A hub · Instinct, reason, wonder, the world's peoples

How people recognise a Creator

Long before anyone heard a sermon, people looked at the sky and asked who made it. This is where we gather the ways human beings have come to recognise a Creator, and the questions honest people still ask.

Village Among the Trees. Master of the Small Landscapes. Art Institute of Chicago · CC0 1.0

This site is about Allah: the One God whom Muslims, Arab Christians and Arabic-speaking Jews have all called by that name. Most of it asks who God is. This part asks a different question: how do people come to recognise a Creator at all?

There are many roads. Some say the knowledge is already inside us, an instinct the Qur'an calls fiṭra, the Psalms call a thirst and Paul calls a law written on the heart. Some reason their way there, as Plato, Ibn Sina, Maimonides and Aquinas tried to. Some are stopped short by wonder at the world. And across the globe, from Punjab to the Kenyan highlands, peoples outside the Abrahamic family have spoken of one Maker in their own words.

We set these roads side by side with the research that has tried to understand them: psychologists studying what children find natural, anthropologists comparing hundreds of societies, philosophers weighing the arguments and the objections. The research describes; it does not decide. Our rule throughout is wonder, not proof. Nothing here is meant to win an argument.

There is a fourth chair at this table. More than a third of people in England and Wales say they have no religion. Many of them feel the same wonder at the sky, reason as carefully, and do not recognise a Creator at all. On each page below, people without religion speak in their own words too, alongside the faiths.

Each faith speaks in its own words. Where Jews, Christians and Muslims agree, we say so; where they differ, we say that too. Where other traditions appear, we let their followers' words lead, and we never claim anyone's faith is secretly someone else's. Start anywhere.

Within us

Is recognising a Creator something we are born ready for?

Qur'an 30:30 · Romans 1:20 · Mind and beliefThe instinct for GodThree faiths say the knowledge of a Creator is planted in us. Psychologists have spent thirty years testing what children and adults intuit. Here is what each side says, and what it can and cannot tell us.

Qur'an 30:30 · Mind and beliefDoes belief come naturally?Why nearly every human culture has believed in something greater, and what that does and doesn’t tell us.

Qur'an 17:85 · Mind and philosophyWhy does anything feel like anything? Consciousness and the soulScience can map what the brain does when you see red. Why it feels like something at all is still a mystery, and it may say something about what we are.

By reason

What happens when people try to think their way to the source of everything?

Plato to Kant · Reason and wonderThe philosophers' GodFor 2,400 years thinkers have tried to reason their way to the source of everything. A Greek, a Persian, a Jew from Córdoba, a Muslim from Tus and an Italian friar walked much of the same road. Here is where it led, and the strongest objections.

Qur'an 57:3 · Philosophy and cosmologyDid the universe have a beginning, and does it need a cause?A medieval Muslim argument, a modern theorem and a famous debate. The science is shared; what it means is not.

Qur'an 55:5–7 · Mathematics and philosophyWhy does the universe follow laws we can understand?A few symbols on paper can find a planet no one has seen. Why should the world be readable at all?

Qur'an 67:3–4 · Philosophy and physicsIs the universe fine-tuned for life, and what would explain it?Two physicists wrote one book together and came to two different answers. That is a fair picture of where this argument stands.

Across the world

One Maker, named in many languages and many stories.

Anthropology · Peoples of the worldThe High GodFrom the Australian outback to the Kenyan highlands, many peoples have spoken of a supreme Maker above all other spirits. What anthropologists found, what they argued about, and what is still unsettled.

Sikh · Hindu · Zoroastrian · Ancient EgyptOne Creator, beyond AbrahamIn Punjab, India, ancient Iran and on the banks of the Nile, people have spoken of one source of all things in their own words. Here they are, in those words, with the differences left in.

Around the world · Sikh, Bahá'í, Maltese, IndonesianAllah beyond IslamIn a gurdwara in Southall, a church in Malta and a Bible in Jakarta, people say Allah who are not Muslim. Here is where, why, and what is myth.

History · c. 100 BCE to 610 CEBefore Islam: the word in the desertNomads scratched it on rocks, Christians carved it over a church door, and poets put it in their verses, long before the Qur'an. What they meant by it is a careful story.

In the Abrahamic family

How Jews, Christians and Muslims each describe the One they recognise.

5 min

WordOne God

60 sec

WordWho is God to Jews, Christians and Muslims?

Qur'an 29:46 · Each faith in its own wordsIs it the same God?Jews, Christians and Muslims all speak of the God of Abraham (peace be upon him). Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews call Him Allah. Whether it is the same God is answered differently inside each faith.

Through wonder

For many people the road begins not with an argument but with looking.

5 min

SignsSigns in CreationPlaces to start looking: the sky, the sea, small creatures and ourselves, each beside the Hebrew Bible, the Gospels, the Qur'an and today's science.

Qur'an 3:190-191 · Psalm 19 · ScienceLook at the creationTwenty episodes on physics, chemistry, life, the Earth and the human body: the best of what science shows, set beside what Jews, Christians and Muslims say about the Creator.

Marvel · DC · animeBig ideas on screenMultiverses, infinite power, time and judgement: what the stories imagine, and the Names that answer.

A moment to reflect

Which road on this page feels closest to your own experience, or are you on a road of your own?
Can instinct, reason and wonder work together, or do they pull in different directions?
What would it take for you to recognise, or to rule out, a Creator?

Watch

EXPLORATIONS - Do Children Naturally Believe in God? - Justin Barrett · Ian Ramsey Centre Plays on “Does belief come naturally?” →

Do children naturally believe in God? A short answer from an Oxford researcher.

Aquinas & the Cosmological Arguments: Crash Course Philosophy #10 · CrashCourse Plays on “Did the universe have a beginning, and does it need a cause?” →

The classic arguments from causes, explained in ten minutes.

Watch more: How people recognise a Creator

6 films and talks, chosen for this page. They play here.

Why Do People Believe?
Let's Talk Religion · 13 min
Let's Talk Religion: why do people believe?
Connecting to Fitrah – Abdal Hakim Murad
Cambridge Muslim College · 18 min
Natural Theology: What Is It? (Full Lecture) | N.T. Wright Online
N.T. Wright Online · 20 min
The Science of Children's Belief in God and the Supernatural - Dr Emily Reed Burdett
The Faraday Institute · 67 min
The Faraday Institute: the science of children's belief in God.
The Known Universe by AMNH #datavisualization
American Museum of Natural History · 6 min
American Museum of Natural History: The Known Universe, the sky people looked up at.
Why Do Humans Believe in Religion? | Colin Blakemore
Closer To Truth · 9 min
More films and talks on F-ILMWatch free