Chapter IV: Cause II: God-World Relationship
A. Efficient Cause and Final Cause
Aristotle had described God as both the efficient cause and the final cause of the universe: He is the efficient cause because He is the Prime Mover and sets the entire universe or, rather, prime matter, in motion and He is the final cause because the aim and purpose of the movement of the Universe is also God. God, however, does not make the universe as other natural causes make their objects, viz., by “pushing from behind,” as it were, but by “pulling or attracting,” since God exerts an attraction on the universe whereby it begins to move: He moves the universe as a beloved moves the lover. Muslim philosophers, like al-Farabi and Ibn Sina do not apply the term “Prime Mover” to God but they use the term “First Cause” which is neither Aristotelian nor neo-Platonic but is, rather, a combination of the two, since this is nearer than either to the Islamic conception of God. But Muslim philosophers use the term “cause'' or “efficient cause”(faìl)
both of God and other temporal or natural causes. This picture, however, becomes further complicated by the doctrine of existence propounded explicitly by Ibn Sina but which is implicit in al-Farabi. According to this doctrine, matter and form alone cannot explain existence which is a third factor emanating from God, the source of all existence.
In the further development of this doctrine, particularly in the mystics Ibn Àrabi and al-Suhrawardi, the “efficient cause” is lifted from the horizontal, temporal line of what naturalists call “causation” and is taken to the vertical line of causes, God and the Intelligences, as we have indicated previously. Sadra takes over this doctrine and elaborates it: what are called natural, temporal causes are not real causes but only preparatory conditions, since they only cause movement or change and do not give existence to the effect which comes from God. Indeed, true cause is only that which not only gives existence to its effect but also continuity, so that it becomes inconceivable that an effect should last without its cause. The effect, therefore, has its being only in the cause, not outside of it, since the cause must be “present with(mà)
” the effect throughout the latter's existence. If a building can survive the activity of the builder, it shows that the builder is not the cause of the building but is only responsible for the movement of the building materials whereby these are arranged in certain positions; if an offspring can go beyond its parent, it is because the latter is not the former's real cause - which is God, the Giver of existence - but is responsible only for the movement of the semen to a certain place where the semen is further changed by other materials and grows.
On this account, the only real cause or productive agent in the universe is God. But if we classify all temporal agents as actors, insofar as they produce movement, then actors are of six types. The first type is that which acts by nature as a fire burns or a stone moves downward by its natural power or propensity. The second type is that which acts under constraint as, e.g., when a stone is thrown upward contrary to its natural propensity. The third type of actor is that which acts under compulsion from the outside although its nature is to act freely, as, e.g., a man may do certain things by outside compulsion such as a threat or when he is thrown into water against his will by sheer physical force. The characteristic of all these three categories is that the actor acts without choice, either because of the nonexistence of choice as in physical objects or because of non-exercise of choice as in a man under external compulsion.
The fourth category is that of human actions which are characterized by free volition and choice. Such acts are preceded by will which is the result of knowledge or imagination accompanied by desire or appetition. In such cases, which constitute the field of characteristic human actions, the relationship between the basic power for action is equally related to action and non-action if we discount the knowledge-desire factor. Now Sadra thinks that such actions, although they are certainly free in the sense in which the preceding three categories of action are not free, are still under compulsion if we take into account other factors such as strong motivations or other causes beyond the control of the agent. He reproduces the classical argument in favor of psychological-metaphysical determinism: since every volition is a temporal emergent(hadith)
, it must have a cause. Its cause then is either another volition and so on to an infinite regress, or a non-volition. In the latter case determinism is clearly imposed and Sadra asserts with the Stoics that the human will is ultimately caused by the primordial universal will of God.
The same argument has been reformulated in modern times by those who hold physical or psycho-physical determinism (in terms of dispositions and physical environment, i.e., stimuli). But, as Sadra will say in Part II, Chapter III, while discussing free will, if this is determinism, this is also precisely the meaning of human free will, for free will does not mean free will in a vacuum but within a context, and those free-willers are exercising in trivialities who deny this context. (Man can, of course, change this context - he can change the physical stimuli, i.e., his environment and, to an extent, even his dispositions - but this only means that he will create a new context, a new set of determinants for his actions). Human freedom has no other meaning - for it is in the human situation that he will be free within a determining context - but this certainly does not mean that man is not free or that this freedom is either farcical or meaningless. It is, indeed, farcical and meaningless to demand or attempt to supply any other kind of freedom for man.
The fifth and sixth types of actions differ from the fourth in that they are not the result of a deliberative choice and a conscious rejection of one alternative in favor of another. In this case, therefore, there is no conscious desire or will but the action proceeds directly from knowledge. But they are not involuntary or the result of compulsion but completely free in the sense that they flow along a single line without impediment from the nature of a free agent.
