CHAPTER 2
GOD AND THE WORLD
2.1 The existence of
God, and creation
2.1.1 Al-Kindî: “The first cause
and the true One”
2.1.2 Muammad ar-Râzî
2.1.3 Ibn-Masarra
2.1.4 Ishâq ibn-Sulaymân
al-Isrâ’îlî
2.1.5 Al-Fârâbî: the argument
from contingency
2.1.6 Miskawayh
2.1.7 Ibn-Sînâ
The argument from
contingency
The argument from
movement
The argument from
degrees of perfection
The argument from
causality
The argument from
individuation of material things
The unity and
simplicity of God
Creation
2.1.8 Ibn-Gabirol
2.1.9 Ibn-Bâjja
2.1.10 Ibn-Tufayl
2.1.11 Ibn-Rushd
The pre-eternity
of the world
God is the moving and
final cause of everything
All attributes of
God are one reality
God is only the
mover, through intermediaries, of things in the world
The heavenly
bodies and their souls
Secondary
causality
The argument from
design
2.1.12 Moshe ben Maimon
2.1.13 Thomas Aquinas
2.2 God’s knowledge of singulars
2.2.1 Al-Fârâbî
2.2.2 Ibn-Sînâ
2.2.3 Ibn-Gabirol
2.2.4 Ibn-Rushd
2.2.5 Moshe ben Maimon
2.2.6 Thomas Aquinas
2.1 The existence of God, and creation
2.1.1 Al-Kindî: “The first cause and the true One”
In his Kitâb al-falsafa al-ûlâ, after an introduction on the meaning of philosophy, al-Kindî, begins by arguing that all time, motion and bodies are necessarily finite. This premise leads him to argue for a first cause, which must be perfectly and entirely one, as opposed to any other cause.
This argument is presented more fully and clearly in his Risâla fî îdâh tanâhî jirm al-`âlam and his Risâla fî mâ’iyya mâ lâ yumkin an yakûn lâ nihâya la-hu wa-mâ llâdhî yuqâl “lâ nihâya”, where al-Kindî anticipates the argument of later mutakallimûn for the existence of God from the supposed impossibility of the eternity of the world. While the mutakallimûn based their argument on the temporal origin (hudûth) of all things, al-Kindî bases his argument on the impossibility of arriving at the present moment after crossing an infinite past time.
2.1.2 Muammad ar-Râzî
As a Platonist, ar-Râzî did not hold that this world is eternal, but said that it was made of pre-existent matter that is eternal. No reason can be found in God or matter for the creation of the world in time, but this decision is attributed to an eternal soul made by God, which desired to be united to matter. For ar-Râzî, God, matter, the soul, absolute space and absolute time are five eternal principles. (1)
2.1.3 Ibn-Masarra
In his Risâla al-i`tibâr Ibn-Masarra begins with the observation that the nature of the elements cannot explain why water rises in a plant. His mind then turns to the heavenly bodies as an explanation. From there he turns to the world of heavenly souls, then intelligences, and finally God, the king of all. (2) Ibn-Masarra then outlined a hierarchical universe, where God first created his throne (al-`arsh), then his chair (al-kursî), then the seven heavens. The highest sphere is the “soul sphere” (fulk an-nafs) or “animal spirit”, which is subject to a superior intelligence, which in turn is subject to God. (3)
Ibn-Masarra speaks often of different categories of angels, and comes back to “the universal intellect” (al-`aql al-kullî) and “the great soul” (an-nafs al-kubrâ), from which come revelation (dhikr) and “Be” (kun) in this world, which is surrounded by “universal space” (al-makân al-kullî) and “universal time” (az-zamân al-kullî). (4)
Ibn-Masarra also observes that nothing below God subsists by itself, but is contingent (yaqûm bi-ghayri-hi), depending on superior beings. Yet Ibn-Masarra speaks of intermediate contingency, not immediate dependence on God. (5)
God himself, not being contained in any genus, can be known only a posteriori. (6) In his Khawâss al-hurûf Ibn-Masarra says that we cannot have a comprehensive knowledge of God, but only a general or comparative knowledge. There are three ways of knowing God, first by metaphysics (rubûbiyya), then by prophetic revelation (an-nubuwwa) and finally by the test (al-mihna) found in his laws, threats and promises. (7) The best way to know God is to consider his names and attributes mentioned in the Qur’ân. (8) These are many, but each one implies all the others. (9) Meditation on the names of God, particularly his “greatest name” is not an esoteric (makhfî) but a privileged (khusûsî) avenue to wisdom. (10) God is both revealed and hidden by his creatures, whether spiritual (al-ghayb) or material (ash-shahâda). (11)
2.1.4 Ishâq ibn-Sulaymân al-Isrâ’îlî
To define “creation”, Ishâq ibn-Sulaymân says that it is making things to exist from non-being. He then describes “non-being” as a kind of privation, but has no clear idea of what privation is.
2.1.5 Al-Fârâbî: the argument from contingency
When speaking of God, al-Fârâbî nearly always avoids the name “Allâh. (12) Nor does he use the famous expression, “the Necessarily Existent” (wâjib al-wujûd) of Ibn-Sînâ and later Ash`arite theologians. His point of departure is rather, “the First Existent” (al-mawjûd al-awwal). (13) In his Mabâdi’ ârâ’ ahl al-madîna al-fâdila and as-Siyâsa al-madaniyya, instead of trying to prove the existence of such a reality, al-Fârâbî merely presents an outline of a Plotinian emanation universe: first the First Cause, from which all other existing things emanate. In his Ta`lîqât he says that knowledge of the First Necessarily Existent is something we know innately (awwaliyya), and does not come by learning (min ghayr iktisâb). (14)
Nevertheless, in his Falsafa Aristûtâlîs, al-Fârâbî repeats the argument of Aristotle for a First Mover. (15) And at the beginning of his Zaynûn al-kabîr al-yûnânî and his ad-Da`âwî al-qalbiyya, he presents the argument from contingency, saying that every possible being depends and flows from a necessary being whose essence and existence are identical. (16)
As for the unity of God, al-Fârâbî, like every Muslim, says that God is one, without rival or contrary. (17) But he also insists on the simplicity of God, saying that he is absolutely indivisible; in particular, his essence is at the same time an intelligence which understands and is understood. (18) This position implicitly denies the distinction of the Ash`arites between the attributes and the essence of God, but al-Fârâbî, on this question as on others, only states the principles without drawing the conclusion.
For al-Fârâbî, creation is a necessary effect of the existence of God, and the existence of creatures comes from him by way of emanation (fay). (19) In spite of this necessity, al-Fârâbî insists that God is self-sufficient, having no need of his creatures and gaining nothing from them. (20)
If creation is necessary, it follows that the universe must be eternal, but al-Fârâbî avoids drawing this logical conclusion, except in some smaller works. (21) He does discuss the question explicitly, comparing the opinions of Plato and Aristotle but, in a rather vague conclusion, he refers the reader to the sources of divine revelation divine. This is undoubtedly and attitude of political prudence. (22)
As for the manner of creation, al-Fârâbî adopts the Plotinian principle that the One can produce only one effect. (23) Thus, the First Cause directly creates only the supreme intellect of the cosmos. By contemplating itself, this intellect creates the first sphere of fixed stars and the soul of this sphere. By contemplating its Creator, it creates a lesser intellect which creates the next lower sphere etc., all the way down to the intellect that rules the sub-lunar world; this last intellect is the “Agent Intellect”. (24) The heavenly bodies produce prime matter and its ability to receive forms. (25)
This is a hierarchical universe, where each species occupies a definite rung on a ladder of superiority or inferiority. (26) In spite of such statements as, “He is the First Existent who effects the existence of all things outside Himself,” (27) the creation and preservation of existing things is not the immediate work of God, but everything is made through the mediation of the first intelligence and other heavenly spirits.
