Why ghosts, aliens, and extraordinary beings can’t replace God — and how they end up pointing to Him.
Late one night, a university student sat scrolling through online forums, transfixed by a video of strange lights darting across the sky. The clip was grainy, but the effect was undeniable: it looked like something beyond the ordinary, maybe even beyond this world. That same week, he overheard a coworker recount a terrifying encounter with what she swore was a ghost in her childhood home. Fascinated and unsettled, the student began to wonder: what if these extraordinary beings—aliens, spirits, or unseen forces—were the real powers behind reality? What if belief in one God was just a human illusion?
This kind of questioning is not unusual. Across time and cultures, human beings have reported encounters with the unseen. From shamans in the Arctic to tribal elders in Africa, from ancient Mesopotamian temples to modern UFO forums, stories of invisible presences abound. Today, they take new forms—alien sightings, ghost investigations, psychedelic visions—but the underlying fascination remains the same. And the questions they provoke are perennial: do these beings rival God? Do they disprove monotheism? Or do they reveal something deeper about humanity’s instinct for the transcendent?
Even if every report were dismissed as error, the thought experiment still matters: suppose there really were powerful non-human intelligences—would their existence challenge belief in the One, or would it tacitly depend on Him? (a)
Put simply, the arc of this work runs from raw encounters to ultimate clarity. We take seriously the reports that have haunted human memory, we acknowledge the possibility of extraordinary beings, and we ask whether these phenomena undermine or, in fact, reinforce monotheism. Our conclusion presses the point forward: even if some extraordinary being appeared tomorrow and claimed divinity, the criteria developed here—philosophical, anthropological, and theological—equip us to discern the proximate from the ultimate, grounding our response in both reason and revelation.
Section 1: Why Extraordinary Beings Fail as Ultimate Explanations
From haunted houses whispered about in the night to reports of jinn in desert winds or UFOs streaking across the sky, human beings have always told stories of extraordinary presences. These figures fascinate and terrify precisely because they suggest that we are not alone, that reality is more layered than what meets the eye. And yet, when examined carefully, such beings—whether ghosts, demons, archons, or aliens—share a limitation. They can provoke awe or fear, but they cannot carry the explanatory or moral weight that humans ultimately seek.
The Drive for a Final Cause
Cognitive science shows that humans are not content with partial explanations. Oxford researcher Olivera Petrovich observes that even children, without religious instruction, “may well have ideas about origin in the first or ultimate sense and engage in speculating about the nature of its cause.” [1] She further concludes that, when constructing concepts of God, “for children and adults alike, the concept of God as a causal agent is a simple and coherent concept, qualitatively different from the concept of human agency.” [2]
This tendency has been described by Deborah Kelemen as children being ‘intuitive theists’: they naturally assume design and purpose in the world [3]. Importantly, such intuitions appear across cultures and regardless of formal religious training, which suggests that the pull toward a divine cause is not just inherited tradition, but a feature of human cognition itself. [4] (b)
This illustrates a broader tendency: the human mind leans toward complete causes, not patchwork ones. By contrast, the concept of one Creator God offers an explanation with far greater reach: it explains the cosmos itself, its order, its moral fabric, and why explanations are possible in the first place.
When humans begin to think not just about local causes but about the origin of everything, there seems to be a natural pull toward unity rather than plurality. Dr. Aria Nakissa has highlighted that “the mind has a strong intuitive preference for simpler explanations (which invoke fewer causes) over more complex explanations (which invoke a larger number of causes). The mind has a special preference for explanations that posit one “unique cause”. Such implies that, all things being equal, the notion that one God caused the universe to come into being is preferable to the notion that multiple gods caused the universe to come into being. Consequently, there is a hidden but fundamental linkage between conceptualizing God as cause (of creation) and conceptualizing God as one.” [5] In a similar vein, Daniel Jou notes that CSR research “maintains that the intuition in an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator is distinct from the intuition in spirits generally,” [6] and that “children seem to be inclined to view God as both the ultimate cause and the unique cause for the world, even children who also believe in other gods or spirit beings.” Taken together, these reflections suggest that once the human mind begins to seek ultimate causation, it tends to move beyond many local agents toward the idea of a single Creator. ( c )
It is important, however, not to overstate the point. The cognitive science of religion has certainly not established that the human mind is by nature and in every case predisposed to strict monotheism. That is not the claim being made here. More modestly, it can be said that the human mind shows cognitive biases that incline people toward the idea of a single, ultimate cause. As Matthew Braddock has noted, the very mental tendencies that cognitive scientists study can themselves be seen as “biased toward high god [one supreme creator] concepts.” [7] This stands in sharp contrast to the way humans think about ghosts, spirits or aliens which may explain some mysteries but are rarely treated as the final cause of reality.
Petrovich’s studies suggest that children often conceive of God in a non-anthropomorphic way, not merely as a human-like figure with exaggerated powers [8]. Even when cultural teaching introduces images of God as a man, children’s own concepts tend to lean toward abstract, non-embodied notions [9]. This finding is reinforced by other research, such as a study by Rebekah Richert and Justin Barrett, which showed that even preschoolers distinguish God from humans and animals by granting Him a kind of perceptual access beyond ordinary creatures [10]. Taken together, these insights point to a tendency for children to treat God as a unique kind of causal agent, not reducible to human or other empirical beings.
Inferential Potential: Ultimate vs Local
Dr. Justin Barrett In his Scienceteller talk “Why Ghosts are Common but Rarely Important in Theology”, highlights why ghosts and spirit beings occupy little place in theology [11]. His central
point is that such beings have only “localised inferential potential”. In other words, they may help explain small, localized events—why a house creaks, why a harvest fails, why someone falls suddenly ill—but their explanatory power stops there. They cannot account for the larger structure of reality, the moral fabric of the world, or why the universe itself exists. Because their reach is so narrow, they carry little theological significance.
In my own conversation with Dr. Barrett, he explained that this point applies not only to ghosts but also to other beings, such as extraterrestrials or other extraordinary agents [12]. They may seem mysterious, and people might be tempted to grant them greater explanatory power. Yet their inferential potential still remains limited and localized.
A pantheon of localized beings, each tied to one anomaly or one tribe, fails to become a comprehensive account of reality. On the contrary a single, transcendent source can. As Dr. Barrett, in our exchange, noted that this contrast is well captured in C.S. Lewis’s famous analogy: “He believes in God not just because of an experience of God but because everything else makes sense in light of God. He compares it to seeing sunlight—sunlight illuminates everything else, you don’t have to look at the sun to know the sun has risen, you can look at how everything else is illuminated by the sunlight.” [13] In other words, belief in God does not simply solve one problem; it illuminates the whole.
This raises the further question: why do such comprehensive explanations appeal to us in the first place? Cognitive science helps answer this. People are not content with fragmented or local causes but press toward explanations that reach further. From childhood, the mind leans toward ultimate causes and often treats God as different in kind from ordinary agents. This suggests that the “conceptual space” for God is not an artificial imposition but something built into our cognition.
Limited Signaling Value and the Moral Dimension
Dr. Justin Barrett In his Scienceteller talk “Why Ghosts are Common but Rarely Important in Theology”, highlighted another reason ghosts and spirits hold little theological weight: they have limited signaling value [14]. Beliefs and rituals are not just about explanations; they also signal loyalty and commitment to others. The stronger and more universal the signal, the more it binds communities together.
By this measure, spirits and ghosts perform poorly. They are tied to particular places or families, so any ritual connected to them only signals loyalty to that small circle. Ancestor rites, for example, may show devotion to my ancestors, but they do not unite me with your ancestors. At most, they reinforce local ties. Worse still, many of these beings are morally suspect. As Barrett noted, beings that inspire fear or demand offerings but embody no higher justice are “bad moral exemplars.” [15] Fear of a ghost may enforce a taboo, but it rarely produces a universal moral order.
Dr. Barrett, in our dialogue, expanded on this point: devotion to God creates a new identity that transcends tribe or clan. Religious traditions capture this in the language of being “God’s people.” Such devotion signals both group membership and commitment to a shared moral framework. “By showing that I’m committed to that God, I’m also showing I’m committed to those moral standards,” Barrett explained, “and you and I can hold each other accountable to those moral standards because we’ve both expressed commitment to the same God.” [16] This is what makes belief in God socially powerful: it binds people not only by belonging, but by shared moral expectations.
Spirits and ghosts cannot do this. At most, they regulate behavior in one cave, one river, or one house. But outside those boundaries, they lose relevance. Barrett put it bluntly: believing in a haunted house only signals that you avoid that house—it does not show you belong to a community or that you live by a moral code. And the same difficulty arises when people speculate about aliens or other extraordinary beings. Even if such beings were imagined as moral or powerful, their authority would remain bounded, contextual, and uncertain. They might command fear or loyalty, but they cannot provide a universal horizon of accountability. By contrast, belief in one God introduces ultimate accountability. A High God is not just an explanation for the world; He is the anchor of community, morality, and justice in its fullest sense.
