Creation and the Cosmic System... Al-Ghazâlî & Avicenna
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RICHARD M. FRANK
Creation and
the Cosmic System:
Al-Ghazâlî & Avicenna
Vorgelegt am 27. April 1991
HEIDELBERG 1992
CARL WINTER • UNIVERSITÀTSVERLAG
Die Deutsche
Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Frank, Richard
M.:
For Abuna
Anawati
2.
The Rejection of
Traditional Analysis and the Move towards Avicenna .... 12
3. The Ordering of
Causes and Events within the World 22
3.1.1. Sublunary Causes and the Fulfilment of Conditions 22
3.1.2. Ambivalences of Expression
31
3.2.
Celestial Causes and the
Universal System 38
4. God’s
“Determination” of What Must Be 47
4.1.
Wisdom, Judgement, and
Command: the Need to Divide and
Distinguish 47
4.2.
Possible Beings and the Possible
World 52
4.3.
The Necessity of the
Universe that God Wills 63
4.4.
God’s Knowledge, Will,
and Power: A Dialogue with Avicenna ....
78
5. Summary: God of
Abraham or God of the Philosophers? 84
The present study has its origin in a paper
entitled “Al-Ghazâlî’s Use of Avicenna’s Philosophy” prepared for the
Penn-Paris-Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium held at Morigny in November 1986 on the
topic “inheritance and borrowing in the middle ages”, publication of the
proceedings of which have been unfortunately delayed. It was not possible at
the time and in the framework offered by the colloquium to deal adequately
with the many problems posed by the texts and I therefore restricted my
contribution to a brief outline of the basic orientation of al-Ghazâlî’s
teaching and to pointing to some of the more serious questions raised by his
apparent departures from the doctrine of earlier, Ash’arite theology and
several of the principal difficulties which one encounters in trying to
ascertain the exact sense and implication of what he says regarding a few
fundamental issues. I hope here to have brought some of the primary
difficulties to a satisfactory resolution and to have uncovered a core of
theological doctrines that run consistently, albeit often obliquely, through
the corpus of al-Ghazâlî’s work.
Al-Ghazâlî is commonly
recognized as the one who made the first great adaptation of the intellectual
heritage of Greek philosophical thought to the elaboration of sunnî theology.
The aspects of this which involve the basic theological questions have been
submitted to less thorough study than have some philosophical aspects of his
teaching. With some scholars there has been a tendency to feel that because of
the introduction of elements of classical philosophy al-Ghazâlî’s thought is
more truly theoretical and therefore, in some sense, more genuinely theological
than was that of his Ash’arite predecessors. Such judgements concerning the
relation of al-Ghazâlî’s theology to that of classical kalâm and of
their respective characteristics have for the most part, however, been based
on a somewhat superficial examination both of al-Ghazâlî’s work and that of his
predecessors and to such an extent are inadequately substantiated. It is true
enough that on reading a list of the primary dogmas of Elam as presented by any
of the great Ash’arite masters, for example the twenty six theses presented by
abû Ishâq al- Isfarâ’înî at the beginning of his 'aqtda, one finds none
that al-Ghazâlî will not affirm as formulated and that to this extent he
remains formally within the confines of traditional Ash’arite orthodoxy. That
his conception of a number of the basic theses and his analysis of them
differs from those of his predecessors is a commonplace. Viewed on a superficial
level, this may appear to be no more than the natural result of his adoption of
the general framework and of various major elements of the Neoplatonised
Aristotelia- nism which was current in a number of contemporary intellectual
and religious milieux. Again, it is clear that al-Ghazâlî’s reconception and
reformulation of some theses introduced no change into the way they had
previously been understood that was of fundamental theological importance.
With others, however, this is not apparently the case, but the diversity of his
work and the ambivalence with which he frequently expresses himself render it
difficult to come to a clear judgement on the matter. In order to determine the
real theological significance of al-Ghazâlî’s departures from traditional
Ash'arism one has to undertake a detailed
analysis of what he has to say on the most basic theological issues. It is in
order to shed light on his teaching concerning some of these questions that the
present topic was selected.
In focusing on the
relationship between Avicenna and al-Ghazâlî I do not mean to suggest here that
Avicenna is the only philosopher whose work exerted influence on al- Ghazâlî’s thought
and his theology, but to begin from the obvious fact that he had a profound
effect on al-Ghazâlî’s thinking and to take some account of al-Ghazâlî’s manifest
preoccupation with his work.[60]
It is important to keep in mind in this context that there is a significant
religious dimension to the philosophical vision of Avicenna. One of his primary
efforts was to complete the integration of the Islamic phenomenon into the
general framework of the inherited philosophical tradition that was begun by
al-Fârâbî and in some respects - for as a philosopher he was a more independent
and original mind than were his Muslim predecessors - to rethink and reform the
philosophical tradition within the cultural universe of Islam. The theology of
al-Ghazâlî, for its part, manifests a far greater quest for a strictly
intellectual vision of the universe to complement basic religious belief,
intuition, and understanding, than had that of earlier kalâm,
particularly that of the Ash'arites. That is to say, the purely intellectual
and theoretical understanding of the universe and of God’s action in it is far
more important in the works of al-Ghazâlî as a framework for achieving and
understanding basic religious doctrine than in those of prior Ash'arites. His
much talked of sufism is subordinated to this intellectual vision, as is
immediately apparent in a comparison of Mishkâh with the works of almost
any genuine sufi master of the period as it is also in a careful reading oilhya.
Our present inquiry takes
as its point of departure a number of statements that are made in al-Maqyad
al-asnâ,[61] This was chosen
because it is essentially a work of theoretical or systematic theology and one
in which, because he is not formally bound to the conventions of the traditional
manuals, as he is, for example, in Iqtiyad, he tends to
express himself more forthrightly and with
greater clarity than he generally does elsewhere in treating the same basic
matters. The meaning and the implications of the basic structure and conception
of what he says on the basic questions in Maqçad we shall then pursue in
other works. A number of passages we shall have to examine in disproportionate
detail, for it is only in this way that we may discover exactly what in fact he
asserts and does not assert in them? What emerges is that, while rejecting
significant elements of Avicenna’s cosmology, al-Ghazâlî adopted several basic
principles and theses that set his theology in fundamental opposition to that
of the classical Ash'arite tradition. To what extent his thought in these
matters developed or may have changed over the last fifteen years of his life,
that is, between the writing of Maqâçid al-falâsifa and his death in
505/1111, remains unclear. For the questions we shall examine, to be sure, his
thought is presented more fully and more explicitly in works written after his
departure from Baghdad in 488/1095, but there is some evidence to suggest that
he held the basic doctrines articulated in Ihya and the later works
already at the time he wrote Tahâfut and Mi'yâr. A separate and
more detailed study will be required to sift the evidence concerning the
progress of his thought out satisfactorily. Within the matters embraced by the
somewhat narrow scope of the present study, in any case, there appears to be no
fundamental inconsistency in his teaching from Tahâfut until the end of
his life.
3 Tahâfut presents some peculiar problems, in that he
twice states quite unequivocally (pp. 130 f. and 179 ff.) that in this work he
means to assert or to defend the truth of no thesis, but only to show the
inability of \he.falâsifa to justify the particular theses under
discussion. He does, of course, state a number of propositions that he holds to
be true and which are important to his theology, but the work is craftily
composed and one has to be careful in making any appeal to it as witness either
for what he denies or for what he asserts.
2. The Rejection of
Traditional Analysis and
The Move Towards Avicenna
In the opening chapter of Maqçad (pp.
17-35) al-Ghazâlî outlines the theoretical framework that underlies and governs
his understanding and interpretation of the Most Beautiful Names as linguistic
entities and descriptive predicates of God. Here he rejects as imprecise and
inadequate the thesis that the name is that which is named (al- ismu huwa
l-musamma) and thereby in large measure the formal, linguistic analysis
common to the earlier Ash'arite tradition. The purpose of this laborious and
polemical refutation is not to reject a bit of somewhat bizarre terminological
jargon and to substitute for it a different set of formal expressions which he
prefers to employ for the logical analysis of the Divine Names. He could easily
have explained the sense of the formula in a few lines and set it aside either
as needlessly confusing or as otiose in his context. The formula, for some
reason, early received acceptance amongst the Ash'arites as presenting a basic
element of orthodox doctrine, though it seldom, if ever, appears verbatim as
such in their analysis of predicates. Al-Shîrâzî, for example, says (fAqtda,
p. 64,25), that it is held by those who adhere to the true doctrine (ahi
al-haqq}, though he does not bother to inform the reader how he understands
the formula. Its meaning is, in fact, explained in several ways. The one on
which al-Ghazâlî generally focuses his attack, however, involves the basic
system of the school’s formal analysis of predicates. Briefly stated, it is
that any descriptive predicate (watf, tasmiyah}, e.g., ‘knows’, ‘moves’,
‘is alive’, can be analysed and paraphrased in a sentence whose subject term is
the noun (ism} from which the original predicate expression is
understood to be derived (mushtaqq} and to which it refers or points,
e.g., ‘knowledge/cognition’, ‘motion’, ‘life’. The subject noun of the analytic
paraphrase names the entity, attribute, event, or state of affairs which is
implicitly named (musamma) and referred to by the predicate of the
original proposition and which is, consequently, asserted to exist as a
property or characteristic or activity of the referent of the original subject
term (e.g., the ‘he’ of ‘he knows’). Following then the analogy of the common
terminology where ‘s if ah’ means attribute and ‘wayf designates
the descriptive term that refers to it, ‘ism’ is understood as a general
expression for what is referred to and asserted to be by the descriptive
predicate and ‘tasmiyah’ (the naming) is taken to designate the expression
that names or refers to it (cf., e. g., al-Isfarâ’înî, fr. 67). The terminology
and the analytic forms are adapted from those of the grammarians. Like the
grammarians, the theologians in a number of places use the same expressions as
terms both of their metalanguage (to talk about sentences and their analysis)
and of their object language (to talk about the entities and their properties
that are asserted to exist in the sentences that refer to them and describe
them). It would be less confusing to render ‘al-ismu huwa l-musammâ’ by
‘the noun is what is referentially implied’, i.e., implicitly referred to by
the descriptive expression of the original predicate, with the understanding
that what is asserted to exist is the entity or property or activity that the
particular noun, as an expression in the
object language, names and refers to.4
What al-Ghazâlî does here, however, is to enter into a lengthy discussion in
which he depicts the formula as representing an understanding that is
essentially confused and inadequate, his aim being to displace the traditional
analysis and the propositional logic of the traditional Ash'arite theology in
favor of the school logic of the Aristotelians. Thus, for example, he describes
the dispute between the Karrâmiyya and the Ash‘arites over whether or not ‘khâliq'
is eternally true of God as “baseless” (Maqçad, p. 31,15f.), since ‘khâliq'
can be understood either as ‘[potentially] creating’ or as ‘[actually]
creating’ (pp.31f.).5 The shift in perspective is not insignificant.
The earlier analysis aimed at discovering and explicitly showing what the
affirmation of any given predicate implies to be the case at the time it is
asserted to be true, i.e., what state of affairs is asserted to obtain. Thus
‘creates’ (khâliq) implies (iqtada) that there is a “creation”,
i.e., that there exists an event which is an act of creation (khalq)
whose being is the contingent existence of a creature (al-khalq = al-
makhlûq)6 and whose actuality is the basis of the truth of the
predicate.7 ‘Potentially
4 The best account of this from the standpoint of the theologians is
found in Ikhti^âr al-Shâmil, foil. 12Ov°ff. For a brief and rather
unsatisfactory account of it see R. Frank, “Attribute, Attributes, and Being”
in Philosophies of Existence Ancient and Medieval (ed. P. More wedge,
New York, 1982), pp. 272 ff. and fora clear exposition of the grammarians
understanding of the formula see the Risâla of al-Batalyûsî published by
A. Elamrani-Jamal, in “La Question du nom et du nommé”, ZAL, Heft 15
(1985), pp. 86ff.
5 There is a somewhat analogous, though generally less polemical,
rejection of the traditional analysis of predicates also in Iqtiçâd (pp.
129ff.), where he rejects al-Bâqillânî’s analysis and ontological explanation
of “to be knowing” (al-'âlimiyyah) as «unadulterated fancy» (p. 131) in
favor of an interpretation which follows al-Juwaynî’s analysis in his R.
al-nizâmiyyah. Later in Iqtiçâd (pp. 158 f.) in order to illustrate
and to validate the use of the predicate ‘creates’ al- Ghazâlî employs the same
example, viz., of how ‘cuts’ (or ‘cutting’) is said of a sword both as in
potency and in act. Here, however, he does not employ the expressions ‘bil-quwwah’
and ‘bil- fiT, possibly because the overall context is one in which he
does not find it appropriate to employ language that is uniquely that of the
“logicians” and the falâsifa. Nor does he anywhere that I have noted
employ ‘bil-quwwah’ or ‘bil-fi'l' when speaking of God save in
this passage of Maq- $ad. Even sOj al-Ghazâlî’s introduction of the
distinction here (several additional predicates of action are listed in Iqtiçâd,
loe. cit.), raises a problem in that it ambivalently suggests the possibility
of temporality in God (as does the future, sa-yulhimuhâ: Maqçad, p.
31,12). This is a question we shall have later to look at more closely.
‘Potentially creating’ and ‘actually creating’ may perhaps not be in all
respects inappropriately said of God in al-Ghazâlî’s theology, since he holds
that the world has existed only fora finite period of time. Muslim theologians
generally, it should be noted, never managed to conceive God’s being as totally
removed from any temporal relationship to the world and to the sequences of
events that mark the world’s time.
6 Cf., e.g., Tamhîd, § 556, Shâmil (81), p. 48, 21, Ikhtiçâr,
fol. 167v°, 22f., Sharh al-Irshâd, fol. 8r°, 4ff., and Ghunya,
foil. 125v°, 5f. and 180v°, 22.
7 Part of what is involved here is the understanding of the basic
logical form ‘SP’ as commonly presented in Arabic and with it the sense of the
verbal adjective that is the predicate term. All verbal predicates of God are
formally recast in a predicational sentence with a nominal predicate (i. e., a
sentence of the form mubtada’ - khabar in which the predicate is a
verbal adjective or a participle), regardless of the original form of their
occurrence in the Koran or the Iladition (e.g., mufaî, mumît). This is
not simply in order to avoid the particularities of tense and the implied
temporal relationships that may attach to any particular context in the
canonical sour-
creates’, by contrast, is somewhat vague. It will
be equivalent to (1) ‘can [i. e., has the power to] create’ or perhaps to (2)
‘knows He will create’ and/or ‘knows what He will create’ or (3) to ‘wills to
create’, etc. ; it implies, and its affirmation asserts (athbata), the
being of God’s power (qudratuhû) or of His knowledge ('ilrnuhu)
or of His will (irâdatuhû) or of all three. In the traditional analysis,
in brief, one has to be more precise about what he means and to come clean
about his ontological commitments. ‘Khâliq’ in a future and/or potential
sense is not fully distinct, since in order for the intended ontological
assertion to be made clear it must be paraphrased in such a way that the
ambivalence is reduced by the introduction of additional terms that spell out
what is intended.8 All other things being equal, there is no prima
facie reason to look upon the Aristotelian framework which al-Ghazâlî here
espouses as essentially more sophisticated, or as logically more rigorous or as
conceptually more profound than the one he is at pains to set aside. What is
most important from our present perspective, however, is that in this first
chapter al-Ghazâlî puts aside, and sets himself apart from, both the traditional
language and the traditional analysis of the Ash'arite school and that he does
so in such a way as to associate himself with the language and conceptual
universe of the falâsifa.9 This is indicative of several
significant aspects of what is to follow in his discussion of the Most
Beautiful Names. Since the Maqçad can only be taken as a dogmatic work,
this is of considerable importance, for here, in contrast to Iqtiçâd and
Qudsiyya, he will present not the formal topics and problematic of the
ces, but because this is
the simplest and most basic form of predication (al-asi) viz., a simple
“nominal” sentence in which both the subject and the predicate terms are
presented in the most basic grammatical form. In ordinary usage the verbal
adjectives and participles are not tensed, but may, according to the
requirements of the context and syntactical usage, be heard as past, present,
or future. In the formal context of kalâm, however, where, employed as
the predicate term in a logical form, they are understood to be present; ‘khâliq’,
thus, is formally equivalent to English ‘creates’. If a temporal qualification
is to be included this must be done by the addition of a particle that, like
modal particles, stands first in the formulation Çkâna’: it was the
case, ‘yakûnu’: it will be the case, &c.; note that even in ordinary
literary usage Arabic distinguishes ‘kâna SP’ = it was the case that SP,
*kâna-SP’ = S was such that P, and ‘S kâna P’: it is the case
that S was P). Where the intention of the kalâm analysis is to eliminate
the ambivalence the words have in ordinary usage (‘creates’, ‘is such as to [be
able to] create’, ‘might create’, ‘will create’, etc.) precisely in order to
force the explicit and formal expression of ambivalently implied terms,
al-Ghazâlî rejects a dispute that assumes the logically formal use of the word
as “baseless”. The statement is essentially rhetorical and polemical, a part of
his move to supplant the traditional theology with his own adaptation of
Avicenna’s teaching.
8 Note that in some of the normal kalâm paraphrases ‘khâliq’
would continue to be the predicate term (e.g., with the introduction of a
temporal particle), though in most it would be found as a subordinate element
in the predicate, e.g., in ’yaqdiru llâhu an yakhluqa' will be analysed
as ‘Allâhu qâdirun 'alâ an yakhluqa’ = ‘Allâhu qâdirun 'alâ l-khalq’.
For an example of the kind of vagueness that may result from al-Ghazâlî’s
preference for the Aristotelian forms, see n. 159 below.
9 The shift, of course, has already begun in Mi'yâr. It is
worth noting that the formal language and analysis he argues for and sets forth
in this first chapter of the Maqsad plays no major, explicit role in his
ensuing treatment of the Divine Names, save in his analysis of “al-Haqq"
(pp. 157 ff.), where he puts it to very good use, and where direct dependance
on Avicenna is plain to see.
handbook tradition, but a theology of his own,
topically formed to a different framework than that of the traditional theology.[62]
The contrast between
al-Ghazâlî’s Maqçad and al-Qushayrî’s Tahbîr is instructive.
Al-Qushayrî begins each section by setting out the lexicography of the name and
giving a primary theological analysis in the traditional form of those meanings
which are applicable to God. Following this brief summary of the traditional
material, al- Qushayri proceeds to a sometimes lengthy exposition, chiefly by
way of citations and anecdotes, of the significance of what is asserted,
directly and by connotative implication, for the believer’s interior life.
Al-Qushayri, it is plain, is writing for an audience who are fully at home with
the traditional school theology which forms the foundation of his exposition
and who are also in the habit of hearing and grasping the intention of
contextually oblique and sometimes abstruse reports, an audience, that is, who
are attuned to hearing such reports as hints or direct “pointings” (ishârât)
at truths, doctrinal or spiritual, whose significance they are able to
anticipate and so perceive immediately given the hint. Al-Qushayri is not
trying to say anything new, but to give clarity to common doctrine and to offer
insight into its theological and spiritual significance. Al- Ghazâlî’s Maqçad
is quite different in character and would seem to be directed to a somewhat
different audience. Viewed alongside Tahbîr, it appears manifestly as a
work whose primary end is theoretical and doctrinal, rather than spiritual. The
analysis and the discussion of the significance of the several Most Beautiful
Names both as such and for the religious life of the believer tends to be much
less subtle and less nuanced in Maqçad than in al-Qushayri’s book. Often
he reduces the number of applicable meanings from what was generally
recognized in the tradition and thereby reduces proportionately the richness
of the theological exposition. In some cases he fails to distinguish separate
lexical items, contrary to earlier practice. The sections marked “Tanbth”
tend to be dogmatic as compared with the corresponding sections of
al-Qushayri’s work. Characteristically, the primary name of God for al-Ghazâlî
in Maqçad is not “al-Haqq” as it is for the sufis (cf., e. g., La(a,if'2,
p. 188) but “al-Khâliq” (the Creator).[63] It would seem clear, thus,
that al-Ghazâlî’s audience is one of religious scholars and of religious
scholars, moreover, who are not presumed to be altogether familiar with the
formal terms and the conclusions he presents. It is plain that he has a primary
interest in setting forth a formally ordered conception of God as creator and
in propounding a rather elaborate theoretical vision of God’s action in the
universe and on human beings, a vision, however, which he does not nuance or
explain in detail. Whereas al-Qushayri constantly averts to the intimacy and
the universality of God’s presence in events and in the activities of creatures
and no less than al-Ghazâlî insists over and again on the universal
manifestation of His knowledge, will, and activity, the latter’s treatment of
the topic differs notably by its reiterated and
persistent focus on, and elementary description of, the integrated system of
the cosmos as a unified whole in which events take place in sequences of
interlocking causes and effects. He sets this forth over and again, sometimes
in fruitless repetition, outlining his thesis, however, in a formal language
that directly recalls the cosmological and theological theories of the falâsifa
and of Avicenna in particular.
There are a number of
passages in al-Maqçad that are clearly dependent on al- Qushayri’s Tahbtr.
For example, the section on ‘al-Razzâq’ (pp. 90f.) follows Tahbtr (fol.
64r° f.), in part verbatim. The opening of the section on 'al-Lafifi (p.
109,16-18) is simply a paraphrase of Tahbîr, fol. 75r° (= P. 57; v. also
Lafâ’ifS, p. 348). Again, the section on1 al-Hafiz’
(p. 122,9-13) is a paraphrase of Tahbtr, fol. 82r°; and the anecdote
concerning Moses in the section on 'al-Barr’ (p. 150,9ff.) is taken
directly from Tahbtr (fol. U5r° = p.84).
There are a number of
places, on the other hand, that are quite clearly dependent on Avicenna. Thus
in the section on 'al-Awwal wal-âkhir’ (pp. 146f.), al-Ghazâlî, following
the Neoplatonic notion of emanation and return, speaks of God as the source of
«the ordered chain of beings» (silsilatu l-mawjûdâti l-mutarattibah) and
of the degrees and ranks by which the “knowers” (al-'ârifûn) rise back
towards Him. This parallels, for example, Ishârât, p. 176, but not the
usual exegesis of these two Names (e.g., al- Bayhaqî, al-Asmâ’, pp. 9f.
and Tafabîr, foil. 113rff. = pp. 82f.).[64] In the section on *aZ- Haqq’
(PP* 137 f.) al-Ghazâlî speaks of «the being whose existence is necessary in
itself» (al-wâjibu l-wujûdi bi-dhâtihî) as contrasted to all other
beings which in themselves are nullities (bâtilun bi-dhâtihî), since
existence does not belong to them of themselves (lâ yastahiqqu l-wujud)
but rather they exist by necessity through another. The language and the
conception are plainly those of Avicenna and the passage would seem to draw
directly on Ilâhiyyât (p. 356,1-15), where ’al-Haqq’ is discussed as a
Divine Name and Koran 28,88 (kullu shay’in hâlikun illâ wajhahû) is also
cited (cf. also Ishârât. pp. 140f. and 'Arshiyya. pp. 12f. and
cp. ibid., p. 11,9).
In the beginning of the
section on ‘al-Wahhâb’ (pp. 87 f.) al-Ghazâlî’s description of God as
“the one whose liberality is unrestricted*4 (al-jawâd), who
bestows benefits without self-interest (là li-gharad) and not for any
return (lâ li-'iwad) seems to follow the discussion of God’s liberality (al-jûd)
in Ishârât (p. 159).[65]
Finally, the section on 'al- Qâdir al-Muqtadif (p. 145), where he
discusses the essential relationship between God’s power (al-qudrah) on
the one hand and His knowledge and will on the other, is virtually a paraphrase
of 'Arshiyya (p. 11). This we shall have to examine more closely below.
Now, the first of these
Avicennian borrowings do little more than reformulate theses
and conceptions that are common in al-Ghazâlî’s
Ash'arite heritage. From the beginning God was described as “the eternal” (al-qadtm),
which is defined as “that whose non-existence is impossible” (al-mustahîlu
'adamuhû).[66] With al-Juwayni the
expression ‘the necessary existent’ (wâjibu l-wujûd) becomes common.[67]
So too, Ibn Fûrak speaks of «the eternal existence and the divinity which
belong to God essentially» (mâ yastahiqquhû mina l-qidami wal-ilâhiyyah:
Mushkil, p. 174, 17) and his student, al- Qushayri talks of «the necessity
of existence and the oneness that belong to Him essentially and His uniqueness
in having the power of causing existence» (Tahbîr, fol. 78v = p. 56). Here,
then, though following the Metaphysics of the Shifa, al-Ghazâlî seems to
do little more than borrow the language, and even there, language that has
clear precedents, both in expression and sense in the Ash'arite tradition.[68]
When, however, al-Ghazâlî
deals with the order and perfection of the universe, «the ordered chain of
beings», and their relationship to God’s eternal knowledge, will, and power,
his use of Avicenna gives rise to a number of questions. He shows considerably
more interest in theoretical cosmology than do his theological predecessors and
discusses it at some length in several works. The longest individual sections
of Maqçad are, in fact, devoted to this topic. Almost all of God’s Most
Beautiful Names refer, in one way or another, to His action and His
relationship to His creatures and al-Ghazâlî insists, as had others before him,
that to understand the significance of the Names one has to understand God’s
action as referred to and described by them (e. g.,Maq$ad, pp. 54f., 57,
81 and 110). There would seem to be little doubt that al-Ghazâlî’s agonising
quest for cognitive certitude was in large part resolved by his confidence in
his own contemplative grasp of the operation of God’s activity in creation in
the terms of his own adaptation of the Avicennian model. One notes that of the
three stages of the knowledge of God the last and highest is that of knowing
the universal operation of God’s power in the universe and the uniqueness of
His agency (e.g., Ihyâ’ 4, pp.79f. and 240f., with which cp. Risâla
4, pp. 41 ff.). This highest level of knowing is what he elsewhere terms a
“cognitive gnosis” Çirfânun 'ilmî: Mishkâh, p. 57, 3), which is that one
have actual and certain knowledge of God’s universal governance without, however,
having to keep the rational demonstrations in view in order to warrent his certitude.
