the truth about life after death

ARGUMENTS FOR THE RESURRECTION

Universal wisdom proves the Resurrection

God is absolutely free in His acts; He does whatever He wills and no one can call Him to account for what He does. However, He is the All-Wise and acts with absolute purposiveness and wisdom. He never exerts Himself in vain and never does a thing that is futile or pointless.

When a man looks at himself and ponders over his nature, and his physical and spiritual identity and structure, when he studies his body with all its parts down to the cells, he will see that he has been created for certain important purposes and there is not even a single useless atom in his structure. Like man, the normo-universe, the universe, which is the macro-human being, manifests great purposes and innumerable instances of wisdom in all its parts. There is not a meaningless and useless thing the size of even a gnat’s wing.

Man has a unique place among creation. Whatever is in the universe, God has placed some aspect of it in man’s creation. With his mental and spiritual faculties he represents angelic and other spiritual worlds like the world of symbols or immaterial forms. What is more, by virtue of his inborn capacity to learn and the free will with which he is endowed, he has the potential to excel even angels. With his physical or biological being, he represents plants and animals. Although contained in time and place, with his spiritual faculties and other powers like imagination, he goes beyond time and space. Despite man’s matchlessness and indescribable worth among creatures, some human beings die at birth and some quite young. In addition, man longs for eternity and desires an eternal life, some of his senses or feelings are satisfied with nothing but eternity. If he were left free to choose between eternal life with severe hardships and eternal non-existence after a short luxurious life, most probably he would prefer eternal life with hardships. He would even prefer eternal existence in Hell to eternal non-existence. God, Who is the All-Merciful and All-Wise, did not condemn man to eternal non-existence. Nor did He give him the desire for eternity so that he would suffer the anguish of a heart-felt desire impossible to satisfy. So Divine Wisdom requires the existence of an eternal world where man will live eternally.

The world does not suffice for the right judgment of man’s worth. Although, physically, he is a small body, through his mental and spiritual faculties he embraces the whole of the universe. His acts do not relate only to the visible world and cannot be restricted by time and space. He has so universal a nature that even the acts of the first man has effects on the life and character of the last man, on the whole of existence. To restrict man, as materialists do, to a physical entity and to a very short part of time and a limited part of space, is the worst of insolence to man and inappreciation of him. The scales of this world cannot weigh the intellectual and spiritual value of the Prophets and their achievements, nor can they weigh the measure of the destruction caused by world-notorious individuals like Pharaoh, Nero, Hitler, Stalin and the like. The scales of this world cannot weigh the true value of a sincere belief and moral qualities. With what can you reward a martyr who has sacrificed himself, his world, for God’s sake, for the sake of others or for the sake of some universal human values like justice and truthfulness. With what can you reward a believing scientist who has dedicated himself to the service of humanity and made an invention from which the whole of mankind will benefit until the Last Day? It is only the scales of the other world, scales which can weigh even an atom’s weight of good and an atom’s weight of evil, that can do so.

We set up a just balance for the Day of Resurrection. Thus, no soul will be treated unjustly. Even though it be the weight of one mustard seed, We shall bring it forth to be weighed; and Our reckoning will suffice. (21:47)

Supposing there were nothing to require the Resurrection, the necessity of man’s deeds being weighed alone would require an infinitely just and sensitive balance to be set up.

God is not obliged to do anything. He does whatever He wishes and acts however he wills. Nevertheless, starting from the undeniable fact that whatever He does, He does it for certain purposes, we can conclude that His universal Wisdom requires the Resurrection. Is it conceivable that the Majestic Being, Who manifests the Sovereignty of His being Lord in the order, purposiveness, justice and balance prevalent throughout the universe, from atoms to galaxies, would not show His favor to those believers who seek the protection of His being their Lord and Sovereign, who believe in His Wisdom and Justice and act in conformity with them through worship? Again, is it conceivable that He would not chastise those impudent ones who, denying His Wisdom and Justice, turn against Him in rebellious insolence? Since, in this impermanent world, scarcely a thousandth part of His Wisdom and Justice are established with respect to man, it is certain that they are deferred. For most of the misguided depart this world unpunished, and most of the guided depart unrewarded. Such affairs are, certainly, deferred to a supreme tribunal, an ultimate contentment.