Extraordinary Beings Are Peripheral in Theology
What we have seen so far is that extraordinary beings—whether ghosts, spirits, or other unusual agents—do not rise to the level of ultimate explanations (d). They may populate the margins of human experience, provoking fascination or fear, but they cannot serve as the horizon of belief. Theology, by its very nature, asks about the highest explanation and the deepest moral ground—and in both respects, extraordinary beings fall short.
They may enforce local taboos or inspire rituals, but they cannot bind humanity into a shared moral order with objectivity. They may account for a strange noise in the night or the presence of dread in a place, but they cannot explain the cosmos itself.
As Justin Barrett has observed, this does not mean that belief in God and belief in localized beings are in conflict [17]. People may hold varied views about spirits or other extraordinary agents without this altering their deeper allegiance to God. Likewise Aria Nakissa notes that CSR scholars recognize that belief in a Creator God often “goes hand-in-hand with belief in other spirit beings (e.g., lesser gods, angels, souls). Perhaps the most important feature that differentiates a Creator God from other spirit beings is that the Creator God is considered an ultimate cause.” [18] The existence or non-existence of other beings is ultimately peripheral, because the true anchor of identity, community, and accountability is God alone. This distinction shows that God belongs to a different category altogether: He defines ultimate allegiance, while ghosts, jinn, or aliens remain secondary.
Widespread Convergence on God
Recognizing the limits of extraordinary beings helps explain another striking fact: across history and cultures, people overwhelmingly converge not on ghosts or spirits as ultimate, but on some form of a High God. As Matthew Braddock notes, surveys consistently show that nearly 90% of humanity affirms belief in some idea of a High God [19]. This convergence is not confined to one culture or age but stretches across history and geography, persisting despite wide variation in how that God is conceived. Such near-universality highlights that, unlike belief in local spirits or extraordinary beings, belief in God has endured as a shared horizon toward which human minds have continually pointed.
The Belief In God Is the Same As Belief In A “Flying Spaghetti Monster” Or A “Great Pumpkin.”?
A common objection raised by skeptics is that belief in God is no different from belief in a “Flying Spaghetti Monster” or a “Great Pumpkin.” But the comparison misses something crucial. Firstly, belief in God is not a contrived cultural invention but a cross-cultural and recurring human intuition [20].
Secondly, unlike reports of encounters with spirits, ufos, or jinn—phenomena taken seriously across cultures—neither spaghetti monsters nor giant pumpkins have ever been part of human testimony. This goes to the heart of our project: taking reports of extraordinary beings seriously enough to ask whether they could serve as ultimate explanations. But when a figure is clearly invented for parody, it does not even hold weight in that conversation.
Thirdly, even the examples chosen by skeptics betray their cultural dependency: to imagine a ‘spaghetti monster’ requires familiarity with Italian cuisine and the Western trope of monsters, whereas across history and geography humans have naturally gravitated toward some form of a Creator or High God. By contrast, no culture has ever spontaneously developed belief in spaghetti monsters or pumpkins as ultimate causes of reality; such examples are inventions of satire, not natural tendencies of the human mind. This objection is worth addressing because our project examines both reported extraordinary beings (spirits, jinn, aliens) and hypothetical figures. Parody examples like the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’ have no basis in human testimony, yet by considering them we show that even such invented figures cannot serve as ultimate explanations. This strengthens the framework by distinguishing God not only from extraordinary beings people have claimed to encounter, but also from satirical inventions designed to trivialize belief. As Hamza Tzortzis notes, “God’s existence provides a foundation for a coherent world view, facilitates knowledge and answers key fundamental questions. A belief in the spaghetti monster or the belief in the great pumpkin, only provides the foundation for a few laughs.” [21]
The Mind Points Beyond
Taken together, the evidence is clear: humans may perceive spirits, archons or aliens, but these beings are always limited in scope, authority, and moral clarity. They intrigue and disturb, but they cannot carry the explanatory or moral burden that theology demands. Even if, in some extraordinary case, such beings claimed greater powers or even responsibility for human life, their status would still be limited and their authority bounded. By contrast, the idea of one supreme being—necessary, transcendent, and universal—remains the best candidate for ultimate explanation, for both the structure of reality and the moral order.
This is why the human quest for understanding and goodness points beyond the many to the One. Yet even here, questions linger. One might imagine exceptions or raise counter-examples
— extraordinary beings so powerful or strange that they appear to rival the divine. To address such possibilities, we must take the next step: distinguishing between what is merely extraordinary and what is truly ultimate, between contingent beings and the necessary reality that explains all things.
Section 2: Contingency and Necessity
Why All Such Beings Depend on God
Ghosts, jinn, demons, archons, or even extraterrestrials—however unusual or powerful they may appear—share one simple truth: they are not ultimate. They exist under conditions beyond their control. However extraordinary, we argue they remain dependent. In classical language, they will be categorised as contingent beings: things that might not have existed at all, whose very being is shaped by powers, places, and laws outside themselves. Even the most astonishing alien race, with ships and sciences far beyond our imagination, would still be bound by the laws of nature, by the fragile balance of planets and stars. Their greatness would not erase their dependency.
Philosophers and theologians have long shown that a chain of dependent things can never provide an ultimate explanation. However many contingent beings we imagine—even a countless host of spirits, demons, or alien gods—the question still presses: why is there anything at all, rather than nothing? That question can only be answered by a reality that does not come into being, cannot pass away, and does not rely on anything else. This reality is what thinkers across traditions have described as the necessary being—the foundation of all existence. (e)
As Joshua Rasmussen highlights, “…the foundation makes sense of existence. With a foundation, there is then no arbitrarily unexplained things. Dependent [contingent] things exist because of the things they depend on. Meanwhile, the independent foundation exists because of its own necessary nature. Everything fits together.” [22]
Philosophers define a necessary being as one whose nonexistence is impossible. Using tools like modal logic, they have long argued that contingency by itself cannot be the final word. Dependent realities point beyond themselves to an independent, necessary reality that provides the ultimate explanation for why anything exists at all (f). This necessary being is what monotheistic theology has always called God. Alexander Pruss and Joshua Rasmussen summarize it well: “God is supposed to be the ultimate source of all other concrete entities in every world…a sound argument for a necessary being would provide a reason to think that if there is a supreme being [i.e., God], it is a necessary being.” [23] In other words, God is not just another impressive actor within the cosmos. God is in a completely different category, the one reality that explains why there is a cosmos at all. To speak of God is to speak of the independent, eternal foundation upon which everything else rests.
As Hamza Tzortzis similarly writes, “ the universe, and everything that we perceive, depends upon something that is eternal and independent. This is best explained by the existence of God.” [24]
Once the argument reaches a truly necessary being, the idea of multiple such beings quickly loses its grip. A necessary being is not merely very powerful; it is the ultimate source upon which all else depends, and as such it cannot be the sort of thing whose existence or character still calls for a deeper explanation. To posit two or more necessary beings immediately raises a simple question: what explains the difference between them? Mere numerical difference without any real explanatory basis is unintelligible. Any real difference would require some further explanation for why each exists as it does rather than otherwise. But appealing to something beyond them would undermine their status as ultimate. And if there is no difference between them, then there is no basis for speaking of more than one. In this way, oneness is not an added assumption but a natural consequence of explanatory finality. Ultimate explanation does not multiply; it terminates.
Why does this matter? Because it shows us why the existence of extraordinary beings never threatens God’s oneness. Their very limits betray their dependency (g). They may dazzle or terrify, yet they are like lightbulbs glowing in a room: bright for a while, perhaps even blinding if close to the eyes, but their glow exists only so long as they are connected to the power that sustains them. Cut them off, and their brilliance vanishes instantly. Far from undermining belief in God, their very contingency points toward Him. Their presence cries out for explanation—and only God, the necessary being, provides it.
This is why fascination must not be confused with ultimacy. Fascination comes easily: a ghostly vision, a mysterious craft in the sky, an otherworldly whisper in the dark. Such encounters stir wonder. But theology seeks not merely the strange—it seeks the source. And when we look past the flicker of the extraordinary to the ground of existence itself, contingency always leads us back to necessity. And necessity points, not to a legion of powers in the shadows, but to the One, eternal God who depends on none and sustains all.
In my own conversation with Dr. Joshua Rasmussen, [25] he gave a simple but powerful illustration: imagine someone says the world rests on a giant turtle. We can always ask, “and what explains the turtle?” In this way, Rasmussen shows that no contingent creature—no matter how large or impressive—can be the necessary foundation. From there, he highlighted clear tools for distinguishing between what is contingent and what is necessary. He explained that contingent beings always have particular limits, shapes, and features that call out for explanation, whereas the necessary being is free from such dependency.
imagine a three-headed dragon appeared in the sky—towering, radiant, with golden eyes—claiming to be God.
