Man's Essential Nature as Evidence for Resurrection

[Guest guest]

If we look at religion from the viewpoint of the history of human

society, we will see that at every stage of human thought, in the

mists of prehistory as well as throughout the broad expanse of

recorded history of this changing world, man has always firmly

believed in a life after death.

 

When we follow archeologists in their excavations, we find material

traces of primitive men who all believed in a life after the life of

this world. The tools and implements they buried with their dead bear

witness to the distinctive conceptions they held of the life that

exists behind the gate of death. They knew that death is not the end

of all life, but because of their erroneous concepts they imagined

that man would need the tools of life in the next world just as he

does in this, and that he would be able to use the implements buried

with him.

 

In whatever land and age he has lived, man has always had a hidden

perception, a kind of inspiration, that permits him to hope for a

tomorrow after today. Some monodimensional sociologists fail to grasp

this truth, with their purely rationalistic interpretations, and they

discuss the matter purely in the light of social and economic

factors. Concentrating on the fantastic and superstitious aspects of

certain religions, they overlook the positive dimensions of belief in

the hereafter.

 

These profound and well-rooted beliefs cannot be taken simply as the

result of autopersuasion or habit, for habit and custom cannot resist

for ever time and the changes that it brings in human society.

 

Although the peoples of the world differ in their national and social

customs because of ethnic and natural variation, so that each people

has its own special customs and habits of thought, all men hold in

common a certain set of instincts and attributes.

 

Whatever country or continent they inhabit, all men even semi-

barbaric, backward, and prehistoric peoples respect and value

precious concepts such as justice, equity and trustworthiness, just

as they shun and abhor treachery, cruelty and anarchic behavior.

 

So although destructive changes and revolutions may overturn and

obliterate many of the habits and customs that have ruled for

centuries over a given society, so that not even a trace is left of

them today, the attachment and respect that men of the past nurtured

for virtues such as justice, generosity, and trustworthiness remains

exactly the same today in every human society. It can even be said

that the flame of men's love for these concepts burns more brightly

today and that their attachment to them is more profound than ever

before.

 

Purely social conventions must be learned by children when their

intellect and powers of discernment begin to blossom; by contrast,

instinctual and natural urges emerge from the inner being of the

child without any need for a teacher or master.

 

Being inherent to man and firmly rooted in his nature, belief in

eternal truths and the awareness of creation and resurrection have

proven immune to all the changes that human societies have undergone

in history; they are permanent and stable.

 

Those who bury their heads in the sand of fantasy are merely trying

to cover up one of the most profound perceptions of man with their

baseless and often incomprehensible imaginings.

 

* * * * *

 

Some form of belief in the hereafter existed among the Romans, the

Egyptians, the Greeks, the Babylonians the Chaldaeans, and the other

peoples of the ancient world, although the belief was often

superficial, tainted with superstition, and far removed from the

logic of a true faith in God's unity. The same is true of the beliefs

of certain primitive peoples. For example, it was customary among

some tribes on the Congo that when one of their kings died, twelve

virgins would present themselves at his grave and then begin fighting

and arguing for the privilege of being joined with the deceased,

often with fatal results! The people of the Fiji Islands believed

that the dead engage in all the same activities as the living

fighting battles, procreating children, tilling the land, and so on.

 

A scholar writes:

 

" One of the customs of the people of Fiji is that they bury their

mothers and fathers when they reach the age of forty. The reason for

selecting this age as the age of burial is that it is the approximate

middle of life, the most desirable of ages, so that when the deceased

is resurrected, he will find himself in possession of the physical

strength he had when he was forty years old. " (Mushadati Ilmi, p.98)

 

Samuel King, the well-known sociologist, says:

 

" Religion not only exists today throughout the world; careful

research also shows that the most primitive tribes also possessed a

form of religion. Neanderthal man the ancestor of present-day

humanity clearly had some form of religion because we know that he

used to bury his dead in a certain way, placing their tools and

implements beside them and thus demonstrating belief in a future

world. " (Jami Shinasi, p. 192)

 

The people of Mexico used to bury the court jester together with the

king, so that he might amuse the dead sovereign in the grave and

dispel his sorrow with his antics and jokes!

 

The Greeks of three thousand years ago believed that man does not

disappear when he dies; he continues living like the people of this

world with exactly the same needs. They therefore placed food next to

their graves. (Milal Sharq va Yunan, p. 167)

 

Although certain beliefs concerning the nature of the afterlife may

then be tainted with superstition or form a mixture of truth and

falsehood, the persistence of the belief itself throughout time

confirms that it has an inner core which is inherent to man's nature.

It is nurtured by inspiration and inward perception and is embedded

in the structure of man's being.

 

It is also beyond doubt that the knowledge of man is based on certain

self-evident first premises; if these are subjected to doubt, the

authority to which all of man's knowledge goes back will be shaken,

and no reliance can be placed on any knowledge at all. The witness

borne by man's innermost, primordial nature constitutes, in fact, the

highest form of evidence, and no logic can contest it.

