THE THIRD DISCUSSION
The demonstration of their confusion in saying that God is the agent and the maker of the world and that the world is His product and act, and the demonstration that these expressions are in their system only metaphors without any real sense
Ghazali says:
All philosophers, except the materialists, agree that the world has a maker, and that God is the maker and agent of the world and the world is His act and His work. And this is an imposture where their principle is concerned, nay it cannot be imagined that according to the trend of their principle the world is the work of God, and this for three reasons, from the point of view of the agent, from the point of view of the act, and from the point of view of the relation common to act and agent. As concerns the first point, the agent must be willing, choosing, and knowing what he wills to be the agent of what he wills, but according to them God does not will, He has no attribute whatever, and what proceeds from Him proceeds by the compulsion of necessity. The second point is that the world is eternal, but ‘act’ implies production. And the third point is that God is unique, according to their principles, from all points of view, and from one thing-according to their principles-there can only proceed one thing. The world, however, is constituted out of diverse components; how could it therefore proceed from Him?
I say:
Ghazali’s words ‘The agent must be willing, choosing, and knowing what he wills to be the agent of what he wills’ are by no means self evident and cannot be accepted as a definition of the maker of the world without a proof, unless one is justified in inferring from the empirical to the divine. For we observe in the empirical world two kinds of agents, one which performs exclusively one thing and this essentially, for instance warmth which causes heat and coldness which causes cold; and this kind is called by the philosophers natural agents. The second kind of agents are those that perform a certain act at one time and its opposite at another; these, acting only out of knowledge and deliberation, are called by the philosophers voluntary and selective agents. But the First Agent cannot be described as having either of these two actions, in so far as these are ascribed to transitory things by the philosophers. For he who chooses and wills lacks the things which he wills, and God cannot lack anything He wills. And he who chooses makes a choice for himself of the better of two things, but God is in no need of a better condition. Further, when the willer has reached his object, his will ceases and, generally speaking, will is a passive quality and a change, but God is exempt from passivity and change. God is still farther distant from natural action, for the act of the natural thing is a necessity in its substance, but is not a necessity in the substance of the willer, and belongs to its entelechy. In addition, natural action does not proceed from knowledge: it has, however, been proved that God’s act does proceed from knowledge. The way in which God becomes an agent and a willer has not become clear in this place, since there is no counterpart to His will in the empirical world. How is it therefore possible to assert that an agent can only be understood as acting through deliberation and choice? For then this definition is indifferently applied to the empirical and the divine, but the philosophers do not acknowledge this extension of the definition, so that from their refusal to acknowledge this definition as applying to the First Agent, it cannot be inferred that they deny that He acts at all.
This is, of course, self-evident and not the philosophers are impostors, but he who speaks in this way, for an impostor is one who seeks to perplex, and does not look for the truth. He, however, who errs while seeking the truth cannot be called an impostor, and the philosophers, as a matter of fact, are known to seek the truth, and therefore they are by no means impostors. There is no difference between one who says that God wills with a will which does not resemble the human will, and one who says that God knows through a knowledge which does not resemble human knowledge; in the same way as the quality of His knowledge cannot be conceived, so the quality of His will cannot be conceived.
Ghazali says:
We will now test each of these three reasons at the same time as the illusory arguments which the philosophers give in their defence.
The first reason. We say: ‘Agent’ means someone from whom there proceeds an act with the will to act according to choice and with the knowledge of the object willed. But according to the philosophers the world stands in relation to God as the effect to the cause, in a necessary connexion which God cannot be imagined to sever, and which is like the connexion between the shadow and the man, light and the sun, but this is not an act at all. On the contrary, he who says that the lamp makes the light and the man makes the shadow uses the term vaguely, giving it a sense much wider than its definition, and uses it metaphorically, relying on the fact that there is an analogy between the object originally meant by it and the object to which it is transferred, i.e. the agent is in a general sense a cause, the lamp is the cause of the light, and the sun is the cause of luminosity; but the agent is not called a creative agent from the sole fact that it is a cause, but by its being a cause in a special way, namely that it causes through will and through choice. If, therefore, one said that neither a wall, nor a stone, nor anything inanimate is an agent, and that only animals have actions, this could not be denied and his statement would not be called false. But according to the philosophers a stone has an action, namely falling and heaviness and a centripetal tendency, just as fire has an action, namely heating, and a wall has an action, namely a centripetal tendency and the throwing of a shadow, and, according to them each of these actions proceeds from it as its agent; which is absurd.’
I say:
There are in brief two points here, the first of which is that only those who act from deliberation and choice are regarded as acting causes, and the action of a natural agent producing something else is not counted among acting causes, while the second point is that the philosophers regard the procession of the world from God as the necessary connexion obtaining between shadow and the person, and luminosity and the sun, and the downward rolling in relation to the stone, but that this cannot be called an action because the action can be separatedfrom the agent.
I say:
All this is false. For the philosophers believe that there are four causes: agent, matter, form, and end. The agent is what causes some other thing to pass from potency to actuality and from nonexistence to existence; this actualization occurs sometimes from deliberation and choice, sometimes by nature, and the philosophers do not call a person who throws a shadow an agent, except metaphorically, because the shadow cannot be separated from the man, and by common consent the agent can be separated from its object, and the philosophers certainly believe that God is separated’ from the world and according to them He is not to be classed with this kind of natural cause. Nor is He an agent in the sense in which any empirical agent, either voluntary or involuntary, is; He is rather the agent of these causes, drawing forth the Universe from non-existence to existence and conserving it, and such an act is a more perfect and glorious one than any performed by the empirical agents. None of these objections therefore touch them, for they believe that God’s act proceeds from Him through knowledge, not through any necessity which calls for it, either in His essence or outside His essence, but through His grace and His bounty. He is necessarily endowed with will and choice in their highest form, since the insufficiency which is proper to the empirical willer does not pertain to Him. And these are the very words of Aristotle in one of his metaphysical treatises: We were asked how God could bring forth the world out of nothing, and convert it into something out of nothing, and our answer is this: the Agent must be such that His capacity must be proportionate to His power and His power proportionate to His will and His will proportionate to His wisdom, if not, His capacity would be weaker than His power, His power weaker than His will, and His will weaker than His wisdom. And if some of His powers were weaker than others, there would be no difference between His powers and ours, and imperfection would attach to Him as to us-a very blasphemous theory. But in the opposite case each of these powers is of the utmost perfection. When He wills He has the power, and when He has the power He has the capacity and all this with the greatest wisdom. And He exists, making what He wants out of nothing. And this is only astonishing through this imperfection which is in us. And Aristotle said also: Everything that is in this world is only set together through the power which is in it from God; if this power did not exist in the things, they could not last the twinkling of an eyes
I say:
Composite existence is of two classes; in the one class the composition is something additional to the existence of the composed, but in the other the composition is like the existence of matter and form and in these existents the existence cannot be regarded as anterior to the composition, but on the contrary the composition is the cause of their existence and anterior to it. If God therefore is the cause of the composition of the parts of the world, the existence of which is in their composition, then He is the cause of their existence and necessarily he who is the cause of the existence of anything whatever is its agent. This is the way in which according to the philosophers this question must be understood, if their system is truly explained to the student.
Ghazali says, speaking on behalf of the philosophers:
The philosophers may say: we call an object anything that has no necessary existence by itself, but exists through another, and we call its cause the agent, and we do not mind whether the cause acts by nature or voluntarily, just as you do not mind whether it acts by means of an instrument or without an instrument, and just as ‘act’ is a genus subdivided into ‘acts which occur by means of an instrument’ and ‘acts which occur without an instrument’, so it is a genus subdivided into ‘acts which occur by nature’ and ‘acts which occur voluntarily’. The proof is that, when we speak of an act which occurs by nature, our words ‘by nature’ are not contradictory to the term ‘act’; the words ‘by nature’ are not used to exclude or contradict the idea of act, but are meant only to explain the specific character of the act, just as, when we speak of an act effected directly without an instrument, there is no contradiction, but only a specification and an explanation. And when we speak of a ‘voluntary act’, there is not a redundancy as in the expression a ‘living being-man’;’ it is only an explanation of its specific character, like the expression, ‘act performed by means of an instrument’. If, however, the word ‘act’ included the idea of will, and will were essential to act, in so far as it is an act, our expression ‘natural act’ would be a contradiction.
I say:
The answer, in short, has two parts. The first is that everything that is necessary through another thing is an object of what is necessary by itself,z but this can be opposed, since that through which the ‘necessary through another’ has its necessary existence need not be an agent, unless by ‘through which it has its necessary existence’ is meant that which is really an agent, i.e. that which brings potency into act. The second part is that the term ‘agent’ seems like a genus for that which acts by choice and deliberation and for that which acts by nature; this is true, and is proved by our definition of the term ‘agent’. Only this argument wrongly creates the impression that the philosophers do not regard the first agent as endowed with will. And this dichotomy that everything is either of necessary existence by itself or existent through another is not self-evident.
Ghazali, refuting the philosophers, says:
This designation is wrong, for we do not call any cause whatsoever an agent, nor any effect an object; for, if this were so, it would be not right to say that the inanimate has no act and that only the living exhibit acts-a statement generally admitted.
I say:
His assertion that not every cause is called an agent is true, but his argument that the inanimate is not called an agent is false, for the denial that the inanimate exhibits acts excludes only the rational and voluntary act, not act absolutely, for we find that certain inanimate things have powers to actualize things like themselves; e.g. fire, which changes anything warmand dry into another fire like itself, through converting it from what it has in potency into actuality. Therefore fire cannot make a fire like itself in anything that has not the potency or that is not in readiness to receive the actuality of fire. The theologians, however, deny that fire is an agent, and the discussion of this problem will follow later. Further, nobody doubts that there are in the bodies of animals powers which make the food a part of the animal feeding itself and generally direct the body of the animal. If we suppose them withdrawn, the animal would die, as Galen says. And through this direction we call it alive, whereas in the absence of these powers we call it dead.
Ghazali goes on:
If the inanimate is called an agent, it is by metaphor, in the same way as it is spoken of metaphorically as tending and willing, since it is said that the stone falls down, because it tends and has an inclination to the centre, but in reality tendency and will can only be imagined in connexion with knowledge and an object desired and these can only be imagined in animals.
I say:
If by ‘agent’ or ‘tendency’ or ‘willing’ is meant the performance of an act of a willer, it is a metaphor, but when by these expressions is meant that it actualizes another’s potency, it is really an agent in the full meaning of the word.
Ghazali then says:
When the philosophers say that the term ‘act’ is a genus which is subdivided into ‘natural act’ and ‘voluntary act’, this cannot he conceded; it is as if one were to say that ‘willing’ is a genus which is subdivided into willing accompanied by knowledge of the object willed, and willing without knowledge of the object willed. This is wrong, because will necessarily implies knowledge, and likewise act necessarily implies will.
I say:
The assertion of the philosophers that ‘agent’ is subdivided into ‘voluntary’ and ‘non-voluntary agent’ is true, but the comparison with a division of will into rational and irrational is false, because in the definition of will knowledge is included, so that the division has no sense. But in the definition of ‘act’ knowledge is not included, because actualization of another thing is possible without knowing it. This is clear, and therefore the wise say that God’s word: ‘a wall which wanted to fall to pieces” is a metaphor.
Ghazali proceeds:
When you affirm that your expression ‘natural act’ is not a contradiction in terms you are wrong; there is as a matter of fact a contradiction when ‘natural act’ is taken in a real sense, only this contradiction is not at once evident to the understanding nor is the incompatibility of nature and act felt acutely, because this expression is employed metaphorically; for since nature is in a certain way a cause and the agent is also a cause, nature is called an agent metaphorically. The expression ‘voluntary act’ is as much redundant as the expression ‘he wills and knows what he wills’.
I say:
This statement is undoubtedly wrong, for what actualizes another thing, i.e. acts on it, is not called agent simply by a metaphor, but in reality, for the definition of ‘agent’ is appropriate to it. The division of ‘agent’ into ‘natural’ and ‘voluntary agent’ is not the division of an equivocal term, but the division of a genus. Therefore the division of ‘agent’ into ‘natural’ and ‘voluntary agent’ is right, since that which actualizes another can also be divided into these two classes.
Ghazali says:
However, as it can happen that ‘act’ is used metaphorically and also in its real sense, people have no objection in saying ‘someone acted voluntarily’, meaning that he acted not in a metaphorical sense, but really, in the way in which it is said ‘he spoke with his tongue’, or ‘he saw with his eye’. For, since one is permitted to rise ‘heart’ metaphorically for ‘sight’, and motion of the head or hand for word-for one can say ‘He nodded assent’-it is not wrong to say ‘He spoke with his tongue and he saw with his eye’, in order to exclude any idea of metaphor. This is a delicate point, but let us be careful to heed the place where those stupid people slipped.
I say:
Certainly it is a delicate point that a man with scientific pretensions should give such a bad example and such a false reason to explain the repugnance people seem to have in admitting the division of ‘act’ into ‘natural’ and ‘voluntary act’. No one ever says ‘He saw with his eye, and he saw without his eye’ in the belief that this is a division of sight; we only say ‘He saw with his eye’ to emphasize the fact that real sight is meant, and to exclude the metaphorical sense of ‘sight’. And the intelligent in fact think that for the man who understands immediately that the real meaning is intended, this connecting of sight with the eye is almost senseless. But when one speaks of ‘natural’ and ‘voluntary act’, no intelligent person disagrees that we have here a division of ‘act’. If, however, the expression ‘voluntary act’ were similar to ‘sight with the eye’ the expression ‘natural act’ would be metaphorical. But as a matter of fact the natural agent has an act much more stable than the voluntary agent, for the natural agent’s act is constant-which is not the case with the act of the voluntary agent. And therefore the opponents of the theologians might reverse the argument against them and say that ‘natural act’ is like ‘sight with the eye’ and ‘voluntary act’ is a metaphor-especially according to the doctrine of the Ash’arites, who do not acknowledge a free will in man and a power to exercise an influence on reality. And if this is the case with the agent in the empirical world, how can we know that it is an accurate description of the real Agent in the divine world to say that He acts through knowledge and will?
Ghazali says, speaking on behalf of the philosophers:
The philosophers may reply: The designation ‘agent’ is known only through language. However, it is clear to the mind that the cause of a thing can be divided into voluntary and non-voluntary cause, and it may be disputed whether or not in both cases the word ‘act’ is used in a proper sense, but it is not possible to deny this since the Arabs say that fire burns, a sword cuts, that snow makes cold, that scammony purges, that bread stills hunger and water thirst, and our expression ‘he beats’ means he performs the act of beating, and ‘it burns’ it performs the act of burning, and ‘he cuts’ he performs the act of cutting; if you say, therefore, that its use is quite metaphorical, you are judging without any evidence.
I say:
I This, in short, is a common-sense argument. The Arabs indeed call that whichexerts an influence on a thing, even if not voluntary, an agent, in a proper, not in a metaphorical, sense. This argument, however, is dialectical and of no importance.
Ghazali replies to this:
The answer is that all this is said in a metaphorical way and that only a voluntary act is a proper act. The proof is that, if we assume an event which is based on two facts, the one voluntary, the other involuntary, the mind relates the act to the voluntary fact. Language expresses itself in the same way, for if a man were to throw another into a fire and kill him, it is the man who would be called his killer, not the fire. If, however, the term were used in the same sense of the voluntary and the non-voluntary, and it were not that the one was a proper sense, the other a metaphorical, why should the killing be related to the voluntary, by language, usage, and reason, although the fire was the proximate cause of the killing and the man who threw the other into the fire did nothing but bring man and fire together? Since, however, the bringing together is a voluntary act and the influence of the fire non-voluntary, the man is called a killer and the fire only metaphorically so. This proves that the word ‘agent’ is used of one whose act proceeds from his will, and, behold, the philosophers do not regard God as endowed with will and choice.
I say:
This is an answer of the wicked who heap fallacy on fallacy. Ghazali is above this, but perhaps the people of his time obliged him to write this book to safeguard himself against the suspicion of sharing the philosophers’ view. Certainly nobody attributes the act to its instrument, but only to its first mover. He who killed a man by fire is in the proper sense the agent and the fire is the instrument of the killing, but when a man is burned by a fire, without this fact’s depending on someone’s choice, nobody would say that the fire burned him metaphorically. The fallacy he employs here is the wellknown one a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter, e.g. to say of a negro, because his teeth are white, that he is white absolutely. The philosophers do not deny absolutely that God wills, for He is an agent through knowledge and from knowledge, and He performs the better of two contrary acts, although both are possible; they only affirm that He does not will in the way that man wills.