2.1.6 Miskawayh
To prove the existence of God, in his al-Fawz al-asghar Miskawayh presents an argument from motion, but without explicit reference to any cosmic system. He says that everything that is in motion (mutaharrik) has a mover (muharrik), but has a hard time explaining this principle. For natural motion he says (like Ibn-Sînâ) that “the nature” of the thing moves it, (28) just as the soul is the extrinsic mover of the body and God is the extrinsic mover of heavenly bodies. (29)
In any case, our knowledge of God is more negative than positive. (30) If natural things have matter and form, and intellects are pure form, then God is neither form nor matter. (31)
In Maqâla fî n-nafs wa-l-`aql, after an explanation of instrumental causality, Miskawayh presents God as the first non-caused cause of a chain of causes. (32)But then he insists that knowledge of the existence of God “is a primordial judgement that has no need of proof.” And he quotes imâms who say, “God is not known through something, but all things are known through him.” (33) Later he explains how one goes from knowledge of natural things to knowledge of divine things, then to knowledge of God himself. “And one can arrive at this point only by this way, that is, by the fact that there must be a cause [for all that].” (34)
He accepts the principle that from one there can only come one thing, and thus proposes that the first creature is the Agent Intellect, by which he creates the soul and the body of the first heavenly sphere. (35)
It is significant that Miskawayh anticipates Ibn-Sînâ in presenting God as the Necessary Existent (wâjib al-wujûd), saying that existence is only an accident (`ara) for every other thing, and that in this way everything emanates (yafî) and depends immediately on him. (36)
We have explained that existence belongs to every other thing by accident, but it belongs to the Creator by essence... All levels of existing thing are what they are by God the Most High. His outpouring existence and flowing power are what preserves the order of the universe. If one could imagine that the Creator stopped this outpouring of existence, nothing in the world would exist, and everything would be annihilated in an instant. (37)
Regarding the eternity of the world, Miskawayh affirms that God created everything from non-existence (al-`adam), but explains that this is true of every change. If an animal is made of sperm, and sperm from blood, blood from food, food from plants and plants from simple elements, these elements have only prime matter and form and can only come from non-existence (`adam).
Miskawayh’s ambiguous use of the term `adam, a translation of Aristotle’s “privation”, could apply equally well to “nothing” or to privation in a pre-existing subject. (38) In Maqâla fî n-nafs wa-l-`aql he is clearer:
The absolute First is He whom we call eternal (azalî). That is clear from the fact that what does not cease to exist cannot be composed or multiplied in any way, since a multitude is compose of units... But the world in its existence is necessarily composed. Since it is composed of simple things that precede it, it necessarily needs a Composer. (39)
2.1.7 Ibn-Sînâ
The argument from contingency
For Ibn-Sînâ the argument from contingency, that of the metaphysicians (ilâhiyyûn = theologians) and the third way of Saint Thomas, is the preferred way to demonstrate the existence of God. (40) “If it were possible to know the reality (haqîqa) of the First, ‘necessity of existence’ (wujûb al-wujûd) would be the meaning of this reality. (41) Ibn-Sînâ then develops very clearly the distinction between the “necessarily Existent” and “possible existents” to explain the difference between God and every other thing, as well as the unity of God. (42) A simple presentation of this distinction is found at the beginning of his ar-Risâla al-`arshiyya:
Whatever exists either has a cause of its existence or it does not. If it has a cause, it is possible, both before it exists, when we suppose its existence in our imagination, and in its state of existence, since what possibly exists does not lose this possibility when it begins to exist. But if a thing has no cause whatsoever of its existence, it exists necessarily. (43)
In his Ta`lîqât Ibn-Sînâ insists that this distinction is the right way to show the existence of God. One should not proceed, as some do, by arguing that bodily things are inseparable from accidents that come and go (muhdatha). (44) In the Shifâ’ he bases the distinction between essence and existence on their real non-identification or distinction of essence (dhât) and existence (anniyya). (45) In his short work, Fusûs al-hikma, (46) Ibn-Sînâ bases it on a distinction between the abstract (mâhiyya) or concrete essence (huwiyya); this seems sufficient to distinguish God from creatures which are multiple within a species, (47) but it does not apply to spiritual creatures, in which, as Saint Thomas remarks, the abstract and concrete essence are the same.
The Ta`lîqât makes a distinction between what is possible absolutely, that is, things which exist after non-existence, and what is possible in essence, because its existence derives from another, but it has always existed. (48)
In his Tafsîr âya an-nûr, Ibn-Sînâ explains the consequences of the contingency of created things:
Every possible thing and every seeds which exists is illuminated by the light of the Most High’s existence and not by a separation of something from its existence, as some imagine –which is an error and a deviation— but by a bond (irtibâ) to its essence. Thus, if some possible thing were to be separated from this bond for an instant, it would be annihilated. (49)
By way of conclusion to this argument, Ibn-Sînâ says in his Ta`lîqât:
The First is entirely pure act (fi`l ma); he exists necessarily by his essence, which is his existence. He is not tied to anything. There is no potency in him. (50)
Yet we should realize that the real distinction between essence and existence in creatures, as Ibn-Sînâ presents it, is not the same as that proposed by Thomas Aquinas, which is based on a relationship between potency and act. Ibn-Sînâ denies that an essence can be possible purely on a logical level, involving no internal contradiction, but says that it must be found in an existing (and eternal) subject, such as matter or the very substance of separated intelligences which are always in act. Speaking of these, he says:
In a word, if the possibility of such a substance to exist is not realized, it cannot exist. But if it exists and subsists by its essence, it exists as a substance. And if it is a substance, it has a quiddity which does not contain additives, since a substance cannot have additives to its essence. But any additive must be accidental to it. Thus this substance which subsists by its essence has an existence distinct from the possibility of its existence, and this existence is added to it. (51)
In a word, everything that begins to exist after not having existed necessarily has matter, because everything that begins to exist must, before it comes into existence, be possible to exist, since if it were of itself impossible to exist it would not exist at all. And its possibility of existing does not consist in the fact that an agent has power over it; rather, an agent would have no power over it if it were not possible in itself. (52)\
These are the passages that Ibn-Rushd and Thomas Aquinas criticize for making existence into an accident.