The basic idea is common enough with the sufis. What is peculiar to
al-Ghazâlî’s work is the importance he places on the intellectual vision of the
whole, i.e., on the possession of an articulated theoretical understanding of
the universal system.
In sharp contrast to the
occasionalism of classical Ash'arism, al-Ghazâlî describes the universe as an
integrated system of entities and events bound together in an interlocking
order of causes and intermediaries (asbâb and wasâ’it).11
He speaks of causes that are ordered to their effects (musabbabât) (e.
g. Maqsad, pp. 98 and 109) both with respect to the internal antecedents
of human voluntary actions and with respect to purely physical events in the
world. The intermediaries include «angels and men and inanimate things» (Maqsad,
156, ult.). Thus he speaks of God as the one Who «makes the causes function as
causes» (musabbibu l-asbâb).18 In contrast to earlier
Ash'arites he speaks of (secondary) “causes” as producing or necessitating (awjaba,
yûjibu) their “effects”19 and speaks also of generated effects (mutawallidah).20
Lower more proximate and immediate causes are governed by higher «universal,
permanent causes» (asbâbun kulliyyatun dâ’imah: Maqsad, p. 98,17), of
which the first is God’s Throne. «The universe has the character of a single
individual composed of many members» (Maqsad, p. 81, 14f. and p. 152,
Ilf).
Within the framework and
context of his theological cosmology al-Ghazâlî describes God’s creation of the
universe, sometimes explicitly and sometimes by allusion, as
17 The terms are common enough in theological writings; abû lâlib
al-Makkî speaks frequently of “causes” and “intermediaries” (e.g., Qût2,
pp. 102f. and 3, p. 15,13f.) as do Ash'arite authors too. Commonly ‘causes’ (asbâb)
is used of inanimate beings and ‘intermediaries’ (wasâ'it) of animate
beings, as in “those who neither attribute [benefits] to their causes nor thank
the intermediaries” but thank God (Latâ’if5, p. 179); thus ‘wâsitah’
(and ‘wasitah’, both with plural wasâ’it) is used of Muhammad
(e.g., ibid. 1, p. 70) and of prophets in general (e.g., ibid. p.
227, ult. and Mushkil, p. 94,11 ff.). The expressions are,
however, understood to be fundamentally equivalent, as intermediaries are
defined as «the causes that are between God and His creatures» (al-asbábu
l-latíbayna l-haqqi wal-khdlq: al-Tbârât, p. 52, no. 39; cf. also ibid.,
no. 92). For al-Ghazâlî the “intermediaries” are angels, men, and inanimate
beings (e.g., Maqsad, p. 156, ult.). How the various classes of
intermediaries function we shall take up below. We may note here that the
intermediate role of angels in Gods’s creation plays an important role in the
theology of al-Ghazâlî (cf., generally, Tahâfut, pp.278ff., Ihyâ’
4, p. 118f., and Faysal, pp. 40 f., where he gives an interpretation of
the expression which is wholly incompatible with the traditional exegesis of it
by the Ash'arites; concerning this see our “Al-Ghazâlî’s use of Avicenna’s
Philosophy”, cited above). They are the intermediaries in God’s “usual way of
making things happen” and each has a unique role (e.g., Ihyâ’ 4, p. 119,
5ff. and Maqsad, p. 122, 11 ff.) The motion of each celestial sphere is
governed by an angel (see n. 87 below). Angels have a special function in the
combination and behavior of the elements (Maqsad, pp. 119f. and esp.
122). Concerning the semantics and usage of ‘sab ab' see below.
18 For the expression ‘musabbibu l-asbâb' cf., e.g., Tahâfut,
p.65, 4 and p. 182, 11, Maqsad, p. 116, 13, Ihyâ’ 1, p. 74, 7 and
4, p. 87, p. 94, 5 f., and p. 261, 14, Arba'în, p. 13 (where also «tasalsulu
l-asbâbi wal-musabbabât»), et alibi pass. The expression is found already
in Qut (e.g., 2, p. 109,23f. and 3, p. 15,24) and is used also by
Avicenna (e.g., llâhiyyât, p. 4,16 and 'Arshiyya, p. 7,9).
19 Of purely physical causation, cf., eg., Maqsad, p. 100,13,
p. 101,10, and cp. p. 103; and of the internal antecedents of voluntary
actions, see below. Note that ‘awjaba, yûjibu' is often employed as an
equivalent of ‘iqtadâ, yaqtad?. Note too that whereas in common Muslim
usage ‘sakhkhara, yusakhkhi.ru' is normally employed with God as the
subject, al-Ghazâlî occasionally employs it of the relation of secondary
“causes” to their “effects”; e.g., Ihyâ’ 4, p. 249,14 f.
20 For al-Ghazâlî’s use of ‘wallada, yuwallidu’ and ‘tawallada,
yatawalladu' see below.
articulated in three levels or moments, the last
of which is the material realisation of the temporally contingent phenomena of
the sublunary world. In Maqçad these three levels of creation are
referred to or described schematically in three sets of terms which occur
repeatedly, in diverse contexts and in a variety of expressions. The triad
appears for the first time where, anticipating the subsequent elaboration of
the theme, he speaks of «[God’s] intelligibles, the marvels of the things in
which His power is exercised, and the wonders of His signs in this world and
the next».21 They are set forth formally for the first time in the
section dealing with ‘al-Khâliq’, ‘al-Bâri”, and ‘al-Miqawwif
(pp. 81 ff.), which are treated together precisely in order to set the triadic
scheme out in a systematic manner.
The first term here, ‘al-Khâliq’
(He who creates, the Creator) al-Ghazâlî takes to name God with reference to
His Determination, His apportioning creation according to order and measure (at-taqdîr.
e.g., Maqçad, pp. 79, 81, and 102). Al-Bâqillâni understands the word
according to one usage in ordinary language as desgnating a mental
determination (taqdiru l-qalbi wa-fikratuhu) that takes place before
something is done.22 Al-Ghazâlî chooses this as the formal meaning
of ‘khalaqa, yakhluqu’ and so
21 Maqçad, p. 56, 6f. (ma'lûmâtuhû wa-'ajaibu
maqdûrâtihî wa-badâ’i'u âyâtihî...); cp. ibid, p. 57,19 ff. In earlier
Ash'arite usage ‘ma'lûmâtu llâh’ normally means the individual objects
of His knowledge, i. e., the infinite set of particular entities and events,
both possible and already created, which He knows. In this context however, because
of the schematic triad which al- Ghazâlî sets out and refers to over and again,
its is clear that ‘ma'lûmât is equivalent to ‘ma- qûlât’ in the
lexicon of the falâsifa and means the intelligible universals as present
in the Divine knowing. (Concerning al-Ghazâlî’s conception of the possibles as
universals and God’s knowledge of them, see below). Although al-Ghazâlî
follows Avicenna’s vocabulary in many things, it is to be noted that he does
not here (or generally) employ ‘ma'qûlât’ in this sense. His avoidance
of the term in the present and analogous contexts may be because he may not use
the word ‘ 'aqk to describe God because of the universal prohibition of
its use by the Ash'arites (cf., e. g., Sharh al-Irshâd, fol. 136r°). If Maqçad,
p. 56, 6f. be read in isolation, it is not immediately apparent that ‘maqdûrâtuhû’
and ‘âyâtuhû are to be understood as designating two different domains;
viewed, however, in the immediate context, it is clear that «'ajâ’ibu
l-maqdûrât» must refer to the ordered system of the universal causes; see
below.
22 Cf., Tamhîd, §§ 532f. The use of ‘khalaqa, yakhluqu
as an equivalent of ‘qaddara, yuqaddiru’ is commonly recognized by the
lexicographers (cf., e.g., Maqâyîs and al-Jawhari, s.v. and al- Zajjâj,
p. 35). The orthodox theologians commonly accept this equivalence as supplying
a valid interpretation of ‘al-khâliq’ as one of the names of God (e.g.,
al-Halîmî, cited by al-Bayhaqî in Asma, p. 25; see also In$âf, p.
149,20 ff., Ghunya, fol. 118v, 2ff. and generally Gimaret, Norns, pp.
280ff.), though it is expressly rejected by al-Qushayri (Tahbir, fol.
57r) because of its use by the Mu'tazila. That within the general context of
al-Ghazâlî’s thought ‘al-taqdtr’ evokes the use of ‘qaddara,
yuqaddiru, in the Koran (e.g., 10.5,41.10, and particularly 25.2) in a
connotation- ally formal sense will become apparent as we proceed. ‘Khalaqa'
(to create) and ‘khalaqa’ (to determine, to dispose according to
determined measure) are two distinct lexemes in ordinary Arabic, the latter of
which al-Ghazâlî prefers for his formal usage. Thus when he speaks of «khalqu
llâhi wa-khtirâ'uhû» (e.g., Maq?ad, p. 83,14f. and Ihyâ’l, p.
90,29) the terms are not employed as synonyms and ‘khalq’ is not,
therefore, to be rendered ‘creation’ in the present context. The series of the
three fundamental terms are presented together, in sequence, in Maqsad,
pp. 76, 98 (where read hukm for the editor’s hakam in line 9),
100, and 105.
employs the verb to name the originating moment
or level of God’s creating. God’s Determination, thus, is directly associated
with His Knowledge and Will (ibid., p. 145, 2) and so as well with his
Judgement (al-hukm) (ibid., pp. 98,100,102, et alibi) and His
Wisdom (al-hikmah) (ibid., p. 98). It is also identified with His
Ordering (tadbîr) (ibid., pp. 98, 100, and 102) and so with His Command (al-amr)
(ibid., p. 98,16 f., citing Q 54.50, and, by allusion, p. 102, 6L).23
The second term here, ‘al-Bari5'
he takes as formally naming God with reference to His causing existence (al-îjâd)
(Maqçad, pp. 79 and 81), i.e., in the creation of the primary, permanent
entities (ibid., p. 100, lOf.) in accord with his Knowledge and Will.24
This is identified with His general providence, i.e., His Liberality (jûduhû)
(e.g., Maqçad, pp. 105f. and 111) and with His Accomplishment (al-qada)
(ibid., pp. 98 and 100 and Ihya 4, p. 94, 8Í),25 which
follows His prior Determination. The accomplishment is the establishment of the
universal causes (Maqçad, p. 98,10f.). It is God’s Mastery (al-istîlâ’)
(Maqçad, p. 117,12f.), i.e., His governance of the universe through the
angel that is indentified with the Throne and its angelic bearers.
The third term here, ‘al-Muçawwir'
(the one who forms, shapes) al-Ghazâlî takes as referring to God’s «ordering
the forms of created beings according to the best ordering» (ahsanu
l-tartîb) (Maqçad, pp. 81,12 and 109,14f.) and His «forming them according
to the best formation» (ahsanu l-tajwir) (ibid., p. 81, 12f.).26
Specifically, he associates
23 Concerning Q 54.50 see below. The Command here is to be identified
with God’s imperative, “Be” (kun). This association is often asserted on
the basis of Q 7.54 (a-lâ lahu l-khalqu wal-amr: “do not command and
creation belong to Him?”) in order to distinguish God’s speaking (kalâ-
muhû) from the created world. How closely (or how consistently) al-Ghazâlî
identifies the Command with God’s Speaking we shall have to look into later.
24 The lexicographers distinguish two basic meanings of ‘bara’a,
yabruu', in one of which it is equivalent to ‘khalaqa, yakhluqu' (in
the sense ‘to create’) and in the other it has the meaning to be (or become)
remote from something. Ibn Fâris, e. g., (Maqâyîs, s. v.) sees here two
distinct roots, while al-Zajjâj sees only one and so says (op. cit.,
§13) that 'bara'a, yabru’u’ is not a simple equivalent of ‘khalaqa,
yakhluqu' but means «creation in a particular way» (khalqun 'alâ sifah:
i.e., that the thing is created having particular characteristics).
25 Note that ‘al-qadâ" here should not be understood, as
it usually is, as “decree”, but rather as a perfect making. Al-Jawhan notes
that the word is often used as an equivalent of ‘çana'a, yay- na'u’ and ‘qaddara,
yuqaddiru' and as witness cites Q 41.12 (qadâhunna sab'a samawâtinfi
yawmayni wa-awhâ kulla samâ’in amrahâ). The same verse is cited in Maqsad,
p. 98,13f. and also by Ibn Fâris, who defines ‘qadâ, yaqdî' by ‘ahkama,
yuhkimu' (to do something skilfully, correctly, perfectly: Maqâyîs, s.
v. ). That this is a formal sense of the verb for al-Ghazâlî is made fully
obvious in Maqyad, p. 100, 10-13. Note, however, that he does not employ
‘al-qada" exclusively in this sense; he speaks, e. g., in Maqsad,
p. 103, of «the eternal decree» (al-qadâ'u l- azali) and it is this decree
that is refered to in Ihyâ' 4, p. 94, 5ff. and is to be associated with
God’s hukm and His amr.
26 Cf. Q 40.64 and 95.4, cited by al-Qushayrî in Tahbîr, fol.
59r° (= p. 36). It is, as we have noted, the occurrence of the three words in
series in Q 59.24 that underlies al-Ghazâlî’s placing of ‘forming’ as the last
term in the series; even so, it is worth noting that in commenting 40.64 al-
Qushayri remarks (Latâ’if, ad loc.) that the expression ‘ahsanu
l-suwar' is not used of the creation of «the Throne and the Footstool and
the heavens and the lands and the totality of created things».
God’s shaping things with His causing the coming
to be of individual beings and events. «God’s knowledge of the forms is a cause
of the existence of the forms in particulars» (Maqsady p. 83,9f.; v.
also pp. 92, lOf. and 93,8f.). He creates them first in the Throne (Iljâm,
p. 20) and through the chain of secondary causes they are contingently realised
in particular; sublunary beings. This directing of primary causes to the
particular «effects that proceed from them» is God’s Qadar (ordainment) (Maqçad,
p. 98, 14ff. and Ihya 4, p. 94,8). So understood, «His Ordainment is the
setting out of the particulars of His prior Accomplishment through causing them
to exist in external material substrates, one after another».[69]
His ordering and forming of particulars is identified with His Justice ('adlj
(Maqçad, pp. 105,16f. and 111, 6f.), since this is the best possible order
of things (nizâm) (Maqçad, pp. 47, 12f.).
All of this sounds very
much like Avicenna.[70]
How strictly, though, and how consistently does al-Ghazâlî follow Avicenna
and, insofar as he does follow him, to what extent is his theology compatible
with the orthodox or Ash'arite theological tradition? Beneath the rhetorical
eloquence of his style and the richness of his language, to what theological
propositions does he commit himself and to what extent does he attempt to
justify these propositions in theological reasoning?
In order to get a clearer
view of what exactly is al-Ghazâlî’s teaching on these problems, it will be
best to look at his understanding of the several levels of creation systematically,
beginning with the lowest plane of creation, viz., that of the occurrence of
temporal events in the sublunary sphere.[71]
3. The Ordering of Causes
and Events within the World
3.1.1 Sublunary Causes and the Fulfillment of
Conditions
Al-Ghazâlî’s conception of “causes” (asbâb)
and their “effects” does not seem, at least on first reading, to conform
unambivalently to that of Avicenna and the falâsifa. Against the falâsifa
he says that things (created entities) have no activity that is truly their own
and would seem to imply that neither is there any activity which flows from
things by their natures nor do human agents, properly speaking, originate
either their voluntary actions or those which they do by deliberate choice.
Of God’s actions that
take place in the sublunary world, «some, al-Ghazâlî says, are the locus of
others» (Ihyâ* 4, p. 86, ult.) and «some of His actions are causes of
others» (ibid, p. 87, 5f.). But however this may be, it remains that
«there is no agent other than God; it is the case with every [contingent] existent,
whether human or... any other that can be named, that the one who alone
initiates its existence and creates it is God».[72] «God creates the
action and creates the substrate which receives [it] and creates the conditions
of its reception and whatever contributes to it».[73]
That there is, strictly
speaking, no agent but God is a common Ash'arite thesis (cf., e. g.,
al-Mutawallî, p. 27,18 and Irshâd, p. 110,3). Thus «‘to act’ (al-fal)
is an expression for making come to be;... to act is to bring a thing from
non-existence into existence by making it come to be» (Tahâfut, p.
103).[74]
In the traditional Ash'arite theology no being or event in the world produces
or causes another. Rather every event is viewed as a discrete occurrence that
is created by God immediately and the consistent or normal sequence of events
that appear to be related as cause and effect is simply the sequence in which
events are ordinarily made to occur (ijrâ’u l-'âdah) in an
occasionalistic universe. For al-Ghazâlî, however, the matter is different, as
he formally posits the presence of various “intermediaries” and “causes”. The
formula “there is no agent but God” will have, therefore, to be understood
differently than it is in his Ash'arite pre-
decessors or, at any rate, nuanced, depending on
the status that is to be assigned to the intermediate causes. If we understand
the meaning of causing something to exist and making it come to be narrowly and
rigorously as to determine its coming to be out of the wholly indeterminate
possibility of its existing or not existing, then it is clear that in a totally
deterministic universe there can be no agent other than God. That is to say, in
any determinate sequence of causes and effects the existence (or occurrence) of
the last member, as of each of the intermediate members, of the series is made
necessary by the action of the cause that initiated the sequence as such out of
the indifferent possibility of its being or not being, for within the series
the existence of each member, save that of the first, initiating cause or
agent, is necessary given that of its immediate antecedent.
Al-Ghazâlî suggests in
several places that while it is obvious enough that the apparent causal
sequences of natural events (e.g., where one body moves another) must ultimately
be originated by God, «the first mover, of Whom there is no mover and Who in
Himself does not move», the matter is not so clear in the case of the actions
of human agents. To this he says, however, that whatever may be the appearances,
any one who thinks that a human agent autonomously initiates the existence of
his own acts and is truly the cause both of the act and of its consequences is
like someone who blames the existence of a royal decree and its consequences on
the pen that was used to write it (Ihyâ’ 4, p. 242, 14ff.). Human
actions that are consequent upon choice (ikhtiyâr), he says, give the
false impression that it is the human agent who causes the existence of the
act. This cannot be the case, however. No volition depends upon a prior
volition, for if it did, an infinite regression would ensue {ibid., p.
248, 6f.).
Whenever the act of the
will (al-mashVah) which directs (tuyrifu) the power of acting (al-qudrah)
to its object exists, the power of acting is inevitably moved (insarafat);
there is no way for it to do otherwise. The motion then follows determinately (darûratan)
as a consequent of the power of acting {lâzimatun bil-qudrah). The power
of acting moves (mutaharrikah) determinately given the decisive act of
the will and the act of the will occurs in the mind determinately (darûratan).
These are determinate necessities (darûrât) that are ordered to one
another. It is not the individual’s to prevent (an yadfa^ the existence
of the act of volition or the subsequent movement (insirâf) of the power
of acting to its object or the motion once the will has dispatched (ba'da
ba"th) the power of acting; he is subject to determinant constraint in
every step of the process (mudtarrun fi l-jamf). (Ihyâ’ 4, 248, 7ff.).
Al-Ghazâlî goes on then to give a detailed
analysis of voluntary actions noting that choices are a kind of volition
regarding what is advantageous or disadvantageous33 and that
volitions are determined by the mind’s judgement (hukm) following
perception, imagination, reflection, or understanding. Such antecedents
determine the volition as a decisive judgement (hukmun jazm).
331 ‘Khayr’ and ‘sharr’;
though these words are commonly (and often appropriately) rendered by ‘good’
and ‘evil’, they are normally employed in the formal terminology of kalâm
in the sense of ‘advantageous’ or ‘beneficial’ and of ‘harmful’ or
‘detrimental’ respectively; cf., e.g., Mujar- rad, p. 97, 5f. and
Lató’i/4, p. 145, ad 20.89.
The voluntary
motivation (daiyatu l-irâdah)[75] is forced to
operate (musakh- kharah) by the mind Çaql) and sensation; the
power of action (al-qudrah) is forced to operate by the motivation, and
the motion is forced to occur by the power of action. The entire series of
events is determined in him of necessity (muqaddarun bil-darûrati fîhî)
in such a way that he is unaware of it. He is simply a locus of these things
and a place in which they occur (mahallun wa- majran li-hâdhihi l-umûr). ...
That he choose means simply that he is the locus of a volition that comes to be
in him by force of necessity (jabran) once the mind has judged that the
action is altogether good and appropriate and the judgement comes to be by
force of necessity.[76]
God thus, through various intermediaries,
supplies the
obedient with the causes of their obedience (asbâbu l-tâ'ah) so that
willy-nilly they obey and the disobedient with the motivations for disobedience
(dawâ'î l-ma'âtf) so that willy-nilly they disobey, for whenever He creates
distraction and desire and the power to fulfill the desire (al-qudratu 'alâ
qadâ’i l- shahwah) the act takes place though it by determinate necessity (kâna
l-fi'lu wâqi'an bihâ bil-darûrah) (Ibya 4, p. 165,16-18).
This is quite reminiscent of Avicenna, who says, for example.
All volitions
come to be after not having been. Accordingly, they have causes which converge
and necessitate them. A volition does not exist because of a [prior] volition;
otherwise there would be an infinite regression. Nor does it exist by nature;
otherwise the volition would be inevitable as long as the nature exists.
Rather, volitions occur because of the occurrence of causes, which are the
things that causally necessitate [them]. Motivations are traceable to earthly
and celestial beings and these necessarily cause the occurrence of this particular
volition (takûnu mûjibatan darûratan li-tilka l-irâdah).[77]
The question is, however, exactly how does
al-Ghazâlî understand the causal relationships between the terms of the series
of events he describes. To assert that «the cognition produced (wallada)
the volition and that the volition produced the power and the power produced
the motion and that each subsequent event came to be from the one immediately
antecedent» would, he says, be to assert «that something comes to be not from
the power of God» {Ihya 4, p. 249, 23ff.).
Some of the objects of
[God’s] power are ordered to (mutarattibun 'ala) others in their coming
to be as what is conditioned is ordered to its condition. No volition proceeds
from the eternal Power save after a cognition and no cognition save after
there is life and no life save after there is a substrate of life. Just . as you
cannot say that life comes to be (tafaulu) from the body which is the
condition of life, so also it is with the rest of the ranks of the ordering (darajâtu
l-tartîb), save that often some of the conditions are apparent to the
common people and some of them only to the élite who receive direct vision
through the light of the Thith (ibid., p. 249, 29ff.)...
The servant
acts in one sense and God (the Mighty, the Glorious) acts in another sense.
That God is an agent means that He is the one Who creates and Who causes to
exist (al-mukhtari'u l-mûjid). That the servant acts is that he is the
locus (mahalb) in which [God] creates the power to act after He has
created the volition in it after He has created the cognitive act in it, so
that the power to act is related to the volition and the movement to the power
to act as what is conditioned is related to its condition, but is related to
God’s power as what is caused is related to its cause (irtibâfa l-ma'lûli
bil-'illah) and as what is created is related to the one who creates it.[78]
The example of the series of conditions in the
realisation of a voluntary act is set forth more fully where he says,
The utterance ‘do’, even
if it occurs on the tongue of the Apostle (God bless him and give him peace),
is one of God’s acts and is a cause of men’s knowing that action is beneficial.
Their knowledge too is one of God’s acts and the knowledge is a cause of the
arousal of a decisive motivation for movement and the act of obedience; and the
arousal of the motivation is also one of God’s acts
and is the cause of the
movement of the limbs, which is one of God’s acts too. But some of His actions
are causes of others. That is to say, the first is the condition of the second,
just as the creation of the body is the cause of the creation of the accident,
since He does not create the accident before it and the creation of life is the
condition of the creation of knowledge and the creation of knowledge is the
condition of the creation of the volition and all are actions of God. Some of
them are causes of the others; that is, they are their conditions. The meaning
of their being conditions is that only a material substrate (jawhar) is
ready to receive the making of life {musta iddun li-qabûli fa'li l-hayâh)
and only a living being to receive cognition and a being that has cognition to
receive volition. Thus some of His acts are causes of others in this sense, not
in the sense that some of His actions cause the existence of others (mûjidun
li-ghay- rihi), but rather that they furnish the conditions of the
actuality of others {mumahhidu sharfi l-huyûli U-ghayriht). When one
truly knows this to be the fact (huqqiqa) he rises to the level of
awareness of the unicity of God {al- tawhid) that we spoke of.[79]
There are several difficulties in all this,
however, for the exact sense and coherence of what he has to say are not
immediately evident. In the passage in Ihya 4, pp. 248f., for example,
his language seems to speak quite plainly of intermediate efficient causality,
of one thing’s (or one event’s) being the immediate, effective cause of the
realisation of another. «Volition is aroused by the cognitive act» (tanba'ithu
bil-'ilm: ibid., p. 248,31) and, «where perception is indecisive, by the
mind’s suggestion» {bi-ishârati l-'aqb. ibid, p. 249, 4); «the
motivation of the volition is forced to operate (musakhkharah) by the
mind and sense» (ibid., p. 249, 14).[80] So too, volition directs
and applies the power of
action (tayrifuha) to its object (p. 248,
7),40 it moves of necessity, «by an overpowering judgement and a
decisive command» (bi-hukmin qâhirin wa-amrin jâzim: p. 244,13) once the
will is resolved Çinda njizâmi l-mashî’ah: p. 248, 8f.). The power of
acting, in turn «is aroused» by the cognitive act (p. 248, 31); it is «forced
to operate» by the volition (p. 249, 14) in submission to «the dominant power
of cognition and intelligence» (tahta qahri l-'ilmi wal-'aql: p. 244,
15). Finally, the agent «does [the act] through the power of acting and the
volition» (fa'alahû bil-qudrati wal-iradah: p. 248, 25). The movement of
the hand «of necessity follows the power of acting» (lâzimatun darûratan
bil-qudrah: p. 248, 8), «it comes to be (hadathat) through the
volition» (p. 248, 24), is «forced to operate by the power of acting» (p. 249,
15); «the action occurs through the power of acting by necessity» (al-fïlu
wâqiun bihâ bil-darûrah: ibid., p. 165,18). The power «moves» (tahrik)
the hand which in turn moves the pen (p. 244, 6ff.). Thus it is that «it is God
that creates the objects of the servant’s power of acting by means of his power
of acting (bi-wâsitati qudratihî) whenever he readies the totality of
the causes of its existence (hayya’a jamî'a asbâbi l-wujûd) for the
object of his power of acting» (Maqçad, p. 145,10f.).