To make this vivid, imagine a three-headed dragon appeared in the sky—towering, radiant, with golden eyes—claiming to be God. At first sight it may inspire awe, yet its very features betray its contingency. Why three heads and not four or five? Why golden eyes and not blue or red? Why this form rather than another? Each of these limits reveals dependence. Such a being, however extraordinary, would still belong to the created order. By contrast, God is not marked by such arbitrary limits. He is the eternal, independent reality upon which all contingent beings depend. Rasmussen’s framework helps us see this difference clearly: extraordinary beings, however dazzling, are contingent, while God alone is the necessary foundation of all existence.Section 3: The Anthropological Witness
From the Many to the One
Analytic philosophy teaches us that contingent beings cannot explain themselves; they lean on something greater. Yet analytic philosophy is not the only lens through which this truth emerges. Anthropology, when read carefully, tells a similar story in the register of history and culture. In other words, human cultures have long treated the many as real but dependent, and the One as ultimate.
The Universality of Encounters
Wherever humanity has lived, it has given voice to the unseen. Shamans describe journeys to other realms; tribes recount ancestral guardians; city-states invoke local gods tied to rivers, fields, or mountains. From the Sumerian tablets that speak of spirits of the dead, to Inuit shamans who describe beings mediating between humans and the natural world, to Melanesian tales of ancestral presences, the record is strikingly consistent: cultures recognize many unseen agents, yet their powers are always local, bound to place, ritual, or circumstance. They act within a creation already presupposed, echoing the very distinction we traced earlier.
Anthropological studies confirm this universality. George Peter Murdock, in his survey of cultural universals, [26] identified the propitiation of supernatural beings as one of the constants found across human societies. Andrew Lang, writing at the turn of the twentieth century in The Making of Religion, [27] made a similar observation: peoples from very different cultural backgrounds nevertheless profess very specific, weird beliefs about clairvoyance, ghosts, spirits and so forth. Taken together, these testimonies underscore the point: belief in unseen intelligences is not the oddity of a few traditions, but a common feature of humanity itself.
Monotheism and the Unseen World: No Rivalry, Only Subordination
At this point, some might object: if multiple supernatural beings is so widely reported, doesn’t that weaken the case for monotheism? Wouldn’t the persistence of these beings show that human imagination gravitates more to multiplicity than to unity? The answer is no. Belief in other intelligences has never been at odds with belief in one ultimate God. In fact, Dr. Winfried Corduan, professor emeritus of religion, emphasized in my own conversation with him: “I don’t know of any religion worthy of the name of religion that doesn’t have the jinn or demons or angels and so forth. I mean, that’s part of a monotheistic worldview—that God created spirits that are not human.” [28]
Corduan’s point is simple but profound: the existence of NHI (Non human Intelligence) is not a challenge to monotheism, but part of its fabric. Monotheistic faiths consistently affirm that God’s creation is richer than the human world alone. Angels, demons, and similar beings populate the unseen, but they do not rival God; they derive from Him. As Corduan put it in another context, “I don’t know of any monotheistic religion that does not have angels, demons, jinn” [29] Their existence reinforces rather than undermines the distinction between the contingent and the necessary.
This observation helps us understand why anthropologists so often find both elements together: cultures that acknowledge a supreme Creator also recognize lesser beings within creation. The two are not contradictory but complementary. The many fill the unseen with local action and drama; the One provides the overarching source and meaning. In this way, the anthropological record matches theological expectation: the world is not empty, but neither is it divided among competing gods. There is one Creator, and beneath Him, a multitude of dependent beings.
The High God
What philosophy concludes, anthropology often echoes. The idea that there must be one supreme, necessary source is not only a matter of abstract reasoning but also a recurring intuition of humanity across cultures. Wherever people have believed in spirits, ancestors, or local gods, traces also appear of a High God—a Creator above all, eternal and powerful, sometimes withdrawn but never erased. This “High God motif” shows that the conviction of an ultimate being is not restricted to modern philosophical sophistication; it is woven into the memory of cultures around the world.
Even in societies saturated only with spirits and lesser beings, anthropologists often uncover remnants of a High God — a Creator of all, moral and transcendent, sometimes eclipsed in practice yet traceable in memory, lineage, or tradition. Wilhelm Schmidt called this pattern “original monotheism,” [30] and Winfried Corduan later defended it as the oldest layer of human religion [31]. (h)
Daniel R. Côté, building on Wilhelm Schmidt’s work, highlights that the earliest cultures did not merely imagine a vague creator but described a Supreme Being with strikingly elevated attributes: eternal, all-powerful, morally authoritative, and distinct from the world [32]. As we can see, these traits align closely with the attributes philosophers deduce when reasoning toward a necessary being. In other words, humanity’s oldest testimonies echo what philosophy concludes—the idea of a transcendent, ultimate God is neither a late invention nor a mere abstraction, but a recognition deeply rooted in human history.
Ninian Smart notes this pattern with clarity: “The idea of a supreme High God is quite widely held by small-scale peoples. In most, if not all, of the indigenous cultures of Africa there is a belief in a supreme Spirit ruling over or informing lesser spirits and gods. He governs natural forces, dwells on high, is inexplicable, creates souls, men, and all things.” [33]
David Noss and Blake Grangaard echo the same regarding indigenous Australia: “Practically all of the Australian tribes held a belief in some kind of high god.” [34]. And John Mbiti, after surveying hundreds of African traditions, even concluded: “The primitive religions of Africa unanimously reveal an explicit monotheism. In all these societies, without a single exception, people have a notion of God as the Supreme Being.” [35]. (i)
Alongside academic treatments, Dr. Patrick Zukeran has highlighted how this recurring theme surfaces across world cultures. He notes that the Chinese once worshipped Shang Ti as the supreme Creator and lawgiver, the Santal of India remembered Thakur Jiu as the maker of all things, the Gedeo of Ethiopia revered Magano as omnipotent source, and the Incas of South America originally honored Viracocha, the Lord and Creator. These cases reinforce that even when cultures later turned toward spirits or idols, they did so against the backdrop of an older recognition of a single Creator [36]. Gerry Coghlan, through his accessible summaries, has likewise highlighted how widespread this pattern is, making the theme of original monotheism vivid for wider audiences [37].
Investigative historian Dr. Ehsan Butt captures the broader point succinctly: “Monotheism seems to be such a natural intrinsic idea that its clear and consistent denial has never been observed.” [38] People may neglect it, distort it, or overlay it with other practices, yet the intuition of one ultimate Source repeatedly finds expression across cultures and times.
The Drift Toward the Lesser
Of course, we must be careful not to overstate the case. Not every culture at every moment explicitly names or worships a High God. In some societies the record is thin, and in others local spirits and other beings dominate the imagination. Yet anthropology offers a key insight here: when the High God is obscured, it is typically not because He is denied, but because attention shifts to spirits and fetishes that seem more immediately “useful” for daily concerns.
Andrew Lang described this vividly over a century ago: “A moral creator in no need of gifts…Ghosts and ghost-gods, on the other hand, in need of food and blood, afraid of spells and binding charms, are a corrupt, but, to man, a useful constituency. Man being what he is, man was certain to 'go a whoring' after practically useful ghosts, ghost-gods and fetishes which he could keep in his wallet or medicine bag. For these he was sure, in the long run, first to neglect his idea of his Creator; next perhaps, to reckon Him as only one, if the highest, of the venal rabble of spirits or deities, and to sacrifice to Him as to them. And this is exactly what happened.” [39]
As psychologist Lee Kirkpatrick notes, drawing from Ninian Smart’s work, part of this drift was due to the perception that the High God was too distant [40]. Yet anthropological examples reveal something deeper: when calamity strikes, the sidelined High God re-emerges (j). Dr. Winfried Corduan, in conversation [41], gave the example of the Kikuyu people of Kenya. In daily life, they dealt with ancestor spirits—offering rituals and sacrifices in hopes of securing favor or avoiding mischief. But when drought or epidemic threatened the entire community, they gathered under a sacred tree, called on their ancestors to witness, and then together appealed
to Enkai, the Creator. The instinct was clear: lesser spirits could not shoulder ultimate responsibility in times of crisis; only the High God could.
This same ‘return to the Source’ appears in other traditions. Gerry Coghlan recalls ancient China on the eve of battle, when King Wu faced an enemy force as countless as the leaves of the forest. Fear began to grip him, and his general urged him not to rely on the god of war (a lower deity), but to take courage, for Shang Ti, the supreme Lord of Heaven, was with him. The scene is telling: when the odds were unbearable and survival seemed impossible, the lesser gods were set aside, and confidence was placed in the Highest Sovereign. Even in polytheistic settings, crisis exposed the insufficiency of lower powers and turned human hearts back to the One above them all. In Rome, early Christian writers observed that polytheistic peoples, when pressed by war or plague, cried out not to minor gods but to the true God above them all [42]. Across cultures, then, the pattern repeats: the High God may be neglected in ease, but in extremity, human beings instinctively turn back to Him. (k)
Of course, this is not to say that every culture consistently worships one supreme God, or that such recognition always stands at the forefront of practice. There are clear cases where local spirits or ritual deities dominate the imagination. But when the evidence is read across cultures and over time, a recurring pattern emerges: again and again, human beings intuit not only the many but also the One.