The argument from movement
Ibn-Sînâ also presents an argument for the existence of God from the masters of natural science (tabâ`iyyûn), (53) which is the first way of Saint Thomas, starting from motion. (54) In this way he has a place for divine titles such as “First Mover” (al-muharrik al-awwal), (55) and “First Principle” (al-mabda’ al-awwal). (56)
The argument from degrees of perfection
We can also note the fourth way of Saint Thomas in the Ta`lîqât, where Ibn-Sinâ compares the different levels of perfection of things to show their essential (not existential) finitude and imperfection and thus their dependence on an infinitely perfect being. (57)
The argument from causality
The Ta`lîqât also presents the second way of Saint Thomas in its essentials, arguing that a series of causes must necessarily end in a first non-caused cause. This argument, as with Saint Thomas, is not an independent argument, but could be applied to either motion or existence. (58)
The argument from individuation of material things
In his Kalimât as-sûfiyya, Ibn-Sînâ presents an argument that the individuation of bodily things cannot come from their essence, which is common, but must come from an incorporeal external cause which specifies these things in their individuality. “That points to the existence of the Creator.” (59)
The unity and simplicity of God
For the unity of God, Ibn-Sînâ presents the usual arguments for fact that the Necessary Existent cannot be multiple. (60)
As for the simplicity of God, Ibn-Sînâ does not hesitate to take the explicit position, so provocative to the Ash`arites, that there is no real distinction between God and his attributes and among the attributes themselves. (61) He refutes the Ash`arite position by saying:
If someone says that his attribute is not additional to his essence, but intrinsic to the make-up of his essence, and his essence cannot be conceived without these attributes, the consequence is that his essence is composed and his unity is destroyed. (62)
The simplicity of God, as Ibn-Sînâ says elsewhere, excludes from him a quiddity (mâhiyya) or a substance (jawhar); one can affirm only the fact of his existence (anniyya) and that he is an individual (shakhs). (63)
Creation
In the question of creation, Ibn-Sînâ keeps the idea of Plotinus and al-Fârâbî that the One and the First can directly create only one thing. (64) From the intellect which is the first creature, emanate the other intellects, the souls of the heavenly bodies and the rest of material creation. (65) Thus God is the indirect Creator of everything outside the first intellect. (66)
Following the cosmological system of al-Fârâbî, Ibn-Sînâ holds that the first intellect creates the soul and the body of the highest sphere of fixed stars and also a separated intellect corresponding to the next sphere. This emanation continues in the same way down to the sphere of the moon. (67) The throne of God, often mentioned in the Qur’ân, is the sphere of the fixed stars, over which God presides, but not by way of indwelling (ulûl) as the theologians say. (68)
It is Ibn-Sînâ who introduced into Arab philosophy the notion of creation from nothing, (69) an idea that is not contrary to an eternal universe whose existence always derives from God. The heavenly bodies have always been in motion and that means that time likewise has always existed. (70) Ibn-Sînâ answers the objection that an infinitude of revolutions is impossible by saying that what is pas no longer exists. (71)
Elsewhere Ibn-Sînâ reasons that God must always create, because otherwise he would have to change from potency to act. (72) Insisting that the will of God is unchangeable, he rejects the Mu`tazilite position that divine power (qudra) is the possibility (imkân) to do something. (73) Ibn-Sînâ dodges the objection that there are always new things in the world, which would require new acts of creation, by the thesis that God creates only one thing, the first intellect.
Towards the end of Kalimât as-sûfiyya, where there is a refutation of a series of heresies, we find a surprising statement on pre-eternity:
Since you know that the world needs a Creator and that it is in potency to its existence and needs a cause of its existence, it is unimaginable that it could have always existed (qadîm), since nothing has always existed except Him who exists necessarily, the Most High and Holy. (74)
This passage seems to go against everything that Ibn-Sînâ says elsewhere, but in his Risâla fî l-hudûd he distinguishes between what pre-eternal in time, “which has existed for an infinite past”, and what is pre-eternal in essence, “which has no principle to its existence”; only God is pre-eternal in the latter sense. (75) In the same way he distinguishes “to cause to exist” (ihdâth) in a temporal sense of making a thing exist after a non-existence and a non-temporal sense of giving something existence which is not part of its essence, and that without any restriction as to time. (76) He criticizes the Mu`tazilites who made God the cause of the becoming (hudûth) of things and not of their being (wujûd); both require a cause. (77)
Just as God is the First, the efficient cause of everything, so also is he the Last, the end of the whole universe. Thus created things cannot be objectives (aghrâd) or ends for him, but there are simply lawâzim, that is, dependant on him. (78) Ibn-Sînâ explains that this dependance does not imply any necessity on the part of God, because the existence of things comes from his knowledge (`ilm) and they are not like natural effects. (79) Nevertheless Ibn-Sînâ applies the term emanation (fayd) to the process of creation coming from God and from the separated intellects, because it “is the act of an actor always in act” (80)
As we have seen, Ibn-Sînâ admits secondary or natural causality, with the principle that every motion requires a mover. Following Aristotle, he says that in living bodies one part moves another; in non living things, as in the case of gravitational motion, the “giver of forms” which brought the body into being is the mover. But Ibn-Sînâ adds on his own part that the generator moves through the instrumentality of the form of the body, which is the immediate mover. (81) But this attribution of an efficient causality to the form was not accepted by Ibn-Rushd nor by Thomas Aquinas.
2.1.8 Ibn-Gabirol
Man’s knowledge of God and of other spiritual things comes, according to Ibn-Gabirol’s Plotinian line of thought, from the mind’s progressive abstraction of the metaphysical from the physical. (82) God’s first creation is the Logos, more commonly called the Will (raôn), which is without temporal beginning or end (dahrî), then an Intellect, which has a beginning but no end, then a universal Soul, and then universal matter. All things apart from God, including the Will and the Intellect, are composed of matter, but in lower things matter is denser and heavier. The differentiation of things in a hierarchy of superiority and inferiority comes from form. Complex things have multiple substantial forms, the most basic being that of a body. (83)
It is impossible to define the Will, but it can be described. It is a faculty or power (koh) of God, which makes matter and form and puts them together. It penetrates everything from top to bottom, just as the soul penetrates the body and is spread in throughout it. It moves and leads everything. (84)
The Will can be compared to a writer; form is like the writing he produces, and matter that supports the writing is like a tablet or paper. (85)
Different forms are the result of the differences of matter’s disposition to receive. Matter is related to form as substance to an attribute. The potentiality of matter is only its ability to receive a form from the Will. (86)
2.1.9 Ibn-Bâjja
Ibn-Bâjja presents God as the First Mover of the universe, although he admits a multiplicity of first movers, each in a limited sphere, such as the souls of animals which move their bodies through the instrumentality of physical forces; thus Ibn-Bâjja retains the idea of Ibn-Sînâ that the form is the moving cause of matter. (87)
In his “metaphysical” treatises, our cautious retainer of prince-patrons neither affirms nor denies the eternity of motion or of the world. A reference to “continuous and infinite non-existence (`adam) before God created the world” is proposed simply as one of several examples of the definition of continuity. (88) Yet in his commentaries on Aristotle he follows his Master’s teaching on this point without question. (89)
2.1.10 Ibn-ufayl
After mastering natural science and learning the distinction between material and formal causes, Hayy ibn-Yaqzân turns to the efficient cause (fâ`il). (90) Then he sees that the whole universe is like a single animal, whose stomach is the world of generation and corruption. He finds it hard to decide whether the universe has a beginning or not, but in either case it needs an efficient cause. If it has a beginning, that is obvious, but if it has always existed (and the arguments for that seem more weighty) it needs an eternal immovable mover. (91) Then Hayy contemplates the beauty of the world, and this becomes an argument from design. The section concludes with a few remarks on negative theology. (92) Later there is a statement that there is no real difference between the essence of God and his attributes. (93)
Towards the end Hayy ibn-Yaqzân, after a sûfic experience, says that there is no difference between him and God. He explains himself by proposing a comprehensive monism, saying that all things are only like the light of the sun. (94) This unicity applies also to heavenly spirits (who animate heavenly bodies and are always in act (95)), but one cannot strictly say that these spirits are many, because multiplicity and unity are attributes of bodies. (96)
2.1.11 Ibn-Rushd
The pre-eternity of the world
The pre-eternity of the world was the first thesis attacked by al-Ghazâlî in his Tahâfut al-falâsifa, where he tried to refute the arguments for the necessity of this pre-eternity and even establish its impossibility. Ibn-Rushd’s reply, in his Tahâfut at-Tahâfut was to refute the arguments for the impossibility of the pre-eternity of the world and to establish its necessity. His principal argument for its necessity was:
that there is an eternal Principle of the motion of the world [accepting Aristotle’s argument for a Prime Mover] without beginning and without end, and his act cannot be posterior to his existence. Consequently his act cannot have a beginning, just as his existence cannot. Otherwise his act would be possible and not necessary and he would not be he First Principle. Thus the acts of an Agent which has no beginning to his existence have no beginning, any more than his existence. (97)
The problem that Ibn-Rushd had in mind was that a temporal creation would require a change in the will and action of God. (98) His position, in a word, is that there is no beginning in the past, but there is a First who is master of the past, present and future. Whatever has a beginning must have an end; whatever has no beginning has no end. (99)
Against the objection that time, just like the universe, cannot be infinite, Ibn-Rushd distinguishes carefully between an infinity of the extent of the universe, which he says is impossible, and a infinity of its time, or of heavenly revolutions and of generation in the lower world; these are infinite by accident (bi-l-`arad). (100) Thus he accepts (with al-Ghazâlî) that something temporal (hâdith) can come from something eternal (qadîm), not as temporal, but as belonging to a series that is specifically eternal. (101) Heavenly bodies resemble the eternity of God in the duration of their being, but in their revolutions they resemble the temporal things of which they are the causes. (102)In speaking of these infinite revolutions one cannot use the word “totality” (kull), but totality applies only to a definite number of revolutions. (103) To deny the possibility of an eternal act of God is to deny the eternity of his existence; the Ash`arites misunderstood the meaning of the “becoming” (hudûth) of the world in the Qur’ân, which simply refers to the fact that the world has a cause. (104) Putting the Ash`arites on the defensive, Ibn-Rushd says:
Whoever says that every body had began to exist (muhdath) in the sense that the beginning of existence (hudûth) is creation from something non-existent, that is nothing (al-`adam), is proposing a kind of beginning of existence which he has never observed. And that necessarily requires a proof. (105)
The world is hâdith in the sense that it has a cause; it is qadîm in the sense that it has always existed. Only God is qadîm in the sense that he has no cause. (106) Ibn-Rush loves to quote Aristotle that what has always existed cannot cease to exist, what has begun to exist must have an end to its existence. (107) The eternal motion of the heavenly bodies is the point of departure for the proof for the existence of God. (108)
To support the necessity for the pre-eternity of the world, Ibn-Rushd proposes another argument starting from Aristotle’s definition of time as “the number of motion according to before and after”. (109) Thus he denies the “now” (al-’ân) can, like the point of a line, be a beginning of what is ahead without being at the same time the end of what went before. (110)
Ibn-Rushd tries to prove the same thesis from the definition of what is possible. One cannot talk about the active power of God without reference to the passive power of what is going to become. He insists that passive possibility must be found in an already existing subject. Nothing can come from nothing; so the world must have always existed.
