Element contents
Necessary Existence and Monotheism
An Avicennian Account of the Islamic Conception of Divine Unity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 May 2022
Summary
Avicenna believes that God must be understood in the first place as the Necessary Existent (wâǧib al-wuǧûd). In his various works, he provides different versions of an ingenious argument for the existence of the Necessary Existent—the so-called Proof of the Sincere (burhân al-ṣiddîqîn)—and argues that all the properties that are usually attributed to God can be extracted merely from God's having necessary existence. Considering the centrality of tawḥîd to Islam, the first thing Avicenna tries to extract from God's necessary existence is God's oneness. The aim of the present Element is to provide a detailed discussion of Avicenna's arguments for the existence and unity of God. Through this project, the author hopes to clarify how, for Avicenna, the Islamic concept of monotheism is intertwined with the concept of essential existence.
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Online ISBN: 9781108938112Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 09 June 2022
References
Acar, R. (2005) Talking about God and Talking about Creation: Avicenna’s and Thomas Aquinas’ Positions. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adamson, P. (2013) ‘From the Necessary Existence to God’, in Adamson, P. (ed.) Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 170–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adamson, P., and Benevich, F. (2018) ‘The Thought Experimental Method: Avicenna’s Flying Man Argument’, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 4(2), pp. 147–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahmed, S. (2016) What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Alwishah, A. (2013) ‘Ibn Sīnā on Floating Man Arguments’, Journal of Islamic Philosophy, 9, pp. 49–71.Google Scholar
Alwishah, A. (2018) ‘Suhrawardī and Ibn Kammūna on the Impossibility of Having Two Necessary Existents’, in Gheissari, A., Walbridge, J., and Alwishah, A. (eds.) Illuminationist Texts and Textual Studies: Essays in Memory of Hossein Ziai. Leiden: Brill, pp. 115–34.Google Scholar
Avicenna (1957) al-Išārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt bi-šarḥ al-Ṭūsī [Remarks and Admonitions: With Commentary by Tusi]. Edited by Dunyā, S.. Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif.Google Scholar
Avicenna (1959) al-Šifāʾ, al-Manṭiq, al-Maqūlāt. Edited by G. Anawati, M. M. Al-Khudairi, F. Al-Ahwani, and S. Zāyid Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-amīrīya.Google Scholar
Avicenna (1964) al-Šifāʾ, al-Manṭiq, al-Qiyās. Edited by Zāyid, S.. Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-amīrīya.Google Scholar
Avicenna (1977) al-Rīyaḍīyāt, al-Hindasa. Edited by Sabra, A. I. and Lotfi, A.. Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-miṣrīya al-ʿāmma l-il-kitāb.Google Scholar
Avicenna (1985) al-Naǧāt [The Salvation]. Edited by Danišpažūh, M. T.. Tehran: Entešārāt-e Dānešgāhe Tehrān.Google Scholar
Avicenna (2005) The Metaphysics of The Healing. Edited and translated by Marmura, M. E.. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press.Google Scholar
Bäck, A. (1992) ‘Avicenna’s “Conception of the Modalities”’, Vivarium, 30(2), pp. 217–55.Google Scholar
Benevich, F. (2020) ‘The Necessary Existent (wājib al-wujūd)’, in Shihadeh, A., and Thiele, J. (eds.) Philosophical Theology in Islam: Later Ashʿarism East and West. Leiden: Brill, pp. 123–55.Google Scholar
Bertolacci, A. (2012) ‘The Distinction of Essence and Existence in Avicenna’s Metaphysics: The Text and Its Context’, in Opwis, F., and Reisman, D. (eds.) Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture, and Religion: Studies in Honor of Dimitri Gutas. Leiden: Brill, pp.257–88.Google Scholar
Bishop, J. (2007) Believing by Faith: An Essay in the Epistemology and Ethics of Religious Belief. New York: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackburn, S. (1984) Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bliss, R. (2014) ‘Viciousness and Circles of Ground’, Metaphilosophy, 45(2), pp. 245–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bliss, R. (2018) ‘Grounding and Reflexivity’, in Bliss, R., and Priest, G. (eds.) Reality and Its Structure: Essays in Fundamentality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 70–90.Google Scholar