In this sense, the High God motif is not uniform, but it is widespread and deeply persistent. In many cases it shows that even when obscured by spirit-veneration or forgotten in daily practice, the idea of a supreme Creator lingers in cultural memory. Monotheism, then, is not an anomaly but a natural strand of humanity’s religious instinct—a thread that surfaces most clearly in times of crisis, when lesser beings are set aside and the ultimate is sought.
This recurring human pattern is captured with piercing clarity in the Qur’an:
“If they happen to be aboard a ship ˹caught in a storm˺, they cry out to Allah ˹alone˺ in sincere devotion. But as soon as He delivers them ˹safely˺ to shore, they associate ˹others with Him once again˺.” (Qur’an 29:65)
“When you are touched with hardship at sea, you ˹totally˺ forget all ˹the gods˺ you ˹normally˺ invoke, except Him. But when He delivers you ˹safely˺ to shore, you turn away. Humankind is ever ungrateful.” (Qur’an 17:67)
This ancient pattern is not only found in the record of past cultures or in revelation; it is still visible today. Imagine a group of friends on a luxury yacht, confident in their technology — GPS, weather apps, radios, safety gear. They laugh at the idea of needing God. But when a sudden storm disables their instruments, the boat begins to break apart, and the sea swallows their confidence, they find themselves crying out — not to their gadgets, not to science, not even to each other — but to God. It is instinctive, irrepressible. In moments when every limited help collapses, the heart turns back to the Unlimited.
Modern psychology lends some support to the same instinct we see in ancient cultures. When ordinary supports collapse, people turn back to God. Studies show that natural disasters often lead to increased religiosity, as communities seek meaning and stability when human control fails [43]. Even more striking, experimental research indicates that reminders of death can awaken unconscious belief in God even among atheists, slowing their denial of His existence [44]. These findings suggest that the impulse to cry out to God in times of fear or crisis is not just cultural—it is deeply woven into the human condition.
One possible lesson we can draw from these patterns is that extraordinary beings, no matter how striking — even if they seem to offer something — still function much like the other substitutes humans rely on in ordinary life: money, science or technology. They may create the impression of control over parts of existence, but when the foundations of life itself are shaken, their insufficiency becomes undeniable. In those moments, the illusion collapses, and the heart is drawn back to the One who alone sustains.
The Witness and the Lesson
The anthropological record lines up with philosophical reasoning: lesser beings, always bounded and local, cannot be ultimate. Across cultures, people have sensed this. Extraordinary
beings may be honored or feared, but the horizon of ultimacy points elsewhere — to a transcendent Creator who explains and provides what the spirits and other beings cannot.
This is why modern fascination with spirits, ufos, aliens, or archons is not a new challenge. It is a replay of the same pattern that anthropology records: many agents, but none ultimate. The presence of multiple extraordinary beings does not undermine monotheism—it underscores it. This lesson is as old as human memory.
It is important to emphasize what this anthropological witness is — and is not — doing. Anthropology by itself cannot prove God’s existence; it only documents patterns of belief and practice. The point of highlighting the High God motif is not to claim that cultural data alone demonstrate the reality of God, but to show how these recurring patterns resonate with the philosophical and theological arguments already developed. When read together, philosophy points us toward the necessity of one ultimate Source, and anthropology shows that human beings across times and places have intuited the same. In this way, anthropology does not stand on its own as demonstration but as corroboration — a reminder that the quest for ultimacy runs deep in the human condition, converging again and again on the vision of one supreme God.
Section 4: The Islamic Perspective
Jinn, Angels, and the Integrity of Tawḥīd
What philosophy and anthropology hint at, revelation makes explicit. The intuitions of human cultures, scattered yet persistent, find their clarification and fulfillment in the Qur’an, which acknowledges the reality of extraordinary beings yet insists on the unique ultimacy of the One. Here, Islam provides the theological frame that both recognizes the existence of extraordinary agents, and at the same time places them firmly under the sovereignty of the Creator (l).
The Qur’anic Vision of God
Cognitive science highlights our natural tendency to see purpose and design in the world, pointing us to a purposeful Creator. Reasoning, in turn, points to a necessary being — one whose existence explains all else. Anthropology uncovers the recurring memory of a High God across cultures, and the primordial human instinct inclines toward conceiving God in non-anthropomorphic terms. The Qur’an crystallizes these insights with unmatched clarity: God is not one agent within the cosmos, but the eternal Creator who sustains it. He is al-Ṣamad — the One on whom all depend, while He depends on none (Qur’an 112:2).
Islam presents a vision of God that aptly fulfills the conclusions we have reached so far. God is utterly distinct from creation: “There is nothing whatever like unto Him” (Qur’an 42:11). He is not a magnified spirit, angel, or jinn, but the Necessary and Transcendent Reality upon which every other being rests. His oneness is not a numerical tally among many, but the absolute and incomparable foundation of existence. On this foundation, Islamic theology provides a coherent framework for understanding extraordinary beings and their place in creation.
The Qur’anic Landscape of the Unseen
The Qur’an openly acknowledges the existence of unseen beings: angels, jinn, and devils. Yet unlike speculative folklore, these entities are never portrayed as rival deities. They are created beings, with defined roles under God’s command.
- Angels are obedient servants of God, executing His commands without hesitation (Qur’an 66:6).
- Jinn are intelligent beings created from smokeless fire (Qur’an 55:15). Like humans, they possess free will: some believe, others reject (Qur’an 72:11–15).
- Shayāṭīn (devils) are the rebellious among the jinn, who incite humans toward evil but remain firmly under God’s sovereignty (Qur’an 14:22).
By situating these beings firmly within creation, the Qur’an strips them of any claim to ultimacy. They are contingent actors within God’s cosmos, not independent powers.
Localized Anomalies, Not Ultimate Explanations
This Islamic framing aligns with what we saw in philosophy and anthropology: many cultures interpret unsettling phenomena as caused by “ghosts” or wandering “spirits.” From an Islamic perspective, however, many of such events are better explained as the activity of the jinn—created beings who can influence human perception and circumstance, but only within limits [45]. Reports of strange whispers, uncanny dreams, or frightening encounters may reflect such activity, yet they remain localized disturbances.
The Qur’an acknowledges that humans sometimes sought refuge in these beings (Qur’an 72:6), but insists that ultimate protection and explanation belong only to God.
Against False Devotion
A central feature of Islam is tawḥīd—the uncompromising affirmation of God’s oneness (m). The Qur’an repeatedly warns against elevating created beings—whether humans, angels, jinn, or even inanimate objects—into divine status (n). People may be drawn to worship what is near, what is frightening, or even what is purely imagined, but all such misdirections are predicted and addressed by revelation. At the same time, tawḥīd itself serves as a safeguard, fixing devotion on God alone and closing the door to misplaced worship.
The Qur’an acknowledges that many people have mistaken extraordinary beings or forces as worthy of worship, though these beings themselves deny such claims or lack any such power. On the Day of Judgment, God will ask the angels if they were worshipped, and they will reply that they had no share in it (Qur’an 34:40–41). The same error extends to lifeless idols of stone or wood, exalted as gods though they can neither benefit nor harm. At times, even entirely imaginary beings are elevated, as human imagination turns fear and desire into objects of devotion.
This misdirection is not limited to one culture but recurs across history: ancestor veneration, spirit-worship, idolatry, and myth-making have all emerged, where limited beings are treated as divine or the divine is imagined as limited. Islam does not present this as an anomaly—it predicts it (o). By framing these misdirections as part of humanity’s tendency to stray, Islam provides both diagnosis and safeguard. The diagnosis: people often mistake immediacy or power for ultimacy. The safeguard: revelation anchors attention back to the Supreme Being, reminding us that all others—however impressive—are limited creatures.
Against this confusion, the Qur’an declares:
“They were commanded only to worship one God; there is no deity except Him. Exalted is He above whatever they associate with Him.” (Qur’an 9:31)
In this way, Islam explains not only why people are tempted to elevate spirits, ancestors, or idols, but also why such worship can never be ultimate. Awe may arise in the face of extraordinary powers, but awe must never become worship.