The position of the Ash`arites that the nature of the possible is created and begins to exist from nothing (mukhtara`a wa-hâditha min ghayr shay’) is contrary to the position of the Philosophers. (111)
On the other hand, Ibn-Rushd loves to quote the statement of Aristotle, “What is possible in primordial things (awwaliyya) is necessary.” (112) That is, the possibility of the world can only have been always actualized. One can even say that the existence of the world is not possible but necessary, because possibility implies privation, which disappears with actual existence. (113) Coming back to the active power of God, Ibn-Rushd says:
There is something that demands the possibility that the world and time are eternal. That is the fact that God the Most High is always able to act. And there is nothing to impede the correspondence of his act with the duration of his existence... (114)
We say that the First cannot omit a better act and do something inferior, because that would be a defect (naq). And what defect is greater than an eternal act which is supposed to be finite and limited, like making a temporal world. (115)
He goes on to say that if there were a delay in the act of a free agent, it is because he is constrained (mudtarr) by circumstances out of his control, which would imply a defect in the (116) To the objection that the heavenly bodies can undergo changes and corruption that are not yet perceived, Ibn-Rushd insists that such changes cannot escape observation; besides, they are against the divine order (an-nizâm al-ilâhî) of things. (117)
God is the moving and final cause of everything
In any case, the existence of God is established by the fact that the motion of the heavenly spheres requires a mover or pusher. He explains that this is the meaning of creation and the continual preservation of the world. (118)
Just as God is the efficient cause (fâ`il) of the world, in the sense that he is its mover, he is also the final cause (ghâya) which moves as the object of desire (mushtahâ). (119) Since he is absolutely unmovable, (120) he is perfectly self-sufficient and happy. (121)
As for the action of God, Ibn-Rushd defends himself against the accusations of al-Ghazâlî by insisting that God does not act by the blind instinct of nature, nor by a will similar to the human will, but “in a superior way that only he knows”. (122)
All attributes of God are one reality
As he defends the unicity of God, (123) Ibn-Rushd defends also his simplicity, taking the position of the Mu`tazilites against the Ash`arites who, in distinguishing the attributes of God, put in him a composition “of a defective essence and of attributes to this essence”. (124) The reason that there is no distinction between essence and attributes in God is because he is pure act, without any potency (quwwa); this excludes all matter, since he is pure intelligibility and intelligence. (125) Ibn-Rushd does not accept the accusation of al-Ghazâlî that according to the Philosophers God has no quiddity (mâhiyya) or essence; he has, but in a completely simple and non-caused existence. (126)
As for anthropomorphisms, although Ibn-Rushd recognizes that God is absolutely incorporeal, he attacks the Ash`arite arguments for the incorporeality of God, and praises the Qur’ân for the efficacy of its teaching in using corporeal images. (127)
God is only the mover, through intermediaries, of things in the world
Concerning creation, in Talkhî mâ ba`d at-tabî`a Ibn-Rushd accepts the principle that from one thing only one thing can come, and he makes ingenious attempts to show how the complicated motions of the planets agree with this principle. This work presents an emanationist view of the universe, in which each heavenly creature creates its immediate inferior, down to the sub-lunar world of generation and corruption. (128)
These movers not only give movement to the heavenly bodies, but also their forms by which they are what they are... Thus they are efficient causes also in the sense that they give things their substance. This action can be interrupted or last forever (dâ’iman); it is more perfect when it is forever. (129)
Later, in the Tahâfut, Ibn-Rushd says that al-Fârâbî and Ibn-Sînâ were wrong to insist that from one thing only one can come; this position is not Aristotelian, and besides there is already a plurality in the first created intellect. From the First Principle anything can come. (130) In his Tafsîr mâ ba`d at-tabî`a Ibn-Rushd refers to this dubious principle as the foundation of the erroneous supposition (of Ibn-Sînâ) of the necessity of a separated substance above the soul of the first sphere. (131)
With this denial of the fundamental principal of a system of creation by intermediaries we might expect that Ibn-Rushd would propose a continual creation with direct dependence of everything on God. But, still in the Tahâfut, he proceeds to deny Ibn-Sînâ’s distinction between essence and existence implied in the distinction between what is “necessarily existent by its essence or by another,” accusing Ibn-Sînâ of making existence an accident and of confusing it with the being of a logical judgement. (132) “The fact that something is existing does not add any meaning (ma`nâ) additional to (zâ’id `alâ) its substance.” (133) “Existence is not an attribute added to substance.” (134) Then he says: “If the world were pre-eternal, always existing but not in motion... it would not have an efficient cause (fâ`il) in any way.” (135) “Apart from the fact that the world is subtantially in motion, it would have no need of a Creator once it is existing.” (136) Just as a building after its construction has no more need of a builder, so the world needs only a mover (muarrik) and not a cause of its existence, (137) even though Ibn-Sînâ and the Mu`tazilites say the contrary. (138)
Thus, denying Ibn-Sînâ’s distinction of creatures into what is “possible” (mumkin), the earthly world, and what is “necessary by another” (wâjib bi-ghayr-hi), the heavenly world, Ibn-Rushd agrees with the Mu`tazilites in saying that everything that is below the First Principle is “possible”, but the heavenly world is “necessary” (durûrî) in as much as its substance is incorruptible, but it is “possible” in as much as it is subject to local motion. (139) The implication is that the substance of the world is not the work of God and it does not receive its existence from him, but only its motion. But Ibn-Rushd seeks to avoid this conclusion by saying that motion is necessary for the existence of the world, and that if the mover ceased operating the world would be destroyed (la-batal al-`âlam) (140) Ibn-Rushd does not explain whether this destruction would be an annihilation or a change into an inert chaos.