The problem is, thus,
that when he sets himself to explain in what way the “causes” are conditions of
their “effects” (e.g., Ihya 4, pp. 86f. and 249,29ff., Iqtisâd,
p. 96f.), al-Ghazâlî consistently turns to a small set of traditional examples,
that do not fully cover the entire series of “causes” and “effects” he has
cited for illustration. He seems, in fact, deliberately to avoid responding
directly to the reader’s principal concern. The existence of space and place (al-hayyiz)
is the condition of the existence of the materially extended atom or
substrate, the existence of a corporeal body is the material condition of the
presence of life41, life is the condition of the existence of a
cognitive act and the cognitive act that of the existence of a volition and
motivation, and the power of acting is the condition of any movement that may
be properly described as the action or performance of a human agent. The
examples are compatible with the wholly traditional formulation of Ihya
4, p. 250,26ff., translated above.
By causation one commonly
understands things’ acting and being acted upon and this is what normally one
hears as implied by ‘sabab’ in contexts such as these. It is, moreover,
what al-Ghazâlî seems plainly to intend. When, however, he says that he
determinant
cause and of volition’s “dispatching” the power to its object (Ihyâ’ 4,
p. 248, 10, translated above); cp. 'Arshiyya, p. 14,6. In Mi'yâr,
p. 149,6 he describes the Aristotelian final cause as «al-ghâyatu
l-bâ'ithah».
40 Essentially the same expression, viz., «... al-irâdatu
li-tasrifa l-qudrata lil-maqdûr» occurs in Iqtiyâd, p. 107, 13 and «irâdatun
çârifatun lil-qudrati ilâ ahadi l-maqdûrayn» in Qudsiyya, p. 85,9 (=
Ihya 1, p. 108, 19); cf. also Ar ba'in, p. 226. For the
effectiveness of the “decisive volition” (al-irâdatu l-jâzimah.) in
Avicenna, cf. Ilâhiyyât, p. 174 (cited in M. Marmura “Efficient
Causality in Avicenna” in Islamic Theology and Philosophy: Studies in Honor
of George E Hourani, p. 183).
41 The example, sc., human life in this world, presupposes the
presence of the body so that the condition here apparently conforms to the
traditional Ash'arite doctrine, according to which God alone is immaterial. As
stated in the context, however, the assertion is not inconsistent with
al-Ghazâlî’s holding that life is also a property of a host of celestial beings
that are wholly incorporial.
means ‘cause’ (sabab)’ to be understood as
equivalent to ‘condition’ (s/iarf), it becomes apparent that he wishes to
understand ‘cause’ in a very broad sense as whatever contributes to the
realisation of an event. This is a common enough meaning for 'sabab' in
ordinary classical Arabic.[81]
Speaking of causes in Iqtiçâd (p. 223) he says:
From positing the absence
of the cause there follows the absence of the effect, if the effect have only
one cause. If, however, it is conceivable that there be another cause, then the
denial of the effect follows from the denial of all causes. The denial of the
effect does not follow absolutely from the denial of any particular cause;
there follows, rather, the denial of the effect of this cause in particular.[82]
Al-Ghazâlî does not explicitly distinguish for us
the ways in which one thing may be a contributing condition of the coming to be
of another and consequently his explanation is, if not strictly equivocal, at
least so vague as to give the appearance of avoiding the issue. The existence
of the body is not the condition of the coming to be of sentient life nor is
the presence of life in the body the condition of the coming to be of cognition
or belief in the same way that the particular cognitive apperception or belief
is the condition of the coming to be of the volition that is consequent upon
it and in which the particular volition, through the activation of the power to
act, is the cause of the realisation of the movement which is its object nor,
finally, in the same way in which the movement of the hand is the cause of the
movement of the pen. As conditions of the existence of their consequents, the
latter differ from the former in that they effectively fulfill the conditions
of the coming to be of their consequents and do so in such a way as to bring
its occurrence about immediately. This is what al-Ghazâlî means when he says
that God creates the objects of the human agent’s power of acting by means of
his power of acting whenever all of the causes of its existence are properly
disposed. The consequents of these immediately effective causes are in
themselves merely possible and since their existence is, therefore, not
necessary in itself, they cannot exist prior to the fulfilment of the
conditions of their existence. They have to have a cause in order to exist,
«something that renders their existence rather than their non-existence
necessary (murajjihun, li-wujûdihî 'alâ 'adamihî) so that their
non-existence comes to be supplanted by existence».[83] It is thus that in the
beginning of al-Iqtiyad (p. 26,1) al-Ghazâlî
says that «by ‘cause’ {sabab) we mean murajjih
and nothing else». The conception and the language are those of Avicenna.
Al-Ghazâlî’s adjustments
in how he speaks of causation and of causes according to the context are to be
noted. In the beginning of al-Iqtiyâd, where he wishes to prove the
existence of the Creator as the cause {sabab) of the existence of the
universe, he explains what it is for something to be possibly existent and
explains what he means by cause in terms of “rendering [one of two alternative
possibilities] necessary” {al-tarjih). Later, however, when he comes to
deal with secondary causes and the voluntary actions of men (pp. 96ff. and
222ff.), he no longer describes and explains the relationship of causes to
their effects as that of the murajjih to that whose existence it
effects, but talks vaguely of conditions and of things whose being is
conditional. This same rhetorical strategy is followed in the passages of Ihya
4 we have looked at. There, al-Ghazâlî gives examples of efficient causes
in the occurrence of voluntary human actions but then avoids the issue of the
effective operation the secondary causes he cites by speaking vaguely of their
being conditions of the existence of their effects. There remain a number of
places, however, where he seems more clearly to follow traditional Ash'arite
teaching and to imply, if not to say outright, that one contingent entity or
event is never the immediately determinant (or efficient) cause of the being of
another. Since these passages tend to provoke confusion, it were perhaps
advisable to examine several of them in detail.
Of simple causal
sequences, as, for example, where the momentum of one moving object is
transferred to another, causing it to move in turn, the Mu'tazila commonly
employ the verbs ‘wallada, yuwallidu' (to generate, produce) and ‘tawallada,
yatawal- ladu* (to be generated, produced). This al-Ghazâlî rejects
explicitly in several places. We have already seen that in Ihya (4, p.
249,24ff.) he rejects the formulation that «the cognition generates {wallada)
the volition and the volition generates [the activation of] the power to act
and the power to act generates the motion and that every consequent comes to be
from the antecedent» {hadatha mina l-mutaqaddim) on the grounds that to
say this is to say that there are things that «come to be not from the Power of
God». His thesis there is that the example illustrates not productive causes,
but rather conditions {shurut). Stating that the adequate comprehension
of this is not accessible to ordinary people, but only to the élite, who have
the benefit of contemplative vision {al- mukâshafah), he offers but two
examples of what he means, both of them quite unsatisfactory. The first of
these is the classical one we have already considered, viz., that life is the
condition of cognition. The second is a juridical one, viz., the fulfilment of
the formal conditions of valid ablution. The latter is interesting in that it
does strictly address the question of the fulfilment of conditions, but is of a
peculiar sort in that,
jihu,
tarjîhan' of that which determines the merely possible with respect to its
being or not being, i. e., which necessitates the realisation of one rather
than the other of alternatives that in and of themselves are mere possibilities
(cf., e.g., Ishârât, p. 153, 10 and 'Arshiyya, p. 14, 7f.). The
expression ‘murajjih' occurs in a quite traditional kalâm context
in Ikhtiçâr (fol. 91r°, 3-5), where, in arguing that God wills, he speaks
of the need of contingent beings for a murajjih in order to determine
their coming to be to particular times, etc., substituting ‘murajjih' of
Avicenna’s lexicon for the more traditional ‘mu khakis'.
albeit there is a formai change of state whose
occurrence may be looked upon as a sort of event, there is no material
alteration in the state of the subject as the coming to be of an accident
(i.e., of an entity according to the analysis of the traditional kalâm);
ontologically speaking, there is no real change of state, but only an
alteration of status. The rhetoric of the passage is worth noting, as he
rejects the notion of cognition’s «generating the volition» and of one thing’s
«coming to be from» another, i.e., as, in some special sense, coming to be from
within (from inside) it. By this essentially dialectical, not to say
sophistical, procedure, he not only sidesteps the formal sense of ltawal-
lada\ but also the apparent implications of the expressions, ‘arousing’,
‘forcing to operate’, ‘moving’, &c., that he had himself employed earlier
in the same chapter. The same basic dialectical moves are found in Iqtisâd
(pp.95f.), where, ostensibly against the Mu'tazila, he rejects the thesis that
most of the events that occur in the world are generated, «some of them being
generated of necessity from others» (yatawalladu ba- duhâ min badin
bil-darûrah), insisting on the absurdity of the idea of one event’s issuing
from within another and stating that events that are said to be related as
efficient cause and effect are in fact related either (a) by a conjunction (bi-qtirân)
or (b) as condition and what is conditioned by it. The examples given here of
what al-Ghazâlî takes to be conjunctions, i. e., events that are consistently
associated «bi-hukmi tardi l- 'âdah», are cotton’s being burned given
the proximity of fire (treated also in Tahâfut, on which see below), the
presence of cold in the hand on contact with snow, etc. His assertion that the
“conjoined” events he mentions do not follow the one upon the other by a
necessity such that it is, in all cases, impossible that the antecedent occur
without the usual consequent does not mean that he thinks either that the
antecedent is not the cause when the usual consequent follows or that God omit
the effect without there being an antecedent, secondary cause of its
non-occurrence when it does not, as in the case of a miracle. With
‘conjunction’ here we see once again an example of his use of an expression
that because of its vagueness tends to blur the lines of demarcation between
what he actually asserts and what he does not mean to assert. The Iqtisâd
is a formal kalâm compendium and against the “Mu'tazilite” doctrine of tawlîd
al-Ghazâlî introduces as an example of allegedly generated action the motion
that takes place in water when some one moves his hand in it. The movement of
the water, he says (pp. 96 f. ), is the condition of the movement of the hand,
since two bodies cannot simultaneously occupy one and the same place; if the
water were not displaced, there would be no ’ unoccupied space (hayyiz)
into which the hand could move. In effect, God creates the movement of the hand
and of the water.[84]
The passage is very cleverly conceived and written. The Mu'tazilite thesis that
he is genuinely opposed to and means formally to reject is that the human agent
autonomously and solely by his own power to act is the initial efficient cause
of the occurrence of an event which is the productive or efficient cause of
another event, either immediately or through a sequence of events that are
related to one another as cause and effect This he expressly denies by saying
that God creates both the displacement of the water and the movement of the
hand. The basic
concept of tawlid,
however, viz., that one event is mover or efficient cause of another, is not
addressed, for he does not raise the question of whether or not God causes the
displacement of the water by means of the motion of the hand. Because of the way
the argument is stated, the passage may give the inattentive reader the
impression that al- Ghazâlî follows the traditinal Ash'arite teaching. Neither
here nor in Ihya, however, does he offer any argument that, carefully
analysed, can be understood to be formally directed against the kind of
secondary causation that is formally referred to by 'tawlid'. Once
again, also, he has employed a concept of condition that is broad enough to
allow him to dodge the question of efficient causality. His apparent claim of
rejecting the formal sense of the expression ‘tawallada, yatawalladu',
moreover, is somewhat specious, since in a number of places he uses the verb
himself in precisely the sense he here pretends to reject. In speaking of the
heavenly bodies, the celestial spheres, etc., he says (Maqsad, p. 101, 5
= Ar ba'in, p. 16, 8), for example, that «they must have motion and the
motion must be according to measure in order that what is generated from it be
in measure» (lâ budda min taqaddurihâ li-yataqaddara mâ yatawalladu minha).[85]
In a number of places he plainly assumes the causal operation (i. e., the tawlid)
of natural causes, as the wind comes up and moves (harraka) a ship. Such
causal sequences, he says, cannot be infinite, however; «the wind is air and
air does not move of itself so long as no mover moves it and so in turn its
mover and so on until one comes finally to the first mover, Who has no mover
and in Himself does not move» (Ihyâ’ 4, p. 242, 14).[86] This assertion al-Ghazâlî
makes in his own voice and without qualification.
3.1.2. Ambivalences of Expression
This would seem to
resolve the difficulty of al-Ghazâlî’s apparent equivocations, were there not a
number of other places where, in dealing with human agency as such, he employs
traditional Ash'arite formulations in such a way that may give the impression
that he follows the school’s traditional, occasionalist doctrine. In some cases
it is
immediately evident that the traditional language
is so used in the context that it doesn’t need to be read as it would in the
context of a classical kalâm work, as when he says «Your action is a
gift of God and in that you are its locus He praises you» (Ihya 4, p.
86, 26). So too where he says that an agent is said to choose «because he is
the locus of an act of choosing».48 More problematic, however, are
statements such as the following. (1) «What it means for a man to be an agent (fail)
is that he is the locus in which God created the power to act after He has
created the volition» (ba'da an khalaqa fîhi l- irâdah: Ihyâ’4, p.
250,27) ;49 and (2) that we know by the experience of our own
interior states the distinction between our voluntary actions and materially
similar events that we simply undergo (e. g., our shaking involuntarily because
of an illness) and that we use the term ‘power to act’ to express the
distinction, «as in the one case the movement is made to exist along with the
power to do it (îjâdu l-harakati ma'a l-qudrati 'alayha) and in the
other case without it» (Tahâfut, pp. 295f.).50
Here al-Ghazâlî appears
to assert as his own three traditional Ash'arite theses: (a) that there is no
will in the sense of a faculty or power that belongs continuously to the agent,
but rather that each act of willing or volition is a discrete event or
“accident” that God creates immediately in a part of the corporeal subject
which is the agent. The sentence is ambivalent, however, in that ‘irâdah’
lexically may mean either the will, as a power or faculty belonging to the
human individual or the single volition as an act of willing. The formulation,
however, so evokes traditional Ash'arite contexts that one is drawn to hear
their doctrine as the intention of the statement. Likewise he gives here the
impression of asserting (b) that the power to act (al-qudrah) is not a
faculty or something that is there, already in the agent, prior to his acting
either, but rather is a discrete “attribute” or “accident” particular instances
of which are created immediately by God in the agent simultaneously with the creation
of the event which is related to it as its “object”. He seems, then, to assert
(c) that the human agent’s power of acting has no concrete, causal effect (ta’thír),
i. e., that it is not the immediate efficient cause of the event but rather is
a kind of “accident” which God creates simultaneously with the event which is
its object and to which it is related somewhat as a cognition is related to
48 E. g., Ihyâ’ 4, p. 249,16. : manâ kawnihîmukhtâran
annahû mahallun li-irâdatin hadathatfîhi
Jabran ba'da hukmi
l-'aql\ cf. also ibid, p.248, 7ff. and p. 250, 26 ff., translated above.
Note that, in contrast to earlier Ash'arite theologians, al-Ghazâlî employs
such expressions as *ijbâr’ and and ‘qahr’ without hesitation
(e.g., Maqçad, p. 78, 12f., Ihyâ’ 4, p. 93, 30 and pp. 248f. and
see Gimaret, Théories, pp. 120ff.). The avoidance of these expressions
by earlier Ash'arites, however, is purely formal (cf., e.g., Luma1
(J), pp. 153f. and 165).
49 For al-Ghazâlî’s association of volition with actions that occur
through our power of acting, cf., e.g., Ihyâ' 4, p. 165, 16ff., cited
above et alibi pass. Traditionally the Ash'arites distinguish between
voluntary actions which are correlated to a power of acting and therefore are
properly speaking ours and involuntary movements, etc., which are not our
actions (cf., e. g., Mujarrad, p. 119,9 ff. and p. 131,10ff.), but
unlike al-Ghazâlî they do not hold that either the volition or the power have
any causal effect (ta’thír) on the occurrence of the event which is the
act (cf. generally R. Frank, “Moral Obligation in Classical Islamic Theology”, Journal
of Religious Ethics 11 (1983), pp. 210 ff. and “TWo Islamic Views of Human
Agency” in La Notion de liberté au moyen âge, ed. G. Makdisi and D.
Sourdel, Paris, 1985, pp. 42ff.
50 So also in Iqtiçâd, p. 181,11, using the traditional
formula, he says that the human agent has no qudrah prior to the act.
Much the same argument is set forth ibid, pp.91f.
its object.[87] In contrast to what he
seems to imply in these two passages, al-Ghazâlî speaks of mind, will, and the
power to act in the passages of Ihyâ’ we examined earlier quite plainly
as faculties or powers that are ordered one to another in such a way that the
act of the higher may cause or elicit that of the next. He in fact considers
the power to act to be, along with sensation, perception, etc., a fundamental
property of human life. He speaks (Ihyâ’ 4, p. 112) explicitly of the
«powers of sense and of perception and of movement, etc.» and says as well that
«sensations and qudar and volitions are supplied by» the material
spirit that is the principle of life.[88] The principal difficulty
presented by these two passages arises from the way in which the word lal-qudrah’
is most frequently used in the common, sunnî theological literature prior to
al-Ghazâlî, viz., that it does not usually show the ambivalence we noted for ‘al-irâdah’.
That is to say, the . Mu'tazila, who consider the power of acting to be a kind
of faculty that is permanently at the disposal of the human agent (an accident
which “abides” and is there “prior to the act”), do not employ the word for the
separate instances of the actuation or exercise of the power. In the Ash'arite
usage, on the other hand, the word is used only of discrete instances of an
“accident”; they deny that the power of acting is an attribute that the agent
has prior to his performing the act, holding it to be an accident, rather, that
exists only in discrete instances as God creates each qudrah in the
human agent at the same instant in which He creates its object. Once we
recognize, however, (1) that al-Ghazâlî holds that God creates the human
agent’s act instrumentally through his power of acting (e.g., Maqsad,
p. 145, lOf.) and (2) that, as is evident enough, he considers the “power to
act” to be a primary principle of corporeal life and so employs 'al-qudrah'
to name a basic power or faculty of the human agent as such and, (3) that he
sometimes employs the word to refer to the individual instances of its
activation of this power or faculty as such,[89] then the difficulty is done
away with. Neither the first (a) nor
the second thesis (b) is either stated or
asserted in Ihyâ'4, p. 250 or in Tahâfut, pp. 295 f. and the
third (c) only seems to be implied because the language evokes that of the
traditional Ash'arite manuals. He exploits the analogous ambivalence of liradah\
which may mean either the will as a faculty or the volition that is the
particular instance of its activity in the same way.
Again, in Iqtiçâd
(p. 92,8 ff.) al-Ghazâlî rejects, ostensibly against the Mu'tazila, the notion
that «the relationship between the power to act and its object makes sense only
with regard to causing an effect, causing existence, and the realisation of the
object through it» {min haythu l-ta’thîri wal-îjâdi wa-huyûli l-maqdûri
bihi). He takes care, however, to restate the thesis (p. 93, Iff.) as one
that asserts that the only relationship that obtains between the agent
and his act is that of its occurrence through his power of action and
goes on to note that the relationships of volition and of cognition to his act
are thus excluded. As part of his argument against the thesis, then, he raises
the common Mu'tazilite doctrine that the power to act “is continuously
present” (tabqa), i.e., that as a power of the human agent it is already
present for him prior to any given action that it is employed to perform. In
the formal context of a reply to an objection, the statement «the [human] power
of acting, in your view, is continuously present» may give the unwary reader
the impression that al-Ghazâlî will deny the power’s continual presence and
availability to the agent as an element of the Mu'tazilite doctrine he is ostensibly
refuting and by association, consequently, that he holds, and means to assert,
the traditional Ash'arite position that each instance of the power to act is
created and exists only at the discrete instant in which the action is created
which its unique object. Again here, however, al-Ghazâlî in no way denies that
the power of acting is a faculty whose individual acts are, in each case,
caused by the antecedent act of another faculty, i. e., that God causes the act
instrumentally through that of another faculty. His language is traditional,
but when closely read and analysed, proves to lack any formal commitment to the
traditional Ash'arite teaching concerning the topic under discussion. In the
immediately preceding passage {al-Iqüyâd, p. 90ff.), where he argues for
the traditional thesis that an act can occur as the object of two powers of
acting,54 viz., God’s and the human agent’s, he follows the
traditional formulations in insisting that the human agent’s power is not a
power to create {ikhtira'), but does not go on either to assert that it
has no effect (tathir) or to deny that God creates through it
explicitly. The passage is troublesome, however, in that he seems to say
explicitly that the human agent’s act does not occur through his power of
acting. In concluding the section he says, «The one whose power is general (wâsF)
has the power to create the [human agent’s] power and its object55
together, and since the names ‘the creator’ and ‘the one who creates’ {al-khaliqu
wabmukhtarF) are predicated of the one who causes the thing
the result of
antecedent causes (apperception and volition) whose operation in the particular
instance is the ultimate effect of God’s primeval accomplishment (al-qadâr).
54 «Maqdûrun bayna qudratayn»; the expression is
traditional in the Ash'arite writings and in the Mu'tazilite counterarguments.
The traditional understanding of the expression is that only one of the two
powers, sc., God’s, has a causal effect on the material occurrence of the
event, while the other determines the status of the event as the agent’s
performance. Cf., e.g., Mujarrad, p.92,20f.
55 Reading mqdwr for the mqd’r at the beginning of line
3 of the printed text. No variant is
to exist by his own power and both the [human]
power and its object are through the power of God, He is called ‘creator’ (khâliq,
mukhtari'). The object is not through the servant’s power even though it is
with it (lam yakuni l-maqduru bi-qudrati 1-' abdi wa-in kâna ma'ahû) and
so he is called neither ‘creator’ nor ‘one who creates’». And he goes on to
explain that this is why, following the terminology of the revelation, a human
action as such is termed a ‘performance’ (kasb). The passage is
peculiar, however, in that the ‘-Au’ of ‘ma aAû’ (the ‘it’ of ‘ with it’),
which by the testimony of the manuscripts is plainly the preferred reading,
cannot refer to ‘power* and so has no apparent antecedent. One notes also that
in a corresponding passage of Tahâfut (p. 295 f., cited above) he avoids
saying that the act does not occur through the agent’s power and that subsequently
in Iqtiçâd (pp. 96 f.) he avoids the basic issue of ta wild,
speaking of “conditions”, as he does in Mi'yâr and Ihyâ\ We have
already noted the ambivalence of the immediately ensuing discussion (pp. 92f.)
in which he opposed a conception of human power that would exclude the function
of volition and cognition and it is most likely that the formal intention of
his denial that «the object is through the servant’s power» is directed precisely
against such a conception. Later on, in another context, (p. 107,33) he says
that «the volition directs the power to its object». Again, the same insistence
on the predication of ‘creator’ (mukhtan, mûjid) uniquely of God is
found in Ihyâ' (4, p. 250,26ff., translated above) in a context where he
speaks plainly of the determinant function of secondary causes. More
importantly, however, there is nothing in Iqtisâd to indicate that
al-Ghazâlî subscribes to traditional Ash'arite occasionalism; nowhere, either
there or in any of his other works, does he ever make a statement such as that
of his master, al-Juwaynî, where he says (Irshâd, p. 210,3ff.) that «the
created power has no effect whatsoever on its object» and, like al-Mutawallî
(p. 37,14), goes on to compare its relation to its object to that of cognition
to its object.56
indicated in
the apparatus, but miqdâr makes no sense and maqdûr is the
reading of the edition of M.M. abûl-‘Alâ (Cairo, 1972, p. 84).
