same question is invoked repeatedly on pages 138, 147 (twice), 151, 161, 169, 171, 176, 178, 183, 186, 187, and 188. It becomes annoying after the third or fourth repetition. One keeps reading in hopes of encountering some new and fresher ideas; but all hope is vanquished by the time one flips the last page. While pondering the possible reasons for so much repetition I came across the answer within the very same pages: “if you repeat something often enough you will succeed in convincing yourself of its truth” (p. 394).

Dawkins believes that this question is his ultimate argument against God’s existence. But, this question is far from being a new one. For instance, in Bukhari’s hadith collection (written in 846 ad), the Prophet Muhammad is quoted as having said, “A day will certainly come when some people will sit with their legs crossed and ask, ‘If God created everything, then who created God?’”² Apparently, more than a millennium later, atheists still have not come up with a better argument; they are still holding onto this thin, old thread.

Is this really a strong argument against God’s existence? If, in one’s mind, God is just a complex being, such as “the ultimate Boeing 747”(p. 138) airplane in the sky, then this might be a meaningful question to ask. But when one defines God as the Being who created everything – as all Christians, Jews, Muslims, and many Hindus and Buddhists do – then, by definition He is not created; He would not be God if He had been. This idea is best demonstrated by a metaphor.3 In a moving train, each car is seemingly pulled by the one before. But the locomotive is not pulled by anything, and it pulls all the other cars. The question, “Who pulls the locomotive?” is meaningless because the locomotive does not need to be pulled. The concept of “being pulled” simply does not apply to the locomotive. Similarly, in the infinite regress of creation, God is the locomotive, which makes the question, “Who created God?” meaningless. As a result, Dawkins’ argument against the existence of God, the argument that according to him makes the existence of God highly improbable, is nothing but a meaningless, paradoxical question. One could respond by saying, “The fact that a question can be phrased in a grammatically correct English sentence doesn’t make it meaningful” (p. 56).

Of course, what atheists like Dawkins truly mean by this question is: “If every form of existence needs a cause, how can God exist without a cause? And if God can exist without a cause, then why can’t the universe exist without a cause?” A logical response would be that every existence does not need a cause, but that everything that has a beginning needs a cause. The universe has a beginning; therefore, it needs a cause. According to the theory of relativity, time is a dimension of this universe. Therefore, time is also part of this nature (natural). Dawkins’ definition itself states that “God is supernatural,” which means He is beyond and above anything in this universe, including time. If that is so, then God is eternal (timeless); He has neither beginning nor end; hence, He does not need a cause.

A major portion of Dawkins’ book is devoted to addressing the anthropic principle, which is considered to be one of the strong arguments for God’s existence.

The Anthropic Principle

One version of the anthropic principle, sometimes called the strong anthropic principle, states that the laws and constants of the universe have properties that make inevitable the existence of intelligent life. Undoubtedly, we live on a life-friendly planet. Yet, the probability that a planet can be life-friendly is extremely small because a great many conditions and elements need to come together to form an environment suitable for life. For example, the planet needs to be at the right distance to the star (sun), and possess the right combination of elements, carbon, and water, the right atmospheric gases, and the right temperature. It is hard to assume all these conditions can co-exist by pure chance. This is one of the strong arguments for the existence of God. Dawkins does not answer this argument by pulling out his handy Swiss army knife, “Who created God?” but rather, by making the only other argument in his book that is worth discussing. Namely, he explains the existence of complex life on earth by the theory of evolution, and, in invoking this theory, he tries to explain how the conditions for life were established, that is, how life started on earth in the first place, for admittedly, in order for something to evolve, it needs to start evolving in suitable conditions. Dawkins’ argument against the anthropic principle is to speculate about the large number of planets. Today scientists think there are approximately one quintillion (a billion times a billion) planets in the universe, but, this number is just an approximation extrapolated from our solar system. It is not a verifiable number. “Suppose,” says Dawkins, the first life “was so improbable as to occur on only one in a billion planets. … even with such absurdly long odds, life will still have arisen on a billion planets, of which earth of course is one” (p. 138). Two major parts of this statement are flawed: the assumption involved, and the conclusion. His assumption that the probability of life starting on a planet is just one in a billion may very well be incorrect. Dawkins does not provide any justification for this assumption. Just because it sounds like a small probability does not mean we should accept it. Why one in a billion? Maybe that probability is one in a trillion times a trillion, in which case there would not even be enough planets to make the probability plausible. The second problem involves an even more profound mathematical error. In calculating probabilities, one must correctly define the sample space of events. That is to say, when considering the probability of life beginning on any given planet, our sample space is not all the planets in the universe; rather, it is only earth-like, life-friendly planets. One cannot include Jupiter in the sample space because it is known that life cannot occur on Jupiter. Hence, one would first have to estimate the number of life-friendly planets in the universe. If there are only one million life-friendly planets and the probability of occurrence of life is one in a billion, then the chance is not in favor of life. If that is so, then the occurrence of life (on earth) requires an explanation other than chance.

The inability to verify chance as a probable factor in the origin of life is, by the way, not the only weak link in evolutionary theory. Evolutionist Mark Ridley suggests in Mendel’s Demon that the origin of eukaryotic cells (cells with a nucleus, and other features, such as human and animal cells) is even a more difficult and statistically improbable step than the origin of life.4 Other similarly improbable steps, such as the origin of consciousness, have also been discussed by scientists.

Furthermore, it is evident – even to Dawkins – that we are not only living on a life-friendly planet, but also in a life-friendly universe: “the laws of physics must be friendly enough to allow life to arise. … physicists have calculated that, if the laws and constants of physics had been even slightly different, the universe would have developed in such a way that life would have been impossible” (p. 169). To answer this challenge to his argument about chance, Dawkins invokes the multi-universe hypothesis: “There are many universes like bubbles of foam, in a ‘multiverse.’ The laws and constants of any one universe, such as our observable universe, are by-laws” (p.173–174). In short, he concludes that it is possible for one of these universes to be life-friendly, and hence solves the difficulty of explaining one universe by assuming that there are many. Yet, his multiverse hypothesis is clearly not scientific; it is a belief. It is no simpler than assuming God created the universe.

So, how did the universe (or multiverse) come into existence in the first place? Physicists calculate the age of universe to be approximately 14 billion years from the time of its formation (i.e., the Big Bang); we know, therefore, that it has not been here indefinitely. Since it had a beginning, its existence requires an explanation.

The majority of the arguments in Dawkins’ latest book are poor, and in many cases based on incorrect assumptions and flawed conclusions. The writer makes colossal mistakes while discussing subjects he is unfamiliar with, such as the theory of probability. As an academic, he has no expertise in the field of sociology and yet makes grand claims about the role of religion in society. Dawkins must be seen as a popular science writer who uses his credentials as a scientist to give credibility to otherwise poor and often false theories, which are neither scientific nor objective. Atheists of the world will be indebted to him forever for being such a fanatical advocate of their ‘faith’, but those who truly seek knowledge will be able to see the shortcomings of his work very clearly..

B. H. Yenikaya holds a PhD in Mathematics.

References

• Pape, Robert. Dying to Win. Random House, New York, 2005. 4
• Bukhari, Muhammad I. “I’tisam #3” Sahih Bukhari. Kazi Publications, 1979
• Gulen, M. F. Questions and Answers about Islam. The Light Inc., 2005.
• Ridley, Mark. Mendel’s Demon. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Great Britain, 2000. 17
• Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Bantam Press, Great Britain, 2008.

Given the emphasis by the Qur’an on logical reasoning, it is understood that its audience (all of mankind) is expected to have a basic understanding of logical principles. It is our purpose in this article to go over a few basic principles of logic and give examples of how they are used in the Qur’an.

Logical principle 1: Proof by contradiction. An important aspect of logic concerns methods of proving or disproving statements. This is one of the basic principles of proving statements, and it is commonly used to prove mathematical statements. To show that a statement is true using this principle, suppose its negation is true, that is, that the statement itself is false. If you can then obtain a contradiction, something that is clearly false, this shows that the original statement is true. We shall illustrate this principle with an example. The reason we choose this example is that it is a classical result in mathematics, and the argument is beautiful. According to Hardy, this is an example of a first-class theorem about a significant mathematical fact (“a real mathematical theorem”) that is accessible to a general, educated audience (Hardy, 1967). There is a fundamental theorem in number theory which says that “there are infinitely many prime numbers.”1 There are many other proofs of this theorem but the most elementary and elegant proof is given by Euclid and it is by contradiction. Hardy claims that “both the statement and the proof can be mastered in an hour by an intelligent reader, however slender his mathematical equipment” (Hardy, 1967). Here is that proof: Suppose there is only a finite number of primes. Call them p1 , p2 , … pn. Now, consider the number N = p1 , p2 , … pn +1. Clearly, N is not equal to any of the primes in the list. Therefore, N itself is not a prime, and hence N must be divisible by one of the primes p1 , p2 , … pn (this is by “the fundamental theorem of arithmetic” which states that every integer greater than 1 can be written as a product of prime numbers). However, that is not the case: when N is divided by each one of pi there is a remainder of 1. This is a contradiction, and it arises from the assumption that there are only finitely many primes. Hence, the assumption cannot be true, and we conclude that there are infinitely many primes.