If Ibn-Rushd denies, in Ibn-Sîna’s system, continuous creation through intermediaries, he does not deny all hierarchical structure of the universe. If God is absolutely simple, “what comes after the First is understood as having composition, the second being more simple than the third.” (141) If for Ibn-Rushd there is no composition between essence and existence, what composition is there in separated substances? Ibn-Rushd does not explain, and, against the objection of al-Ghazâlî that the Philosophers cannot distinguish between the simplicity of angels and that of God, he simply says that God and each of the separated intellects do not fall into any genus, but are beings analogous to one another, in a ladder of different degrees of perfection, each intellect depending on its superior, (142) and acting in turn on its inferiors in a chain of active influence. This influence is on the level of operation, not being, because the receiving intellects do not have passive power (quwwa) and cannot undergo any essential transformation from an efficient cause (fâ`il); this excludes the Ibn-Sînâ’s notion of creation by intermediaries. (143)
The heavenly bodies and their souls
Ibn-Rushd is also in disagreement with Ibn-Sînâ’s opinion that the heavenly bodies are composed of form and matter; (144) Ibn-Rushd insists that they are simple, with an immaterial corporeality, although there is a sort of composition between them and their cause, and between their potencies and their acts. (145)
The universe has an order and harmony just like a city under a king and his different officials, or like an animal with its different members, and in this order of obedience, the superiors are often at the service of inferiors, an indication of “a belonging to God in their very beings” (milk la-hu fî `ayn wujûd-hâ). (146)
It is unavoidable that there is here a spiritual power running through all the parts of the universe, just as this is found in all the parts of a single animal, a power which joins all the parts together and distinguishes each from the next. (147)
Later Ibn-Rushd clarifies his position that the principal aim of the motion of heavenly bodies is to resemble God (at-tashabbuh bi-llâh) and the secondary aim is to assure life here below. (148) Ibn-Rushd believes that the heavenly bodies are animated because they have motions that are not uniform, as is the case in natural motion. (149) He explains that these bodies do not seek relocation as such, but that “motion is better for a body than remaining immobile.” (150) Ibn-Rushd’s cosmic system has no place for separated intelligences corresponding to each heavenly soul, but God is the final cause which directs all heavenly motions. (151) Each soul-intellect is at the same time a mover or efficient cause (fâ`il) and a final cause (ghâya) of the movement of its own heavenly body. (152)
Ibn-Rushd denies, against Ibn-Sînâ, that the souls of these bodies have an imagination or other senses but, since they have to direct the motion of their bodies, they must have a knowledge of singulars; but Ibn-Rushd says that their knowledge, like that of God, is neither universal nor singular. (153)
While the human intellect is perfected by the intelligible forms that it acquires, separated intellects are the causes of existing forms. (154) When Ibn-Rushd restricts passive potency (qubûl) to matter, (155) he does not ask if angelic intellects are passive. The passivity of material things does not exclude their natural activity; her he does not say, as does Ibn-Sînâ, that the form is an instrumental mover instrument but, like Aristotle, that the generator is the mover and that natural action results when there is no impediment, just as someone who has the habit of science can use it whenever he wants. (156)
Secondary causality
Ibn-Rushd criticizes the Ash`arites for their denial of the necessity of a certain measure (maqâdîr) in creation. This belongs to the universe because of its finality (ghâya), which requires un certain order either necessarily or by reason of fittingness. Otherwise “the quantities and qualities of creatures would depend on the caprice of the creator, and anyone could be a creator... Those who wanted to exalt the First Creator have deprived him of wisdom and denied what is the best of his attributes.” (157) “Learning of this wisdom makes the intellect an intellect in man; likewise its existence in the eternal Intellect is the cause of its existence among existing things.” (158)
By denying all secondary causality, the Ash`arites take away all the order and wisdom of God in the world. They are wrong to restrict all action (fi`l) to God because he is the only one who is truly knowing and free, as if there is no life in creation; besides they err in making knowledge a prerequisite to action and in denying the true causality of nature. (159) By their confusion of human and divine criteria, Ibn-Rushd accuses the Ash`arites of having “made God an eternal man and man a generable and corruptible God.” (160)
The denial of natural causality also takes away from creatures their natures and definitions, which are known only by their actions and proper attributes. (161)Whoever takes away causes takes away understanding.” (162)
The argument from design
In the context of the order of the universe, Ibn-Rushd sometimes says that God must choose what is best for the world. (163) In the same context he often passes over to an argument for the existence of God from design, the fifth way of Thomas Aquinas. (164)
This proof is decisive and simple, as is obvious from what we have written. It is built on two principles recognized by everyone. The first is that all the constitutive parts of the universe are ordered to the existence of man and other earthly things. The second is that the harmony of its parts in a single action or finality is necessarily the work of someone. The natural conclusion from these two principles is that the universe was made (manû`) and that it has a maker. (165)
2.1.12 Moshe ben Maimon
As for proving the existence of God, Moshe ben Maimon attacks the Muslim theologians (mutakallimûn) who try to do so by first establishing that the world had a beginning in time. Both the philosophers who think that the eternity of the world is necessary and the theologians who think it is impossible are wrong. (166) “The question whether the world has a beginning or not cannot be settled by a decisive proof.” In any case, a proof that grants that the world has no beginning is a stronger proof than one that denies this possibility. (167)
After examining the principles of the Muslim theologians, Moshe ben Maimon concludes that they are incapable of determining anything about God because of their false philosophical foundations. (168) As for the philosophers, he maintains that Aristotle’s arguments for the eternity of the world are only dialectical, not conclusive as al-Fârâbî thought. (169)
Moshe ben Maimon attempts to prove God’s existence from the argument of motion. Like the Arab philosophers, he accepted the Greek system of a geocentric world encircled by many celestial spheres. Beyond these spheres is God, and each sphere is animated by an intellect that assures the permanence of its movement and governs the sphere immediately below. In his cosmological system there are at least eighteen heavenly spheres. If they were to stop revolving all below would die, just as an animal dies when its heart stops beating. (170) The heavenly spheres are moved by intelligences that animate them, and ultimately by an immaterial unmoved mover responsible for the system as a whole. (171) There are over fifty intelligences which move the spheres because of a desire to resemble God (at-tashabbuh bi-llâh). Of these, the lunar Agent Intellect gives existence to the forms of material things as well as intelligible forms in the human intellect. (172) The Agent Intellect by its nature is always pouring out (tafî) something. Its effect depends on the disposition of the receiver. (173)
He also proposes the argument of contingency, adopting (without acknowledgement) Ibn-Sînâ’s distinction between what is necessarily existent and what is possibly existent. The latter is possible in itself, but necessary with respect to its cause. (174) In all created things existence is distinct or additional (zâ’id) to essence; existence and oneness are accidental to essence. (175)
Elsewhere he proposes an argument from design. A common opinion is that all material creation seems to be ordained for the good of man, and man is ordained to worship God. Moshe ben Maimon is ready to agree with this view, but adopts the philosophers’ exception that the higher (the heavenly bodies), are not created to serve the lower (man). The survival of man is only a side benefit, and no general purpose of the creation of the heavenly bodies or of man can be assigned except the free choice of God. (176)
A cardinal principle of Moshe ben Maimon’s theology is that our knowledge of God is only negative; the only positive thing we can know is the fact of his existence (anniyya). (177) Yet he goes on to say, after a long discussion on the name Yahweh, that this name means “necessarily existent”. (178) As for the eternity of God, Moshe ben Maimon rejects the term qadîm, because for him that means existing in time without any beginning, whereas God is above time. (179)
As for positive attributes, he affirms that God is an Intellect identical with himself as the object of his understanding. (180) In any case, all God’s attributes are one reality; in maintaining this he also attacks the Christian Trinity. (181) Echoing the Ash`arite-Mu`tazilite controversy over the createdness of the Qur’ân and also Ibn-Gabirol’s divinization of the Word or Will, Moshe ben Maimon declares that the Word of God and the Torah are simple creatures. (182)
As for creation, Moshe ben Maimon avoids the term `illa (cause), which seems to imply causation by natural necessity, and prefers the term fâ`il (agent) which, he says, can legitimately be said of God even before the effect exists, since there is nothing that can impede him from acting. (183)
To the objection that for God to begin creating would imply a change in him, Moshe ben Maimon replies that God cannot change because he is immaterial and potency is found only in matter. He goes on to say that God is always in act, but not always acting, just like the Agent Intellect. True to his principle that we cannot know anything positive about God, Moshe ben Maimon avoids probing this question too deeply, saying that “acting” and “willing” apply equivocally to God and man. (184)
In spite of the lack of proofs for the eternity or non-eternity of the world, Moshe ben Maimon argues that creation in time better manifests God’s freedom of choice; he points out that the variety of stars and heavenly movements cannot be explained by intrinsic necessity. (185)
As for God’s relationship to creatures, Moshe ben Maimon calls God, though separated from the world, “the ultimate form of the world” (as-sûra al-akhîra li-l-`âlam) or “the form of forms”, since without him other forms would not exist. (186) Similarly he is the “purpose of purposes” (ghâya al-ghâyât).