This type of action is supremely characteristic of God but at the human level one may conceive of, for instance, a good person who does good by his very nature, not because he has no choice, but as though he had no choice. But still there is a difference between these two categories themselves. The first kind of action flows from the free agent by a “caring attention(ìnaya)
” and its result is in a sense outside the agent. At an imperfect human level we can illustrate it by the example of a man who stands on a wall but the mere idea or fear of a fall makes him actually fall.
This example was given by Ibn Sina to illustrate the influence of the mind upon the body and expresses the Stoic conception of the mind-body “sympathy,” according to which when an event occurs in the one substance, a corresponding change occurs in another substance, not by mechanical causation but by “sympathetic” response.
But in the present context, Sadra's example is not a good one because, as al-Tabataba'i points out, the man who falls from the wall also exercises a will not to fall, but his imagination and fear overwhelm and suppress that will. Further, what al-Tabataba'i does not say, the ''caring attention” or ìnaya is active whereas the example given here is of a passive fear. Sadra also gives another example from human experience, which is also that of “sympathy,” viz., if one imagines a very sour thing, one's tongue begins to water.
But these examples are drawn from the human experience which is imperfect. God's ìnaya is perfect and arises out of His pure knowledge. That is why Sadra, following al-Suhrawardi, replaces even ìnaya by another concept, rida, or voluntary (but not 'volitional') assent and good pleasure. Again, a human approximation of this rida is when the mind, when engaged in thinking, creates ideas and thoughts voluntarily but without will in the sense of contemplating alternatives: the mind simply goes on creating ideas and this creativity is more akin to the activity of God. But this, again, is a relatively imperfect example, since the soul and its ideas are characterized by some kind of duality. God and His knowledge, as we shall see presently in the following discussion, and more fully in Chapter II of Part II, are not two things in any sense except in our conception of Him. Rather, God, by merely being what He is, gives rise to an ideal system of existence - which we may call His mind or the contents of His mind - and the contents of His mind, merely by being what they are, generate the universe without there being any second factor or change in His pure and absolute existence.
In view of this transcendent and absolute reality of the ultimate and free principle of creativity as the cause, the world in itself has no reality at all apart from its Cause, and Sadra condemns the naturalist materialists who hold that the world is self-existent and does not need a cause. On the contrary, in view of the titanic grasp of the cause over the effect, the effect can have its being only within the cause, not outside of it.
Sadra also rebukes Ibn Sina and other Muslim Peripatetic philosophers who hold that the effect needs the cause for its existence but then comes to acquire a reality of its own.
For Sadra, the world is real only when related to God; when not so related, it has no being whatever. Indeed, the world is not even related, it is a pure relation or manifestation, as we said in Chapter I of this part. He therefore describes the relationship of the world to God, not as a building is related to its builder or even as a writing is related to its writer, but as speech is related to the speaker: the moment the speaker ceases to speak, speech vanishes.
Yet, Sadra insistently denies that, on the view just stated, the instrumentality of the vertical contingents - the Intelligences - in causation must be rejected. He inveighs against the view that no contingent, be it an Intelligence or a body, may cause existence, since they are contingent and a contingent, taken by itself, does not exist, much less being the cause of existence of others. We shall see presently that Sadra regards Intelligences to be intimately related with and manifestations of God's being, since, insofar as they exist, they share in Divine existence and, insofar as they have an essence, it manifests Divine Attributes - indeed, they are mere aspects of God Himself. Indeed, all existents share this Divine character in varying degrees - thanks to the systematically ambiguous nature of existence - and can, therefore, serve as secondary causes. In this context, Sadra invokes an argument similar to the one he stated earlier (in Chapter II of this Part) in connection with the unreality of essence, but with a different emphasis.
He had said there that essences by themselves may not be described as either existent or non-existent, but when we take existential reality into account, we may say either that they exist - i.e., they have existential instances - or that they do not exist - i.e., they have no instance in existence. This is because reality(al-waqì)
has different levels(maratib)
, and each of these levels has its own characteristics. A contingent, taken by itself, may not be said to be either an existent or a non-existent, but, in actual fact, it has existence, thanks to God. But when something does not exist at one level and exists at the other, existential, level, and the question is asked absolutely, “Does it exist?”, the answer must be given in the affirmative. This is because privations or negations do not constitute positive attributes, whereas existence and its consequences do.
It will be noticed that this version of the argument is at first sight operating at something of a cross-purpose to the earlier version when he was discussing the existence of essences. But this apparent inconsistency is removed when we remember that Sadra is talking about two different kinds of things in the two contexts. There essences, properly speaking, have only one level, viz., of non-being in themselves, and by themselves they cannot enter the existential level, for what exists are not essences but their instantiations. Here, on the other hand, a contingent being, although non-existent in itself, enters the existential field itself and not through instances, and the point Sadra is making is that the Intelligences, although contingent per se, are nevertheless necessary in their actual existence. Sadra has pointed this out several times in his writings. That is why the Intelligences are between God and the material world (which is truly both contingent and originated) and are, in fact, God's Attributes, since their contingency is merely conceptual, not real.
