How Physics Supports Monotheism and Undermines Polytheism

By Mohammad Abu AbdurRahman

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

All praise is due to God. May He elevate the mention of His final Prophet and Messenger, Muhammad ﷺ.

Most physicalists and materialists don’t realize it, but they already hold the key to appreciating Islamic Tawhid (Monotheism) with exceptional philosophical clarity, and intellectually safeguarding themselves against all manner of shirk (polytheism). Insha'Allah, I will explain why this is the case step-by-step. I pray that by the end of this thread, Muslims will adopt the physicalist view presented, and use it to strengthen Tawhid and confront atheism and polytheism in this broken and confused world.

The first step: defining the universe

The first step is to clearly define the world whose Maker we seek to demonstrate. We are to reduce the world to matter and energy, or something to that effect. I will refer to this foundational principle as “the principle of physicalism”.

According to the principle of physicalism, nothing exists in the world beyond matter and energy. All existents are spatially and temporally related with one another in the intuitive sense that even a child grasps. More explicitly, everything that exists must have spatial and temporal coordinates, located within the four-dimensional continuum of space-time. If something lacks spatial or temporal coordinates, it cannot be said to exist at all. This means that abstract substances and universals do not exist in the real world. Even the space-time continuum itself is only a mathematical tool to map things, not a substance existing extra-mentally.

Literally every existent in the universe reduces to matter or energy, or something to that effect. Even Unseen beings – such as angels, jinn, souls, and Paradise and Hellfire – exist spatiotemporally and are reducible to some form of matter/energy.

Why is the principle of physicalism important, you might ask? The answer is that it establishes a fool-proof, lucid grasp of creation which Satan will never be able to distort, God willing. Defining the universe in this sober manner makes it possible to conclusively demonstrate the Creator’s existence and His oneness with unmatched philosophical clarity and precision. In fact, distorting this definitional clarity is one of the strategies used by Satan in luring people into polytheism. This is why people who fall into polytheistic beliefs and practices usually suffer from a distorted, creative, and unscientific metaphysics.

The second step: establishing substantial origination

Once the world is strictly defined in terms of matter and energy, the next step would be to recognize the fact of "substantial origination" inherent in the matter and energy. This is a critical step in the demonstration.

The "substantial origination" in the matter substrate refers to the fact that the individual matter particles are themselves subject to creation and annihilation in succession, and that they do not persist through all natural processes. More clearly, the matter and energy literally annihilate in the natural processes, giving way to the origination of new matter and energy in their place. Material entities come into existence after they are not there at all, and cease to exist after they are there, in a continuous and gradual process of substantial change.

This process is not a case of "ex nihilo" creation, which posits the origination of substances without any preceding material conditions. Nor is it a "rearrangement" of already existing matter, where matter persists and is not created in the process. Rather, the process is an "origination ex materia", which posits both that (i) matter originates substantially after it is not there, and (ii) that its origination requires preceding material conditions that cease to exist entirely in the process of creation.

In other words, the matter substrate is not defined as an eternal, individual substance that merely rearranges into new forms. Clearly, such a confused concept of the universe would replace God above, who perpetually acts in succession. Instead, the matter substrate is defined as a collection of distinct substances that come into existence and go out of existence in succession, a system that evolves within the bounds of the generic laws of physics.

Unfortunately, many today confuse the eternality of the genus of matter (that every material entity comes from another material entity) with the eternality of the individual matter particles. But these two concepts are not the same.

I once confused the two concepts despite my religious upbringing. It blinded me from clearly seeing how creation itself points to God’s existence. I began to heal when I finally understood Ibn Taymiyyah’s argument for the creation of matter. Ibn Taymiyyah’s argument is an argument from the impossibility of infinite actual division, fully explained in "Ibn Taymiyyah on Creation ex Materia". 

Notice that, because of half-baked scientific indoctrination, many hold the same false "rearrangement" view I once did. Few think it through, but when they do, it often leads to atheism and the denial of creation altogether.

