Chapter Seven: The Demonstration of the Veracious
The Demonstration of the Veracious in Ibn Sīnā’s Works
Derived from the Noble Qur’ān, the title of “the demonstration of the veracious”(burhān al-siddīqīn)
was used for the first time by Ibn Sīnā in the appellation of a theistic argument he had originated. Ibn Sīnā’s argument did not trace effects, such as motion or hudūth, as inferential mediates to the Necessary; rather, after refutation of sophism and acknowledging that there is a reality, it reached the optimal conclusion of the Necessary’s existence from the mere consideration of existence. In the view of the argument’s unique features - that it does not need a mediate and proceeds from the mere entertainment of external existence through a rational division that existence is either necessary or contingent, and if contingent, it requires the Necessary - it was given the elaborate title of the demonstration of the veracious.
Ibn Sīnā constructs this brilliant demonstration(burhān)
in the fourth of chapter of Al-Ishārāt wa al-Tanbihāt. Says he with respect to his argument’s features and appellation,
Consider how our proof of the First and His unity and His exaltedness from all ills did not need the conception of anything but the essence of existence and how it did not need to regard His creation and His deeds. Notwithstanding, they are His proofs, but this gateway is nobler and more trustworthy. That is, when we consider existence, existence qua existence attests to the Necessary, and then His existence attests to His attributes. With regard to the other path, it has been indicated in the Divine Book, “Soon will we show them Our signs in the horizons and in their souls until it becomes manifest unto them that He is the Real.”
Indeed, such a method of knowledge of the Almighty God belongs to a certain group of people. The Qur’ān then says,“Is not sufficient for thy Lord that He is a witness over all things.”[
This rule is exclusive for the veracious, who, argue from Him to Him, not from others to Him.
The last fragment of the verse, that is, “He is a witness over all things,” on the account of which Ibn Sīnā quotes the verse, means that God is manifest in everything so much so that even if you want to know yourself, you first witness God and then yourself. The tradition narrated from Imam Ja‛far al-Sādiq, peace be with him, which says “A creature does not discern anything but through Allah, and cognition of Allah cannot be attained but through Allah,”
has the very same meaning.
The Demonstration of the Veracious in Transcendent Wisdom
Although in many respects Ibn Sīnā’s argument - which is the main argument of the majority of philosophers and mutakellimūn after him - is superior to other traditional arguments, it relies upon a number of premises that lengthen the course of deduction. For this reason Sadr al-Muta’allihīn(Mullā Sadrā)
tried to shorten its premises, and articulated another version of the demonstration of the veracious. In the prologue of his argument, with words similar to that of Ibn Sīnā in Al-Ishārāt wa al-Tanbihāt, Sadr al-Muta’allihīn says, “People other than the veracious, in order to attain the cognition of God and His attributes, elicit things other than Him. For instance, the majority of philosophers evoke contingency, physicists use motion, and the mutakellimūn employ hudūth of the world.”
And in Al-Asfār he says,
The ways towards God are many, for He is the Possessor of multiple excellences and aspects. “And for every one is a direction to which he turneth.”
Nonetheless, some paths are more reliable, nobler, and have more illumination than the other ones; and the strongest and noblest of these demonstrations is the one in which the middle term is not, in fact, something other than Him. Therefore, a path as such to the destination is the destination itself; and this is the path of the veracious, who attest to the Almighty by witnessing Him, and then they attest to His attributes by witnessing His Essence, and attest to His actions by witnessing His attributes, attribute after attribute and action after action. People other than them, for instance, the mutakallemūn, the physicists, and so forth, prove the Almighty and His attributes by the entertainment of things other than Him - such as contingency of quiddities, hudūth of the world, motion of physical bodies, and so forth. Although these are also proofs of His Essence and evidence of His attributes, the articulated path is stronger and nobler, and in the Divine book the former path has been indicated by the Almighty’s saying: “Soon will We show them Our signs in the horizons and in their souls until it becomes manifest unto them that He is the Real,” and to the latter path by His saying: “Is not sufficient for thy Lord that He is a Witness over all things.
Sadr al-Muta’allihīn then presents a new demonstration, which he regards an instance of the path of the veracious. In this argument, Sadr al-Muta’allihīn does not make use of quiddity, quidditative contingency, motion, or hudūth. This demonstration considers reality of existence and its exclusive rules and is founded on a few philosophical principles such as principality(asāla)
, simplicity(basāta)
, and gradation(tashkīk)
of existence.
After him, other theosophers tried to shorten some of its premises. For instance, by making use of contingency of impoverishment(al-imkān al-faqrī)
, the Divine sage al-Sabzawārī omitted some of its premises.
