Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T16:11:12.335Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the incompatibility of God's knowledge of particulars and the doctrine of divine immutability: towards a reform in Islamic theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2020

EBRAHIM AZADEGAN Open the ORCID record for EBRAHIM AZADEGAN [Opens in a new window]
EBRAHIM AZADEGAN*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy of Science, Sharif University of Technology, Azadi Street, Tehran, Iran School of Analytic Philosophy, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Niavaran Square, Tehran, Iran
*
e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Affirming that divine knowledge of occurrent changes among particulars is incompatible with the doctrine of divine immutability, this article seeks to resolve this tension by denying the latter. Reviewing this long-running debate, I first formalize the exchange between al-Ghazālī and Avicenna on this topic, and then set out the ways in which contemporary Sadrāean philosophers have tried to resolve the incompatibility. I argue that none of the cited Sadrāean attempts to resolve the incompatibility between divine omniscience and immutability is successful. Then, by reference to certain principles drawn from Shia theology, I indicate how one might seek to reject the dogma of divine immutability. I conclude that by emancipating ourselves from that dogma, new horizons could be opened for Islamic philosophy, free from traditional Hellenistic constraints.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , June 2022 , pp. 327 - 344
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adamson, Peter (2005) ‘On knowledge of particulars’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 105, 273-294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
al-Fārābī, Muhammad (1961) Fusūl al-Madanı: Aphorisms of the Statesman, Dunlop, D. M. (ed. and tr.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid (2000) [Tahāfut al-falāsifah] The Incoherence of Philosophers, Marmura, M. E. (tr.) (Provo UT: Brigham Young University Press).Google Scholar
al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn (1992) Muhassal Afkār al-Mutaqaddemīn wa al-Muti'akherīn (Beirut: Dar al-Fekr Publications).Google Scholar
Avicenna (1960) al-Shifāʾ: Ilāhīyyāt, Zāyed, S., Aanawātī, G. C., Dunyā, S., and Yūsef, M. (eds) (Cairo: Organisme Général des Imprimeries Gouvernementales).Google Scholar
Avicenna (1984a) al-Shifāʾ: Ṭabīʿīyyāt, Samāʿ al-ṭabīʿī, Zāyed, S. (ed.) (Qum: Maktabah Āyatullāh al-Marʿashī).Google Scholar
Avicenna (1984b) al-Taʿlīqāt, Badawī, A. (ed.) (Beirut: Maktabah al-Aʿlām al-Islāmī).Google Scholar
Chittick, William (1998) The Self-disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn Arabi's Cosmology (New York: SUNY Press).Google Scholar
Esposito, John L. (2009) The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islamic World Esposito, John L. (ed.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Fakhri, Majid (2002) Al-Fārābī, The Founder of Islamic Neoplatonism: His Life, Works and Influence (London: Oneworld Publication).Google Scholar
Griffel, Frank (2009) Al-Ghazālī's Philosophical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Javādi Āmolī, Abdullah (2010) Sharh-i Hekmat-i Motā’liah (Qum: Asra’ Publication).Google Scholar
Kalin, Ibrahim (2010) Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mullā Ṣadrā on Existence, Intellect and Intuition (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kretzmann, Norman (1966) ‘Omniscience and immutability’, The Journal of Philosophy, 63, 409–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marmura, Michael (1962) ‘Some aspects of Avicenna's God's knowledge of particulars’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 82.3, 299–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Dan (2018) ‘Intrinsic vs. extrinsic properties’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intrinsic-extrinsic/>..>Google Scholar
Misbāh Yazdī, Muhammad Taqi (2011) Khodāshenasī: Ma'erif-i Qurʿān (Qum: Imam Khomeinī Institute Publishing).Google Scholar
McDowell, John (1994) Mind and World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Nasr, Sayyid Hossein (2007) The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Practice of Sūfīsm, Islam's Mystical Tradition (New York: Harperone).Google Scholar
Porphyry (1988) ‘Launching points to the realm of mind’, Guthrie, K. (tr.) (Grand Rapids MI: Phanes Press).Google Scholar
Sadrā, Muhammad Ibn Ebrahim (1999) al-Mazāhir al-ilāhiyyah fi asrār al-‘ulumā al-kamāliyyah, Khamanei, S. M. (ed.) (Tehran: Bunyad-I Hikmat-iIslami-yi Sadrā [SIPRIN]).Google Scholar
Saeedimehr, Mohammad (2018) ‘Divine knowledge and the doctrine of Bada’, TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology, 2, 23–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidiropoulou, Chryssi (2010) ‘Who is the God of the Qurʿān? A medieval Islamic debate and contemporary philosophy of religion’, in Tymieniecka, A. T. & Muhtaroglu, N. (eds) Classic Issues in Islamic Philosophy and Theology Today (Dordrecht: Springer) 91–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tabātabā’i, S. Muhammad Hossein (1980) Al-Mizān, I (Tehran: Raja publishing).Google Scholar
Van Inawagen, Peter (2009) Metaphysics, 3rd edn (Boulder CO: Westview Press).Google Scholar
Wierenga, Edward (2017) ‘Omniscience’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/omniscience/>..>Google Scholar
Zadyousefi, Amirhossein (2019a) ‘Does God know the occurrence of a change among particulars? Avicenna and the problem of God's knowledge of change’, Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review/Revue Canadienne de Philosophie, 58, 621–652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zadyousefi, Amirhossein (2019b) ‘Does God know that the flower in my hand is red? Avicenna and the problem of God's perceptual knowledge’, Sophiai, DOI: <https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-0730-9>..' href=https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-0730-9>CrossRef.' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Zadyousefi,+Amirhossein+(2019b)+‘Does+God+know+that+the+flower+in+my+hand+is+red?+Avicenna+and+the+problem+of+God's+perceptual+knowledge’,+Sophiai,+DOI:+.>Google Scholar