The third step: demonstrating the originative act

Once the phenomenon of "substantial origination" is established within the material substrate, the next step is to prove that it cannot occur without a suitable cause, namely: an "originator cause". This is grounded in the causal principle, which every rational mind affirms: no effect occurs without a suitable cause.

Everyone knows natural effects require prior causes. No reasonable person is satisfied with the idea of effects popping into being without material causes. The claim that effects can arise without material causes is rejected by the natural disposition (fitrah) of human beings, even if it is further asserted that this occurs “by God’s will”. This is because it violates the universality of the causal principle.

The claim is further ruled out by the first law of thermodynamics, a generic and universally true physical law which states that matter and energy never arise from nothing, and that they are interchangeable instead.

Thus, nothing originates ex nihilo, contrary to what some theologians falsely assert. Believing otherwise weakens our appreciation of the causal principle, and undermines the very sound demonstration of God’s existence that is based on that principle.

Now, just as bread requires a baker, heat requires an energy source, and the generation of humans is impossible without prior material causes such as parents or earthly elements, we know that the substantial origination of these effects requires an originator a fortiori. Indeed, if we recognize that the generation of natural effects is impossible without preceding material causes, then we must a fortiori recognize that the very "substantial origination" of said natural effects, out of their prior material causes, requires an "originator cause".

The "originative act" is literally the strongest instance of the causal principle. It is far more entitled to the causal principle than the "generative acts", i.e. the material and natural causation. In other words, the "substantial origination" of matter is a phenomenon that requires a suitable causal explanation in its own right (i.e. an originative act), more evidently than the generation of a natural effect requires a generative act.

Atheists who deny the "originator cause" and its "originative act" fall into the worst form of irrationality. That said, their irrationality is not always self-inflicted or due to an intentional rejection of the causal principle, contrary to what theists commonly assume. Indeed, materialists often affirm the first law of thermodynamics universally and reject the possibility of creation ex nihilo, specifically because it contradicts the causal principle. This is commendable. Instead, their irrationality in denying the "originator cause" and its "originative act" is mostly due to ignorance of the fact of "substantial origination" itself. Attempting to convince materialists of ex nihilo creation worsens their confusion rather than solving it.

The fourth step: identifying the originator

Let’s now move on to the final step: the identification of who or what this "originator cause" is. If we correctly answer the following question, we will successfully identify the "originator cause" and complete the demonstration of God’s existence.

Does the "originator cause" exist (i) within the material substrate?

Or is it (ii) separate from the material substrate? i.e. an eternal Originator existing outside of the material system that is ever-subject to "substantial origination".

Put differently, are (i) the material causes also the very "originators" of the effects they produce, performing both the generative (secondary) act and the originative (primary) act? In this first option, parents not only give birth to a child, but also create it.

Or are (ii) the material causes merely generative (secondary) causes which produce their effects, with the originative (primary) act being attributed to something beyond the material system? In this second option, the Originator creates children by means of parents.

The second option is true, and the first option is necessarily false. Here are two good strategies to prove this.

First strategy: arguing from the impossibility of internal control

The first strategy is to recognize that an "originator cause" is fully responsible for its originated effect in every respect. This is because, through its originative act, an originator endows the very substance of its effect with existence after it is not there at all. This implies, by extension, that the "originator cause" is fully responsible for the existence of all of the attributes and occurrences that subsist within its originated effect, down to every last and finest detail.

An "originator cause" cannot possibly leave its effect to its own devices after it brings it into existence. Rather, the "originator cause" must continue to sustain and maintain the existence of its effect afterward for as long as it exists. In other words, every change that takes place within an originated substance must be due to a "change" (e.g. volition, creative act) that arises within its "originator cause". The "originator cause" exercises a controlling agency over its effect, and fully lords over it.

But physics prohibits the attribution of such a controlling agency to anything within the material world. According to the physicalist view, matter and energy exist in succession and in a sequential manner by necessity. For example, parents cannot be fully in control of the biological processes, volitions, and actions of their children. Indeed, children continue to live after their parents die. This means that the parents are not "originators" of their children; they only beget them. More generally, nothing in the material world is permanently needed for the continued existence of anything else in the material world. Material agents only act in a limited, secondary, generative sense.