56 Abrahamov takes it that al-Ghazâlî had likely «changed his mind in
Ihyâ’ (which was written after K. al-Ikti^ad), but perferred to
conceal his true doctrine by contradicting himself» (op. cit., p. 91)
and goes on to cite Strauss’ exegesis of Maimonides as support for his own
claim of inconsistency on the part of al-Ghazâlî. If, indeed, he did change his
mind on the matter, then obviously there is no question of his concealing his
true doctrine. The thesis proposed (quoting Strauss referring specifically to
Maimonides, ibid. p. 93), viz., that it has been common practice, not
to say received tradition, amongst serious philosophers and thinkers, that one
put forth as in his own voice propositions and theses that as stated are
literally and formally contrary to what he in fact believes to be true and that
where such “contradictory statements” are found the author’s proper belief is
less frequently asserted than its contrary, enjoys almost unqualified favor
amongst the disciples of Prof. Strauss. It is manifest, however, that exegetical
suppositions of this sort, being better adapted to display the preoccupations
and intentions of the interpreter than of the work under examination, tend, in
their application, to do consistent violence to the integrity of the author’s
text and of his thought. However convenient they may prove to be for the
deconstruction of historical texts according to one’s own fancy, that is to
say, they don’t make for very good history. Al-Ghazâlî, as we shall see, does
practice the “withholding of knowledge” from those who are presumed incapable
of assimilating it. In order to do this, however, he will not assert
propositions that are formally contrary to what he holds to be true. Indeed, it
is precisely because he is consistent in what he in fact asserts and what he
denies that
If there is a problem in
this passage of Iqtiçâd, there is none in Qudsiyya, another
doctrinal summary of traditional form written a little over a year later. There
(pp. 87 f. - Ihyâ* 1, p. 110,13ff.) too al-Ghazâlî employs vague formulations
of the kind we have seen in such a way as to give the impression of asserting
traditional teaching without actually doing so. Here we read,
The Second Thesis: That
God alone creates (ikhtara'a) the movements of men does not mean that
they are not subject to men’s power of action as being performances (iktisâb).
On the contrary, God creates (khalaqa) both the power and its object and
He creates both the choice and the thing chosen. The power to act is an
attribute of the individual and a creation of the Lord’s, but is not a
performance (kasb) of His. The movement is a creation of the Lord’s and
is an attribute of the servant and is a performance of his (kasbun lahû),
since it was created as the realised object of a power to act which is his
attribute (maq- dûratan bi-qudratin hiya watfuhû) and so the motion has
a relationship to another attribute which is called a ‘power to act’ (qudrah)
and with respect to this relationship is called ‘a performance’ (kasb)...;
it is the realised object of God’s power in its being a creation and of the
servant’s power in respect to another kind of relationship which is referred to
by ‘performance’.57
Here he uses much of the traditional language of
the Ash'arite manuals in order to make several assertions. These are (1) that
the voluntary actions of human agents occur as the objects of two agents’
powers of acting, sc., God’s and the human agent’s, (2) that, as the realised
object of God’s Power such an act is a creation (ikhtirâ') and as the
realised object of the human agent’s power is a “performance” (kasb,
iktisâb),58 (3) that God creates the human agent’s power of
acting, but His creation of it is, by definition, not a “performance”, (4) the
action, however, is a creation of God’s and is also a performance of the human
agent, since it occurs as the correlated object of a power of action which is
the agent’s attribute. In sum, then, (5) the human action is related to
«another power of acting», i.e., other than God’s, by virtue of which relation
it is
the reader who
is philosophically acute may easily discern and understand the true orientation
and content of al-Ghazâlî’s thought. It may be noted in this connection that
whereas al-Juway- nî’s inconsistency in what he has to say about secondary
causality is noted by his student, al- Anjâri (see n. 60 below), al-Ghazâlî’s
successors, quite rightly, find no such problem in the corpus of his writing.
57 Cf. also Arbain, pp. 12f. where there the formulation is
that of Ash'arite orthodoxy, even though it cannot be interpreted so when read
within the context of the ensuing section.
58 So also Iqtiçâd, p. 92, 5f. and Ihyâ' 4, p. 249,
19f., cited above. Used in this sense, ‘kasaba, yaksibu, kasban' and 'iktasaba,
yaktasibu, iktisâban' are traditionally understood to be lexical
equivalents of ‘'amila, yamalu1 (to do, work) (cf., e. g.,
Muqâtil b. Sulaymân and abû Ja'far al- Tabari ad Q 2.79; Sîbawayh gives «¡agarrafa
wa-ijtahada» as equivalents, al-Kitâb 1, p. 288, cited by ibn Sîda,
s. v.). Al-Ghazâlî notes in several places (e. g., Iqtifâd, p. 92,5 f.
and Z/iyá’4, p. 249, 19f.; cp. n. 36 above) that because 'kasb' and ‘iktisâb'
are used for men’s actions in the Koran they are employed formally in the
lexicon of theology to refer to human actions as distinguished from God’s
action.
termed a “performance”. He uses the traditional
Ash'arite language in order to draw a set of significant distinctions, but he
never reveals exactly how he understands the terms of these distinctions.
Because of the way in which all of this is formulated, one tends to presume
that he means to assert the traditional theses which the language of the
passage evokes. Closer scrutiny of the text, however, makes it clear enough
that it is formulated in such a way as neither formally to assert nor directly
to imply either (a) that the human power to act is not a permanent faculty of
the human agent whose activation is caused by an antecedent act of another
faculty or (b) that its operation has no causal effect in bringing about the
existence of the act which is its object or (c) that God, as the first cause
and creator, does not in effect create the agent’s act through the intermediate
causation of his power to act.[90]
In short, albeit his
language may often reflect that of the traditional Ash'arite manuals,
al-Ghazâlî never in fact denies explicitly and unambivalently that alterations
of states and the coming to be and passing away of some things are caused
immediately by the antecedent operation of other contingent entities, that they
occur through, come to be from, and are produced by their causes (waqa'a
bi-asbâbihâ, hadatha 'anha, nadara 'anha). Quite to the contrary, he often
says very plainly in his own voice that they do. What he attempts to do in the
passages we have examined is to treat the traditional formulations concerning
God’s creative activity in the world and Avicenna’s account of the determinate
operation of the orders of secondary causes as they descend from the first
cause as two alternative but fundamentally equivalent descriptions of the same
phenomena. To accomplish this, however, he reinterprets the former in terms of
the latter and so doing rejects one of the basic tenets of classical Ash'arism,
e. g., the radical occasionalism according to which no created entity, whether
an atom, a body, or an accident, has any causal effect (tathir) on the
being of any other.[91]
Al-Ghazâlî, it would seem clear, is not trying to mask or hide what he really
holds. Even on a cursory reading of the text it is apparent that he does not
mean to present traditional Ash'arite doctrine and certainly none of his
contemporaries who possessed a serious understanding of the standard school
theology could have failed to see that his aim is to adapt the traditional
language and formulations to his own, quasi-Avicennian vision of creation.
We have seen, then that given the actuality of
all the causal conditions for its occurrence an event comes to be inevitably (lâ
mahâlah) and by necessity (tfarûratari). The examples of causal
sequences that we have examined thus far are all of simple changes, excitations
of faculties and imparted motions within the sublunary sphere. There are, however,
other, ontologically more fundamental kinds of changes and events within the
sublunary sphere, events whose efficient causes belong to a different order.
The cognition which is the immediate cause of the volition from which movement
originates depends conditionally on the presence of a number of things, but the
proximate efficient cause is not a physical or material event; i. e., it is
not the antecedent action or the antecedent state of a corporeal being.
God’s knowledge of the
forms is a cause of the existence of the forms in particular individuals (al-ayân).
The forms that exist in particular individuals are a cause of the realisation
of the cognitive forms (huçûlu l-çuwari l-'ilmiyyah) in the human mind.
... By achieving the form within himself (bi-ktisâbi 1-çû.ratifi nafsihi)
[the servant] becomes, as it were, one who informs, even if only in a
metaphorical sense, since these cognitional forms, in point of fact, come to
exist in him (tahduthu fîhï) through God’s determination and creation (bi-
khalqi llâhi wa-khtiraihî), not through his own action. Rather, the servant
strives to make himself open to the outflow of God’s mercy upon him, for God
(the Mighty, the Glorious) “does not alter the state of any people until they
alter their own state“ (Q 13.11), wherefore [the Prophet] (God’s prayer
and peace be upon him) said, “To your Lord in the time allotted to your lives
belong diffusions of His mercy; will you not make yourselves open to them?”.[92]
The passage is a characteristic example of
Al-Ghazâlî’s style, in which often a much more elaborate and theoretically
formal account of things is presented and asserted than may appear on first
reading. Here, the first statement is put plainly enough: the forms that exist
in particulars originate in God and, existing in particulars, are one of the
causes of our having them as intelligible universals, since they are first
presented in perception of particulars.[93] The Koran verse, then,
while giving a rhetorically pious
tone to the passage, serves primarily as an unambivalent
allusion to the fulfiment of all the conditions for the reception of the
intelligible form from a celestial intelligence the falâsifa call the
agent intellect.63 The conditions of its reception are achieved when
one has the correct set of perceptions and, being fully ready (musta idd:
Ihya 4, p. 87,4 ff.), is open to diffusions of God’s mercy (nafahâtun
min rahmatihi), i. e., to the outflow of His superabundance (faydânufadlihî:
e.g.,Ifyyâ*3, p. 361,22).64 In Mîzân (p. 49,15f.) he says
that the intellective faculty (al-quwwatu l-'aqliyyah) «receives the
true universal cognitions, both those that are given immediately and those that
follow logical inference, from the High Council», i.e., from the agent
intellect.65 As in the case of our intellectual apperception of the
forms, so also among the causes which eventuate in the movement of the hand, in
the example cited above, one of the primary ones, the mind’s judgement, was
dependent upon the activity of a celestial intermediary.
Similarly in Tahâfut
(p. 279) he speaks of «the entrance of the spirit66 and of the
perceptive and motive faculties into the animal sperm» and says that life, the
senses, etc., come to be in the fœtus not from the “natures” (i. e., the four
elemental principles, hot, cold, dry, damp), but rather «their existence is
through the agency of the First being (min jihati l-awwal), either
without any intermediary or by the intermediacy of the angels who are entrusted
with these contingent things» (al-malâ'ikatu l-mutawak- kalûna bi-hâdhihi
l-umûri l-hâdithah). Here the definite ‘the angels who ...’ indicates
tionship
between the “form’s” presence in sense and perception and its presence as a
purely mental object (malûrri) is entirely occasionalistic, the
consistent operation of God’s 'âdah-, God could create them immediately
in perception or mind without creating the sensation of them and without the
immediate presence of the object.
63 Concerning the angel that plays this role, cf., e.g., Mishkâh,
pp.51f. p. 67,15f. and p. 80, 6f. and see below. Note that for al-Ghazâlî the
agent intellect is located at the top of the celestial hierarchy, not at the
sphere of the moon as with al-Farâbî and Avicenna.
64 The “readiness” (isti'dâd) is clearly implied in the
citation of Q 13.11 (which is also cited in Qût 2, p. 109, 27ff., where
God is referred to as musabbibu l-asbâb); cf. also Miyâr, p. 106
(discussed by Marmura, “Ghazâlî and Demonstrative Reasoning", p. 194), Mishkâh,
pp. 80f. and Ihyâ’ 4, p. 87, where the isti'dâd as condition and
its link to the “chain of causes” is indicated somewhat explicitly. With this
cp. al-Nafs al-nâtiqah, p. 198 where Avicenna speaks of «the
intellectual substance (al-jawharu l-'aqlt) through which occurs the
divine outflow (abfaydu I- ilâhî) and which is called an angel in the
language of the revelation and an agent intellect in the language of
philosophy»; in Mâhiyyah, p. 29, 5 he speaks of «al-malaku l-wahhâb».
Thus al- Ghazâlî says «a single thing may have many names in differing respects
and so be called an intellect with respect to its essence and an angel with
respect to its relationship to God ...» (Fayçal, p. 41).
65 The expression “the High Council” (al-mala’ al-a'lâ), here
used to designate the agent intellect, is taken from Q38.69 (cf. also 37.8); it
is normally understood by the exegetes to refer to the celestial angels (orto
«a group of angels in the highest heaven»: Lafâ’if ad loc.). Concerning
al- Ghazâlî’s names for the agent intellect, see below.
66 By ‘spirit’ here he means the “vapor” that is the principle of
coporeal life and of the operations of the animal body and its powers, sc.,
«sensations, activations of the power to act (qudar), volitions, etc.»;
concerning its nature and function see 7/tyd’4, p. Ill f., where he refers to
it as a “lamp”.
that of the two alternatives it is the latter
which is the case in this instance.[94] Once again the statement
appears to be somewhat noncommittal, as he seems to remain within the bounds of
traditional orthodoxy. Read, however, in the context of the examples of causal
conditions and their effects that we have seen, the implications of the present
passage will be that while the presence of the material body (jism, jawhar:
Ihyâ’ 4, pp. 86 f. and Iqtiyâd, p. 97, cited above) is the most
basic, general condition for the existence of a living being, there are other,
more particular conditions; given the fulfilment of all the prerequisite
conditions (jamî'u l-asbâb: Maqçad, p. 145,11), the angel gives it its
form, i.e., gives it actual being as a living instance of a particular kind of
animal.[95]
So also where he talks
about fire’s burning cotton, he describes what takes place as «the creation of
black in the cotton and the dispersion of its parts and turning it into a
flaming wick (hurâq) and ashes», and says that the agent (fâ'U)
of these events «is God, either through the intermediacy of angels or without
intermediary; fire, since it is an inanimate being, has no agency (/4 fi'la
lahâ)» (Tahâfut, pp.278f.).[96]
By mentioning the intermediate activity of angels, he would seem to suggest
that the changes that take place here are of such a kind as to involve the
transmission or imposition of forms. Because of his formal disclaimer of
asserting the truth of any particular thesis in Tahâfut, the present
passage may perhaps not be taken by itself to present unambiva- lent evidence
of al-Ghazâlî’s doctrine concerning the intermediate role of celestial
intelligences in causing sublunary events, but nothing else is compatible with
the consistent meaning of what he says in a large number of places where he
does make assertions formally in his own voice. We shall take up the nature of
these angelic intermediaries shortly and shall have to ask if their activity
(causation) is constant and invariant, operative whenever there is a subject (mafyall)
that is fully apt (musta'idd) to receive their influence, or if the
program has room for irregularities.
What we have seen here is
that in a number of places al-Ghazâlî fails to make his
formal conception and theoretical understanding
concerning the matter under discussion altogether clear and that in some he
seems intentionally to obscure, if not to conceal, his intention and to do so,
moreover, in such a way as to mislead the careless or incompetent reader. His
reason for doing this, as he states explicitly in a number of places, is
because it is not licit «to disclose the secret of God’s ordainment publicly» (ifshâ’u
sirri l-qadarf9 and accordingly he says (Jqtiçâd, pp. 51
f.) that the unlearned should not be told the true meaning of “the Merciful
mounts the Throne” (Q 20.5) lest it confuse them and upset their faith. His
understanding of “mounting the Throne” (Q 20.5) he ultimately spells out in Iljâm
(p. 20, translated below). The notion that the highest knowledge should be
withheld from those who are unworthy, sc., from those who are incapable of
comprehending it properly, was common among the falâsifa as well as
among the sufis. As is apparent in the texts we have examined thus far, al-
Ghazâlî employs three main devices in order to carry out this obligation. In
many places he simply leaves the formal exposition of his doctrine incomplete
in one or another respect, omitting a premise or failing to make clear the
exact sense or the implication of what he says or by terminating the discussion
before he has fully explained his meaning.[97] [98] In some cases he expresses
himself in words that are common in Muslim religious discourse but without
making clear how he means them to be understood in the immediate context.
Often, thus, he employs symbolic or allegorical language; this sometimes takes
the form of citations or paraphrases of elements of the Koran or of some hadîth,
whose interpretation in formally conceptual terms is left up to the reader,
while on a number of occasions he presents an allegory or an elaborate image of
his own making. At other times, as we have seen, he employs the language and
formulations of traditional kalâm in such a way as to give the
superficial reader the impression that the doctrine which is presented conforms
essentially to that of the school manuals. The language and the formulae he
employs are in many places calculated to suggest that his accounts of events in
terms of antecedent causes are alternative to those employed in the manuals,
and are fundamentally equivalent to them, though addressing the phenomena of
our experience more directly so as to furnish an intellectually more satisfying
theological exposition of God’s creation and governance of the world. For some
readers, this procedure may have the effect of masking the extent of his commitment
to the metaphysics of the falâsifa and its implications. Al-Ghazâlî’s
intention, however, is not one of deceiving any reader, but rather, as he
understands it, of offering to each that which he is intellectually capable of
receiving with profit and benefit. For
those who read the texts carefully and were able
to discern what is actually asserted and implied and what is not, his writing
was clear enough and manifestly consistent.
As we mentioned earlier,
al-Ghazâlî compares the created universe to a water-clock in which, as water
escapes from the cylinder, the water level within is gradually lowered thereby
pulling a string attached to a float the other end of which tilts a container
so as to cause a small ball to fall into a brass dish, marking the hour. The
events we have been discussing correspond to the ball’s striking the dish.
Nothing at this level is permanent and whatever takes place or comes to be does
so as the determinate effect of the structure of the machine and the operation
of its parts. Sublunary events, in short, result from «instruments, causes, and
motions» {ha$ala min âlâtin wa-asbâbin wa-harakât) and the instruments
are the basic elements or principles (al-uçûl) {Maqçad, p. 100,9f. =
Arba'in, p. 15,9f.). The apparatus, that is, and its parts correspond in
the métaphore to
the universal,
fundamental, permanent, and stable causes (al-asbâbu l-kulliyy- atu
l-asliyyatu l-thâbitatu l-mustaqirrah), which are constant and unchanging,
such as the earth and the seven heavens, the stars and the spheres and their
interrelated movements which are constant and shall neither change nor fail
“until the Document shall reach its term” (Q 2.235).[99]
Elsewhere, he includes amongst the things that
correspond to the apparatus also the sea and the air and «the [four] natures»,
sc., hot, dry, cold and damp {Al-Maq$ad, p. 101, 8ff. = Arba'in,
p. 16, Iff. and Munqidh, p. 106, 4). The fundamental and permanent
causes, however, are themselves hierarchically ordered. Terrestrial causes are
subordinate to celestial causes. Following the métaphore of the water-clock,
he says {Maqsad, p. 101, 9-13 = Arba'in, p. 16,13-17),
The cause that moves the
spheres and the stars and the sun and the moon in a predetermined measure (bi-hisâbin
ma'lûm) is like the aperture that causes the water to descend necessarily
in a predetermined measure (bi-qadarin ma'lûm). The way in which the
motion of the sun and the moon and the stars results in the occurrence of
events on the earth is analogous to the way the motion of the water results in
those motions which terminate in the falling of the ball that makes it known
that the hour has elapsed.[100]
Here it is not
immediately dear exactly what he means to indicate metaphorically by the phrase
«the cause that moves the spheres...» (al-sababu bmuharriku lil-aflâki...), nor
does he pursue the matter in order to clarify it as he had done for the rest of
the apparatus. In order clearly to understand what he means by this we shall
have to look briefly at the general classes and ordering of the higher and more
fundamental causes and intermediaries.
The world is «every
existent other than God» (ql-Iqtiçâd, p. 24) and although al Ghazâlî
sometimes, following the traditional Ash'arite usage, speaks as if the world
consists of material entities alone,74 he in fact holds that there
are two distinct domains of created beings.
The world is two worlds ('âlamâri),
spiritual and corporeal or,, if you wish, sensible and intelligible or, if you
wish, higher and lower. This all comes to much the same thing; the differences
are merely differences of terminology. When you refer to them as they are in
themselves you say ‘corporeal’ and ‘spiritual’; if you refer to them in
relation to the eye that perceives them, you say ‘sensible’ and ‘intelligible’,
and if you refer to them in their relationship to one another you say ‘higher’
and ‘lower’. The latter is often referred to as “âlamu l-mulki wal-shahâdah’
and the former as “âlamu l-ghaybi wal-malakût’ (Mishkâh, p.65,13ff.).
The intelligible world consists of the angels (hum
jumlatu 'âlami l-malakût: Mishkâh, pp. 50f. and 66 f.), which correspond to
the separated intelligences and souls of Avicenna’s universe. Each one of
them, being unique in its kind and wholly without composition, has its own
“station” (maqâm), from which it never departs, and has but a single
activity.75 They are divided into two general classes, according to
the domains in which the effect of their acitivity is realised, the terrestrial
and celestial, or more properly into
fœtus and the
child from the sperm. The phrase could be rendered ‘in an intelligible measure’
(or ‘an intelligible ordainment’), for al-Ghazâlî, as we have seen, sometimes
uses ‘malum’ in this sense and such a connotation is doubtless intended
here. I have chosen to render the word by ‘determined’ here, however, in order
to reflect the Koranic allusion.
74 In Iqtisâd (loe. cit.), e. g., he says, «By ‘the world’ we
mean every existent other than God and by ‘every existent other than God’ we
mean all bodies and their accidents». The definition is traditional (e. g., Thaghr,
p. 96, al-Mâturîdî, al-Tawhid, p. 233), but al-Ghazâlî’s conception of
bodies and accidents does not correspond fully to that of his predecessors.
Exactly how this definition is to be understood within the context of
al-Ghazâlî’s theology is something that wants working out. It offers no prima
facie difficulty in its application to sublunary beings, but how he means to
understand ‘bodies and accidents’ with respect to the celestial realm is not
immediately clear. The definition more commonly reads ‘jawâhir wal-a'râd’
rather than ‘bodies and accidents’ (e.g., Tamhîd, §37, al-Baghdâdî, Ufûlal-dîn,
Istanbul, 1346/1928, p.33, Irshâd, p. 17, and Shâmil (69), p.369,
Ghunya, fol. 152r°, 8f.).
75 Ihyâ 4, p. 119,5ff. Note the expression ‘wahdâniyyu
Tçifah’ (line 5) for ‘unique’, and the use of Q37.164. The «one station» is
doubtless somewhere in the supraterrestrial realm. (That the roles of some
angels is to effect things that take place in the terrestrial realm need not
imply that they inhabit the lower world). For allusions to the intelligible
world in Maqçad, see the references in the following note.
three classes, the terrestrial, the celestial,
and “the porters of the Throne” (hamalatu /- 'arsh) (IhyaA, p.
117,27ff.).76The material world is entirely governed by the
intelligible world; «the sublunary world Çalamu l-shahâdah) is one of
the manifest effects (athar) of that [celestial] world, having a
relationship to it analogous to that of the shadow to a person’s body and the
fruit to that which produces it, and to the relation of the effect to its cause
(sabab)» (Mishkâh, p. 51, Ó-8).77 The angels who govern
terrestrial events are subordinate to those whose governance is celestial and
both groups are subordinate to “those who carry the throne” (Ihya 4, p.
118, 18 ff.). In the métaphore of the waterclock (Maqyad, p. 100, 5f.)
al-Ghazâlî speaks of the aperture in the apparatus as «the first cause» - i.
e., the first within the apparatus - and it is apparently the intellect which
is the first of created causes that he refers to metaphorically in Ihya
4, pp. 118 f. as «the porters of the Throne». Concerning the Throne he says in Iljâm
(p.20),
The interpretation of
“mounting the Throne” (Q. 20.5) is that He means by this the particular
relationship to the throne; the relationship is that God (the Exalted) acts in
the entire universe and “disposes the affair from the sky to the earth” (Q
32.5)78 through the intermediary of the Throne, for no form comes to
76 In Maqçad al-Ghazâlî does not talk about the celestial
spirits or those of the outermost shere explicitly, but they are alluded to in
the section in which he treats ‘al-'Al? (pp. 115 ff.), when he speaks of
«al-rutabu l-ma'qûlah» (the intelligible grades of being) and of «al-tadrîjâtu
l-'aq- liyyah» (the rankings of things according to their intelligibility)
and «al-darajâtu. l-'aqliyyah» (the intellectual ranks) (p. 115,16ff.)
that are constituted by the differences between causes and their effects (al-asbâb
and al-musabbabât), since by ‘al-darajât’ he alludes to Q40.15 (rafî'u
l- darajâti dhû l-'arshi yulqî l-rûha ralâ man yashá’), which is
cited by al-Halîmî under ‘al-'Al? (al- Bayhaqî, Asmâ', p. 16);
cf. also Arba'in, p. 4. It is also to be noted that al-Iîalîmî in
discussing “Dhû l-'arsh” (al-Bayhaqi, Asma, p. 91) suggests all
three of al-Ghazâlî’s terms, albeit in quite different language. In comparing
al-Bayhaqî’s and al-Ghazâlî’s treatment of this expression, one sees another
example of the latter’s tendency, in his quest for systematisation and rationalisation,
to reduce the richness of implication and connotation with which traditional
theology had invested many expression.
77 «One of the manifest effects», i. e., there are also the material
bodies of the stars, the sun, etc. With this see Mishkâh, p. 67, 6ff.
and below.
78 There is a kind of montage here of Koranic citations; i.e., the
classical locus for “mounts the throne” (istawâ 'ala l-'arsh) is Q20.5.
The phrase occurs along with “disposes the affair” (yudabbiru l-amrd) in
Q 10.3, while the latter phrase is continued by “from the heaven to the earth” (mina
l-samâ’i ilâ l-ard) in Q 32.5. Al-Ghazâlî interprets the ‘istawâ'
(mounts) of “al- Rahmânu 'alâ l-'arshistawâ” (Q20.5), following
al-Juwaynî (e.g., Luma'(J), pp. 149f.), as an equivalent of ‘is taw
la' (to dominate, to master); cf., e.g., Qudsiyya, p. 83 (= Ihyâ'
1, p. 107), where ‘al-istiwâ" is said to be equivalent to ‘al-qahr'
and ‘al-istîlà", and Fadâ’ih, p. 53 and also Iqtisâd,
pp.55f., where he gives a laborious justification of this interpretation.
Though some Ash'arite theologians take “mounts the Throne” as referring to an
essential attribute (sc., God’s exaltation above all created things; cf., e.g.,
Ta’wtl, fol. 131v° and sharh al-Irshâd, foil. 143v°f.), ‘al-istiwâ"
in this verse is commonly understood by al-Ash'ari and his school to name an
action (something that God does to or in or with respect to the Throne) (e.g.,
Ibn 'Asâkir, p. 150, Mushkil, p. 26 and, al-Shîrâzî, p. 72, §38); abû
Ishâq al-Isfarâ’înî takes it too as naming an “attribute of action” but one
that is a “revealed attribute” (i.e., one whose identity and nature is not
rationally knowable) (Sharh al-Irshâd, loe. cit.). Most of the earlier
Ash'arites reject
be in the world without
first having come to be in the Throne, just as no inscription or writing comes
to be as a form and a word on paper without having first come to be in the
brain.
