Wahhābī argument about “tensed facts”
A Wahhābī argues: If tensed facts exist, then it necessarily follows that truth or falsehood is changing over time. For example, the tensed statement “It is now 1:27 pm” is only true at 1:27 pm and false at all other times. So if Allāh knows this tensed fact, His knowledge must be changing constantly as He knows when certain statements become true and false. However, if Allāh is absolutely changeless, that would mean that Allāh cannot know tensed facts, hence compromising His attribute of omniscience.
Comment: This pseudo-argument that this Wahhābī enemy of himself, and of Allāh, feels so happy about, originates from likening the Creator to the created. Again and again they come back to their basic belief in the Creator, which is that He is something limited to a place (i.e. a body) with changes in it over time. They thought they could know the reality of Allāh’s knowledge by imagination and drawing inferences from their own existence. That is why, for example, they believe that His Will is a series of different wills over time, just like ours. Now even the belief in His perfect Knowledge is subject to their blasphemous attacks. They argue as above, because they cannot imagine perfect knowledge not in time, and think that reality is limited to what they can imagine. It is because they base their arguments upon imagination that they make so many mistakes.
Not being able to imagine something does not mean it cannot be true
It is not enough to say, “I can’t imagine it, so it cannot be true,” or even “I can’t understand it, so it can’t be true.” Even in sciences studying creation, especially physics, the facts and concepts they speak of are so counter-intuitive and unfamiliar to our minds and knowledge that they cannot be imagined. That is why they rely on complex mathematics to express their theories instead. So if concepts in physics cannot be conceptualized in the mind, what would be the case for the Creator and His attributes?
For example, they say that if lightning hit the back of a moving train and at the same time its front, then to an outsider they happen simultaneously, but to someone inside the front is hit before the back, because he is moving towards the event. Accordingly, there could be points in time that are separate according to one frame of reference and simultaneous to another. None of these frames are special, and it is as equally true to say that it occurred simultaneously as it is to say that one occurred first.
Allāh does not resemble His creation
Every aspect of a created thing or being has a beginning, since no aspect of it is eternal. Likewise, everything that has a beginning must be a creation, as it must have been brought into existence. This means that Allāh is not something you can imagine, not Him and not His attributes, because your imagination is based on what you are familiar with, namely things that have a beginning, things that last moments of time despite their possible non-existence.
Based on this, the scholars taught people the rule that “whatever you can imagine in your mind, Allāh does not resemble it.” Similarly, the cousin of the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ, Ibn ʿAbbās, said, “Ponder about everything, but do not ponder about the Self of Allāh.” He said this because such dwelling leads one to draw analogies between the Creator and the created, which is blasphemy. It contradicts the belief in Allāh’s Oneness, as it involves the heretical belief that Allāh has an equal in some aspect. It also contradicts the Qur’ānic statement, “Absolutely nothing resembles Him.”
Aṭ-Ṭaḥāwī stated in his creed: “Whoever attributed to Allāh an attribute that has a meaning among the meanings that apply to humans has committed blasphemy.” Note the categorical sense of “a meaning,” which tells us that this is true for any meaning that applies to humans, not just some. For example, having a direction, a body, changing or the like. Note also that he states “meaning”, and not “word,” because the important thing is the meaning of the word, not the word itself. Consequently, if someone said “Allāh is not a body,” yet believed that Allāh is something in a place, then he is not a Muslim. This is because he believes Allāh to be attributed with the bodily meaning of occupying place.
Had the Wahhābīs held onto this advice from the scholars, they would have rejected the argument they presented above at face value, and remained firmly within the fold of Islam. This is what average Muslims have done, because they know that they cannot imagine Allāh or His attributes. There would be no need for complex answers. Instead, the Wahhābīs, out of their inclination towards deviance and hatred for the People of the Truth, the Sunnis, decided to present an argument based on the idea that “what is true of creation must be true of the Creator.”
As for us, the People of the Truth, the Sunnis, we do not liken Allāh to His creation, and we do not draw analogies between the Creator and His creation. We firmly believe that Allāh is not in the frameworks of time and place, unlike Wahhābīs. Consequently, Allāh’s Knowledge is not our kind of knowledge, created knowledge, so it is not restricted by time. No creation can fully know the reality of Allāh, or His attributes. It is one Knowledge by which He knows everything, unlike our knowledge. As for time, it is something we are stuck passing through, a function of our reality of being under constant change and renewal relative to all other things in space. Allāh is neither in a state of change nor renewal, nor is He in a place, so it is nonsensical to draw analogies between ourselves or our knowledge and Allāh and His Knowledge.
A look at “tensed facts”
What confused the Wahhābī is that at 1:27 pm he is in one situation of time and place, and at 1:28 pm at another, as estimated by the position of the sun with respect to the earth. He thought that since he is changing situations with respect to the rest of creation, that Allāh also was in a situation at 1:27 pm and then another at 1:28 pm. This is not the case, because Allāh is not in a “situation,” as He is not in a place, and is not in time, so the question, “when was He?” does not apply to Him. Missing this point, he thought that knowledge of “tensed facts” has to be in time. This cannot be true, because it is impossible that Allāh should be in time, as we shall prove below.
The past tense, for example, is an expression referring to the relative situation of created things to each other. So when someone says “12:00 noon already passed,” he means that he already passed through that state relative to space and the change and renewal of other creations. Allāh, on the other hand, does not pass through relative situations, since He is not in a place and does not change and does not renew.
As for the present tense, it is true for me, at 1:27, that it is 1:27, but this is only a name for my relative position to other things that change with me at different places. Allāh is not in a place and does not change, or renew, so His knowledge is not relative to time. Allāh knows everything about all times, without Himself being in time. His knowledge of time is without a beginning, end, change or renewal.