Just as God is absolutely free efficient cause without exercising choice and will as a human agent does, so His activity is purposive, but without His purpose being beyond and outside of Himself, as is the case with human agents. But in order to be able to conceive the nature of God's purpose, we must first analyze human purposiveness. A discussion of purpose involves a discussion of “that which is by chance” and the “unpurposeful” which are commonly believed to negate purposiveness. Now, purpose is discernible not only in humans, but also in nature, for every natural object has its natural behavior which is the result of its natural potentialities: a stone falls, air moves upward, fire burns. Many people think that nature cannot have a purpose because her actions are all on a single track and do not vary, whereas a purposive action varies according to purpose and is based on deliberation of the best means of achieving that purpose.
This is surely not true for, if we suppose all human minds to be constituted alike, with the same motivations and same volitions, their actions would still be just as purposeful.
Further, it cannot be held that thinking and deliberation are necessary for an activity to be purposive, for often thinking takes place for its own sake and is purpose in itself, so that if we suppose that all purposive activity has to be preceded by thought, then all thought must be preceded by thought and this would lead to an infinite regress.
Again, in the case of settled habits of work, particularly those involving acquired and perfected skills, activity takes place without deliberation but certainly not without purpose.
Sadra's last Point can be supported by the consideration that such activity, although it may sometimes be described in popular language as mechanical or semi-mechanical, yet it is never regarded as divorced from purpose as in the expression “going through the motions of,” which clearly indicates a lack of purpose or at least a lack of realization of purpose.
There are, therefore, natural as well as volitional purposes. Now, what is termed “by chance” occurs within the perimeters of purposive activities and has its rationale only within such activities. It can, therefore, be described as “accidentally purposive,” although not wholly and essentially so. A man is digging a well and finds a treasure trove; this find is accidental or “by chance” to his real purpose, viz., digging a well, but is not accidental to his digging the place where the treasure trove was hidden. We call such things accidental because (1) we are ignorant of all causes that make up a chain, and (2) because they supervene upon an activity which had a different rationale, although, of course, the ''accident” has its own rationale and end. This is basically different from sheer coincidence as, for example, when a sun-eclipse occurs when A sits down, although A's sitting down has its own rationale and the sun-eclipse its own, and neither of them is fortuitous.
Thus, the accidental and the essential differ only in their contexts and their rationales. If a person is taken ill by a consumptive disease and either gets cured by a doctor or dies, we do not regard the outcome as accidental, but if he gets interested in the medical art, acquires it, and cures himself and others, this is regarded as accidental since sick People generally are not expected to acquire the art of medicine.
Thus, the fortuitous turns out to be otherwise and is seen to have its own rationale. But there are certain activities which are called “unpurposeful.” Now, an analysis of purpose in human action shows that the standard purposive activity has, as we said earlier, certain stages, viz., (1) the presence of an idea or knowledge, or, sometimes, a mere image; (2) an appetition generated by it; (3) a will or determination resulting in (4) action. But all these stages are not always necessary for an action to be purposeful: sometimes an action directly flows from knowledge (as in the case of God) or from a mere image (as in the case of non-rational human actions) without the intervention of appetition and will. Indeed, there need be no external action at all, in which case the mere image satisfies the requirement of purposiveness. A man may be bored by staying at home and may simply imagine a distant beautiful place and this image may satisfy him. Or, he may actually go to that place and this will constitute his satisfaction. A man may, again, wish to see a friend of his in a distant place, in which case a mere image or a mere getting there will not satisfy him. Now, we call certain activities unpurposeful or mere frivolities because we always tend to demand a rational idea as the source of such activities. But, as we have said, not all activity proceeds from a rational idea or knowledge and often an activity is initiated only by a compelling image, in which case it is purposive if it satisfies the demand of that impulsive image and it is illogical to demand that it satisfy a rational purpose. The action of a man who cracks his fingers or strokes his beard is thus purposeful and has its rationale in this sense, because there is no other rationale or purpose which is to be served by it but of which it fails to take account.
Final cause cannot exist without the efficient cause. This is because the final effect of all purposive activity comes back to the agent. If a hungry person imagines the means of satisfying his hunger and then satisfies it, the end is the satisfaction of his own hunger. But if a person allegedly works for the pleasure of someone else, the result also finally comes back to him because he is satisfied, by pleasing someone else.
But most human purposes involve something else external to him as well - the vessel in which he realizes a value. A person who builds a house redeems the lack of a value, but satisfies it in a house which is external to him. Now, the idea or the image which impels him to action exists in him and it may be called an accident or an accidental form existing in him. Insofar, however, as it moves him to action, it is termed a purpose or a goal, while insofar as he is able to realize this value, it is called a good and a perfection. Insofar as it constitutes the term of his motion, it is called an end. Finally, insofar as the value is realized in something external to him, the purpose or the goal is called the form of that particular thing which has been actualized by the agent's activity.