Thus it is that the movements of the heavens and
all the forms of all created beings, and therewith the occurrence of every
event from the beginning of the world to its end, are already present and
determined in the creation of the outermost heaven and its angel. For this
reason al-Gazâlî identifies God’s universally effective “Accomplishment” (al-
qada) with his creation of “the universal, permanent causes”, sc., with the
apparatus of the métaphore.79 The Accomplishment is the
establishment of the universal causes, God’s «laying them down»;80
it is «the presence of the totality of existent beings in a general way, not in
their particulars, in the Cherished Tablet»81 and therewith the concrete
determination of all contingent events in the creation of the first
intelligence and its sphere, «the King’s right hand in which the heavens are
enclosed and in whose grasp are the pens also» {Ihya 4, p. 246,8ff. ).
It is from here that all lower causes are directed to their effects (tawajjah:
cf. Maqçad, p. 98, 7ff. and p. 109, 14f.). Thus al-Ghazâlî places God’s
creating (ikhtira) and His causing the existence (îjâd) of every
contingent entity and of every event that occurs in the world in His creation
of the universal, permanent causes, material and immaterial. With their
creation and in them the possibility of the existence of every subsequent
entity and every particular event becomes a concrete necessity; it is
inconceivable that anything be other than as it must be, as «the sequence of
causes and effects are linked according to the determination of the Lord of
Lords and of Him Who makes the causes to function as causes» (Ihyâ’ 4,
p. 94,5 f. ; cf. also ibid., p. 250, Iff. cited below). Al-Ghazâlî
insists in Tahâfut (p. 252,5 ff. and gen-
listîlâ" as an
equivalent of 'istiwâ” (e.g., ibid., al-Ibâna, p. 32, and Tawil,
foil. 132r°ff. and Ibn 'Asâkir, loe. cit.) against the Mu'tazila, though
their interpretations of the expression are not everywhere wholly incompatible
with the way al-Ghazâlî understands it.
79 Thus the sense of ‘al-qadâ’' is taken from “qadâhunna
sab'a samawâtin ...” (Q4L12, cited above). Where Avicenna describes these
universal causes as eternal, al-Ghazâlî terms them “permanent” (daimah),
since he denies the eternity of the world.
80 Al-qadâ’ is «nasbu l-asbâbi l-kulliyyah» (Maqçad,
p. 98, lOf. cited in Arba'în, p. 13), «wad'u l- asbâbi l-kulliyyah»
(Maqçad, p. 102, 6), «al-wad'u l-kulliyyu lil-asbâbi l-dâ’imah»
(ibid., p. 98, 17); cp. Najâh, p. 302, 19f. Note the connotations of
‘waJ” here. The Accomplishment is one and universal (Ihyâ’ 4, p.94, 8f.
; note that here the word ‘al-amr’ does not mean “the command”, but
“that thing”). N.b. the parallel with Ilâhiyyât, pp. 439f.
81 «Al-qadâ’u wujûdu jamî'i l-mawjûdâti fl l-lawhi l-mahfû^i ijmâlan
lâ taftîlan»: Arba'în, p. 11, citing 'Alâ’uddîn (see above n. 27).
(With this contrast ‘bi-tafâ$îlihâ of the citation of Ghunya, 24r°,
translated below). The Cherished Tablet on which God’s creative word is
originally “written” (Q 85.22) would seem here to be allegorically identified
with the Throne or with the entire celestial world or perhaps with the heavens
and the angels that move them. (The Koran will be originally contained in the
Cherished Tablet as its primeval material registration in that the text and its
eventual revelation to Muhammad was inscribed in the system at its creation
along with every other event that flows from God’s “Be”.); cf. also Ifiyâ’ 3,
pp. 19f. and 4, p. 489,2ff. With this cp. 'Arshiyya, p. 14, 13f.: «ummu
l-kitâbi huwa ta'alluqu 'ilmihi 'alâ l-wajhi l-'âlî 'ani l- taghayyuri
wal-zawâl» (The Archetype of the Scripture is the relationship of His
knowledge [to its created objects] in the universal way which transcends
alteration and change).
erally pp.
240ff.) that knowledge of the nature and operation of the angelic realm is not
accessible to unaided reason. His use of names and descriptions taken from the
Koran and hadith to refer to members and classes of celestial beings is not
everywhere easy to decipher, assuming that there was some regular allegorical
scheme he consistently or generally employs. Following Q 69.17 the porters of
the Throne are commonly taken by the commentators to be eight in number. The
inference that al-Ghazâlî uses the plural expression ‘hamalatu l-'arsh'
in Ihya 4, pp. 117f. to indicate a single celestial being, as he
apparently refers to the agent intellect as “the High Council” in Mîzân,
p. 45, is plausible, but by no means wholly certain. In Fay $ al, p. 41,
he cites the hadith according to which the first thing God created was the
intellect (the same hadith is cited in Mi'yâr, p. 166) and also the one according
to which the first thing He created was “the Pen”, and goes on to say that «the
word ‘intellect’ here is an expression for the being of an angel (dhâtu
malak) which is called an intellect in that it understands things by its
own nature and being (ya'qilu l-ashyâ’a bi-jawharihî wa-dhâtihî) without
having to be taught; it is often called a ‘pen’ with reference to its engraving
the fundamental truths (haqâ’iqu l-'ulûm) on the tablets of the hearts
of the prophets and the saints and all the other angels as revelation and
inspiration» (cf. also Ihya 4, p. 245,10ff., where Q 96.4 is cited and
also Maqyad, p. 103, 2ff. and cp. 'Arshiyya, p. 15). The angelic
intellect which is nearest to God is called “al-muqarrab” (Mishkâh, p.
53,13) and is described as «the one who commands that the heavens be moved» (al-âmiru
bi-tahrîkihâ: ibid, pp. 91 f.).[101]
4. God’s “Determination” of
what must be
4.1. Wisdom, Judgement, and Command: The Need to
Divide and Distinguish
As we saw earlier, the highest and underived
level of God’s creating (sc., al-khalq) al- Ghazâlî identifies as His
original Determination (al-taqdir) and ordering; it is «the first,
universal ordering» (al-tadbîru l-awwalu l-kulli) which is «the origin
of the establishment of the causes» (açlu wad'i l-asbâb: Maqçad, p.
100), i.e., of the second level. In order to describe this he employs a number
of terms, as we have already seen. We shall now have to examine several of
these terms in order to determine what precisely he may mean by them. He
identifies this Determination with God’s Wisdom (hikmah) and His
Judgement (hukm). ‘Wisdom’, al-Ghazâlî says (al-Iqti^âd, p.
165f.) is employed in two senses:
The first is the purely
intellectual grasp (al-ihfyatu l-mujarradah) of the arrangement of
things (na?mu l-umûr) and of their subtle and important characteristics
and the judgement (al-hukm) of how they must be in order that the end
that is sought from them shall be completely realised; the second is that the
power to cause the existence of the order and system (îjâdu l-tartîbi wal-
niçâm)83 and to execute it well and expertly be added to this,
so that ‘wise’ (hakim) is predicated as from ‘wisdom’, which is a kind
of knowledge and ‘wise’ is predicated as from ‘to execute expertly’ (ihkâm),
which is a kind of action.84
God’s ordering and determining, then, is the
first of these, an interior ordering, sc., «the judgement of what instruments,
causes, and motions there have to be so as to result in the realisation of what
should come to realisation» (hiqûlu mâ yanbaghî an yahyul: Maqsad, p.
100, 8f.). Al-Ghazâlî identifies this judgement with God’s Command, “Be” (“the
primal command”: Maqçad, p. 98,16) and so with His eternal Speak-
822)
interprets the “wa-awhâfï kulli samâ’in amrahâ” (Q41.12) as «He placed
angels in each heaven, and this is ‘its affair’» (Ma'ânî l-Qur’ân, ad loe.).
83 Terminologically ‘rutbah' and ‘rattaba, yurattibu ’
and ‘tarattaba, yatarattabu’ are used of the ordering of things to one
another as prior and posterior, primary and secondary, more perfect and less
perfect, and as cause and effect, while is used of the general organization or
structure, the system as such and as a whole.
84 With this cp. Mujarrad, pp. 48, 6ff. and 97,2ff. For the
derivation of ‘hakim' from 'ihkâm', cf. also, e. g., Mushkil,
p. 158 and Irshâd, p. 152 and see generally Gimaret, Noms divins,
pp. 271 f. In Mîzân, p. 49, where al-Ghazâlî follows the Aristotelian
listing of the four cardinal virtues, ‘wisdom’ (al-hikmah) stands first,
in the place of prudence.
ing {kalâmuhû).*5 Judgement,
for al-Ghazâlî, is a knowing or apperception and he identities God’s Speaking
with His knowledge.[102]
[103]
[104]
In Maqsad while
describing the perfection of the universe, al-Ghazâlî distinguishes God’s
knowledge and judgement of how the optimum order of things must be explicitly
from His willing that it be so ordered, when he says that as in the case of a
human builder the perfection of the construction occurs «not by coïncidence but
through wisdom and intent because of the will to execute it perfectly» {lâ
bil-ittifâqi bal bil-fyikmati wal-qaydi li-irâdati l-ihkâm: p. 81, ult.).
According to al-Ghazâlî it is impossible that God act simply by His nature {li-dhâtihî),
for if He did the world would have to have existed from eternity, which is
impossible. God acts, therefore, by a distinct attribute, viz., a power to act (al-qudrah).^
His power, however,
requires something to direct it to its object {taçrîfuhâ ilâ l- maqdûr:
Iqtiyâd, p. 107,12ff. and Qudsiyya, p. 85,9 = Ihyâ’ 1, p.
108,9). Thus it is that he says in one place that «the world comes to be
through [God’s] will» {hâdithun bil- irâdah: Tahâfut, p. 217, 5) and in
another that it comes to be through His power {'anhâ yasdiru l-khalqu
wal-ikhtirâ*). The expression ‘will’ or ‘volition’ {al-irâdah, al-mashî-
’ah), he notes, is employed of God metaphorically, following the usage of
revelation. In its ordinary lexical usage (al-lughah), that is, when
used of a human agent, ‘will’ names the faculty (or the act of the faculty)
that determines the agent’s action with respect to a particular purpose or end {gharad)
that he judges to be beneficial or advantageous to himself (cf., e. g.,Tahâfut,
p. 40 and Ihyâ’ 4, p. 93,21 fft). Will, thus, is often identified with
appetite (shahwah) and, as we saw above, its act is determined by
antecedent motivation given in sensation or imagination, or in an intellectual
judgement (see generally Ihyâ’ 3, pp. 7f., 4, pp. 108f. and 248f., and Mîzân,
p. 15). When will and choice (al-ikhtiyâr) are formally distinguished
the latter is taken to be a subclass of volitions, viz., those that occur as
the result of an intellectual judgement of what is best {Ihyâ’ 4, pp.
248ft).[105]
Actions that occur simply through nature, such as that of fire, occur in a
purely deterministic manner (jabran mahdari)
without purpose or foresight. The intentional actions of human agents occur
through choice, but their choices are the determined outcome of antecedent
events (sensations and cognitions) that are not chosen, so that in human
actions there is both choice (ikhtiyâr) and deterministic constraint (jabr).
God’s actions, by contrast, are «pure choice» (ikhtiyârun mahd) and
His choice is not preceded by uncertainty and deliberation (Ihyâ’4, p.
249,14ff.). Characteristically, al- Ghazâlî does not clarify what he means by
‘pure choice’ here. He may mean (1) that the act of God’s will is not
determinately caused by His knowledge and so, by implication, (a) that He could
in fact have created other than whan He has created and/or (b) that He need not
have created anything at all.[106]
He may, on the other hand, mean (2) that since God is not subject to being
moved by appetite and cannot act for any self interest (it is impossible that
He derive any advantage or benefit from any creature), the act of His will does
not follow a motivation (dâ'iyah, baithati) of the kind that determines
human choices.[107]
Our problem, then is to discover exactly how, according to al-Ghazâlî, God’s
will is related to His knowledge and, more specifically, to see how he
conceives the ontological origin and nature of the possibles and how God’s
knowledge of them and His power are related to His will to create this world as
it actually exists. Unfortunately he nowhere sets out his understanding of
either the whole issue or of all the separate questions formally and
adequately. We shall have, therefore, to examine several passages in which the
elements of the problem are directly raised in the hope of gaining some clearer
grasp of what he has to say.
God’s knowledge and His
will together form the original Determination (taqdîr) and Ordering (tadbir)
that al-Ghazâlî considers the primeval act of creation (al-khalq). Thus
he says,
’Al-qudrah’ is an
expression for the attribute through which a thing is made to exist in a
particular way through the determination of will and knowledge and to occur in
conformity with them.[108]
In this act of creation, God’s knowledge and will
may be considered a single actuality. Creation, he says,
does not happen through
coincidence (bil-ittifâq) and luck, but through a volition, a wisdom, a
right judgement and a decisive command which is metaphorically referred to by
the expression ‘the Decree’ (al-qadâ’) and of which it is said that it
is “like a glance of the eye” (Q54.50).[109]
On the basis of purely grammatical considerations
one can read the singulars of the descriptive phrases ‘which is metaphorically
... Decree’ and ‘of which it is said ..as qualifying only the last term, viz.,
‘a decisive command’ (amrin jazm), rather than the entire series of
terms together. In support of this reading he might point to the fact that, in
the Koran verse alluded to, ‘like a glance of the eye’ describes ‘Our command’ (amruna).
Such a reading would tend to suggest, if not clearly to imply, that one is to
take ‘volition’, ‘wisdom’, ‘judgement’, and ‘command’ here as naming, if not
somehow distinct attributes of God, at least distinguishable aspects or moments
of God’s creating. In the traditional Ash'arite doctrine, God’s will,
knowledge, and speaking (here, command) are understood as somehow distinct
attributes and one can take the ‘a wisdom and a right judgement’ of the
present text as a merely rhetorical redundancy. On the other hand, as we have
noted, al-Ghazâlî identifies God’s wisdom and also His speaking (kalâmuhû)
with His knowledge as one and the same. We have seen also that in Maqçad
he employs ‘judgement’, ‘wisdom’, and ‘command’ to refer to the originating
determination (taqdtr) that is God’s “creating” (al-khalq). Thus
he uses ‘like a glance of the eye’ to describe ‘the primal command’ (al-amru
l-awwall) in Maqçad, p. 98, 14f., but there states that the command
is identical with ‘the original ordering’ (al-tadbîru l-awwal) and
several pages later (ibid., p. 102, 6f. = Arbain, p. 17, 10)
employs the same Koranic phrase to describe the Ordering, which he goes on to
say is identical with the Judgement.[110] From this it would seem
clear that in Ihyâ* 4, p. 94 ‘a
wisdom’, ‘a right judgement’, and ‘a decisive
command’ all refer to and describe one and the same attribute, viz., God’s
knowledge; and in view of this it might be suggested that the two phrases,
‘which is ... Decree’ and ‘a decisive command’ are to be taken as referring to
and describing the entire set of terms, which are accordingly viewed as
together describing one thing, viz., the original determination and ordering,
the Eternal Decree (al-qadau l-azali). But what exactly does ‘the
original ordering’ name and in what sense is it one thing?
Al-Ghazâlî distinguishes
God’s will from His knowledge and power, as he does earlier in Ihya (1,
p. 90, translated below). This distinction is unequivocally made in Tahâfut
(p. 163) and is plainly implied where he insists on the necessary role of God’s
will in the creation of the universe (ibid., pp. 41 and 203ff.) against
the thesis of Avicenna and the falâsifa (set forth, e.g., ibid.,
pp. 156f.) that God‘s knowledge and will are identical with His essence. So too
in discussing the necessity of the order of the universe in Iljâm (pp.
20 f., translated below) knowledge and will are twice explicitly mentioned.94
Tvo things, at least, are clear: (1) since the world cannot have existed from
eternity the attributes by virtue of which God acts in creation must be somehow
distinct from His essence as such and (2) because of the difference between the
possibility of there being a world and the actual existence of this contingent
world His will must be distinguishable from His knowledge. In this al-Ghazâlî
follows basically the teaching of traditional kalâm. Because of their
radically voluntaristic conception of God’s action and His relationship to His
creatures, the Ash‘arite masters of the earlier period, had no problem in
grounding the distinction between His power, His knowledge, and His will. Even
though not driven by any Neoplatonic commitments, they were well aware,
moreover, of the ontological problems involved in distinguishing God’s
essential attributes from His essence and the several essential attributes one
from another. In dealing with these matters, they characteristically
concentrated their attention on the logic of the predication of power,
knowledge, and will as these are said of God and as He is said to act and to be
related to creatures through them. Al-Ghazâlî, however,
the Ash'arite
tradition, e.g., in Lata if 6, p.162 (ad 64, 11) where he glosses
“bi-kulli shay’in 'alîm” saying, «i.e., every single thing that happens
is from God as an act of creation and through His knowledge and will as a
judgement» (min qibalihi khalqan wa-bi-ilmiht wa- irâdatihî hukmari).
Al-Qushayri, however, is a quite conventional and orthodox Ash'arite and will
not, as al-Ghazâlî does, blurr the distinctions between God’s will and His
speaking and His knowledge. Avicenna cites Q 54.50 in describing the “amf”
(“thing” or “command”) on which depends the universal whole (irtabafa
l-kull) in Aqsâm al-'ulûm, p. 114,3. (For the same use of ‘irtabala'
with regard to the relationship of sublunary entities to the last separated
intelligence and the ambivalence of Avicenna’s use of ‘al-amr’ here, cp.
Ilâhiyyât, p. 410,13 f.).
94 In the first of these God’s knowledge is referred to by the
expression ‘His word’, but the iden- titiy of God’s speaking and His knowledge
is stated in the immediate context. In arguing implicitly for the thesis that
God does not create simply “by His essence” in Iqtiyâd, al-Ghazâlî
focuses on His power (qudrah) rather than His will (e. g., pp. 81 f.),
but in this he follows the traditional conception of action in which choice and
volition are elements (cp., e.g., Tahâfut, pp.96f. and 102). The
distance between the traditional Ash'arite conception of the nature of God‘s
action and that of Avicenna is presented paradigmatically where the latter
identifies tarjîh and takhfà (Ishârât, p. 153,12).
chose to elaborate his theology in terms of a
theoretical framework which is different from those of classical kalâm
in a number of significant respects, including certain Neo- platonising
tendencies. Within this framework the roles of God’s knowledge and of His will
are not in every respect so easily separable one from another as they are in
the traditional theology. Moreover, because of the need to counter the analysis
and the conclusions of Avicenna and the f alâsif a, al-Ghazâlî had to
deal in greater detail than had his predecessors with the problem of these
attributes and their relation to one another as they are eternally in God. He
tends, as we have seen, sometimes to lump God’s will and His knowledge together
insofar as they are convergent in the act of creation in what he terms the
original determination and ordering of the universe. As is true of a number of
passages, the rhetorical eloquence of Ihyâ' 4,94 is notably greater than
is the clarity of its intention. In order to achieve a better view of
al-Ghazâlî’s position here we shall have to follow a more circuitous path.
4.2. Possible Beings and the Possible World
The question of the ontological origin of the
possibility of the possibles and of whether or not God’s power extends to an
infinite number of classes of beings, albeit discussed and disputed, were not
topics of heated controversy among the Ash'arites and were not, therefore,
regularly given systematic treatment in the shorter manuals. Al-Ash'ari and
some of his followers state that it is God who determines the classes of things
that exist, «Who makes the different classes of things to be different»[111]
and, consistently with this, many of the Ash'arites, among them al-Bâqillânî,
held that God’s power extends to an infinity of classes of things and that he
could have created an altogether different world.[112] A number of Ash'arite
masters, however, held that, although God’s power extends to an infinite number
of possible individuals, the classes of the things He has the power to create (ajnâsu
l-maqdûrât) are finite in number and, in effect, appear to have held that
there are no possible classes of which individual instances are not known to
exist.[113]
Al-Ghazâlî, characteristically, does not take these questions up formally so
as to inform us of his own position with regard to them. We shall have, there-
fore, in order to discover what his thought on
the topic may have been, to examine several passages that raise the question of
the possibles and of God’s power and will obliquely and try to determine what
is implied or required for consistency.
In a number of places
al-Ghazâlî speaks of God’s will in traditional Ash'arite terms as that
attribute whereby God determines the occurrence of particular events to
particular times and places.[114]
Thus, for example, he says in Ihyâ’ 1, p. 90,9-12,
His will subsists (qtfimaKf[115] in His essence as
one of His attributes. By virtue of it He is eternally described as willing in
His eternity the existence of entities in their own times which He has
determined. They exist in their times as in His eternity He has willed without
either priority or posteriority. Rather, they occur in accord with His
knowledge and His will without substitution or alteration; He has ordered
things (dabbara l-umûr) without either setting out a sequence of
thoughts or awaiting a particular time, wherefore one thing does not distract
Him from another.
Action does not ensue directly from an agent’s
knowledge as such[116]
but requires, rather, something to distinguish (mayyaza) and to make a
determinant selection (raj- jaha) between contrary possibles in order to
direct the power to act. The function of God’s will, accordingly, «is to
distinguish one thing from its equivalent» (shanuhâ tamyîzu shay’in min
mithlihî: Tahâfut, p. 40,1 = Iqtiçâd, p. 106, ult.). In the section
on God’s knowledge in Qudsiyya (p. 84,24 f. = Ihyâ’ 1, pp. 89f.)
al-Ghazâlî speaks only of His knowledge of what actually exists (or shall
exist). In Iqtiyâd (p. 100), however, he says that God knows everything
that is knowable (jamî'u l-ma'lûmât)[117]
i.e., besides Himself, an infinity of possibles, both those that He will cause
to exist and those that He will not cause to exist. The latter are not
discussed in this passage, but are illustrated elsewhere where al-Ghazâlî
states, for example, that there is more than one sun «in possibility» (Maqçad,
p. 77,17f.) albeit only one now exists or ever will. So too, it lies within
God’s power to bring this phase of creation to its end with the resurrection
and judgement now, if He wished (ibid., p. 145,4). Where he dwells on
God’s knowledge of an infinity of possibles and His power to create them (e.
g., Iqtiçâd, pp. 81 f. and 100), he speaks only of an infinitely
extended temporal sequence of further instances of the kinds of things that
already exist in the world. God’s knowledge of contingent possibles, as
presented here, is the knowledge of an infinite number of possible individuals
of a
finite number of classes of beings, not of an
infinite number of possible individuals belonging to each of an infinite number
of possible kinds. It is clear, thus that God could, in principle, have chosen
that there exist in particular places and at particular times greater or lesser
numbers of individuals of the various possible kinds or that, within the
limiting constraints of the universal system, individuals circumstantially
receive one or another series of perfections and imperfections. This is
implicit in what al-Ghazâlî says about choosing between contraries and the
possibility of there being two suns. In demonstrating that God wills (Iqtÿâd,
p. 101,5f.), he says that what God has created is characterised by «various
sorts of possibilities» (durûbun mina l-jawâz) which are
indistinguishable one from another save by something that determinately selects
some among them (murajjih) and not others. Of themselves, the individual
essences do not present a basis for selection, «since the relation of the
essence (al-dhat) to the two contraries is one and the same». What he
has in mind is made plain enough when he cites «motion instead of rest» as an
example of the contraries God chooses (ibid, p. 103, If.).[118]
What al-Ghazâlî apparently asserts, thus, is that God can choose to create or
not to create some of the possible accidents and relations that can occur in
and among those instances of the possible essences that He has chosen to
create. Nowhere, however - nowhere, at least, that I have noted - does he
suggest that there is “in possibility” or that there may be among the things
subject to God’s power classes of beings essentially different in kind from
those that occur in the present universe. Al- Ghazâlî, as we have noted, says
that there is more than one sun “in possibility”. Would
he, however, say that God could create a ninth
heaven (cp. Sharh al-Irshad, fol. 159v°, 2 ff. )? If he follows Avicenna
and thefalâsifa, a ninth heaven (with its angel, etc.) would not be of
the same species as the others in the way that another sun would, by
definition, be of the same kind as the one that we know. In Iljâm (pp.
20 f., translated below) he says that it is counterfactually possible that God
have created men in such a way that the mind could govern the body without the
mediating instrumentality of the brain. The matter is not elaborated there, but
it would seem most likely that what is envisioned is simply an alteration of
the physiological organisation of the body of the mortal rational animal, so
that no essentially different kind of being is posited. We shall have shortly
to return to the question of whether or not, according to al-Ghazâlî, there are
possibles that have not actually been instantiated.[119]
The possibles as such and
in themselves (and their possible realisations under various possible
conditions) as what could be but need not be, may be distinguished from the
possibles that God wills to cause to exist and which must, therefore,
necessarily come to be when and as He wills. Accordingly «every thing that
enters into existence does so by necessity (bil-wujûb) and so exists
necessarily even if it is not necessary in itself (//- dhâtihî) but is
necessary by the Eternal Decree» (Maqçad, p. 102, 4f.; see also ibid.,
p. 137, translated below). «What occurs of good and evil is decreed and
what is decreed must necessarily occur given the prior act of [God’s] will (bada
sabqi l-mashî’ati), for there is none to amend His judgement and none to
put off His decree» (Ihyâ’ 4, p. 253, 9ff.). The existence of what God
does not will to create - of what He knows will not come to exist - though
possible in itself, is in fact impossible.[120] It is in this context that
one may most readily understand the statement (Iqtiçâd, p. 107, ult.)
that everything which falls under God’s power, sc., what is in fact possible,
is willed by God (kullu maqdûrin murâd) and so also the assertion that
the possible - the contingent whose existence is not impossible - actually
comes to be (al-maqdûru kâ’in: Maqçad, p. 103, 6).