But recall that the "originative act" has already been demonstrated to exist, literally as the strongest instance of the causal principle. The substantial origination of matter requires an originator cause more evidently than its generation requires generative causes.

Since the "originative act" both exists and cannot be attributed to anything within the material substrate, it must be attributed to an Originator who exists outside of the material system. This logically entails the eternality of the Originator.

This is as God says in the Qur'an: {Were they created by nothing? Or were they the creators of themselves?} [52:35]. The verse clarifies that the "originative act" cannot be nonexistent, nor can it be attributed to the originated themselves. Rather, it belongs to God above.

The second strategy: considering the universe as a whole

The second strategy is to refute the regress of originators and the circular dependency. This strategy is easily achieved by zooming out of the individual material entities and considering the entire material substrate, the infinitely many substances that come into existence and go out of existence in succession, as a whole.

The very "substantial origination" that occurs in the material substrate in an infinite regress requires an external Cause who brings the substances into existence and removes them from existence in succession in an infinite regress. Since this Cause is outside of the set of all originating substances, it must be an eternal Originator by logical entailment. It cannot be originated, for it would then be within the set of all originating substances, and the substrate would be left unexplained.

Such a strategy is similar to the one employed in the argument from contingency. The argument from contingency can be adequately explained along the following helpful lines:

1- The substances of the material world are contingent, i.e. accept existence and nonexistence, as is evidenced by their prior nonexistence and later existence.

2- Since their very substance accepts existence and nonexistence, they can have absolutely no existence from their own selves. Rather, a contingent substance depends in its existence on something that is outside of itself.

3- But adding such a contingent substance, that has absolutely no existence from its own self, to other substances of the same kind does not render the entirety into existence. In fact, two contingent substances are in greater need of explanation than each on its own.

4- Thus, the whole set of infinitely many contingent substances existing in succession, i.e. the entirety of the material substrate, can have no existence from its own self.

5- Rather, the material substrate depends on an external, non-contingent Cause by logical entailment, a Maker who is absolutely independent of all others in every respect, and who exists necessarily and cannot possibly not exist.

That Maker is God, Allah, the eternal Lord of all things, who neither begets nor is begotten, and who creates ex materia and by way of secondary causes and material conditions, without being assisted by these causes and conditions. God alone is eternal. He is the First such that nothing preceded Him, and the Last such that nothing succeeds Him. By contrast, everything in His creation is preceded by a material origin and is succeeded by something else.

In keeping with physicalist principles, He is a spatiotemporal God who exists above the material universe in a spatial sense, and who acts in succession from above from past eternity and forever into the future, in full accordance with His perfect wisdom and mercy.

Although God is spatiotemporal, it is impermissible to describe Him as a "body", "physical", or "corporeal". This is due to the terms’ negative associations and susceptibility to misinterpretation. He is instead to be described using scriptural terms, such as "above His creation", "upon His Throne".

God is unequalled by the creations in His essence, attributes, and agency. {There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Seeing, the All-Hearing.} [Qur'an 42:11]

Since He is the giver of every form of perfection in the material world, He has more right to all the possible forms of perfection that entail no deficiency. Due to His independence, He is maximally perfect in all His attributes and actions, deserving them necessarily. 

God says: {And it is He who begins creation; then He repeats it, and that is [even] easier for Him. To Him belongs the highest attribute in the heavens and the earth. And He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise.} [Qur'an 30:27]

And He says: {They have not appraised Allah with true appraisal, while the earth entirely will be within His grip on the Day of Resurrection, and the heavens will be folded in His right hand. Exalted is He and high above what they associate with Him.} [Qur'an 39:67]

God is the only true deity

Once we recognize this truth of Tawhid, we are to submit fully to this Higher Power, obeying Him, and striving to align our will with His will. We are to worship Him alone without making partners with Him, and to worship Him directly without intermediaries. We are to dedicate our lives entirely for His sake, loving Him with the utmost love, in complete humility and serene submission before His majesty, beauty, and perfection. We are to believe in His promise and act righteously on the earth, placing our trust in Him.