But at the level of God, a total identity of the efficient and final cause must be affirmed. God, in contemplating Himself, creates, by virtue of His very being as He sees it in Himself, a system of absolute good and ideal existence which overflows Himself. This system of existence has, therefore, its root and being in Him both as efficient cause and final cause. The ideal identity of the efficient and final causes would be conceded if we could suppose the separate and independent existence of a purpose. In that case, the purpose will be both purpose and efficient cause.
But since a purpose cannot exist independently of an actor, an actor can be conceived who will be both the efficient and the final cause, for the purpose does not go beyond His being. Aristotle held that God, in His utter transcendence, contemplates only Himself and nothing else, for if He thought of something else, His goal would lie beyond Himself and He would, therefore, become imperfect. Plotinus's One also transcended everything, but His transcendence is not the transcendence of exclusion but of inclusion: He transcends all because He includes all. The Muslim philosophers, therefore, held that in contemplating Himself, God implicitly contemplates everything, not per se - for per se He contemplates only Himself - but indirectly, since He is the source of all Sadra, therefore, affirms that in God's self-contemplation, an implicit and per accidens contemplation of the world is given and in His self-love the love for the world is included, since everyone who loves himself also loves all that positively flows from him.
If, however, God is the be-all and end-all to Himself, how can we regard Him as an actor and an actor with a freedom of purpose? The answer is that God is not just a being, an existent, but also has knowledge. Indeed. knowledge and existence, Sadra insists, are aspects of the same truth and must co-exist at all levels of existence, even at the level of natural objects, for although these do not have conscious knowledge and certainly also do not have a will, they have a rudimentary level of knowledge commensurate with their rudimentary level of existence.
Their activity, as we have seen before, is purposive, although neither free nor volitional. Human activity has all three characteristics: purpose, freedom, and volition. Now, Sadra affirms with Plotinus that God's activity is not volitional in the sense that it is not characterized by alternatives - for God there can be only one alternative, the best, commensurate with His being. But His activity is both purposive and free: it is true to say, “ If God wills, He creates; if not, not,” which is the mark of a free agent. It is true of God because it is no part of the truth of a conditional proposition that both its antecedent and consequent be also either true or false. We can say, “If it rains on the moon, its surface will be wet,” but we know full well that it does not rain on the moon and the surface is not wet. This is a contrafactual hypothetical, but it is true because the point of significance is that it is applicable. Now consider the example of a painter who is gripped by an idea and he proceeds straightway to paint the picture. Actually, he cannot help painting the picture because he is totally gripped by the idea in his mind. Yet it is true to say, “If he wishes, he can paint the picture; if not, not.” This is a hypothetical whose first part is actually necessary of realization, and the second part necessary of non-realization, but the entire hypothetical is still true. Now God's situation vis-à-vis His activity is of this kind, but the hypothetical is still true, “If He wills, He creates....” This is because this sort of hypothetical indicates a free agent; it is not true of fire, for example, to say, “If it wills, it burns; if not, not.” Hence God is characterized both by freedom and purpose.
B. God-World Relationship
The question of God-world relationship can be conveniently dealt with in two parts. The first concerns itself with the relationship of the contingent to the Necessary Being and its subject matter is ontological in nature. The second deals with the problem of the relationship of the process of temporal emergence with the eternal or supra-temporal and is centrally related to the question of movement and time. Sadra's system of thought is particularly rendered suitable for this division because of his doctrine of the distinction between the vertical causation and the series of temporal antecedents and he has, indeed, dealt with the two questions separately. We shall discuss the second question in the next chapter, which concerns movement and time. The subject of the present discussion is the causation of the vertical contingent by the Necessary Being or emanation of the former from the latter. This discussion, wherein Sadra attempts a synthesis between the Muslim philosophers' theory of emanation and Ibn Àrabi's doctrine of “descents(tanazzulat)
” of the Absolute Being, is highly delicate and complex and, to my mind, beset with certain difficulties of a serious nature. In any case, we shall first follow Sadra's own analyses as accurately as possible, trying to fix the meanings of certain basic but somewhat slippery terms and then say something by way of criticism.
Before describing the procession of existence from God, we must re-emphasize the status of essences. Since essences are nothing in themselves, they cannot be characterized by causation or emanation; they cannot be caused, let alone caused to exist. This is because that which is nothing in itself cannot receive existence from anything, including God.
The common philosophical view that in a real existent existence and essence are factually conjoined is an error, because what exists as a contingent is a simple mode of existence(nahw al-wujud)
, which in turn causes essences to arise in the mind. It would be a sheer mistake to imagine that existence and essence are conjoined in real existence as a certain body may be conjoined with “black,” for example. Although a body is a primary existent and “black” exists only as its accident, yet “black” has a being of its own, if only a secondary and attributive one. But essence has no being at all - either primary or attributive.
Essences, in fact, are nothing “to be spoken of.” Even when we negate existence of them, this negation is not a part of them, so that it might be suggested that they are something of which existence is being negated.