In Ihya 4 (pp.
249f.) he says,
He (the
Exalted) says, “We did not create the heavens and the earth and what is between
them frivolously; We created them only with rightness (bil-haqq)”
(Q 44.38 f.). Thus, every
thing that is between the heaven and the earth comes to be according to a
necessary order and a consequent rightness and is such that it is not
conceivable (lâ yutaçawwar) that it be save as it in fact does come to
be and is according to this order which actually exists.[121] Accordingly, whatever is
later occurs later simply because it must await its condition. That what is conditioned
be prior to its condition is [logically] impossible (muhâl) and the
[logically] impossible cannot be described as lying within [God’s] power (al-muhâlu
lâ yûsafu bi-kawnihî maqdûrari).
The passage is characteristic of al-Ghazâlî’s
writing, both in its rhetorical eloquence and in its ambiguity. His general
intention in the context is primarily to assert that it is impossible that
there have occurred, or that there ever occur, in this world anything other
than what has occurred and what shall occur. The formulation, however, seems
somewhat more elaborate than need be if this is all that he means to say, and
so deserves closer analysis, particularly since there is, in several parallel
contexts, a similar overload of potentially serious implications.[122]
Several of the terms
require examination. The word ‘haqq’ is extraordinarily rich in meanings
and connotations and the sense of the Koranic “We created only bil-haqq” was
much discussed. The Ash'arites generally understand ‘al-haqq’ here as
designating the “Thith” which is God’s creative “Be”. For al-Ghazâlî, as we
have seen, this is the Decisive Command, which he identifies with God’s
knowledge and will.[123]
Al-Ghazâlî explains what it means for the universe to be created bil-haqq
in two phrases that descirbe how the totality of events of the sublunary world
are systematically ordered. The first says that they take place in (or
according to) a necessary order ( 'alâ tartibin wâjib), i. e., in a
necessary sequence of priority and posteriority or in a necessary hierarchy of
higher and lower. It is not immediately clear, however, in what sense he may
mean that the given order is necessary. The meaning of the second, viz., that
they take place «[ ató] haqqin lâzim», is more problematic yet because
of the ambivalence both of ‘haqq’ and of ‘lâzim.’ One might hear ‘haqq’
here in the sense (1) of ‘right’, that is to say, of what belongs to God by
right, i. e., by His very being. This may be taken in a way
that conforms to a use of the word which is
common enough in the theological literature,[124] but seems quite unlikely
here in view of the immediate context, since the phrase 'haqqin lázirrC
follows and so is, by implication, coupled with ltartibin wâjib’.
One can, on the other hand, plausibly hear lhaqq' in this
passage as meaning (2) what is right, i. e., what is as it really ought to be ('alâ
mâ yanbaghf) or as it must be (wajaba) if it is to be right.[125]
It will be right, then, as what is done is done as it should be done, either as
such because it is what it is or with respect to some end. If we take the word
in this sense then, the expression ‘a consequent rightness’ will mean something
like a rightness whose rightness is that it follows as it should, and so a
rightness which is right and as it should be and that also follows either as
consequent of something or as what ought to be or has to be in view of something.
We have, therefore, to ask what it is for creation to be right (in what
consists its ihkâm: its being done right) and of what this rightness may
be a consequence and how.
Certain basic
implications of the passage are clear. Following the formulation of the Koranic
verse, al-Ghazâlî distinguishes two basic terms, (a) the heavens and the earth
and (b) the things that are between them. The former, as we have seen, are to
be identified as the universal, permanent causes that constitute the higher,
celestial world with its angelic spirits and its changeless spheres and
heavenly bodies and the latter the lower, corporeal world with the transient
entities and momentary events that come to be and pass away in the sublunary
world. We can, then, understand ‘necessary’ and ‘consequent’ with reference to
the givenness of the system (nizâm) of the universe. That is to say,
what al-Ghazâlî means is that sublunary beings come to exist and pass away in
orders and in sequences that are necessary given the existence of the universal
order arid that they take place according to a rightness that follows (lâzim)
as the inevitable consequence of the systematic operation of the universal
causes. Whatever occurs occurs only at the place and at the moment in which the
conditions of its existence converge and are fulfilled and it is inconceivable
that it occur otherwise, and it is right and proper that things should be so.[126]
As we have seen, al-Ghazâlî includes the opera-
tion of proximate efficient causes amongst the
conditions that must be fulfilled in order for any event to take place. In view
of this and of the way in which he here links the occurrence of all terrestrial
events to the «necessary order» and the «consequent rightness» of the universal
causes, he would seem unambiguously to imply not merely that God only creates
through the panoply of secondary causes that make up the universal system, but
that, given the system, His creative activity takes place only within and
through the system; He cannot intervene directly or indirectly to alter what is
originally preordained by the universal system. What, in effect, is not
programmed into the system from the beginning cannot occur within the system
as the result of its operation and therefore does not actually lie within the
power of God (is not really maqdûr 'alayhî). This is the true, the right
and proper order of things. It may, in some way, be counter- factually possible
that God have created another universe than the one He did create, but given
the existence of the one that exists, it is inconceivable (i.e., impossible: muhâl)
that anything take place but what has inevitably to take place. Al-Ghazâlî’s
statements to the effect that God creates terrestrial events «either through an
intermediary or without an intermediary» are thus deceptive, in that the
second alternative is true only of the creation of the heavens and the earth,
«the permanent and enduring causes». That God can only work through the system
would seem fully confirmed by al- Ghazâlî’s assertions that were the system not
ordered exactly as it is there would occur more evil in the world than that
which results from the present order. If this be true, then clearly it is not
possible that God act immediately in order to cause or to prevent the
occurrence of any sublunary event, so that a particular evil should not take
place; it is impossible that He bypass the predetermined operation of any of
the universal causes or of any of the lower, transitory causes as determined by
the functioning of whole. There remain, however, a number of unanswered
questions. Although he is strongly opposed to the emanationism of al-Fârâbî and
Avicenna (Tahâfut, pp. llOff.), al- Ghazâlî does not inform us of his
own views concerning the initial creation of the universal causes (the
celestial intellects, the heavenly spheres and bodies, the earth, etc.). That
God cannot presently intervene in particular events in the universe so as to
change what was determined in the original creation of the system, does not
necessarily imply
luzum” can be
analysed in several ways (here including ‘Truth’ as referring to God’s eternal
speaking), all of them more or less consistent and plausible with the general
thesis. ‘Al-'abath’, however, is a bit problematic, at least if we will
not take it, together with the following phrase, as simply a kind of rhetorical
arabesque. Its usual, formal meaning (what is pointless, i. e., that in doing
which or omitting which the agent has no rational purpose: e.g., Iqtiçâd,
p. 163), makes scant sense in the context, for as we have seen, God cannot be
said, properly speaking, to have a goal in his action (here, cf. ibid,
pp. 180f.). The end or goal, then, will have to be something intrinsic to the
rightness of the system and its operational consequences that is intended by
God, even if not as a goal for Himself. So also if we take it that al-Ghazâlî
is using the word in an extended sense as an equivalent of ‘safih’
(foolish, irrational), as would seem likely in view of the ensuing descriptive
clause, the foolishness will be realised and measured as such by something
intrinsic to the world, sc., that God should (counterfactually) have made a
world in which the laws and conditions that govern the sequences of events were
not systematically ordered as they are. That the 'abath is safih,
see ibid, p. 163. For the traditional Ash'arite analysis, cf. Ikhtiçâr,
foil. 97r°f. and 99r°.
that at the time of the Judgement He cannot again
act directly to alter the universal system or to do away with it.
It is to be noted that,
given the established nature of the possible kinds of things and the way in
which the realised instances of these kinds causally interact with one another
according to the fixed ordering of the higher and universal causes, an
essential component of the original sense of ial-'âdah'
(God’s customary ordering of events) as employed in traditional Ash'arite
theology is effectively done away with. In classical Ash'arite doctrine, that
is, the apparently lawful consistency in which certain actions and events are
regularly observed to follow the one upon the other is neither determined by
nor essentially related to anything in the nature of the events themselves or
to any property as such of the subject or locus in which they take place. No
contingent being or event effects or causes the coming to be of any other.[127]
Albeit occurring in a regular, and in some cases invariant, order, their
relationship is strictly occasionalistic, extrinsic and essentially arbitrary:
God’s habitual ordering of the occurrences of His own acts. The usual order is
altered or interrupted only rarely, in the occurrence of miracles, which are
associated with prophets, and of wonders, which are associated with saints. Save
for such “breaking of the habitual order” (kharqu l-'âdah), God creates
always in consistent patterns of association between particular kinds of bodies
and events and in consistent sequences of antecedence and consequence within
these associations. Thus, to speak of a miracle as a break in the normal course
of events has totally different connotations for al-Ghazâlî than for his
Ash'arite predecessors. Given the existence of the system of universal and
permanent causes and the natures of the kinds of creatures that do and can
exist, there is really nothing at all conventional about the sequences of
events; they are lawful in the strict sense of the term. For al-Ghazâlî as for
Avicenna, miracles and wonders are merely extraordinary occurrences that take place
within and as the result of the lawful operation of the universal system. They
take place, that is, as the result of unusual concurrences of celestial causes,
concurrences that are, so to speak, programmed into the system from the
beginning, not by the Creator’s direct intervention into the operation of the
system or suspension of its laws. In short, the habitual course of events (jarayânu
l-eâdah) is for al-Ghazâlî, as it is for Avicenna, simply the
statistically usual or universally constant sequences among a totality of
events and occurrences all of which take place as necessarily they must
according to the originally predetermined operation of the whole.[128]
This is one way of
reading the passage and one that plainly suits the immediate context. One
might, however, hear the passage as placing the necessity of the «necessary
order» at a higher level - not as a necessity that resides originally in the
order of sublunary events given the system of the fundamental and univeral
causes, but as a necessity that is determinant of the very ordering of the
system itself. The same ambivalence that one finds in this passage is manifest
also where he says (Maqsad, p. 152,11-13),
Thus the whole universe
is like a single individual and the parts of the universe are like its limbs;
they cooperate with one another towards a single goal, viz., the perfect
achievement of the utmost good the existence of which is possible, as is
required by the divine liberality.113
Elsewhere, as we have seen, al-Ghazâlî identifies
God’s liberality (al-jûd) with His Accomplishment (al-qada) and
so with the created actuality of the universal system as it is operatively
determinant of everything that takes place in the sublunary sphere.114 If,
thus, one hears ‘God’s liberality’ here as referring to His creation of the
universe as it is, then what is entailed or required by God’s liberality will
be what occurs necessarily given the creation of the system of permanent,
universal causes. We have already noted, however, that in Maqçad, where
he deals with the divine name “al-Wahhab” (p. 78), al-Ghazâlî
understands God’s liberality in terms of the perfection of His being, saying
that God does nothing for His own benefit (li-gharad) or in expectation
of any return (li-'iwad). In Ihyâ' he makes a much more radical
statement concerning the order of creation and God’s liberality, and one that
has for centuries caused difficulties for his readers. There al-Ghazâlî says,
It is the ordering that
is necessary and right (al-tartîbu l-wâjibu l-haqq) according to what
should be (yanbaghi) and as it should be and in the measure that should
be. There is not in possibility (/?l-imkân) anything at all better and
more complete and more perfect. If there were ..., [this] would be a
niggardliness
assert, he has carefully to distinguish
statements concerning what may lie within God’s power, absolutely and in
principle, and statements that speak of what miracles are in fact possible
given the universal system and «what God knows He will create» (cf., e.g., ibid,
Tahâfut, p. 286, 9ff. and 145,4).
113 Itmâmu ghâyati l-khayri l-mumkini wujûduhû 'alâ mâ qtadâhu l-jûdu
l-ilâhî. Note that ‘iqtadâ, yaqtadV, like ‘awjaba, yûjibu’
to which it is often equivalent, is used in a number of senses among them (1)
to require or entail as the conclusion of a syllogism is entailed by the
premises (with this, note al-Ghazâlî’s use of ‘natíjah’ in ‘Iljâm,
p. 21, on which see n. 147 below) and also (2) to cause or to produce.
114 Maqçad, pp. 105 and 111, cited above. Cf. also Munqidh,
p. 87,7f. where he says «At certain times this light flows forth abundantly
from God’s liberality (yanbajisu mina l-jûdi l-ilâhî) and one must be on
look for them. As [the Prophet] said, “To your Lord in the time allotted to
your lives belong diffusions of His mercy; will you not make yourselves open to
them?”». In this context one hears ‘al-jûd’ as referring to the system
of the universe as it flows from the angel of the outermost sphere. See above ad
Maqçad, p. 83, where the same hadith is cited.
(bukhl) that is
incompatible with (God’s] liberality and an injustice (zulm) that is
incompatible with [His] justice (aZ-WZ).115
The ordering which is here termed necessary and
right is plainly not that of events in the sublunary world, but of the universe
itself, «the universal, fundamental, permanent, stable causes» which are the
causes of the realisation of the utmost good in the contingent events of the
sublunary world. The sense of this would seem to be unambiguously confirmed
where al-Ghazâlî says, for example, that there is more than one sun in possibility,
but that there be only one and that it hold the position it now occupies in the
heavens is the best possible arrangement, and so too with all the other
universal and permanent causes.116 «If the order (al-tartib)
were altered, then the universal system (al-ni?âm) would be vitiated» (Maqçad,
p. 81,17f.). Evil (al-sharr, al-darar) exists only as the accidental
by-product of the operation of the universal causes in the best possible
universe. That is to say, the evil there is so related to the good there is
that «if this evil were to be removed, then the good that it entails would be
done away with and by its being done away with evil far worse than that which
it entails would come about» (Maq$ad, p. 68, 7ff.).117
115 Ihyâ’ 4, p. 252, 29ff., with which cp. Arba'in,
pp.242f. With this cp. Ilâhiyyât, p. 418, 9ff. (= Najâh, p. 287,
5f.) and Ishârât, p. 188, 8ff. This sort or language with “should be/has
to be” (yanbaghí) is fairly common with al-Ghazâlî; cf., e.g., Maqçad,
p. 100, 8f., p. 105,16, p. 109, 9, p. 107, 11, p. 126, 14; cp. 'Arshiyya,
p. 16, 24 and p. 17, 9-11, and see below. There is no English expression whose
basic sense and range of connotational ambivalence matches that of ‘yanbaghí’-,
the verb (almost never used in the perfect) has basically the sense of ‘is
needed’ or ‘is required’ in the sense of what should be, what ought to be,
needs to be, and often of what must be or what has to be, most frequently with
a view to an end (cf., e. g., al-Qâlî, K. al-Bâri'fî l-lugha and Ibn
Sîda, s. v.). In some places al-Ghazâlî plainly uses the verb in the sense of
“has to” or “must” (e.g., where the necessity of the truth of an inference is
concerned, e.g., Tahâfut, p. 340,11) and this connotation is latent in
the contexts we are dealing with here. In the present study, I have, in most
places, rendered this by ‘should’ in order that the translation reflect the
Arabic word’s ambivalence between ‘ought’ and ‘has to’. Concerning the sense of
‘right’ (al-haqq) here, see below. With regard to his use of
‘incompatible’ (yunâqid) here and its connotations, cp. the use of ‘natijah’
in Iljâm, pp. 20f., discussed below. The history of the interpretations
of this passage of Ihyâ’ is detailed in E. Ormsby, Theodicy in
Islamic Thought (Princeton, 1984), which makes an important contribution to
the study of the present topic.
116 Cf.Maq$ad, p.77, 17ff., p. 107, 7ff. and see also ibid.,
p.81, 17ff. and p. 109ff. and cp. Tahâfut, pp. 41 f. (§§ 36f.). The
texts here (particularly Maqçad, p. 77) would seem to settle the long
debated issue of the sense of ‘fi l-imkân’ in the passage of Ihyâ'
4, p. 252 just cited and which is detailed by Ormsby, op. cit.
117 See also n. 142 below. With this, cp. Ilâhiyyât, pp.417ff.
(= Najâh, pp. 286ff.). Avicenna discusses this in detail, noting (p.
417, 6ff.) that evil only exists in the sublunary sphere and there only with
individuals sometimes (thus not the species as such) and that the sublunary is
but a small portion of the universe. «The existence of evil in things is a
necessary consequence of the need for the good» (p. 418, 1). Al-Ghazâlî says in
Tahâfut (p. 41 f.) that human beings «lack the power to perceive in
their full extent and in detail the various aspects of God’s wisdom in creating
the universal system, but grasp only some elements of it such as the
inclination of the sphere of the zodiac». On the identification of the good
with the good of the species rather than with that of individuals, see below.
From these statements two
things would appear plainly to follow. First, that al-Ghazâlî does not
envision the possibility of God’s creating a universe composed either in whole
or in part of beings different in kind from those that make up the present universe
and second, that He necessarily creates this universe exactly as it is in every
detail. That there can be a best possible ordering of the kinds of contingent
tilings whose existence is possible implies that the number of the possible
kinds of things that can exist is not infinite and concomitantly that the
conditions and causes of their coming to be and of the realisation of their
perfections are likewise limited in principle. In Maqsad al-Gha- zâlî
speaks of the possible as that which of itself does not have existence and is
not such as to exist of itself. Contrasting the real or the true (al-haqq)
as what exists to the unreal (al-bâtiP) as what does not exist and the
contingent existence of the created to the eternally necessary existence of
God, he says,
The possible in itself (al-mumkinu
bi-dhâtihï) which is necessary through another is a reality (haqq)
in one respect and a nullity (bd(il) in another and so, from that
respect in which it is connected to what has caused its existence, is existent and
in this respect is real, but with respect to itself is a nullity. For this
reason, He (the Exalted) says “Everything perishes, save for His face” (Q
28,88)... Since from and unto eternity, every thing other than Him is, in and
of itself (min haythu dhdtihi), such that existence does not belong to
it intrinsically (lâ yastahiqqu l-wujdd) and is such that from Him it
does, it is a nullity (bâtiï) of itself and a reality (haqq)
through another.[129]
The being that al-Ghazâlî says does not belong to
the contingently existent possible intrinsically and of itself is the actuality
of the particular, the actuality of the concrete instantiation of a possible
essence. Following Avicenna, he says that existence is related to the essence
of the existent entity as an accident.[130] He does not, however, talk
about
the ontological origin of essences as such, i.
e., of the origin of the being of the possibles as possible essences. The
possibles are simply given. It would seem that for al- Ghazâlî, their being as
possibles is absolute; they are somehow eternally already and always there for
God in their own givenness, not apart from Him, but in a sense, nonetheless,
independently of Him. God’s being is not absolutely prior to the possible as
such, but only to the actual existence of the contingent entities He causes to
come to be in the world. That is to say, the possibles as essences or
quiddities instantiations of which can come to exist in the world, do not
originate in God but are eternally there as givens for God’s knowledge. For
al-Ghazâlî, thus, God may not, strictly speaking, be said to create ex
nihilo but rather ex possibili. He causes the existence of
particular instances of essences that are in themselves already there “in
possibility”. Note that is not altogether the same sense in which the “first
cause” of Avicenna may be said to create ex possibili.120
According to al-Ghazâlî the world is not eternal and the possibles, therefore,
will have, in themselves, to be prior to the existence of matter and as such
known to God from eternity. The world, including the celestial realm and matter
itself, was created when God first gave actual existence to contingent
entities, sc. to beings whose possibility preceded the first moment of their
existence. Thus al-Ghazâlî says (Mi'yâr, p. 167, 10f.) that creation,
properly speaking, is to create something «without there being any prior
matter in which are its potentiality and its possibility». Prior to the
existence of the world, matter too was possible and was known to God as such.
One has the impression
that al-Ghazâlî may not have seen the metaphysical issue here and so was
unaware of the seriousness of its theological implications. His failure to
raise the problem, however, and to deal with it is as surprising as it is
conspicuous, when one considers its importance and notes that its principal
elements had been explicitly set out and discussed by his Ash'arite
predecessors.
4.3. The Necessity of the Universe that God Wills
The second thing that would seem to follow from
the texts we have just examined is that God is not, according to al-Ghazâlî,
free with respect to the possible universes that might be created from the
possible kinds of things that are available to Him as the constituents for a
universe. As we have seen, there is a particular order of the possibles that
strictly speaking has to exist (yanbaghî an yakuri) if the most perfect
realisation of the possibles in their kinds is to be achieved. The perfection
of the system of the universe and of the ordering of the coming to be of
contingent beings is in some way a measure of God’s liberality and His justice.
He created all the basic
classes of existents (aqsâmu l-mawjûdât), the corporeal and the
incorporeal, the perfect and the imperfect. “He has given to each thing
existence or
not» (al-wujûdu kal-'aradiyyi bil-idâfati ilâ l-mâhiyyah...): Mi'yâr,
p.57, 8. On this generally see L. Gardet, Pensée religieuse d’Avicenne,
pp. 57 ff.
120 On this see M. Marmura, “The Metaphysics of Efficient Causality in
Avicenna”, p. 181.
its creation (khalqahû)”
(Q20.50) and thereby He is Liberal; He has arranged them in their appropriate
places and thereby He is Just.[131]
The latter two sentences are explanatory of the
initial proposition. As in the previous text, there are two distinct assertions
here. In the first, what al-Ghazâlî apparently states is that God’s liberality
is that He brings to actual existence each of the possible kinds of things. He
grants to each kind of thing (each specific essence or quiddity) “its own
creation”, the actuality of the existence of the form and constitution that
belong to it in itself and as such. This alone is compatible with the divine
liberality. The statement remains somewhat ambivalent, however, as we can understand
him to mean by the verse he quotes either (1) that of each thing, i. e., of
each kind or class of the possibles, God has made at least one concrete
instance to exist or (2) that of each kind He has made to exist all of the
instances that should exist. We shall return to this question shortly.
The second assertion is
that God’s justice is manifest by His having put things in the places which are
properly theirs.[132]
Al-Ghazâlî employs here a traditional Ash'arite definition of justice and the
morally good. In the formulation of abû Ishâq al-Isfarâ’înî, «justice is to put
things in their appropriate places and this is the fundamental sense of moral
goodness (al-fyusn); injustice (al-jawr) is to put things in
other than their appropriate places, and this is the fundamental sense of
moral badness (al-qubh)».[133] As is clear from
the larger context, however, al-Ghazâlî intends it in a sense contrary to that
in which it is normally employed by Ash'arite theologians. In the traditional
conception, that is to say, the appropriate place for anything is that in
which God commands it be put; the good of human action is obedience to God’s
command, the bad, disobedience. For any agent, whether God or man, «justice is
what he may legitimately do; it is an attribute that belongs to God
essentially»[134]
and to men through following the divine command. God, Who alone commands and
forbids, is not Himself subject to command and prohibition; He may legitimately
do whatever He will, wherefore all His actions are just and good by definition,
whatever He do and whatever be its effect. With respect to God’s action, the
appropriate place for anything is not related as such either to its nature or
to its relation to or effect upon any other creature, but is determined absolutely
by His creating it when and where and as He wills. In al-Ghazâlî’s conception,
however, things are quite the opposite. God’s
will in what He wills to do and what He wills to command is not alone and of
itself the sole rule and measure of what is good and what is just. There is,
rather, a good of created beings that belongs to them of themselves, by their
being each one what essentially it is in itself, and a good therefore too of
the created universe as such, since it is composed of the totality of existent
contingent essences. Since the possibles do not depend on God for their being
as possibles but are already there for Him as essences instances of which He
can cause to exist, the measure of the good of what God can create and of what
He does create does not have its origin in Him, but stands as an independent
measure by which His action is to be judged.[135] It is thus that al-Ghazâlî
often speaks of God’s action as a realisation of what should be. Concerning the
perfection of the order of the universe and of its parts, he says,
All this is justice; it
is as it should be and according to what should be (kamâ yanbaghî wa-'alâ mâ
yanbaghî). If [God] had not made what He made then there would be something
else which would result in far greater harm than there is.[136]
The manifest implication of all this is that the
appropriate place of each of the “permanent, universal causes”, celestial and
terrestrial, is that in which it is so related to the rest that from the
operation of the whole the greatest good is to be realised. Accordingly, God’s
justice is realised at the highest level in the ordering of the permanent,
universal causes in the best possible way and then in the consequent course of
contingent events
that necessarily flows from them. It is thus that
God “has given to each thing its creation”: He has created the system of
universal, enduring causes so that of every kind of possible He has caused to
exist every instance that should exist and exactly in the way that it must
exist if the optimum good is to come to be. Most important, however, is that
according to al-Ghazâlî the fulfillment of the utmost good whose existence is
possible is required by God’s liberality.[137] This is plainly contrary
to traditional Ash'arite doctrine.
