The Horizons and souls
Soon shall We show Our Vestigial-Signs (آيات) in the Horizons (آفاق) and in themselves/their souls (أنفسهم) until it becomes manifest (يتبييّن) to them that is the Real Truth (الحقّ)! - Qurʾān 41:53 (my trans.)
سَنُرِيهِمْ آيَاتِنَا فِي الْآفَاقِ وَفِي أَنفُسِهِمْ حَتَّىٰ يَتَبَيَّنَ لَهُمْ أَنَّهُ الْحَقُّ
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[In response to Steve Slocum, who said: "I find it curious how some believers are on a mission to prove that the object of their faith can be factually substantiated. If it could be factually substantiated, faith would no longer be required. Only knowledge would be needed. We can never KNOW anything about God in the same way we know most of what we know - what color the sky is, what your favorite foods are, what 2 + 2 is. Whatever we say we know about God is based on believing in the books. And that's not knowledge. That's faith. So best just to call it faith and stop trying to convince ourselves and others that we KNOW anything about this."]
That's isn't faith either. That is either blind emulation or just a mere assent to a set of propositions and/or axioms. The Qurʾān defines faith (imān) as predicated upon two things in order for it to be faith (imān): itqān (perfection) and iqān (certitude). Otherwise it is not faith. So this Quranic gloss on faith, contrary to what even 99% of Muslims believe, is actually gnosis or noesis (maʿrifa) which is precisely the original Shi'i gloss by the Infallibles (ع) on its meaning, hence why these Infallibles (ع) divided the greater ecclesia of Islam into the generality (ʿawwām) whom they termed the submitters (muslimūn) and the elite (khawwāṣ) whom they termed the true believers (muʿminūn).
That aside, the argument being proposed here can just as well be applied to politics of every form. For example, Americans invest faith in their constitution in the same manner as other people invest faith in their scriptures. In other words, Americans and the liberal subject in general invest the same kind of unquestioning blind faith in the social contract* which under-girds liberal democracy as believers invest in God. The social contract itself is even phrased often in social contract theory as the "will" which is "sovereign," religious language through and through. Yet the liberal agnostic applies a different set of value judgments on the meaning of one but something else upon the other, hence the argument being made is actually a tautology.
Classical theology speaks in terms of the "objects of faith," language that one seldom even hears anymore in the contemporary theology of any creed. While certainly many of the theological perspectives and methodologies of the past were flawed in countless areas, nevertheless the assumptions of liberal postmodernism have not only not resolved any of the questions but have obscured them even further while also succumbing to the same kind of blind and flawed certainties they accuse in religionist paradigms. So the question remains, what are the true, veridical objects of faith? How can God be known as more than just mere intellectual propositions and axioms? The answer is in the application of the Quranic verse quoted above. Because to not know God -- with the knowing of the Divine Subject being however that is defined, whether by definitions of immanence or transcendence -- but to want religion is to create an idol of religious identity and that is a form of associationism (shirk), ironically a trap that both contemporary conservative religious fundamentalists as well as liberal religious postmodernists fall into in their own forms of epistemic agnosia.
*Or even the "economy". Note how in The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith terms market forces as "the hidden hand," equating it with the hand of God.
ويهدي الله عباده الموقنين والمتقين بِمعرفته فى الآفاق وأنفسهم على صراط حقّ يقين
