Bilal Philips – Is Belief Enough Journey Of Faith
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss various sub questions related to belief in God, including man-made, evil, and false belief, and the importance of knowing who God is and the logic behind them. They stress the importance of living life with faith in God, including praying and spending one's lives on him. The speakers also touch on the idea of evil behavior and the possibility of Mona Lisa appearing in a painting. They stress the importance of worshiping God in all aspects of one's life, including praying and spending one's lives on him.
AI: Summary ©
Just like a little player, Raheem green for that insightful topic and
it is not non Muslims but it is not yet Muslims. I think the point that really stuck out
Sharla our next topic about his belief enough his belief in God enough, just any god or does it have to be belief in Allah subhanho wa Taala.
And I don't want to delve too much into the topic. I want to introduce our next topic or our sorry, our next speaker. And everybody knows a ton about him already. So I'm only going to mention one significant thing that's happening in his life in the coming few weeks.
Dr. amenable Amina Bilal Philips is the founding director of Preston International University, which will begin its branch in Chennai, Southern southern India, and is going to be going in Sharla in July.
And this is I think, it just adds to the stock of accomplishments and things he's already done in the Gulf states in North America and different areas around the world. So without further ado, I present to you Dr. Abu Amina, Bella Philips
hamdu Lillah
wa salatu salam ala rasulillah.
All praise is due to Allah. May Allah Peace and blessings beyond the last messenger of Allah.
The topic is belief enough,
is usually tackled,
from the perspective that when Prophet Mohammed Salah was asked about
what one should do, to make it to paradise, he had said to those who asked him
who are meant to be thermostat him,
say, I believe in a law, then the upright. This is how it's traditionally tackled this topic
is belief enough, that belief must be accompanied by righteous deeds, as my brother Abdul Rahim Greene just mentioned in Surah laaser. This is encapsulated there. However, this afternoon,
I am going to be looking at it from another perspective.
It is from the perspective of the question, which we'll be asked in the grave.
That
we know when a person dies, and he or she is placed in the grave.
And this is the state of the grave
that the spirit of the individual is brought back.
And he or she hears
those who had brought their corpse or body to be buried. After they walk away, we hear their footsteps.
Then, two angels,
who will be jack black, with blue eyes will come and sit up the individual in the grave
or in the state of the grave?
And ask three questions.
The first question which will be asked is man Robach? Who is your Lord?
We will not be asked,
Did you believe in God?
Or will not be asked? Who do you believe in?
But will be asked Who was your Lord? Who had you taken as your Lord your God?
This question
is different from the concept of belief in the sense that one has to know who one's Lord is. Otherwise belief in the Lord can easily be a false belief.
We have a massive humanity
who believe that their Lord was Jesus Christ.
A human being
created by God.
So for them, their Lord was not God, but a human being. By not knowing who God is, then it is possible for one to take as his or her Lord, a variety,
from God's creation, whether they're human beings, as in the case of Jesus, or their animals,
as some worship cows, monkeys, elephants, rats, people worship and all kinds of things. And this is the Lord. These are their lords.
But it is a result of not knowing who really is the Lord.
Now,
the point that we have to ask ourselves,
to determine
who really knows who their Lord is,
is a body of questions, which those who don't believe in the Lord normally ask.
I'm going to list some questions. And if you're not able to answer these questions, if you're stumped by these questions,
or I'll give some answers, which are the wrong answers. And if you give these wrong answers, then in both instances, you don't really know who your Lord is. The first question is,
do you agree with those who say that belief is a matter of blind faith?
Do you believe?
or agree
with those who say that belief?
belief in God is a matter of blind faith?
Second question.
And this says the number of sub questions this is the ones, if you're stumped by them, then you don't know who your Lord is first sub question. If everything has a creator,
then who created God?
Second question,
if God can do anything,
why can't he have a son?
Third question.
If God is all powerful,
can he create a stone? Which is too heavy for him to lift?
Fourth question, if God is all good,
and Able to do all things,
then where did evil come from?
force sub questions if we're stumped by these questions, we don't have answers for these questions, then it means you really haven't understood who God is.
The third major question
deals with the false answers. If for the first question, sub question, if everything has a creator who created God? If your answer is he created himself, then you don't know who God is?
For the second question, if God can do anything, why can't you have a son? If your answer was, he could have a son, but he chose not to.
You don't know who God is?
Third,
if God is all powerful, can he create a stone too heavy for him to lift? Yes.
You don't know who God is?
