Page 204 - Matter: The Other Name for Illusion

images that form in our brains of night and day, for instance. We perceive night
and day as being linked to the Sun and the movement of the Earth. When the
image of the Sun in our minds is at its height, we know that it is noon, and
when the Sun goes down, we witness the fall of night. When creating
perceptions belonging to the universe, God created them together with a cause

and effect relationship. We never experience daytime after the Sun has gone
down. Thus science is the observation and study of this cause and effect
relationship that God has created in our minds.
Let us consider another example: In the illusion within our minds,
whenever we let a pen go, it falls to the ground. As a result of research into the
cause and effect relationship that governs these kinds of occurrences, we
discover "the law of gravity." God presents the images he shows us in our

minds as linked to particular causes and laws. One of the reasons for the
creation of these causes and laws is that life is created as a test. Science is born
as a result of research into the order within which these laws and the collection
of perceptions called the "universe" function. That is why it is very important
to study science, the laws that appear to govern the extraordinary images that
God has created.
In conclusion, there is no justification for materialist claims that accepting
the fact that we do not have direct contact with the actual matter means
rejecting science. On the contrary, those who genuinely accept the fact see

science as an important way of understanding this collection of images, and
the secrets within them.
There is a great difference between this conception of science and that of
the materialists. The laws of nature that we have discovered by observing the
totality of images in question are the laws of God, Who created that same
totality. The view of science held by materialists, who erroneously think that
matter has an absolute existence, that the laws of nature stem from matter

itself, and that it is these laws which actually created them, collapses in the
light of this truth.
Neither must we forget that God possesses the power to create all these
perceptions without the need for any cause or law. For example, God can create
a rose without using a seed, or rain without the need for clouds, or shadow and
day and night without the Sun. God reveals this fact in a verse:

Do you not see how your Lord stretches out shadows? If He had wished

202 MATTER: THE OTHER NAME FOR ILLUSION