Singling out God for worship, and aligning our will with His will, is the cause for all well-being, goodness, and happiness in this life and the hereafter. By contrast, making partners with Him in worship is the pit of all corruption, misery, and immorality.

This is why one who dies in a state of polytheism will never be forgiven by God, and will remain in the Hellfire permanently, never to come out of it. It is because such a polytheist has died in an irreconcilably evil state. May God save us from His punishment.

Note that a deceased polytheist will be punished specifically if he rejected the truth of Islamic monotheism after being presented with its clear evidences and possessing the capacity to understand them. Otherwise, he will be from Ahl al-Fatrah, a category of people who will be tested separately by God on the Day of Judgement. If he passes during that test, he will enter Paradise with the rest of the believers.

In other words, a polytheistic heart that consciously rejects monotheism is an utterly corrupt heart that necessarily produces corrupt intentions and actions. It is a dysfunctional heart resisting He who objectively has the greatest right to love and submission. Such a polytheist will not be rewarded in the hereafter for any good he does in this world if he dies in a state of polytheism. Rather, God will fully repay him in this life for any good he does to others.

In the hereafter, it will be perfectly just for God to place such a corrupt heart in the Hellfire for as long as it remains in that wicked state. The Qur'an confirms that polytheists who die upon unbelief will return to their evil ways if given a second chance. Thus, the polytheists who die upon the state of polytheism will remain in the Hellfire permanently and will never come out of it. This is at least for as long as it remains to be a "Fire" and an abode for punishment, i.e. {epochs/ages/long stretches of time}.

This is unlike believing sinners who had faith in God and the Afterlife. Such people will either be forgiven by God and admitted to Paradise, or will be punished in the Hellfire temporarily before entering Paradise. They will not remain in the Fire permanently. The hearts of such people are essentially good and accept purification. The hadiths indicate that the one who has the slightest amount of faith in his heart will eventually make it to the Garden, where he will live blissfully forever. Indeed, God is Kind and Merciful.

Note that if a polytheist turns to God in repentance and accepts monotheism, God will surely accept him. God forgives all sins. The door for sincere repentance remains open until the sun rises from the west, or one is literally dying and his soul has reached his throat.

This fact that God alone deserves worship is called "Tawhid al-Uluhiyyah". It is the essence of the Prophetic call, the very message of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad (may God elevate their mention and bless them all).

One of the ways to establish the Tawhid of Uluhiyyah is to first establish the "Tawhid of Rububiyyah", the fact that God is the sole Creator and Lord of all things, without son, partner, rival, or assistant in His dominion and kingship. The Qur'an frequently uses this method when refuting polytheism. It clarifies that God alone is the true god (ilah) and deity deserving of worship and submission, because He alone is the Creator, Lord, and Provider, who originates us and blesses us with everything.

Demonstrating God’s Lordship: the first argument

Once again, the physicalist view allows us to articulate the fact of Tawhid al-Rububiyyah, i.e. God’s Oneness in His Lordship and Creative agency, with exceptional philosophical clarity and precision. This is achieved by the following two Qur'anic arguments:

The first argument is an "argument from interconnectedness". It is based on the universal interdependence across creation; every originated substance must be connected to some other originated substance in a single, universal system. Furthermore, God creates all things by way of causes, ex materia. His creative agency extends from the infinite past to the infinite future, manifesting a single interdependent system of effects that is ever subject to substantial change.

There is absolutely no room for a created system to be totally isolated from ours. Such a notion is contrary to empirical observation, and is also philosophically impossible under a reasonably physicalist view. If a created system cannot in principle interact with our part of the universe, then it is as good as non-existent.

Furthermore, both the visible and Unseen creations must be subsumed within one material system. Angels, jinn, and souls are physical beings that influence the observed parts of the world and are scientifically detectable in principle, even if we currently do not have the means to observe them with our eyes.