It is clear that the One Who administers this world does so in accordance with an infinite wisdom. Do you need convincing? The proof lies in the way that the use and benefit in all things is manifested. Have you not seen how many wise purposes are served by every limb and bone and vein in man, by every cell of his brain, and every particle of every cell in his body? Indeed, the purposes are as numerous as the fruits of a tree, which confirms that all is arranged in accordance with infinite wisdom. A further proof is the absolute orderliness in the fashioning of all things. In short, there are universal purposes for man’s earthly existence. As is declared in the Quran, Did you reckon that We only created you in vain, and that to Us you would not be returned? So, exalted is God (from exerting Himself in what is vain), the Sovereign, the Truth. There is no god but He; Lord of the Noble Throne (23:115-16), man has not been created for mere play or sport. The grave, eternal non-existence, is not the goal of his life. He has been created for another, eternal life where all his acts will have prepared for him a very large, eternal world full of either eternal beauties and blessings or evils and wickedness.

We see in the world that the more needy and helpless a creature is, the better it is nourished. For example, during the first stages of life, a human being is nourished in the best way and with no effort before and immediately after his birth. As he becomes an adult aware of his personal strength and will-power, he begins to meet his needs with great difficulties in order to make his living.

Similarly, animals like wolves and foxes, which rely on their power and cunning, are barely nourished despite much effort and toil, while fruit-worms live on the best of food and quite easily. Plants, a kind of creatures unable to move, take their food ready without any effort. All these examples, together with many others, clearly show that there is One absolutely Merciful and Munificent, Who has rule over the whole of creatures and sustain or maintain them.

God is eternal, so are His Mercy and Munificence. An Eternal One manifests Himself eternally and requires the existence of eternal beings. His eternal Mercy and Munificence demand eternal manifestation and therefore eternal beings on whom He will confer His bounties eternally. However, the present, material world is subject to perishing: the death of millions of living creatures every day, the extinction of numerous lives, is indicative of this world’s final, overall death. In addition, the material world cannot receive the manifestations of Divine Names and Attributes in all their comprehensiveness. Also, living beings have to exert much effort and struggle through many hardships and difficulties in order to maintain themselves. For human beings in particular, it is impossible to gratify all of their desires and appetites. Such qualities as youth, beauty, and strength, upon which a man sets his heart, desert him without even saying farewell and leave behind great sorrows, causing him to grieve. Also, in order to obtain, say, a cluster of grapes, he has to exert certain effort. Again, it would clearly be a pain, even an insult and mockery, to stop nourishing eternally after those who need nourishment have tasted it. For a blessing to be really a blessing, it must be constant. Without an eternal life, in which man will be able to gratify all his desires eternally, all the bounties and blessings God Almighty confers on man in this world will change into pains and sorrows. Therefore, after its overall destruction, God will change the world into an eternal one which is able to receive the manifestations of His Mercy and Munificence without any obstruction, in which man can satisfy all his desires eternally.

It is through the Divine Pity and Caring that wounds and wounded hearts and feelings are healed. Without this Pity and Caring, you could not stop a wound bleeding. Again, it is this Pity and Caring Which make a patient recover, stop the pangs of separation, and change pains and sorrows into joy and pleasure. The same Pity and Caring come to the aid of men and animals in all stages of their lives, especially before and after their birth. In their embryonic stage, the wombs of their mothers become well-protected homes for them, where they are nourished directly through their wombs without having to do anything themselves, and after their birth, the Divine Pity and Caring send them the best of food in the form of breast-milk impossible to substitute with anything else. Besides, all the feelings of pity and caring shared by all fathers and mothers are a single manifestation of the Divine Pity and Caring.

The Divine Pity and Caring encompass the whole universe, but we encounter in the world numerous wounds and wounded feelings unhealed and numerous cases of incurable illness. Innumerable living beings suffer hunger and thirst and poverty. As in the case with the Divine Mercy and Munificence, the material world is also unable to receive all the manifestations of the Divine Pity and Caring. Especially the incapacity of men to receive those manifestations, in addition to the injustices of many and their misuses of their inborn abilities, intervenes between beings and the manifestations of the Divine Pity and Caring. Above all, death is the fate of all living beings; nothing else other than belief in another, eternal world can stop the sorrows it arouses in hearts.

God’s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, was once sitting in the Mosque, when some prisoners of war were brought to him. A woman who was looking for something in a great anxiety drew the Messenger’s attention to herself. Which boy the woman saw, she took him to her breast and then left him. She must have been looking for her son. At last she found him and embraced him, pressing him to her breast and caressing him with a great affection. This caused the Messenger to burst into tears and pointing to the woman