Parapemikir

The Existence of God

Although he summarizes what appears to be the traditional argument against circularity, viz. that if two possible things were said to cause each other, each would precede the other an consequently itself, which is absurd, – Al-Razi proposes a different argument which he states thus: “The effect (ma‘lul) requires the cause.

Now if each of two (possible) agents was the effect of the other, each of them would require the other and accordingly each would require what requires itself. Therefore, each would require itself, which is absurd.” [ Read More... ]

The Existence of God

We might examine here Al-Razi’s exposition of the traditional proofs for the existence of God as outlined in Kitab al-Arba‘in, especially since this is one of the fullest expositions which our classical sources record, and one which Wensinck does not seem to have consulted in his important monograph.

Al- Razi sums up the proofs of the existence of God under four arguments. The argument from the possibility (Imkan) of the universe to the existence of a necessary being (wajib al-wujud), Creator thereof.

The argument from the possibility of the qualities of the universe to the necessity of a Determinant of the form, characteristics, and locus of bodies composing it, who is not Himself a body. [ Read More... ]

The Existence of God

The later history of Kalam reflects greater refinement in employing the technique of argument and a greater subtlety in handling logical concepts. Ibn Khaldun distinguishes between modern and the ancient stages in the development of Kalam and assigns the credit for introducing the ‘method of he moderns’ to Al-Ghazali.

Whether the credit for initiating this new ‘philosophical’ stage in the development of Kalam rightly belongs to Al-Ghazali or some earlier theologian, as Al-Juwayni or Al-Baqilani, is a controversial issue. [ Read More... ]

The Existence of God

Al-Baqilani (d. 1013) who belonged to the second generation of Ash‘arite doctors and who is credited with refining the methods of Kalam, sums up this argument in succinct way.

The world being temporal (hadith), he writes, it must of necessity have a Maker and Fashioner (muhdith wa musawwir), “just as writing must have a writer, a picture must have a painter and building a builder.”

To this argument, however, he adds two others in which the ‘middle term’ differs but which reveal the same dialectical structure. In the first, he maintains that the priority of certain things over others presupposes an “Agent who made them prior” since priority does not belong by nature to a pair of equals; and this “determinant of priority” is God. [ Read More... ]

The Existence of God

The biographer of Al-Ash‘ari, Ibn ‘Asakir (d. 571 A.H.), reports that Al-Ash‘ari wrote a treatise called Kitab al-Fusul, in refutation of the Materialists and the ‘philosophers,’ who professed the eternity of the universe, which as far as I am aware, is the earliest scholastic treatise dealing with the question of eternity in a systematic way, our sources record.

Despite the statement of Al-Shahrastani that Al-Ash‘ari preferred the negative method of refutation (al-ibtal), as distinct from the method of positive proof, it is reasonable to assume that like Ibn Hazm, Al-Razi and others, he coupled the former with the latter species of argument. [ Read More... ]

The Existence of God

The Traditional argument of Kalam presupposes a preliminary thesis upon which the theological treatises place a considerable emphasis: the thesis of the newness or temporality of the universe (al-huduth).

This circumstance explains the vehemence with which the opposite thesis of an eternal universe is combated by the advocates of Orthodoxy. Ibn Hazm, the Zahiri jurist and heresiographer, who died in 1064, employs this as the principle on the basis of which he distinguishes between the orthodox or heterodox sects. [ Read More... ]