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Ghazâlî's Argument from Creation. (I)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Leen E. Goodman
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Extract

One achievement of the philosophy represented by Ghazâlî is disentangling the creation argument for the existence of God from rival forms of design argument which allow or assume the eternity of the world. From its earliest expressions as an isolated insight which might easily be explained away as myth, the notion that the universe had been brought to be out of what is not was gradually tranformed under pressure of severe Aristottelian criticism into a precise concept, and the argument implicit in such a notion metamorphosed into an elegant and sophisticated demonstration. Backed up by the closely reasoned philosophy of being into which it was now integrated, the argument from creation might confidently hope to be proof against attack.

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Articles
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International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , January 1971 , pp. 67 - 85
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

page 67 note 1 For Strato's position see Cicero, , De Natura Deorum, vol. 1, part xiii, p. 35;Google Scholarcf., Seneca apud Augustine, The City of God, 4, 10.Google Scholar

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page 69 note 5 Madnun ad-Saghîr, Q. 6.

page 69 note 6 ‘Jerusalem Letter’, ed. Tibawi, , p. 80, 1. 2.Google Scholar

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page 73 note 1 Timaeus, 27–8.Google Scholar

page 73 note 2 ‘Jerusalem Letter’, ed. Tibawi, , pp. 80, 11. 26–81,Google Scholar 1.7; cf., Ma'ârij al-Quds, pp. 201–2.Google Scholar

page 73 note 3 Ibid. p. 81, 11. 18–19.

page 74 note 1 Ibid. II. I–II.

page 74 note 2 Ibid. II. 4–8.

page 74 note 3 Ibid. 2, p. 81, 1.20.

page 75 note 1 Fadâ'ih al-Bâtiniyya (‘The Shame of the Allegorists’), ed. Abdur-Rahmân, Badaw (Cairo, 1964), pp. 80–1.Google Scholar

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page 77 note 2 Tahâfut-al-Falâsifa, x, cf. II, IV.

page 77 note 3 Proclus' first argument is lost in the Greek original, but its contents are known from Philoponus apud Simplicius, and the argument is extant in the Arabic fragments of Proclus, ed. Badawi, , Neo-Platonici apud Arabes, Islamica, vol. 19 (Cairo, 1955);Google Scholar cf. also Shahrastânî, , Kitâb al-Milal wa-n -Nihâl, ed. Cureton, , p. 338, where the argument is given as the first of ‘Proclus’ fallacies on the eternity of the world’.Google Scholar

page 78 note 1 Proclus' fourth argument for the eternity of the world, English trans. in Thomas, Taylor, The Fragments that Remain of the Lost Writings of Proclus (London, 1825), p. 39; cf. also the Arabic translation and Shahrastânî cited above.Google Scholar

page 78 note 2 See Ghazâlî, Tahâfut al-Falâsifa, Bouyges 2nd ed., I, no. 7, p. 50.Google Scholar

page 78 note 3 For Ghazâlî's fiscal imagery see Ma'ârij al-Quits, pp. 203–4 and Ihya ′Ul„m ad-Dîn, XXXV.Google Scholar

page 79 note 1 See Aristotle, , Metaphysics, Lambda.Google Scholar

page 79 note 2 See Ghazâlî, , Tahâfut al-Falâsifa, 4.Google Scholar

page 79 note 3 Tahâfut al-Falâsifa, X.Google Scholar

page 79 note 4 Tahâfut al-Falâsifa, x, no. I, Bouyges 2nd ed., p. 254. It is the causa efficiens, of course, which is in question. G hazâlî shows little interest in this context in the Aristotelian notion that God is a final cause.Google Scholar

page 80 note 1 Tahâfut al-Falâsifa, x = Bouyges 2nd ed., p. 182.Google Scholar

page 80 note 2 Ibid. p. 110.

page 80 note 3 Ibn, Rushd, Tahâfut at-Tahâfut, III, ed. Bouyges, p. 151.Google Scholar

page 80 note 4 Al-Munqidh min-ad-Dalâl, ed. Jabre, , pp. 18–20, cf. pp. 23–4 = French trans., pp. 73–2; cf. pp. 77–8Google Scholar = trans. Watt, , pp. 31–2; cf. pp. 37–8; cf. Maqâsid al-Falâsifa, ed. Dunya, , pp. 203 ff., 286 ff.Google Scholar

page 80 note 5 For an attempt to mediate between creationism and etemalism—and to scale down the gravity of the issue—see Ibn Tufayl Hayy Ibn Yaqzân, ed. Gauthier, L., pp. 81–8.Google Scholar

page 80 note 6 See Tahâfut al-Falâsifa, VI.Google Scholar

page 81 note 1 Tahâfut al-Falâsifa, Bouyges 2nd ed., III, nos. 1–2.Google Scholar

page 81 note 2 Ibid. IV, no. 2.