Interpreting Anomalous Phenomena
Islam provides a robust framework for making sense of anomalous experiences—events that seem to break ordinary expectations of nature. Rather than dismissing such accounts or treating them as ultimate, Islamic theology classifies them within a broader system. The Qur’an and classical scholarship recognize that God has set norms in creation (ʿādāt), but also that these norms can be suspended in various ways: miracles of the prophets (muʿjizāt), extraordinary events for the righteous (karāmāt), divine responses to desperate prayers, or even deceptive feats through siḥr and jinn [46]. Each category is integrated into tawḥīd, showing that no event ever escapes God’s sovereignty.
Seen in this light, modern fascinations—whether UFO encounters, ghostly apparitions, or sudden visions—do not pose a challenge to Islam. For example, many aspects of the so-called “UFO phenomenon” has been addressed by Muslim thinkers through what they call the Jinn Hypothesis: many of the reported features—strange intelligences, deceptive appearances, manipulation of perception—align more closely with Islamic descriptions of jinn than with extraterrestrial visitors [47]. Such encounters may be startling, but they remain bound, and ultimately dependent on God’s permission.
This perspective turns the problem on its head: anomalies do not threaten tawḥīd but reinforce it. They remind us that extraordinary beings exist, yet always within limits. Their very contingency points back to the independence of God, the Necessary Being, who alone grounds the order of creation.
Extraterrestrial Life and Tawḥīd
What if life exists beyond Earth? Would the discovery of intelligent extraterrestrials threaten the foundations of Islam? The short answer is no.
Islamic theology has always affirmed that God’s creation is vast, and the Qur’an itself hints at life beyond our planet: “And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and what He has dispersed throughout them of living creatures” (Q 42:29). Classical scholars such as Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī did not dismiss this possibility, noting that God could create beings in the heavens that “walk as humans do on earth.”
The Qur’an further leaves creation open-ended: “…And He creates that which you do not know” (Quran 16:8). Some classical exegesis recognized this as an acknowledgment of beings and creatures beyond human knowledge, possibly beyond our world. In this way, Islam does not close the door but affirms that the unseen creation may extend far wider than what we presently encounter.
The key point is that the existence of other intelligent beings does not undermine tawḥīd. Like humans, they too would be contingent—dependent on the Necessary Being. Their presence would not rival God, but only widen our appreciation of His creative power.
Recent scholarship, such as Islamic Theology and Extraterrestrial Life: New Frontiers in Science and Religion (edited by Shoaib Ahmed Malik and Jörg Matthias Determann) [48], shows how Muslim thinkers have explored this question in depth. Their consensus is that extraterrestrial life, if it exists, is fully compatible with Islamic belief in one God.
In short, whether the universe holds only us or countless other creatures, tawḥīd remains intact: all creation depends on the One.
Islam’s Middle Path
What makes the Islamic framework powerful is its balance. It neither dismisses the possibility of human encounters with the unseen as mere imagination nor inflates them into rival divinities. Instead, it threads a middle path:
- Affirming their existence,
- Defining their limits,
- And integrating them into a larger theology of dependence on God.
This strengthens the case for monotheism: if such beings exist, their dependency highlights God’s independence. If they do not exist, nothing changes—God remains the Necessary Being, the foundation of all reality.
Epistemic Humility: Limits and Assurance
Islam not only provides categories for understanding extraordinary beings, it also teaches an attitude for approaching what lies beyond us: epistemic humility [49]. We are not asked to map every detail of how jinn operate, how angels function, or whether other intelligences may exist elsewhere in the cosmos. Revelation gives us the structure: God is One, all else is created and dependent. Within that framework, much remains open. This is not a weakness but an invitation to epistemic humility—to recognize the limits of human perception and imagination.
Such humility does not mean doubting God or questioning the very foundations of theology. Islam differentiates between arrogance in knowledge and genuine humility before God [50]. The Qur’an itself illustrates human limits in stories such as that of Mūsā and Khidr, reminding us that even those closest to revelation are shown the boundaries of their perspective. Similarly, the frequent pairing of God’s names al-ʿAlīm (All-Knowing) and al-Ḥakīm (All-Wise) reminds us that while our vantage point is partial, His knowledge and wisdom are complete. Different people may see the same reality from different angles, shaped by context and perspective—but this variability does not weaken conviction in the ultimate truth anchored in tawḥīd.
![Islam not only provides categories for understanding extraordinary beings, it also teaches an attitude for approaching what lies beyond us: epistemic humility [49]. We are not asked to map every detail of how jinn operate, how angels function, or whether other intelligences may exist elsewhere in the cosmos.](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr_UlARorNIlwTtGZZ3i_exFiZTjMTgmXzjLQ4wGKHlYxEUwftiA4a_-PCabXIUZ6-Ixm0X6kKsrvjohwTgxuhCoGCvXahEL60oE0ztBHR7J_XR5jJa31VKRSoPOi0CRPrAP7nhAE4c6q9x4sqOXz1b0ZM2nHdHj_A5IJxRD4Apf4FXVUwa_Y9JaYd2DZ1/s1024/6.jpg)
In this way, Islam brings together clarity and humility: clarity about God’s oneness, and humility about the breadth of His creation. Instead of closing the mind, this posture opens it wider—to
marvel at God’s richness, to accept mystery without fear, and to rest in the assurance that tawḥīd anchors us even when details remain hidden.
Section 5: Monotheism and the Ground of Truth
Having seen how Islam frames extraordinary beings within tawḥīd, the next question naturally arises: if such beings exist, how do we know what is true about them? Yet beneath those lies an even more fundamental issue: truth itself. Can there be such a thing as objective truth—truth that holds beyond culture, time, or perspective—if reality is not ultimately one?
This question is not peripheral. Any serious inquiry into the unseen presupposes that there is something to be discovered rather than merely invented. To ask whether a claim about spirits, miracles, or extraordinary beings is true already assumes that truth is not reducible to custom, power, or agreement.
Oxford philosopher Roger Trigg, in his work Monotheism and Religious Diversity [51], argues that monotheism has historically provided the framework for believing in objective truth (p). If there is one God, there is one reality, one human nature, and one horizon of truth to which all minds are accountable. Without that, we are left with relativism—different “truths” for different peoples—where the very concept of truth collapses.
This relativist temptation is familiar today: many prefer to celebrate a ‘diversity’ of belief rather than face the hard question of which claims are actually true. As Roger Trigg observes, postmodern suspicion often treats every assertion of truth as a mask for power, reducing knowledge to mere social construction. Yet this move undermines not only religion but science — and even our attempts to make sense of the unseen itself. For both science and any serious inquiry into extraordinary claims depend on a shared conviction: that there is one reality to be investigated, one world governed by universal principles, accessible to human reason wherever it is exercised (q). As Roger Trigg puts it: “The idea of objective truth both leads to, and stems from, monotheism. Without the notion of one God, human knowledge will easily fragment.” [52]
At this stage, however, an important distinction must be made. Trigg’s argument is not primarily metaphysical. He does not begin by asking what truth is, but by asking what kind of worldview allows us to treat truth as something binding and discoverable rather than negotiable. His point is that monotheism supplies the practical and conceptual framework within which objectivity makes sense. Yet once this framework is granted, a deeper question becomes unavoidable. If truth really is objective, unified, and binding, what does it ultimately depend on?
To see why this question matters, it helps to reflect on how truth functions in ordinary life. One and the same truth can be expressed in countless ways. “The microphone is on the table” may be spoken aloud, written, signed, or translated into different languages. These expressions are many, yet the truth expressed is one. This suggests that truth is not identical to sounds, ink, or social convention, but to an underlying intelligible content capable of being shared across minds.
Consider a simple analogy. Imagine a digital document stored in the cloud. The same document can be accessed on a laptop, a phone, or a tablet. It can be displayed in different fonts, translated into different languages, or printed on paper. These representations vary, yet the content remains the same. The document is not identical to any particular screen or printout. Those are merely ways in which the content is accessed.
Truth functions in a similar way. The statement “the earth orbits the sun” can be expressed in many forms, but the truth it expresses remains unchanged. The truth itself is not the sound waves, symbols, or pixels. It is the intelligible content those expressions point to. Yet here a crucial point emerges. A document does not exist nowhere. It must be stored, held, or instantiated in something. If there were no place where the document resided, there would be nothing for any device to access.
Likewise, if truths are real and unified, they cannot exist as free-floating abstractions. Human minds can access truths, but human minds are finite, fallible, and temporary. They come and go, disagree, forget, and err. Yet many truths do not come and go with us. Mathematical truths, logical laws, and fundamental facts about reality remain what they are regardless of whether any human happens to be thinking about them. This strongly suggests that while truths are accessed by human minds, they are not grounded in human minds.
Once this is granted, the deeper question becomes unavoidable. What does truth ultimately depend on? Even the simplest claims we make function as meaningful assertions only because they are the kind of thing that can be true or false. Truth is not something we manufacture or negotiate. It is something our judgments answer to. If truth is intelligible, unified, and stable, then it requires a grounding that is itself intelligible, unified, and stable.