 

Without having any need for deduction and proof, we can understand,

aided by our primordial disposition, that the order of being is based

on justice and accountability. Whatever arises from our essence is

part of our being and part of the order of creation, an order that

admits of no error. It is the inward nature of man that makes it

possible for him to arrive at the truth.

 

When our instinctive awareness and our nature inspire in us the

knowledge that answerability, accounting, and law exist in the

universe, when our primordial disposition issues a judgement to this

effect, we have in fact acquired a decisive proof that is superior to

empirically attained certainty, for we perceive the certainty and

inevitability of resurrection with full clarity once we understand it

by means of our inner nature.

 

We feel clearly that unaccountability and meaninglessness have no

foundation in the objective world. Firm laws regulate all existing

things, from the minute particles of the atom to the vast heavenly

bodies. The birth and death of planets and stars, the transformation

of the mass of the sun into luminous energy, all take place by way of

an equation. The different forms of organic matter each have their

own lines of attraction, and nothing goes to waste, even the energy

of one part of an atom. In short, the entire order of creation

follows an unvarying regularity; it is like a table of firm and

unbending laws.

 

Why then does the behavior of men deviate from the normative orbit of

all beings? Why is it not based on justice and regularity, and why do

injustice, disorder, and lack of restraint, rage unchecked in the

human realm?

 

The answer is obvious: that we are differentiated from all other

creatures by being endowed with the blessing of consciousness and

free will.

 

The scope of our acts is extremely wide. If God had wished, He could

have compelled us to obey natural law, but His far-reaching wisdom

caused Him to make us His vice-regents on earth and to grant us

freedom. To act unjustly or irresponsibly is, therefore, to misuse

this freedom we have been given, to pervert it in the most irrational

way.

 

Since this world is a place of trial and testing, enabling us to pass

on to the stages of existence that yet await us, it cannot be thought

that this passing life, full of cruelty, oppression, and the

violation of rights, represents the entirety of life. In reality, it

is a single chapter in a long story that continues until infinity.

 

Our innate feelings inform us that the oppressor who escapes worldly

justice, the aggressor who tramples on the rights of men and is not

caught in the trap of the law, the criminal who is able to ensure

that the provisions of justice are not implemented in his case all

such people will ultimately be prosecuted by the principle of justice

that underlies the entire universe.

 

The necessity and inevitability of justice in the order of creation

brings man to believe that one day a precise accounting will take

place in utter justice.

 

Were true justice to be nothing but an imaginary ideal and our

hearts' belief in it to lack all reality, why should we instinctively

desire justice for ourselves and for others? Why should we be angered

by the sight of rights being violated and even be ready to sacrifice

our own beings for the sake of justice? Why should the love of

justice be so deeply rooted in our hearts and why should we expect

something that does not even exist? Is not our thirsting for justice

in itself a proof that justice does in fact exist, just as our

thirsting for water is an indication that water exists?

 

The Desire for Immortality

 

The desire for eternal life is also something fundamental to man,

embedded in his essential nature. The concept of immortality is not

an accidental or acquired desire; on the contrary, this profound

longing proves in itself that man has the capacity and readiness for

eternal life. Every natural inclination is satisfied in the

appropriate way within the order of creation; to desire permanent

life in this impermanent world is by contrast a desire that is

unnatural and cannot therefore be satisfied.

 

Just as it is not possible for man totally to extinguish the flame of

his inner nature and to forget utterly his innate inclination to the

source of being, so that his mind instinctively turns towards that

Unique Essence whenever he is assailed by the trials and hardships of

life, so too those who deny the hereafter unconsciously acquire a

desire for eternal life whenever they are faced with an impasse in

their lives.

 

As soon as man gains some respite from the turmoil of material life

and has the opportunity to reflect and turn inwards, he begins to

think of life after death and to feel keenly the emptiness of this

impermanent, transitory world.

 

Once animals satisfy all their material needs, they are at rest. By

contrast, once man is satiated with material pleasures and bodily

enjoyments, he begins to feel unease in himself. A mysterious pain

troubles his soul. Many people who find themselves in this position

have recourse to distractions and entertainment in order to flee from

their inner disquiet and to obtain at least temporary relief from the

grief that is caused by thoughts of the future.

 

Many, too, are those who find in suicide their only escape from this

excruciating torment.

 

Great men and thinkers have always decried the life of this world,

with its mixture of pleasure and pain, of joy and sadness. We cannot

find a single person among the prophets, the saints, and the major

figures of religion, who regarded the world as a suitable or ideal

place for man to reside.

 

There are many people who verbally deny belief in resurrection and

the day of judgement, but at the same they strive to leave a good

name behind when they die. Why should someone who regards death as

the end of all things be concerned for his good repute or for acts of

charity that outlive him?

 

There is no point in expending such effort for something that has no

reality; once life has come to an end, how can a scientific

achievement, an act of charity, a work of art, benefit one who denies

all form of life after death?

 

Such a person is acting, in reality, according to the desire of his

innermost being; he is demonstrating that in fact he does believe in

his own immortality.