Bohn, E. D. (2018a) ‘Against Hamri’s Argument for the Ultimate Ground of Being’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 84(2), pp. 233–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohn, E. D. (2018b) ‘Divine Foundationalism’, Philosophy Compass, 13(10), pp. 1–11. http://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12524Google Scholar
Burrell, D. B. (1993) Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Cohoe, C. (2013) ‘There Must Be a First: Why Thomas Aquinas Rejects Infinite, Essentially Ordered, Causal Series’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 21(5), pp. 838–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, J. (2019) ‘Paradosis and Monotheism: A Late Antique Approach to the Meaning of Islām in the Quran’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 82(3), pp. 403–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correia, F. (2008) ‘Ontological Dependence’, Philosophy Compass, 3(5), pp. 1013–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corrigan, K. (1996) ‘Essence and Existence in the Enneads’, in Gerson, L. P. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, W. L. (1980) Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cresswell, M. J. (1971) ‘Essence and Existence in Plato and Aristotle’, Theoria, 37(2), pp. 91–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, H. A. (1987) Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Deng, D.-M. (2020) ‘A New Cosmological Argument from Grounding’, Analysis, 80(3), pp. 418–26.Google Scholar
Diller, J. (2019) ‘Being Perfect Is Not Necessary for Being God’, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 11(2), pp. 43–64.Google Scholar
Donner, F. M. (2019) ‘Dīn, Islām, und Muslim im Koran’, in Tamer, G. (ed.) Die Koranhermeneutik von Günter Lüling. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 129–40.Google Scholar
Euclid (1908) The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements. Translated by Heath, T. L.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, C. S. (1998) Faith beyond Reason: A Kierkegaardian Account. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin, M. F. (1993) ‘The Indispensability of the Single-Divine-Attribute Doctrine’, Religious Studies, 29(4), pp. 433–42.Google Scholar
Gutas, D. (2014) Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition. Second Ed. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Haan, D. D. (2016) ‘Where Does Avicenna Demonstrate the Existence of God?’, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 26(1), pp. 97–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamri, S. (2018) ‘On the Ultimate Ground of Being’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 83(2), pp. 161–8.Google Scholar
Hamri, S. (2019) ‘The Modal Symmetry First Cause Argument’, Religious Studies, 55(1), pp. 77–84.Google Scholar
Hestevold, H. S. (1993) ‘The Anselmian “Single-Divine-Attribute Doctrine”’, Religious Studies, 29(1), pp. 63–77.Google Scholar
Hourani, G. F. (1972) ‘Ibn Sīnā on Necessary and Possible Existence’, The Philosophical Forum, 4(1), pp. 74–86.Google Scholar
Jenkins, C. S. (2011) ‘Is Metaphysical Dependence Irreflexive?’, The Monist, 94(2), pp. 267–76.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. A. (1984) ‘Ibn Sīnā’s Fourth Ontological Argument for God’s Existence’, The Muslim World, 74(3–4), pp. 161–71.Google Scholar
Jolivet, J. (1984) ‘Aux origines de l’ontologie d’Ibn Sina’, in Jolivet, J., and Rashed, R. (eds.) Etudes sur Avicenne. Paris: Belles Lettres, pp. 19–28.Google Scholar
Kamal, M. (2016) ‘Avicenna’s Necessary Being’, Open Journal of Philosophy, 6, pp. 194–200.Google Scholar
Kaplan, D. (1979) ‘On the Logic of Demonstratives’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 8, pp. 81–98.Google Scholar
Kaukua, J. (2020) ‘The Flying and the Masked Man, One More Time: Comments on Peter Adamson and Fedor Benevich, “The Thought Experimental Method: Avicenna’s Flying Man Argument”’, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 6(3), pp. 285–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
