THE ELEVENTH DISCUSSION
To show the incapacity of those philosophers who believe that the First knows other things beside its own self and that it knows the genera and the species in a universal way, to prove that this is so
Ghazali says:
Since for the Muslims existence is confined to the temporal and the eternal, and there is for them nothing eternal except God and His attributes, and everything besides Him is temporally created by Him through His will, according to them the existent of necessity exists previously in His knowledge, for the object willed must be known by the willer. They deduced from this that the universe is known to Him, for the universe was willed by Him and produced by Him, and nothing comes into existence but what is produced through His will, and nothing is everlasting but His essence alone. And when once it was established that God wills and knows what He wills, He must be necessarily living, ; and every living being is conscious of its own self, and He is the most capable of knowing Himself. Therefore the whole universe is known to God, and they understood this through this argument, since they had found that He willed everything that happens in the world.
I say:
He says this only as an introduction and preparation for the comparison between his theory and that of the philosophers about eternal
knowledge, because his theory seems at first sight more satisfactory than that of the philosophers. But when the theory of the theologians is tested, and shown up to him for whom such an exposure is necessary, it becomes clear that they only made God an eternal man, , for they compared the world with the products of art wrought by the will and knowledge and power of man. And when it was objected against them that He must then have a body, they answered that He is eternal and that all bodies are temporal. They were therefore forced to admit an immaterial man who produces all existents. But this theory is nothing but a metaphor and a poetical expression; and metaphorical expressions are certainly very convincing, till they are explored, but then their deficiency becomes evident. For indeed there is no nature more distant from that of the transitory than that of the eternal. And if this is true, it cannot be that there should exist one single species which is differentiated by eternity and non-eternityz as one single genus is differentiated through the various differences into which it is divided. For the distance between the eternal and the temporal is far greater than that between the different species which participate in temporality. And if the distance between eternity and non-eternity is greater than that between the various species, how then is it possible to apply a judgement about the empirical world to the invisible: for those two are opposite extremes? And when you have understood the sense of the attributes which exist in the visible world and those which exist in the invisible world, it will be clear to you that through the ambiguity of the terms they are so equivocal that they do not permit a transference from the visible to the invisible.
Life, for instance, added to the intellect of man only applies to the potentiality of motion in space through will and sense-perception, ; but senses are impossible for the Creator and still more impossible for Him is motion in space. But the theologians ascribe to the Creator the faculty of sense-perception without sense-organs, and deny His movement absolutely. Therefore either they do not ascribe life to the Creator in the sense it has in the animal and which is a condition for the existence of knowledge in man, or they identify it with perception in the way the philosophers say that perception and knowledge in the First are identical with life. Further, the meaning of ‘will’ in man and in animal is a desire which rouses movement and which happens in animal and man to perfect a deficiency in their essence, and it is impossible that there should be in the Creator a desire because of an imperfection in His essence, which could be a cause of movement and action either in Himself or in something different from Himself. And how could an eternal will be imagined which should be the cause of an act occurring without an increase of the desire at the time of the act, , or how could a will and a desire be imagined which would be before, during, and after the act in the same state without any change occurring to them? And again, desire (in so far as it is _the cause of movement) and movement are only found in body, and desire is only found in the animate body. Therefore according to the philosophers the meaning of ‘will’ in God is nothing but that every act proceeds from Him through knowledge, and knowledge in so far as it is knowledge is the knowledge of opposites, either of which can proceed from Him. And the Knower is called excellent by the fact that there always proceeds from Him the better of the opposites to the exclusion of the worse. Therefore the philosophers say that three attributes are most appropriate to the Creator, namely that He has knowledge, excellence, and power. And they say that His power is not inferior to His will, as is the case with man.