This line of reasoning is developed with precision by Lorraine Juliano Keller in her argument from intentionality [53]. Trigg emphasizes that monotheism provides the framework for believing in one objective truth; Keller presses the point further by asking what truth itself depends on. Truths are never free-floating entities — they are always about something, and to exist they must be held in a mind. As Keller explains, “truth is mind-dependent. Yet there are truths that transcend the human mind, e.g. eternal truths. So, there must be a supreme mind with the representational capacity” [54] ( r ). Her argument places a significant constraint on any worldview that seeks to account for truth. By showing that truth is both intelligible and irreducible to finite minds, Keller’s analysis indicates that the unity of truth ultimately stands in relation to a supreme mind, lending further support to the monotheistic grounding of truth. (s)
At this point, the discussion naturally reconnects with the earlier metaphysical argument of this essay. For what Keller calls “eternal truths” are not merely true by accident. They do not depend on shifting cultures, changing languages, or contingent arrangements of matter. As Pruss and Rasmussen note, “even if abstracta are causally inert, they are likely to be grounded in causally efficacious entities, such as a necessary being.” [55] The point is simple: even if truths do not cause anything, their necessity still calls for an explanation. What can fail to exist cannot ultimately ground what cannot fail. For this reason, objective truth points beyond contingent minds and representations toward a necessary foundation. Once the question of necessary existence is reintroduced, the picture sharpens: the most coherent account of eternal truths is an eternal and necessary source, one whose knowledge is not limited by time, place, or perspective.
This concern with unity and necessity is not a modern invention. From the beginning of philosophy, thinkers recognized the problem of diversity. Xenophanes, observing that Thracians imagined blue-eyed gods while Ethiopians pictured theirs as dark-skinned, mocked the human tendency to project local features onto the divine. But he also glimpsed a deeper truth, speaking of “one god, greatest among gods and men, not at all like mortals in body or thought.” Such intuitions pulled thought away from parochial images toward the possibility of a transcendent reality.
Monotheism crystallized this intuition: there is one God, not confined to tribe or region, whose existence guarantees that truth itself is not fragmented. With one Creator, there is one created order, one moral fabric, and one rationality accessible to all. This provides the basis for genuine dialogue across cultures, since each person is presumed to inhabit the same reality and be capable of grasping the same truths. Without this anchor, relativism looms. If all claims are culturally embedded and equally valid, then no claim can be binding—not even the claim that “all is relative.” As Trigg points out, such relativism self-destructs: to assert there is “no objective truth” is to make an objective claim. Only the conviction of a single transcendent Source safeguards the possibility of truth itself.
The implications of this are more significant than they may first appear. To affirm objective truth is already to affirm a shared reality and a rational order that does not shift with preference or power. Truth is not something we invent. It is something we answer to. And once truth is seen to require a necessary and knowing source, belief in God is no longer an optional addition to our picture of the world. It becomes the condition under which truth itself is intelligible and binding.
This conclusion also sheds light on why the denial of God often generates deeper tensions than is initially apparent. In recent philosophy of religion, Joshua Rasmussen has argued that once the reality of truth, necessity, and rational explanation is taken seriously, atheism risks undermining the very conditions that make rational discourse possible. If truths exist, if some truths are necessary rather than contingent, and if such truths require a sufficient ground, then the rejection of any necessary, knowing foundation threatens to collapse into contradiction. On this view, the issue is not merely whether God explains more, but whether denying God leaves us with a coherent account of truth at all. [56]
When the Unseen No Longer Threatens
This is why the idea of God’s oneness is not a narrow theological dogma but a philosophical necessity. It secures the rational pursuit of science, the coherence of morality, and the possibility of human understanding across cultures. It also provides the framework for interpreting extraordinary beings and experiences without collapsing into confusion or superstition. Even in an age fascinated with spirits, aliens, or multiple realities, monotheism remains the
indispensable framework that allows us to say: there is one world, one reality, and therefore truth is possible.
The Qur’an captures this with striking clarity:
“So that is Allah, your True Lord. And what is there after truth except falsehood? So how are you turned away?” (Qur’an 10:32)
Conclusion
From the first stirrings of humanity’s religious instinct to the complexities of modern encounters with the unseen, the pattern is unmistakable. Across cultures, times, and contexts, people have testified to intelligences beyond themselves—spirits, ancestors, jinn, angels, and other extraordinary beings. Yet whether through anthropology, philosophy, or revelation, these beings consistently reveal their limits.
Even modern fascinations with UFOs, ghosts, or anomalous experiences do not escape this logic. However strange, these phenomena remain bounded, conditioned, and dependent. They do not challenge monotheism—they underscore it. In fact, Islamic theology anticipates such claims, offering categories through which to interpret them without collapsing into either denial or superstition. The unseen may unsettle, but it does not rival. It serves only as another mirror reflecting the reality of the Creator.
Suppose one day an extraordinary being appeared before humanity, dazzling with powers and declaring itself to be God. Our journey has given us the tools to cut through such spectacles. We can ask: does this being explain reality itself, or only manipulate parts of it? Does it carry the marks of contingency—features that could fail to exist, limits in form, place, or power? History is filled with figures making grand claims, only to reveal their finitude. Revelation itself prepares us for such pretenders, warning of beings who may astonish but cannot ground existence.
With these tools, the verdict is clear: claims of being the God collapse under scrutiny. If tomorrow a radiant, one-eyed figure rose to the skies and demanded worship, we would know how to respond. Why one eye and not two? Why this form rather than another? Why any limits at all? Each question strips away the illusion of ultimacy, exposing contingency. However dazzling the creature, it remains within creation. And in seeing that, we see why only the Necessary, eternal foundation—the One beyond the many—can be God.
And this is the final safeguard: awe without discernment leads to deception, but awe guided by reason and revelation leads us back to the truth. When illusions are stripped away, the
testimony of cultures, the reasoning of philosophy, the witness of scripture, and even the puzzles of modernity all converge on one point: the many flicker, the One remains. Tawḥīd stands not merely as a religious slogan, but as the most coherent account of reality itself.
“Say, "He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He neither begets nor is born, Nor is there to Him any equivalent." (Surah al-Ikhlāṣ, 112:1–4)
“The One beyond the many is not only the God of scripture but the horizon of every question, the answer to every longing, and the ground on which truth itself stands.”
Notes & References
[1] Olivera Petrovich, Natural-Theological Understanding from Childhood to Adulthood (London: Routledge, 2019), Kindle edition, p. 71.
[2] Ibid., p. 85.
[3] Kelemen, D. (2004) Are Children “Intuitive Theists”? Reasoning About Purpose and Design in Nature. Psychological Science, 15(5), 295-301.)
[4] Järnefelt, E., Canfield, C. F. & Kelemen, D. (2015). The Divided Mind of a Disbeliever: Intuitive Beliefs About Nature as Purposefully Created Among Different Groups of Non-Religious Adults.Cognition 140:72-8
[5] Nakissa, Aria. “The Cognitive Science of Religion and Islamic Theology: An Analysis Based on the Works of al-Ghazālī.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 88, no. 4 (2020): 1087–1120. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfaa059.
[6] Jou, Daniel. 2022. “Ibn Taymiyya on Human Nature and Belief in God: Using the Cognitive Science of Religion to Study the Fiṭra.” Religions 13, no. 10: 951. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13100951.
[7] Matthew Braddock, “Natural Nonbelief in God: Prehistoric Humans, Divine Hiddenness, and Debunking,” in Evolutionary Debunking Arguments: Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Mathematics, Metaphysics, and Epistemology, ed. Diego E. Machuca (London: Routledge, 2023), 160–184.
[8] Olivera Petrovich, Natural-Theological Understanding from Childhood to Adulthood (London: Routledge, 2019). Kindle edition.
[9] Olivera Petrovich, “In the Beginning: An Interview with Olivera Petrovich,” Jason Goroncy, July 28, 2008, https://jasongoroncy.com/2008/07/28/in-the-beginning-an-interview-with-olivera-petrovich/.
[10] Rebekah A. Richert and Justin L. Barrett, “Do You See What I See? Young Children’s Assumptions About God’s Perceptual Abilities,” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 15, no. 4 (2005): 283–295.