Ghazali says, answering in defence of the philosophers:
If the philosophers say: We do not mean anything by God’s being an agent but that He is the cause of every existent besides Himself and that the world has its subsistence through Him, and if the Creator did not exist, the existence of the world could not be imagined. And if the Creator should be supposed non-existent, the world would be non-existent too, just as the supposition that the sun was non-existent would imply the non-existence of light. This is what we mean by His being an agent. If our opponents refuse to give this meaning to the word ‘act’, well, we shall not quibble about words.
I say:
Such an answer would mean that the philosophers would concede to their opponents that God is not an agent, but one of those causes without which a thing cannot reach its perfection; and the answer is wrong, for against them it might be deduced from it that the First Cause is a principle, as if it were the form of the Universe, in the way the soul is a principle for the body; no philosopher, however, affirms this.
Then Ghazali says, answering the philosophers:
We say: Our aim is to show that such is not the meaning of ‘act’ and ‘work’. These words can mean only that which really proceeds from the will. But you reject the real meaning of ‘act’, although you use this word, which is honoured amongst Muslims. But one’s religion is not perfect when one uses words deprived of their sense. Declare therefore openly that God has no act, so that it becomes clear that your belief is in opposition to the religion of Islam, and do not deceive by saying that God is the maker of the world and that the world is His work, for you use the words, but reject their real sense!
I say:
This would indeed be a correct conclusion against the philosophers, if they should really say what Ghazali makes them say. For in this case they could indeed be forced to admit that the world has neither a natural nor a voluntary agent, nor that there is another type of agents besides these two. He does not unmask their imposture by his words, but lie himself deceives by ascribing to them theories which they do not hold.
Ghazali says:
The second reason for denying that the world is according to the principle of the philosophers an act of God is based on the implication of the notion of an act. ‘Act’ applies to temporal production, but for them the world is eternal and is not produced in time. The meaning of ‘act’ is ‘to convert from not-being into being by producing it’ and this cannot be imagined in the eternal, as what exists already cannot be brought into existence. Therefore ‘act’ implies a temporal product, but according to them the world is eternal; how then could it be God’s act?
I say:
If the world were by itself eternal and existent (not in so far as it is moved, for each movement is composed of parts which are produced), then, indeed, the world would not have an agent at all. But if the meaning of ‘eternal’ is that it is in everlasting production and that this production has neither beginning nor end, certainly the term ‘production’ is more truly applied to him who brings about an everlasting production than to him who procures a limited production. In this way the world is God’s product and the name ‘production’ is even more suitable for it than the word ‘eternity’, and the philosophers only call the world eternal to safeguard themselves against the word ‘product’ in the sense of ‘a thing produced after a state of nonexistence, from something, and in time’.
Then Ghazali says, on behalf of the philosophers:
The philosophers may perhaps say: The meaning of ‘product’ is ‘that which exists after its non-existence’. Let us therefore examine if what proceeds from the agent when He produces, and what is connected with Him, is either pure existence, or pure non-existence, or both together. Now, it is impossible to say that previous non-existence was connected with Him, since the agent cannot exert influence upon non-existence, and it is equally impossible to say ‘both together’, for it is clear that nonexistence is in no way connected with the agent, for non-existence qua non-existence needs no agent at all. It follows therefore that what is connected with Him is connected with Him in so far as it is an existent, that what proceeds from Him is pure existence, and that there is no other relation to Him than that of existence. If existence is regarded as everlasting, then this relation is everlasting, and if this relation is everlasting, then the term to which this relation refers is the most illustrious and the most enduring in influence, because at no moment is non-existence connected with it. Temporal production implies therefore the contradictory statements that it must be connected with an agent, that it cannot be produced, if it is not preceded by non-existence, and that non-existence cannot be connected with the agent.
And if previous non-existence is made a condition of the existent, and it is said that what is connected with the agent is a special existence, not any existence, namely an existence preceded by non-existence, it may be answered that its being preceded by non-existence cannot be an act of an agent or a deed of a maker, for the procession of this existence from its agent cannot be imagined, unless preceded by non-existence; neither, therefore , can the precedence of this non-existence be an act of the agent and connected with him, northe fact that this existence is preceded by non-existence. Therefore to make non-existence a condition for the act’s becoming an act is to impose as a condition one whereby the agent cannot exert any influence under any condition.’
I say:
This is an argument put forward on this question by Avicenna from the philosophical side. It is sophistical, because Avicenna leaves out one of the factors which a complete division would have to state.
For he says that the act of the agent must be connected either with an existence or with a non-existence, previous to it and in so far as it is non-existence, or with both together, and that it is impossible that it should be connected with non-existence, for the agent does not bring about non-existence and, therefore, neither can it effect both together. Therefore the agent can be only connected with existence, and production is nothing but the connexion of act with existence, i.e. the act of the agent is only bringing into existence,’ and it is immaterial whether this existence be preceded by non-existence or not. But this argument is faulty, because the act of the agent is only connected with existence in a state of non-existence, i.e. existence in potentiality, and is not connected with actual existence, in so far as it is actual, nor with non-existence, in so far as it is non-existent. It is only connected with imperfect existence in which non-existence inheres. The act of the agent is not connected with non-existence, because non-existence is not actual; nor is it connected with existence which is not linked together with non-existence, for whatever has reached its extreme perfection of existence needs neither causation nor cause. But existence which is linked up with non-existence only exists as long as the producer exists. The only way to escape this difficulty is to assume that the existence of the world has always been and will always be linked together with non-existence, as is the case with movement, which is always in need of a mover. And the acknowledged philosophers believe that such is the case with the celestial world in its relation to the Creator, and a fortiori with the sublunary world. Here lies the difference between the created and the artificial, for the artificial product, once produced, is not tied up with non-existence which would be in need of an agent for the continued sustenance of the product.’
Ghazali continues:
And your statement, theologians, that what exists cannot be made to exist, if you mean by it, that its existence does not begin after its nonexistence, is true; but if you mean that it cannot become an effect at the time when it exists, we have shown that it can only become an effect at the time when it exists, not at the time when it does not exist. For a thing only exists when its agent causes it to exist, and the agent only causes it to exist at the time when, proceeding from it, it exists, not when the thing does not exist; and the causation is joined with the existence of the agent and the object, for causation is the relation between cause and effect. Cause, effect, and causation are simultaneous with existence and there is no priority here, and therefore there is causation only for what exists, if by ‘causation’ is meant the relation through which the agent and its object exist. The philosophers say: It is for this reason that we have come to the conclusion that the world, which is the work of God, is without beginning and everlasting, and that never at any moment was God not its agent, for existence is what is joined with the agent and as long as this union lasts existence lasts, and, if this union is ever discontinued, existence ceases. It is by no means what you theologians mean, that if the Creator were supposed to exist no longer, the world could still persist; you, indeed, believe that the same relation prevails as between the builder and the building, for the building persists when the builder has disappeared. But the persistence of the building does not depend on the builder, but on the strength of the structure in its coherence, for if it had not the power of coherence-if it were like water, for example-it would not be supposed to keep the shape which it received through the act of the agent.’
I say:
Possibly the world is in such a condition, but in general this argument is not sound. For it is only true that the causing agent is always connected with the effect , in so far as the effect actually exists without this actuality’s having any insufficiency and any potency, if one imagines that the essence of the effectlies in its being an effect, for then the effect can only be an effect through the causation of the agent. But if its becoming an effect through a cause is only an addition to its essence, then it is not necessary that its existence should cease when the relation between the causing agent and the effect is interrupted. If, however, it is not an addition, but its essence consists in this relation of being an effect, then what Avicenna says is true. However, it is not true of the world, for the world does not exit on account of this relation, but it exists on account of its substance and the relation is only accidental to it. Perhaps what Avicenna says is true concerning the forms of the celestial bodies, in so far as they perceive the separate immaterial forms; and the philosophers affirm this, because it is proved that there are immaterial forms whose existence consists in their thinking, whereas knowledge in this sublunary world only differs from its object because its object inheres in matter.’
Ghazali, answering the philosophers, says:
Our answer is that the act is connected with the agent only in so far as it comes into being, but not in so far as it is preceded by non-existence nor in so far as it is merely existent. According to us the act is not connected with the agent for a second moment after its coming to be, for then it exists; it is only connected with it at the time of its coming to be in so far as it comes to be and changes from non-existence into existence. If it is denied the name of becoming, it cannot be thought to be an act nor to be connected with the agent. Your statement, philosophers, that a thing’s coming to be means its being preceded by non-existence, and that its being preceded by non-existence does not belong to the act of the agent and the deed of the producer, is true; but this prior non-existence is a necessary condition for the existent’s being an act of the agent. For existence not preceded by non-existence is everlasting, and cannot be truly saidto be an act of the agent. Not all conditions necessary to make an act an act need proceed from the agent’s act; the essence, power, will, and knowledge of the agent are a condition of his being an agent, but do not derive from him. An act can only be imagined as proceeding from an existent, and the existence, will, power, and knowledge of the agent are a condition of his being an agent, although they do not derive from him.’
I say:
All this is true. The act of the agent is only connected with the effect, in so far as it is moved, and the movement from potential to actual being is what is called becoming. And, as Ghazali says, nonexistence is one of the conditions for the existence of a movement through a mover. Avicenna’s argument that when it is a condition for the act of the agent to be connected with the existence, the absence of this connexion implies that the agent is connected with its opposite, i.e. non-existence, is not true. But the philosophers affirm that there are existents whose essential specific differences consist in motion, e.g. the winds and so on; and the heavens and the sublunary bodies belong to the genus of existents whose existence lies in their movement, and if this is true, they are eternally in a continual becoming. And therefore, just as the eternal existent is more truly existent than the temporal, similarly that which is eternally in becoming is more truly coming to be than that which comes to be only during a definite time. And if the substance of the world were not in this condition of continual movement, the world would not, after its existence, need the Creator, just as a house after being completed and finished does not need the builder’s existence, unless that were true which Avicenna tried to prove in the preceding argument, that the existence of the world consists only in its relation to the agent; and we have already said that we agree with. him so far as this concerns the forms of the heavenly bodies.
Therefore the world is during the time of its existence in need of the presence of its agent for both reasons together, namely, because the substance of the world is continually in motion and because its form, through which it has its subsistence and existence, is of the nature of a relation, not of the nature of a quality, i.e. the shapes and states which have been enumerated in the chapter on quality. A form which belongs to the class of quality, and is included in it, is, when it exists and its existence is finished, in no need of an agent. All this will solve the problem for you, and will remove from you the perplexity which befalls man through these contradictory statements.’
Ghazali says, on behalf of the philosophers:
The philosophers might say: If you acknowledge that it is possible that the act should be simultaneous with the agent and not posterior to it, it follows that if the agent is temporal the act must be temporal, and if the agent is eternal the act must be eternal. But to impose as a condition that the act must be posterior in time to the agent is impossible, for when a man moves his finger in a bowl of water, the water moves at the same time as the finger, neither before nor after, for if the water moved later than the finger, finger and water would have to be in one and the same space before the water disconnected itself, and if the water moved before the finger, the water would be separated from the finger and notwithstanding its anterioritywould be an effectof the finger performed for its sake. But if we suppose the finger eternally moving in the water, the movement of the water will be eternal too, and will be, notwithstanding its eternal character, an effect and an object, and the supposition of eternity does not make this impossible. And such is the relation between the world and God.
I say:
This is true in so far as it concerns the relation of movement and mover, but in regard to the stable existent or to that which exists without moving or resting by nature (if there exist such things ) and their relation to their cause, it is not trues Let us therefore admit this relation between the agent and the world only in so far as the world is in motion. As for the fact that the act of every existent must be conjoined with its existence, this is true, unless something occurs to this existent which lies outside its nature, or one or another accident occurs to it,b and it is immaterial whether this act be natural or voluntary. See, therefore, what the Ash’arites did who assumed an eternal existent, but denied that He acted during His eternal existence, but then, however, allowed this agent to act eternally in the future, so that the eternal existence of the Eternal would become divided into two parts, an eternal past during which He does not act and an eternal future during which He acts! But for the philosophers all this is confusion and error.
Ghazali answers the philosophers on the question of priority:
We do not say that the simultaneity of agent and act is impossible, granted that the act is temporal, e.g. the motion of the water, for this happens after its non-being and therefore it can be an act, and it is immaterial whether this act be posterior to the agent or simultaneous with him. It is only an eternal act that we consider impossible, for to call an act that which does not come into being out of not-being is pure metaphor and does not conform to reality. As to the simultaneity of cause and effect, cause and effect can be either both temporal or both eternal, in the way in which it may be said that the eternal knowledge is the cause of the fact that the Eternal is knowing; we are not discussing this, but only what is called an act. For the effect of a cause is not called the act of a cause, except metaphorically. It can only be called an act on condition that it comes into being out of non-being. And if a man thinks he may describe the everlasting Eternal metaphorically as acting on something, what he thinks possible is only the use of a metaphor. And your argument, philosophers-that if we suppose the movement of the water to be eternal and everlasting with the movement of the finger, this does not prevent the movement of the water from being an act-rests on a confusion, for the finger has no act, the agent is simply the man to whom the finger belongs, that is the man who wills the movement; and, if we suppose him to be eternal, then the movement of the finger is his act, because every part of this movement comes out of not-beings and in this sense it is an act. So far as the motion of the water is concerned, we do not say that it occurs through the act of this man-it is simply an act of God. In any case, it is only an act in so far as it has come to be, and if its coming to be is everlasting, it is still an act, because it has come to be.
Then Ghazali gives the philosophers’ answer:
The philosophers may say: ‘If you acknowledge that the relation of the act to the agent, in so far as this act is an existent, is like the relation of effect and cause and you admit that the causal relation may be everlasting, we affirm that we do not understand anything else by the expression “that the world is an act” than that it is an effect having an everlasting relation to God. Speak of this as an “act” or not just as you please, for do not let us quibble about words when their sense has once been established.’
Ghazali says:
Our answer is that our aim in this question is to show that you philosophers use those venerable names without justification, and that God according to you is not a true agent, nor the world truly His act, and that you apply this word metaphorically-not in its real sense. This has now been shown.
I say:
In this argument he supposes that the philosophers concede to him that they only mean by God’s agency that He is the cause of the world, and nothing else, and that cause and effect are simultaneous. But this would mean that the philosophers had abandoned their original statement, for the effect follows only from its cause, in so far as it is a formal or final cause, but does not necessarily follow from its efficient cause, for the efficient cause frequently exists without the effect’s existing. Ghazali acts here like a guardian who tries to extract from his ward the confessionof having done things he did not allow him to do. The philosophers’ theory, indeed, is that the world has an agent acting from eternity and everlasting, i.e. converting the world eternally from non-being into being. This question was formerly a point of discussion between Aristotelians and Platonists. Since Plato believed in a beginning of the world, there could not in his system be any hesitation in assuming a creative agent for the world. But since Aristotle supposed the world to be eternal, the Platonists raised difficulties against him, like the one which occupies us here, and they said that Aristotle did not seem to admit a creator of the world. If was therefore necessary for the Aristotelians to defend him with arguments which establish that Aristotle did indeed believe that the world has a creator and an agent. This will be fully explained in its proper place.
The principal idea is that according to the Aristotelians the celestial bodies subsist through their movement, and that He who bestows this movement is in reality the agent of this movement and, since the existence of the celestial bodies only attains its perfection through their being in motion, the giver of this motion is in fact the agent of the celestial bodies. Further, they prove that God is the giver of the unity through which the world is united, and the giver of the unity which is the condition of the existence of the composite; that is to say, He provides the existence of the parts through which the composition occurs, because this action of combining is their cause (as is proved), and such is the relation of the First Principle to the whole world. And the statement that the act has come to be, is true, for it is movement, and the expression ‘eternity’ applied to it means only that it has neither a first nor a last term. Thus the philosophers do not mean by the expression ‘eternal’ that the world is eternal through eternal constituents,s for the world consists of movement. And since the Ash’arites did not understand this, it was difficult for them to attribute eternity at the same time to God and to the world. Therefore the term’ eternal becoming’ is more appropriate to the world than the term ‘eternity’.