Proof by contradiction, or reductio ad absurdum in Latin, is one of the mathematician’s finest tools. There are many examples of theorems in mathematics where the simplest proof is by reductio ad absurdum. Another classical example is to show that √ is not a rational number (Hardy, 1967).

Now, we would like to give examples from the Qur’an where this logical principle is used. Consider the verse: “Had there been in the heavens and the earth any deities other than God, both would certainly fallen into ruin” (Anbiya 21:22). Here the argument is: suppose there were gods other than God. Then the earth and the heaven could not maintain their order (because the powers and wills of different gods would interfere with each other). Since this is clearly not the case (because we see perfect order in the universe), this contradicts the logical consequence of the initial assumption. Therefore, the initial assumption (i.e., there are more than one god) is wrong.

For another example, let us consider the verse: “Do they not contemplate the Qur’an? Had it been from any other than God, they would surely have found in it much inconsistency” (Nisa 4:82). Here the statement to be proven is “The Qur’an is the word of God, and it is from God.” To prove this statement by reductio ad absurdum, suppose for a moment the opposite statement is true, that is, that the Qur’an is not from God. A logical consequence of this assumption would be it is the word of a human being, but then there would be inconsistencies in it because the Qur’an talks about such great matters that if a human being had written it he would have made mistakes and inconsistent statements (for more on this point see Unal, 2007, page 228, and Nursi). However, we see no such statements in the Qur’an, thus contradicting the initial assumption. Therefore the Qur’an is the word of God.

The final example we would like to give related to this principle is expressed in the verse: “If you are in doubt about the Divine authorship of what We have sent down our servant (Muhammad) then produce just a sura (chapter) like it and call for help to all your supporters” (Baqara 2:23). Here the statement to be proven is the same as the one in the previous example. The argument goes like this: If it was possible for anybody other than God to produce the Qur’an, you should be able to make something like it with all of your supporters, if not an entire book, just a chapter of it. The Qur’an presents disbelievers with a challenge. However, they have not been able to meet the challenge. They chose to fight with the sword because fighting with words was not possible. Therefore the assumption that “the Qur’an could have been written by a human” is wrong.

Logical principle 2: The next principle we would like to discuss is the equivalence of an implication to its contrapositive. A statement of the form “If P, then Q” is called an implication. In such an implication P is called the premise, or the hypothesis and Q is called the conclusion. Such a statement asserts that whenever P is true (or satisfied) then Q is guaranteed to be true. However, if/when P is not true, it does not say anything about the truth value of Q. An example of an implication from daily life is: “If it is rainy, then it is cloudy.” Here the premise is “it is rainy” and the conclusion is “it is cloudy.” Another example would be: “If you are in New York City, then you are in the US.” A mathematical example is: “if a number n is divisible by 6, then it is even.” An implication can also be read as “P implies Q,” or written “P => Q.” The contrapositive of an implication “if P then Q” is “if not Q then not P.” For example, the contrapositive of the first implication above is “if it is not cloudy then it is not rainy,” of the second one, “if you are not in the US, then you are not in NY city,” and of the third one, “if n is odd (not even) then n is not divisible by 6.”

Here are two examples from the Qur’an where we can apply this principle. The first one is the verse we discussed above: “If you are in doubt about the Divine authorship of what We have sent down our servant (Muhammad) then produce just a sura like it and call for help to all your supporters.” We can rephrase this statement as “if the Qur’an is not the word of God, then humans can produce a like of it,” and its contrapositive is “if humans cannot produce something similar to the Qur’an, then it is the word of God.” Remember that these two statements are logically equivalent. Now, we know that humans cannot produce anything comparable to the Qur’an despite much effort and motivation, therefore it follows that it is the word of God.

The second example we want to consider is the verse: “Say (to them, O Messenger) if you indeed love God, then follow me, so that God will love you and forgive your sins” (Al Imran 3:31). The contrapositive of this statement can be stated as (slightly simplified) “if you are not following his messenger, then you really do not love God.” So, we obtain a clear measure of whether one really loves God or not. Following the Prophet is a necessary condition to attain the love of God.

Logical principle 3: The final principle we discuss is false implies anything. This is actually a special case of an implication of the form “P implies Q.” Recall that such a statement asserts that whenever P is true, Q is also true, so P promises Q. However, if P is not true then it does not claim anything about Q; it may or may not be true. For example, if it is not rainy then it may or may not be cloudy. An implication is false when P is true yet Q is false. Intuitively, we can think of this as breaking a promise. The question arises as to what the truth value of an implication should be when the premise P is false. It is accepted that the implication will be true in this case, because when the premise is false, the conclusion is totally irrelevant. This is called “false implies anything.” One can make any conclusion whatsoever based on a false premise, but it really does not mean anything. For example, the statements “if 2+2=5, then there are only finitely many primes,” and “if the world is flat, then there are no wars in the world” are both true statements. These statements are true but they really do not have any substance. They are true by a convention in logic. The important point one needs to pay attention to is this: Once you believe a premise that is not true, it is possible to make any conclusion you want and the whole argument looks right. However, such an argument is quite meaningless. So one needs to examine very carefully what is being assumed in a logical argument.

One example we want to consider from the Qur’an related to this principle is the verse: “Those who deny Our Revelations and turn arrogantly from them-for them, the gates of Heaven will not be opened and they will not enter Paradise unless a camel can pass through the eye of a needle” (A’raf 7:40). With a little simplification, we can rephrase this verse as “if a camel passes through the eye of a needle, then disbelievers will enter Paradise.” Since the premise is false (obviously, a camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle), this implication is true. However, this is not good news for disbelievers because the truth of this implication has nothing to do with the truth of its conclusion. This again shows the point: One needs to examine logical arguments carefully. What looks true or convincing formally and on the surface may not mean anything in reality if it is based on a false premise.

Nuh Aydin is an associate professor of Mathematics at Kenyon College, in Ohio, USA.

Notes

1. A positive integer n that is greater than 1 is called a prime if its only positive divisors are 1 and n. 1 is not considered to be a prime. Thus the sequence of prime numbers is 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29…

References

• Hardy, G. H. A Mathematician’s Apology, Cambridge University Press, 1967.
• Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said. The Words (translation), The Twenty-Fifth Word, Available online at http://en.nurglobal.net/modules/mastop_publish/?tac=The_Twenty-Fifth_Word
• Unal, Ali. The Qur’an with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English, The Light Inc., 2007.

Fallacy one: Literalism

A critical fallacy in the arguments of “scientific crusaders” is that their understanding of religions relies on the most primitive way of approaching a text: literalism. Any serious and “scientific” inquiry into a text requires asking certain questions such as “Who wrote this text?” “To whom was it written?” “In which context was it written?” and “Why was it written?” Yet we rarely see the aforementioned scientists using this method when they approach religious texts. Samuel Harris, for example, simply takes certain verses in the Qur’an about killing certain non-Muslims at face value and pays no attention either to the context in which these verses were revealed or to the gigantic Islamic literature on the exegesis of these verses. As such, he simply turns a blind eye to all developments in hermeneutics and uses the most primitive method of text-reading.

Samuel Harris might not be interested in finding out what Muslim scholars have thought about killing innocent people; however, he has to be aware of the fact that it is not the individuals’ own interpretations but mostly scholars’ interpretations that have shaped Muslims’ opinions on any issue. An interesting point is that there is no precedent whatsoever for suicidal terrorism in traditional Islam before the late twentieth century. There has been a solid consensus among Muslim scholars for fourteen centuries on the sanctity of human life, because the Qur’an declares unequivocally that killing an innocent person unjustly is like killing all of mankind (Maidah 5:32). Thus, the critical question becomes: if something (such as terrorism) is “inherent” in a religion (such as Islam), why did that religion not encourage that thing for fourteen centuries but suddenly started to encourage it later? Unfortunately, scientific crusaders do not seem to be very interested in this kind of question.

