In exactly the same way, through their existence and lives these flowing beings testify to the necessary existence and oneness of the Necessarily Existent One, and with their deaths and disappearance, they testify to the His pre-eternity, everlastingness, and unity. Yes, the beautiful creatures and fine beings which are renewed and restored within the decline and disappearance that occur through the alternation of night and day, winter and summer, and the centuries and ages, surely point to the existence, continuance, and unity of an elevated, eternal possessor of continually manifested beauty. While the deaths and disappearance of those beings together with their apparent and lowly causes demonstrate that the causes are nothing but a mere veil. This situation proves decisively that these arts, these inscriptions, these manifestations, are the constantly renewed arts, the changing inscriptions, the moving mirrors of an All-Beauteous One of Glory, all of Whose Names are sacred and beautiful; that they are His seals which follow on one after the other, and His stamps that are changed with wisdom.
In Short: The mighty book of the universe both teaches us the creational signs concerning Divine existence and unity, and it testifies to all the attributes of perfection, beauty, and glory of that All-Glorious One. And they prove the perfection of the Divine Essence faultlessly and without defect. For it is obvious that perfection in a work points to the perfection of the act which is the source and origin of the work. And the perfection of the act points to the perfection of the name, and the perfection of the name, to the perfection of the attribute, and perfection of the attribute to the perfection of the essential qualities, and the perfection of the qualities point necessarily and self-evidently to the perfection of the essence possessing those qualities.
For example, the perfect inscriptions and adornments of a faultless palace indicate the perfection of a master builder’s acts behind them. And the perfection of the acts shows the perfection of that active master’s titles and names, which demonstrate his rank. And the perfection of the names and titles show the perfection of the other attributes qualifying the master builder’s art. And the perfection of the art and attributes show the perfection of the abilities and essential capacity of that craftsman, which are called the essential qualities. And the perfection of those essential qualities and abilities show the perfection of the master’s essential nature.
In exactly the same way, the faultless works observed in the world, which manifest the meaning of “Do you see any flaw?”,1 this art in the well-ordered beings of the universe, point observedly to the perfect acts of an active possessor of power. And those perfect acts point clearly to the perfect Names of a Glorious Agent. And that perfection necessarily points to and testifies to the perfect attributes of the Beauteous One signified by the
Qur’an, 67:3.