Ghazali says:
The third reason why it is impossible for the philosophers to admit according to their principle that the world is the act of God is because of a condition which is common to the agent and the act, namely, their assertion that out of the one only one can proceed. Now the First Principle is one in every way, and the world is composed out of different constituents. Therefore according to their principle it cannot be imagined that the world is the act of God.
I say:
If one accepts this principle, and its consequences, then indeed the answer is difficult. But this principle has only been put forward by the later philosophers of Islam.’
Then Ghazali says, on behalf of the philosophers:
The philosophers may say perhaps: The world in its totality does not proceed from God without a mediator; what proceeds from Him is one single existent, and this is the first of the created principles, namely, abstract intellect, that is a substance subsisting by itself, not possessing any volume, knowing itself and knowing its principle, which in the language of the Divine Law is called ‘angel’. From it there proceeds a third principle, and from the third a fourth, and through this mediation the existent beings come to be many. The differentiation and multiplicity of the act can proceed either from a differentiation in active powers, in the way that we act differently through the power of passion and through the power of anger; or through a differentiation of matters, as the sun whitens a garment which has been washed, blackens the face of man, melts certain substances and hardens others; or through a differentiation of instruments, as one and the same carpenter saws with a saw, cuts with an axe, bores with an awl;’ or this multiplication of the act can proceed through mediation, so that the agent does one act, then this act performs another act, and in this way the act multiplies. All these divisions are impossible in the First Principle, because there is no differentiation nor duality, nor multiplicity in His essence, as will be proved in the proofs of His unity. And there is here neither a differentiation of matters-and the very discussion refers to the first effect, which is, for example, primary matter, nor a differentiation of the instrument, for there is no existent on the same level as God-and the very discussion refers to the coming into existence of the first instrument. The only conclusion possible is that the multiplicity which is in the world proceeds from God through mediation, as has been stated previously.
I say:
This amounts to saying that from the One, if He is simple, there can proceed only one. And the act of the agent can only be differentiated and multiplied either through matters (but there are no matters where He is concerned), or through an instrument (but there is no instrument with Him). The only conclusion therefore is that this happens through mediation, so that first the unit proceeds from Him, and from this unit another, and from this again another, and that it is in this way that plurality comes into existence.
Then Ghazali denies this, and says:
We answer: The consequence of this would be that there is nothing in the world composed of units, but that everything that exists is simple and one, and each unit is the effect of a superior unit and the cause of an inferior, till the series ends in an effect which has no further effect, just as the ascending series ends in a cause which has no other cause. But in reality it is not like this, for, according to the philosophers, body is composed of form and Kyle, and through this conjunction there arises one single thing; and man is composed out of body and soul and body does not arise out of soul, nor soul out of body: they exist together through another cause. The sphere, too, is, according to them, like this, for it is a body possessing a soul and the soul does not come to be through the body, nor the body through the soul; no, both proceed from another cause. How do these compounds, then, come into existence? Through one single cause? But then their principle that out of the one only one arises is false. Or through a compound cause? But then the question can be repeated in the case of this cause, till one necessarily arrives at a point where the compound and the simple meet. For the First Principle is simple and the rest are compound, and this can only be imagined through their contact. But wherever this contact takes place, this principle, that out of the one only one proceeds, is false.
I say:
This consequence, that everything which exists is simple, is a necessary consequence for the philosophers, if they assume that the First Agent is like a simple agent in the empirical world. But this consequence is binding only upon the man who applies this principle universally to everything that exists. But the man who divides existents into abstract existents and material, sensible existents, makes the principles to which the sensible existent ascends different from the principles to which the intelligible existent ascends, for he regards as the principles of the sensible existents matter and form, and he makes some of these existents the agents of others, till the heavenly body is reached, and he makes the intelligible substances ascend to a first principle which is a principle to them, in one way analogous to a formal cause, in another analogous to a final cause, and in a third way analogous to an efficient cause. All this has been proved in the works of the philosophers, and we statethis proposition here only in a general way. Therefore these difficulties do not touch them. And this is the theory of Aristotle.’
About this statement-that out of the one only one proceeds-all ancient philosophers were agreed, when they investigated the first principle of the world in a dialectical way (they mistook this investigation, however, for a real demonstration), and they all came to the conclusion that the first principle is one and the same for everything, and that from the one only one can proceed. Those two principles having been established, they started to examine where multiplicity comes from. For they had already come to the conclusion that the older theory was untenable. This theory held that the first principles are two, one for the good, one for the bad; for those older philosophers did not think that the principles of the opposites could be one and the same; they believed that the most general opposites which comprehend all opposites are the good and the bad, and held therefore that the first principles must be two. When, however, after a close examination, it was discovered that all things tend to one end, and this end is the order which exists in the world, as it exists in an army through its leader, and as it exists in cities through their government, they came to the conclusion that the world must have one highest principle; and this is the sense of the Holy Words ‘If there were in heaven and earth gods beside God, both would surely have been corrupted’. They believed therefore, because of the good which is present in everything, that evil occurs only in an accidental way, like the punishments which good governors of cities ordain; for they are evils instituted for the sake of the good, not by primary intention. For there exist amongst good things some that can only exist with an admixture of evil, for instance, in the being of man who is composed of a rational and an animal soul. Divine Wisdom has ordained, according to these philosophers, that a great quantity of the good should exist, although it had to be mixed with a small quantity of evil, for the existence of much good with a little evil is preferable to the non-existence of much good because of a little evidence.
Since therefore these later philosophers were convinced that the first principle must of necessity be one and unique, and this difficulty about the one occurred, they gave three answers to this question. Some, like Anaxagoras and his school, believe that plurality is only introduced through matter,’ some believe that plurality is introduced through the instruments, and some believe that plurality comes only through the mediators; and the first who assumed this was Plato. This is the most convincing answer, for in the case of both the other solutions one would have to ask again; from where does the plurality come in the matters and in the instruments? But this difficulty touches anyonewho acknowledges that from the one only one can proceed: he has to explain how plurality can derive from the one. Nowadays, however, the contrary of this theory, namely, that out of the one all things proceed by one first emanation, is generally accepted, and with our contemporaries we need discuss only this latter statement.
The objection which Ghazali raises against the Peripatetics, that, if plurality were introduced through mediators, there could only arise a plurality of qualitatively undifferentiated agglomerates which could only form a quantitative plurality, does not touch them. For the Peripatetics hold that there exists a twofold plurality, the plurality of simple beings, those beings namely that do not exist in matter, and that some of these are the causes of others and that they all ascend to one unique cause which is of their own genus, and is the first being of their genus, and that the plurality of the heavenly bodies only arises from the plurality of these principles; and that the plurality of the sublunary world comes only from matter and form and the heavenly bodies. So the Peripatetics are not touched by this difficulty. The heavenly bodies are moved primarily through their movers, which are absolutely immaterial, and the forms of these heavenly bodies are acquired from these movers and the forms in the sublunary world are acquired from the heavenly bodies and also from each other, indifferently, whether they are forms of the elements which are in imperishable prime matters or forms of bodies composed out of the elements, and, indeed, the composition in this sublunary world arises out of the heavenly bodies. This is their theory of the order which exists in the world. The reasons which led the philosophers to this theory cannot be explained here, since they built it on many principles and propositions, which are proved in many sciences and through many sciences in a systematic way. But when the philosophers of our religion, like Farabi and Avicenna, had once conceded to their opponents that the agent in the divine world is like the agent in the empirical, and that from the one agent there can arise but one object (and according to all the First was an absolutely simple unity), it became difficult for them to explain how plurality could arise from it. This difficulty compelled them finally to regard the First as different from the mover of the daily circular movement; they declared that from the First, who is a simple existent, the mover of the highest sphere proceeds, and from this mover, since he is of a composite nature, as he is both conscious of himself and conscious of the First, a duality, the highest sphere, and the mover of the second sphere, the sphere under the highest can arise. This, however, is a mistake,’ according to philosophical teaching, for thinker and thought are one identical thing in human intellect and this is still more true in the case of the abstract intellects. This does not affect Aristotle’s theory, for the individual agent in the empirical world, from which there can only proceed one single act, can only in an equivocal way be compared to the first agent. For the first agent in the divine world is an absolute agent, while the agent in the empirical world is a relative agent, and from the absolute agent only an absolute act which has no special individual object can proceed. And thereby Aristotle proves that the agent of the human intelligibles is an intellect free from matter, since this agent thinks all things, and in the same way he proves that the passive intellect is ingenerable and incorruptible,s because this intellect also thinks all things.
According to the system of Aristotle the answer on this point is that everything whose existence is only effected through a conjunction of parts, like the conjunction of matter and form, or the conjunction of the elements of the world, receives its existence as a consequence of this conjunction. The bestower of this conjunction is, therefore, the bestower of existence. And since everything conjoined is only conjoined through a unity in it, and this unity through which it is conjoined must depend on a unity, subsistent by itself, and be related to it, there must exist a single unity, subsistent by itself, and this unity must of necessity provide unity through its own essence. This unity is distributed in the different classes of existing things, according to their natures, and from this unity, allotted to the individual things, their existence arises; and all those unities lead upwards to the First Monad, as warmth which exists in all the individual warm things proceeds from primal warmth, which is fire, and leads upwards to it? By means of this theory Aristotle connects sensible existence with intelligible, saying that the world is one and proceeds from one, and that this Monad is partly the cause of unity, partly the cause of plurality. And since Aristotle was the first to find this solution, and because of its difficulty, many of the later philosophers did not understand it, as we have shown. It is evident, therefore, that there is a unique entity from which a single power emanates through which all beings exist. And since they are many, it is necessarily from the Monad, in so far as it is one, that plurality arises or proceeds or whatever term is to be used. This is the sense of Aristotle’s theory, a sense very different from that in which those thinkers believe who affirm that from the one only one can proceed. See therefore how serious this error proved among the philosophers! You should, therefore, see for youself in the books of the ancients whether these philosophical theories are proved, not in the works of Avicenna and others who changed the philosophical doctrine in its treatment of metaphysics so much that it became mere guessing.
Ghazali says, on behalf of the philosophers:
It may be said: If the philosophical theory is properly understood, the difficulties disappear. Existents can be divided into what exists in a substratum, like accidents and forms, and what does not exist in a substratum. The latter can be divided again into what serves as a substratum for other things, e.g. bodies, and what does not exist in a substratum, e.g. substances which subsist by themselves. These latter again are divided into those which exert an influence on bodies and which we call souls, and those which exert an influence not on bodies but on souls, and which we call abstract intellects. Existents which inhere in a substratum, like accidents, are temporal and have temporal causes which terminate in a principle, in one way temporal, in another way everlasting, namely, circular movement. But we are not discussing this here. Here we are discussing only those principles which exist by themselves and do not inhere in a substratum, which are of three kinds: (i) bodies, which are the lowest type, (ii) abstract intellects, which are not attached to bodies, either by way of action or by being impressed upon them, which are the highest type, and (iii) souls, which are the intermediate agencies, attached to the bodies in a certain way, namely, through their influence and their action upon them, and which stand midway in dignity; they undergo an influence from the intellects and exert an influence upon the bodies.
Now the number of bodies is ten. There are nine heavens, and the tenth body is the matter which fills the concavity of the sphere of the moon. The nine heavens are animated; they possess bodies and souls, and they have an order in existence which we shall mention here. From the existence of the First Principle there emanates the first intellect-an existent which subsists by itself, immaterial, not impressed on body, conscious of its principle and which we philosophers call First Intellect, but which (for we do not quibble about words) may be called angel, or intellect, or what you will. From its existence there derive three things, an intellect, the soul, and the body of the farthest sphere, i.e. the ninth heaven. Then from the second intellect there derive a third intellect and the soul and the body of the sphere of the fixed stars, then from the third intellect there derive a fourth intellect and the soul and the body of the sphere of Saturn, then from the fourth intellect there derive a fifth intellect and the soul and the body of the sphere of Jupiter, and so on till one arrives at the intellect from which there derive the intellect, the soul and the body of the sphere of the moon, and this last intellect is that which is called the active intellect. Then there follows that which fills the sphere of the moon, namely, the matter which receives generation and corruption from the active intellect and from the natures of the spheres. Then through the action of the movements of the spheres and the stars the matters are mixed in different mixtures from which the minerals, vegetables, and animals arise. It is not necessary that from each intellect another intellect should derive endlessly, for these intellects are of a different kind, and what is valid for the one is not valid for the other. It follows from this that the intellects after the First Principle are ten in number and that there are nine spheres, and the sum of these noble principles after the First Principle is therefore nineteen; and that under each of the primary intellects there are three things, another intellect and a soul and body of a sphere. Therefore there must be in each intellect a triple character, and in the first effect a plurality can only be imagined in this way: (i) it is conscious of its principle, (ii) it is conscious of itself, (iii) it is in itself possible, since the necessity of its existence derives from another. These are three conditions, and the most noble of these three effects must be related to the most noble of these conditions. Therefore the intellect proceeds from the first effect; in so far as the first effect is conscious of its principle; the soul of the sphere proceeds from the first effect, in so far as the first effect is conscious of itself; and the body of the sphere proceeds from the first effect, in so far as by itself the first effect belongs to possible existence. We must still explain why this triple character is found in the first effect, although its principle is only one. We say that from the First Principle only one thing proceeds, namely, the essence of this intellect through which it is conscious of itself. The effect, however, must by itself become conscious of its principle, and this kind of consciousness cannot derive from its cause. Also the effect by itself belongs to possible existence, and i cannot receive this possibility from the First Principle, but possesses it in its own essence. We do indeed regard it as possible that one effect should proceed from the one, although this effect possesses by itself and not through its principle certain necessary qualities, either relative or nonrelative. In this way a plurality arises, and so it becomes the principle of the existence of plurality. Thus the composite can meet the simple, as their meeting must needs take place and cannot take place in any other g manner, and this is the right and reasonable explanation, and it is in this way that this philosophical theory must be understood.
I say:
All these are inventions fabricated against the philosophers by Avicenna, Farabi, and others. But the true theory of the ancient philosophers is that there are principles which are the celestial bodies, and that the principles of the celestial bodies, which are immaterial existents, are the movers of those celestial bodies, and that the celestial bodies move towards them in obedience to them and out of love for them, to comply with their order to move and to understand them, and that they are only created with a view to movement. For when it was found that the principles which move the celestial bodies are immaterial and incorporeal, there was no way left to them in which they might move the bodies other than by ordering them to move. And from this the philosophers concluded that the celestial bodies are rational animals, conscious of themselves and of their principles, which move them by command. And since it was established-in the De Anima-that there is no difference between knowledge and the object of knowledge, except for the latter’s being in matter,of necessity the substance of immaterial beings-if there are such -had to be knowledge or intellect or whatever you wish to call it. And the philosophers knew that these principles must be immaterial, because they confer on the celestial bodies everlasting movement in which there is no fatigue or weariness,’ and that anything which bestows such an everlasting movement must be immaterial, and cannot be a material power. And indeed the celestial body acquires its permanence only through these immaterial principles. And the philosophers understood that the existence of these immaterial principles must be connected with a first principle amongst them; if not, there could be no order in the world. You can find these theories in the books of the philosophers and, if you want to make sure of the truth in these matters, you will have to consult them. It also becomes clear from the fact that all the spheres have the daily circular movement, although besides this movement they have, as the philosophers had ascertained, their own special movements, that He who commands this movement must be the First Principle, i.e. God, and that He commands the other principles to order the other movements to the other spheres. Through this heaven and earth are ruled as a state is ruled by the commands of the supreme monarch, which, however, are transmitted to all classes of the population by the men he has appointed for this purpose in the different affairs of the state. As it says in the Qur’an: ‘And He inspired every Heaven with its bidding.This heavenly injunction and this obedience are the prototypes of the injunction and obedience imposed on man because he is a rational animal. What Avicenna says of the derivation of these principles from each other is a theory not known amongst the ancients, who merely state that these principles hold certain positions in relation to the First Principle, and that their existence is only made real through this relation to the First Principle. As is said in the Qur’an: ‘There is none amongst us but has his appointed place. It is the connexion which exists between them which brings it about that some are the effect of others and that they all depend on the First Principle. By ‘agent’ and ‘object’, ‘creator’ and ‘creature’, in so far as it concerns this existence nothing more can be understood than just this idea of connexion. But what we said of this connexion of every existent with the One is something different from what is meant by ‘agent’ and ‘object’, ‘maker’ and ‘product’ in this sublunary world. If you imagine a ruler who has many men under his command who again have others under their command, and if you imagine that those commanded receive their existence only through receiving this command and through their obedience to this command, and those who are under those commanded can only exist through those commanded, of necessity the first ruler will be the one who bestows on all existents the characteristic through which they become existent, and that which exists through its being commanded will only exist because of the first ruler. And the philosophers understood that this is what is meant by the divine laws when they speak of creation, of calling into existence out of nothing, and of command. This is tire best way to teach people to understand the philosophical doctrine without tile ignominy attaching to it, which seems to attach when you listen to the analysis Ghazali gives of it here. Tire philosophers assert that all this is proved in their books, and the man who, (raving fulfilled the conditions they impose,’ is able to study their works will find the truth of what they say---or perhaps its opposite--and will not understand Aristotle’s theory or Plato’s in any other sense than that here indicated. And their philosophy is tire highest point human intelligence can reach. It may be that, Nvlrerr it man discover, these explanations of philosophical theory, lie will find that they happen not only to be true but to be generally acknowledged, and teachings which are f;errerally acceptable are pleasing and delightful to all.