Nevertheless, despite all these efforts, the impoverishment and need of finite beings of inferior levels of gradational reality of existence(al-haqīqa al-mushakkeka lil-wujūd)
were relied upon, which disallowed a direct and intermediary-free discernment of the Almighty Necessary.
The demonstration of the veracious, as attested by the verse, is an argument the inference of which is not based on any non-necessary mediate(al-hadd al-wasat)
; and therefore, without proceeding from any premise, it presents the existence of the Necessary as the first ontological proposition. Many luminaries of Gnosticism(‛irfān)
throughout the history of Islamic thought have tried to conduct an argument as such. The Divine sage Mirzā Mahdī al-Āshtiyānī, in his commentary on Sharh al-Mandhūma, mentions nineteen arguments organized for this purpose, some of which formulated by the Gnostics
. The demonstrations set by the Gnostics are greatly different from one another, but they are not devoid of inconsistency. These arguments - regardless of the criticisms applicable to each one in particular - are open to one common criticism, namely, the failure to make distinction between notion(mafhūm)
and extension(misdāq)
.
The Demonstration of the Veracious in ‛Allāmah Tabātabā’i’s Works
In his commentary on Al-Asfār, and in the fifth volume of Usūl-i-Falsafa wa Rawish-i-Ri'alizm, ‛Allāmah Tabātabā’ī, may Allah sanctify his tomb, constructs a demonstration for the affirmation of the Necessary. This demonstration does not depend on any philosophic principles and proceeds from the mere entertainment of eternal necessity of absolute existence to the Necessary’s existence as the first proposition of human knowledge.
In view of having these unique features, the late ‛Allāmah’s proof is well worthy to be adorned with the elegant title of the demonstration of the veracious.
In order to be the first proposition of human knowledge, it is imperative to have independence from all propositional premises(al-mabādī al-tasdīqiyya)
. However, such independence is not inconsistent with reliance upon certain conceptual fundamentals(al-mabādī al-tasawuriyya)
.
The chief conceptual fundamentals relied upon in the demonstration of the veracious are the notions of existence, essential necessity(al-dharūra al-dhātiyya)
, and eternal necessity(al-dharūra al-azaliyya)
. These are common and axiomatic notions and the definitions, which have been suggested to describe them, are lexical definitions(al-ta‛ārīf al-lafdhiyya)
, which merely draw attention towards their purported meanings.
Another point worth mentioning before expounding the demonstration is that the objective of the demonstration of the veracious is to prove the Divine Essence. It is not concerned with proving His attributes and actions.
The Almighty God is a reality Who has eternal necessity. Eternal necessity is other than essential necessity(al-dharūra al-dhātiyya)
, attributive necessity(al-dharūra al-wasfiyya)
, conditional necessity(al-dharūra al-shartiyya)
, and other similar sorts of necessities. In attributive and conditional necessities, the affirmation of a predicate for its subject is necessary provided the pertinent attribute or condition is secured. Likewise, in essential necessity, affirmation of a predicate for its subject is restricted to the continuance of the existence of the subject; in other words, the predicate is affirmed for the subject as long as the subject is existent.
Eternal necessity is instantiated when the affirmation of the predicate for its subject is not restricted by any condition or attribute, and not even by the continuance of subject’s existence. Therefore, in eternal necessity, the predicate is affirmed for the subject in every state.
God’s eternal necessity means that His reality is not stipulated by any condition and His Essence has reality in every state, and therefore, His reality is beyond the restrictions of attributes, conditions, and time. This is what is meant when it is stated that the notion of reality is abstracted from the Divine Essence qua His absoluteness(al-haithiyya al-itlāqiyya)
, not qua delimitation(al-haithiyya al-taqyīdiyya)
or qua causation(al-haithiyya al-ta‛līliyya)
.
The demonstration of the veracious, in fact, does not intend to prove a reality, which is unknown and must be proved in a discursive fashion. It proves the primariness(al-awwaliyya)
of human knowledge with respect to a proposition, which narrates the eternal necessity of God, the Glorified. If the demonstration were designed to prove a reality who has eternal necessity, its conclusion would not be the first ontological proposition, because every demonstration proceeds from certain premises to a conclusion, and given that the premises are antecedent(muqaddam)
to the conclusion, the premises - the truth of which substantiate the existence of the Deity - would be propositional premises for the conclusion.