For, even when we assert non-existence of them, some kind of existence - in the mind - is conferred upon them. In themselves, they are non-distinct, immersed as they are in the limbo of darkness and their distinctions arise only in the mind, when they are invested with mental existence.
Ibn Àrabi said that although essences have no real existence(màdumat al-àin)
, yet their effects and consequences are real. This is true only when we mean by “real” “being in the mind,” for in objective reality there is no trace of them or their effects.
In view of this, it would be more correct to say, ''such-and-such existent is man,” rather than saying, “essence of man exists,” or even “essence of man has been instantiated - in such-and-such.”
But with all their utter vacuity, essences have something to do with real existence, viz., they are caused in the mind by the latter. They, therefore, differ from such general notions and secondary intelligibles in the mind as “contingency,” “something,” etc.; for whereas nothing corresponds in existential reality to these latter, to essences there corresponds an existent, or, to be more precise, this-and-this sort or mode of existent(nahw min anha' al-wujud)
.
Indeed, essences can be defined as functions of existence in the mind: “That which is witnessed is existence but that which is understood is essence.”
Essences, therefore, have consequences in the mind for and effects upon existence, and vice versa. They are, therefore, real in this sense. Indeed, as we saw in Chapter II above on Essence and as we shall again see presently, essences have a transcendental reality as well: They “appear” in God's mind as well, not as part of or existing alongside of or even “in” His being, but in the sense that they arise in His mind as caused by His existence, just as mundane essences are caused in our minds by external existence. Indeed, it is the contingent essences that are responsible for evil and non-perfection and non-being in the world, for existence as such is pure goodness and perfection.
To deny the reality of essences in this sense is, therefore, either to deny evil or to attribute it to God, the Pure Existence.
Essences, therefore, cannot be caused; what is caused is the modes of existence, although this causation also indirectly affects essences insofar as they arise in the mind. In other words, to attribute causation or existence to essences is a pure metaphor.
Let us now see how existence proceeds from God and in what sense God can be said to be a cause.
We have seen earlier in this chapter that an efficient cause is “together with” and “present in” its effect, i.e., that whereby it exists and that whereby it is a cause is one and the same thing. Now, this is most eminently true of the First Cause, since it has no trace of duality of nature, being pure and absolute existence. Hence the absolutely and simply existent, by merely being what He is, produces His first and only effect. But just as this First Cause is simple, so is its effect, i.e., its effect does not have two aspects, one as a being and the other as an effect, but its being consists wholly in being an effect.
This first effect is what Sadra will describe later as the “first self-manifestation” of God to Himself at the level of self-knowledge and as the “self-unfolding existence(al-wujud al-munbasit)
,” thanks to which every being has existence and which, in a sense, behaves like matter to all existents. But in the meantime an important difficulty has to be resolved and the relationship between the First Being and other beings has to be further clarified.
The difficulty is that, despite its insistence on the Unity of God, this account has shown a duality in Him - the duality of cause and effect, and, further, by the same token, has put God's being in the category of relation since cause and effect are relational concepts. The reply is that the category of relation, being one of the categories, pertains to the domain of essences or pure concepts, while God is pure existence, having no objective essence at all. As pure existence, He cannot be captured by a human mind, which captures only essences. The human mind, therefore, after all its rational efforts, cannot do better than stating, with an uneasy “sense of embarrassment(bi darb rain al-dahsha)
” that the causal influence of God is by virtue of His very being and that the effect is, in this sense, internal to Him. The embarrassment of reason itself is both natural and rational, since reason aims at something higher, viz., unity of God, than what it can successfully achieve, viz., the assertion of God's causal activity by virtue of His very being.
In the final analysis, there is no proof for God's uniqueness and unity except God Himself who, witnessing the self-conscious failure of reason, fulfils it by His sheer grace.
Indeed, the cause-effect concept does not really apply to God. The situation, rather, is that which is usually characterized by emanation but even that word, taken in its banal sense, is misleading, for it also implies some kind of relation between entities. The causation under question is dynamic causation, which is a process, not a relation between static entities: Given God, “to exist,” as a verb, becomes applicable to things. But since it is God who originally exists, all other things exist by virtue of His existence. All existence is, therefore, God's existence in a basic sense and all else is a farce. Yet, everything else also, in a sense, exists really since the verb “to exist” is applicable to everything in a real, not metaphorical, sense. This is the meaning of the systematic ambiguity of existence. We shall explain presently how this is so. Here an illustration from the phenomenon of numbers may be in place to help understand this relationship. Sadra then states the age-old theory of numbers to explain the rise of many from the one, but states it in terms of his own doctrine of systematic ambiguity of existence and subjective character of essences.