al-Kindī (2012) The Philosophical Works of al-Kindī. Translated by Adamson, P. and Pormann, P. E.. Karachi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Legenhausen, H. M. (2005) ‘The Proof of the Sincere’, Journal of Islamic Philosophy, 1(1), pp. 44–61.Google Scholar
Logan, I. (2009) Reading Anselm’s Proslogion: The History of Anselm’s Argument and Its Significance Today. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Macierowski, E. M. (1988) ‘Does God Have a Quiddity According to Avicenna?’, The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review, 52(1), pp. 79–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie, J. L. (1982) The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Marmura, M. E. (1960) ‘Avicenna and the Problem of the Infinite Number of Souls’, Mediaeval Studies, 22, pp. 232–9.Google Scholar
Marmura, M. E. (1964) ‘Avicenna’s Theory of Prophecy in the Light of Ash’arite Theology’, in McCullough, W. S. (ed.) The Seed of Wisdom. Toronto: Toronto University Press, pp. 159–78.Google Scholar
Marmura, M. E. (1980) ‘Avicenna’s Proof from Contingency for God’s Existence in the Metaphysics of the Shifāʾ’, Mediaeval Studies, 42, pp. 337–52.Google Scholar
Marmura, M. E. (1984) ‘Avicenna on Primary Concepts in the Metaphysics of his al-Shifāʾ’, in Savory, R. M. and Agius, D. A. (eds.) Logos Islamikos. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, pp. 219–39.Google Scholar
Marmura, M. E. (1986) ‘Avicenna’s “Flying Man” in Context’, The Monist, 69(3), pp. 383–95.Google Scholar
Marmura, M. E. and Rist, J. M. (1963) ‘Al-Kindī’s Discussion of Divine Existence and Oneness’, Mediaeval Studies, 25, pp. 338–54.Google Scholar
Mayer, T. (2001) ‘Ibn Sīnā’s “Burhān al-Siddīqīn”’, Journal of Islamic Studies, 12(1), pp. 18–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, T. (2003) ‘Faẖr ad-Dìn ar-Rāzīʾs Critique of Ibn Sīnāʾs Argument for the Unity of God in the Išārāt, and Naṣīr ad-Dīn aṭ-Ṭūsìʾs Defence’, in Reisman, D. C. and Al-Rahim, A. H. (eds.) Before and after Avicenna: Proceedings of the First Conference of the Avicenna Study Group. Leiden: Brill, pp. 199–218.Google Scholar
McGinnis, J. (2010b) ‘Avicennan Infinity: A Select History of the Infinite through Avicenna’, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medieval, 21, pp. 199–221.Google Scholar
McGinnis, J. (2011) ‘The Ultimate Why Question: Avicenna on Why God Is Absolutely Necessary’, in Wippel, J. (ed.) The Ultimate Why Question: Why Is There Anything at All Rather Than Nothing Whatsoever? Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, pp. 65–83.Google Scholar
Mcginnis, J., and Reisman, D. (2007) Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Menn, S. (2011) ‘Fārābī in the Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics: Averroes against Avicenna on Being and Unity’, in Hasse, D. N., and Bertolacci, A. (eds.) The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp.51–96.Google Scholar
Morewedge, P. (1970) ‘Ibn Sina Avicenna and Malcolm and the Ontological Argument’, The Monist, 54(2), pp. 234–49.Google Scholar
Morewedge, P. (1980) ‘A Third Version of the Ontological Argument in the Ibn Sinian Metaphysics’, in Morewedge, P. (ed.) Islamic Philosophical Theology. New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 165–87.Google Scholar
Morvarid, M. (2008) ‘Allamah Tabtaba’i’s Siddiqin Argument of God: A Critical Look’, in Kanzian, C. and Legenhausen, M. (eds.) Proofs for the Existence of God: Contexts, Structures, Relevance. Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press, pp. 49–56.Google Scholar
Morvarid, M. (2021) ‘Siddiqin Argument’, in Goetz, S. and Taliaferro, C. (eds.) The Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion. New York: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Nagasawa, Y. (2017) Maximal God: A New Defence of Perfect Being Theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nasr, S. H. (ed.) (2015) The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary. San Francisco: HarperOne.Google Scholar
Oppy, G. (1995) Ontological Arguments and Belief in God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Plantinga, A. (1983) ‘Reason and Belief in God’, in Plantinga, A., and Wolterstorff, N. (eds.) Faith and Rationality. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 16–93.Google Scholar