One of the premisses from which this explanation is deduced is that when one observes this sublunary world, one finds that what is called ‘living’ and ‘knowing’ moves on its own account in welldefined movements towards well-defined ends and well-defined acts from which new well-defined acts arise. For this reason the theologians say that any act can only proceed from a living, knowing being. When one has found this first premiss, that what moves in welldefined movements from which arise well-defined and ordered actions is living and knowing, and one joins to this a second premiss which can be verified by the senses, that the heavens move on their own account in well-defined movements from which there follow in the existents under them well-defined acts, order, and rank through which these existents under them receive their subsistence, one deduces from this, no doubt, a third principle, namely, that the heavenly bodies are living beings endowed with perception. That from their movements there follow well-defined acts from which this sublunary world, its animals, vegetables, and minerals receive their subsistence and conservation , is evident from observation, for, were it not that the sun in its ecliptic approaches the sublunary world and recedes from it, there would not be the four seasons, and without tile four seasons there would be no plants and no animals, and the orderly origination of elements out of each other necessary for the conservation of their existence would not take place. For instance, when the sun recedes towards tile south the air in the north becomes cold and rains occur and tire production of the watery element increases, whereas in tile south tile production of the airy element becomes greater; whereas in summer, when the sun approaches our zenith, the opposite takes place. Those actions which the sun exercises everlastingly through its varying distance from the different existents which always occupy one and the same place are also found in the moon and all the stars which have oblique spheres, and they produce tile four seasons through their circular movements, and the most important of all these movements, in its necessity for tire existence and conservation of the creation, is tire highest circular movement which produces day and night. The Venerable Book refers in several verses to the providential care for man which arises out of God’s subjection of all tile heavens to His bidding, as, for instance, in tile Qur’anic verse ‘And the sun and the moon and the stars are subjected to His bidding’, and wlrcn man observes these acts and this guidance which proceed necessarily and permanently from tire movcnrcnts of tile stars, and sees how these stars move in fixed movements, and drat they have well-defined shapes and move in well-defined directions towards well-defined actions in opposite motions, he understands that these well-defined acts can only arise from beings perceptive, living, capable of choice and of willing.
And he becomes still more convinced of this when he sees that many beings in this world which have small, despicable, miserable, and insignificant bodies are not wholly devoid of life, notwithstanding the smallness of’ their size, the feebleness of their powers, the shortness of their lives, the insignificance of their bodies; and that divine munificence has bestowed on them life and perception, through which they direct themselves and conserve their existence. And he knows with absolute certainty that the heavenly bodies are better fitted to possess life and perception than the bodies of this sublunary world, because of the size of their bodies, the magnificence of their existence, and the multitude of their lights,’ as it says in the Divine Words: ‘Surely the creation of the heavens and the earth is greater than the creation of man, but most men know it not. But especially when he notices how they direct the living beings of this sublunary world, does he understand with absolute certainty that they are alive, for the living can only be guided by a being leading a more perfect life. And when man observes these noble, living, rational bodies, capable of choice, which surround us, and recognizes a third principle, namely, that they do not need for their own existence the providence with which they guide the sublunary world, he becomes aware that they are commanded to perform these movements and to control the animals, vegetables, and minerals of this sublunary world, and that He who commands them is not one of them and that He is necessarily incorporeal (for, if not, He would be one of them) and that all these heavenly bodies control the existents which are under them, but serve Him, who for His existence is in no need of them. And were it not for this Commander, they would not give their care everlastingly and continuously to this sublunary world which they guide willingly, without any advantage to themselves, especially in this act. They movethus by way of command and obligation the heavens which repair to them, only in order to conserve this sublunary world and to uphold its existence. And the Commander is God (glory be to Him), and all this is the meaning of the Divine Words ‘We come willingly’.
And another proof of all this is that, if a man sees a great many people, distinguished and meritorious, applying themselves to definite acts without a moment’s interruption, although these acts are not necessary for their own existence and they do not need them, it is absolutely evident to him that these acts have been prescribed and ordered to them and that they have a leader who has obliged them in his everlasting service to act continually for the good of others. This leader is the highest among them in power and rank and they are, as it were, his submissive slaves. And this is the meaning to which the Venerable Book refers in the words: ‘Thus did we show Abraham the kingdom of heaven. and the earth that he should be of those who are safe. ‘ And when man observes still another thing, namely, that all the seven planets in their own special movements are subservient to their universal daily motion and that their own bodies as parts of the whole are submissive to the universal body, as if they were all one in fulfilling this service, he knows again with absolute certainty that each planet has its own commanding principle, supervising it as a deputy of the first Commander. Just as, in the organization of armies, l where each body of troops has one commander, called a centurion, each centurion is subordinate to the one Commander-in-chief of the army, so also in regard to the movements of the heavenly bodies which the ancients observed. They number somewhat more than forty, of which seven or eight’-for the ancients disagreed about this-dominate the others and themselves depend on the first Commander, praise be to Him! Man acquires this knowledge in this way, whether or not lie knows how the principle of the creation of these heavenly bodies acts, or what the connexion is between the existence of these commanders and the first Commander. In any case lie does not doubt that, if these heavenly bodies existed by themselves, that is, if they were eternal and had no cause, they might refuse to serve their own commanders or might not obey them, and the commanders might refuse to obey the first Commander. But, since it is not possible for them to behave in this way, the relation between them and the first Commander is determined by absolute obedience, and this means nothing more than that they possess this obedience in the essence of their being, not accidentally, as is the case in the relation between master and servant. Servitude, therefore, is not something additional to their essence, but these essences subsist through servitude and this is the meaning of the Divine Words: ‘There is none in the heavens or the earth but comes to the Merciful as a servant. And their possession is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth which God showed to Abraham, as it is expressed in the Devine Words: ‘Thus did we show Abraham the kingdom of heaven and earth that he should be of those who are safe. Therefore you will understand that the creation of these bodies and the principle of their becoming cannot be like the coming to be of the bodies of this sublunary world, and that the human intellect is too weak to understand how this act works, although it knows that this act exists. He who tries to compare heavenly with earthly existence, and believes that the Agent of the divine world acts in the way in which an agent in this sublunary world works, is utterly thoughtless, profoundly mistaken, and in complete error.
This is the extreme limit we can reach in our understanding of the theories of the ancients about the heavenly bodies, of their proof for the existence of a Creator for these bodies who is immaterial, and of their statements concerning the immaterial existents under Him, one of which is the soul. But to believe in His existence as if He were the cause through which these bodies had been produced in time, in the way we see the production of the bodies of this sublunary world, as the theologians desired-this, indeed, is very difficult, and the premisses they use for its proof do not lead them where they desire. We shall show this later, when we discuss the different proofs for the existence of God.
And since this has been firmly established, we shall now go back to relate and refute in detail what Ghazali tells of the philosophers, and to show the degree of truth reached by his assertions, for this is the primary intention of this book.
Ghazali says, refuting the philosophers:
What you affirm are only suppositions and in fact you do nothing but add obscurities to obscurities. If a man were to say that he had seen such things in a dream, it would be a proof of his bad constitution, or if one should advance such arguments in juridical controversies, in which everything under discussion is conjectural, one would say these were stupidities which could not command any assent.
I say:
This is very much the way the ignorant treat the learned and the vulgar the eminent, and in this way, too, the common people behave towards the products of craftsmanship. For, when the artisans show the common people the products of their craftsmanship which possess many qualities from which they draw wonderful actions, the masses scoffat them and regard them as insane, whereas in reality they themselves are insane and ignorant in comparison with the wise. With such utterances as these the learned and the thoughtful need not occupy themselves. What Ghazali ought to have done, since he relates these theories, is to show the motives which led to them, so that the reader might compare them with the arguments through which he wants to refute them.
Ghazali says:
The ways of refuting such theories are countless, but we shall bring here a certain number. The first is that we say: You claim that one of the meanings of plurality in the first effect is that it is possible in its existence, but we ask whether its being possible in its existence is identical with its being or something different? If you say ‘identical’, then no plurality proceeds from it, but if you say that it is different, why then do you not assert that there is a plurality in the First Principle, for it not only has existence, but is necessary in its existence, and existence and necessary existence are not identical. Therefore, because of this plurality in the First Principle, let us allow that different entities proceed from it. If it is said: ‘Necessity of existence cannot mean anything but existence’, we answer: ‘Possibility of existence cannot mean anything but existence. If, however, you say: ‘Its existence can be known without its possibility being known, and therefore they are different,’ we answer: ‘In the same way the existence of the necessary existent can be known without its necessity being known, unless another proof is added,’ let them therefore be different! Generally speaking, existence is a universal which can be divided into necessary and possible, and if the one specific difference is an addition to the universal, the other specific difference is also an addition, for both cases are the same. If you say, ‘It possesses the possibility of its existence through itself and its existence through another, how then can what it possesses through itself and what it possesses through another be identical?’ we answer: ‘How then can the necessity of its being be identical with its being, so that the necessity of its existence can be denied and its existence affirmed? And to God, the One, the Absolute Truth, negation and affirmation cannot be applied equivocally, for one cannot say of Him that He is and is not, or that His existence is at the same time necessary or not necessary; but it can be said of Him that He exists, but that His existence is not necessary, as it can be said of Him that He exists, but that His existence is not possible. And it is through this that His Unity can be recognized. But this unity in the First cannot be upheld, if what you say is true, that possibility of existence is something different from the possible existent.
I say:
Ghazali affirms that, when we say of a thing that it is possible in its existence, this must either mean that it is identical with its existence or different from it, i.e. something additional to its existence. If it is identical, there is no plurality, and the statement of the philosophers that there is a plurality in the possible existent has no sense. If, however, it is not identical, the philosophers will have to make the same admission about the necessary existent, i.e. that there is a plurality in it, but this is in contradiction to their own principle. This reasoning, however, is not valid, for Ghazali has overlooked a third case, namely, that necessity of being might be not something added to existence outside the soul but a condition’ in the necessary existent which adds nothing to its essence; it might be said to refer to the denial of its being the effect of something else, a denial of that which is affirmed of all other entities, just as, when we say of something that it is one, nothing additional to its essence existing outside the soul is meant-as is, on the contrary, the case when we speak of a white existent-but only a negative condition, namely, indivisibility. In the same way, when we speak of the necessary existent, we mean by the necessity of His existence a negative condition which is the consequence of His existence, namely, that His existence is necessary through Himself, not through something else. And also when we speak of the existent which is possible through itself, it is not something additional to its essence outside the soul-as is the case with the real possible-that should be understood, but merely that its essence determines that its existence can become necessary only through a cause; what is meant, therefore, is an essence which will not be by itself necessary in its existence when its cause is removed and therefore is not a necessary existent, i.e. it is denied the quality of necessary existence. It is as if Ghazali said that the necessary existent is partially necessary through itself, partially through a cause, and that which is necessary through a cause is not necessary through itselfb Nobody doubts that these specific differences are neither substantial differences which divide the essence nor additions to the essence, but that they are only negative or relative relations, just as, when we say that a thing exists, the word ‘exists’ does not indicate an entity added to its essence outside the soul, which is the case when we say of a thing that it is white. It is here that Avicenna erred, for he believed that unity is an addition to the essence and also that existence, when we say that a thing exists, is an addition to the things This question will be treated later. And the first to develop this theory of the existent, possible by itself and necessary through another, was Avicenna; for him possibility was a quality in a thing, different from the thing in which the possibility is, and from this it seems to follow that what is under the First is composed of two things, one to which possibility is attributed, the other to which necessity is attributed; but this is a mistaken theory. But he who has understood our explanation will not be concerned about the difficulty which Ghazali adduces against Avicenna. The only question he will have to ask, when he has understood the meaning of ‘possibility of existence’ for the first effect, is whether this possibility brings about a compound character in the first effect or not, for if the quality is relative, it does not bring about a compound character. For not all the different dispositions which can be imagined in a thing need determine additional qualities in its essence outside the soul; indeed, this is the case with the disposition of privations and relations, and for this reason certain philosophers do not count the category of relation among things which exist outside the soul, i.e. the ten categories. Ghazali, however, implies in his argument that any additional meaning must apply to an additional entity actually outside the soul; but this is a mistake, and a sophistical argument. This follows from his words
Generally speaking, existence is a universal which can be divided into necessary and possible, and if the one specific difference is an addition to the universal, the other specific difference also is an addition, for both cases are the same.
But the division of existence into possible and necessary is not like the division of animal into rational and irrational, or into walking, swimming, and flying animals, for those things are additional to the genus and provide additional species-animality is their common concept and they are specific differences added to it. But the possible into which Avicenna divides existence is not an entity actually outside the soul, and his theory is wrong, as we said before. For the existence which for its existence is in need of a cause can, as an entity by itself, only be understood as non-existence-that is to say, anything that exists through another thing must be non-existent by itself, unless its nature is the nature of the true possible. Therefore the division of existence into necessary and possible existence is not a valid one, if one does not mean by ‘possible’ the true possible; but we will treat of this later. The summary of what we said here is that the existent can be divided either into essential differences or into relative conditions or into accidents additional to its essence; out of the division into essential differences there must necessarily result a plurality of acts which arise out of the existent, but out of the division into relational and accidental dispositions no such plurality of different acts results. And if it should be claimed that out of relational qualities a plurality of acts results, well then, a plurality will proceed from the First Principle of necessity without need of the intervention of an effect as the principle of plurality; on the other hand, if it should be claimed that out of relational qualities no plurality of acts results, well then, out of the relational qualities of the first effect also there will result no plurality of acts, and this latter assumption is the better.’
Ghazali says:
How then can what it possesses through itself, and what it possesses through another, be identical?
But how can this same man who affirms that possibility exists only in the mind, say such a thing? Why then does he not apply this doctrine here, for it is not impossible for the one essence to be positive and negative in its relations without there resulting a plurality in this essence-which, however, Ghazali denies. But if you have understood this, you will be able to solve the problem Ghazali poses in this section.
If it is said: ‘It follows from this that there is no composition, either in existence, necessary by itself, or in existence, necessary through another,’ we answer: As to what is necessary through another, the mind perceives in it a composition through cause and effect; if it is a body , there must be in it both a unity actually, and a plurality potentially; if it is, however, incorporeal, the mind does not perceive a plurality either in act or in potency For this reason the philosophers call this kind of existent simple, but they regard the cause as more simple than the effect and they hold that the First is the most simple of them all, because it cannot be understood as having any cause or effect at all. But composition can be understood of the principles which come after the First; therefore, according to the philosophers, the second principle is more simple than the third, and it is in this way that their theory must be understood. The meaning of ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ in these existents is that a potential plurality (as it were) exists in them which shows itself in the effect, i.e. there proceeds out of it a plurality of effects which it never contains actually in any definite moments If the hearer has understood their theory in this way and accepted it, he will see that they are not affected by the objections of Ghazali. But one should not understand this theory in the way Ghazali does, namely, that out of the second principle, because it knows its own essence and knows its principle, and therefore possesses two forms or a dual existence, there proceed two different things, for this is a false theory. For this would mean that this second principle is composed of more than one form and that therefore this form’ is one in its substratum, many by its definition, as is the case with the soul. But the theologians keep tenaciously to this false explanation in their statements about the derivation of these principles from each other, as if they wanted to understand the divine through an analogy with perceptible acts; indeed, when metaphysics contains such theories, it becomes more conjectural than jurisprudence. You will have seen from this that the conclusion Ghazali wants the philosophers to draw concerning the plurality in the necessary existent, because of the plurality which he considers must exist in the possible existent, has no validity. For, if possibility were understood as real possibility, it would indeed imply here a plurality, but since this is impossible, according to what we have said and shall show later, nothing similar follows concerning the necessary existent. But if possibility is understood as being a concept of the mind, it follows that neither the necessary existent nor the possible existent must be regarded as composite for this reason; the only reason why composition must be admitted here is because of the relation of cause ; and effect.
Ghazali says:
The second objection is that we say: ‘Is the knowledge the first effect has of its principle identical with its own existence and with the knowledge it has of itself?’ If so, there is only a plurality in the expression used to describe the essence, not in the essence itself; if not, this plurality will exist also in the First, for He knows Himself and He knows others.
I say:
What is true is that the knowledge the first effect has of its principle is identical with its own essence and that the first effect belongs to the domain of relation and is therefore of a lesser rank than the First who belongs to the domain of what exists by itself. It is true, according to the philosophers, that the First thinks only His own essencenot something relative, namely, that He is a principle-but His essence, according to the philosophers, contains all intellects, nay, all existents, in a nobler and more perfect way than they all possess in reality, as we shall explain later. Therefore this theory does not imply the abominable consequences he ascribes to it.
Ghazali says:
It may be said by the philosophers that His knowing Himself is identical with His essence, and that he who does not know that he is a principle for others does not know his own essence, for knowledge conforms to the thing known and refers therefore to His essence.
I say:
This statement is wrong, for His being a principle is something relative and cannot be identical with His essence. If He could think that He is a principle, He would be conscious of the things the principle of which He is, in the way these things really exist, and in this case the higher would be perfected through the lower, for the thing known is the perfection of the knower according to the philosophers, as is set forth in the sciences about the human intellect.’
Ghazali says:
But we answer: In this case the knowledge the effect has of itself is identical with its essence, for it thinks with its substance and knows itself, and intellect and knower and thing known are all one. Therefore, if its knowing itself is identical with its essence, well then, let it think itself as the effect of a cause, for this it really is. But the intellect conforms to the thing known; therefore all this refers solely to its essence and so there is no plurality. If, indeed, there is a plurality, it must exist in the First. Therefore, let differentiation proceed from the First.
I say:
What he says here of the philosophers, about the exclusive existence of a plurality in the principles under the First Principle, is wrong and does not follow from their principles. There is, according to them, no plurality in these intellects, and they do not distinguish themselves by simplicity and plurality, but only by being cause and effect. And the difference between the knowledge of the First Principle, as knowing itself, and the knowledge of the other principles, as knowing themselves, is that the First Principle thinks itself as existing by itself, not as being related to a cause, whereas the other intellects think themselves as related to their cause and in this way plurality is introduced into them. They need not all have the same degree of simplicity, since they are not of the same rank in relation to the First Principle and none of them is simple in the sense in which the First Principle is simple, because the First Principle is regarded as an existence by itself whereas they are in related existence.
And as to Ghazali’s words:
Therefore, if its knowing itself is identical with its essence, well then, let it think itself as the effect of a cause, for this it really is. But the intellect conforms to the thing known, and therefore all this refers solely to its essence and so there is no plurality. If, indeed, there is a plurality, it must exist in the First Principle.
I say:
It does not follow from the fact that intellect and the thing known are identical in the separate intellects that they are all similar in simplicity, for in this, according to the philosophers, some are superior to others in a greater or lesser degree; absolute simplicity is only found in the First Intellect, and the reason is that the essence of the First Intellect is subsistent by itself, and the other intellects, when they think themselves, are conscious that they subsist by it; if intellect and the intelligible were in each of them of the same degree of unity as in the First Principle, either the essence existing by reason of itself and the essence existing by reason of another would be congruous, or intellect would not conform to the nature of the intelligible thing;’ which is impossible, according to the philosophers. All these arguments and their answers, as set forth by Ghazali, are dialectical and the only man who can-notwithstanding the deficiency of the human understanding concerning these questions-give a demonstrative argument about them is the man who knows (to begin with) what the intellect is, and the only man who knows what the intellect is is the man who knows what the soul is, and the only man who knows what the soul is is the man who knows what a living being is. There is no sense in discussing these matters in a superficial way and according to the common notions, which do not contain specific knowledge and are not properly related to the problem. To discuss these questions, before knowing what the intellect is, is nothing more than babbling. The Ash’arites, therefore, when they relate the philosophical doctrines, make them extremely hateful and something very different from even the first speculation of man about what exists.
Ghazali says:
Let us therefore drop the claim of its absolute unity, if this unity is annulled through plurality of this kind.
I say:
Ghazali means that, when the philosophers assume that the First thinks its own essence and knows through this that it is the cause of others, they must conclude that it is not absolutely one. For it has not yet been proved that God must be absolutely one. This is the theory of some Peripatetics who interpreted it as the theory of Aristotle himself.
Ghazali says:
If it is said that the First knows only its own essence, and the knowledge of its own essence is identical with its essence, for intelligence, thinker, and intelligible are all one and it does not know anything but itself-this can be refuted in two ways. First, because of its worthlessness this theory was abandoned by Avicenna and other philosophers of repute, who affirm that the First knows itself as the principle of what emanates from it and knows all other existents in their species by a universal thought, and not individually. For they repudiate the theory that there emanates out of the First Principle, which does not know what emanates from it, only one intellect; that its effect is an intellect from which there emanates an intellect and the soul and the body of a sphere, and that this intellect knows itself and its three effects, whereas its cause and principle knows only itself. For according to this theory the effect is superior to the cause, since from the cause only one thing emanates, whereas from the effect three things emanate; moreover, the First Principle knows only itself, but the effect knows its principle and effects besides itself. Who can be satisfied with the idea that such words can apply to the status of God, for indeed they make Him lower than any of His creatures, who know themselves and know Him, and he who knows Him and knows himself is of a nobler rank than He is, since He knows none but Himself. Their profound thoughts about God’s glory end therefore in a denial of everything that is understood by His greatness, and assimilate the state of God to that of a dead body which has no notion of what happens in the world, with the sole exception that God possesses self-knowledge. So does God deal with those who turn aside from His way and deviate from the path of His guidance, denying His words: ‘I did not make them witnesses of the creation of the heavens and the earth nor of the creation of themselves, ‘ who think wicked thoughts about God, who believe that the powers of man suffice to reach the essence of the divine, who, deceived in their minds, believe that the human understanding is competent to free itself from the authority of the prophets and from obedience to them. For no doubt they are now forced to acknowledge that the quintessence of their thought is reduced to absurdities which would make one wonder if they were told in a dream.
I say:
One who wants to enter deeply into these speculations must know that much of what is firmly established in the speculative sciences seems at first sight, and compared to the opinions the common man holds about them, like the visions of a dreamer, as Ghazali truly says; many of these truths are deduced from a different kind of premisses from that which satisfies the masses; indeed there is no other way for anyone to become convinced of their truth than that of comprehending them by logical proof and evidence. If, for example, the common man, and even he who has reached a somewhat higher degree of culture, is told that the sun, which appears to the eye as being the size of a foot, is about a hundred and seventy times bigger than the earth, he will say that it is absurd, and will regard him who believes it as a dreamer; and it is difficult for us to convince him through propositions which he can easily understand and acknowledge in a short time. The only way, indeed, to attain such knowledge is through deductive proof-that is, for the man who is amenable to proof. If it is the case even with geometrical questions and mathematical problems in general, that, when a solution is explained to the common man, it will appear to him fallacious and open to criticism at first sight and to have the character of a dream, how much more this will be the case in the metaphysical sciences, since for this kind of knowledge there are no plausible premisses which satisfy the superficial understanding, by which I mean the understanding of the masses. One might say that the final knowledge the understanding can reach will seem to the common man at first sight something absurd. And this happens not only in the theoretical sciences but in the practical sciences as well. Therefore, the assumption that one of the sciences should vanish and then come into existence again, at first sight would seem to be impossible. For this reason many have thought that those sciences are of supernatural origin and some attribute them to the Jinn, others to the prophets, so that Ibn Hazm goes so far as to affirm that the strongest proof of the existence of prophecy is the existence of these sciences. Therefore, if a lover of truth finds a theory reprehensible and does not find plausible premisses which remove its reprehensible character, he must not at once believe that the theory is false, but must inquire how he who puts it forward has arrived at it, must employ much time in learning this, and follow the systematic order corresponding to the nature of the topic. And if this is necessary in other sciences than metaphysics, how much more will this hold for metaphysics, since that science is so remote from the sciences built on common sense. Thus it should be learned that in metaphysics rhetorical reasoning cannot be applied, as it may be applied in other questions; for dialectics is useful and permissible in the other sciences but forbidden in this. For this reason most students of this science seek refuge in the theory that metaphysics is wholly concerned with the qualification of the substance which the human mind cannot qualify, for if it could do so, the eternal and the transitory would be on the same level. If this is so, may God judge him who discusses these questions with common opinions and who argues about God without scientific knowledge. So it is often thought that the philosophers are extremely inefficient in this science, and for this reason Ghazali says that metaphysics is only conjectural.
But in any casewe shall try to show some plausible premisses and true propositions-and we try this only because Ghazali gave such a false representation of this noble science and denied people the possibility of attaining happiness through excellent acts, and God is the inquirer and the reckoner-in order to set out the motives which moved the philosophers to believe these theories about the First Principle and other existents, the limit which the human understanding can reach in this matter, and the doubts which beset these problems; and we shall show all this also in respect to the Muslim theologians and indicate how far their wisdom attained. We hope through this to help the lover of knowledge to find the truth, and to urge him to study the sciences of both parties, hoping also that God may assist him in all this!
We say:
The philosophers tried to acquire knowledge about reality through speculation alone, without relying on the words of anyone who should induce them to acquiesce in them without proof; on the contrary, sometimes through speculation they came into contradiction with the facts as shown by the senses. They discovered that the sublunary world can be divided into two classes, the living and the inanimate, any instance of which only comes into being through something, called form, which is the entity by which it comes into being after having been non-existent; through something, called matter, out of which it comes into being; through something, called the agent, from which it comes into being; and through something, called the end, for the sake of which it comes into being; and so they established that there are four causes. And they found that the form by which a thing comes into being, i.e. the form of the thing generated, is identical with the proximate agent, from which it comes into being, either in species, like the generation of man out of man, or in genus, like the generation of the mule from a horse and a donkey. And since, according to them, the causes do not form an infinite series, they introduced a primary, permanent efficient cause. Some of them believed that the heavenly bodies are this efficient cause, some that it is an abstract principle, connected with the heavenly bodies, some that it is the First Principle, some again that it is a principle inferior to it,’ and these philosophers thought it sufficient to regard the heavens and the principles of the heavenly bodiesas the cause for the coming into being of the elements, since according to them they too need an efficient cause. As to the generation of living beings from each other in the sublunary world, the philosophers had, because of this faculty of life, to introduce another principle, which was the bestower of soul and of form, and of the wisdom which is manifested in this world. This is what Galen calls the formative faculty’ and some regard it as an abstract principle, some as an intellect, some as a soul,’ some as the body of the heavens, and some as the First. Galen called this potency the demiurge and was in doubt whether it is God or another principle. This faculty acts in the generative animals and in plants, and is needed still more in those plants and animals which have an equivocal generation. This was the point they reached in the examination of the sublunary world.
When they had agreed that the heavens were the principles of the perceptible bodies, they investigated the heavens also and agreed that the heavenly bodies are the principles of the changeable perceptible bodies and of the species in the sublunary world, either by themselves or in combination with an abstract principle. And from their investigation of the heavenly bodies it appeared to them that these do not come into being in the way that the transitory things of the sublunary world come into being, for what comes into being, in so far as it comes into being, is seen to be a part of this perceptible world and its coming into being is only effected in so far as it is a part of it, for what has come into being has come into being out of something, through the act of something, by means of something, in time and in space. And they discovered that the celestial bodies are, as remote efficient causes, a condition for the coming into being of perceptible things. If, however, the celestial bodies themselves had come into being in this way, they would, as a condition of their becoming, have required prior to them other bodies which would have needed to be parts of another world, and there would be in this other world bodies like these, and if these bodies had also come into being, they would have required other celestial bodies before, and so ad infinitum. And since this was established in this way and many others, they were convinced that the heavenly bodies neither come into being nor are destroyed in the way that sublunary things come into being and are destroyed, for ‘coming into being’ has no other definition or description or explanation or meaning than that which we have laid down here. Then they found that the celestial bodies have also moving principles by means of which and by the agency of which they are moved. And when they investigated their principles, they found that the moving principles were neither bodies nor potencies in bodies. They are not bodies because they are the first principles of the bodies encircling the world; they are not potencies in bodies, i.e. their bodies are not a condition for their existence (as is the case in this sublunary world with the composite principles in animals), because any potency in a body is, according to the philosophers, finite, since it can be divided through the division of the body’ and every body which can be divided is generable and corruptible, i.e. composed of matter and form, and the existence of its matteris a condition for the existence of its form. And again, if the principles of heavenly bodies were like the principles of earthly bodies, the former would be like the latter and would need other bodies prior to them. Thus they were convinced of the existence of incorporeal principles which are not potencies in a body.
Moreover, they had already found, concerning the human intellect, that form has two modes of existence, a sensible existence in matter, as in the stone there is the form of the inorganic which exists in the matter outside the soul, and an intelligible existence, namely, perception and intellect, which is separate from matter and exists in the sou. From this they concluded that these absolutely abstract existences are pure intellects, for if whatis separated from another is already intellect, how much better suited to be intellect will something be that is absolutely separates And so, of necessity, they deduced that the objects of thought of those intellects are the forms of the existents and of the order which exists in the world, as is the case with the human intellect, for the human intellect is nothing other than the perception of the forms of the existents, in so far as they are without matter. They concluded, therefore, that existents have two modes of existence, a sensible existence and an intelligible existence, and that the relation between sensible and intelligible existence is like the relation between the products of art and the arts of the craftsman, and they believed therefore that the heavenly bodies are conscious of these principles and that they can only guide what exists in the sublunary world because they are animated. And when they compared the separate intellects with the human intellect, they found that these intellects are superior to the human intellect, although they have it in common with the human intellect that their intelligibles are the forms of existents, and that the form of each of these intellects is nothing but the forms and the order of the existents it perceives, in the way that the human intellect is nothing but the forms and the order of the existents it perceives. The difference between these two kinds of intellect is that the forms of the existents are a cause of the human intellect, since it receives its perfection through them, in the way that the existent is brought into being through its form, whereas the intelligibles of these intellects are the cause of the forms of the existents. For the order and arrangement in the existents of this sublunary world are only a consequence and result of the order which exists in these separate intellects; and the order which exists in the intellect which is in us is only a consequence of the order and arrangement which it perceives in the existents, and therefore it is very imperfect, for most of this order and arrangement it does not perceive. If this is true, there are different degrees in the forms of the sensible existents; the lowest is their existence in matters, then their existence in the human intellect is superior to their existence in matters, and their existence in the separate intellects is still superior to their existence in the human intellect. Then again they have in the separate intellects different degrees of superiority of existence, according to the different degrees of superiority in these intellects in themselves.
And again when they investigated the body of the heavens they found that in reality it is one unique body similar to one single animal, and that it has one general movement-which is like the general movement of the animal which moves the whole body of the animal -namely, the daily movement, and they found that the other heavenly bodies and their individual movements were similar to the particular members of a single animal and its particular movements. And they believed, because of this connexion between these bodies, their referring to one body and to one end, and their collaboration in one act-namely, the world in its totality-that they depended on one principle, as happens to different arts which aim at one product and which depend on one primary art. For this reason they believed that these abstract principles depend on a unique abstract principle which is the cause of all of them, that the forms and the order and arrangement in this principle are the noblest existence which the forms, the order, and the arrangement in all reality can possess, that this order and arrangement are the cause of all the orders and arrangements in this sublunary world, and that the intellects reach their different degrees of superiority in this, according to their lesser or greater distance from this principle. The First amongst all these principles thinks only its own essence and, by thinking its essence, thinks at the same time all existents in the noblest mode of existence and in the noblest order and arrangement. The substance of everything under the First Principle depends on the way in which it thinks the forms, order, and arrangement which exist in the First Intellect; and their greater or lesser superiority consists only in this. They conclude therefore that the inferior cannot think the superior in the way the superior thinks its own essence, nor does the superior think the inferior in the way the inferior thinks its own essence; this means that no one of any pair of existents can be of the same rank as its fellow, since if this were possible they would have become one and would not form a numerical plurality. Because of this they say that the First thinks only its own essence, and that the next principle can think only the First, but cannot think what is under itself, because this is its effect and if it should think its effect, the effect would become a cause. The philosophers believe that the consciousness which the First has of its own essence is the cause of all existents, and that which each of the intellects inferior to it thinks is in part the cause of those existents the creation of which pertains especially to it, in part the cause of its own essence, i.e. the human intellect in its universality.
It is in this way that the doctrine of the philosophers concerning these things and concerning the motives which lead them to these beliefs about the world must be understood. On examination they will not be less convincing than the motives of the theologians of our religion, first the Mu’tazilites and secondly the Ash’arites, which lead them to their view of the First Principle. They believed, namely, that there exists an essence-neither corporeal, nor in a body-which is living, knowing, willing, provided with power, speaking, hearing, and seeing, while the Ash’arites, but not the Mu’tazilites, held besides that this essence is the agent of everything without intermediary and knows them with an infinite knowledge, since the existents themselves are infinite. The Ash’arites denied the existence of causes, and professed that this living, knowing, willing, hearing, seeing, powerful, speaking essence exists in continuous existence connected with everything and in everything. But this assumption may be thought to imply consequences open to criticism, for an essence with qualities as mentioned above must necessarily be of the genus of the soul, for the soul is an essence, incorporeal, living, knowing, provided with power, willing, hearing, seeing, speaking, and therefore these theologians assumed the principle of reality to be a universal soul, separated from matter in a way they did not understand.’
We shall now mention the difficulties which result from this assumption. The most obvious one concerning their theory of the qualities is that there must exist a composite, eternal essence and therefore an eternal compound, which contradicts the Ash’arite theory that every compound is temporal, because it is an accident and every accident is according to them a temporal product. They assumed besides that all existents are possible acts, and they did not believe that there is in them an order, a proportion, and a wisdom which the nature of these existents requires; no, they held that all things could be different from what they are and this applies necessarily also to the intellect; still, they believed that in the products of art, to which they compared the products of nature, there exist order and proportion, and this was called wisdom, and they called the Creator wises The argument by which they tried to show that there is in the universe something like this principle was that they compared natural acts to acts of will and said that every act, in so far as it is an act, proceeds from an agent endowed with will, power, choice, life, and knowledge, and that the nature of an act, in so far as it is an act, demands this; and they tried to prove the truth of this by arguing that what is not living is inorganic and dead, and, since from the dead there cannot proceed any act, there does not proceed any act from what is not alive. Thus they denied the acts which proceed from natural things and moreover they refused to admit that the living beings which we see in the empirical world have acts; they said that these acts seem connected with the living in the empirical world, but their agent is only the living God in the divine world. But the logical conclusion for them would be that there is in the empirical world no life at all, for life is inferred from things in the empirical world, because of their acts;b and, further, it would be interesting to know how they arrived at this judgement about the divine world.’
The manner in which they established this creator was by assuming that every temporal product must have a cause, but that this cannot go on infinitely, and that therefore of necessity the series must end in an eternal cause; and this is true enough, only it does not follow from this that this eternal principle cannot be body. They need therefore the additional proposition that a body cannot be eternal, but this proposition causes them many difficulties. For it is not sufficient for them to prove that this world is produced, since it might still be argued that its cause is an eternal body which has none of the accidents, no circular movements, nor anything else, through which---although they themselves admitted an eternal composite being-they proved that the heavens must be produced. Now, having assumed that the lileavcnly body has been produced, they supposed that this production had taken place in quite a different way from what is understood by production in the empirical world. In the empirical world, namely, things are produced from something, in time and space, and with a definite quality, not in their totality, and in the empirical world there is no production of a body from that which is not a body. Nor did they suppose its agent to act like an agent in the empirical world, for the empirical agent changes one quality in the existent into another; it does not change absolute nonexistence into existence-no, it brings the existent into a form and an intelligible quality through which this existent becomes another existent instead of this, different from it in substance, definition, name, and act, as it is expressed in the Divine Words: ‘We have created man from [an extract of] clay, then we made him a clot in a sure depository, then we created the clot congealed blood, and we created the congealed blood a morsel, etc. It is for this reason that the ancient philosophers believed that the absolute existent neither comes into existence nor can be destroyed.
Now, if one concedes to the theologians that the heavens were created in time, they are unable to prove that they are the first of created things, as is the evident meaning of what is said in the Venerable Book in more than one verse, for instance, in the Divine Words, ‘Do not those who misbelieve see that the heavens and the earth were both solid, &c.?’ and in the words, ‘and His throne was upon the water’ and in the words, ‘then He made for heaven and it was but smoke, &c.’s And as concerns this agent, according to the theologians, it creates the matter and the form of that which becomes, if they believe that it has a matter, or it creates the thing in its totality, if they believe it to be simple in the way they believe the atom to be simple; and if this is so, this kind of agent changes either non-existence into existence, namely, when there is generation, that is when the atom, which according to them is the element of the bodies, comes into being; or existence into non-existence, namely, when there is destruction, that is, when the atom is destroyed. But it is clear that an opposite cannot be changed into its opposite, and that non-existence itself cannot become existence nor warmth itself cold. It is the privation which becomes existent, it is the warm thing which becomes cold and the cold thing which becomes warm, and for this reason the Mu’tazilites say that privation is an entity although they deprive this entity of the attribute of existence before the becoming of the world. And their arguments by which they believe it can be proved that a thing does not come into being from another thing are incorrect. The most plausible of them is their affirmation that, if a thing came into being from another thing, this would imply an infinite regress. The answer is that this is only impossible for production in a straight line, which, indeed, needs an infinite existence in act; but, as to circular production, it is not impossible that, for instance, fire should come from air and air from fire ad infinitum, while the substratum is eternal. They support their theory of the temporal production of the universe by saying that that which cannot be devoid of things produced must itself be produced, and the universe, being the substratum of the things that are produced, must therefore be produced. The greatest mistake in this argument, when its premiss is conceded, is that it is a false generalization, for that which cannot be devoid of things produced in the empirical world is a thing produced out of something else, not out of nothing, whereas they assume that the universe is produced out of nothing. Further, this substratum which the philosophers call primary matter cannot be devoid of corporeality according to the philosophers, and, according to the philosophers, absolute corporeality is not produced. Besides, the premiss which affirms that what cannot be devoid of things produced is produced, is only true when the things produced of which it cannot be devoid are individual things, but if the things produced are one generically, they have no initial term; and from whence then should it follow that their substratum must be produced? And since among the theologians the Ash’arites understood this, they added to this proposition another, namely, that it is not possible that infinite generated things (i.e. without initial and final term) should exist, a proposition which the philosophers regard as necessary. Such difficulties follow from the assumption of the theologians, and they are much more numerous than those which can be held against the philosophers.
And again their assumption that the identical agent which is the First Principle is an agent for everything in the world without an intermediary contradicts the evidence of the senses that things act upon other things. Their most convincing argument on this point is that, if the agent were an effect, this would lead to an infinite regress. But this would only follow if the agent were agent only in so far as it is effect, and if what is moved were the mover, in so far as it is moved, but this is not the case; on the contrary the agent is only agent in so far as it is an actual existent, for the non-existent does not produce any effect. What follows from this is not that there are no acting effects, as the theologians thought, but that the acting effects end in an agent which itself is not an effect at all. Further, the impossibility which is the consequence of their deduction is still greater than the impossibility which follows from the premisses from which they draw this conclusion. For if the principle of the existents is an essence, endowed with life, knowledge, power, and will, and if these qualities are additional to its essence and this essence is incorporeal, then the only difference between the soul and this existent is that the soul is in a body and this existent is a soul which is not in a body. But that which has such a quality is necessarily composed of an essence and attributes, and each compound requires of necessity a cause for its being a compound, since a thing can neither be compounded by itself nor produced by itself, for producing, which is an act of the producer, is nothing but the putting together of the product. And, in general, just as for each effect there must be an agent, so for each compound there must be an agent which puts it together, for the putting together is a condition of the existence of the compounds And nothing can be a cause of the condition of its own existence, because this would imply that a thing should be its own cause. Therefore the Mu’tazilites assumed that these attributes in the First Principle refer to its essence and are nothing additional to it, in the way in which this happens with many essential qualities in many existents, like a thing’s being existent and one and eternal and so onThis comes nearer to the truth than the theory of the Ash’arites, and the philosophers’ theory of the First Principle approaches that of the Mu’tazilites.
We have now mentioned the motives which led these two parties to their theories about the First Principle, and the conclusions which their adversaries can draw from them and hold against them. As concerns the objections against the philosophers, Ghazali has related them in full; we have answered some of them already, and we will answer some of themlater. The difficulties which beset the theologians we have shown in this discussion in detail.
We shall now return to distinguish the degree of conviction and plausibility reached by the different statements which Ghazali makes in this book, as we proposed to do, and we were only compelled to mention the plausible propositions which led the philosophers to their theories about the principles of the universe because they answer the objections which their adversaries, the theologians, adduce against them; on the other hand, we mentioned the difficulties which beset the theologians because it is only right that their arguments on this problem should be known and their views represented, since they are free to use them as they wish. It is right, as Aristotle says, that a man should adduce the arguments of his adversaries as he brings forward his own; that is, he should exert himself to find the arguments of his opponents in the same way as he exerts himself to find the arguments of his own school of thought, and he should accept the same kind of arguments from them as he accepts when he has found the arguments himself.’
We say: The objection that the First Principle, if it can think only its own essence, must be ignorant of everything it has created would be only a valid inference if the way it thinks its essence were to exclude all existents absolutely. But the philosophers mean only that the manner in which it thinks its own essence includes the existents in their noblest mode of existence, and that it is the intellect which is the cause of the existents; and that it is not an intellect because it thinks the existents, in so far as they are the cause of its thinking, as is the case with our intellect. The meaning of their words, that it does not think the existents which are under it, is that it does not think them in the way we think them, but that it thinks them in a way no other thinking existent can think them, for if another existent could think them in the way it thinks them, it would participate in the knowledge of God, and God is far too exalted for this This is a quality which is peculiar to God, and for this reason certain theologians concluded that God, besides the seven qualities which they attribute to Him, has yet another which is peculiar to Him. Therefore His knowledge can be described neither as universal nor as individual, for both the universal and the individual are effects of existents, and the knowledge of both universal and individual is transitory. We shall explain this still better when we discuss the question whether God knows individuals or does not know them, as the philosophers mostly assert when they pose this problem, and we shall explain that the whole problem is absurd in relation to Gods This problem as a whole is based on two necessary points. First, if God thought existents in such a way that they should be the cause of His knowledge, His intellect would necessarily be transitory and the superior would be brought into being through the inferior. Secondly, if His essence did not contain the intelligibles of all things and their order, there would exist a supreme intellect which would not perceive the forms of existents in their order and proportion. And since these two cases are absurd, it follows that when this principle thinks its own essence,these existents exist in it in a nobler mode than that in which they exist by themselves. And that one and the same existent can have different degrees of existence can be shown from what occurs with colour For we find that colour has different degrees of existence, some higher than others; the lowest degree is its existence in matter, a higher degree is its existence in sight, for it exists in such a way that the colour becomes conscious of itself, whereas existence in matter is an inorganic existence without consciousness; further, it has been proved in the science of psychology that colour has also an existence in the imaginative faculty, and this is a superior existence to its existence in the faculty of sight; it has equally been shown that it has an existence in the remembering faculty superior to that in the imaginative faculty,s and, finally, it has in the intellect an existence superior to all these existences. Now, in the same way, we are convinced that it has in the essence of the First Knowledge an existence superior to all its other existences, and that this is the highest degree of existence possible.
As for what Ghazali mentions concerning the philosophical theory of the order in the emanation of these separate principles and of the number of entities which emanate out of each of them, there is no proof that this really takes place and that this happens exactly in this way; and the form in which Ghazali relates it is therefore not to be found in the works of the ancient philosophers. But these philosophers all agree on the theory that the principles, both separate and nonseparate, all emanate from the First Principle, and that through the emanation of this unique power the world in its totality becomes a unity, and that through this power all its parts are connected, so that the universe aims at one act, as happens with the one body of an animal; which, however, has different potencies, members, and acts; and indeed the world is according to the learned one and the same existent only because of this one power which emanates from the First Principle. And they agree about all this, because according to them the heavens are like a single animal and the daily movement which is common to all the heavens is like the animal’s general movement in space, and the particular movements which the different parts of heaven have are like the particular movements of the members of the animal. And the philosophers had already proved that there is one power in the animal through which it becomes one and through which all the potencies which it possesses tend towards one act, that is, towards the preservation of the animal,’ and all these potencies are connected with the potency which emanates from the First Principle; and if this were not the case, its parts would disconnect themselves and it would not persist for the twinkling of an eye. If, however, it is necessary that for a single animal there should be a single spiritual potency, permeating all its parts, through which the plurality of potencies and bodies in it becomes unified, so that it can be said of its bodies and potencies that they are one, and if, further, the relations of individual beings to the universe in its totality are like the relation of the parts of an animal to the animal itself, it needs must be the case that all the potencies in the particular parts of this unique animal and in the psychological and intellectual motive powers of these parts should be such that there is in them one single spiritual force which connects all the spiritual and bodily potencies and which permeates the universe in one and the same penetration. If this were not the case, no order and no proportion would exist. And in this way it is true that God is the creator, supporter, and preserver of everything, and to this the Divine Words apply: ‘Verily, God supports the heavens and the earth lest they should decline.’S And it in no way follows from the fact that this one potency permeates many things that there should be a plurality in it, as those thought who said that from the First Principle there can in the first place emanate only one from which plurality can then emanate; for this statement can only be regarded as valid if the immaterial agent is compared to the material agent. Therefore the term ‘agent’ can only be applied equivocally to both the immaterial agent and the material. And this will explain to you the possibility of the procession of plurality from the Monad.
Again, the existence of all other separate principles consists only in the forms in which they conceive the First Principle, and it is not impossible that this should be one identical thing, notwithstanding the difference of the forms in which they conceive it, in the same way as it is not impossible that a plurality should be conceived through one and the same form. And we find, indeed, that all the heavenly bodies in their daily movement, and the sphere of the fixed stars, conceive one identical form’ and that they all, moving in this daily movement, are moved by one and the same mover, who is the mover of the sphere of the fixed stars; and we find, too, that they have also different particular movements. Therefore it needs must be that their movements proceed partly from different movers, partly namely through the connexion of their movements with the first sphere-from one unique mover And just as the removal of an organ or a potency vital to the whole animal would invalidate all the organs and potencies of this animal, so the same applies to heaven with respect to its parts and its moving potencies, and in general with respect to the principles of the world and their parts in relation to the First Principle and in their mutual relations. According to the philosophers the world is closely similar to a single state: a state is upheld through one ruler and many deputies subordinate to him; all the deputies in the state are connected with the first ruler, because the authority of each of them is based on him alone, with respect to the ends and the order of the acts which lead to these ends for the sake of which these deputies exist; and so is the relation of the First Ruler in the world to His deputies. And it is evident to the philosophers that he who bestows on the immaterial existents their end is identical with him who bestows on them their existence, for according to them form and end are identical in this kind of existent and he who bestows on these existents both form and end is their agent. And therefore it is clear that the First Principle is the principle of all these principles, and that He is an agent, a form, and an ends And as to His relation to the sensible existents, He is-since He bestows on them the unity which causes their plurality and the unification of their plurality-the cause of all of them, being their agent, form, and end, and all the existents seek their end by their movement towards Him, and this movement by which they seek their end is the movement for the sake of which they are created, and in so far as this concerns all existents, this movement exists by nature, and in so far as this concerns man, it is voluntary. And therefore man is of all beings the one charged with duty and obligation. And this is the meaning of the Divine Words: ‘Verily, we offered the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to bear it and shrank from it; but man bore it: verily he is ever unjust and ignorant.’
And the philosophers only assert that, although all these ruling principles proceed from the First Principle, it is only some of them that do so directly, whereas others, ascending gradually from the lower world to the higher, proceed mediately. For they discovered that certain parts of heaven exist for the sake of the movements of other parts, and they related them in each instance to a first principle, till they finally arrived at the absolutely First Principle; and so it was evident to them that there was one uniqueorder and one unique act in which they all participate. But to ascertain the order, which he who contemplates reality and aspires to the knowledge of the First Principle perceives, is difficult, and what human understanding can grasp of it is only its general principle. What led the philosophers to believe in a gradation of these principles, in conformity with the spatial order of their spheres, is that they saw that the highest sphere seems in its action superior to what is under it, and that all the other spheres follow its movement And therefore they believed that what was said about their order was based on their spatial order. But one might perhaps object that the order in the spheres is perhaps only based on their activity, not on their spatial order; for since it seemed that the activities and movements of the planets exist because of the movement of the sun, perhaps their movers in setting them in motion follow the sun, and the movement of the sun derives perhaps directly from the First. For this reason there are in this question no indubitable assertions, but only assertions more or less plausible and likely to be true. And since this is established, let us now return to our subject.
Ghazali says:
The second answer is: people say of the First Principle that it knows only itself, because they want to avoid the implication of plurality in it, for the statement that it ]snows another would imply a duality: its knowing itself and its knowing another. However, the same applies to the first effect: it must necessarily know only itself. If it knew another and not itself alone, there would have to be a different cause for its knowing another than that for its knowing itself, but there is no other cause than that for its knowing itself, namely the First Principle. So it can only know itself, and the plurality which arose in this way disappears.
If it is said that it follows from its existence and from its knowing itself that it must know its principle, we answer: Does this necessity arise from a cause or without a cause? If the former is the case, there is no other cause than the one first cause from which only one effect can proceed, and indeed has proceeded, namely this first effect itself; how, therefore, could this second effect proceed from it? In the latter case, then, let the existence of the First Principle imply a plurality of existents without a cause, and let the plurality follow from them! But if such a thing cannot be imagined, because the necessary existent can be only one, and anything added to it must be a possible, and the possible needs a cause, then the following conclusion must be drawn concerning the effect: if it is an existent necessary by itself, then what the philosophers say is untrue, that there is only one necessary existent; if it is a possible,’ then it needs a cause; but it has no cause,’ and therefore it cannot know the existence of its cause.
There is no special necessity for the first effect to have a possible existence; this is necessary for any effect. However, that the effect should know its cause is not necessary for its existence, just as the knowledge of its effect is not necessary for the existence of the cause; still, it seems more plausible that the cause should know its effect than that the effect should know its cause. Therefore the plurality which would arise from its knowing its principle is impossible; there is no principle for this knowledge and it is not a necessary consequence of an effect that it should know its principle; and out of this there is no issue.
I say:
This is a proof of one who affirms that the First Principle must, besides knowing itself, know its effect; for, if not, its knowing itself would be imperfect.
The meaning of Ghazali’s objection is that the knowledge the effect has of its principle must either be based on a cause or be without a cause. In the former case, there must be a cause in the First Principle, but there is none; in the latter case, a plurality must follow from the First Principle, even if it does not know it; if, however, a plurality follows from it, it cannot be a necessary existent, for there can be only one necessary existent, and that from which there proceeds more than one is only a possible existent; but the possible existent needs a cause, and therefore their assertion that the First Principle is a necessary existent is false, even if it does not knowits effect. He says also that if it is not a necessity of its existence that the effect should have knowledge of its cause, it even seems more fitting that it is not a necessity of its existence that the cause should know its effect.
My answer to this is that all this is sophistical. If we assume that the cause is an intellect and knows its effect, it does not follow that this is an addition to the essence of the cause; on the contrary, it belongs to the essence itself, since the emergence of the effect is the consequence of its essences And it is not true that if the effect proceeds from the First Principle not because of a cause, but because of the essence of this principle, a plurality proceeds from it, for according to the thesis of the philosophers the emergence of the effect depends on the essence of the First Principle: if its essence is one, one proceeds from it; if many, many proceed from it. What he assumes in this discussion, namely, that every effect is a possible existent, is only true for the composite effect, for there cannot be a compound that is eternal, and everything that is of a possible existence is generated, according to the philosophers, as Aristotle has shown in different passages of his works;’ and we shall prove this more fully later in our discussion of the necessary being. What Avicenna calls the possible existent has only its name in common with what is in reality the possible existent; it is, therefore, by no means clear that it needs an agent in the way it is clear that the possible existent needs an agent.
Ghazali says:
The third objection is: Is the self-knowledge of the first effect identical with its essence or not? If the former , this is impossible, for knower and known cannot be identical; if the latter, let the same apply to the First Principle, so that plurality will followfrom the First Principle. And if the self-knowledge of the effect is not identicalwith the essence of the effect, there will not only be a triplicity in the effect, as they affirm, but a quadruplicity, to wit: its essence, its knowledge of itself, its knowledge of its principle, and its being a possible existent by itself, and to this it should perhaps be added that it is an existent necessary through another-and then it would be fivefold. From this you can see and measure the depth of their ignorance.
I say:
In this discussion of the intellects there are two points: first the question about what these intellects know or do not know (this question was fully treated by the ancients); secondly, the question of what proceeds from these intellects. What Ghazali mentions here as the theory of the philosophers is in fact the individual opinion of Avicenna on this latter problem. Ghazali exerts himself especially to refute him and his followers, in order to create the impression that he has refuted them all; and this is acting like one who is, as he puts it, in the depths of ignorance. But this theory is not found in the works of any of the ancients; and there is no proof of it except the supposition that from the one there can proceed only one. But this proposition does not apply in the same way to the agents which are forms in matter as to the agents which are forms separate from matter, and according to the philosophers an intellect which is an effect must necessarily know its principle, and there are here not two entities, i.e. the intellect and something additional to its essence, for, if so, it would be a compound, and the intellect, which is simple, cannot be composite. And the difference in the separate forms between cause and effect is that the First Cause exists by itself and the second cause exists through its relation with the First Cause, for the fact of its being an effect lies in its substance and is not an additional entity, in contrast with material effects; e.g. colour is an entity which exists by itself in a body, but it is the cause of sight, in so far as it is related, and sight has no existence except in this relation;’ and in the same waysubstances which are separate from matter are substances which are of the nature of relation. For this reason the cause and the effect are unified in the forms separated from matter, and in the same waysensible forms are of the nature of relation, as has been proved in the book on psychology.’
Ghazali says:
The fourth objection is that it can be said: Triplicity is not sufficient in the first effect, for the body of heaven which, according to the philosophers, proceeds from one entity out of the essence of its principle is composite, and this in three ways.
The first way is that it is composed of form and matter, as is body generally, according to the philosophers, and both must have a principle, since matter differs from form and they are, according to the philosophers, interdependent causes, so that the one cannot come into being by means of the other without the intervention of another cause.
I say:
What he says here is that according to the philosophers the body of the heavens is composed of matter, form, and soul, and that therefore there must be in the second intellects from which the body of the heavens proceeds, four entities, namely, one from which the form proceeds, one from which the hyle proceeds-as both are interdependent, for matter is in one way a cause of form and form in one way a cause of matterb-one from which the soul proceeds, and one from which the mover of the second sphere proceeds. But the view that the body of the heavens is composed of form and matter like other bodies is falsely ascribed by Avicenna to the Peripatetics. On the contrary, according to them the body of the heavens is a simple body; if it were composite, it would, according to them, suffer corruption, and therefore they say that it neither comes into being nor perishes, and does not possess the potency for contraries. If it were as Avicenna says, it would be composite like a living being, and if this were true, quadruplicity would be a necessary consequence for the man who asserted that from the one only one can proceed. And we have already stated that the way these forms are causes for each other, for the heavenly bodies, and for the sublunary world, and the way the First Cause is a cause for all of them, is quite different from all this.
Ghazali says:
The second way is that the highest sphere has a definite measure of size, and its determination by this special measure taken from among all other measures is an addition to the existence of its essence, since its essence might be smaller or bigger than it is; therefore, it must have a determinant for this measure, added to the simple entity which causes its existence. The same necessity does not exist for the existence of the intellect, which is pure existence and not specified by any measure taken from among other measures, and therefore may be said to need only a simple cause.
I say:
The meaning of this statement is that when the philosophers say that the body of the sphere proceeds as a third entity, which by itself is not simple (for it is a body possessing quantity), there are here in reality two entities, the one which provides the substantial corporeality, the other the definite quantity; therefore there must be in the intellect from which the body of the sphere proceeds more than one entity, and therefore the second cause is not triple but quadruple. But this is a false assumption, for the philosophers do not believe that body in its entirety’ proceeds from the separate principles; if anything proceeds from them, according to the philosophers, it is only the substantial form, and according to them the measures of the bodily parts follow from the forms; this, however, refers only to the forms in matter, but the heavenly bodies, since they are simple, are not susceptible of measure. Therefore, to assume that form and matter proceed from an abstract principle is by no means in conformity with philosophical principles, and is quite absurd. In reality, the agent in transitory things,’ according to the philosophers, produces neither the form nor the matter; it only makes a compound out of matter and form. If the agent produced the form in matter, it would produce the form in something, not from something. This is not philosophical theory, and there is no sense in refuting it, as if it were.
Ghazali says, on behalf of the philosophers:
It might be said: If the sphere were bigger than it is, this greater size would be superfluous for the order of the universe; if smaller, it would not suffice for the intended order.
I say:
He means by this statement that the philosophers do not believe that, for example, the body of the sphere could be bigger or smaller than it is, for in either case the order intended in the universe would not be realized, and the sphere would not set the world in motion according to its natural power, but either too strongly or too weakly, both of which would involve the corruption of the world. A greater size of the world would not be a superfluity, as Ghazali says; no, out of both, bigness and smallness, the corruption of the world would result.’
Ghazali says, to refute the philosophers:
We answer: Does the determination of the manner of this order suffice in itself for the existence of what possesses this order, or does it need a cause to effect it? If you believe it suffices, then you regard it as superfluous to assume causes at all, and you may well judge that from the order of these existents the existents themselves result without any additional cause; if, however, you believe it does not suffice, but a cause is necessary, this new cause will not suffice either for the specification of these measures, but will itself need a cause for its specifying .’
I say:
The summary of this is that he makes the objection against them that in the body there are many things which cannot proceed from one agent, unless they admit that many acts can proceed out of one agent, or unless they believe that many accidents of the body result from the form of the body and that the form of the body results from the agent. For, according to such an opinion, the accidents resulting from the body which comes into being through the agent do not proceed from the agent directly but through the mediation of the form. This is a conception permissible to the doctrines of the philosophers, but not to those of the theologians. However, I believe that the Mu’tazilites think as the philosophers do that there are things which do not directly proceed from the agent We have already explained how the Monad is the cause of the order, and of the existence of all things which support this order, and there is no sense in repeating ourselves.
Ghazali says:
The third way is that in the highest heavens there are marked out two points, the poles, which are immovable and do not leave their position, whereas the parts of the equator change their position. Now either all the parts of the highest sphere are similar (and then there will not be a special determination of two points amongst all the points to be poles), or the parts of the sphere are different and some have a special character which others have not. What, then, is the principle of these differences? For the body of the heavens proceeds from only one and the same simple entity and the simple can cause only that which is simple of shape, namely the sphere, and that which is homogeneous, that is, has no special distinguishable character. And out of this there is no issue.
I say:
‘Simple’ has two meanings: first, simplicity can be attributed to that which is not composed of many part, although it is composed of form and matter, and in this way the four elements are called simple;’ secondly, it can be attributed to that which is not composed of form and matter capable of changing its form, namely to the heavenly bodies; further, simplicity can be attributed to the agglomerate which has the same definition for its whole and its part, even when it is composed of the four elements. The simple character which is attributed to the heavenly bodies can very well possess parts which are differentiated by nature, as are the right and left sides of the sphere and the poles; for the globe, in so far as it is a globe, must have definite poles and a definite centre through which globes differ individually, and it does not follow from the fact that the globe has definite sides that it is not simple, for it is simple in so far as it is not composed of form and matter in which there is potency, and it is non-homogeneous in so far as the part which receives the place of the polescannot be any part of the globe, but is a part determined by nature in each globe individually. If this were not so, globes could not have centres by nature through which they were differentiated; thus they are heterogeneous-in this special meaning of the word ‘heterogeneous’-but this does not imply that they are composed of bodies different by nature, nor that their agent is composed of many potencies, for every globe is one. Nor do the philosophers regard it as true that every point of whatever globe can be a centre and that only the agent specifies the points, for this is only true in artificial things, not in natural globes. And from the assumption that every point of the globe can be a centre, and that it is the agent which specifies the points, it does not follow that the agent is a manifold unless one assumes that there is in the empirical world nothing that can proceed from a single agent; for in the empirical world things are composed of the ten categories and therefore anything whatever in the world would need ten agents. But all this, to which the view in question leads, which is very much like babbling in metaphysics, is stupid and senseless talk. The artificial product in the empirical world is produced, indeed, by only one agent, even if it possesses the ten categories. How untrue is this proposition that the one can produce only one, if it is understood in the way Avicenna and Farabi understand it, and Ghazali himself in his Niche for Lights, where he accepts their theory of the First Principle.’
Ghazali says:
One might say: ‘Perhaps there are in the principle different kinds of plurality which do not result from its being a principle, only three or four are manifest to us, and the rest we do not perceive, but our incapacity for observation does not shake our belief that the principle of plurality is plurality and that from the one no manifold can proceed.’
I say:
If the philosophers made such a statement, they would have to believe that there is in the first effect an infinite plurality, and one would necessarily have to ask them whence plurality comes in the first effect. And since they say that from the one no manifold proceeds, they would have to concede that the manifold cannot proceed from the One, but their statementthat from the one only one proceeds contradicts their statementthat what proceeds from the First Monad possesses plurality, for from the One one must proceed. Of course they can say that each term in the plurality of the first effect is a first term, but then there must be a plurality of first terms. It is most astonishing how this could remain hidden from Farabi and Avicenna, for they were the first who made these silly statements, and many followed them and attributed these theories to the philosophers. For when Farabi, Avicenna, and their school say that the plurality in the second principle arises through its self-knowledge and its knowing another, it follows for them that its essence has two natures or two forms, and it would be interesting to know which form proceeds from the First Principle and which does not. And there is a similar difficulty in their statement that the second principle is possible by itself, but necessary by another, for its possible nature must necessarily be different from its necessary nature, which it acquires from the necessary being. But the possible nature cannot become necessary, unless the nature of the possible can become necessary. Therefore there is in necessary natures no possibility at all, be it a possibility necessary by itself or a possibility necessary by another. All these are senseless statements and assertions, weaker than those of the theologians, extraneous to philosophy, and not congruous with its principles, and none of these affirmations reaches the level of rhetorical persuasion, to say nothing of dialectic persuasion.
And therefore what Ghazali says in different passages of his books is true, that the metaphysics of Farabi and Avicenna are conjectural.
Ghazali says:
We answer: If you regard this as possible, say then that all existing things in their multiplicity (and indeed their number reaches thousands) derive from the first effect and one need not limit this to the body of the extreme sphere’ and its soul, but all souls, heavenly and human, and all earthly and heavenly bodies can proceed from it, with the many diversities, belonging to them, which nobody has ever seen. But then the first effect will suffice.
I say:
This conclusion is true, especially when they imagine that the first act proceeding from the First Principle is the unity through which the first effect becomes a unique existent, notwithstanding the plurality in it. And indeed, if they allow an undetermined plurality in the first effect, it must be less or more than the number of existents, or equal to it; if less, they must introduce a third principle unless there is a thing without cause, if equal or more, the plurality assumedin it will be superfluous.