If we regard unity or oneness in itself, with the condition that nothing further is added to it(bi-shart la shai')
, it is number one, entity by itself. Similarly, if we regard existence as such, by itself, it is the first Existent, God, an entity by Himself. But if we regard unity as a comprehensive nature (its comprehensiveness, we note, is not in the sense in which a whole comprehends its parts, nor yet in the sense in which a universal comprehends its particulars - not the first because a whole does not apply to its parts, nor the second because a universal has no real existence), then it is all the numbers, including one, for it is the recurrence of unity that creates all numbers. Similarly, if we regard existence as a comprehensive (not general or universal) nature, it is all things. Further, each level of number, when created, is a simple (not composite) species or a simple mode of number, wherein matter and form, genus and differentia are identical, since the difference in various numbers is produced by unity itself, i.e., that which is the principle of their identity, is the very principle of their difference. This is what is meant by systematic ambiguity(tashkik)
. Exactly so, in the realm of existence, each existent, e.g., an Intelligence, a man, a horse, etc., is a simple mode of existence.
Again, each level of number, although in itself it is only a mode of number, generates certain characteristics and properties in the mind, i.e., the mind extracts them from it. Similarly, in the case of existence, each mode of existence gives rise, in the mind, to certain properties we call essences.
The difference, of course, between the phenomena of existence and numbers is that whereas the former is real - indeed, it is the only reality - the latter do not really exist but only have a conceptual order of existence. The second important difference between the two is that whereas numbers are created by the recurrence of unity, existents are not created by the recurrence of existence: existence, by being what it is, a unique reality, is all things. God does not repeat or manifest Himself again and again to produce modes of existence; His one primordial self-manifestation creates them all.
Sadra's theory of the process or the order of the universe, both in its existential and essential aspects, from God, rests squarely on the doctrine of Ibn Àrabi and, in his attempt to synthesize it with the Muslim Peripatetic view of the relationship of God with the universe, he comes to modify the latter, seriously in some respects. When God, as Necessary Existence, reflects upon Himself, the first effulgence from His being takes place. This is what Sadra meant while discussing the first effect of God. This effulgence or effect is, in a sense, identical with God Himself as pure existence but as being the result of His self-reflection, it is something different as well. But it is not to be understood as being separate from Him - indeed, it is not really an emanant or an effulgent, but rather an act, an act of serf-reflection so far as God is concerned and an act of pure effulgence so far as it itself is concerned. Yet it can be hypostatized: it is nothing but real existence, the stuff of which all existents are made. It is called the self-unfolding existence(al-wujud al-munbasit)
and, in a sense, behaves vis-à-vis all existents as matter behaves vis-à-vis all material objects, except that while matter is pure potentiality, it is pure actuality.
God Himself, in His transcendent unity, is unknowable, but this being is knowable, after a fashion (by intuition, not by the reflective mind which knows only essences), since it exists in and with and as the basis of all things. Taken in itself, it is absolute and modeless but exists in all modes - with the eternal it is eternal, with the temporal, temporal; with the necessary, it is necessary; with the contingent, contingent; with the stable it is stable, with the transient, transient.
Yet, it is self-same all through and no modalities touch its intrinsic character; it is God's witness in all things. It is the shadow(zill)
of God in all things and when this shadow casts itself upon the in-them-selves-non-existent essences, the world comes to be constituted - the world of contingent existents. Sadra speaks of it sometimes as an hypostasis, sometimes as an act, and sometimes as a relation mediating between God and the world of contingency:
apparently it is a hypostasis or a substance with reference to each existent as its existential root or principle; it is a relation between God and the world of contingency as a whole and, finally, it is an act of self-reflection on the part of God as well as a pure relation to Him in His mind.
But it is as an hypostasis that it plays the most important role in the ontology of Sadra and Ibn Àrabi. Sadra even describes it as the first emanant from God. If the Peripatetic philosophers hold that the first emanant from God is the First Intelligence, this is only a general and vague statement which needs further specification. The truth is that the First Intelligence is the first emanant only in comparison with the rest of particular beings which exist in separation or quasi-separation from God, and is itself the result of the conjunction of this self-unfolding existence with an essence and is the former's first determination, as all particular beings are, in turn, its incessant determinations. But the self-unfolding existence is not separate from God, as we have seen.
There is, therefore, no real contradiction between this view and that of the philosophers.
Indeed, each particular determination of the self-unfolding being necessitates the attachment to it of an essence - in the mind. This is the meaning of contingency or contingent existence. When this self-unfolding being enters the realm of contingency and through its self-determination beings with essences arise, it is called “the Breath of the Merciful(nafas al-Rahman)
,” a term which also comes from Ibn Àrabi like the term “self-unfolding existence.” This substance - the Breath of the Merciful - is the self-unfolding being insofar as it gives rise to contingent beings and manifests essences. The factor that generates this change in the self-unfolding being and brings it down from the level of pure existence is again in the mind of God.
God, who, as pure existence, had generated the self-unfolding existence, creates by a second reflection or effulgence upon Himself, a multiplicity of attributes - life, knowledge, power, etc. In other words, what the first stage of Divine Consciousness had adumbrated as a unity and contained in an implicit manner, now becomes explicit at the second stage of self-consciousness. These detailed contents of the second level consciousness are at once the attributes of God and the Ideal Essences of the created world. There is, however, a vital difference in the results of the two self-reflections. The first reflection - of existence - had reflected or irradiated the “outward” of God, which is pure existence; the second reflection remains the “inward” of God. This is because of the principle that existence is the reality while essences, as concepts, are confined to mental existence.
