2.4 Atheism in The Qur'an

أَمْ خُلِقُوا۟ مِنْ غَيْرِ شَىْءٍ أَمْ هُمُ ٱلْخَٰلِقُونَ

Or were they created by nothing, (and without purpose), or were they the creators (of themselves)? (52:35)

The Problem of Self-Creation and Creation by Nothing

Regarding the first part of the verse:

"Or were they created by nothing,"

For something to be created by, or to come out of existence from nothingness is a logical and physical impossibility. Nothingness is the absence of anything, including all properties and potentiality. If something were to "come out of nothing", then it would indicate that there had to be something beforehand that caused it to come into existence, that "something" being the potentiality or potential for existence itself.

Regarding the second part of the verse:

"or were they the creators (of themselves)?"

It is absolutely irrational that something can create itself. If something were to create itself, it would have to pre-exist in order to do the action of creation, however, it cannot perform the action of creation if it does not exist in the first place, and if it did, then it was not non-existent in the first place. This would pose a logical problem.

وَقَالُوا۟ مَا هِىَ إِلَّا حَيَاتُنَا ٱلدُّنْيَا نَمُوتُ وَنَحْيَا وَمَا يُهْلِكُنَآ إِلَّا ٱلدَّهْرُ وَمَا لَهُم بِذَٰلِكَ مِنْ عِلْمٍ إِنْ هُمْ إِلَّا يَظُنُّونَ

And they say, "There is not but our worldly life; we die and live, and nothing destroys us except time." And they have of that no knowledge; they are only assuming. (45:24)

وَقَالُوٓا۟ إِنْ هِىَ إِلَّا حَيَاتُنَا ٱلدُّنْيَا وَمَا نَحْنُ بِمَبْعُوثِينَ

And they say, "There is none but our worldly life, and we will not be resurrected." (6:29)

إِنْ هِىَ إِلَّا حَيَاتُنَا ٱلدُّنْيَا نَمُوتُ وَنَحْيَا وَمَا نَحْنُ بِمَبْعُوثِينَ

Life is not but our worldly life - we die and live, but we will not be resurrected. (23:37)

The Problem of Eternal Oblivion

If we look at the above three verses, we come to realize that when Atheists absolutely and concretely believe there is nothing after death, they are only assuming something that they themselves cannot be sure of, as whatever happens after death lays outside of the scope of science (the scientific method) and Naturalism.^[1] If we went from non-existence to existence, and the Atheists say that we will go back into non-existence, why would one assume that they cannot be brought back into existence again (since it had already happened once)?

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