As necessary attributes of primary and self-evident propositions, primariness(awwaliyya)
and self-evidence(badāha)
are not included in them as their integral parts. For this reason, though such propositions are never subject to doubt - because doubt as such entails skepticism(shakkākiyya)
about every branch of knowledge and takes away the epistemic relevance of proving or denying anything - nevertheless, it is possible to have doubt or to be inattentive towards their primariness and self-evidence. In such a case, the proof of a given proposition’s primariness or self-evidence draws attention to the proposition’s foremost position in human knowledge and establishes the impossibility of unawareness and ignorance with regard to it.
The demonstration of the veracious claims that the existence of a reality that has eternal necessity is primary(awwalī)
and it is impossible not to know Him; and that the boundary of philosophy and sophistry is the acceptance of that reality.
Sophism is the negation of reality, and philosophy is its acceptance. Just as the invalidity of sophistry is primary, so is the truth of reality beyond doubt. A sophist is a person who negates reality, and a philosopher acknowledges reality and investigates how does reality manifest itself and how is it represented in concepts.
According to the proponents of principality of existence, it is the notion of existence that represents reality. The proponents of principality of quiddity, however, view reality as the actual extension of quiddities. In other sections of philosophy, unity(wahda)
, multiplicity(kathra)
, life(hayāt)
, power(qudra)
, and other qualities of the Real are discussed. Therefore, the very first philosophical proposition is the acknowledgement of reality, and one who negates this proposition has abandoned the method of reason and dialogue, and practical admonishment is the only way of healing him.
The point towards which ‛Allāmah Tabātabā’ī draws attention is that the proposition “There is a reality,” and the proposition “Sophistry is void,” have eternal necessity. That is, the modality of these propositions is not attributive, conditional, or essential necessity. Acceptance of this claim, like acceptance of reality, needs mere drawing of one’s attention(tanbīh)
. In other words, just as the entertainment of the concept of reality is sufficient to acknowledge its truth, the conception of the notion of eternal necessity of reality is sufficient for accepting its validity.
A human being cannot accept sophistry in any situation or condition, since situations and conditions are realities, which attest to the invalidity of sophistry, which is the negation of reality.
Should reality be annihilated in a specific condition - in a beginning, or an end, or in any particular supposition - then only two situations are conceivable. The first is that its annihilation is not real, and an equivocal or false claim has been made that reality is annihilated. In this case, reality is preserved and it has not been annihilated. The second is that its annihilation is true; that is, reality has really been annihilated. In this supposition, again, the affirmation of the basic reality is acknowledged, since the supposition asserts that reality has really been destroyed; therefore, as a real phenomenon, the destruction of reality reflects the real presence of reality. Therefore, the falsehood of sophistry and veridicality of reality is well secured in every perceivable supposition; and a single instance of reality’s destruction is inconceivable.
A proposition, which negates reality, is a proposition, that neither its veridicality can be related in any supposition, nor its falsehood could ever be doubted. That is, its utterance always presupposes its own falsity. On the other side of the spectrum, it is impossible to doubt the meaning of the proposition, which affirms reality, because dismissing it as meaningless or doubting its meaning entails the affirmation of reality.
If, like a finite being, reality lacked eternal necessity and its necessity were conditional, say, with the continuance of its existence(al-dharūra al-dhātiyya)
, sophism would have had veridicality in the realm of reality’s destruction. Nevertheless, the veridicality of sophistry is a reality, which has its own specific nafs al-amr.
The realm of sophistry’s veridicality is not the abode of the narrator’s existence, in which case its veridicality would pertain to the reality of the narrator. Rather, its realm of truth is that very supposition, which the proposition reflects. When, in a given supposition, reality is negated, real negation of philosophy and real affirmation of sophistry is a reality that has been narrated. Thus, reality is still manifested in the context of its very negation. For this reason, reality cannot be denied in any supposition; and the primary and self-evident proposition(al-qadhiyya al-awwaliyya al-badīhiyya)
, which holds its truth, has eternal necessity.
Since the truth of the propositions, which relate reality of finite and conditional beings, is subject to certain conditions, and it is only within certain boundaries that they are true, beyond which they are false, finite and conditional beings cannot be the extension(misdāq)
of the reality that has eternal necessity.
Given that the aggregate of finite beings is not another entity, which has something additional to its parts, it does not have any reality at all. Similarly, their universals(jāmi‛)
do not have any external reality either, and they are notions that exist in the mind by the mental mode of existence(al-wujūd al-dhehnī)
in such a way that if the mind did not to exist, the universals would not even have found the mental existence. Therefore, reality, the eternally necessary existence of which is axiomatic and primary, is other than the finite beings, their totality, and their universals, as the first have finite realities, the second has no reality, and the third has a limited mental reality.