Matter is good, while evil is a privation caused accidentally. (187) Moshe ben Maimon combats the common notion that evil is more prevalent than good; this opinion comes because people are considering only their personal interests, not God’s. Evil is of three kinds: (1) that coming from natural causes, because matter is subject to generation and corruption, (2) that coming from other men, (3) that coming from oneself, causing bodily and mental diseases. Moral habits (akhlâq) have a bodily component, and the two change together. (188)
2.1.13 Thomas Aquinas
All “five ways” of Thomas Aquinas are found with the Arab philosophers. Among the slightly different cosmologies of each, Thomas is closest to that of Ibn-Rushd, who simplifies the number of heavenly spirits. Nevertheless Thomas says that it is improbable that the heavenly bodies are animated. Nevertheless he swallowed the whole system of spiritual movers of these bodies, a system that collapsed after the discovery that these bodies are not incorruptible and that they are subject to the same inertia (or impetus in Thomas’ terminology) which governs earthly bodies.
As for the eternity of the world, like Moshe ben Maimon, Thomas says that neither its necessity nor its impossibility can be demonstrated. Against the objection of Ibn-Rushd that every possibility must be found in already existing subject, Thomas states that the power of God extends to all being that does not imply a contradiction of terms. (189)
Thomas’ most important borrowing from the Arab philosophers is the explicit recognition of a real distinction between essence and existence outside of God, likewise that everything depends on an exterior cause for the continuation of its existence. But Thomas refined this distinction, rejecting the idea of Miskawayh (less clear with Ibn-Sînâ) that existence is an accident, and showing that its relationship to essence is that of act to potency. Thomas also insisted that this act of existence depends immediately on God, and that there are no intermediaries in creation, as posited in the system of al-Fârâbî and Ibn-Sînâ.
2.2 God’s knowledge of singulars
2.2.1 Al-Fârâbî
Does God know his creatures? Al-Fârâbî was accused of denying that God knows singulars. (190) In his writings which have survived al-Fârâbî says nothing of the sort. In a discussion of this question in his books on politics, he only says that God knows himself, that this is his happiness, and that his intellect cannot be perfected by understanding things outside himself. (191)
But in the logic of his neo-Platonism al-Fârâbî would have to admit that, since God is immaterial, he knows only the general nature of material things, and not particular individuals, such as this man and his actions. These things can be known only by the senses.
2.2.2 Ibn-Sînâ
In his Risâla az-ziyâra wa-d-du`â’ Ibn-Sînâ simply says:
The First Principle influences all that exists, without exception, and his comprehensive knowledge of them is the cause of their existence, so that “not the weight of an atom escapes from him” (Qur’ân 10:61).
Elsewhere he explains that God knows himself as well as all the details of creation, because he is the cause of their existence coming from him. (192) Changes in the world imply no change in the knowledge of God, which is universal and infinite, above the past, present and future; thus he knows everything that happens together with its time of happening. (193) On the other hand, Ibn-Sînâ states that there are additional relationships (idâfât) to the knowledge of God which change with the changes of this world. He explains that “it is acceptable to say that a remote accident does not influence the essence”. (194) This hypothesis compromises the unity of God.
In any case, Ibn-Sînâ states the Islamic principle which was at the basis of his sûfic life, that God is the principle of everything and that he is closer to it than any intermediary, (195) and thus he knows everything by his essence. (196)
Why then does al-Ghazâlî accuse Ibn-Sînâ of teaching that God does not know singulars? (197) That may be because in the logic of neo-Platonism the causality of God is mediate, operating through the first separated intellect and then the intellects of the spheres. He should know singular effects in their causes, and not in themselves.
2.2.3 Ibn-Gabirol
Ibn-Gabirol does not speak directly of God’s knowledge of singulars, but he states a principle that would exclude it, by saying that the intellect directly knows form, knowing matter only through the senses. (198)
2.2.4 Ibn-Rushd
Regarding this question of knowledge, Ibn-Rushd, like al-Fârâbî, first states that “if God know all things he would be altered by what is inferior to himself.” (199) Then he says:
He knows the nature of what exists by what exists absolutely, that is, by his essence... That is because his knowledge is the cause of existence, while existence is the cause of our knowledge. God’s knowledge is not characterized by universality or by particularity. For someone who has universal knowledge has only potential knowledge of actual things... but there is no potentiality in his knowledge. So his knowledge is not universal. It is even clearer that his knowledge is not particular, because particular things are infinite, and knowledge cannot contain them. Nor can God be characterized by knowledge such as we have or by the ignorance which corresponds to it... (200)
This passage could be compared with texts of Thomas Aquinas which distinguish the imperfection of human universal knowlege and angelic and divine knowledge which is the more perfect the more it is universal and simple. Likewise one should read where Thomas Aquinas explains how God knows an infinitude of possible things.
In the Tahâfut Ibn-Rushd says that “the First knows only his essence... and he knows it as it is the cause of all that exists.” (201) He knows not only what proceeds immediately from him, but also what proceeds from him by way of intermediaries. (202) Forms have their lowest existence in matter; they have a progressively higher existence when they are in the senses, in the human intellect, and in an angelic intellect; their most perfect existence is in God’s intellect who knows everything. (203)
Answering the question how God can know a plurality or even an infinity of things without having any composition in his knowledge, Ibn-Rushd re-states that God’s knowledge is completely actual and that it is not characterized by universality or particularity. Then he says the “to define the modality (takyîf) of this knowledge and to understand it as it really is, is beyond the human intellect, because if man knew that he would know the intellect of the Creator, and that is impossible.” (204)
The same refusal “to say how” pushed Ibn-Rushd to reject the position of the Ash`arites that God knows temporal things by an eternal knowledge. As it was proposed, this position cannot avoid the implication of a change in the knowledge of God, as it corresponds to the past, the present and the future. (205) The same problems follow from an attempt to qualify God’s will as eternal, because an act of the will should correspond to an actual effect. (206)
2.2.5 Moshe ben Maimon
Moshe ben Maimon attacks Alexander of Aphrodisias for saying that God does not know singular things outside himself because (1) he has no senses, (2) singular things are infinite and the infinite is unknowable, and (3) singular things are always changing, whereas God’s knowledge is unchangeable.