All this is the theory of the philosophers on this problem and in the way we have stated it here with its proofs, it is a persuasive not a demonstrative statement. It is for you to inquire about these questions in the places where they are treated in the books of demonstration, if you are one of the people of perfect eudaemonia, and if you are one of those who learn the arts the function of which is proof. For the demonstrative arts are very much like the practical; for just as a man who is not a craftsman cannot perform the function of craftsmanship, in the same way it is not possible for him who has not learned the arts of demonstration to perform the function of demonstration which is demonstration itself: indeed this is still more necessary for this art than for any other-and this is not generally acknowledged in the case of this practice only because it is a mere act-and therefore such a demonstration can proceed only from one who has learned the art. The kinds of statement, however, are many, some demonstrative, others not, and since non-demonstrative statements can be adduced without knowledge of the art, it was thought that this might be also the case with demonstrative statements; but this is a great error. And therefore in the spheres of the demonstrative arts, no other statement is possible but a technical statement which only the student of this art can bring, just as is the case with the art of geometry. Nothing therefore of what we have said in this book is a technical demonstrative proof; they are all non-technical statements, some of them having greater persuasion than others, and it is in this spirit that what we have written here must be understood. So this book of Ghazali might be best given the name of the ‘Incoherence of both parties together’.
All this in my opinion is in excess of the Holy Law, and an inquiry into something not ordered by a religious law because human power does not suffice for it. For not all knowledge about which the Holy Law is silent needs to be explored and explained to the masses as being, according to speculative thought, part of the dogmas of religion; for from this the greatest confusion arises. One must not speak about those things concerning which the Holy Law is silent; the masses must learn that human understanding is not sufficient to treat these problems, and must not go beyond what the teaching of the Holy Law explains in its texts, since this is teaching in which all can participate and which suffices for the attainment of their happiness. And just as the physician investigates the measure of health which agrees most with the healthy for the preservation of their health, and with the sick for the curing of their illness, so the Lord of the Holy Law instructs the masses only in so far as is needed for their acquisition of happiness. And the same thing holds in respect of the facts of human behaviour, only the investigation of these facts in so far as the Holy Law is silent about them is more legitimate, especially when they are of the same genus as those about which the Law pronounces judgement. For this reason the lawyers disagree about this kind of facts; some of them, the Zahirites, deny the use of analogy, whereas others, the analogists, admit it, , and this is absolutely the same thing as happens in the sphere of knowledge, only perhaps the Zahirites are happier in the purely intellectual sphere than in the practical.
And anyone amongst the two opposing parties who inquires after these questions must either belong to the followers of proof, i. e. the rationalists, or not; in the former case he will speak about them and base his statements on demonstration, he will know that this way of discussion is limited to the followers of proof, and he will know the places in which the Holy Law gives to the people who possess this kind of knowledge a hint about the conclusions to which demonstration leads; in the latter case he will be either a believer or an unbeliever: if he is a believer he will know that to discuss those questions is forbidden by the Holy Law, and if he is an unbeliever, it is not difficult for the followers of proof to refute him with the stringent proofs they possess. The rationalist must act in this way in every religion, but especially in our Divine Revelation, which although it is silent on certain intellectual problems nevertheless hints at the conclusions about them to which demonstration leads, without, however, mentioning these problems in its instruction of the masses.
Since this is established, we shall revert now to our subject, which is forced upon us by necessity-for otherwise, by God, the Knower, the Witness, the Revealer, we should not think it permissible to discuss such questions in this way. And Ghazali, having described the arguments through which the theologians prove the attribute of knowledge and other attributes, and shown that they are very evident because they are generally admitted and extremely easy to accept, begins to compare these arguments with those of the philosophers about these attributes, and this is an act of rhetoric. ‘
Ghazali says, addressing the philosophers:
And you, philosophers, when you affirm that the world is eternal and not produced by God’s will, how do you know that He knows something beside His essence, for you require a proof of this?
Then Ghazali says:
And the summary of what Avicenna says to prove this in the course of his argument can be reduced to two heads: First, that the First does not exist in matter, and everything which does not exist in matter is pure intellect and all the intelligibles are revealed to it, for the obstacle to perceiving all things is attachment to matter and being occupied with matter, and the human soul is occupied by directing matter, i. e. its body, and when this occupation is terminated and it is not any longer defiled by the bodily passions and the despicable conditions which affect it through the things of nature, all the realities of the intelligibles are revealed to it, and therefore is it asserted that all the angels know all the intelligibles without exception, for they too are pure immaterial intellects.