Therefore, the first ontological proposition, which the human being cannot not know, is the affirmation of the basic reality, and its modality is eternal necessity. And since, as just explained, finite entities, such as the heavens, the earth, the cosmos, and so forth, cannot be the extension of this proposition, its extension is only an Absolute Reality - Who is above the restrictions of conditions, is present with all of the finite realities, and no absence or termination is perceivable with respect to Him.
The demonstration of the veracious, with this exposition, sidesteps the criticism of failure of differentiation between notion and extension. This argument is not based on the notion of reality and its necessity of predication to itself by predication as essence. The argument, in fact, proceeds from the first ontological proposition, which encompasses affirmation of the basic reality and rejection of sophistry. The affirmation of reality is not based on its notion, which is held in the mind; it is with respect to external factuality. If it were on the basis of its notion and by predication as essence(al-haml al-awwalī)
, then just as reality is reality, sophism is sophism. Therefore, the invalidation of sophism, and consequently, the truth of the basic reality, is with respect to the external world and predication as extension(al-haml al-shā’ye‛)
.
Allamah Tabātabā’i’s Exposition of the Demonstration
In succinct and expressive words, and through perception of reality, not its notion, ‛Allāmah Tabātabā’ī, Divine grace be with him, expounds the demonstration in the fourteenth essay of Usūl-I-Falsafa wa Rawish-i- Ri’ālizm as follows:
The reality of existence, the truth of which is indubitable, never accepts negation and is indestructible. In other words, the reality of existence is the reality of existence without any condition or provision; and under no condition or provision, does it become non-reality. However, the world is transient and every part thereof accepts nonexistence. Therefore, the world is not the undeniable reality.
The martyred commentator of Usūl-i-Falsafa wa Rawish-i-Ri’alizm, sanctified be his soul, conducts the exposition of the demonstration in the light of some ontological principles such as the principality and unity of existence and portrays a sketch of the argument similar to other demonstrations, which proceed from gradation of existence or contingency of impoverishment. However, the proof, as exposed by its author, revolves around the axis of reality and does not require any of these principles. It entails the existence of the Necessary as the first ontological proposition. Perhaps the fragment “reality of existence”(haqīqat al-wujūd)
in the ‛Allāmah’s work has led the commentator to conduct his exposition as such. However, ‛Allāmah’s statement in his commentary on Al-Asfār is such that it disallows any such misconception.
The reality with which we reject sophistry and which every sensible person is constrained to accept, by virtue of its essence, does not accede to nullity or nonexistence, so much so that even the supposition of its nullity and nonexistence presupposes its truth and existence. If, either absolutely or in a specific period, we suppose the nullity of every reality, then every reality will really be null, which affirms the reality. Similarly, if the sophist sees things as illusions, or doubts their reality, they are really illusions to him, and their reality is really dubious for him. This amounts to affirmation of reality qua its negation.
Therefore, if reality does not accept nonexistence and nullity by virtue of its essence, then it is necessary by virtue of its essence. Therefore, there is a reality, which is necessary by virtue of its essence; and everything, which has reality, is needful to it for its reality and is subsistent by it.
Here, it occurs to the reasonable that the existence of the Necessary is primary; and the arguments for Him, in effect, draw attention to His existence.
The Qualities of the Demonstration of the Veracious
Although the sole indication of the demonstration of the veracious is with respect to the Necessary’s Essence and it does not prove His attributes or actions, it still has a number of unique qualities. In addition to its lack of need of ontological premises, its accomplishments far exceed the other arguments. In fact, it arrives at the infinite reality of God in the first step, an objective the other arguments accomplish only after going through many steps.
The arguments, which do not prove God’s attributes, do not indicate His absoluteness(itlāq)
either. In fact, due to their dependence on premises such as gradation or multiplicity of existence, they fail to prove the Origin’s absoluteness. After some steps, when the imperativeness of the Necessary’s absoluteness is established, inevitably, certain philosophical positions are reassessed. However, the demonstration of the veracious, as expounded by the late ‛Allāmah, may Allah bless his soul, first illustrates the absoluteness of the Essence and then proves His necessity.
In the light of absoluteness and infinity of the Real, His other attributes such as unity, knowledge, and the like, are traced one after the other; and after the essential attributes, the grades and details of God’s practical manifestations and illuminations become evident.
In the light of Divine absoluteness and encompassment(ihāta)
, multiplicity is translated into His manifestations and splendors, and the impoverished existence attributed to finite entities in the demonstration of contingency of impoverishment, is effaced(fānī)
and annihilated(mostahlek)
into the passion of generous Divine benedictions. Thus, everything from Adam to the atom, with all the characteristics they contain, are signs of that Infinite Who ever remains hidden in the unseen(ghaib)
of His Essence.
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Author: Ayatullah Jawadi Amuli
