Timeless causality
In the course of deriving timeless-eternality of an immaterial transcendent personal God, we concluded:
- that only God can know how He causes, how He brought into existence and indeed how He interacts with the material time-contingent universe
- that the answer could only be found, if at all, in divine revelation
- that the answer has to be accepted as a matter of belief because as material human beings we cannot comprehend the answer as we will have reached the limit of human knowledge, the boundary between reason and belief in the Unseen
As shown above, in the Qur’an, God confirms that He only has to intend a thing for it to happen, to say “Be” and it is.
The answer from divine revelation as to the nature of timeless-causality is so simple and so intuitive that it can be believed without further explanation. It is the best explanation by Ockham’s Razor.
His Command may, however, be carried out by material agents in the material temporal world. For example, on death,
It is Allah [swt] Who takes away the souls at the time of their death, and those that die not during their sleep. He keeps those [souls] for which He has ordained death and sends the rest for a term appointed. Verily in this are signs for a people who think deeply.[44]
God “takes away the souls at the time of death”, however His Command is acted upon by the angels,
And we [angels] descend not except by the Command of your Lord [O Muhammad]. To Him belongs what is before us and what is behind us and what is in between those two; and your Lord is never forgetful.[45]
“who descend…by the Command” of God, because, on death,