Fallacy two: Crime against empirics

A second fallacy of scientist crusaders is that their understanding of religion’s influence on society is highly impressionistic and lacks any credible scientific inquiry or understanding. Samuel Harris’ argument about the violent nature of European Muslim youth and Richard Dawkins’ argument regarding oppression of women in Islamic societies are purely impressionistic inferences because they totally ignore other potential factors that can also influence juvenile violence and gender discrimination. The fact that Muslim youth in Europe are also disproportionately poorer and less educated than many other groups does not seem to undermine Harris’ sense of cognitive comfort. Yet any scientist with a basic knowledge of quantitative methods knows that we cannot analyze the influence of one factor on a dependent variable independent of other related factors. Statistics tells us that we will have nothing but biased results in such control-free analysis. Indeed, Scott Atran reports a study that reveals that “religious education is a negative predictor of Muslims entering European prisons.” ⁴ If a Muslim’s becoming more religious decreases the likelihood of his or her involvement in violence, then religion is a peaceful element. If this is the case, then the root causes of violence may be a combination of the very things which Harris avoids studying.

Dawkins’ argument about oppression of women in Muslim societies suffers from the same problem. He commits the same methodological error as Harris by excluding other potential explanatory factors from his analysis. Thus, his study cannot tell us whether it is Islam or something else (such as tradition, poverty, education, etc.) that distinguishes Muslim societies from the Western Christian societies regarding the oppression of women. Fortunately, we have some other (and more scientific) studies to examine the issue. A report by UNICEF in 2000 revealed that average domestic violence is essentially no different in Christian and Muslim societies. Below is the table from this report that gives the details about domestic violence rates in different Christian and Muslim countries. According to these survey results, average domestic violence against women was 25.5% in Western Christian societies (Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States); 30% in Muslim societies (Egypt, Israeli Arabs, and Tajikistan); and 38.3% in African Christian societies (Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe). The survey results indicate that domestic violence rates in Muslim societies were higher than they were in certain Christian societies but lower than they were in other Christian societies. As such, these figures solidly refute Dawkins’ impressionistic argument and rather suggest that something other than Islam is the root cause of domestic violence in Muslim societies.

Here, Dawkins can respond, “These data do not refute my arguments entirely, only the argument that Islam encourages more domestic violence than Christianity. But the argument that both of these religions encourage domestic violence remains valid and sound.” Yet, is this really the case? If one accepts Dawkins’ argument, one must also argue that increasing religiosity of a married Muslim or Christian man should increase domestic violence in his home. It is easy to check this. We can simply ask a random sample of large numbers of married Muslim and Christian women first to grade the religiosity of their husbands on a scale of 0–10, and then ask them how often their husbands behave violently at home. Although we do not have such a study on Muslims yet, to our surprise (and to Dawkins’ shame), we already have one study on Christians, which used exactly this method. In a study of nearly 1,000 New Zealand families, Fergusson et al. (1986) found that the self-reported religious attendance of parents (both fathers and mothers) is inversely related to their self-reported perpetration of domestic assaults. They reported a graded pattern: men and women who attend services once a month or more are least likely to report being involved in domestic violence, followed by those who attend less than monthly. On the other hand, men and women who never attend religious services are much more likely than their more religious counterparts to be involved in domestic violence.⁵The findings of this earlier study were later supported by another one, which employed a more objective measure of religiosity, on American couples as well. ⁶ (Although we have yet to prove it, this relationship between religiosity and domestic violence is very likely to hold for Muslim men as well. After all, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, “The best of you is the one who treats his wife in the best manner.” ⁷) Once again, contrary to Dawkins and Harris, we find that religion is an element of peace, not violence.

It is also worth mentioning that much less crime has been reported in religious schools (imam-hatip) than in secular schools in Turkey. Naci Akay, former Istanbul Head of National Education, said there have never been any activities reported in these schools that pose a threat to public safety. Likewise, Ibrahim Solmaz and Ahmet Gundogdu, chairmen of ONDER and Egitim-Bir-Sen respectively (two civil educational organizations) said parents prefer these schools mainly because they do not have high crime rates and students are much less likely to develop bad habits like drug abuse, alcoholism, or gambling. ⁸

The holy month of Ramadan in which Muslims observe day-long fast and additional devotion, is also a time of security for the entire Muslim world: crime rates plummet in this month, and sometimes fall to zero.

Fallacy three: Avoiding the literature

Another major problem for the crusaders of science is that they completely ignore the literature on the root causes of conflict and violence. None of the major theories on domestic or international conflict emphasize religion as a central factor, let alone singling it out as the root cause of violence. The major theories explain violence as resulting from peoples’ ambition for power, from liberalism with its inevitable conflict of interests and peoples’ inability to solve them in cooperative ways, and from class conflicts. To the subscribers to any of these theories, the argument that we could minimize or eliminate violence in this world if we could substitute scientific inquiry for religious faith is simply laughable. For them, religion is at most a secondary factor and therefore its elimination does not help to address the root causes of violence. As such, scientific crusaders’ emphasis on religion as a cause of violence is misleading and unhelpful because it moves our attention away from other more influential factors which could be more successfully addressed. In this respect, the anti-religion arguments of Harris, Dawkins, and the like resemble the wishful thinking of the nineteenth-century positivists. Ironically, ignoring the real forces at work neither makes the world more peaceful nor serves these scientists’ very goal of converting people to “scientism”. The new rise of religious faith since the second half of the twentieth century indicates that science and reason alone have failed to provide sufficient answers to peoples’ metaphysical questions or solutions to their moral problems. Hence, the return to religion!

Fallacy four: Imbalanced sheet

Last but not least, we have been taught since elementary school that we should never come to a judgment on any issue without first evaluating its pros and cons. What we see in the books of Dawkins and Harris, however, are only questionably negative aspects of religions and religious people. We see no appreciation whatsoever of the virtues of religions and their positive influences on their adherents. To start with one of the most obvious, is it not intriguing enough a question for Darwinian Dawkins to ask what prevented the Muslim Moors of Spain from following the “survival of the fittest” rule and simply annihilating the Jews and Christians of the Iberian Peninsula? How rational or scientific is it to simply avoid studies that have found that “teens from intact families with frequent religious attendance were the least likely to have ever shoplifted,” ⁹ “adolescents’ religiosity was related to a decreased likelihood of delinquent behavior,” ¹⁰ “increasing individual religiosity decreased tax fraud acceptability,” ¹¹ and “regular religious attendance was inversely associated with the perpetration of domestic violence,” ¹² to name but a few? Interestingly, the books of scientific crusaders have no place for such virtuous consequences of believing in God. It seems not only religious people have dogmas!

To conclude, certain scientists’ arguments against religions in general and Islam in particular lack scientific basis and thus do not merit much scholarly attention. There might be some valid grounds to criticize religions and their adherents as they are, but, believers or not, we all deserve more holistic, more scientific, and less hostile evaluations of religions. If atheist scientists want to wage a crusade against dogma, their own would be a good place to start.

Kaan Kerem has a PhD in political science. He is a freelance writer on philosophy and scientific thought.

Notes

1. Author of The God Delusion, Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

2. Author of The End of Faith, W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.

3. http://www.edge.org/discourse/bb.html#harris.

4. http://www.edge.org/discourse/bb.html#atran.

5. Ferguson, David M., L. John Horwood, Kathryn L. Kershaw and Frederick T. Shannon (1986). “Factors Associated with Reports of Wife Assault in New Zealand.” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 46: 663–70.

6. Ellison, Christopher G. and Kristin L. Anderson (2001). “Religious Involvement and Domestic Violence among U.S. Couples.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 40(2):269–86.

7. Ibn Maja, Section: Marriage, Hadith # 50.

8. http://www.yenisafak.com.tr/arsiv/2004/mayis/31/g01.html

9. Fagan, Patrick (2006). A Portrait of Family and Religion in America: Key Outcomes for the Common Good. Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation.

10. Regnerus, Mark D. (2003). “Linked Lives, Faith and Behavior: Intergenerational Religious Influence on Adolescent Delinquency.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 42(2): 189–203.

11. Steven Stack and Augustine Kposowa (2006). “The Effect of Religiosity on Tax Fraud Acceptability: A Cross-National Analysis.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 45(3):325–51.

12. See note 7.

Optimality is defined as the “most favorable condition or greatest degree or amount possible under given circumstances.”¹ It denotes a general equilibrium in which no improvement in one part of a system is possible without a larger sacrifice in another part. Thus, optimality is not mere order; rather, it is the highest state of it. Every optimal state is also orderly, but every orderly situation does not have to be optimal. The houses that we live in are examples of this. It is quite clear that our houses are not the optimal design for a house, but they are still orderly, hence the result of intention and intelligence.

