Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 308
AL-BAYYINAH – A MANIFEST PRINCIPLE. AND AL-QAYYIMAH – AN EVERLASTING TEACHING changing time and the variant faculties of the beholder. If their logic is accepted, one is left with no choice but to reject everything as possibly untrue and believe in nothing. . But in everyday life a philosophy such as this would lead to utter disaster. With what measure of dependability can one decide whether the precipice one sees at the edge of a lofty rock is really a precipice? By what criterion can one become absolutely sure that the deadly viper blocking one's path is actually what it appears to be? In all such encounters with threats to life, even the most sceptical would accept the verdict of the common human experience. It is this common human experience which is most steadily moving in the direction of absoluteness of knowledge. At every cross-section of time this verdict must be accepted. Call it probability if not absoluteness but remember that it is this probability which commands the human destiny with absolute firmness. One cannot deny a seeming reality lest it should prove to be false in future. . All said and done, in the evolution of human knowledge most concepts do mature to a fullness which cannot be further touched by the hand of change or doubt. . Similarly, the behaviour of many physical and chemical laws once understood continues to remain the same. Our ignorance of some of their operations does not invalidate the knowledge that we have already gained in most areas of their operation. Despite the fact that the dynamics of the heavenly bodies and the laws of gravitation are now perceived with a minute variation of perception, the. Newtonian understanding of them is still valid within its context. Thus the laws of motion of the heavenly bodies are as absolute as they ever were within their respective field of operation. The laws of motion of the subatomic particles are also absolute within the domain of their miniature universe. Hence there is no discrepancy or contradiction 299