[11] ScienceTeller, ScienceTeller19 - Justin Barrett - Why Ghosts are Common but Rarely Important in Theology, April 2019, YouTube video, 23:55, https://youtu.be/e0_vsh19hJI?si=5gm6iPL3Wcv7dUHH
[12] Incisive Thoughts, What Cognitive Science Reveals About Ghosts, Spirits & Jinn w/ Dr. Justin Barrett
https://youtu.be/sQSczEpRzpg
[13] Ibid
[14] ScienceTeller, ScienceTeller19 - Justin Barrett - Why Ghosts are Common but Rarely Important in Theology, April 2019, YouTube video, 23:55, https://youtu.be/e0_vsh19hJI?si=5gm6iPL3Wcv7dUHH
[15] Ibid
[16] Incisive Thoughts, What Cognitive Science Reveals About Ghosts, Spirits & Jinn w/ Dr. Justin Barrett
https://youtu.be/sQSczEpRzpg
[17] Ibid
[18] Aria Nakissa, “The Cognitive Science of Religion and Islamic Theology: An Analysis Based on the Works of al-Ghazālī,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 88, no. 4 (2020): 1087–1120. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfaa059
[19] Braddock, Matthew. “Resuscitating the Common Consent Argument for Theism.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 93 (2023): 189–210. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-022-09856-9
[20] Is Belief in God Properly Basic. Alvin Plantinga. Noûs. Vol. 15, No. 1, 1981 A. P. A. Western Division Meetings (Mar., 1981), pp. 41-51.
[21] Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, “Does One Need to Prove the Existence of God?” Islam21c, January 6, 2016, https://www.islam21c.com/theology/does-one-need-to-prove-the-existence-of-god/
[22] Joshua Rasmussen, How Reason Can Lead to God: A Philosopher’s Bridge to Faith (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2019), 33.
[23] Alexander R. Pruss and Joshua L. Rasmussen, Necessary Existence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 5-6.
[24] Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, The Divine Reality: God, Islam, and the Mirage of Atheism, Sapience Institute Online Edition, October 2020, p. 130.
[25] Incisive Thoughts, ‘The Backbone of All Arguments for God's Existence (Contingency Argument) | ft. Dr. Joshua Rasmussen.’ YouTube video, 1:37:00. Uploaded August 14, 2025. https://youtu.be/TZXeaWEVjoY?si=WBV0fOQ5qScPUxEK.
[26] Donald E. Brown, Human Universals (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991), 69, citing George Peter Murdock.
[27] Lang, Andrew. The Making of Religion. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1900
[28] Incisive Thoughts, ‘Did Religion Start with Animism or God? | Dr. Win Corduan Debunks the Evolutionary Origins Myth’, YouTube video, 1:44:54, July 30, 2025, https://youtu.be/TR911BrGy_o?si=WM83usH8Q57xDC56
[29] Incisive Thoughts. How Demons/Jinns Distort Monotheism: From Ancient Spirits to Modern UFOs w/ Dr. Winfried Corduan https://youtu.be/f3KUECjCQeM
[30] Wilhelm Schmidt, Primitive Revelation. Trans. Joseph J. Baierl. St. Louis: Herder, 1939.
[31] Winfried Corduan, In the Beginning God: A Fresh Look at the Case for Original Monotheism (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2013)
[32] Daniel R. Côté, The High God and the Idea of Culture: Toward a Critical Reading of Wilhelm Schmidt’s Theory of Primitive Monotheism (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2014), 65-69
[33] Smart, Ninian. 1996. The Religious Experience. 5th edition. Pearson. p 22
[34] David S. Noss and Blake R. Grangaard, A History of the World’s Religions, 14th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2018), p 22
[35] See John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1969); Concepts of God in Africa (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970).
[36] Patrick Zukeran, “The Origin of Man's Religions: Evolutionary Artifact or Remnants of Knowing Our Creator”, accessed [23/09/2025]. https://probe.org/the-origin-of-mans-religions/
[37] Incisive Thoughts. The Legacy of Monotheism Across Cultures | Gerry Coghlan | Incisive Thoughts. YouTube video, 2:43:06, June 18, 2023. https://youtu.be/DK__YGvuqhw?si=dmuPqh6WHeBQz7VA.
[38] Ehsan Butt, “How Monotheism Is the Mother of All Human Progress,” ARFA Global, accessed [23/09/2025], https://www.arfaglobal.com/p/how-monotheism-is-mother-of-all-human.html.
[39] Andrew Lang, The Making of Religion (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1898), 281–82.
[40] Lee A. Kirkpatrick, Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion (New York: Guilford Press, 2005), 244.
[41] Incisive Thoughts, ‘Did Religion Start with Animism or God? | Dr. Win Corduan Debunks the Evolutionary Origins Myth’, YouTube video, 1:44:54, July 30, 2025, https://youtu.be/TR911BrGy_o?si=WM83usH8Q57xDC56
[42] Incisive Thoughts. Evidence Of The Fitrah All Around The World | Gerry Coghlan | Incisive Thoughts. YouTube video, 1:50:55. November 5, 2023. https://youtu.be/njxWVgJ1gAM?si=Ez5i1LDQRQJKp_dq.
[43] Chris G. Sibley and Joseph A. Bulbulia, “Faith after an Earthquake: A Longitudinal Study of Religion and Perceived Health before and after the 2011 Christchurch New Zealand Earthquake,” PLoS ONE 7, no. 12 (2012): e49648. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049648.
[44] University of Otago, “Death Anxiety Increases Atheists’ Unconscious Belief in God,” ScienceDaily, April 4, 2012, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120402094322.htm.
[45] ʿUmar S. al-Ashqar, The World of the Jinn and Devils (Herndon, VA: International Islamic Publishing House, 2003), 141–142
[46] Safina Society, ‘Are Miracles Always Good? (Part 1) || NBF 478 || Dr Shadee Elmasry’. YouTube live video, 1:03:21. August 13, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/live/7N5XMwiySes?si=5lvO9y1oqmUGWBF-
[47] Imran Hussein, “The Jinn Hypothesis & Modern UFO Phenomena,” Sapience Institute, June 21, 2024, last updated June 21, 2024, https://www.sapienceinstitute.org/jinn-hypothesis/.
[48] Shoaib Ahmed Malik and Jörg Matthias Determann, eds., Islamic Theology and Extraterrestrial Life: New Frontiers in Science and Religion (London: I.B. Tauris, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024).
[49] Latiff, Osman. “Epistemic Humility.” Sapience Institute, August 20, 2024. https://www.sapienceinstitute.org/epistemic-humility/.
[50] Ibid.
[51] Roger Trigg, Monotheism and Religious Diversity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). p 47-62.
[52] Ibid. p 51
[53] Lorraine Juliano Keller, “The Argument from Intentionality (or Aboutness): Propositions Supernaturalized,” in Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God: The Plantinga Project, ed. Jerry L. Walls and Trent Dougherty (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), p 11-24.
[54] Ibid. p 11.
[55] Alexander R. Pruss and Joshua Rasmussen, Necessary Existence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 139.
[56] Joshua Rasmussen, “Does Atheism Entail a Contradiction?”, Philosophia Christi 18, no. 2 (2016): 243–259.
Notes
(a) Many reported encounters with extraordinary beings can indeed be explained as hallucinations, mental disorders, dreams, or cultural folklore. This project does not take a stand on the reality of every such claim. Instead, it brackets that question and asks: if we considered some of these beings real at face value, would they challenge belief in one God? The analysis shows that even in that case, their existence would remain dependent, contingent, and never ultimate.
(b) Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) studies do not mean that every child or culture will necessarily form a concept of a High God, nor that such a concept is always retained across development or within every tradition. Rather, these studies highlight recurring tendencies in human cognition: an inclination toward seeing purpose and design in the world. Even critics of CSR acknowledge that children are strongly inclined toward purposeful explanations of the world, which makes the idea of a transcendent Creator an especially natural direction of thought.
(c) This does not mean simplicity alone proves God’s existence. Philosophers use parsimony (Occam’s Razor) as a guide, not a final demonstration. The point here is that the human mind tends to prefer unity in causes, which aligns naturally with the concept of one Creator.
(d) While some non-monotheistic theologies may attempted to assign ultimate status to spirits, ancestors, or cosmic beings, our focus here is on monotheistic traditions and philosophical reasoning about contingency and necessity. Within that framework, extraordinary beings are consistently understood as contingent and secondary, never as the ultimate ground of reality.
(e) The distinction between necessary and contingent existence is not unique to theology. It is a central concept in contemporary analytic philosophy and metaphysics, widely used to clarify the question of why anything exists at all. Not all philosophers agree that a necessary being exists, but the framework is rigorously employed in debates. Interestingly, Joshua Rasmussen and Alexander Pruss conducted a survey of 2,322 participants (including professional philosophers) and found that over 94% of respondents — including 93% of disbelievers — affirmed premises that jointly entail the existence of a necessary being. This suggests that many who deny necessary existence implicitly accept it when considering related claims. Rasmussen argues that this illustrates how deeply the intuition of necessary existence runs, even across skeptical audiences.