A common trend among today’s evolutionists is to consider apparent sub-optimality (or “poor design” as some put it) sufficient proof for the nonexistence of a designer (hence, God). Biologist Richard Dawkins, for example, contends that “evidence of telling imperfections” in design is important evidence that “no designer exists.”² However, there are serious problems with this argument. First, judgments about optimality require knowledge of the entire set of objectives and available means, whereas we have no complete knowledge of divine objectives as to the creation of anything. The Bible refers to this point in Job 38:4, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” Similarly, the Qur’an states, “I did not make them witnesses of the creation of the heavens and the earth, nor of the creation of their own selfs” (Kahf 18:51). As we were not witnesses to the creation of the universe and human beings, we can never confidently say that something is “sub-optimal.” As one political scientist, George Tsebelis, has noted, cases of apparent sub-optimality are in fact cases of disagreement between “the actor” and “the observer”: “while the observer focuses attention on only one game, the actor is involved in a whole network of games”-what he calls nested games.³ What appears sub-optimal from the perspective of only one game is in fact optimal when the whole network of games is considered. Consequently, all conclusions about sub-optimality in the universe are unwarranted because as observers we have no comprehensive vision and understanding regarding God’s plans and objectives, which relate to multiple issues and platforms. Indeed, most sub-optimality arguments regarding creation are based on the assumed objectives of scientists, which do not necessarily correspond with the more complex and comprehensive objectives of God.

The sub-optimality arguments of evolutionists come in two forms: biological and theological. A famous example of the former is the “poor design” argument regarding the “inverted” arrangement of the vertebrate retina.⁴ Several neo-Darwinians have taken issue with the way retina is typically situated in vertebrates. The vertebrate retina is inverted in the sense that the photoreceptors sit at the back of the retina, so that light has to pass through a layer of neurons before it reaches them. Evolutionists have argued that this invertedness results in inefficiency in vertebrate vision, which is sufficient for them to conclude for the nonexistence of an all-knowing and all-powerful God. Yet, later research proved that in return for the above-mentioned negligible loss in vision, the current structure of the vertebrate retina is found to make possible better absorption of excess light⁵ and superior supply of blood to photoreceptors,⁶ both of which are essential for healthy vision. They are so essential that “[i]f the human retina were ‘wired’ the other way around,” concludes Peter Gurney, “the photoreceptors would be left in darkness.”⁷ This brings us to a verse in the Qur’an: “Were the truth to follow their lusts and fancies, the heavens and the earth and all those who live in them would certainly have gone to ruin” (Muminun 23:71).

A prominent example of the theological sub-optimality arguments of the evolutionists is the so-called “problem of evil,” which goes back to Darwin himself in the evolutionist tradition; Darwin had troubles with the apparently cruel acts in the animal world. Some of Darwin’s famous contemporary followers also take “the existence of human evil as well as of natural catastrophes and diseases” to mean that a benevolent God does not exist.⁸ For these evolutionists, the coexistence of evil and good is a sub-optimal situation and this is sufficient proof to reject the idea of a benevolent God. This argument suffers two ailments, though. The first and most ironic one is that the argument itself is more theology than science. From a scientific point of view, the question for which an answer is sought is whether the universe and everything inside it could have come into being by chance or not. The nature of God and how He ought to act are not questions that science seeks answers for. Second, these arguments stem from evolutionists’ own expectations regarding how the things should be, which are bounded by their strictly earthly considerations. When transcendental and other-worldly considerations are also taken into account, the problem almost evaporates into thin air. Throughout history the “problem of evil” (or theodicy) has been debated by hundreds of scholars in almost all religions. The reconciliation of worldly pains and sorrows with the mercy of a benevolent God has been one of the most challenging topics in the history of religion. Scholars of many religions have offered diverging explanations with varying degrees of consistency and persuasiveness. Some Christian explanations for human evil, for example, have rested on God’s wish to love and be loved out of free will. From this point of view, a genuine love requires a genuine free will, which results in evil actions as well good ones.⁹ Muslim scholars have also developed explanations that would account for all types of “evils.” First, similar to the previous Christian argument, human evil is argued to have been allowed for the realization of a genuine relationship between God and human beings. As for other “evils” such as natural catastrophes or diseases, most Muslim scholars do not view them as evils to start with. In the Muslim faith, everything that takes place happens out of a divine wisdom, which ultimately aims at the well-being of a believer in the afterlife. In this line of thinking, an adversity such as a disease can play three main possible divine roles. It is either a punishment for a believer’s sins or misbehavior in this world, which would replace a harsher punishment in the hereafter; or a test to be passed for spiritual development; or a tool to make a believer approach God by increasing his or her supplications meanwhile.¹⁰In each of these cases, the disease is given to the believer with a benevolent wisdom on the part of God. Moreover, some Muslim scholars have pointed out that sick people also remind other healthy people to give many thanks to God for their health, thereby channeling the whole community to the path of God. As such, what evolutionists claim as sub-optimalities are indeed essential parts of the divine plan, and they collectively function for the realization of the ultimate goal of creation. Thus, for Muslims, a disease is a gift of God with an evil face. As the Qur’an states, “it may well be that you dislike something while God has set in it much good” (Nisa 4:19). Again, a holistic view renders sub-optimality arguments unwarranted.

What these examples suggest is that most sub-optimality arguments are premature and assumptive. Proving a “poor design” argument requires more work than many evolutionists believe. Given our lack of comprehensive knowledge regarding the universe, it is safe to believe that we can never be sure whether something is ultimately sub-optimal. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily doom the study of optimality to a state of impasse. Although it is almost impossible to prove the theoretical optimality of things, we can assume tentative practical optimality in cases where we cannot suggest some practical means to improve on existing things. Thus, a practical test of optimality can be replacement of any purportedly sub-optimal thing in the universe with its artificial counterpart that is produced by human beings. If we can manage to replace any sub-optimal part with a better alternative without introducing new sub-optimalities elsewhere, then we might have a right to a tentative claim for sub-optimality. What is interesting is that all human attempts to improve on natural goods have failed so far. A prominent example to these failures is sugar substitutes. After the scientific discovery of the relationship between sugar consumption and certain health problems such as obesity and tooth decay, several scientists have advised that certain, if not all, people should refrain from or minimize sugar consumption. This resulted in a scientific interest in as well as a popular demand for sugar substitutes (or artificial sweeteners) that would give us the same sweet taste without sugar’s adverse effects. Surprisingly though, recent studies have demonstrated that sugar substitutes create more problems than they solve. Sugar-free sweeteners like aspartame and saccharin come with dozens of side effects, some of which are lethal.¹¹ Consequently, an increasing number of dietary experts advise us today to refrain from “diet” products, most of which include artificial sweeteners.¹² Thus, here we might be justified in claiming that natural sugar has practical optimality because it is proven to be superior to all other alternative sweeteners so far. Another prominent example is baby formulas. Despite all improvements in biochemistry, all baby formulas continue to come second after breast milk. Until human beings succeed in producing an infant formula that is overall more nutritious than breast milk and that is inexpensive enough to be produced in mass quantities, we are safe in saying that breast milk has practical optimality.

Finally, I should note that even if any sub-optimality does exist in the universe, it does not by itself provide any evidence for the absence of an all-powerful Creator. True, most believers believe in a God who is perfect in its self or essence and in its creation. Yet, this does not come to mean that any sub-optimality in the universe would necessarily negate the idea of God. From an Islamic point of view, for example, as everything in this life is part of a test, negligible sub-optimality might have also been purposefully included in God’s “design” as a test for human beings. If everything in the observed world was as perfect as each and every one of us would like it to be, there would be little room for disbelieving in God. However, the Qur’an states that this is not something God wished for human beings. Faith requires a struggle; and minimal sub-optimalities (if there are any) might be part of that struggle as well. If one in a thousand parts comes in seemingly sub-optimal character, it is not rational to conclude for the absence of intelligence or design.

Kaan Kerem has a PhD in Political science. He is freelance writer on philosophy and scientific thought.

1. Wordnet Online dictionary: http://dict.die.net/

2. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: Norton, 1986), p. 91.

3. George Tsebelis, Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics (University of California Press, 1991), pp: 6-7.

4. Dawkins, pp. 93-4.

5. Juan Ramon Martinez-Morales, Isabel Rodrigo, and Paola Bovolenta, “Eye Development: A View from the Retina Pigmented Epithelium.” BioEssays. 26:766-777, 2003.

6. Helga Kolb, “How the Retina Works,” American Scientist, 91:28–35, 2003. 7. Peter W.V. Gurney, Technical Journal, 13(1):37–44, 1999.