Pruss, A. R., and Rasmussen, J. L. (2018) Necessary Existence, Necessary Existence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rashed, R. (2008) ‘The Philosophy of Mathematics’, in Rahman, S., Street, T., and Tahiri, H. (eds.) The Unity of Science in the Arabic Tradition: Science, Logic, Epistemology and Their Interactions. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 153–82.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, J. L. (2018) ‘Plantinga’, in Oppy, G. (ed.) Ontological Arguments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 176–94.Google Scholar
Richardson, K. (2013) ‘Avicenna’s Conception of the Efficient Cause’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy A, 21(2), pp. 220–39.Google Scholar
Richardson, K. (2014) ‘Avicenna and the Principle of Sufficient Reason’, The Review of Metaphysics, 67(4), pp. 743–68.Google Scholar
Rizvi, S. (2019) ‘Mulla Sadra’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by E. N. Zalta. Available at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/mulla-sadra/.Google Scholar
Rosen, G. (2010) ‘Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction’, in Hale, B., and Hoffmann, A. (eds.) Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 109–35.Google Scholar
Rosheger, J. P. (2002) ‘Is God a “What”? Avicenna, William of Auvergne, and Aquinas on the Divine Essence’, in Iglis, J. (ed.) Medieval Philosophy and the Classical Tradition in Islam, Judaism and Christianity. London: Routledge, pp. 277–96.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. (2009) ‘On What Grounds What’, in Chalmers, D., Manley, D., and Wasserman, R. (eds.) Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 347–83.Google Scholar
Shihadeh, A. (2008) ‘The Existence of God’, in Winter, T. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 197–217.Google Scholar
Sobel, J. H. (2004) Logic and Theism: Arguments For and Against Beliefs in God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Speaks, J. (2018) The Greatest Possible Being. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Street, T. (2002) ‘An Outline of Avicenna’s Syllogistic’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 84(2), pp. 129–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Street, T. (2013) ‘Avicenna on the Syllogism’, in Adamson, P. (ed.) Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 48–70.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (1988) ‘Could There Be More Than One God?’, Faith and Philosophy, 5(3), pp. 225–41.Google Scholar
Waterlow, S. (1982) Passage and Possibility: A Study of Aristotle’s Modal Concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wierenga, E. R. (1989) The Nature of God: An Inquiry into Divine Attribute. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Wisnovsky, R. (2000) ‘Notes on Avicenna’s Concept of Thingness (Šayʾiyya)’, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 10(2), pp. 181–221.Google Scholar
Wisnovsky, R. (2003) Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context, Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Wisnovsky, R. (2005) ‘Avicenna’, in Adamson, P., and Taylor, R. C. (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 92–136.Google Scholar
Zagzebski, L. T. (2007) The Philosophy of Religion: An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Zarepour, M. S. (2016) ‘Avicenna on the Nature of Mathematical Objects’, Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 55(3), pp. 511–36.Google Scholar
Zarepour, M. S. (2020a) ‘Avicenna’s Notion of Fiṭrīyāt: A Comment on Dimitri Gutas’ Interpretation’, Philosophy East and West, 70(3), pp. 819–33.Google Scholar
Zarepour, M. S. (2020b) ‘Avicenna on Mathematical Infinity’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zarepour, M. S. (2020c) ‘Non-innate A Priori Knowledge in Avicenna’, Philosophy East and West, 70(3), pp. 841–8.Google Scholar
Zarepour, M. S. (2021) ‘Infinite Magnitudes, Infinite Multitudes, and the Beginning of the Universe’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 99(3), pp. 472–89.Google Scholar
- 19
- Cited by