Firstly, if God is all good, and Able to do all things, where did evil come from? Satan, or man made evil?
If that was your answer, you don't know who your Lord is.
The last major question that we're going to look at this evening
is the question
Do you accept that God created the world and left it to run by itself?
And this is a common belief of many, who even call themselves Christians and others today? God created the world and left it to run by itself.
So what then,
are the answers to these questions?
And I said, this is very important for us to understand why because in Surah, Yusuf the 12th chapter of the Quran, verse 106, a law says there was
I mean, who acts or whom biLlahi, Elavil whom? machete Koon. Most of those who believe in God in a law
commit idolatry,
they actually are worshipping others along with or besides God. So let us then look at our first big question.
Do you agree with those who say that belief is a matter of blind faith? Now, that question,
or that statement is usually made by the atheists, they say, our belief that there is no God is the logical belief.
Those of you who believe in God, who are caught up in this mass delusion,
about a god.
Your belief is based on blind faith.
Meaning you can't prove it.
It's just faith, you believe.
It's not logical, there are no logical principles that you can bring to bear.
If we accept that, then we really don't know who our Lord is.
First and foremost, in response to that claim, we have to say that
those who invented logic, who are the people who invented logic, the Greeks, that is, they invented a set of rules, which govern
logical statements and arguments, not that they really actually invented logic, people knew logic before the Greeks came along. However, the Greeks set rules, which people then studied even till today, in universities, classes in logic are given, taken from the early Greek philosophers Well, the leading amongst the Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle.
If belief in God,
were illogical,
then they should have been amongst those who didn't believe in God. However, what we find instead, is that both Plato and Aristotle believed in God, and they argued for God's existence. Logically.
They argued for God's existence, logically, that it there was logic behind it. After arguing logically, they came to the conclusion there must be a god.
Plato argued from design,
that design indicates a designer. That was his argument. And this is the most common argument found mentioned throughout the Quran. Allah calls human beings to reflect on his creation, and how it has been created. It is a sign of God in and of itself.
And we have to say that
it is reasonable and logical to come to this conclusion. That design indicates a designer.
It is normal and natural for us. When we walk along the beach, and we see a footprint in the sand.
It is normal and logical for us to conclude that some human being stepped here.
It is not normal and logical
to think how amazing it is that the tide came in, sunk into the sand and made an impression which looks like a footprint.
Oh, that could happen. It's not impossible.
But that's not how our brains function.
The logic of our brains tells us we see that footprint we assume that a human being stepped here.
But those who say No, not necessarily.
They will argue for example, very easily, that if you take a bucket of paint, and you throw it against the wall, it can splatter and look like a hand
or
head or a foot.
This can happen. And it's true. You look at the clouds, sometime the clouds take a shape that looks sort of like a head
looks like somebody I know.
Or a foot or a hand or something. It happens. However, we say, if you put in that bucket,
colors, your primary colors, yellow, red, blue, add some white and black, stir it up, and then throw it against the wall. What are the chances of a Mona Lisa coming out of that?
Now the atheist will say, possible.
It's possible. If you throw it enough times, you have enough paint.
Eventually, one time it could happen.
What does our minds tell us? No way. The first time you try is like the last time you try. It's all the same. But the atheist illogically will say, no, it's possible. And they will even give you God punish you for doing wrong when it wasn't your choice.
So that argument doesn't hold water. We know that whatever evil we do, we choose to do it.
And we are held accountable based on our choices as the Prophet Solomon said,
in the malla man, beneath all of the deeds that we do, will be judged in accordance with the
intention we have behind them, the decision that we made with regarding
that's how it is ultimately judged. So one may see something as good, but in behind it is an evil intent. And God will judge that evil intent and not the good, which we saw.
The last point
the common point, held by
those who have accepted God, I said, Okay,
everything seems to indicate that there must be a god.
Scientists, astronomers, physicists, etc. Many of them believe in God,
a huge portion of them believe in God.
This fields where you find most of them not believing in God, or the pseudo sciences, psychiatry, psychology, these other fields, which depend mostly on human theories, that's the foundation there is facts and figures and data, etc. But the core of it is human reasoning, human ideas. So in those fields, you'll find a large portion of those people don't believe in God. But the natural scientists who study the planets, study the earth, study the plants, the animals, you find them, the vast majority of them, believing in God, however, raised for example, in Christian tradition, or other traditions, when looking at religion, and how it seems to be fabricated, changing different
religions. Who's right, who's wrong? So they say, okay, the only simple solution for all of this is to say, God created this world, and human beings created religions, religions are all human made human beings made them up.