8. Massimo Pigliucci, “Design Yes, Intelligent No.” Skeptical Inquirer, September 2001.

9. Richard Swinburne, Is There a God? (Oxford University Press, 1996). Also see, Casey Luskin, Good Theology and Bad Design or Bad Theology and Good Design? http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/722

10. Said Nursi, The Flashes, trans. S. Vahide (Istanbul: Sozler Publications, 1996), pp: 26, 28, 334–336.

11. Janet Starr Hull, Sweet Poison (New Horizon Press, 1998). Visit author’s website www.sweetpoison.com for detailed information.

12. Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet Oz, You: The Owner’s Manual (Collins, 2005).

In his studies, (1993, 1996) Huntington suggests alternative explanations to understanding conflicts and disputes in the post-Cold War period. To him, “culture and cultural identities, which at the broadest level are civilizational identities, are shaping patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War” (Huntington 1996, 20).

The purpose of this paper is to test Huntington’s argument (1996) by addressing the following question: “Does a civilizational difference cause militarized interstate dispute?” The significance of the answer to this question is obvious: if Huntington’s claim is empirically supported, then dominant theories of international politics, which do not base conflicts on civilizational differences, have to be revised. And, therefore, Huntington’s theory will be useful in understanding the emerging world-order and explaining militarized disputes and conflicts that have occurred in the post-Cold War era.

Literature review

There were many responses and objections to Huntington’s argument that resulted in an extensive debate. Many of them claimed that the civilization theory is unable to explain the causes of conflicts and international order. In spite of the great number of responses and studies, few of these have been supported by quantitative research.

One of the important studies that evaluated Huntington’s argument and which deserves close attention was conducted by Russett, Oneal, and Cox in 2000 (in Triangulating Peace 2001, 239-305). The main question to be answered was “Does a difference in civilization increase the likelihood that a pair of states will become involved in a militarized interstate dispute?” (Russett et al 2001, 248). To perform their study, they used the University of Michigan’s Correlates of War (COW) database that provided Militarized Interstate Disputes (MID). In their view, limiting their analysis to MID that occurred during the 1950-92 period was appropriate, because “Huntington addressed events in these years when he first presented his argument in 1993” (249). Variables of liberal and realist theories were also added to their analysis in order to observe which theory had had higher explanatory and predictive power. Results of logistic regression indicated that variables of liberal and realist theories had much more influence on the probability of conflict than on civilization theory. Belonging to different civilizations increases the risk of dispute between two states only by 12 percent with .30 level of statistical significance. (255).

Huntington (2000, 609) replied to Russett et al, suggesting that they retest their argument as it was dealing with the post-Cold War period. Russett et al (2000, 611), in turn, argued that Huntington (1993) had used many disputes and conflicts that had not occurred in the post-Cold War era to justify and support his argument. That was the reason why they used MID of the 1950-92 period.

Another study to test Huntington’s argument was conducted by Jonathan Fox in 2001. He tried to examine whether conflicts between civilizations, particularly Western and Islamic conflicts, had increased with the end of the Cold War (Fox 2001, 459). He used the Minorities at Risk (MAR) dataset for his quantitative research and came up with interesting results. From a global perspective, the ratio of non-civilizational conflicts to civilizational conflicts had not changed significantly after the end of the Cold War. From an Islamic civilization perspective, there had been little change in the amount of conflicts among Islamic and other civilizations. However, from the perspective of Western civilizations, the proportion of conflicts between Western and Islamic civilizations had significantly increased since the end of the Cold War. Fox concludes that the findings illustrate that it is important which perspective one looks at conflicts from. If one looks from the Western perspective, they will find an increased amount of conflicts between Western and Islamic civilizations, which supports Huntington’s argument. But from the global and Islamic civilization perspective, little evidence can be found for a “clash of civilizations” in the post-Cold War period (459).

Although Fox’s study deserves attention, it does not examine conflicts among the other seven civilizations, but only focuses on the Western versus Islamic civilizations. Furthermore, his units of analysis are conflicts within states, not interstate. Interstate disputes are important in analyzing Huntington’s argument, because a nation as a whole has specific civilizational characteristics. According to Huntington’s map (1996, 26-27) of civilizations, each nation belongs to one of the nine civilizations and conflicts mostly arise among these. Conflicts that occur within states are only one minor part of Huntington’s argument.

Many other scholars have qualitatively criticized Huntington’s clash of civilizations theory. Ali Mazrui (1997) finds three major problems in Huntington’s argument. First, there is a “factual fallacy.” “It may not be factually true that the main lines of conflict of the future, following the Cold War, will be lines of clash of civilizations. It could be states or economic blocs” (Mazrui in Rashid 97, 27). Second, there could also be a “conceptual fallacy” in Huntington’s argument. Mazrui suggests a “clash of races” as an alternative to the clash of civilizations (27). Thirdly, there is a “temporal fallacy,” which means that inter-civilizational conflicts are not phenomena of the emerging world, but rather that they have been the most important issue of the world for at least the past four to five hundred years; within these conflicts we can include the Crusades, the “trans-Atlantic slave-trade, and European colonization of much of the world” (29).

In response to his critics (Foreign Affairs 1996, 67), Huntington stated that none of these scholars had come up with a better alternative to explain the conflicts of the new era. To him, the clash of civilizations remains the most powerful theory to understand disputes in the post-Cold War period.

In this context, this paper is of a crucial importance because 1) it will focus on militarized disputes of the post-Cold War period; 2) the disputes are among the states and civilizations they belong to; 3) and the study will conduct a quantitative method to analyze the clash of civilizations. Thus, this paper takes into account the weaknesses of previous studies and establishes a strong critique to Huntington’s argument.

Research design

This analysis uses the Correlates of War (COW) project’s Militarized Interstate Disputes (MID). The COW provides MID starting from 1816 to 2001. As Huntington (2000, 609) claims, the clash of civilizations theory is helpful in understanding conflicts that occurred after the end of the Cold War, specifically after 1989 (Huntington 1996, 21; Huntington 2000, 609). The COW project had MID reaching up to 2001, so I chose those MID which occurred from 1989 to 2001. Although the number of disputes in this period seems to be small to test any theory, it should be quite enough to evaluate Huntington’s argument, as post-Cold War disputes were the basis of his theory. I had 620 militarized interstate disputes in total. Each dispute occurred between at least two states; one state in side A, and another on side B. The sides are coded as 0 and 1. I had information on which pair of states had disputes. Some disputes had more than two sides. I rearranged these coalitions as if they had disputes separately as dyads. For instance, if there were two states on side A and two states on side B in a dispute, than there would be four dyads involved in the same dispute.

States in these disputes belong to one of the nine civilizations, which are Western, coded as 1, Latin American (2), African (3), Islamic (4), Sinic (5), Hindu (6), Orthodox (7), Buddhist (8), and Japanese (9). Huntington (1993, 1996) does not explicitly specify the number of civilizations. In his article (1993) he mentions about “seven or eight major civilizations.” To him, Buddhism “has not been the basis of a major civilization.” (Huntington 1996, 48). Also Japan has not founded any civilization as there are no nations that share the same religion, language, or cultural values with Japanese culture. However, map 1.3 (The World of Civilizations: Post-1990) in his book (1996, 26-27) shows that there are nine civilizations in the world, including Buddhist and Japanese. I used nine civilizations as shown in the map. Russett et al (2001, 251) used eight, excluding Japanese. I wonder how they dealt with disputes that had Japan on one of the sides.

Having nine coded civilizations and many more states in the dataset, I coded all states as any of the nine civilizations they belonged to, according to map 1.3. (Huntington 1996, 26-27). I had difficulties, as did Russett et al (2001, 251), in classifying some states, because the map was not clear and Huntington did not explicitly mention them in the text. For example Nigeria, according to the map is separated into two civilizations, Islamic and African. Since religion is the most important factor that distinguishes each civilization, I have used the CIA’s World Factbook to find out the proportion of religion in Nigeria, and classified it as Islamic. India is shown as a state of both Islamic and Hindu civilizations, but I have classified it as Hindu. Sri Lanka was classified as Buddhist in relevance with Russett et al (2001). The Philippines, in my classification, go into Sinic civilization, but Russett et al (2001) classify it as Western. The most interesting problem that occurred in classification was to which civilization Israel belongs. The question is significant, as Israel has had many disputes with its neighboring states. Huntington thinks Israel is an Islamic civilization according to the map. It is ironic that Israel is considered as an Islamic civilization, first because it has nothing to do with the religion of Islam, and second because such an approach decreases empirical support for Huntington’s argument. Although it does not make sense, I classified Israel as Islamic, strictly adhering to the map.