But with this second effulgence, a change occurs in the first one as well which cannot fail to be influenced by the second event; and although it retains its character of existence, it becomes infected with essences. Sadra describes this new substance as the highest Intelligible Substance which, by casting a shadow upon the temporal world, generates the primary substance, pure matter. The principle involved here is that the higher a substance is in the Intelligible Realm, the lower is its shadow in the material realm, and since the Breath of the Merciful is the highest substance in the Intelligible order, its shadow in the material order is the lowest. Whereas the Breath of the Merciful represents the highest degree of actuality in the contingent order of things, primary matter represents the zero level of actuality and is, indeed, pure potentiality.
But since no substance is conceivable without attributes and, indeed, primary matter itself becomes existent only through attributes or forms, so is the highest substance, the Breath of the Merciful, inconceivable without attributes. Indeed, God Himself has been seen to exhibit attributes in His own mind.
Just as God's being, in conjunction with His attributes, becomes His Names - the Living, the Knowing, the Powerful, etc. - so does this supreme substance, when conjoined with specific attributes like the Intellect, Reason, Perception, Nutrition, etc. become specific substances, like Intelligence, man, animal, plant, etc. Indeed, attributes and essences are the principle of diversity (in the mind), whereas existence is undifferentiated unity (in reality). Just as in the contingent existents there is nothing but a contingent existence which, when it comes into relation with a knowing mind, generates a multiplicity of concepts and essences, so, in the case of God, there is nothing but an absolute and pure existence which in His mind generates a multiplicity of attributes. The difference is that whereas in contingent existents (except man), there is only existence without (at least conscious) knowledge, in God both existence and knowledge coalesce - hence the necessary rise of attributes in His mind.
Sadra is well aware that this Ibn Àrabian doctrine is a violent affront to the Peripatetic philosophers who vigorously deny any real attributes to God over and above His being, which they define as pure existence without essence, since in their view, the addition of essence to existence in God would make Him contingent, and who, therefore, seek to explain away God's attributes either as relations or as negations and loudly proclaim that God's attributes are absolutely identical with His existence and have no being beside it. Further, such a view as Sadra's would render their principle of emanation - “From the One only one can proceed” - (on the basis of which they affirm the emanation of the First Intelligence from God) totally void since on this view both God and the first emanant - the Self-Unfolding Being or the Breath of the Merciful - are said to possess both existence and essence. In his reply, Sadra declares that what has been revealed by an authentic and direct intuition can never be contradicted by true reason and that, if a contradiction appears, then reason has not been used correctly.
His rational defense
of his view consists in pointing out that the philosophers also agree that attributes like life, knowledge, will, and power are assertable of God but that these are mere human concepts, while in God there is nothing but existence, pure and simple. Sadra affirms that this is true and that, in fact, this confirms his own view of essences being only in the mind. But when they exist in the mind, they are real at that level and each essence and concept has its own content different from others. This explanation, however, does not really meet the point since, according to the philosophers, God's attributes are in the human mind, according to Ibn Àrabi and Sadra, they are in God's mind, which has, indeed, among its contents, essences of contingents as well since these latter are only modes and combinations and permutations of the Divine attributes themselves. The philosophers also, it is true, hold that in contemplating His own existence God knows everything - all essences - but they contend that these are merely implicit in God's existence and have no explicit existence there. But Ibn Àrabi and Sadra, by distinguishing a second level of consciousness in God's being - the level of differentiated attributes and essences - have attributed a real multiplicity to God, i.e., in His mind. This is the crux of the problem according to the philosophers' point of view, and Sadra's insistence that attributes and essences only exist in God's mind and have no place in His absolutely existential level cannot save his doctrine from the attack of the philosophers.
Nor does this theory seem to me to accord with Sadra's basic view that essences are mere negations of existence,
“pure darkness,” absolutely unreal and, indeed, source of all evil. How can these essences, then, become part of God?
Further, what difference remains between the necessary and the contingent being since in his own view, contingent essences have their being only in the mind while now it turns out that God's attributes - His essences - are also only in God's mind? Indeed, it is not without irony that according to the philosophers essences have an objective and positive reality in the world of contingency, besides existence, but they exonerate God of all essence. But Sadra, who has relentlessly criticized philosophers for believing in the objective reality of essences in the contingents and contaminating pure existence with them - indeed, of giving priority to them over existence - and has untiringly affirmed the non-being and utter inanity of essences, ends up by making them the veritable contents of God's mind.