Allāh knows all these relations, because He created them. He knows them with one indivisible knowledge, that is neither a whole nor a part, because it is not composed lest it need a composer, and that is beginningless and without end, because it is not brought into existence, lest it need a creator.
In fact, Allāh created our knowledge and perception of “tensed facts,” so He knows the “now is 1:27”, for a created being which is a matter of time, space and relative change or renewal for that being. He knows it without His knowledge having a future, past or present, because He created it. He knows it perfectly, because He created every aspect of it, unlike the creations that exist in the uncountable moments that each and every creation passes through during the time they last. In fact, created beings only have the knowledge of the “now” they are in according to the limited perceptions He created in them.
We believe then, that Allāh knows “tensed facts” without needing to be in the creation of time. We believe His knowledge is eternal and some information created, just as we believe that Allāh’s action of creating is eternal while the created has a beginning.
It is impossible that Allāh should be in time
The arguer thinks Allāh’s knowledge is something that can be divided over moments of time, so that the concepts of past, present and future apply to it. That cannot be true, however, because Allāh’s existence is not a possibility, but an existence that is intrinsically necessary (wājib al-wujūd).
If Allāh’s existence was divisible into time periods, then His necessary existence would be in a state of renewal, moment by moment, and what is renewed is not necessary in existence, rather it is only possible in the next moment. Renewal of existence does not apply to what is necessary in existence, because it does not need renewal. After all, if it needed renewal, it would not be necessary in existence. Consequently, it does not have moments of existence.
Another way to say this is that if Allāh’s existence had been divisible into moments of time, then this would either be with Him having a beginning, which none of us believe, or with Him having no beginning. However, if His existence was divisible into moments of time without a beginning, then this would mean that an infinite number of moments passed before the world came into existence. An infinite number of moments cannot pass, however, because infinity cannot be completed. Therefore, since an infinite amount of moments cannot pass, it must be true that Allāh’s existence is not divisible into moments of time. Accordingly, His knowledge is not either, because it is an eternal, necessary, and thus non-renewing, attribute of Allāh.
Our knowledge, on the other hand, is a knowledge that is renewed over time, so our knowledge existing at 1:27 differs from our knowledge at 1:28. This is because it is changing, and because it is not necessary in existence, and is therefore divisible into moments of existence.
Beginningless eternity is not a time
Beginningless eternity is not a past time. Rather, it is an expression by which we mean the existence of Allāh with the non-existence of time, place and all creation. Time is possible in existence, as it is parts (moments) following each other in sequence, and these parts are definitely not eternal. The whole of time then, is dependent on possible parts, and what depends on the possible is itself only possible in existence. Accordingly, the precedence of its Creator cannot be in time.
The reality of this, however, is not something the mind can grasp, because anything that enters the mind is in a situation of time. That is why Allāh being “first” is known by us in general, but not in detail or comprehensively.
We are compelled, nevertheless, to speak about this meaning in a figurative way, because language has been established to speak about things that are in time and place, and we do not have special vocabulary to express exactly what we want to say. For this reason, the feeble-minded will think that we are saying something other than what we intend, such as when we say “before Allāh created the worlds.” We do not mean by this to say that Allāh was in time.
Imām Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī said: “A fundamental belief principle is that whenever Allāh is ascribed an attribute, then this attribute is eternal. One says that He is attributed with knowledge, power and providing eternally without a beginning and without an end. If He is mentioned with regard to His management of creation and orders to it, then time is stated, but this time is for creation, not for Him…”
Having said that, what the arguer is describing is a change of information over time for something in time. Time is something relative to one’s frame of reference, as one relates to all other things in space. Since Allāh is not in a place and has no mass, He is not bound by time. Rather, all places at all times pertain to Him with no difference between them, because He is not in a place and does not change. It is what His Power to create pertains to that is in time and place with respect to each other, not that He Himself is in time.
Accordingly, Allāh knows eternally without a beginning or end, or change or renewal, the fact that “the time is 1:28 when the time is 1:28” and He knows the relation of that particular time to all other times. He knows everything that has to do with that time, both what we know, and what we do not know. So if that time comes, in relation to us as we pass through time, Allāh did not increase His knowledge, because He knows eternally everything that has to do with it.
Further clarification
The ambiguity of what the Wahhābī said is made clearer if we hypothesize that a prophet asked his Lord, “What time is it now?” and Allāh revealed to him that the time is so and so. Is this revelation something that happened to Allāh’s knowledge, or something that He knows without beginning or end? The answer is without doubt that it is something that Allāh knows eternally, because the word “now” is a word of relativity (relative to what passes through time) that Allāh (who is not in time) knows by His beginningless and endless knowledge.
As for the Eternal, the relation of all different places is one to Him, in the sense that no place is closer or further from Him than another, because He is not in place, neither in one place, nor in all places. Likewise, all different times have one relation to Him, in the sense that one time is not nearer to Him than another. This is indicated in the āyah: “He is the First and the Last” (al-Ḥadīd 57:3). Since Allāh does not have a beginning, it is true that He is First and Last without a beginning in the sense of time. We consequently know that He is not bound by time, and that all different times have one relation to Him.
The origin of this doubt-spreading point brought forward by the Wahhābī is his thinking that Allāh passes through time, just as creation does. So he thought that the relation of “now” to Allāh is the same as the relation of “now” to us, His creation. This thinking stems from his failure to define time properly, and failure to differentiate between the Creator and the created.
As for us, we affirm: Allāh created time and is not contained by it. He created change and renewal, while He Himself is eternally as He is – without beginning, without end, without change, without place, and without being bound by time.