To answer my research question I had to use civilization dyads and observe if these dyads are prone to clash or not and how frequently they have disputes. Thus, I arranged these nine civilizations in dyadic form and came up with 45 civilization dyads, extracting each one of the same dyads as 1,2 v. 2,1. A dyad is labeled 0 if the civilizations in it are the same and 1 if the civilizations are different. After arranging civilization dyads, I plugged each dispute into one of the dyads and totaled it in regard to the 45 civilization dyads. Then I arranged the number of disputes in each dyad according to the proportion to the total number of disputes.

Huntington’s main hypothesis is that civilizations have mattered and have had positive impact on disputes in the post-Cold War period. I have my doubts about his argument and hypothesize that civilizations do not matter in interstate.

Data analysis

After running my Probit model, I have found that difference in civilizations had negative impact on interstate disputes with relatively small statistical significance (10). The findings of this paper contradict what Huntington (1993, 1996) suggests as his explanation for the causes of interstate disputes in the post-Cold War era. In other words, civilization differences do not cause interstate conflicts.

There have been a total of 620 militarized interstate disputes during the 1989-2001 period, according to the COW dataset (see Table 1). Some of civilization dyads did not have any disputes, whereas other dyads conflicted several times. Huntington’s argument that different civilizations clash does not find support with the results of this study. We can see from Table 1 that 19 dyads that consist of different civilizations have not had any militarized dispute since the end the Cold War. How can Huntington explain this phenomenon on the basis of his clash of civilizations argument? Can interstate disputes be explained by civilizational differences? The answers to these questions are obviously negative. Different variables of realist and liberal theories may explain the findings, but that is not within the scope of this study.

Limitations

One of the important limitations is the absence of a clear list of civilizations and states in these civilizations. If Huntington had provided these data then there would be no dissimilarities among the scholars who tried to test his argument. Some studies used eight civilizations while others used nine. Some states, like Israel and the Philippines were placed in different civilizations in different studies. This may influence the results of these studies, as these states have had many militarized disputes.

Conclusion

This study shows that Huntington’s argument is insufficient to explain conflicts in the new world order. As he argues, “culture and cultural identities, which at the broadest level are civilizational identities, are shaping patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War” (Huntington 1996, 20). However, he did not carry out a quantitative analysis of the argument. He provided only case studies and offered qualitative analysis as support. Many studies, including this one, have been conducted in response to his clash of civilizations argument, with the conflicts of the post-Cold War period being analyzed quantitatively. None of these studies has found evidence to support Huntington’s argument. The finding of this study illustrates that a difference in civilization is not sufficient on its own to understand what causes conflicts these days nor does it have a positive impact on militarized disputes.

References

• Foreign Affairs. 1996. Samuel P. Huntington’s the Clash of Civilizations? The Debate. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
• Fox, Jonathan. 2001. Two Civilizations and Ethnic Conflict: Islam and the West. Journal of Peace Research 38(4): 459-472.
• Huntington, Samuel P. 1993. The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs 72(3): 22-49
• If Not Civilizations, What? Foreign Affairs 72(4): 186-94, 1993.
• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1996.
• Try Again: A Reply to Russett, Oneal & Cox. Journal of Peace Research 37(5): 609-610, 2000.
• Rashid, Salim. 1997. The Clash of Civilizations? Asian Responses. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Russett, Bruce M. and John R. Oneal. 2000. A Response to Huntington. Journal of Peace Research 37(5): 611-612.
• Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Inter dependence, and International Organizations. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.

Qur’anic Perspective

At this point it would be interesting to look at what Ali Unal has to say as to why no past civilization could resist decadence and time’s corrosive power. His approach refers more to the individual and free will, rather than visible causes:1

. . . [C]ontrary to the fatalism of all other philosophies, including even Ibn Khaldun’s, the Qur’an stresses the individual’s free choice and moral conduct. Although the Divine Will, as emphasized in the Qur’an, could be regarded in some respects as the counterpart of Hegel’s Geist or as other philosophies’ absolute and irresistible laws of history, the Qur’an never denies human free will

. . . . Ibn Khaldun, Toynbee, Spengler, and other philosophers of history formed a mistaken conception of history because they did not try to discover the real dynamics of historical movements. Rather, they sought to explain the apparent causes behind a civilization’s establishment, flourishing, and decay. Whoever looks to the past will arrive at the same conclusions. But just because no community has remained at its peak this does not mean that this is an inevitable end or a determinist grip on the fate of each nation. Past civilizations collapsed because they did not heed the warnings of what had happened to earlier peoples. Accepting historical determinism causes us to nullify free will and consider the warnings and advice found in the Divine Scriptures and social sciences as useless and absurd.

This is strongly confirmed by the Qur’an in the following verses:

. . . surely God does not change the condition of a people until they change their own condition. (Rad 13:11)

. . . God never changes the grace He has bestowed on any people until they first change that which is in their hearts. (Anfal 8:53)

Theories concerning the collapse of civilizations

There are many theories concerning the collapse of civilizations, but of course, if a theory does not conform to reality, it is worth nothing. In this article, I will first give a brief account of widely held beliefs about the collapse of civilizations, explain the weaknesses of these theories, and then give a rationale that I believe better explains the historical data we have. As for most social problems, we will perhaps never know the truth about why societies collapse. However, the stakes at hand are so high that we must make every effort to understand, and to an extent, solve this problem.

The most common explanation for such collapses is some insurmountable natural disaster, like an epidemic, hurricane, drought, or earthquake that leads to the demise of a civilization by killing the population and crippling the economy. Widely-cited examples are the eruption of the volcano in Thera that preceded the collapse of the Minoan civilization, the malaria epidemic in the Roman Empire or earthquakes in Mesoamerican societies. These arguments, which are very appealing to our human nature, that desires simple explanations for all questions, are in fact very unsound. Societies constantly experience such disasters, yet survive them. The potato blight in Ireland in 1845 halved the island’s population but there was no cease of sociopolitical complexity as a result of the disaster. It is strange to think that the Roman Empire, which survived many disasters before, including the eruption of Pompei in AD 79, fell to malaria. We should consider that complex civilizations are designed to absorb such disasters, and they do. Just recalling the constant earthquakes in Japan added to the loss of a world war with two nuclear bombs exploding in the heart of two large cities will sufficiently prove this notion. Japanese civilization did not collapse. On the contrary, it is one of the strongest economies in today’s international arena. It is peculiar then that some civilizations are no longer able to fight such disasters. However, an act of God can certainly collectively destroy any civilization, as it did in the past like Sodom and Gomorrah. This is clearly narrated in the divine scriptures.

The other common explanations for such collapses are intruders and competition with other civilizations. The barbarian tribes, which brought the end of Rome in the fifth century, and the Mongolians that invaded Baghdad in the thirteenth century are clear examples of the intruder argument. This argument suffers from the realization that civilizations are attacked by outsiders throughout their existence, yet for some reason they cannot defend themselves near the time of their collapse. Competition with other societies however, is in principle expected to lead to growth and expansion instead of collapse. There is no end to the examples from this category too, like the competition of the Ottoman Empire with Persia, which indirectly weakened its western front. But the competition argument is both intuitively confusing and it fails to account for major cases, like the fall of the Roman Empire.

Another widely held belief about such collapses is that at a certain point in the life of a civilization a resource is depleted and the civilization that depends on this resource is prone to collapse. The Romans and the Ottomans both depended on military expansion for their economy, and when the relatively weak nations around them were engulfed or when they were barred from further expansion by geographical limitations, such as seas or large mountains, they were no longer able to use this resource. There seems to be some truth and lessons in this argument. To the uninformed, it is a very curious fact that the cradle of civilization was Mesopotamia, where modern day Iraq is. How is it possible that the superpowers of that era, the Sumerians (~3000 BC) and the Babylonians (~1000 BC) chose to live in these deserts? How is it possible that they irrigated the land, raised armies, and built world wonders in these sand dunes? These questions actually are easily answered when we realize that Mesopotamia was not a dessert in that era after all. It is now a generally accepted theory that this place had a fragile ecosystem, which was destroyed after thousands of years of environmental pressure. The potential for these lands to accommodate great civilizations was lost after this fragile ecosystem was slowly destroyed by its inhabitants.

However, the argument of resource depletion inherently asserts that the elite of a civilization facing resource depletion passively waits for the predictable demise. I will argue below that this case, although strange, is true. Another difficulty of the resource depletion argument is that in some instances of collapse resources were never depleted. The fertile lands of Mesopotamia still remained green until later than 1000 AD, while many civilizations experienced collapses. The Romans, who used irrigation as a resource, kept farming till the very end. Finally, one may wonder why societies aim at possessing a higher amount of resources all the time. Population increase is only a partial answer to this question. We can easily imagine a society whose population stays the same; it is not a far-fetched hypothesis that this society will naturally also try to increase its resources to fend off a variety of calamities it may experience, such as intruders and catastrophes. I believe herein lies an interesting rationale that brings together the mentioned theories that are flawed. To understand this, we first have to appreciate a law in economics, called the “law of diminishing returns.”