To answer this objection, Moshe ben Maimon first shows that God has providence for single things and then comes to the point that God knows them. He asserts that God’s knowledge is one, simple, eternal and unchanging. It extends to privation (`adam), the infinite, and all possible things, even those that will never exist. Unlike our knowledge, God’s knowledge precedes and is the cause of the created things that he knows. Thus it is not multiplied by the multiplicity of the things he knows nor does it change as they change. (207)
2.2.6 Thomas Aquinas
We have seen that according to Ibn-Sînâ and even Ibn-Rushd, God should know singular effects in their causes and not in themselves. Thomas Aquinas considers this opinion insufficient and teaches rather that the knowledge of God extends as far as his causality; and the active power of God extends not only to forms, but also to matter, by which forms are individualized. (208)
1. Al-qawl fî
l-qudamâ’ al-khamsa; al-qawl fî
l-hayûlâ; al-qawl fî n-nafs wa-l-`âlam. Cf. Ahmad ibn-`Abdallâh
al-Kirmânî, Kitâb al-aqwâl adh-dhahabiyya fî t-tibb an-nafsânî,
section 5; Abû-Hâtim ar-Râzî, Munâzarât.
2. Pp. 64-69
3. Risâla
al-i`tibâr, 67-70; cf. Khawass
al-hurûf, 80.
4. Khawâss
al-hurûf., p. 109.
5. Risâla
al-i`tibâr, 71-72.
6. Ibid.
7. Khwâss
al-hurûf, 76-77.
8. Pp.
76-78.
9. Risâla
al-i`tibâr, p. 72.
10. Khawa
al-hurûf, 77-81.
11. Pp. 87,
92.
12. An
exception is in Ihsâ’ al-`ulûm, ch. 4, p. 132.
13. At the
beginning of his principal works: Mabâdi’ ârâ’ ahl al-madîna al-fâdila
and as-Siyâsa al-madaniyya.
14. Ta`lîqât, n. 7.
15. Falsafa
Arisûâlîs, n. 33-34.
16. Cf. J.
Kenny, “Al-Fârâbî and the contingency argument for God’s existence: a study of Risâla
Zaynûn al-kabîr al-yûnânî.
17. Mabâdi’
ârâ’, 2-3, as-Siyâsa
al-madaniyya, 43:10.
18. As-Siyâsa
al-madaniyya, 44:6; cf. Mabâdi’
ârâ’, 4-5; Zaynûn al-kabîr al-yûnânî, 2; ad-Da`âwî
al-qalbiyya etc.
19. Mabâdi’
ârâ, 7, and as-Siyâsa
al-madaniyya, 52:5; ad-Da`âwî al-qalbiyya etc.
20. Loc.
cit.
21. Like ad-Da`âwî
al-qalbiyya.
22. Jam
bayn ra’yay al-hakîmayn Aflâtûn al-ilâhî wa-Aristûtâlîs, 22:4-26:12.
23. Cf. Sharh
risâla Zaynûn al-kabîr al-yunânî, ch. 3 and elsewhere.
24. Ibid., 10. See also as-Siyâsa al-madaniyya,
52:5-53:10; Risâla fî l-`aql, 50-53.
25. As-siyâsa
al-madaniyya, 55:3.
26. Cf. Ihsâ’
al-`ulûm, ch. 5, p. 121; and elsewhere.
27. Ihsâ’
al-`ulûm, ch. 4, p. 122.
28. Pp.
44-48.
29. Risâla
fî jawhar an-nafs, p. 197.
30. Al-Fawz
al-asghar, p. 96-97.
31. Fî
ithbât as-suwar ar-rûhâniyya fî l-`ulla al-ûlâ, p. 202.
32. Pp.
38-32 (sic).
33. Ibid., p. 29.
34. Ibid., p. 23.
35. Al-Fawz
al-asghar, p. 55.
36. Ibid., pp. 47-47, 54-57.
37. Ibid., p. 54-56.
38. Ibid., p. 60.
39. P. 41.
40. Ta`lîqât, p. 62.
41. Ta`lîqât, p. 36.
42. Cf. `Uyûn
al-masâ’il, 3-5; Risâla ajwiba `an `ashar masâ’il, n. 5, p. 80; Risâla
tafsîr a-amadiyya (sûra 112), pp. 16-17; Risâla az-ziyâra wa-d-du`â’,
p. 33; Kalimât as-sûfiyya, 161-165; Ta`lîqât, pp. 28,
162-163, 176-179.
43. P. 2.
44. P. 37.
45. Al-ilâhiyyât,
maqâla 8, fasl 4.
46. Section
1.
47. He makes
the same distinction in Risâla tafsîr as-samadiyya (sûra 112), p. 22.
48. P. 28.
49. P. 86.
50. P. 150.
51. Ash-Shifâ’,
al-ilâhiyyât, maqâla 4, fasl
2, pp. 177-178.
52. Ibid., p. 181.
53. Ta`lîqât, p. 62.
54. Cf. Kalimât
as-sufiyya, 166.
55. `Uyûn
al-hikma, 24 ff.
56. Ibid., 50.
57. P. 32.
58. Pp.
39-40.
59. P. 155.
60. E.g. ar-Risâla
al-`arshiyya, p. 3; Ta`lîqât, pp. 37, 61, 181.
61. Fuû
al-ikma, 55; `Uyûn al-ikma,
51 ff.; Risâla tafsîr as-samadiyya (sûra 112), p. 19; Risâla
al-`arshiyya, pp. 5-6; Risâla fî mâhiyya al-`ishq, p. 7; Risâla
fî tazkiya an-nafs, p. 392; Ta`lîqât, p. 49.
62. Ar-Risâla
al-`irshiyya, p. 6.
63. Ta`lîqât, pp. 70, 80.
64. Cf. `Uyûn
al-masâ’il, 7; Kalimât as-sûfiyya, 163-164; ar-Risâla
al-`arshiyya, p. 15; the principal is quoted to distinguish the internal
senses Risâla fî bayân al-mu`jizât wa-l-karâmât wa-l-a`âjîb, p. 402; Ta`lîqât,
pp. 54, 99-101, 182-184.
65. Risâla
fî ma`rifa an-nafs an-nâtiqa wa-ahwâli-hâ, khâtima; Risâla fî l-kalâm `alâ n-nafs an-nâtiqa; on
the life status of heavenly bodies, see Risâla ajwiba `an `ashar masâ’il,
n. 4, p. 79.
66. Therefore
I consider unauthentic the Risâla fî l-ajrâm al-`alawiyya, which says
that God creates all souls (even vegetative and animal) without any
intermediary (p. 44). This work diverges from the teaching of Ibn-Sînâ on other
points as well, accusing philosophers of irreligion (ilâd) for holding
the pre-eternity of the world (p. 44), and saying that the circular motion of
the heavenly bodies is natural (p. 45).
67. See
especially ash-Shifâ’, al-ilâhiyyât, al-maqâla 9, al-fasl 4, pp.
402-409; an-Najât, pp. 302-303; Taqlîqât, pp. 97-98, 152-156,
192-193.
68. Risâla
fî ithbât an-nubuwwât, p. 53.
69. Cf. `Uyûn
al-masâ’il, 6.
70. Risâla
ajwiba `an `ashar masâ’il, n. 5, p.
80.
71. Kalimât
as-sûfiyya, p. 166.
72. Ar-Risâla
al-`arshiyya, p. 14; Ta`lîqât,
p. 113.
73. Ta`lîqât, pp. 50-57.
74. P. 172.
75. P. 82.
76. Ibid., p. 81-82; Ta`lîqât, p. 85, 131.
77. Ta`lîqât, pp. 84-86, 131-132.
78. Ta`lîqât, 62, 54, 80, 121, 180.
79. Ibid., p. 66-67, 103, 149 etc.
80. Ibid., p. 81, 100.
81. Ash-Shifâ’,
as-Samâ` at-tabî`î, pp. 330-331; cf.
an-Najât, p. 146.
82. Maqôr
hayyîm, 3:3:37-38; 5:27,39.