Already al-Ash'ari had
said (Luma (A), § 41) that one cannot argue for the eternity of creation
on the premise that if it were not, then God would be niggardly (bakhil). Similarly,
al-Ghazâlî’s contemporaries and fellow students under al-Juwaynî, al-Kiyâ
al-Harâsî and abû 1-Qâsim al-Ançârî, insist against Avicenna and the falâsifa
that liberality does not define God’s nature and is not a causal principle of
His action such that the world must be eternal.[138]Al-Ghazâlî, as we have
seen, holds that it is impossible that the world have existed eternally. In
this he can only hold the traditional teaching. Al- Ançârî further states,
however, that one cannot argue from God’s liberality to the thesis that this is
the best possible world.[139]
The traditional understanding, followed by al- Harâsî and al-An§ârî, is that
niggardliness, the contrary of liberality, is to withhold or refuse something
that is morally obligated (manu l-wâjib) and that since He is above
command and prohibition it is impossible that any thing be obligatory for God,
wherefore it is impossible that He be niggardly because of anything He might
do or not do, just as it is impossible that any act of His be termed unjust.[140]
As in the case with the
question of the effectiveness of secondary causes, we find with regard to the
present topic a number of places in which al-Ghazâlî appears to follow the
traditional teaching of the Ash'arite school and which, therefore, seem to be
inconsistent with the texts we have just examined. In Iqtiçâd, for
example, he presents a set of seven propositions (p. 165) that are subsequently
demonstrated and elaborated (pp. 174 ff.), all of which assert that God did not
have to create the world as He in fact created it and that, by implication, it
would not have been unjust for Him to have created it otherwise.[141]
According to the first thesis God need not have imposed on men
the revealed law with its promise of reward and
threat of punishment. More fully stated (p. 174) the thesis is that
it would be legitimate
for God not to create"mankind at all and (a) when He does create them it
is not incumbent upon Him and (b) when He creates them it is His not to impose
the revealed law upon them and (c) when He does impose it on them this is not
incumbent upon Him.
Formally the whole section is directed at the
Mu'tazilite position that some things are morally incumbent upon God and at the
thesis of the Baghdâd School that it is incumbent upon Him to do what is best
and most salutary (aZ-oyZu/i) for His creatures. Al- Ghazâlî’s argument here
rests primarily on the thesis that no action is incumbent upon God (wâjibun
'alayhî) and in this he appears to follow the traditional teaching of the
Ash'arite School completely. To the contrary, however, he sets aside the
traditional understanding of ‘incumbent’ and redefines the term in such a way
that the propositions he asserts against the Mu'tazila prove, on examination,
to be utter banalities, neither the traditional, credal theses of orthodox
Ash'arism nor genuine contraries of the Muc- tazilite doctrine which
he formally pretends to oppose. Al-Ghazâlî’s procedure here is interesting, in
that it furnishes a clear example of his attitude towards the traditional
theology and his utilization of its lexicon and its formula. He analyses the
expression ‘incumbent’ (‘obligatory’ or ‘[morally] necessary’) as being that
the performance of which outweighs (yatarajjah) - i. e., is necessary as
opposed to - its omission and concludes that «[the meaning] that is specific
to the term ‘incumbent’ is ‘that in the omission of which there is some
manifest harm’» (Jqtiçâd, p. 162,2f.; cf. also ibid., p. 192,
4ff. cited below). In the present context, this definition presents itself as
ostensibly based on or as following traditional Ash'arite formula, according to
which the morally obligatory may be defined as that for the omission of which
there is the threat [of divine punishment] or in the omission of which one is
at risk of divine punishment or for which one merits divine punishment (e.g., Mujarrad,
pp. 185f. and Kâmil, p. 38). In the traditional usage, however, ‘is
obligatory’ is synonymous with ‘is commanded’ (abwajib — al-ma’mûru bihî)
and the basic conception of the morally incumbent or obligatory is entirely
juridical. What is advantageous is to obey God’s commandments. This al-.
Ghazâlî rejects - tacitly, to be sure, for he was not about to enter into a
polemic against traditional orthodoxy, but nonetheless surely - and thereby
transforms the juridically obligatory into the prudentially necessary. He
rejects, that is, the conception of the morally incumbent as what the chattel
is required to do because and only because it is commanded by his master (a
master, moreover, who punishes disobedience) and for it substitutes one
according to which it is that which, as a matter of prudence, one ought or has
to do in his own best interest.[142]
By his redefinition of ‘wâjib' al-Ghazâlî effectively
does away with the foundation of the traditional
thesis that ‘obligatory’ cannot be applicable to the actions of God because He
is not subject to the command of another. What he asserts, rather, is the
banality that because God’s being transcends benefit and harm, it is impossible
that, in order to avoid some harm to Himself, He find it necessary, to create
mankind or to benefit them. As originally conceived, the Mu'tazilite theses
which al-Ghazâlî ostensibly means to discuss and to refute are directly pertinent
to the issue of whether or not one can speak of what is and is not compatible
with God’s nature, i. e., with His liberality and His justice. Al-Ghazâlî,
however, dialectically turns the Mu’tazilite counter-position into a mere straw
man and thereby avoids having to commit himself on the main issue. He makes a
number of points that may tend to give the impression of thoroughness and
profundity in his treatment of the question here, but which have primarily the
effect of distracting the reader’s attention from his avoidance of the most
important issues involved in his differences with the traditional teaching. He
says thus (p. 175) that in his usage ‘wâjib’ has to be distinguished
from what is «necessary» as being given in God’s eternal knowledge. So too, he
avoids the issue with regard to the question of men’s meriting reward and
punishment (p. 177, 4ff.) and consequently does not commit himself to the
traditional dogma that men’s actions are related to their status in the next
life only accidentally. So also, again playing on the ambivalence of *wâjib\
he says (p. 195, 10) that for God «to send prophets is possible (jâ’iz)
and is neither impossible (muhâï) nor necessary (wâjib)», again
making an assertion that dodges the question of whether God could in fact have
done otherwise. In sum, al-Ghazâlî systematically avoids having to commit
himself as to whether or not it was concretely possible either that God have
created nothing at all or that He have created a universe in whatever respect
other than that which we know or that He not have done what was best for His
creatures (sc., create the best possible universe).
Consistently with his own
doctrine of the temporal creation of the world, then, al- Ghazâlî understands
God’s liberality as entailing the creation of everything that can exist.
Because of God’s justice this is to require or entail (iqtada) the
utmost good the existence of which is possible (Maqsad, p. 152).133
God’s liberality is concretely realised and made manifest in the system of the
universe, the universal, permanent causes, and above all in the creation of the
Throne, from which the entire order of the universe in a sense derives and by
which it is governed. In brief, that the divine liberality cannot entail that
the universe have existed from eternity, does not have to mean, for al-
Ghazâlî, that it does not entail God’s creating this temporal universe
necessarily. The question we have to answer, therefore, is whether the
entailment of the existence of everything that can exist in the best possible
universe is absolute or conditional.
In Maqçad (p. 47)
al-Ghazâlî says that the essential characteristic of God is that «He
wujûbî tarjîhu
jânibi l-fili 'alâ l-tarki bi-dafi dararin mawhûmin aw-ma'lûmin fa-idhâ kâna
hâdhâ huwa l-wujûbu fal-mûjibu huwa l~murajji.hu wa-huwa llâh», the
universality of whose application within al-Ghazâlî’s system is remarkable.
133 The statement «He is liberal insofar as he causes the existence
[of things]» (Maqsad, p. Ill, 4f.), taken by itself, seems to reflect
traditional orthodoxy; read, however, in the larger context of the work (cf.,
e. g., p. 97,11 and p. 103,6 cited above), its meaning is incompatible with
traditional Ash'arite doctrine.
is the existent whose existence is necessary in
itself and from which exists everything whose existence is in possibility» (al~mawjûdu
l-wâjibu l-wujûdi l-ladhî 'anhu yûjadu kullu mâfî l-imkâni wujûduhû}. The
formulation evokes the usage of Avicenna. Conspicuously, however, al-Ghazâlî
does not add the note that the being that of itself (bi- dhâtihî)
necessarily exists exists necessarily in every aspect of its being {min
kulli jihatihi).[143] He does not, that
is, say any thing here that would directly state or imply that God, of His very
nature, must create either this world or anything at all. Elsewhere he
strenuously rejects the proposition that creation takes place as a direct and
inevitable consequence of God’s being, «like light from the sun or heating
from fire» (e.g., Tahâfut, pp. 96 ff. and 155ff., where he also protests
the reduction of God’s will to His knowledge and so to His essence). Still, the
exact meaning and significance of the present text is not altogether clear,
especially in view of the texts we have just examined. When, a few pages later (Maqçad,
p. 50), he elaborates on the formulation, he discusses the expression 'wâjibu
l-wujûd* but when he comes to the second part of the description he
paraphrases ‘from which exists everything whose existence is in possibility’
simply by «every existent exists from it» (yûjadu 'anhu kullu mawjûd),
which fails to give unambiguous clarification to the 'everything whose
existence is in possibility’. Since, in any event, the phrase ‘from which
exists everything whose existence is in possibility’ occurs twice (pp. 47 and
50) and is paralleled elsewhere in his works, we cannot but conclude that he
means it. Is it then conceivable, according to al-Ghazâlî, that God not have
willed to create anything at all?
The distinction between
what is possible (maqdûr, jâ’iz, mumkiri) absolutely speaking, sc.,
that which God has the absolute power to create since it is not as such impossible
(muhâl), and that which is possible in itself but in fact impossible
since God does not will it (or because He wills that it not exist) was long
recognized and discussed by Ash'arite theologians.[144] Generally they make it
quite clear that God could have created the universe other than as He did
(e.g., Mujarrad, pp. 72, 13ff. and 246, 12ff.). One finds in the works
of the earlier Ash*arites, however, a number of statements that are somewhat
troublesome in that they may appear, at least on first reading, to suggest that
God cannot create but what He does create. It is said, for example, that God
wills everything that can be willed (kullu shay'in yajûzu an yurâd: Luma'
(A), §§ 49 and 65) and that «the eternal volition has as its object every thing
of which it is possible that it be
willed».136 God «wills the coming to
be of things in accordance with His foreknowledge of their coming to be; He
wills the coming to be of that of which it is known that it will come to be and
the non-existence of that of which it is known that it will not come to be».137
By themselves, however, these statements are not self-explanatory. They have to
be read within the broader theological context to which they belong and against
the background of the controversies they mean to address.
According to the
Ash*arites, volition is that by which an agent determines that a possible act
or event actually take place at a particular time and in a particular place. It
is because things come to be and events take place in the world in particular
sequences and relations to one another that we know that God, who creates
everything, wills.138 Furthermore, God wills individually the coming
to be of all contingent entities and events that actually come to be (e. g., 1rs
had, p. 237, ult. ), for if anything that God does not will can occur
in the created universe, then He is not truly omnipotent and so cannot be the
creator (e.g., Luma1 (A), §§49f. and Tamhîd, §477).
The Mu'tazila, however, taught that human volitions and men’s intentional
actions are neither created by God
136 Tata'allaqu bi-kullirnâyaçihhu. an yakûna murâdan: Shâmil (69), p.
271,14. (Add on this page, following lâyazâlu in line 12, fa-'ani
l-ilzâmi jawâbâni, ahaduhumâ an naqûla innamâyatahaq- qaqu l-'adamufîmâ lâ
yazâlu, following Tehran University Central Library MS no. 350.) Arguing
that God does not will per se (li-nafsihf), al-Juwaynî says in his Luma'
(p. 139) that God does not will everything that can be willed (kullu murâd)
any more than He creates every possible being. In al-Juwaynî’s context,
however, ‘what can be willed’ has a different sense from the one with which we
are concerned and refers to the class of all possible objects of God’s will.
Note that the few remarks we have to present here are meant only to sort out
what exactly is meant by these and analogous statements that are found in the
texts of the classical period. The general question of how the possibles and
their relation to God’s knowledge and His will were understood by al-Ghazâlî’s
predecessors in the Ash'arite school requires a separate, detailed study.
137 Mujarrad, p. 74,12f; it is impossible «that anything come
to be in His dominion save that its coming to be is known before it comes to be
... and the case of that whose coming to be is known with respect to the
necessity of its coming to be is the same as that whose coming to be is willed
with respect to the necessity of its coming to be in accordance with [God’s]
will» (ibid,, p. 74, 14 ff.); cf. also ibid., p. 45, 15ff., p.
71, 22f., p. 98, 8ff., Mushkil, p. 15, 8, al-Isfarâ’înî, 'Aqîda, §
11,10 and Fr. 72, Lafâ’if2, p.224 (ad 7.30) and 5, p. 141 (ad32.13),
FufÛl, p. 69, Ilf. (where read 'alim for alfrn), and Baghdâdî, Ufûl,
p. 145. The basic formulation is found already with ibn Hanbal, as he is
reported to have said «ilmu llâhi mâdin fi khalqihî bi-masht’- atin minhû ...»:
ibn abî Ya'lâ, Tabaqât al-Hanâbila (Cairo, 1371/1952) 1, p. 25, 5.
138 Cf., e. g., Tamhîd, § 49, Inçâf, p. 36,18ff., Irshâd,
p. 64 (on which see al-Ansârî’s Sharh, foil. 29r° ff.); Ttiqâd,
pp. 91 f.; thus too Tahbîr, foil. 110v° f.: «The way we know that God
wills and intends is that his acts are ordered relative to one another in
existence and are characterised by having particular status and no others; it
is known that but for the intention of some one who intends that the earlier be
earlier and the later later [they would not be so] and otherwise too there
would be no more reason for their being characterised by some particular status
rather than others...». Basic to the traditional thesis and the arguments
employed to support it is the assumption that God might have willed to create
things differently or not to create anything at all. The most conspicuous
difference of this from al-Ghazâlî’s position, thus, is that the latter’s
overall context excludes both the occasionalism and the radical voluntarism of
classical Ash'ar- ism.
nor foreordained by His eternally prior knowledge
of them; on the contrary, they are the autonomous “creations” of their human
agents. Most importantly for our present context, they held that God does not
will the wrongful actions of men.[145]
Thus, since human and angelic volitions and their realised objects are
contingent events, we find in the Ash'arite works statements formulated against
the Mu'tazila in which it is explicitly stated that God wills everything that
is willed (jamî'u l-murâdât), i. e., His own acts and those that are the
realised objects of human volitions too.[146] It is the will which determines
that a given event shall take place at a particular time and place.
Consequently, since God is uniquely the creator of whatever takes place in the
universe, human volitions and human actions included, what He does not will
cannot be willed. This is the sense of the statement that He wills every being
that can be willed. The Ash'arites insist, moreover, that anyone who wills what
he knows will not happen or what he thinks will not occur is not said properly
to will (murid) anything, but only to long for something (mutamannt;
cf., e.g., Luma' (A), §63, Mujarrad, p.45, 6f. and p. 70, 8f. and
al- Isfarâ’înî, Fr.72). Such longing (al-tamanni) characteristically has
as its object the action of another, whether God’s or that of another created
agent. God, therefore, cannot be mutamannî. He is the true agent and
creator of every entity and event that comes to be in the world and His
knowledge is infinite; strictly speaking there is no agent (fd7Z) other than
God, so that it makes no sense to speak of His wishing that another agent do or
not do something. As He knows the future volitions and actions of men, so also
He wills them and creates them all. Statements to the effect that God wills the
existence of what He knows will come to be and that He does not will the
existence (or wills the non-existence) of what He knows will not come to be are
originally formulated, thus, against the Mu'tazilite thesis that God knows the
future disobediences of men but does not will them to occur. They are meant to
assert simply that the class of events that eternally God knows are to take
place is in every respect identical to that of those events which He eternally
wills to create and eventually does create. They are not meant to suggest that
the entire future course of creation is somehow given in God’s eternal
knowledge as the predetermined object for His will, for such a problem is
neither addressed nor envisioned. The basic sense of this is clear enough in
the state-
ment of al-Qushayrî, who says in commenting Q
32.13, where he explicitly addresses the Mu'tazilite thesis that God does not
will the actions of men and their consequences, (La(â’if5, p. 141),
“If we had
wished we should have given each soul its guidance ..if we had wished we should
have made the way for inferring the conclusion [i.e., for attaining rational knowledge
requisite for valid religious belief] and should have given our aid to each one
continuously, but ... we willed that there be residents of the fire just as we
willed that there be inhabitants of paradise; since we knew on the day we
created paradise that one group of people would inhabit it and on the day we
created the fire that one group would descend into it, so it ' would be
impossible (mina l-muhâl) that we will that what we know [is to take
place] not take place; if it did not take place it would not be knowledge and
if that were not knowledge, we should not be God and it is impossible that we
will that we not be God.[147]
At the end of Mi'yâr, in a chapter dealing
with «the division of existence into the possible and the necessary» (p.
195,3ff.), al-Ghazâlî says,
That which in itself
exists necessarily must be necessarily existent in all its aspects so that
neither is it a substrate for things that come to be nor is it subject to
alteration, wherefore it has no volition that comes to be subsequently (mun-
taçarah) nor any cognition that comes to be subsequently nor any attribute
whatsoever that comes to be subsequent to its existence.
Here, with the phrase ‘necessarily existent in
all its aspects’ (wâjibu l-wujûdi fi jamî'i jihâtihî) al-Ghazâlî would
seem intentionally to mimic the language of Avicenna (see n. 134 above). On the
other hand, if the ‘comes to be subsequently’ is meant to explain fully and
completely the sense of ‘must be necessarily existent in all its aspects’, then
'wâjib' may be intended simply as a synonym of ‘qadîm' and means
that the act of God’s will is eternal without necessarily implying that He
wills necessarily what He wills.[148]
Though this may perhaps be all he means to assert
in the immediate context, one cannot be sure that this is the whole of his
understanding of what it means for God to exist necessarily in all aspects of
His being. The question of the necessity of God’s will is not mentioned, but
neither is that of the eternity of the world, for he goes on to say that it was
not his intention here to give «a clear exposition of the details of matters»
(p. 195, 12f.).
One finds a somewhat
analogous problem in Iqtiçâd. There, in discussing the ontological
status of the contingently existent with respect to God’s power al-Ghazâlî
raises the question of whether the existence of the contrary of what God knows
He will create (khilâfu l-ma'lûm) is possible or not (Iqtiçâd, p.
83,6) and goes on to state that the existence of the world can be viewed as
either (1) necessary or (2) impossible or (3) merely possible. Elaborating this
he says (ibid, p. 84, 2ff.),
(1) The world is
necessary insofar as when one assumes that the will of the Eternal exists in a
necessary existence then its object (al-murâd) also must be necessary,
not simply possible, since given the fact of the existence of the eternal
will, the non-existence of its object is impossible. (2) It is impossible in
the following way, namely, that if one posited hypothetically that [God’s] will
does not have as its object [the world’s] being caused to exist, then its
coming to be would have to be impossible, since it would entail the coming to
be of a contingent being without a cause and this is universally recognized as
being impossible. (3) It is possible in the following way, namely, that one
look at the thing itself (dhât) alone and consider with it neither the
existence nor the non-existence of [God’s] will; it will then be described as
possible.143 Thus there are three ways to take it. The First
is to stipulate the existence of [God’s] will and its relationship to its
object; taken in this way it is necessary. The Second is to take it that
[God’s] will is lacking; taken in this way it is impossible. The Third
is to exclude any consideration of [God’s] will and of the cause and so not to
take it [sc., the cause] either to exist or not to exist but to look
exclusively at the world itself (dhâtu l-'âlam); taken this way, the
third option remains, viz., possibility. By this we mean that it is possible in
itself (mumkinun bi-dhâtihi).
The first formulation of the first proposition
appears to assert that God necessarily wills what He wills and, by implication,
therefore, could not have willed other than what He in fact wills. This,
however, is contrary to common sunnî doctrine and for this reason one tends to
feel that al-Ghazâlî really oughtn’t, and therefore does not, mean to make such
an assertion. The passage can be read otherwise, but which reading is the more
plausible? In the first presentation of the three propositions, the third
involves only a
synonymous
with 'qadim' and is interchangeable with it only in particular contexts.
In traditional Ash‘arite works necessary existence is normally predicated of
God, but not of His attributes.
143 «Fa-yakûnu lahû watfu l-imkân» here might also be
translated “it will then have the property of possibility”; for al-Ghazâlî’s
use of ‘watf* as an equivalent of *çifah\ cf., e. g., Ihyâ'
1, p. 108,30 (=Qudsiyya, p. 85,23) and 3, p. 3,18f.
looking (nazar) at an essence or “thing’s
self”, a consideration (i'tibâr) of it under one aspect to the exclusion
of all others.144 The second, by contrast, demands a counterfac-
tual hypothesis and is plainly tabled so: «law quddira 'adamu ta'alluq..
.».145 The first, however, is not cast as a hypothetical, much less
as a counterfactual, but is formulated with a simple temporal antecedent, «idhâ
furidati l-irâdatu...». The sentence might, in principle, be analysed as
implicitly conditional (taking the ‘when’ to imply or to be equivalent to ‘if’,
as is sometimes the case with *idhâ’), though one might, for that
matter, hear and render ‘since one assumes’. As it occurs here, however, set
off against and in contrast to the counterfactual of the second and the mere
abstraction of the third, the sentence would seem to assert a conclusion that
the author takes to be the fact. This would seem to be confirmed by the use of 'tahaqquq'
(the fact).146 ‘Will’ (al-irâdah), moreover, has plainly to
be understood in both places here as referring to the determinant act of the
divine will, not simply God’s will as an attribute of His being. The
distinction is made and both are named in the succeeding paraphrase, «the
existence of [God’s] will and its relationship to its object» (wujûdu
l-irâdati wa-ta'alluquhâ).141 In the second presentation of his
three ways of looking at the matter, the first proposition
144 The possible, as such and in itself, is equally disposed (stands
in an equivalent relation of indifference) to existence and to non-existence;
it is by its relation to another that it is determined to existence or
non-existence: cf., e.g., 'Arshiyya, p. 14,7f. and Ishârât, p.
153,9ff.
145 The Arabic wording of the second proposition ('adamu ta'alluqi
l-irâdati bi-îjâdiht) defies direct representation (i.e., literal
translation) in reasonable English. 'Ta'alluq' here is the will’s having
its object or the relationship of the will to its object as such, i. e., its
relationship to ‘its being caused to be’ (or, by an alternate rendering, to
‘causing it to be’); in the first proposition of the second series the object,
sc., the creation of the world, is directly implied.
146 'Idhâ.' (when) may be understood as implicitly
conditional and the word is often, even if incorrectly, employed in the sense
of ‘if’. Properly, however, it is strictly temporal and is not used for
genuinely conditional antecedents; cf., e.g., al-Mubarrad, al-Muqtadab 2,
p. 56. The variant wording of the three propositions, even so, gives the
impression that in the first he speaks of one’s recognizing and taking for
granted what is the fact, in the second the counterfactual supposition of what
is not, and in the third simply a speculative look at the essence of something.
One has, nevertheless, to beware of overinterpreting the significance of the
conjunctions. An analogous sequence, “idhâ .. .,in .. .,in..occurs in Mishkâh,
p. 65,13 ff. (translated above), where also the change from a temporal to a
conditional conjunction may be pertinent to the context, as the first involves
the name or description of the thing as it is in itself and the latter two as
it is viewed in relation to others. 'Tahaqqaqa, yatafyaqqaqu' in the
meaning “to be the case”, “to be the fact” is quite common; for its use with 'wujûd'
in the meaning “to be actual”, cf., e.g., Ikhti^âr, fol. 146r, 7f. and
21.
147 One might be tempted to find a significant (and altogether
appropriate) distinction drawn here as al-Ghazâlî employs "adamu
ta'alluqi l-irâdah' in the first formulation of the second proposition and
'wujûdu l-irâdati wa-ta'alluquhâ in the second formulation of the first
proposition. The fact is, however, that no distinction between God’s will as
such and God’s will as directed to its object is made in the first statement of
the first proposition, where he speaks of the necessary existence of God’s
will. That it is omitted also in the second formulation of the counterfactual,
moreover, makes it clear enough that even if the distinction is expressed here
(i. e., even if the introduction of 'ta'alluq' in two places is not
simply in order to vary the wording), it plays no role either in the reasoning
or the assertions that are made.
is restated so as to make its logical form
explicit. In view of al-Ghazâlî’s stylistic habits and his methods of
“withholding knowledge from the unworthy” the paraphrase can hardly be taken as
unambiguously implying that he takes the antecedent of the first formulation to
be purely hypothetical. Most notable, however, is the very presence of «exists
in a necessary existence» (mawjûdatun wujûdan wâjibari) and it is this
which gives rise to the other questions. The sentence makes no sense if the
phrase describes “the will of the eternal” simply as an attribute of God and
not the determinant act of God’s will. There was, however, no need whatsoever,
merely in order to assert that the existence of the world is necessary if and
when God wills to create it, for al-Ghazâlî to raise the question of whether or
not God wills necessarily what He wills. One notes that whereas he adds this
note here in the context of the discussion of the divine attributes in a
theological manual, he does not do so in a closely parallel statement
concerning «the division of existence into the possible and the necessary» in
the formally logical context of Mi'yâr, where he says, «the existence of
the world is necessary when we assume that the eternal will has its existence
as its object» (p. 193 f. and cf. ibid, p. 166,17 ff.). In the latter
formulation there is no suggestion that the determination of God’s will is
necessary as such.