This very fact of universal interdependence is a conclusive evidence for the Oneness of the Lord. This is because, given that the universe is one interdependent system of material entities, any other Lord that is assumed to exist alongside God must be said to cause it in partnership with Him. There is no second system for the power of the other Lord to connect to.

But a God acting in partnership with another Lord undermines His sufficiency and independence that was previously demonstrated through the contingency argument. A God cannot be dependent in His agency on an assistant.

For example, if the generation of human beings is impossible without prior, generative material conditions in the form of parents or earthly elements, then the God who creates human beings must be the same God who creates the elements. If God creates humans while another Lord creates the elements, then God would be depending, in His act of creating humans, on the other Lord’s act of creating the elements, for the natural effect (in its exact fullness) is impossible without its specific material cause.

This is precisely why God must be the Creator of all things, both the natural effects and their causes. Each thing commences from His creative power and will, and His existence is the basis of every other existence. Put differently, God’s creative agency is not conditioned on external material conditions that are not of His own making. Otherwise, His independence, as demonstrated through the contingency argument, would be contradicted.

This simple fact was taught by the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in his famous statement {Who infected the first one?}, which was reported in an authentic hadith in Sahih Bukhari:

People who resist this necessary connection between material existents, arguing for creation ex nihilo and insisting that the scope of God’s omnipotence includes creating things without material causes, do not fully appreciate the rationality of Islamic Tawhid. This is because their understanding severs the logically necessary links between material entities, allowing some freedom in positing totally isolated and causally disconnected systems and universes, which in turn undermines the Qur'anic argument for God’s oneness.

God says in Chapter al-Mu'minun: {Never did Allah take to Himself a son, nor was there ever any god with Him. If there had been, then each god would take away what he created} [23:91]. The verse explicitly affirms universal interdependence, namely: that all the different parts of the universe must be interconnected within one system. There is no room for different gods who take apart and sufficiently maintain their own isolated systems. By contrast, proponents of ex nihilo creation are content with the notion of material existents having no association with prior material existents. They unknowingly commit (in some sense) to the plausibility of totally isolated systems in creation, perhaps entire universes that have no necessary connection to prior universes, undermining the Qur'anic argument from interconnectedness.

Demonstrating God’s Lordship: the second argument

The second argument is "the argument from subjugation", and can be explained as follows.

Given that the universe is one interdependent system, it cannot be sufficiently caused by each of two fully independent Creator lords. This is because the sufficiency of one Lord for the universe precludes the sufficiency of the other for it. Each of two equally sufficient causes cannot be responsible for the same effect.

Consider two human builders who build the same house. If each human builder cannot exclusively build a house when the other builder is equally building it on his own, then, a fortiori, a God who exclusively originates and sustains the universe precludes the existence of another Lord who equally originates and sustains it.

Thus, any other Lord existing alongside God must be lesser in power. Accordingly, he is not an independent co-equal god. Rather, he is a restricted being just like all other originated substances, a needy creation that is included within the material substrate that owes its existence to the eternal and independent Originator above.

This Qur'anic argument is also mentioned in the previously stated verse from Chapter al-Mu'minun: {Nor was there ever any god with Him. If there had been, then each god would take away what he created, and some would overcome others.} Both arguments have been explained in "Ibn Taymiyyah on the Oneness of God".

In conclusion, physicalism provides us with a robust framework that allows us to appreciate God’s existence and Islamic Tawhid (Monotheism) with rare philosophical clarity. Rather than unnecessarily opposing it, I encourage Muslims to adopt this framework of physicalism in countering atheism and polytheism in the modern world. Insha'Allah, it will be very effective in promoting the message of Islam in this age. Allah knows best.

May Allah elevate the mention of His Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, his household, and his companions. May He send upon them His peace and His blessings.

And the last of our prayers is:

{All praise is due to God, the Lord of the worlds}.

Article on the Internet Archive (Alternative link)

Link to thread (part 1, part 2, on X)