83. Ibid., Books 1 and 2, 3:39; book 4.
84. Ibid., 5:60.
85. Ibid., 5:62.
86. Ibid., 5:63-68.
87. Risâla
al-wadâ`, pp. 115-116; Min
kalâmi-hi fî-mâ yata`allaq bi-n-nuzû`iyya, p. 132-133.
88. Risâla
al-wadâ`, p. 129.
89. Cf. Shar
as-samâ` at-tabî`î.
90. Hayy
ibn-Yaqzân, pp. 164-165.
91. Ibid., pp. 170-175.
92. Ibid., pp. 176-177.
93. P. 201.
94. P. 207.
95. Pp.
184-185.
96. Pp.
208-212.
97. I, p.
83; the same argument, less developed, is found in Talkhîs mâ ba`d
at-tabî`a, pp. 124-125.
98. Manâhij
al-adilla, p. 120.
99. Tahâfut, I, pp. 217-220.
100. I, pp.
128, 156-7, 223.
101. I, p.
130.
102. I, pp.
135-137.
103. I, p.
218.
104. I, p.
222.
105. II, p.
631.
106. Fasl
al-maqâl, pp. 49-51.
107. Jawâmi`
as-Samâ` a a-abî`î, p. 41; Talkhîs
as-samâ` wa-l-`âlam, pp. 85-88, 161-190.
108. Jawâmi`
as-Samâ` a at-tabî`î, pp.
129-136.
109. Physics, IV, 11, 219b, 1-2.
110. Tahâfut, I, pp. 158-162; cf. Talkhîs mâ ba`d at-tabî`a,
p. 125; Jawâmi` as-Samâ` a at-tabî`î, pp. 42, 63.
111. II, p.
605.
112. Physics, IV, 4, 203b, 30.
113. I, pp.
125, 177-8, 189-193, 195.
114. I, pp.
182-183.
115. I, p.
184.
116. I,
184-185.
117. I,
226-229.
118. I, p.
259; II, pp. 617-618.
119. Tafsîr
mâ ba`d at-tabi`a, p. 1592.
120. Ibid., pp. 1607-1613.
121. Ibid., pp. 1613-1624.
122. II, p.
682.
123. Manâhij
al-adilla, pp. 70-76.
124. Tahâfut, I, p. 372, 477, 494, 515; Manâhij al-adilla,
pp. 84-86; Tafsîr mâ ba`d at-tabî`a, pp. 1620-1623.
125. II,
556-557.
126. II, pp.
605-608.
127. Manâhij
al-adilla, pp. 89-90.
128. Pp.
149-154.
129. P. 137.
130. I, pp.
294-299, 400-413.
131. Tafsîr
mâ ba`d at-tab`iyya, p. 1648.
132. Tahâfut, I, pp. 277, 281, 283, 330-332, 388; II, pp. 480-483,
516-17, 567-570, 572, 587-590, 602-604, 608; Manâhij al-adilla, pp.
57-58.
133. I, p.
330; cfr. p. 418.
134. II, p.
517.
135. I, p.
275.
136. I, p.
284.
137. I, p. 279.
138. II, p.
444-446.
139. II, pp.
448-451, 504-505, 602-604, 635-636, 640-641; Tafsîr mâ ba`d at-tabî`a,
pp. 1632-1633.
140. II, pp.
428-429, 640-642.
141. Tahâfut, I, p. 335.
142. II,
592-594; cf. pp. 529-530, 568-569; Tafsîr mâ ba`d at-tabî`a, pp. 1633,
1649-1651.
143. II, pp.
581-582; cf. Tafsîr mâ ba`d at-tabî`a, pp. 1652-1653.
144. I, p.
392, 409; II, pp. 437-438; De substantia orbis, ch. 6.
145. I, pp.
334-335.
146. I, pp.
311-322, 376-380; cf. Talkhîs ma ba`d at-tabî`a, pp. 133-134, 138-139;
Tafsîr mâ ba`d at-tabî`a, pp. 1709 ff.
147. II, p.
239.
148. II, p.
733-734; Talkhîs ma ba`d at-tabî`a, p. 127.
149. II, p.
727-728; Tafsîr mâ ba`d at-tabî`a, pp. 1593-1598.
150. II, p.
727-728, 735-736, 744; Talkhîs ma ba`d at-tabî`a, p. 137.
151. Talkhîs
ma ba`d at-tabî`a, p. 128.
152. Tafsîr
mâ ba`d at-tabî`a, p. 1594.
153. II, pp.
746-763; Talkhîs ma ba`d at-tabî`a, pp. 128, 136; Tafsîr mâ ba`d
at-tabî`a, p. 1600.
154. I, pp.
357-358.
155. II, p.
710.
156. Cf. Commentarium
magnum in Aristoteis De physico auditu libros octo, Junctas, vol. 4, fols.
368a-371b.
157. II, p.
623; cf. p. 787; Manâhij al-adilla, pp. 140-142.
158. II, p.
812.
159. I, pp.
362-364, 412-413; II, p. 440, 807.
160. II, p.
711.
161. II, pp.
721, 727, 781-784.
162. II, p.
785.
163. II, p.
647; Manâjij al-adilla, p. 115.
164. II, p.
658.
165. Manâhij
al-adilla, p. 110; cf. 109-131; cf.
pp. 65-70, 77.
166. Dalâ’il
al-hâ’irîn, p. 273, 319.
167. Ibid., pp. 186-188.
168. Ibid., pp. 228,232.
169. Ibid., pp. 313-319.
170. Ibid., 190-193; cf. Mishna Tora.
171. Ibid., pp.273-277.
172. Ibid., p. 286.
173. Ibid., p. 411.
174. Ibid., pp. 277-283.
175. Ibid., 139.
176. Ibid., p. 509-520.
177. Ibid., pp. 140 ff.
178. Ibid., pp. 153-164.
179. Ibid., p. 140.
180. Ibid., pp. 171-174.
181. Ibid., pp. 119-130.
182. Ibid., p. 166.
183. Ibid., pp. 174-175.
184. Ibid., p. 325.
185. Ibid., pp. 328-347.
186. Ibid., p. 176.
187. Ibid., p. 496.
188. Ibid., pp. 500-508.
189. Summa
theologiae, I, q. 25, a. 3.
190. Massignon
quotes Ibn-ad-Dâ`î and Sadrâ Shirâzî who affirm that; cf. La passion
d’al-Hallâj, p. 562, n.1; English edition, vol. 3, p. 72, n. 134.
191. Mabâdi’
ârâ’, 5; As-siyâsa al-madaniyya,
45:11.
192. Al-Ishârât,
nama 7, fasl 15-18; `Uyûn
al-hikma, 51; Ta`lîqât, pp. 28-29, 87, 97-98, 119-123, 158, 168.
193. Al-Ishârât,
nama 7, fasl 19-21; Ta`lîqât,
pp. 66-67.
194. Ibid.,
nama 7, fasl 19.
195. Fusûs
al-hikma, 56.
196. Ibid., 54.
197. In Tahâfut
al-falâsifa, n 15.
198. Ibid., 5:13.
199. Tafsîr
mâ ba`d at-tab`iyya, 1697; see the
whole section pp. 1693-1708.
200. Ibid., p. 1708; cf. Tahâfut, II, p. 535, 567,
703.II; Fasl al-maqâl, pp. 48-49.
201. I, p.
361; cf. Talkhîs ma ba`d at-tabî`a, pp. 142-144.
202. II, pp.
666-671.
203. Tahâfut, I, pp. 308-310, 374-376, II, pp. 704-705; The
epistle on the possibility of conjunction with the active intellect, p.
38.
204. II, p.
535; cf. Fasl al-maqâl, pp. 48-49.
205. Manâhij
al-adilla, pp. 77-78.
206. Ibid., pp. 79-80.
207. Dalâ’il
al-hâ’irîn, pp. 522-547.
208. Summa
theologiae, I, q.14, a.11.