And having related their theory; Ghazali argues against them:
But we say: If by your assertion that the First does not exist in matter, you mean that it is not a body, nor impressed on a body, but exists by itself not comprised by space nor locally specified by a direction, this is admitted by us. There remains then your answer to the question what its attribute is, namely that it is pure intellect-and what do you understand by ‘intellect’? If you mean by it that which thinks all the other things, this is just what we are trying to find out and the point under discussion, and how, therefore, can you take it as the premiss of a syllogism which must prove it? And if you mean by it something else, namely that it thinks its own self-and some of your fellow-philosophers may concede this to you, but this amounts again to your saying that what thinks its own self thinks other things also-the answer to be made is ‘Why do you claim this? For this is not known by necessity, and only Avicenna of all the philosophers affirmed it; and how can you claim this as necessary knowledge, or, if you know it by deduction, what is your proof? ‘
And if the assertion is made: ‘Because what prevents the perception of things is matter, and the First is not matter’, we answer: We concede that matter is an impediment, but we do not admit that it is the only impediment; and let them arrange their syllogism in the figure of the hypothetical syllogism and say: ‘If this First is in matter it cannot think things, but it is not in matter, therefore it thinks things’. ‘ And this is the assumption as a minor premiss of the opposite of the antecedent, but such an assumption does not lead to a conclusion in all cases, for it is like saying: ‘If this is a man, it is an animal, but it is not a man, therefore it is not an animal’. But this is not a necessary conclusion, for although not a man, it might be a horse, and therefore an animal. The assumption as a minor premiss of the opposite of the antecedent is valid only conditionally, as we have shown in our logic-namely, when the consequent is universally convertible with the antecedent, as when the logicians say: ‘If the sun has risen, it is day, but the sun has not risen, therefore it is not day’, for the only cause of its being day is the fact that the sun has risen-an example in which antecedent and consequent are convertible with each other-and the explanation of these theories and terms can be understood from our book ‘The Touchstone of Knowledge’, which we have written as an appendix to this book. If, however, they say ‘We claim that antecedent and consequent are here convertible, and that the one and only obstacle to thinking is being in matter’, we answer: ‘This is a pure presumption; where is your proof? ‘
I say:
The first mistake he makes here is that, in relating the theory and the proof, he regards the premisses he mentions as first principles, whereas for the philosophers they are conclusions from many premisses. For the philosophers had seen that every sensible existent is composed of matter and form, and that the form is the entity through which the existent becomes existentand that it is the form which is designated by the name and the definitions and that the specific act proceeds from the form in every existent, and it is this act which shows the existence of the forms in the existent. b For they had found that in substances there are active potencies, particular to every single existent, and passive potencies, either particular or common, ? and that a thing cannot be passive by reason of the same thing as it is active; for activity is the opposite of passivity, and opposites do not admit each other, and it is only their substratum which admits them successively, e. g. hotness does not accept coldness, it is simply the hot body that accepts coldness by divesting itself of hotness and accepting coldness, and vice versa. Now when the philosophers found that this was the case with activity and passivity, they understood that all existents of this description were composed of two substances, a substance which is the act and a substance which is the potency, and they realized that the substance in act is the perfection of the substance in potency and that the substance in act stands in relation to the substance in potency as if it were the end of its actualization, for there is no actual difference between them. ‘ Then, when they looked through all the different forms of existents, they found that all these substances must necessarily lead up to a substance in act which is absolutely devoid of matter, and this substance must necessarily be active and cannot have any passivity and cannot be subject to exhaustion, weariness, and decay; for such things occur to the substance in act only because it is the perfection of the substance in potency, not because it is pure act. For since the substance in potency only goes forth into act through a substance in act, the series of substances which are at the same time both active and passive must terminate in a substance which is pure act, and the series must terminate in that substance. And the proof of the existence of this substance, in so far as it is a mover and agent, through essential particular premisses, can be found in the eighth book of Aristotle’s Physics.
