GORAP — The Basic Dawah Conversation · A Guided Case for God

5 — What science can and cannot answer

Handle with care. Do not oppose established science or use God merely to fill a present gap.

In short

1.Science studies nature.
2.Its success does not make every question scientific.
3.Science uses logic and mathematics.
4.Why anything exists differs from how it behaves.

The claim being examined

A method for studying measurable nature cannot establish that only measurable nature exists.

The Islamic position

Islam honours observation while rejecting scientism—the unsupported claim that science is the only route to truth.

Analysis

Methodological naturalism is a productive rule for science. Scientism is the larger philosophical claim that no other knowledge is valid, and that claim is not itself an experimental result. This does not license a God-of-the-gaps argument: cosmological reasoning concerns the existence of the whole physical order, including future discoveries.

From the Qur'an

إِنَّ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَاخْتِلَافِ اللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ لَآيَاتٍ لِّأُولِي الْأَلْبَابِ

Inna fi khalqi al-samawati wal-ardi wakhtilafi al-layli wal-nahari la-ayatin li-ulil-albab.

Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and earth and the alternation of night and day are signs for people of understanding.

Sources

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