It is very rare in economics and in general social sciences that some series of observations can be identified as a “law.” However, the “law of diminishing returns,” first put forward in 1965 by Ester Boserup, is so comprehensive in its nature and explains such a variety of trends that it is now universally accepted. It goes: The return for an investment in a particular activity is great at the beginning, and then it gradually decreases. At a point, further investment brings no further benefits. At this point, the facility (a person, a group, a society, a factory) can no longer increase its returns, however much they would invest in that activity.

A simple example will clarify the law. Suppose we have a piece of land that we want to use for irrigation. In the beginning, we would just disperse seeds and wait for the crops to grow. Notice that our investment is minimal (say 1 unit of investment), and we get some food for our investment (again define this to be 1 unit of return). Then, if we want to increase the amount of crops we have, we may dig some canals for watering. It is straightforward to recognize that the canal digging is a lot harder than just dispersing seeds (say 5 times harder). However, it is again straightforward to recognize that although now we make 6 times more investment, we probably will not get 6 times the crop. Nevertheless, we want to maximize our return, so we still dig the canals. The next step would be to use motorized vehicles, which is maybe a 10 times increase in investment, but everybody will surely accept that it is not possible to get a crop that is 16 times greater than our original from the same plot of land. (Readers who may object that once the investments of canals and vehicles are made they will provide constant returns are reminded of the maintenance costs of these investments.) A further increase in returns may require genetically engineered crops that will require years of expensive research (more investment). The return per investment will always decrease for a certain type of activity, in this case irrigation.

This law is everywhere in life: If one week of studying suffices a result of 80 on one exam, in order to get 90, you need to study two more weeks. Most healthy people can run 100m in 20 seconds; to run it in 10 seconds you need years of exercising. Depending on one’s abilities (which determine an individual’s possible investment) these may even be impossible for many people. A vivid example is the heating problem in England during the nineteenth century. Heating, which was primarily carried out by burning wood from forests, with the increase in population had to be switched over to the burning of coal. The mining and distribution of coal, which is much more difficult than simply getting some wood from a nearby forest, was made even more difficult when the easily mined surface coal was rapidly depleted and deeper tunnels with lighting and airing problems had to be developed. It is intuitive why this law is in effect: Obviously, always, the easier solutions are adapted first, then the harder ones. Mining coal when you have easily available and plentiful wood is not reasonable. Consequently, we have a decline for our returns per investment.

The resources that civilizations use are no exception. A civilization that uses irrigation as a resource is bound to be limited by a certain level of return. Resource does not have to be depleted; it just cannot produce a return more than at a certain level. Another civilization that is dependent on taxation, mercenary or military expansion can achieve no more return after a certain level, no matter what adjustments it makes to its existing policy. Having said this, we can understand why a civilization that depends on a certain type of energy or resource cannot expand its influence beyond a certain level. Moreover, when energy becomes scarce, the civilization can become less agile in terms of trying new resources and new ways to produce returns, since agility and innovation mostly depend on using some of the surplus resources on strategies that will most probably yield no returns. Hence the rise of large architectural structures and many inefficient military operations are carried out during the ascent of a young civilization. These activities, which are easily buffered by the large returns that come from initial investment on the main resource of a civilization become impossibly costly later when the returns from the same investment is declining.

One last piece of the puzzle completes the rationale as to why civilizations collapse, and this piece is an easily accepted assumption: A civilization is like a dinosaur. It is large and strong, but it is adapted to the conditions into which it was born. The conditions change, however, the dinosaur cannot change its behavior. It helplessly tries to maximize the returns for the type of resource that it is adapted to use, and after a point, it simply cannot, thanks to the universal and unforgiving law of diminishing returns. At this point, another civilization, that primarily uses another superior resource, will have larger returns, build a larger army to invade the former civilization, build larger ships to cut off the trade routes, and produce goods to cripple its economy… This is just a matter of time, and it is unavoidable (see Figure 1b). The strength of the civilization in its golden age is now its weakness. In such a weakness, since there is no extra resource to fight new problems-all resource is either used up by the population, or goes toward defense costs-even a natural disaster can bring an end to a civilization that once seemed to be indestructible.

The Ottoman Empire’s strength in its rise was its perfect hierarchical organization which led to the accumulation of all power under the Sultan. Its main resource was military expansion and taxation of trade. These adaptations, which were ideal for the time between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, led to one of the most powerful empires that have ever reigned. However, by the sixteenth century, these strategies had become burdens: Due to the strong hierarchy, an intelligentsia that supported science and art as in the West could never develop. Military expansion had to stop. Taxation could no longer work since the Mediterranean Sea was no longer used for trade. The strategies were not abandoned though, instead, more investments were made in order to increase the returns, which as we saw above is a nonviable alternative. Eventually, other civilizations that used better resources brought about the end of the Empire. A similar order of events can be observed for other civilizations that collapsed. The great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun of the fourteenth century likens the lives of civilizations to the natural lifespan of individuals. They are born, they grow old, and they die. In my view, a civilization does not die because it gets old; it dies because it cannot compete with a stronger civilization.

The natural question to ask is if our current civilization will collapse. From the analysis above, we can conclude that there are two reasons for the collapse of a civilization: 1) Dependence on a certain type of investment and failing to adapt to the new conditions. 2) The invention by another competitor civilization of a new type of investment with higher returns. In today’s world, both of these reasons are in some ways different than those that existed in the past. First, with the advancement of science, the current civilizations are flexible in the resources they utilize, the options are constantly evaluated, the heating in United Kingdom does not collapse when wood is depleted; instead, coal, then gas, then nuclear power is used. The return for the investment made for some utility is similar to the curve shown in Figure 1c: whenever the return for a type of investment declines, we can shift to the next resource. Second, by the immense advancement in information processing and communication, the whole world is aware of the types of investments other societies are using, and a leading civilization that follows the developments in other countries is very unlikely to be threatened by a sudden development in a rival civilization. Third, because of progress in international trade, the old sense that any other civilization is an enemy has lost its significance.

Notwithstanding these reasons, only a few decades ago, at the height of the cold war, we witnessed the possibility of the immediate collapse of our civilization. Global warming and the depletion of petrol reserves were only two of the many alarming cues that we may have turned to declining returns for our investment curve. It is imperative to remember again that the stakes are very high. The next civilization to fall may bring about the fall of the human species.

Notes

1. Tainter, J. (1988). The Collapse of Complex Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1988.
2. Grigg D. Ester Boserup’s theory of agrarian change: a critical review. Prog Hum Geogr. 1979; 3 (1): 64-84.
3. Unal, Ali, Islam Addresses Contemporary Issues, Kaynak, Izmir:1998, p. 142.

I argue against these claims, based upon strong empirical evidence indicating that war does not occur among democratic states, the so-called zone of peace. As democratic regimes replace authoritarian regimes, future generations will study wars as an obsolete part of history.

This article has three parts: tracing the roots of the democratic peace argument and providing supporting evidence, examining the three mechanisms offered to explain the absence of war among democratic states, and critically evaluating the democratic peace argument.

Does democratic peace exist?

One should define democracy before answering the above question. Democracy is a combination of two Greek words: demos (people) and kratos (rule)”rule by the people. In a direct democracy, citizens are directly engaged in the law-making process though a majority system. In a representative democracy, as we have today, citizens use their legislative powers through their elected representatives. Both types also require a constitutional framework through which the majority can exercise its power and through which the individual and collective rights of people are guaranteed.

The roots of democratic peace argument can be traced back to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) Perpetual Peace essay, published in 1795.(3) He argued that although state rulers decide to start a war, it is the people who suffer the consequences (e.g., the loss of money, property, and lives). Thus they are reluctant to engage in war. Since rulers of democratic states are accountable to the people, they are less inclined to initiate a war.

Kant also identified commerce as another reason for perpetual peace among democracies. Increasing trade leads states to realize that they have much to loose from conflict and thus reinforces their desire to avoid war. Finally, the existence of a pacific union prevents the outbreak of war between democracies. Such a union reinforces the idea that democracies have common goals and interests, and further mitigates the desire for armed conflict.

Michael Doyle, a former professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton and now assistant secretary general of the UN, revisited Kant’s perpetual peace argument.(4) He showed that, as Kant had predicted, there is no historical case of two democratic states fighting each other. Using the correlates of war data prepared by University of Michigan researchers, he listed all the democratic states and interstate wars occurring after 1815. He pointed out that although wars occurred between non-democratic states and between democratic and non-democratic states, there has been no war between democratic states since 1815.