That's the easy way out, rather than saying,
there could there's also the possibility that one of them is right, and the rest are wrong.
They're only looking at the possibility that they're all wrong, because they're all different. They're all claim their rights, so therefore, all wrong.
But there's the other possibility that one could be right,
and the rest wrong.
So
why is that illogical?
Why does that indicate that one has an understood one's Lord? Because
common sense again, reason and logic tells us
that
a person who sets up a company
and hires people to work in the company and didn't explain to them what they're supposed to do in the company.
When the workday starts, they come to the company, when the workday Li ends, they leave the company in between what are they doing? Nobody told them what to do. So they just came they hung out.
in the cafeteria, chatted, walked around the plant, looking at things, touching things
that didn't work.
Common sense tells us that the owner of such a plant who did that is foolish
is not very smart, not very wise for him to have set up this plant, brought people in and didn't tell them what they're supposed to do.
Chaos is going to be the result, you're not going to succeed, the company will not progress, what you intended, will not be done.
That's common sense. So when we say God created the world and left it to run on its own, that is attributing to God, a lack of wisdom
on a huge scale,
for where he not to have informed human beings, about the reason why they are here, their purpose, what are they supposed to do during their lifetime, for him to have done that would have been like that man and his company
on unwise, but we know one of the basic characteristics of God is that he is all wise, not on wise, all wise. So therefore,
we have to
accept
logically,
once we accept the logic of God's existence, that he conveyed his wish, his will to human beings, in the form of books of Revelation,
and in the form of prophets, who would explain to people how to apply those books of revelation?
That is reason and logic.
That is understanding who is our Lord?
So,
for us to be able to successfully respond to the questions at the end of this life, man Robbo Who is your Lord, we need to be clear. And that is what the Quran is all about. The essence of the message of the Quran is conveying to human beings, who is their Lord, so that they would understand
that worship belongs to Him alone, that he is the only one who deserves to be worshipped without any intermediaries between himself and
his creatures, that all of the various forms of intermediate see, they're all false. They're not from God. God did not teach this. God taught that we worship Him alone, with the oni, as tangible accom call on me, God says in the Quran, Allah says call on me, and I will answer your prayers. So no matter how much people might logically try to explain the need for intercessors. How do they explain it? commonly, they will say, Listen, you
dirty with sins.
You're not a perfect human being, you've committed many sins, so you're dirty with sins, and you want to approach God who is pure, then you need to find somebody who is closer to him,
due to his or her purity, and then you pray through them. You call on them in prayer. And because they're closer to God, they will get your prayers up to God, just like in this world, what happens? You want to see the Prime Minister, you can just go down to the
home of the Prime Minister, and knock on his door and say, Mr. Prime Minister, I'd like to have a little chat with you. No, it doesn't work like that. You have to see your local representative who then speaks to somebody else. And this one speaks to that one up the ladder to finally it gets to the Prime Minister, just the same way. sounds logical. But that is not understanding God.
That is logic of this world of this life. That's how we do things. But
God has made it clear that he hears all he knows all. So we don't need intermediaries between ourselves and God to add intermediaries to use intermediaries whether we call them saints and we have Muslims.
who believe in saints, as Catholics do,
or we call them imams. And there are Muslims who believe that there are individuals 12 in number, who have the attributes of Allah.
And they are intermediaries to whom you may pray,
call on
seek guidance, they will do things for you in this life, because you call on them,
any of such beliefs are false.
They are a result of not knowing our Lord.
As I said, in the very beginning, the question is belief enough?
No, it's not. It's not enough. If we have an understood, man, Robert, who is your Lord, if we have understood who our Lord is, then yes, believe linked with righteous deeds is enough.
Believe
which is
actualized, which is implemented in our lives, that is enough to give us success in this world. So I asked her law
most high and Almighty to guide us to the understanding of who he is, so that we may worship him, as he deserves to be worshipped, wherein we dedicate our whole lives to his worship. Understanding that worship is not just putting up your hands at a certain time in the day or in a certain place, call a mosque or a church or whatever synagogue etc. Know that worship involves obeying God in all aspects of our lives, as God said in the Quran. In the salatu wa Suki, Amaya, Houma Mattila horrible alameen say, indeed, my prayers, my sacrifices, my living and my dying are for a law, the Lord of all the worlds May Allah give us that reality and make him in our hearts
our true Lord Salaam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh