Chapter III: Cause I: Nature of Causation
A. Cause-Effect Relationship
All contingents require a cause which tips their inherent balance between existence and non-existence in favor of the former; no contingent, therefore, can come into existence without a cause. Conversely, when the proper cause obtains, the contingent effect must come into existence and cannot be delayed; it thus becomes necessary. Now since the world is contingent, God must be its cause or the cause of the first of the series of its effects. Since God is eternal, the world must, therefore, be eternal. Or, if God alone is not its cause but is dependent for His causality on something else which must first come into existence so that God brings the world into existence, then this something becomes God's first effect, which must come into existence from God without delay, since God is its necessary cause. But then the world must also come into existence forthwith and hence must be eternal. Sadra says that it makes no difference whether this something-other-than-God upon which the world's existence is supposed to depend is a particular time or a purpose, a motive or a will (of God), since all of these are supposed to be God's effects and thus cannot be delayed.
That is to say, if God says, “I shall create the world at such-and-such time or when I will to create,” this time or this will must nevertheless immediately follow since these become His first effects as their necessary and eternal cause.
There are those, however, who deny this account and say that God is a voluntary being who may choose in eternity that He will create the world at a certain time, so that while His choice is in eternity, His actual act of creation is temporal. This view, which is held by al-Ghazali and Thomas Aquinas and seeks to avoid both eternity and necessity of the world's existence, without attributing any “newness” to God, is criticized by Sadra. The first question is whether this will is free or necessary, i.e., whether God could equally choose another time for the world's creation or not. If it is necessary, then God is not free. Also, on this supposition, God's act of creation must be eternal since the arrival of that particular time of creation cannot be delayed after the necessary will and hence the postulation of a time-lag between the will and the act of creation is untenable. Thirdly, this will or choice turns out to be contingent, not necessary, for it terminates with the act. Hence, like every contingent, it must have a cause other than God's being, for if it were caused only by God's being, it would be necessary and eternal, not contingent. But the assumption of another cause besides God results in a vicious circle, for while everything is supposed to depend on God's will, God's will is now made dependent on something else.
This criticism has a certain validity because in this case God's will is constructed on a wrong analogy as, for example, a man may say in winter that he would build a house in summer. The point of the criticism is that if this will is unconditional and absolute as God's, i.e., if it is will proper, then summer must arrive now, otherwise the will must become dependent on a condition, viz., the arrival of the summer, and ceases to be necessary and absolute. It is not, therefore, properly speaking a will but only a preliminary decision(al-àzm)
, as Sadra's commentator Al-Sabzawari says, and the will proper will come at the time of the actual act as its necessary cause.
If, however, God's choice is held to be free in the sense that He could equally choose another time for the world's creation, then neither of the two, or indeed an infinite number of, alternatives has any priority over the others. At this point, Muslim voluntarist thinkers have propounded different views. Some say that it is possible for a voluntary being to choose among equal alternatives as a man fleeing in fear may choose one of two paths open to him without any preponderating reason(murajjih)
. A slightly different and more elaborate but obviously allied view (taken by al-Ghazali) is that it is an inherent quality of the will to choose between equal alternatives without any other reason that might confer priority on one of them, i.e., the will itself creates distinction and priority. Since this function is an inherent prerogative of the will, the question “why this choice?” cannot be asked. A third position taken in this regard subjugates God's will to His knowledge, for it states that God knows what is possible and what is not possible and hence His will attaches itself to those things which are possible. Further, things are possible only at their proper times, not before or after; hence God's will carries them out at the proper times. A fourth view (attributed to the Mùtazili al-Kàbi), which is an elaborated version of the preceding one, attaches importance to purpose and says that every act of God has a purpose and hence comes at its proper time, whether or not we are aware of God's purposes. Fifthly, it has been held that God's non-creation of the world in eternity is not due to Him but due to the inherent nature of action for all action requires a beginning and is, therefore, opposed to eternity. Creation, therefore, can take place only in time, not in eternity. Lastly, there is the view of Abu'l-Barakat who attributed an infinite series of successive wills and actions to God.
In his criticism of these views, Sadra appears to ignore the last one, which he undoubtedly cannot accept (and which al-Suhrawardi before him had denounced in most slanderous terms
) because this would clearly bring God into the realm of time and change. In rejecting the first position, the philosopher denies that choice can take place without a preponderating reason or cause, conscious or unconscious, and avers that whenever a man in fright chooses one of two roads or a man dying of hunger chooses one of two equal pieces of bread, etc., the choice takes place because of reasons which are not known to us. Further, he says the view that an open possibility can be realized without a preponderating factor does away with the notion of a cause and hence with that of the ultimate Cause, thus blocking the way to prove God's existence.
It should be pointed out that Sadra himself, in his proof of God's existence, regards the causal argument as a good one but of secondary importance (see below, Part II, Chapter I); he is, therefore, following here the general Peripatetic line.
Sadra equally rejects as spurious the idea that will itself can create distinctions and hence can act as a preponderating cause in favor of one alternative. Would this will not have the same alleged characteristic, i.e., of creating distinctions if, rather than the alternative actually realized, the other possibility had been chosen? Therefore, the attribution of such a characteristic to the will does not answer the real question: Why one alternative rather than another? For, the alleged characteristic remains unchanged in both cases. Indeed, there is no such thing as an empty will, a will-in-general which then attaches itself to an act (except as an abstract notion); for all will is a will-to-do- this and is thus particular.
The question then is: how does this particular will arise?, and this is not answered by this voluntarist view.
As we shall see in the following chapter and more elaborately in Chapter III of Part II, Sadra does not believe in an absolute act of will which he reduces to “knowing and doing what one likes.” This process of knowing-and-liking or desiring can be weak or can become intense enough so that the effect follows. When the effect actually follows, it is, at that stage, as determined as any other physical effect of a physical cause. The question at issue here, however, is whether will is a sui generis original and uncaused act which by itself can create such a distinction as to tip the balance among alternatives.
As for the third position, viz., that God knows which things can happen and at which time and thus His will follows His knowledge, Sadra criticizes it on two grounds. First, he seeks to accuse it of a vicious circularity, since God's knowledge is made to follow things as and when they happen and His will - through which things happen - is made to follow His knowledge. The truth, however, is that God's omniscience, if taken seriously, renders His will impotent and superfluous. But on this view - which al-Sabzawari attributes to the Ashàrites - even God's knowledge becomes redundant because, if things will happen as a matter of course at their appointed time, then there is no God but only Fate. Secondly, God's knowledge is creative, not receptive, and therefore does not follow but precedes the existence of things.
On the question of purpose and interests of creatures(maslaha)
tied to a particular time, Sadra contends that these cannot depend on any particular time but must be eternal since God, being eternal, cannot be assumed to be void of them at any time. It is also impossible to conceive how the interests of creatures could have been adversely affected if the world had been created much earlier than the alleged point of time of its creation, or if its size had been much greater than it is supposed to be. It would also follow that God's absolute and primordial act - as opposed to specific temporal actions - is conditioned by something other than Himself, viz., an extraneous interest.
The same consideration is urged against the fifth view which says that every action takes place in time and therefore cannot take place in eternity. This is true for particular and specific actions, but not for the absolute primordial act of God, since the world's need for a cause is due to its contingency and not for its temporal origination. Hence the world, which is eternally contingent, is eternally caused and thus eternal causation is God's absolute act.
God's act of creation, which is among His attributes, is, therefore, eternal and the world as a whole is also eternal. The individual contents of the world - the hawadith - are temporal but also have an eternal cause - God's primordial act.
Some people, arguing on behalf of the temporal origination of the world, say that just as an individual temporal event is both temporally originated and yet attributable to God's causation, so can the world as a whole be regarded as temporally created and also attributed to God's causation. Sadra replies that, in the case of a temporal emergent, its temporal antecedents are not its cause(ìlla)
, but only its preparatory conditions(muìddat)
, its cause being the eternal creative act of God(amr)
. That which receives the impact of this creative act(khalq)
is the temporal flow of matter which prepares the ground for God's creative act. This is why the temporal flow of matter has no beginning, for whatever is supposed to be the beginning point must itself have its preparatory antecedents. But the creative act of God is unique and eternal as being beyond time, whereas the world-process is temporally eternal (i.e., beginningless).
This is because the stuff of which the world process is made - matter - is inherently in-capable of receiving the impact of God's act timelessly and all at once and can only receive it in terms of newness and emergence. This also demonstrates, for Sadra, that the world-process is not made of discrete events but is a continuous process, thanks to substantive change(haraka jauhariya)
.
The contingent, which in itself is in a state of abeyance between existence and non-existence, becomes necessary when accompanied by its perfect cause and impossible in the absence of such cause. Although Sadra holds after Ibn Sina that separate Intelligences are contingent (since everything except God is infected with contingency), nevertheless, they are, according to him, only theoretically contingent and in actual fact are necessary. This is because they are, in a sense, part of God and flow from His pure being directly. They exist not because God causes them to exist(bi-ibqa' Allahi iyyaha)
but because He exists(bi-baqa' Allahi)
, as Sadra often puts it. It is only temporal emergents, therefore, which are authentic contingents and whose existence is necessarily preceded by time and non-being. Muslim theologians generally hold that the basis of need for a cause in the case of a contingent emergent is its temporal emergence(huduth)
: since it was non-existent before, it needs a cause in order to come into existence from non-existence. The philosophers hold, on the other hand, that the basis of need for a cause is contingency, not temporal emergence. Sadra supports the philosophers in this respect and insists that ''coming into existence from non-existence” or “being preceded by non-existence” is the very nature of the emergent and hence does not require a cause, just as it is the very nature of fire to be hot and fire does not require a cause to be hot. The cause, therefore, is solely concerned with the bestowal of existence on the contingent emergent, and is not concerned with its having been preceded by non-existence.
From this point on, however, Sadra parts company with the philosophers. For the latter, the bearer of contingency in a contingent is the essence. The cause, therefore, causes the essence to exist, i.e., relates the essence to existence. This is called “compound production(jàl murakkab)
,” since a relation is created between two terms - essence and existence. Sadra, however, denies all reality to essences: in themselves they are nothing, i.e., even “something” cannot be predicated of them except when they are conceived by the mind; otherwise, they are absolutely indiscernible in their native darkness. The locus of contingency is, therefore, the contingent existent itself insofar as it has the possibility of existence. The action of the cause is, therefore, a “simple production(jàl basit)
,” i.e., the contingent being is made to exist. The cause, therefore, authors only existence, not an essence. When the contingent comes to exist, it then manifests its proper essence, which had been previously locked in the limbo of pure non-being. Insofar, therefore, as one can speak of the contingency of the essence, this is indirect and derivative from the contingency of the concrete existent.
Every temporal existent is composite and has a composite cause. Several prominent latter-day philosophers, like al-Suhrawardi, have maintained, however, that a compound cause may have a simple effect. Al-Suhrawardi's argument is that if, for example, a number of men try severally to move a heavy stone, they will fail, but if these men exert themselves together, they can move it. This shows that none of these men, as a single factor, can produce the effect or even a part of the effect, but as a collectivity they can produce it. Thus, a single man is absolutely without effect whatsoever, while the totality of them can produce the totality of the effect.
Sadra's reply is that a composite or a compound is of two kinds: one is a mere aggregate which has no reality or character over and above that of the individuals which it comprises, while the second is a specific form of a material composite. In the second case, it is the specific form - which is unitary - that produces the effect - which is also unitary - as, for example, magnet attracts iron, although even in this case both the cause and the effect are not absolutely simple. In the case of a number of men moving a stone, there is nothing but an aggregate. It is not true to say that individuals in this case have severally no effect at all; on the contrary, every individual has an effect. The reason why the effect of a single person does not appear, when he handles the stone separately, is that when he leaves, his effect is destroyed and is not conserved by the stone. If there were a way to conserve the effects of the efforts of several separate individuals, the last man alone would be seen to move the stone just as well as the collectivity of them together. In any case, every individual in a collective effort has a direct contribution and the effect is no more than an aggregate of these contributions.
A being which is authentically a unity(al-wahid al-haqiqiy)
and simple(basit)
cannot directly give rise to more than one effect.
This is because in such a being its essence and its being a cause are indistinguishable and identical, since its causality is not something additional to its essence. If, therefore, such a being were to produce more than one effect or a single composite effect (which will be the same as producing multiple effects), its being will cease to be unitary. In order to avoid any suggestion of multiplicity, Sadra points out that terms like causation and even emanation must not be understood as implying any notion of relation which necessarily involves two terms but because of the difficulty of language such terms have to be used as suggest some sort of multiplicity. Indeed, the effect in this case has no being except that it is an effect, i.e., its entire being lies in the cause.
The full impact of this doctrine, based on Sadra's doctrine of existence, will be seen in the next chapter, which will deal with his notion of God-world relationship. But here it is only a statement of the famous philosophic principle, viz., “from the one only one can proceed.” Ibn Sina, in a letter to his pupil, Bahmanyar, had said on the subject that if the authentically one were to be the source for two entities, A and B. then it would be the source for what is A and what is not A, viz. B, and this would be contradictory. Al-Razi tried to refute this by saying that the contradictory of “emanation of A” is “non-emanation of A,” not “emanation of not-A''; hence, there is no contradiction in a multiple emanation from the One, i.e., God. Al-Razi here represents the general orthodox stand against the philosophers since al-Ghazali ; the orthodox, who believe that God directly created the multiplicity of the world, severely reject the philosophers' God who can only create one entity. Al-Dawwani, seeking to defend Ibn Sina, says that, in the case of a simple being like God, “emanation of not-A” is reducible to “non-emanation of A” because the former would introduce multiplicity in God.
B. Impossibility of Causal Regress
Sadra. gives ten arguments, traditionally held, for the impossibility of an infinite causal chain, some of which he criticizes and rejects. Some of these arguments, again, are not specifically concerned with causality, as we shall see, but attempt to show the impossibility of any actual infinite. The first of these arguments, which Sadra calls “the soundest of all arguments” is stated by Ibn Sina. The gist of this argument is that a genuine causal chain must realize three conditions: (1) a pure cause at the beginning, (2) a pure effect at the end, and (3) a nexus of cause and effect - i.e., a nexus each part of which is both a cause and an effect - in the middle. This is because being a cause and being an effect are two different things. Thus, in a genuine and complete causal chain, we have: C - - - - - - CE - - - CE - - - CE - - - etc. E Now, if we suppose an infinity of causal nexus, what we have is only a middle and an end, no beginning, i.e., we have CE - - - CE - - - CE - - - etc. E, but no C. It is, therefore, impossible to posit a causal chain which does not have a C or a pure cause at the beginning.
This argument appears to me sound and proves the impossibility of an infinite causal chain. For, a beinningless causal chain is truly inconceivable, since a series that does not begin cannot exist. Indeed, a causal chain that does not begin is self-contradictory, for it means a causal chain without a cause. The difficulty (or prejudice?) that is felt in the concept of an initiated causal chain, in the idea of a beginning for the world, does not on balance seem as weighty as that involved in the idea of a beginningless chain, and the answer to the question, “What was there before the beginning?” is “Nothing.” Kant, while criticizing the idea of the impossibility of an infinity in the past, held that there was no difficulty in conceiving such an infinity since it is possible to hold that, no matter how far back one traveled in the past, one would not find the beginning or the first cause. It is obvious enough that Kant was conceiving the past on the model of the future, since it is possible to conceive that, no matter how much one travels into the future, one will not come to an end. But there is an intrinsic difference between the past and the future, between the actual beginning and the potential end. The past is actual and no actual can be infinite.
It is important, however, to understand precisely the sense in which the Muslim philosophers after Ibn Sina take this and other similar arguments. Al-Ghazali, in his attack on Ibn Sina's doctrine of the eternity of the world, had argued that the philosophers were thereby committed to an actual infinite. Ibn Rushd, in his reply, said that there was no contradiction in the eternity of movement since parts of movement were successive, not together. Later Muslim philosophers, particularly al-Suhrawardi, therefore, hold that eternity of the world in terms of an eternal or infinite succession(àla sabil al-taàqub)
- as opposed to a structured infinite or infinite-together(àla sabil al-ijtimàwa'l - tarattub)
- is harmless: what is impossible is the latter. Then they distinguish between real cause(ìlla)
and its preparatory conditions(al-muìddat)
: an infinity of serial preparatory conditions (called the “horizontal” series) in time is not impossible while an infinity of a causal nexus (called the “vertical” or causal series) is impossible, since cause is present in the effect and an infinity of causes would, therefore, result in a structured, actual infinite presence. This distinction has been indicated above in the first section of the present chapter, but is fundamental to this doctrine of causation. This is, in fact, a result of superimposing Plotinus upon Aristotle: God (or the Active Intelligence) is the only real cause, all temporal antecedents are only preparatory conditions. But it is obvious that the difficulty is still there, for the cause has been present with all the antecedents which thus become part of the cause in order for it to produce a later effect:
Thus, an infinity of antecedents becomes an infinity of causes. This confusion pervades their discussion of causation.
The second argument to disprove infinity of a causal chain is the argument from correspondence(burhan al-tatbiq)
much discussed and elaborated by later Muslim philosophers. The argument says that if we have a supposed infinite series, we can get another series by taking away one term from it from its finite (i.e., present) side so that this second series is shorter by one term on the side of the finitude.
Now if we compare the two series, term by term, we find that they are unequal since one series is shorter by one term and is therefore finite. The supposedly infinite series is, therefore, greater than it by only one term, and hence is also finite, for a finite added to another finite results only in a finite. The opponent contends that this is not true since both series are infinite on the infinite side and are hence equal, the difference being confined to the finite side alone, just as an infinite multiple of tens is as infinite as an infinite multiple of ones, even though a finite series of tens is ten times shorter than a numerically equal and finite series of ones.
To this objection Sadra replies that one-one correspondence cannot be done in series of numbers because, so far as theologians are concerned, they do not believe in their reality and, as for philosophers, correspondence can be effective only in the series whose terms are not only existential, but are together and are also structured (as in a cause-effect series), whereas numbers are out of consideration since they do not exist together but seriatim as are the motions of the heavens while in the case of disembodied souls, a structure does not exist. The reason why correspondence is not effective in things that do not exist or in things which are not structured by an intrinsic relationship between them is because these correspondences become a purely mental operation and each term in one of the two conceived series has to be explicitly related to one in the other series; but it is obvious that the mind cannot conceive an infinite series in this way. In an existential series, like the motions of the heavens and a causally structured series, as theologians hold, or only in the latter as philosophers hold (Sadra here agrees with philosophers, not with theologians), - the mind does not have to carry out a detailed and term-by-term correspondence operation, as it has to in a purely conceptual or imaginary series, because the series is actual. It is just as if we had a rope whose parts are connected and contiguous and we wanted to draw the whole rope towards us; this can be done by just pulling the nearer end towards us and the whole rope will be pulled thereby: we do not have to pull each part of the rope. But if the rope is in several pieces, this operation cannot be carried out.
Sadra also criticizes philosophers in this connection on their belief in the infinity of disembodied souls saying that one can produce a structure in them by numbering them as one, two, three ad infinitum, and thus an actual, structured infinite would result.
Al-Sabzawari rejects this criticism, saying that this structure would be extrinsic, not intrinsic to the souls,
but to my mind misses the point, since the structure, although extrinsic to the souls, will be intrinsic to the numbered series thus produced - an infinite actual number - and will indirectly affect the souls as well. Sadra is, however, in indubitable contradiction with himself, since he affirms that an actual infinite is impossible only in things that occupy space and excludes from this not only intellects but even imaginative souls since imagination is non-spatial.
Sadra's example of the rope can also be taken as an implicit criticism of his teacher Mir Damad who disallowed any force to the argument from correspondence on the ground that the difference between the two series is at the side of finitude and no matter how much the mind pushes it backward, it will only remain in the middle terms and would never reach the point of infinity.
What Sadra's example of the rope glaringly brings out is that the series cannot be infinite because it is actual, i.e., existential and causally structured. Sadra also seeks to support this contention by an argument from al-Tusi,
which the latter seems to have contrived after the model of Ibn Sina's afore-stated argument, but which is highly dubious. According to this argument, which aims at avoiding the mental operation of detailed correspondence, every contingent is both an antecedent and a succedent, but if we count all the antecedents and succedents going backward all the way from now on, we will find that antecedents exceed succedents by one in the disputed side of infinity. Hence both series are finite. It is obvious that this can be so only if the present succedent is not counted; otherwise, they are equal. Al-Sabzawari also criticizes this argument on the ground that the subject under discussion is the causal vertical chain, whereas this argument's subject is the horizontal chain of antecedents only.
The third argument is based on necessity and contingency and states that if there is an infinite series of causes and effects, then all of them, taken as a collectivity, make one simple contingent which necessarily requires a cause. If this cause is also contingent, then it will be only a part of the total whole. But if it is necessary, that proves the finitude of the whole contingent series of which the necessary cause stands outside and of which it will be both a necessary and sufficient cause. An objection is raised against this argument. The objection asks why, if by cause is meant sufficient and complete cause, can the series not cause itself and still remain contingent, since it is dependent on its parts to cause the whole? Secondly, if by cause is meant efficient cause, why can one term in it not cause the whole, or, we can suppose an infinite number of causal chains each one acting upon others. Or, if the totality of the series has to be related to a necessary being, it is still possible to hold that the series of contingents is infinite but it is related to a necessary cause outside it. This last statement, of course, concedes the original argument for a necessary cause, but the reply to the first part, viz., why can the series not cause itself and still remain contingent, is that the argument has already supposed the series to be contingent and that, therefore, it cannot he a sufficient cause, while the sufficient cause is, therefore, outside it.
But our philosopher rejects this particular argument from contingency. Sadra, who does not believe in the reality of a whole over and above its parts except where the whole is an organic unity like animal or man - in which case it is endowed with a specific form - finds a special difficulty in this argument insofar as it regards the series of contingents as a composite or compound whole. The difficulty is that if the cause is the cause of the whole, then many such so-called wholes come into existence only gradually, thanks to a succession of parts - like the pieces of wood made by a carpenter for a house, or, indeed, the world-process. Now, if the cause is not there when the first part comes into existence, then - since the cause is directly the cause of the whole - the effect, viz., the first part, precedes its cause or else there is a gap between the cause and its effect, viz., the later parts of the effect. Or, we say that each part of the whole comes into existence through a part of the cause. This will obviously make the cause a composite whole as well as the effect. This will destroy the supposed sufficiency of the cause - even if it has been supposed to exist outside the contingent series as its effect - because it becomes dependent on its parts. In that case, the contingent series may just as well cause itself, i.e., some of its parts may cause the whole, since we are no longer talking about an absolute and sufficient cause.
Sadra then strongly rejects that any whole which the mind may imagine becomes a real whole thereby, for a real whole implies a real unity and unity and existence are concomitants(musawiq)
. But since existence is always individual, so is unity. Spurious or subjective wholes have, therefore, no existence. It is because of their belief in the reality of such subjective wholes that the latter-day philosophers were led to hold that a thing can cause itself. This is because they believed that the whole composed of the Necessary Being and the contingent beings is a real whole and since the Necessary Being is self-caused, they believed that this whole is also self-caused.
This point will be discussed again in Part II, Chapter I in connection with Sadra's criticism of the same arguments to prove God's existence. Here it may be pointed out that in modern Western philosophy a similar view of the interdependence of cause and effect, viewed as “events” and being held together by the idea of substance has been held. On this theory, the whole world-process can be viewed as a series of events occurring in and held together by a continuing substance.
This replaces the idea of different, discrete substances acting upon each other through causation. According to Sadra, however, such a unity is purely subjective.
The fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh arguments
appear to be variants upon the second argument stated above (viz., that based on correspondence) and attempt to state in different ways either that, corresponding to the last pure effect, there must be a pure cause at the beginning or that the series may be divided so that the product of two finite parts must be finite. These are subject to the same objections as the second proof discussed before. The tenth argument seems to be the weakest of all. It says that the whole infinite series is either odd or even, that the odd is less than the even above it by one and the even is less than the odd above it. But a number that can be characterized by being less by one term is necessarily finite; hence the series is finite. Or it can be said that any given number may be increased or decreased by one and is, therefore, finite. This proof is rightly rejected on obvious objections seen in the second argument above.
The eighth proof may be called the “hard-datum” proof. It states that unless there is an uncaused cause at the beginning, the entire series becomes void and cannot exist, just as when there is no first brick, which serves as the hard-datum or final support for all the bricks on top of it, the series of bricks is impossible.
This argument is sound and in its essence is the same as Ibn Sina's argument given above as the first argument. Finally, a similar argument is cited by Sadra from al-Farabi, viz., the ninth proof according to which, if each one of the terms in the supposed infinite series is such that it cannot come into existence unless a preceding one exists, then the entire series is impossible of existence. Hence we must suppose a first term which does not depend on another preceding one, in order to make the series possible.
It should be noted that these two arguments and Ibn Sina's aim to establish that without a first cause, a causally structured series cannot begin, and hence cannot come into existence. This is different from the argument which is based on the impossibility of a simple (not causal) infinite - as in the case of infinite movement - e.g., that every series can be divided into two or it must be either even or odd, which we have previously characterized as dubious and of which Ibn Rushd's criticism appears to be effective.
But there is a stronger version of this argument given by Van den Bergh
and based immediately on al-Ghazali, but ultimately on John Philoponus - like most of these arguments - viz., that if we assume an infinite series in the past, the present becomes impossible because, in order to reach the present - or, indeed, any given point in the series - an actual infinity will have been traversed, which is impossible. Ibn Rushd has criticized this argument by saying that it arbitrarily assumes an end to the series at the present or at any given moment, whereas what has no beginning cannot have an end either. But Ibn Rushd's criticism is ineffective, in my opinion, not so much because, as Van den Bergh says, there are finite times as well as infinite time, but because the real point in dispute is the other,
infinite side in the past, and that side, being past and thus actual, must be finite. Sadra has also mentioned this argument in Asfar, I, 3 (P. 153, lines 2-3), but his answer there is very weak, because after Ibn Rushd's restatement of Aristotle under the impact of neo-Platonism, Muslim philosophers like al-Suhrawardi and Sadra also believed that whereas the vertical, causal series of Intelligences ending in God must be finite, the horizontal, temporal series may be infinite because it is not causal and involves only a temporal succession. But, as has been pointed out earlier in this chapter, the vertical cause does not operate in a vacuum and produce later terms of the series de novo and that is why these philosophers regard the preceding temporal series as conditions. These conditions, therefore, insofar as they become relevant to, and indeed part of, the cause, cannot be regarded as a mere temporal succession but become causally structured. Hence they cannot be infinite.
Finally, says Sadra, all the effective arguments against the infinity apply only to the ascending series, i.e., the series going backwards, and establish only that there must be a first cause which itself is uncaused. They do not apply to the descending series, i.e., the series going forward. In other words, they establish only the finitude of causes, not of effects. This is because a cause behaves intrinsically differently from an effect, since a cause must actually exist if a series is to begin, but not vice versa, so that in the final effect all the preceding causes (1) exist, (2) exist together or simultaneously, and (3) exist in a causally structured manner. It is the conjunction of these three factors that forbids the infinity of causes. But not so with effects. In other words, the cause-effect relationship is an asymmetrical relationship. Sadra states this view from his teacher Mir Damad with tacit approval.
Al-Sabzawari rejects this view on the ground that since the discussion here is about vertical causes, not horizontal conditions, the effects must also be finite and he accuses Sadra of “being silent” on his teacher's opinion “perhaps out of respect.”
As we have indicated, it seems that Sadra does share this view with his teacher, although it is not clear whether he is thinking of vertical series only or of temporal conditions as well. As we have seen before in this discussion, there not only persists a constant confusion between the two but the distinction cannot, in fact, hold in the final analysis. We have seen Sadra quoting with approval al-Tusi's argument in extenso against the infinity of temporal causation in the past. If the notion of a vertical causation is adhered to rigorously, then, indeed, there is no causal series but only one Cause, God, and, given God, the whole of reality must instantaneously follow as His effects - not just the transcendental Intelligences, as al-Sabzawari says - but the whole temporal sequence as well.
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Author: Dr. Fazlur Rahman