Ghazali says:
And then it follows that the First Cause by itself will suffice too. For if one regards it as possible that a plurality should arise inevitably, although without a cause, and although there is no necessity for it in the existence of the first effect, this will be permissible also with reference to the First Cause, and the existence of all things will be without a cause, although it is said that they follow inevitably and their number is not known. And if their existence without a cause can be imagined with reference to the First Cause, it can also be imagined with reference to the second cause; indeed, there is no sense in speaking of a reference to the first or to the second cause, since there is no distinction between them in time and place and neither the first nor the second cause can be characterized by its relation to things which do not differ from them in time and place and can exist without a cause.
I say:
He says that if a plurality in the first effect is permissible without a cause, because out of the First Cause there does not follow a plurality,
one may also suppose a plurality within the First Cause, and there is no need to assume a second cause and a first effect. And if the existence of something without cause within the First Cause is impossible, then it is also impossible within the second cause; indeed, our expression ‘second cause’ has no sense, since in fact they are one and the same thing, and the one is not different from the other either in time or in space, and if it is permissible that something should exist without a cause, neither the First Cause nor the second can be specially distinguished by this; it suffices that it refers to one of them and therefore it is not necessary to refer it to the second cause.
Ghazali says by way of an answer in the name of the philosophers:
It might be said: ‘The entities have become so many that they exceed thousands, but it seems absurd that a plurality of that extent exists in the first effect and for this reason we have multiplied the intermediates.’
Then he says in refutation of this:
We answer, however: To say ‘it seems absurd’ is pure conjecture, and such a judgement should not be applied to intelligibles. But if one says that it is impossible, we ask: ‘Why is it impossible, what will refute it, and where is the criterion?’ For, once we exceed the one and believe that one, two, or three entities can arise in the first effect without a cause, what makes it impossible that there should be four, five, indeed, a thousand and many thousands , and who could fix the limit? No, if unity is once exceeded, nothing can be rejected. This proof again is decisive.
I say:
If, however, Avicenna and these other philosophers had answered that the first effect possesses plurality, and that necessarily any plurality becomes one through a unity which requires that plurality should depend on unity, and that this unity through which plurality becomes one is a simple entity which proceeds from an individual simple Monad, then they would have saved themselves from these objections of Ghazali, and disengaged themselves from these false theories. But since Ghazali secured his point by ascribing a false assumption to the philosophers, and did not find anyone to give him a correct answer, he made merry and multiplied the impossibilities which can be deduced from their theory, for anyone who lets his horse canter in an empty space can make merry. But if he had known that he did not thereby refute the philosophers, he would not have been so delighted about it. The fundamental mistake of Avicenna and Farabi was that they made the statement that from the one only one can proceed, and then assumed a plurality in the one which proceeds. Therefore they were forced to regard this plurality as uncaused. And their assumption that this plurality was a definite plurality; which demanded the introduction of a third and fourth principle was a supposition not enforced by any proof. And generally, this assumption is not a legitimate assumption for a first and second principle, for they might be asked, ‘Why has only the second principleand rot the first this special character of possessing a plurality?’ All this is foolish and senseless talk. The fact is that Avicenna and Farabi did not know how the Monad was a cause in the system of Aristotle and the Peripatetics. Aristotle, in the twelfth book of his Metaphysics, expresses pride in his solution,’ and says that none of his predecessors could say anything about this problem. In the sense in which we have expounded the Aristotelian doctrine, this statement that out of the one only one can proceed is true, and the statement that out of the one a plurality proceeds is equally true.
Ghazali says:
Further, we affirm that the statement that out of the one only one can proceed is false in respect of the second effect, for out of it there emanates the sphere of the fixed stars, in which there are a thousand and twenty-odd stars ,’ different in magnitude, shape, position, colour,’ and influence, be it of ill omen or auspicious, some in the shape of a ram, a bull, or a lion, ; others in the shape of a man; they influence one and the same place of the sublunary world differently in conferment of cold and warmth, fortune and misfortune,’ and their own measures are variable On account of their differences it cannot be said that they are all of one kind; for if this could be said, it might also be said that all the bodies of the world were of one and the same kind of corporeal nature, and that one cause sufficed for them all. But just as the differences in qualities, substances, and natures of the bodies of the sublunary world show that they themselves are different, in the same way the stars, no doubt, are shown to differ, and each of them will need a cause for its form, a cause for its matter, a cause for the special function in its nature, to bring warmth or cold or happiness or calamity, a cause for its being in the definite place it occupies, then again a cause for its special tendency to group itself with others in the shapes of different animals. And if this plurality can be imagined to be known in the second intellect, it can also be imagined in the first intellect; and then this first intellect will suffice.
I say:
He had already exhausted this difficulty which is of a type he uses abundantly in this book, and if the answer we have given in defence of the philosophers is valid, none of these impossibilities need follow. But if by this expression one understands that, from the simple numerically one, only one simple one-not something numerically one in one way, but plural in another-can proceed, and that its unity is the cause of the existence of plurality, then one can never escape from these doubts. And again, things only become many, according to the philosophers, through substantial differences, and differences through accidents-be they quantitative, qualitative, or in whichsoever of the nine categories of the accident-do not cause, according to them, differentiations in the substance,’ and the heavenly bodies, as we said, are not composed of matter and form and are not specifically different, since they have, according to the philosophers, no common genus (for, if so, they would be composite, not simple). But we have treated of this already, and there is no sense in repeating ourselves.
Ghazali says:
The fifth objection is to say: If we concede these inept assumptions and these erroneous judgements, how is it then that they are not ashamed to say that from the fact that the first effect is of a possible existence, there results the existence of the highest sphere, and that from its knowledge of itself there follows the existence of the soul of the sphere and from its knowledge of the First Principle there follows the existence of an intellect? What is the difference between this and the statement that the existence of an unknown man is necessary , and that he is of a possible existence and knows himself and his Creator and then that from the fact that he is of a possible existence there follows the existence of a sphere? But it will be objected: What is the relation between his having a possible existence and the existence of a sphere following from him? And the same holds for the fact that from his knowing himself and his Creator there follow two other entities. But it would be ridiculous to say such a thing about a man or any other existent whatever, for the possibility of existence is a concept which does not change through the changing of the possible object, be it a man or an angel or a sphere. I do not know how any madman could content himself with any of these assertions, let alone the learned who split hairs in their discussions about intelligibles.
I say:
These are all theories of Avicenna and his followers, which are not true and are not built on the foundations of the philosophers; still they are not so inept as this man says they are, nor does he represent them in a true light. For the man whom he supposed to be of a possible existence through himself and necessary through another, knowing himself and his agent, is only a true representation of the second cause, when it is assumed in addition that through his essence and through his knowledge he is the agent of the existents, in the way this is assumed by Avicenna and his school of the second principle, and in the way all philosophers must admit it of the First Principle, God, glory be to Him. If this is admitted, it follows that from this man two things proceed: one in so far as he knows himself, the other, in so far as he knows his Creator, for he is supposed to act only because of his knowledge, and it is not absurd, if he is supposed to act because of his essence, to say that what proceeds from him, in so far as lie has a possible existence, is different from what proceeds from him in so far as he has a necessary existence, since both these attributes exist in his nature. This theory, therefore, is not so ignominious as this man tries to represent it to be through this comparison, in order to cast odium on the theories of the philosophers and to make them despicable in the eyes of students.’
There is no difference between Ghazali’s comparison and a person who said: If you assume a being living through life, willing through will, knowing through knowledge, hearing, seeing, and speaking through audition, sight, and speech, and the whole world proceeds from him, it is possiblethat from man, living, knowing, hearing, seeing, speaking, the whole world proceeds, for if these attributes by themselves determine the existence of the world, it cannot make any difference in the effect through whichever being possessing these attributes they produce it. If this man Ghazali sought to speak the truth in this and erred, he might be forgiven; if, however, he understood how to deceive in these things and tried that, and if there were no necessity for him to do so, there is no excuse for him. And if he only wanted to show that he possessed no proof by which he could provide an answer to the question whence plurality proceeds, as might be inferred from what he says below, he speaks the truth, for Ghazali had not reached the degree of knowledge necessary for comprehending this problem, as will be seen from what he says later; and the reason is that he studied only the books of Avicenna, and through this the deficiency in his knowledge arose.
Ghazali says:
But if one should say to us: ‘Certainly, you have refuted their theory, but what do you say yourself? Do you affirm that from one thing two different things can in any way proceed? In that case you offend reason. Or will you say that in the First Principle there is plurality? In that case you abandon the doctrine of God’s unity. Or will you say that there is no plurality in the world? In that case you contradict the evidence of the senses. Or will you say that plurality occurs through intermediates? In that case you are forced to acknowledge the theory of your opponents. We answer: ‘We have not made a deep inquiry in this book; our aimwhich we have attained-was only to disturb the claims of our opponents. To this we may add that the claim that the thesis that two proceed from one is an affront to reason, and the claim that the attribution of eternal attributes to the First Principle contradicts the doctrine of God’s unityboth these claims, we say, are vain and possess no proof. The impossibility that two should proceed from one is not known in the way the impossibility of one single person’s being in two places is known in short, it is known neither by intuitive necessity nor by deduction. What is the objection against saying: ‘The First Principle is provided with knowledge, power, will; He acts as He wants, He judges as He wants, He creates the dissimilar and the similar as He Hants and in the way He wants?’The impossibility of this is known neither by immediate necessity nor by deduction. But the prophets have brought us this truth, justifying it through their miracles, and we must accept it. To inquire, however, how God’s act proceeds from Him through His Will is vain and an illusory pursuit. Those who have sought to represent and understand this have arrived as a result of their inquiry at a first effect from which as a possible existent there proceeds a sphere, and from which, so far as it knows itself, there proceeds the soul of the sphere. But this is nonsense and is by no means an appropriate explanation. Let us therefore accept the principles of these things from the prophets, and let us believe in this, since the intellect does not regard it as impossible. And let us abandon the inquiry about quality, quantity, and quiddity,’ for the human powers do not suffice for this. And therefore the master of the Divine Law has said: Think about God’s creation, but do not think about God’s essence.
I say:
His statement is true, that we have to refer to the Law of God everything which the human mind is unable to grasp. For the knowledge which results from revelation comes only as a perfection of the sciences of the intellect; that is, any knowledge which the weakness of the human mind is unable to grasp is bestowed upon man by God through revelation. This inability to comprehend things the knows ledge of which is, however, necessary in the life and existence of man, is either absolute-i.e. it is not in the nature of the intellect, in so far as it is intellect, to comprehend such a thing-or it is not in the nature of a certain class of men, and this kind of weakness is either a fundamental character of his disposition or something accidental through a lack of education. Revelation is a mercy bestowed on allthese classes of men.
And as to Ghazali’s words:
Our aim-which we have attained-was only to disturb our opponents; this aim is not a proper one for him and is censurable in a learned man, for the intention of the learned, in so far as they are learned, must be to seek the truth, not to sow doubts and perplex minds.
And as to his words:
the impossibility that two should proceed from one is not known in the way the impossibility a single person’s being in two places is known; although these two propositions are not of the same degree of assent, still the proposition that from the simple unit there proceeds only one single unit keeps its evidence inside the empirical world. Propositions which are evident differ in their degree of evidence, as has been shown in the Posterior Analytics, and the reason for this is that when evident propositions are supported by imagination they receive a stronger degree of assent, and unsupported by imagination their assent is weakened; but only the masses rely on imagination, and he who is well trained in intellectual thought and renounces imagination accepts both propositions with the same degree of assent.
The strongest degree of evidence pertains to this proposition when a man makes an induction from transitory existents and sees that they only change their names and definitions through their acts and that, if any existent whatever could arise from any act and any agent whatever, the essences and definitions would become mixed and knowledge would be annihilated. The soul, for instance, distinguishes itself from the inorganic only through its special acts which proceed from it, and inorganic things are only distinguished from one another through the acts that are proper to them; and the same applies to souls. And if many acts were to proceed from a single potency, in the way that many acts proceed from composite potencies, there would be no difference between the simple and the composite essence and they would be indistinguishable for us. And again, if many acts could proceed from one single essence, an act without an agent would be possible, for an existent comes to be through an existent, not through a non-existent, and therefore the non-existent cannot come to be by itself; and if it is true that the mover of the privation and the transposer of its potency into act transposes it only through the actuality it possesses itself, of necessity the actuality it possesses must be of the same kind as the act it transposesIf any effect whatever could proceed from any agent whatever, it would not be impossible that the effects should be actualized by themselves without an agent. And if many kinds of potency could be actualized through one and the same agent, this agent would itself have to possess these kinds or related kinds, for if it possessed only one of these kinds, all the other kinds would have to be actualized by themselves without a cause. It is not permissible to say: The only condition for the agent is that it exists as acting with an absolute action, not with a specified kind of action; for, in that case, any existent whatever would be able to perform any act whatever and what exists would be mixed;’ besides, the absolute, that is the universal, existent stands nearer to non-existence than the real individual existent. So those who denied the theory of universals denied the belief in a universal existent and in a universal becoming , whereas the champions of this theory regarded them as something midway between being and non-being; but if this were the case, it would follow that the universals could be a cause of existents. The proposition that from the one only one act can proceed is more evident for the empirical than for the divine world. For knowledge multiplies through the multiplying of the objects of thought in the world, since the intellect knows these objects in the way that they exist in the world, and they are the cause of its knowledge. It is not possible for many objects of thought to be known through one act of thought, nor can one act of thought produce many effects in the empirical world, e.g. the knowledge of the artisan which produces, for example, a cupboard is different from the knowledge which produces a chair. But eternal wisdom and the eternal agent differ in this matter from temporal knowledge and the temporal agent.
If I were asked ‘what is your own point of view in this question? You have denied Avicenna’s theory of the cause of plurality, but what do you say yourself? For it has been pointed out that the different schools of philosophy have three different answers to this question; that the plurality comes only through matter; that the plurality comes only through instruments; that the plurality comes through mediators. And it is said of the Peripatetics that they accept the theory which makes mediation the cause of plurality’-I cannot give in this book an answer to this question supported by a demonstrative proof. We find, however, neither in Aristotle nor in any of the known Peripatetics this theory which is ascribed to them, with the exception of Porphyry, the Tyrian, the author of the Introduction to Logic, and he is not among the most subtle of philosophersMy opinion is that according to the principles of the Peripatetics the cause of plurality is a combination of three factors, the intermediates, the dispositions, and the instruments; and we have already explained how all these depend on the Monad and refer to it, for each of them exists through an absolute unity which is the cause of plurality. For it seems that the cause of the plurality of the separate intellects is the difference in their natures, by which they receive the knowledge they gain of the First Principle and which acquire from the First Principle a unity which by itself is one single act, but which becomes many through the plurality of the recipients, just as there are many deputies under the power of a king and many arts under one art. This we shall examine in another place, and if some part of it becomes clear it will suffice; otherwise we must take refuge in revelation. In so far as the differences depend on differences between the four causes, the question is clear. For the differentiation of the spheres arises from the differences of their movers, of their forms, of their matter, supposing they have matter,’ and of their acts which serve a special end in the world, even if the philosophers did not believe that these spheres exist for the sake of these acts As to the differences which arise primarily in the sublunary world in the elements, as for instance the differences between fire and earth, and in short the opposites, they are based on the differentiation of matter and on their varying distances from their movers, which are the heavenly bodies. As to the difference between the two supreme movements, one of which is the agent of generation and the other the agent of corruption, they depend on the differentiation of the heavenly bodies and their motions, as is proved in the book On Generation and Corruption. For the difference which arises from the heavenly bodies resembles the difference which arises from the difference in the instruments. To sum up: the factors for the origination of plurality from the one Agent are three, according to Aristotle, and he refers to the One in the sense mentioned above, namely, that the One is the cause of the plurality. In the sublunary world the differences arise from the four causes, that is to say, the difference of the agents, the matter, the instruments, and the intermediaries which transmit the acts of the First Agent without its direct interference, and those intermediaries are very similar to the instruments. And an example of the differentiation which arises through the difference of the recipients, and out of the fact that certain differentiated things cause others, is colour. For the colour which arises in the air differs from the colour in the body, and the colour in the faculty of sight, i.e. in the eye, from the colour in the air, and the colour in the common internal sense from the colour in the eye, and the colour in the imagination from the colour in the common internal sense, and the colour in the memorative and retentive faculty from the colour in the imagination; and all this has been explained in the book of psychology.
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Author: Ibn Rushd (Averroës)