One positive consequence of this stand, which is, of course, also the real purpose of Sadra's manipulation, is the reduction (or elevation) of the transcendental Intelligences of the philosophers to the status of the Attributes or Names of God. The philosophers had given these Intelligences, as contingent beings, a being separate from that of God and had often identified them with Angels. But very often they had also spoken of these Intelligences, particularly the Active Intelligence, as a veritable God or substitute for God in relation to the mundane world. This is one of the points of major attack upon the philosophers from the orthodox theologians. In Sadra's system, the Intelligences become in a sense part of Godhead; but, inasmuch as Attributes may be distinguished from the “Being of God,” in His mind, they are on the borderline between God and the world and are also instrumental on God's part vis-à-vis the temporal world.
It also remains something of a problem throughout this discussion as to what is precisely the locus of contingency.
We are frequently told that in being or existence itself there is no contingency and multiplicity which are due to its infection with essences which are truly contingent. Of course, the infection of being with an essence is not itself a contingent fact, but arises out of the very nature of being or existence which, by virtue of its procession from absolute existence, necessarily assumes the character of contingency. But Sadra constantly reiterates that, of the two, existence and essence, contingency belongs to essence which is responsible for the static multiplicity of mutually exclusive forms, while existence is simply a flow of pure being.
On the other hand, essence in itself, as pure non-being, is nothing to be referred to or spoken of and when it is said to be a contingent, it is already invested with a kind of existence - albeit mental existence only, as we have seen above.
An essence is a paragon of privations and negations: it is neither existent nor non-existent, neither eternal nor contingent, neither a cause nor an effect, for all these attributes belong to existence alone.
It is the non-necessary existent that is, properly speaking. contingent, not an essence in itself.
It is, then, a particular being, a mode of existence which is contingent and its contingency is due to its being conjoined with an essence (which in itself is not a contingent), i.e., due to its capacity to become conceptualized in the mind. It is, then, something of a mystery why God does not become contingent because of His conceptualization in His own mind, at least. Sadra, however, will assure us in Chapters I and II of Part 11 (pages 128 and 141 below) that essences and attributes in God's mind cannot be characterized by contingency since contingency is the mark only of limited essences; God's attributes, being unlimited and infinite, are as necessary as His existence.
A somewhat older Indian contemporary of Sadra - a sworn critic of Ibn Àrabi - Ahmad Sirhindi, when faced with the same problem of contingency, had refused to accept Ibn Àrabi's doctrine that God's attributes were the materials from which the contingent world was created and endowed with existence. Sirhindi held that while God's attributes are real and are identical with His Existence, the essences of the contingents are the very opposites or negations of these attributes: God has being, life, knowledge, power; the essence of a contingent is characterized by non-being, non-life, ignorance, and impotence. But God then redeems the contingent through His positive attributes by casting their shadows upon the former. It is obvious, however, that Sadra would never accept the principle of moral dualism introduced by Sirhindi.
Indeed, we must not imagine that Sadra's investing God's mind with essences is fortuitous or that he blindly or mechanically follows Ibn Àrabi in this respect. It is, I think, a consequence of a central theme of Sadra's philosophy, a theme which may be said to be the main purpose of his whole philosophic system, viz., the doctrine which he calls the “special doctrine of God's Unity(al-tauhid al-khassi)
.” This doctrine states in sum - as has been indicated in Chapter I of this Part and as we shall elaborate further in our discussion of God in Chapter I of Part II of this book - that, in the realm of diversity and multiplicity, a real unity exists while, conversely, in the realm of absolute unity, multiplicity exists in an “eminent,” “ideal,” or “simple” manner. This is the doctrine of unity-in-diversity and diversity-in-unity(wahda fi'l-kathra wa'l-kathra fi'l wahda)
. He condemns those materialist atheists who recognize only a disjointed multiplicity in nature and do not recognize the presence of one Existence-principle, one God in it, as we have seen in Chapter I of this Part; he also declares gravely erroneous the views of those mystics, who even in the realm of contingent multiplicity only see a unity and deny the existence of diversity, where every existent is, in fact, unique;
thirdly, he denounces those immanentist “ignorant sufis” who think that God exists only in His manifestations or modes - in multiplicity - and that He has no transcendental existence in Himself as absolute existent.
Finally, he sharply criticizes philosophers for holding that God is so transcendent that, in His pure and simple existence, there is no room for the world even in an “eminent” and simple manner. This is why he vigorously criticizes the philosophical doctrine of abstraction in all possible contexts, as we have seen in Chapters I and II of this part and shall elaborate in Part III (particularly Chapters II and IV) while dealing with his theory of knowledge. According to Sadra, the higher does not “abstract from” or negate the lower forms of existence but absorbs, includes, and transcends them: they exist in it in a simple manner. That is why, while characterizing God, he enunciates the principle, “a simple being is [i.e., includes] all things(basit al-haqiqa kull al-ashya')
.” There is, therefore, no question but that God includes and transcends all things - mundane and supra-mundane. The tension that arises here is between his pronouncements on the utter inanity of essences and his investing God's mind with them. It is not without interest to note that in this respect, Sadra's doctrine in effect amounts to the same as Sirhindi's.
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Author: Dr. Fazlur Rahman