(f) Some philosophers suggest that the necessary being might simply be the universe itself, or else claim that the universe is a “brute fact” requiring no further explanation. The first option treats the cosmos as necessary; the second rejects the demand for
explanation altogether. Pruss and Rasmussen argue in Necessary Existence (2018) that neither option succeeds. A brute fact undermines rational inquiry by halting explanation at an arbitrary point, while the universe-as-necessary-being fails because the cosmos is finite, structured, and contingent in countless respects. Their proposal is a Modest Explanatory Principle: contingent things call for explanation, and this regress ends only in one necessary reality that exists by its very nature. Unlike brute facts, the necessary being is not arbitrary but self-explanatory — its existence is secured in its essence. Many philosophers, including atheists, grant that some necessary reality must exist; the debate is over what best fills that role. This article does not enter those debates in detail, but it relies on their conclusion: the necessary being is not the contingent universe, nor a brute unexplained fact, but the foundational reality upon which everything else depends.
(g) Strictly speaking, contingency and dependency are not identical terms in philosophy. Contingency usually refers to the modal status of something that could have been otherwise or could have failed to exist, while dependency refers to a relation of ontological or causal reliance on something else. A being may be contingent because it could have failed to exist, and it is dependent insofar as its existence is derived from another. For the sake of readability, however, this article uses the terms “contingent” and “dependent” interchangeably, since both point to the same underlying contrast with what is necessary, self-explanatory, and ultimate.
(h) Wilhelm Schmidt’s thesis of Urmonotheismus (“original monotheism”) sparked a wide anthropological debate about whether humanity’s earliest religion was monotheistic. That broader discussion is not the focus of this article. What matters here is the persistence of the High God motif across cultures. This article follows Winfried Corduan’s argument, which emphasizes the widespread and recurrent nature of High God beliefs without relying on a rigid chronological schema. Even scholars who reject Schmidt’s thesis acknowledge that many so-called “primitive” or tribal societies distinguish between an ultimate Creator God — viewed as supremely powerful and authoritative — and lesser spirits or beings that are clearly limited. That distinction alone suffices to show that the idea of a transcendent High God stands apart from extraordinary beings, reinforcing the pattern we have seen throughout.
(i) The claim of convergence on a High God should not be read as universal in every culture at every moment. Anthropological records show variation, syncretism, and even periods where the High God recedes from daily ritual. The point here is about broad cross-cultural patterns, not strict uniformity.
(j) The observation that cultures may “drift” from focus on a High God toward lesser spirits does not mean the High God concept disappears. Rather, it often recedes into the background, resurfacing especially in times of crisis or ultimate need. Some anthropologists describe this as a recurring pattern: a transcendent Creator remains acknowledged as supreme while day-to-day religious life gravitates toward more immediate spirits or ancestors. We are not suggesting this always occurs, or that it unfolds in the same way in every culture. The point is simply that, even if not universal or uniform, the pattern recurs often enough to reinforce the distinction between a supreme High God and subordinate beings — and that distinction is sufficient for the argument here.
(k) The examples provided (e.g., Kikuyu, ancient China) are illustrative rather than exhaustive. Many other cultures exhibit similar patterns, but these are chosen for their clarity and accessibility. The larger point is not dependent on any one case study, but on the repeated recurrence of High God motifs across the globe.
(l) The purpose of this section is not to present a standalone proof that Islam is the only true religion. Arguments for the truth of Islam are many and extend beyond the scope of this article. What we aim to do here is something more specific: to show how Islamic theology integrates the insights of cognitive science, philosophy, and anthropology into a coherent vision of reality. Where human intuition gestures toward purpose, necessity, and a transcendent High God, the Qur’an gives these intuitions their clearest articulation. Islam does not erase the extraordinary beings recognized across cultures, but situates them properly within a framework of tawḥīd — thereby explaining both the reality of such beings and the ultimate oneness of the Creator.
(m) Tawḥīd is the central doctrine of Islam, affirming the absolute oneness and uniqueness of God. It has several dimensions in Islamic theology: (1) Oneness of Lordship (tawḥīd al-rubūbiyyah) — that God alone is the Creator, Sustainer, and Ruler of the universe; (2) Oneness of Worship (tawḥīd al-ulūhiyyah) — that only God is worthy of worship, and all acts of devotion must be directed to Him alone; and (3) Oneness of Names and Attributes (tawḥīd al-asmāʾ wa-l-ṣifāt) — that God’s attributes, such as His knowledge and power, are unique, incomparable, and cannot be ascribed to created beings in the same sense. Together, these affirmations safeguard monotheism against both polytheism and the deification of extraordinary beings such as angels, jinn, or prophets.
(n) The Qur’an acknowledges that humans have often turned to jinn, angels, or saints for intercession, but condemns such devotion as shirk (associating partners with God). The Islamic stance is not to deny the existence of such beings but to insist on their createdness and dependence. This preserves monotheism while recognizing a populated unseen world.
(o) Anthropology further confirms what Islamic theology predicts about this misdirection. Across cultures, one of the most pervasive deviations from monotheism has been the veneration of ancestors and spirits. Surveys of hunter-gatherer societies consistently
show the near-universal presence of ancestor cults and animistic spirit beliefs. Wilhelm Schmidt, the foremost advocate of original monotheism, argued on anthropological grounds that the first fall from humanity’s memory of the High God was precisely into ancestor worship. While scholars debate Schmidt’s chronology, the underlying pattern is difficult to deny: the tendency of communities to exalt proximate figures — whether deceased kin, tribal heroes, or spirits — into semi-divine roles. Islamic theology anticipates the same trajectory: revelation describes how human beings, instead of holding to pure tawḥīd, turned to venerating figures closer to them — ancestors, spirits, and intermediaries — mistaking nearness or power for ultimacy. This convergence between anthropological findings and Islamic teaching highlights the predictive depth of tawḥīd: it not only explains why deviation occurs, but also why its earliest and most universal form is the elevation of ancestors and spirits.
(p) Roger Trigg argues that monotheism provides the historical and conceptual foundation for belief in objective truth. The conviction that there is one reality, accessible in principle to all, flows from the idea of one transcendent God. Without this anchor, truth fragments into relativism, where each group or individual has their own “truth,” a position that collapses into incoherence (since even the denial of truth is offered as a truth claim). Importantly, Trigg cautions that affirming objective truth does not grant us omniscience or a right to coerce others. Monotheism insists on truth’s universality while also demanding humility: human beings grasp it only partially, and freedom of conscience must be respected. Even modern science, in its quest for universally valid knowledge, operates in the shadow of this monotheistic inheritance. Additionally, while non-theistic accounts of truth — such as some versions of deflationary or pragmatist theories — have been proposed, they struggle to explain why truth carries normative authority, binding us to seek and respect it. Monotheism uniquely secures truth as more than social convention: it grounds truth in the eternal knowledge of God, making it both universal and ultimate.
(q) Joshua Rasmussen, in Defending the Correspondence Theory of Truth (Cambridge University Press, 2014), develops a rigorous defense of correspondence as the most adequate account of truth. On this view, a proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to reality. Rasmussen argues that correspondence best captures our intuitions about truth, explains the logical behavior of truth predicates, and avoids the pitfalls of rival theories. Coherence theories reduce truth to internal consistency, but consistency alone cannot guarantee truth if the whole system is false. Pragmatist theories tie truth to what “works,” but usefulness does not always track reality. Deflationary theories treat truth as a mere logical device, but they cannot explain truth’s normative authority — why we ought to seek and respect it. By contrast, correspondence accounts for these features: truth binds us because it is anchored in how reality actually is. Rasmussen further emphasizes that correspondence theory explains why truth persists independently of human minds; even if all finite minds vanished, truth would remain, because it is grounded in reality itself.
(r) In philosophy, to call truth “mind-dependent” does not mean that human minds construct reality. Rather, it means that truths are inherently intentional, they are always about something. Keller’s argument develops this point: propositions and other truth-bearers represent reality in a way that fixes truth-conditions, yet such representational content cannot exist as a free-floating abstraction. If all finite minds disappeared, truth would not thereby vanish, since truths remain intelligible contents that require a knower. The most plausible explanation is that truth ultimately exists in relation to a mind with unlimited representational capacity. This clarification coheres with Joshua Rasmussen’s defense of a correspondence account of truth, according to which truth is a relational property grounded in how propositions match reality rather than in linguistic convention or social agreement.
(s) Philosophers differ on the ontological status of propositions and universals: realists treat them as abstract entities, nominalists deny such entities altogether, and conceptualists locate them in minds. Keller’s formulation of the Argument from Intentionality is largely neutral between realism and conceptualism, since her reasoning turns on the inherently representational character of truth rather than on any specific ontology of propositions. Nevertheless, her “Scarcity Objection” implicitly excludes strict nominalism, as the argument presupposes that some form of genuine intentional content exists and that this content ultimately requires a mind capable of encompassing all truths. In this sense, her argument remains metaphysically flexible but not fully neutral—it is compatible with conceptualism and moderate realism, yet incompatible with eliminative or austere nominalism. When reinforced by Rasmussen’s correspondence account of truth, which grounds truth in the fitting relation between minds and reality rather than in any one ontological theory of propositions, Keller’s reasoning can be fruitfully applied across multiple metaphysical frameworks without loss of force.
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