Having established the existence of this substance by special and general arguments according to what is known in their books, the philosophers now investigated the nature of the forms in matter which produce motion, and they found some of them nearer to actuality and farther from potency because they are less than others involved in passivity, which is the special sign of the matter which exists in them. And they realized that that which among these forms is most destitute of matter is the soul, and especially the intellect, so that they started to doubt whether the intellect belongs to the forms which are in matter or not. z But when they investigated the perceiving forms amongst the forms of the soul and found that they were free from matter, they understood that the cause of perception consists in freedom from matter, ; and since they discovered that the intellect is without passivity they understood that the reason why one form is inorganic and another perceptive consists in the fact that when it is the perfection of a potency it is inorganic or not percipient, ‘ and when it is pure perfection with which no potency is mixed it is intellect. ‘ All this they proved in a demonstrative order and by natural deductions which cannot be reproduced here in this demonstrative sequence, for this would involve collecting in one place what by its nature is treated in many different books, and anyone who has the slightest experience of the science of logic will acknowledge that this is an impossibility. Through arguments of this kind they came to realize that what has no passivity whatever is intellect and not body, for what is passive is body which exists in matter according to them.
An objection against the philosophers in these questions ought to be made only against the first principles they use in the proof of these conclusions, not against those conclusions themselves, as it is made by Ghazali. Through this they came to understand that there exists here an existent which is pure intellect, and when they saw further that the order which reigns in nature and in the act of nature follows an intellectual plan very much like the plan of the craftsman, they realized that there must exist an intellect which causes these natural potencies to act in an intellectual way, and through these two points they received the conviction that this existent which is pure intellect is that which bestows on the existents the order and arrangement in their acts. And they understood from all this that its thinking its own self is identical with its thinking all existents, and that this existent is not such that its thinking its own self is something different from the thought by which it thinks other things, as is the case with the human intellect. And about this intellect the disjunction assumed as a premiss, that every intellect either thinks its own self or thinks something else or thinks both together, is not valid. For when this disjunction is admitted, what is said is: ‘If it thinks other things, it is self-evident that it must think its own self; however, if it thinks its own self, it is not at all necessary that it should think other things. ‘ And we have discussed this previously.
And all the things which he says about the hypothetical syllogism which he formed in the figure he explained are not true. For the hypothetical syllogism is only valid when the minor and the legitimacy of the inferenceare proved through one or more categorical syllogisms. For correct hypothetical inference in this question is: ‘If what does not think is in matter, then what is not in matter thinks. ‘ But, of course, first the truth of this conjunction and disjunction must be proved. ‘ And these are the premisses of which we said that they are according to the philosophers conclusions, whereas Ghazali pretends they are first principles for them, or nearly so. And when it is explained as we have done, it is a syllogism of a legitimate figure and of true premisses. As to its legitimate form, the minor is the opposite of the consequent and the conclusion is the opposite of the antecedent, not as Ghazali believed, the minor the opposite of the antecedent and the conclusion the opposite of the consequent. ‘ But since they are not first principles, nor generally acknowledged, nor evident at first sight, they are regarded, no doubt, by those who have never heard anything of these things as very much open to objection. But indeed Ghazali confused the sciences in a most terrible way, and he uprooted science from its foundation and its method.
