6 - The World as a Theophany and Causality

Summary

The sixth chapter offers a way of approaching the question of causality in Ibn ʿArabī’s metaphysical system. Ibn ʿArabī’s metaphysics is relational in the sense that entities are comprehended as the totality of their relationships to God. The divine names are theological categories denoting these relations. It is processual in that it perceives the world as the multiplicity of the incessant and ever-changing manifestations of the divine qualities. The world is recreated anew at each moment and entities are societies of divine acts or theophanies. In this framework, causal power is attributed to God, and causality refers to the regularity and predictability of the related theophanic individualities. The relational and processual qualities of Ibn ʿArabī metaphysics allow him to integrate participatory and occasionalist perspectives on causality. The chapter also examines how Ibn ʿArabī uses the idea of participation and the fixed archetypes (al-aʿyān thābita) to establish freedom.