 

* * * * *

 

The scope of man's desires and aspirations is unbounded so that if

one day he comes to master the whole world, his unquiet spirit will

still find no rest; he will then begin thinking of conquering the

planets. If hypothetically he were to attain that goal also, some

mysterious inward feeling would still rob him of peace and

tranquillity.

 

Man also recognizes no boundary or limit in the acquisition of

knowledge. In fact, with every step that he takes in increasing his

knowledge, his desire to discover still more also increases. The

whole universe cannot fully accommodate man's aspirations to explore,

despite its seemingly boundless expanse, for the infinite spirit of

man cannot be contained by the heavens and the earth. Man accepts no

limit for his desires short of the fulfillment of his desire for

immortality, enabling him to gain his true ultimate goal.

 

Thus a wise poet says, identifying himself with Mawlana Jalal ad-Din

Rumi:

 

My spirit is ascending to the throne of the Beloved;

 

" Rumi " and " Balkhi " are simply two skins in my view.

 

Although my body traveled from Khorasan to Rum,

 

My spirit cannot be contained by any land.

 

Do not imagine that I am some earthworm;

 

I am of the heavens, not of the earth.

 

In order for this natural impulse in man to be satisfied, the

necessary means must exist; would it be possible, by way of analogy,

for water not to exist in the external world to satisfy the instinct

of thirst?

 

Certain conditions must exist for the satisfaction of this profound

feeling in man, this ideal and aspiration for eternal life. Were the

means and conditions needed to satisfy the inward inclinations and

aspirations that are rooted in everyone not to exist, man would fall

prey to bewilderment and confusion. All his hopes and aspirations

would be based on illusion and vanity. We see, however, that in the

whole orderly system of the universe not even a single phenomenon can

be glimpsed that is irregular or misplaced.

 

We can assert, therefore, that no inclination or desire that is

rooted in man's essential nature is vain and purposeless, and that

this being the case the essence of man's being is not annihilated

when he steps through the gateway of death. On the contrary, it is in

the hereafter that his desire for eternal life is fulfilled.

 

Dr. Norman Vincent, a European (?) scholar, writes:

 

" I have never had the slightest doubt or hesitation concerning

everlasting life; I believe in it and consider it irrefutable. "

 

Man's innate sentiment of everlasting life is one of the most

important and positive proofs that guide us to an appreciation of

this truth. When God Almighty wishes to guide man to a certain truth,

He first sows the seed of it in his innermost consciousness. Man's

thirst for eternity is so universal that it is inadmissible that it

should remain unfulfilled.

 

" It is not through mathematical proofs that man comes to accept

metaphysical truths; it is faith and inspiration that convince him of

them. In fact, inspiration plays an important role even in the realm

of scientific truths. " (Danistan iha-yi Jahan-I `Ilm, pp. 204-5)

 

A group of scholars reached the following conclusion after

investigating men's beliefs in the hereafter:

 

" The truth of the matter is that faith and inward belief in life

after death constitute the best and strongest proof for the reality

of the hereafter.

 

" Whenever God wishes to convince the spirit of man of a certain

matter, He inserts the causes and factors of the belief among man's

own instincts. It is because of this wise act of the Creator that

everyone perceives eternal existence and life everlasting in the

depths of his own soul. Since such permanent life is not feasible

under the present conditions of man's existence, a different set of

conditions is needed for this aspiration to be realized. This

universal consciousness of immortality is so profound and well rooted

that its reality and remarkable effects on human life cannot be

overlooked. From the most ancient times down to the present, it has

caused belief in resurrection to remain alive and vigorous in the

minds of men. " (Ruh al Din al Islami, p. 96)

 

* * * * *

 

An emphatic belief in life everlasting is to be found on every page

of the history of the major religions; it forms an inseparable part

of every divinely inspired religion. This matter has occupied so

important a place in the mission of the prophets that no messenger

has ever arisen without preparing his followers for a future in which

they will be rewarded or punished for their deeds.

 

In order to complete His favor and grace, God the Creator and

Inspirer of all beings, Who looks upon His servants with infinite

mercy and kindness, has not only placed within man a form of inward

guidance and enlightenment; He has also sent prophets, equipped with

books and proofs, whose duty it is to guide men to perceiving the

reality of resurrection. This is necessary because passionate desires

and idiosyncrasies as well as material inclinations dull the luster

of man's primordial nature, so that the guide within man's own being

cannot ensure alone man's ascent to the lofty rank of true humanity

and his deliverance from the barriers that stand in his way.

 

The Qur'an says:

 

" Never imagine that God will violate the promises made by His

messengers. God is certainly empowered over all things and will take

vengeance over oppressors. On the day when the earth and the heavens

are transformed, so that all creatures will stand before the One God,

Powerful and Invincible, you will see the evil doers and the

rebellious chained by God's wrath, wearing shirts of molten brass,

and their faces will be hidden by fire.

 

" This torment is so that God may punish men for their misdeeds, for

God will make His reckoning in a single instant. This is a

declaration to mankind, so that they should take heed and be aware

recognizing their Lord as their only object of worship. " (14:47-52)

 

 

 

http://www.al-islam.org/Resurrect/r5.htm