Ghazali says:
The second argument is that the philosophers say: ‘Although we assert neither that the First wills temporal production nor that it produces the world in time by secondary intention, we nevertheless affirm that the First has made the world and that indeed the world has its existence through the First only, the First never losing its character as an agent and never ceasing to act; our theory only distinguishes itself from others in this point, in no way however with respect to the principle of the act. And since the agent must have knowledge in conformity with its act, the universe, according to us, exists through its act. ‘
But there are two ways to answer this, of which the first is: ‘There are two kinds of action: voluntary, like the action of animal and man; and involuntary, like the action of the sun in producing light, of fire in producing heat, of water in producing cold. Now knowledge of the act is only necessary in voluntary acts, as in the human products of art, not in the acts of nature. But according to you philosophers, God has made the world consequent on His essence by nature and by necessity, not through will and choice; indeed, the universe is consequent on His essence, as light is on the sun, and just as the sun has no power to check its light, nor fire to repress its producing heat, so the First cannot check its acts. Now this kind of occurrence, although it may be called an act, does not imply knowledge at all. ‘ And if it is answered that there is a difference between the two things, in that the procession of the universe from God’s essence occurs through His knowledge of the universe and His representing the universal order in the course of the emamation of the universe, and He has no other cause than His knowledge of the universe, and His knowledge of the universe is identical with His essence, and if He had not this knowledge of the universe, the universe would not exist through Him, which is not the case with light in relation to the sun, we answer: ‘In this you are in contradiction to your fellow-philosophers, for they say that His essence is the essence from which the existence of the universe in its order follows naturally and necessarily, and it is not because He knows this. ‘ And what is wrong with this conception, once you agree with them in denying His will? And since the sun’s knowledge of its light is no condition for its light, but its light is necessarily consequent on the sun, so let us accept this also in the case of the First; and nothing prevents this. ‘
I say:
In this section Ghazali begins by saying something reprehensible about the philosophers, namely that the Creator possesses a will neither with respect to the things produced nor with respect to the universe as a whole, because His act proceeds from His essence necessarily like the procession of light from the sun. Then he says of them that they say that through His acting He must have knowledge. The philosophers, however, do not deny the will of God, nor do they admit that He has a human will, for the human will implies a deficiency in the willer and a being affected by the object willed, and when the object is attained, the deficiency is completed and the passivity, which is called will, ceases. The philosophers only attribute a will to God in the sense that the acts which proceed from Him proceed through knowledge, and everything which proceeds through knowledge and wisdom proceeds through the will of the agent, not, however, necessarily and naturally, since the nature of knowledge does not imply (as he falsely affirms of the philosophers) the proceeding of the act. For if the nature of knowledge did imply this, then, when we say that God knows the opposites, it would be necessary that the opposites should proceed from Him together, and this is absurd. The fact that only one of the opposites proceeds from Him shows that there is another attribute present beside knowledge, namely will, and it is in this way that the affirmation of will in the First must be understood according to the philosophers. z For God, according to the philosophers, necessarily knows and wills through His knowledge. As to Ghazali’s assertion that the act can be subdivided into two, into a natural act and a voluntary act, this is false. God’s act according to the philosophers is in a certain way not natural, nor is it absolutely voluntary; it is voluntary without having the deficiency which is attached to the human will. Therefore the term ‘will’ is attributed to the Divine Will and the human in an equivocal way, just as the term ‘knowledge ‘is attributed equivocally to eternal knowledge and to temporal. For the will in animals and man is a passivity which occurs to them through the object of desire
and is caused by it. This is the meaning of ‘will’ in the case of the human will, but the Creator is too exalted to possess an attribute which should be an effect. Therefore by ‘will’ in God only the procession of the act joined to knowledge can be understood. And ‘knowledge’, as we said, refers to the two opposites, and in the knowledge of God there is knowledge of the opposites in a certain way, and His performing only the one shows that there exists in Him another attribute which is called ‘will’.
Ghazali says:
The second way of answering is to concede that the procession of a thing from the agent implies knowledge of the thing which proceeds. Now, according to them, the act of God is one, namely the effect which is pure intellect, and God can only know this effect. The first effect again will only know what proceeds from it. For the universe does not proceed from God immediately, but through mediators and derivation and a series of consequences. For that which proceeds from what proceeds from Him need not be known to Him, and from Him Himself only one thing proceeds. And how should He know everything that proceeds mediately from Him? For this is not even necessary in voluntary acts, and how could it be necessary in natural acts? For the movement of a stone from the top of a mountain can occur through a voluntary propulsion which implies knowledge of the principle of motion, but does not imply knowledge of all the consequences which may occur through its knocking and breaking something. ‘ And to this again the philosophers have no answer.