page 81 note 3 Ibid. III, no. 15.

page 81 note 4 Ibid. no. 16, 1. 4.

page 81 note 5 Ibid. part i, cf. XVII, I.

page 81 note 6 Ibid. no. 16, 1. 4.

page 81 note 7 Ibid. part i, no. 3.

page 82 note 1 Ibid. part ii, no. 17.

page 82 note 2 Ibid. no. 24.

page 82 note 3 Ibid. no. 25–8.

page 82 note 4 Ma'ârij al-Quds, pp. 201 ff.Google Scholar

page 82 note 5 See Tahâfut al-Falâsifa, v.Google Scholar

page 82 note 6 Tahâfut al-Falâsifa, III, part iii; cf. Van Den Bergh, note 89.2.Google Scholar

page 82 note 7 See Shahrastânâ′ ‘ Nihâyatu'l-Iqdâm fî ‘Ilmi’l-Kalâm, ed. Guillaume, , p.21. The reduction of ontological to logical relations is a temptation to which Platonic idealism (with its Pythagorean background) will be particularly susceptible.Google Scholar

page 82 note 8 For the contingency argument in use, see Fârâbî, ‘Book of Gems’, opening passage; Ibn, Sina, Najât, vol. 4, part i, p. 6;Google ScholarJuwayni, , Irshd, ed. Luciani, , p. I.Google Scholar For Ibn Rushd's rejection of the argument see Tahâfut at-Tahâfut, ed. Bouyges, , pp. 54–5;Google Scholar cf. Van Den Bergh's note 32.1. Van Den Bergh claims that the contingency argument is Aristotelian; and to be sure, Aristotle did argue that God must exist as the Actualizor of potential. Avicenna's notion, however, is that finite being must be determinate to be actual; thus a more active role is conceived for God than as Ground of being, a role as determinant of the qualitative and quantitative limitations without which finite being could not exist. The notion of God as a Determinant, although related to that of God as Actualizor (and, for that matter, to the notion of God as Creator, or even as prime mover), is conceptually distinct, and its development as an argument for divine existence may well be Islamic. For in Greek philosophy, as we have seen, the issue of a determinant arises in the context of a reductio ad absurdum. For a brief history of the determinant argument, see Herbert, Davidson, ‘Arguments from the Concept of Particularization in Arabic Philosophy’, Philosophy East and West, vol. 18, part 4 (10, 1968), pp. 299–314. The contingency argument, considered here by Ghazâlî is the philosophers' generalized version, where being at large rather than its particularization is the object of determination. As Ghazâlî rightly urges, the argument cannot be based on any notion that God is somehow (logically?) ‘necessary’, while the world is in the same sense ‘possible’; the only. remotely workable reading of the argument is in terms of a necessary (i.e. self-sufficient) God and a contingent world, i.e. a world incapable of establishing its own limitations a fortiori not its own existence.Google Scholar

page 83 note 1 Tahâfut al-Falâstfa, Bouyges and ed., IV, no. 3.Google Scholar

page 83 note 2 Ibid. no. 6.

page 83 note 3 Ibid. no. 5.

page 84 note 1 Ibid. X, no. 3.

page 84 note 2 Ibid. no. 5.

page 84 note 3 Ibid. no. 6–7.

page 84 note 4 Tahâfut al-Falâsifa, IV.Google Scholar

page 84 note 5 Ibid. X.

page 84 note 6 Ibid. III.

page 85 note 1 Tahâfut al-Falâsifa, Bouyges 2nd ed., I, part i, b = ed. Dunya, , pp. 90 ff. = Tahâfut at-Tahâfut, ed. Bouyges, , p. 41.Google Scholar

page 85 note 2 Fadâ'ih al-Bâtiniyya, ed. Badawi, , p. 80.Google Scholar

page 85 note 3 ‘Jerusalem Letter’, ed. Tibawi, , p. 80, 1. 23.Google Scholar