Doyle listed three different factors to account for this: caution, respect, and interest. Democratic leaders are cautious when initiating military conflict, for otherwise their constituencies will punish them by removing them from power. Rulers of democratic states respect each other because they respect their populations. Democratic rulers may reason that military dictators will not respect the citizens of a democracy because military dictators do not respect their own people. Finally, the level of trade among democratic states is so high that they become dependent on each other. This interdependence decreases the utility of military force during disputes.

Supporters of the democratic peace argument have examined such long-term rivalries Argentina and Britain, Pakistan and India, Greece and Turkey to see whether being a democracy has had any impact on military hostilities between these pairs. Greece and Turkey provide an example of how dictatorships are more prone to war. They have fought three wars, but not when both of them were democratic. This also has been true with Ecuador and Peru, Argentina and Chile, and Brazil and Argentina, all of which have had bitter rivalries. The Falklands War between Argentina and Britain took place when Argentina was a dictatorship and resulted in the military rulers being replaced by a stable democratic regime.

Like inter-state conflicts, civil wars provide another set of empirical support for the democratic peace argument. Democratic states rarely experience civil wars. Why would any group launch a war to control a state when they could pursue their goals peacefully through electoral participation? Democratization is, then, a way to prevent civil wars. Dean Babst and William Eckhardt conducted a 42-year study of all independent countries from 1950 to 1991. Their study found that although 90 percent of dictatorships have experienced some form of civil war, no civil wars occurred in democratic states during that period.(5)

The end of the cold war

The end of the cold war popularized the idea of democratic peace. However, there were some differences about the new world order that was to replace the cold war. Robert Kaplan predicted a coming anarchy,(6) in which a state’s control over its population vanishes and different armed groups create an anarchic environment. Samuel Huntington saw a coming clash of civilizations,(7) in which states belonging to different civilizations would fight each other. John Mearsheimer defined the new world order as back to the future,(8) in which the superpowers’ departure from Europe would create a power vacuum that various European countries would seek to fill through conflict. The democratic peace argument offered an alternative model for the new world order.

American officials upheld the democratic peace argument. In 1992, Secretary of State James Baker said: The cold war has ended, and we now have a chance to forge a democratic peace, an enduring peace built on shared values”democracy and political and economic freedom. The strength of these values in Russia and the other new independent states will be the surest foundation for peace”and the strongest guarantee of our national security”for decades to come.(9) Similarly, President Clinton declared in his 1994 State of the Union Speech: Ultimately the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don’t attack each other.(10) And at the height of the crisis in Haiti in 1994, he supported military intervention on the grounds that: Democracies here are more likely to keep the peace.(11)

The idea of democratic peace is not new to American foreign policy. Woodrow Wilson made a similar argument as early as 1917: A steadfast concert of peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith w/in [a concert]. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer to the interest of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.(12)

Two explanations

There are two key issues here. First, democratic peace does not mean that democratic states are peace-lovers, for democratic states do initiate war with authoritarian states. In addition, pacifist public opinion cannot explain democratic peace, for such a situation would lead to democratic states having peaceful relations with all states, whether democratic or not. Therefore any explanation for democratic peace must account for the absence of war between democratic states and the persistence of war between democratic and non-democratic states.

Second, correlation does not mean causation. Correlations establish empirical and observable regularities between two variables (democratic states and war), but do not explain the underlying mechanisms causing the observed empirical regularity. For example, there has been no war between states having McDonald’s restaurants. This perfect correlation, however, does not mean that McDonald’s restaurants lead to peace (the so-called McDonald’s peace theory). Clarifying underlying mechanisms prevents explanations based on spurious correlations.

Researchers offer two mechanisms to explain peace among democratic states: normative and institutional.

Normative: Normative democratic peace researchers assume that decision-makers use conflict resolution tools developed in domestic politics when dealing with external problems and expect other decision-makers to follow a similar strategy. As a result democratic leaders, when dealing with a democratic state, try (and expect other democratic leaders) to establish consensus through nonviolent means to solve external problems. While dealing with non-democratic leaders, however, democratic leaders tend to resort to violence easily because they expect authoritarian leaders will use violent means.(13)

For example, when dealing with Hitler or Stalin, democratic leaders inferred that they would use negotiations to gain time for military preparations, for these leaders did not come from a culture where problems were solved through negotiations. Thus, democratic leaders do not expect to reach a negotiated agreement with authoritarian leaders.

Institutional: Institutional democratic peace researchers argue that democratic institutions cause peace among democratic states. In democracies, the presence of checks and balances and high levels of public involvement in the political process constrain state leaders and prevent hasty decisions. These constraints also slow down the decision-making process. As a result, third parties have time to intervene among democratic states and help them solve their problems peacefully.

Democratic leaders do not fear a surprise attack when they have a problem with other democratic states, because they are aware that those states have democratic institutional mechanisms. Since there is little, if any, constraint in an authoritarian state, authoritarian rulers can make quick decisions. Therefore democratic rulers fear a surprise attack by an authoritarian ruler. Furthermore, since authoritarian rulers know that democratic leaders are constrained, they tend to push democratic leaders for more concessions. Such a tactic might escalate a crisis into a war.

Lastly, democratic rulers are elected and are cautious about using violence, for they can be punished by their constituencies. Authoritarian rulers do not have to worry about elections.(14) For example, Saddam can start a war quite easily because he needs no one’s approval and is not affected by the outcome. So far, Saddam has launched and lost two wars, both of which inflicted enormous misery on Iraqi people”and yet he remains in power. In democratic countries, however, people punish rulers who start wars without their approval by not re-electing them.

Problems

The democratic peace argument is not immune from problems.(15) First, there is no one definition of democracy, for researchers use different data sets with different codifications to measure levels of democracy. Various definitions (e.g., free elections, at least one peaceful transfer of power, universal suffrage, free press, free expression, and human rights) make it harder to test democratic peace argument. It also can cause one researcher to codify a given country as democratic while another will classify it as authoritarian.

Second, there is no consensus on how to define war. This is important, for even though democratic states did not openly fight each other, they did conduct covert operations against other democratic regimes and brought less-democratic regimes to power. For example, the US and Britain overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh government in Iran in 1953 and replaced him with the less-democratic Shah. Similarly, the CIA helped overthrow the democratically elected Allende government in Chile in 1973 and replace him with the authoritarian Pinochet.

Third, democracies have been quite rare in history. Therefore, chances for a war between them were low. The geographical distribution of democratic countries further weakens the importance of the democratic peace argument. For example what is chance of democratic New Zealand fighting democratic Spain?

Only after WWII did the number of democracies begin to increase. During this period, however, all democratic states were allies. Thus skeptics argue that security concerns rather than regime type explains democratic peace. Mearsheimer for example, argues that European democracies may experience another war after the end of the cold war.

From democratic peace to perpetual peace

Overwhelming evidence indicates that democracies are better in terms of providing internal peace for their citizens and can serve as the building blocks of a global and perpetual peace. Democratic norms and institutions provide a strong basis for peace among democratic countries. At the turn of the twentieth century, there was only a handful of democratic states; there were 22 by 1950. By 2000, according to Freedom House criteria, 85 counties had governments that came to power through free elections and respect basic human rights and the rule of law. As the number of democracies increases, the zone of peace will expand.

The end of the cold war provided the opportunity to design a new world order. After more than a decade, it seems we can claim that the US foreign policy establishment believes in the democratic peace argument and actively supports democratization throughout the world. Time will show the success of these efforts. 

Footnotes

1. The author can be reached at.
2. Charles Kagley and Eugene Wittkopf, World Politics: Trend and Transformation, 7th ed. (St. Martin’s Press: 1998), 347.
3. Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, (1975). Online at: http://home.freeuk.com/ethos/kantperpe.htm.
4. Michael Doyle, Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs, Philosophy & Public Affairs 12 (Summer 1983): 205-35
5. Dean V. Babst and William Eckhardt, How Peaceful Are Democracies Compared with Other Countries? Peace Research (1992).
6. Robert Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy (Vintage Books: 2000).
7. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).
8. John Mearsheimer, Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War, International Security 15, no. 1 (1990): 5-56.
9. Entire speech online at: http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/offdocs/ b920615.htm.
10. Entire speech online at: http://www.crisny.org/government/us/ us.sotu94.html.
11. The Economist (1 Apr. 1995).
12. Entire speech online at: http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1917/ wilswarm.html.
13. Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
14. Ibid.
15. For critiques of the democratic peace argument, see David Spiro, The Insignificance of the Democratic Peace, International Security 19 (Fall 1994): 50-86; Joanna Gowa, Democratic States and International Disputes, International Organization 49 (Summer 1995): 511-22; and Mearsheimer, Back to the Future.