I answer:
The answer to this is that the Agent whose knowledge is of the highest perfection knows everything which proceeds from Him and which proceeds from that which proceeds from Him, and so from the first term to the last. And if the knowledge of the First is of the highest perfection, the First must know everything that proceeds from it either mediately or immediately, and its knowledge need not be of the same kind as our knowledge, for our knowledge is imperfect and posterior to the thing known.
Then Ghazali says, answering the objection he brought forward against the philosophers:
If, however, the philosophers should say: ‘If we declared that the First only knows its own self, this would be a very reprehensible doctrine, for all other beings know themselves and know the First, and would therefore be superior to it; and how can the effect be superior to the cause?
I say:
This is an insufficient answer, for it opposes a rational argument with a moral one.
Then Ghazali answers this and says:
We should answer: ‘This reprehensible doctrine is a necessary consequence for those who follow the philosophers in denying the Divine Will and the production of the world, and one must either adhere to it as the other philosophers do, or abandon the philosophers and acknowledge that the world is produced through will. ‘
I say:
Ghazali means that if they belong to those who affirm that God knows His work, only to avoid the reprehensible doctrine that He does not know anything but His own self, they are forced to acknowledge this reprehensible doctrine just as well, since they affirmed another reprehensible doctrine, namely the eternity of the world and the denial of the Will. ‘ However, the philosophers do not deny the Will, and only deny that part of it which implies a deficiency.
Then Ghazali says:
How will you refute those philosophers who say that this knowledge does not add to God’s dignity, since other beings need knowledge only in order to acquire perfection (for in their essence there is a deficiency) and man receives dignity through the intelligibles either that he may see his advantage in the coming events of this world and the next, or that his obscure and insufficient essence may be perfected, and likewise all the other creatures, but that the essence of God does not stand in need of perfection: nay, if a knowledge could be imagined through which He would be perfected, His essence, in so far as it is His essence, would be imperfect’
This is just the same kind of remark as your assertions, Avicenna, concerning His hearing and seeing and His knowing the particular beings which fall under the concept of time, for you agree with all the other philosophers in saying that God is too exalted for that, and that the changes which fall under the concept of time and which are divided into past and future events are not known to the First, since this would imply a change in its essence and a being influenced, and the denial of this does not imply an imperfection, but rather a perfection, and there is only an imperfection in the senses and the need for them. ‘ If there were not this human imperfection, man would not be in need of the senses to guard himself against any change which might affect him. And in the same way you affirm that the knowledge of particular events is an imperfection. And if it is true that we can know all particular events and perceive all sensible things, whereas the First cannot know anything of the particulars nor perceive anything of sensible things without this implying any imperfection in the First, it may also be permitted to ascribe to others knowledge of the intelligible universals but to deny it of the First without this implying any imperfection in the First. There is no way out of this.
I say:
This is the proof of those who say that the First knows only itself, and we have already spoken of the theory of those who combine the doctrine that the First knows only itself with the theory that it knows all existents; and for this reason some of the best known philosophers affirm that God the Creator is Himself all existents and that He grants them in His benevolence, and there is no sense in repeating ourselves. The premisses used in this section are common dialectical propositions, since they all belong to those which compare the Divine to the empirical, although no common genus unites these two spheres and they do not possess any common factor at all. In general his discussion in this section, when he argues with Avicenna, who adduces the argument of those philosophers who believe that God in knowing Himself must know other things, since He must necessarily know what proceeds from Himself, and all the other assertions of Avicenna to prove this, which he relates, and which he uses himself again to refute Avicenna, are all taken from human conditions which he tries to refer to the Creator; and this is false, since the terms of these two types of knowledge are predicated equivocally.
Avicenna’s assertion that any intelligent being from whom an act proceeds knows this act is a true proposition; not, however, in the sense in which the word ‘knowledge’ is used of the human intellect, when it understands a thing, for the human intellect is perfected by what it perceives and knows, and is affected by it, and the cause of action in man is the representation he forms in his intellect. ‘ And Ghazali argues against this kind of proposition by saying that when a man acts and there follows from his act another act and from the second act a third and from the third a fourth, it is not necessary that the conscious agent should know all the consequences which follow from his first act; and Ghazali says to his opponent this is a fact which concerns voluntary acts, but how is it when one assumes an agent whose acts are not voluntary? And he only says this because he means that the affirmation of God’s knowledge implies the affirmation of God’s will.
And therefore Ghazali says:
To this again the philosophers have no answer.
I say:
Ghazali means that it does not follow that the First according to Avicenna thinks anything but the act which proceeds from it primarily, and this act is the second cause and the first effect. Neither is there an answer to the other difficulty which he states that if the First thinks only itself and nothing else, man would be more noble than it. And the reason why Ghazali’s words carry a certain conviction is that if one imagines two men, one of whom thinks only his own self, whereas the other thinks his own self and other things besides, the latter intellect is regarded as superior to the former. However, as the term ‘intellect’ is applied to the human intellect and to this Divine Intellect in a purely equivocal way, since the latter is an agent and not a patient and the former a patient and not an agent, this analogy does not hold any longer.
Having given as Avicenna’s argument the maxim which Avicenna applies to every intelligent being, ‘ that the more knowledge an intellect possesses the nobler it is, and having affirmed that, according to him (Ghazali), it is just the philosophers’ denial of God’s will and of temporal creation which forces them to deny to God a knowledge of anything but Himself, since the conscious agent knows his effect only in so far as it differs from himself by being an object of his will, he says that this reprehensible assertion, i. e. the assertion that the effect which is man must be nobler than the cause which is the Creator, is a consequence for the philosophers only, sincc as the philosophers deny the coming into being of the world, they deny the Divine Will, as he affirms, and as they deny the Divine Will, they deny that God knows what proceeds from Him. But all this, namely the denial of God’s will, has been shown previously not to be true; for they deny only His temporal will. And having repeated Avicenna’s arguments, which he regarded as being applicable both to the knowledge of the temporal and the knowledge of the eternal, he begins to argue against him, showing the distinction which the philosophers established on this point between these two sciences, and indeed this consequence is incumbent on Avicenna.
And Ghazali says:
How will you refute those philosophers who say that this knowledge does not add to God’s dignity, for only other beings need knowledge. . ?
I say:
The summary of this is that, if all these perceptions exist only because of man’s imperfection, then God is too exalted for them; and therefore Ghazali says to Avicenna: Just as you acknowledge with your fellow-philosophers that God’s not perceiving individual things is not a consequence of an imperfection in Him, for you have proved
that the perception of individuals rests on an imperfection in the perceiver, in the same way the perception of other things than Himself need not derive from an imperfection in Him, since the perception of these other things depends on the imperfection of the perceiver. ‘
The answer to all this is that God’s knowledge cannot be divided into the opposites of true and false in which human knowledge is divided; for instance, it may be said of a man that either he knows or he does not know other things, because these two propositions are contradictory, and when the one is true the other is false; but in the case of God both propositions, that He knows what He knows and that He does not know it, are true, for He does not know it through a knowledge which determines an imperfection, namely human knowledge, but knows it through a knowledge which does not carry with it any imperfection, and this is a knowledge the quality of which nobody but God Himself can understand. And concerning both universals and individuals it is true of Him that He knows them and does not know them. This is the conclusion to which the principles of the ancient philosophers led; but those who make a distinction, and say that God knows universals but does not know particulars have not fully grasped their theory, and this is not a consequence of their principles. For all human sciences are passivities and impressions from the existents, and the existents operate on them. But the knowledge of the Creator operates on existents, and the existents receive the activities of His knowledge.
Once this is established, the whole quarrel between Ghazali and the philosophers comes to an end in regard to this chapter as well as the next two. We shall, however, give an account of these chapters and mention in them both what is particular to them and those arguments which have been already discussed above.
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Author: Ibn Rushd (Averroës)