That God wills
necessarily to create what He creates seems to be stated forthrightly in Iljâm
(pp. 20 f.). There, having said that God «creates no form in the world until he
has first created it in the Throne», al-Ghazâlî raises the question of whether
this is necessary and says,
We often
hesitate with regard to the assertion of this relationship of the Throne to
God, i. e., whether it may be something necessary in itself or is simply the
way in which God (He is exalted) makes things happen according to His custom
and habit (ajrâ bihîsunnatahû wa-'âdatahû), even if its contrary is not
impossible, just as, with regard to the character of the human mind, He has
made it His habit (ajrâ 'âdatahiï) that it cannot dispose anything (là
yumkinuhu l-tad- bîr) [sc. in governing the body] save by the mediation of
the brain, even though it lies within God’s power (He is exalted) to make it
able to do this (tamkînuhû. minhû) without the brain, if His eternal
will had foreordained it and the eternal word, which is His knowledge, had
determined it so (lawsabaqat bihîirâdatuhu l-azaliyyatu wa-haqqat bihi
l-kalimatu l-qadîmatu l-latî hiya 'ilmuhû). Thus its contrary is excluded (mumtanï)
not for any incompleteness in God’s power itself (li-qiqûrin fî dhâti
l-qudrah) but rather because of the impossibility of what is contrary to
the eternal will and the eternal foreknowledge. For this reason He says, “You
shall never find any substitution in the custom of God” (Q 35.43 and 48.23); it
admits of no substitution simply because of its necessity and its necessity is
simply because it proceeds from an eternal and necessary volition and the
result (natijah) of the necessary is necessary and its contrary is
impossible.
Here, as in the previous passage, the addition of
the remark concerning the necessity of God’s will seems superfluous in the
immediate context in that the basic distinction he needed to make was
adequately stated before the introduction of the citation of Fâ(ir,
v. 43.[149] ‘Wâjibah',
moreover, is hardly to be taken as a mere synonym for ‘qadîmah’ since it
would then be redundant with ‘azaliyyah'; “an irâdatin azaliyyatin
wâjibatin’, indeed, may be paraphrased by ‘'an irâdatin lam tazal
wâjibah': ‘from an eternally necessary volition’. In the present passage he
is talking specifically about the relationship of the first and highest of the
universal, permanent causes to the rest of the universe: it is necessary, not
in itself, but in its cause, sc., because God has willed it. The nature and the
activity of every lower cause is, as it were, programmed into and flows from
the highest created being and it is the invariant consistency of the operation
of the universal causes that is God’s custom and His habit.[150] They are «the
determination of the Lord of Lords and of Him who makes the causes to function
as causes» (Ihyâ’ 4, p. 95). This is consistent with the passage of Iqtijâd
which we just examined. We have seen also that according to al-Ghazâlî it is
not possible, given God’s liberality and His justice, that He have willed to
create any universe other than the one which He did create. The present text,
however, seems to go well beyond this, for if the act of God’s will to create
this universe is eternally necessary, then not only is it impossible that He
have created a different world, but it is also impossible that He not have created
anything at all. Given God’s existence, the existence of this world is
necessary in its every aspect. To put it another way, one may be able
abstractly to consider or to talk about God’s existence apart from that of the
world, but he cannot posit the existence of God without thereby positing that
of the world. Al-Ghazâlî’s use of ‘product’ (natijah) in the present
context is interesting, for again his formulation appears to follow and to
emend that of Avicenna, who speaks in 'Arshiyya (p. 17,10) of creation
as «the product of the foreknowledge of the system of the whole» (natijatu
l-'ilmi l-sâbiqi bi-nizâmi l-kullj and says (ibid, p. 16, 21) that
God’s acts «are the products of His attributes» (natâ’iju çifâtihf),
which are essential (li-dhâtihî).[151] Al-Ghazâlî refuses to
identify God’s will
with His knowledge and so, as it were, emends
‘the product of the foreknowledge’ against Avicenna so as to assert that the
existence and the order of the universe is the product of God’s will. What he
appears to do, in effect, is to relocate the eternal necessity of God’s action
in an attribute that is somehow distinct from His being itself (dhâtuhû)
in such a way as to retain the eternal necessity that He create what He creates
while avoiding the implication that God necessarily acts eternally. 'Hiere is here
a curious inversion of language against Avicenna, as al-Ghazâlî can say, given
his own definition of the terms, that creation (al-khalq) is eternal and
necessary though it is impossible that the universe have existed from eternity;
God’s Determination (al-taqdir = al-khalq) is eternal and necessary
though the universe has existed for only a finite period of time.
4.4. God’s Knowledge, Will, and Power:
A Dialogue with Avicenna
Does al-Ghazâlî really mean to suggest that God
could not have chosen not to create anything at all? There is one place in
which he seems to suggest that it was not necessary that God choose to create
rather than not to create. In discussing the Names, “a/- Qâdir” and “al-Muqtadif”
(Maqsad, p. 145), he says,
outcome, etc.,
of something. The verb, ‘nataja, yantiju' originally means to give birth
(primarily of animals; cf. e. g., Maqâyîs, s. v.), but is extended to
many senses of yielding and producing. Thus al-Juwaynî says in Ni^âmiyya
(p. 49, 12f.) that «the [human] power of acting is created directly by God (khalqu
llâhi btidâ’an) and its object is ascribed to Him as willing and knowing
and creating and perduring in that it is the result of that which He alone
creates» (natîjatu mâ nfarada bi-khalqiht). I. e., God alone creates the
human agent’s qudrah and since it is because of its occurrence in
relation to the agent’s qudrah that the event is formally his action,
then its being his action is the result of something God alone creates. (Note
that what al- Juwaynî has to say in this work differs notably from his teaching
in Irshâd and his other kalâm works.) There are several things
that are worth noting with regard to the rhetoric of Iljâm, pp. 20f. ‘Sadara,
ya^duru' (here ‘proceeds’ in «proceeds from an eternal... volition») is
used rather broadly for many kinds of occurrences and is found rather
frequently in kalâm contexts where one speaks of the relation of actions
to the will, both with reference to God and to human agents, as in «al-afâlu
l-$âdiratu 'ani l-irâdah» (Mushkil, p. 260,2.; cf. also, e.g., ibid, p.
lOOf. and Latâ’if4,61 [ad 18.23 f.]). It is used also by Avicenna
(e.g., in 'Arshiyya, pp. 14f. and Ilâhiyyât, p. 267, 6f.) to
describe causal relationships. Because of their lexical connotations, the use
of ‘al-natíjah’ here alongside the ‘proceeds from* of «li-$udûrihâ
'an irâdatin azaliyyatin wâjibah» is itself interesting. ‘Natîjah’
is also, however, the formal expression for the conclusion of a syllogism in
the lexicon of the falâsifa. Here, then, one notes that al-Ghazâlî
passes from speaking of the impossibility of the contrary (khilâf)
employing a word (sc., ‘mum- tani'1) which is normally used
of what is circumstantially impossible or excluded and goes on to speak of the
impossibility of what is contrary to the eternal will, using a word (sc.,
‘¿sft7idZa/i’) that is commonly used of logical impossibility and then ends by
speaking of the world as the natijah of God’s eternal will and, for the
contrary which is impossible (muhâl), employs a word (sc., ‘al-naqîd")
that is commonly used for the logically contradictory. (Note also the analogous
use of ‘nâqada, yunâqidu’ where he speaks of what is incompatible with
God’s liberality and with His justice in Ihyâ’4, p. 252, translated
above.) Thus the ?udûr, the coming forth of the world from God’s
knowledge and will, is an iqtidâ’ (an entailment) in every sense.
‘Al-qudralï is an
expression for the attribute by which a thing is caused to exist in a
determined way by the determination of knowledge and will (muqtadiran
bi-taqdîri l-irâdati wal-Um) and in accord with them. The Qâdir is
the one who acts if he wills and if he does not will does not act. It is not a
part of the condition that He must inevitably will. God has the power to bring
about the resurrection now, since if He willed He would bring it about. Thus,
if He does not bring it about now, it is because He has not willed it and does
not will it because of the determination of its appointed time and moment which
are fixed in His fore- knowlege (mâ jarâfî sâbiqi 'ilmihî min ajalihâ
wa-waqtihâ).
The sentence, «It is not a part of the condition
that He must inevitably will» (laysa min sharfihî an yashâ’a lâ mahâlah)
might be taken to suggest that it is possible that God not have willed to
create anything at all.[152]
The matter is not immediately clear, however. We have here another instance of
al-Ghazâlî’s introduction of a statement that does not seem altogether required
in the immediate context. It is hot necessary, that is, for an adequate summary
of that basic meaning of the two divine names which al-Ghazâlî wishes to sketch
and is, in any case, something that is not normally included in the discussion
of these names in the standard Ash'arite manuals. In order tó ascertain exactly
what he might have meant to assert in adding the statement, we must see why he
raised the question at all.
Howbeit the
lexicographical introduction to this section of Maqçad follows traditional
form (cp., e. g., Tahbir, foil. 110v° f.), al-Ghazâlî’s outline here of
what it means to say that God is qâdir seems to be modeled directly upon
Avicenna’s statement on the same topic in 'Arshiyya (p. 11) and to
respond to it by emending it. It is, in any case, against this background that
it is to be interpreted. Avicenna’s text reads:
That He is Qâdir.
We have shown that He knows and that the act which proceeds from Him is in
conformity with His knowledge and that His knowing the order of the good (ni?âmu
l-khayr) in such a way that He knows it to be the manifest consequence (âthâr)
of the perfection of His existence is His Will. When you know this you will
know that the one who has the power to act (al- qâdir) is the one from
whom the act proceeds in conformity with his will, that is, who acts if he
wills and if he does not will does not act. It does not follow from this that
His will and volition must vary so that at one time He wills and at another
does not, since volitions vary because of the variation of aims and we have
stated that He has no aim (gharad).[153]
Therefore, His will and volition is
one (muttahidah).
Since this proposition is conditional, it does not follow from our statement
“If He wills he acts and if He does not will He does not act” that it must be
that He will and that He act and that He not will and that He not act, since He
knows the order of the good in the ultimate and the most perfect way, so that
His volition and His will does not change (lâ tataghayyar).,
Avicenna - as does al-Ghazâlî in the parallel
passage of Maqçad - follows the traditional procedure of introducing
the lexical definition of the expression as it is used ordinary speech and has
then to state how this common understanding of the word must be qualified and
nuanced if it is to be validly employed to describe God. The topic here is that
of God’s power and the problem Avicenna addresses is that of the relationship
of that power to the will that activates it. He has already identified God’s
will with His knowledge and said that it «transcends alteration» (pp. 10f.).
What he has to say in the section on God’s power is directed primarily against
the mutakallimîn, who hold that the world has existed for only a finite period
of time and therefore that God did not will His action in creation to exist
coëtemally with Himself. In order to make his point Avicenna distinguishes
God’s attribute of will (al-masht’ah), as corresponding by analogy to
the faculty of human agents, from its act, the volition (al-irâdah) and
argues that the two cannot be distinguished in God, since His will is its act
and is one and coëternal with His essence, wherefore, by implication, His
action too is eternal.153 The same line of reasoning appears in Ilâhiyyât,
though without drawing a distinction between will and volition. There, in
discussing the notion of potency, he reviews the senses of the words 'quwwah'
and 'qudrah' and defines the potency or power of an agent to act (p.
171,2f.) as «that by which he may act or not act according as he wills and does
not will» (bi-hasabi l-mashfati wa-'adami l-mashi ah) and goes on to
state that the power to act, so understood, does not entail «that by it the
agent actually be acting, but rather, he has, by virtue of the power, the
possibility of acting and the possibility of not acting». Having said this, he
has then to deal with the mutakallimîn, i. e., with those who «think
that such power belongs only to those to whom it belongs to act and to whom it
belongs
?ad, p. 145,
al-Ghazâlî elsewhere makes it quite explicitly, e.g., Tahâfut, p.40 and Ihyâ’
4, p. 93, cited above.
153 The phrases ‘His will and His volition must vary’ and ‘His will
and His volition is one’ (in both cases with singular verbs: an takûna
mashî’atuhû wa-irâdatuhû mukhtalifah and mashî’atuhû wa-irâdatuhû
muttahidah) seem curious at first. (In his translation, ZD MG 130
[1980], pp. 256f., Meyer, makes no comment on this, rendering both phrases with
a plural verb; he renders ‘mashî'ah’ by ‘Wollen’ and ‘irâdah by
‘Willen’.) For the theologians ‘irâdah and 'mashfah' are taken to
be synonymous (cf., e. g., Mujarrad, p. 76,8ff., Tamhîd, § 444, Lafâ’if
1, p. 57,12 and 3, p. 158 [ad 11.107], and Ihyâ’4, p.
248,4ff.) and al-Bâqillânî uses the latter to define the former (Sharh
al-Irshâd, fol. 78v°, 19 and Ghunya, fol. 69r°, 16ff.). They often
occur alongside one another without distinction (e. g., Mushkil, pp.
99,4-7 and p. 100,18 and Latâ’if 3, p. 80 [ad 9.6]). In certain
contexts, however, the one may have priority of usage and be preferred to the
other, as there is a tendency, because of its use in Q 16.40 and 36.82, to
employ ‘arâda, yurîdu, irâdatan' when referring to God’s will as it
bears directly upon His action, especially with regard to particular entities
and events, but this does not imply a formal distinction between God’s irâdah
and His mashî’ah.
not to act so that if it belongs to something to
which it belongs only to act, they don’t think it has qudrah-, which is
not true» (p. 172,13-15). Paralleling the distinctions he makes in speaking of
God’s will in Arshiyya, he notes (pp. 172 f.) that
if this being
which only acts acts without volition and will (min ghayri an yashâ’a
wa-yurid), then it has neither power nor potency in this sense. If, however
it acts by will and choice (bi-irâdatin wa-khtiyâr) save that it wills
perpetually, [either because] by existing constantly its will does not change
or because it is impossible that it change because of an essential
impossibility, then it does act through a power (bi-qudrah).[154]
The two cases Avicenna wants to account for here
are (1) that of the souls of the celestial spheres, which albeit essentially
contingent beings, exist eternally and act voluntarily in causing the
eternally constant motion of their several spheres and (2) that of the power
and will of God, whose being is eternally necessary in every respect. He concludes,
then by driving home the logical distinction (p. 173, Ilf.): «Since it is true
that when he wills he acts, it is also true that when he does not will he does
not act and when he does not act he does not will, but it does not follow from
this that at any given time he does not will; this is clear to anybody who
knows logic».
That God created the
world at a finite time in the past is a consistent theme of al- Ghazâlî against
Avicenna and the falâsifa and the context at Maqçad, p. 145
requires that he respond to Avicenna’s interpretation of ‘qâdif as
predicated of God. What he does in this passage of Maqçad, accordingly,
is to begin with the common definition, as does Avicenna, but then, employing
the same logical argument, to reverse the qualification of the concept that is
presented in 'Arshiyya in order to reject Avicenna’s thesis that God
must eternally will to create eternally. That this is what he intends here
would seem to be confirmed by Tahâfut where, responding to an analogous
paraphrase of the same passage of 'Arshiyya, he asserts (p. 375)[155]
only the possibility of the world’s having had a temporal beginning and the
possibility that the world as we know it come to an end and be replaced by a different
order of things and that the whole eventually cease to exist altogether.
Against Avicenna he says that the conditional «acts if he wills and if he does
not will does not act» does not imply that given the determination of the will
action must follow immediately and that God, therefore, since His will is
eternal necessarily acts eternally. Read in this way, al-Ghazâlî says nothing
here that would
suggest or imply that it is possible that God
will other than what He does will. The denial of the implication that God must
inevitably will to act could, in principle, be taken to mean that it is not
necessary that He will to create anything at all.[156] Such an assertion would,
however, be inconsistent with the passages of Iqtiçâd and Hjâm we
have just examined and moreover is not needed in order to explain the presence
of the denial. In Tahâfut (pp. 214f.) he insists, against the notion
that God acts by his very nature (bi-dhâtihï), on the distinction
between voluntary activity and natural activity and says that beings whose
activity is of the latter kind cannot refrain from acting; «neither has the sun
any power to refrain from giving light nor does fire to cease heating» and
explicitly refuses the thesis that «the First being has no power to refrain
from its acts». He does not assert here, however, that it is possible that God
not act at all. Again, in Mi'yâr, al-Ghazâlî explains that the
affirmation and denial of materially identical sentences does not entail a
contradiction when one of the terms is equivocal and by illustration cites an
example involving the description ‘chooses’, noting (p. 73,1 ff.) that
«‘chooses’ is predicated in two different meanings and so is equivocal, as it
is sometimes used to mean one who has the power not to act and is sometimes
used to mean one who undertakes something because of his appetite and the
arousal of a motivation within himself». It would seem almost certain, even
though no such suggestion to this effect is made in the context, that
al-Ghazâlî understands the first meaning as true of God and the second as true
of human agents. And if this is so then the statement could be interpreted as
asserting, even if in a very oblique manner, that God has the power not to
create anything at all. Such an interpretation, however, would go well beyond
the scant evidence offered by the text. That the distinction is based on and
implies the principle that, unlike human agents, God cannot act to fulfill any
need or to secure any advantage for Himself is clear from what al-Ghazâlî has
to say in other places. It is likely, furthermore, that also behind the ‘has
the power not to act’ (if the distinction presented here is meant to be that
between God’s choosing and human choosing) is the thesis that it is not
necessary that God act eternally, a theme which al-Ghazâlî commonly reiterates
against the falâsifa and the “logicians”. We have no evidential grounds,
however, to justify going any further. As formulated in the context the
statement neither says nor implies anything about the relationship between
power and will. Just as al-Ghazâlî’s assertion that God has the power to cause
the end of the world now does not necessarily imply that it is possible that He
do so, so also his saying that God has the power not to act need not imply that
it is possible that He not will the action He does will.
We may then summarise the
evidence of these texts as follows. In the final chapter of Mi'yâr (p.
195) and Iqtiçâd (p. 43,3), al-Ghazâlî says that God’s being is
necessary in its every aspect, but does not state how he may or may not limit
or qualify the statement. In al-Iqtisâd, then, written not long after Mi'yâr,
probably in 488/1095, he suggests (p. 78), albeit obliquely and somewhat
ambiguously, that the act of God’s will is necessary (wâjib). In view of
his superb control and use of the Arabic language, the way the
sentence is cast and its relation to the
immediate context would be difficult to justify and explain if he did not mean
to suggest that God wills necessarily to create what He creates. What is
apparently hinted at in Iqtisâd, then, is made explicit in Iljâm (pp.
20f.), which was completed at the very end of his life (505/1111): God’s will
to create this world is eternal and necessary in its act. In al-Maqçad,
however, which was written after 490/1097, he seems perhaps to imply (p. 145)
that God does not necessarily will to create. Read, however, against the
background of the conspicuously parallel passage of Tahâfut (p. 375),
written some three years earlier, it would appear more probable that his
intention is to deny only that God wills necessarily in such a way that the
world needs must have existed from eternity and cannot cease to exist, without
implying either that God does or does not will necessarily the temporal
creation of the world. Al-Ghazâlî, as we have had several occasions to observe,
is by no means hostile to ambivalence, but on the contrary employs it sometimes
purposefully and with great skill so as to appear to the superficial reader to
state a more traditional orthodoxy than in fact he holds. In the texts we
examined earlier we have found al-Ghazâlî’s teaching to be thoroughly
consistent ; ambivalent or vague as some of his statements may be or may at first
appear to be, his formulations are regularly cast in such a way that theses and
propositions that are asserted clearly and explicitly in one place are not
denied in another place, whether in the same or in a different work.[157]
The evidence would seem to indicate, therefore, that the passage of al-Maq^ad
(p. 145) is correctly to be read as meaning to assert only the narrower thesis,
since a broader interpretation would be inconsistent both with what he had
suggested in Iqtiçâd and with what he was later to say overtly in Iljâm.
If this is so, then, when al-Ghazâlî says in Ihyâ' 4, p. 249 that God’s
action, in contrast to those of human agents, is «pure choice», his intention
is not that God’s will is wholly indeterminate so that it is possible that He
have created nothing at all or that creating He have created a universe
different in any respect from the one He did create. What he means, rather, is
that the act of God’s will is not moved by appetite or need but by a perfect
and absolute knowledge of what is best.[158] Choice, strictly speaking,
is an intellectual judgement of what is best (Ihyâ’ 4, 248f.) so that
God’s «pure choice» will be one that is totally free of any “motivation”
arising from a need or desire to attain some benefit and is in no way
“obligatory” (wâjib) in order to avoid some harm. This would seem to be
most plausible reading of the text. It remains, however, an inference, since
the texts offer no unambiguous explanation of what precisely is meant and
implied when God’s will is said to be necessary.
5.
Summary: God of Abraham or God of the
Philosophers?
Al-Ghazâlî, as we have seen, adopts as his own
certain basic aspects of the Avicennian theology and cosmology while rejecting
others. In his account of the lowest level of God’s creating, that of the Qadar,
he consistently asserts an uncompromising determinism according to which the
activity of celestial beings is the cause of every sublunary event through the
downward transmission of various effects from more universal through more
particular causes in an ever more complex intermeshing of beings and
occurrences. Determinism in the sense that no event, including the volitions
and deliberate actions of men, takes place anywhere in the universe whose
occurrence is not foreordained, willed, and originated by God conforms to
traditional Ash'arite doctrine. That all sublunary events are caused by the
operation of a host of secondary causes through thé operation of the cosmic
system in accord with an unalterable program built into the system at its
creation and that it is impossible that God act save through the system is
altogether contrary to the radical occasionalism of classical Ash'a- rite
orthodoxy.
Although he takes the
radical determinism of the cosmic system from Avicenna, al- Ghazâlî rejects the
emanationism of al-Fârâbî and Avicenna. He rejects, that is, the thesis that
the existence of the entities that make up the permanent components of every
lower, and increasingly complex, order of being in the universal system issues
by nature from the one next above it in the hierarchy of beings with the giver
of forms/ agent intellect at the bottom of the series of celestial
intelligences. By implication, at least, the causes that are universal and
permanent, both spiritual and material, which make up the universe, were willed
individually as such, and originally created and ordered to one another by God
directly. This bringing to existence of the cosmic apparatus al-Ghazâlî
sometimes describes as God’s “Accomplishment” (al-qadâ*). Though he
alludes in a number of places to the perfection and order of this middle level
of God’s creative action, he nevertheless gives no detailed account of the
structure and operation of the system in its major components. It may be that
because he thought that knowledge of the celestial realm is not accessible to
unaided reason (Tahâfut, p. 252), he made no attempt to describe its
organisation in more specific detail. Against traditional Ash'arite teaching
he locates the criterion and measure of the good in the achieved perfection of
the instances of the essences according to the nature of each.
Finally, his treatment of
the founding act of creation as such, the original “Determination” which is
the act of God’s knowledge and His will, though theologically the most
important of the three levels of creation that al-Ghazâlî distinguishes, seems
incomplete in some respects, not to say, unsatisfactory. It would seem clear
that since God knows particular contingent entities, He wills the perfection of
the universe and of every event that takes place in it individually and creates
the universal and permanent causes ordering them to this end. By asserting that
God knows and wills the perfection of the created universe in its every detail,
al-Ghazâlî revises the sense of Avicenna’s
statement that it cannot have happened «by
coincidence, but on the contrary requires that there be a given ordering» (see
n. 92 above) so as to turn it against him. He says, on the other hand, that the
act of God’s will is eternal and necessary. The evidence of the texts make it
plain enough that he holds that it is impossible that God will to create a
universe in any respect different from the one He does will to create. Beyond
this, however, al-Ghazâlî does not elaborate his thought on the question so as
to make it unmistakably clear whether he understands God’s will to be necessary
in every respect or only in some qualified sense, nor does he set forth how he
understands the relationship between God’s will and His knowledge with sufficient
clarity to cast much light on the problem. A brief review of how he deals with
the possibles and their relation to God may help us to bring the problem into
better focus and to see more clearly what al- Ghazâlî’s position may be.
Al-Ghazâlî, as we have
seen, devotes little attention to God’s power as such. Where he does focus
attention on it he speaks of it chiefly as an attribute which is characteristic
of a being that acts through knowledge and volition, in order to deny, against
Avicenna and al-Fârâbî, that the existence of the universe must necessarily
proceed from the first cause eternally.
Thus in Maqçad (p.
145) he uses the power to act as the defining characteristic of an agent who
«if he wills acts and if he does not will does not act». Though rejecting there
Avicenna’s interpretation of the same definition, he does not discuss or
consider God’s power in itself and apart from His will. This has significant
consequences for how he treats the possibles in relation to God and to His
creating the world. Neither in this passage nor elsewhere does he cleanly
separate the possibles and their status as they may be considered in relation
to God’s power in itself and as such from their status as they may be
considered in relation to the determination of His will. The possibles for al-
Ghazâlî are simply universals and so, when he replies to the thesis of Avicenna
that the possibility of the existence of their instantiations has its being in
already and eternally existent matter, he does not say, as would the earlier
Ash'arites and the Basrian Mu'ta- zila, that it lies, absolutely speaking, in
God’s power to create, but says rather that the possibility of which Avicenna
speaks is, in reality, nothing more than an abstract mental judgement (e.g., Tahâfut,
p. 70). Consistently, then in Iqtiçâd (p. 84) he says in effect that
considered in themselves, as such and apart from their relation to God’s will,
the possibility of their contingent existence is merely a logical abstraction.[159]
In sum, he
does not suggest that in relation to the absolute
power of God their possibility is real even though indeterminate (a thesis that
had been explicitly elaborated by the Mu'tazi- lite school of Basra). For
al-Ghazâlî, the possibles as such are simply given as universals and the
eventual existence of particular instantiations is eternally determined by
God’s will according to the requirements of his liberality and justice. As we
have seen, this is what apparently he means when he says that «every possible
is willed [by God]» (Iqtiçâd, p. 107) and that «what is possible comes
to be» (Maqçad, p. 103). So too, he distinguishes God’s knowledge from
His will, describing the latter as an attribute whose function is to
distinguish between alternative possibilities and to determine the realisation
of one rather than another. He does not, however, seem to have reflected
seriously on the possibles as they may be separately considered in relation to
God’s knowledge as beings He knows He has the power to create but need not
create. The act of God’s will is contrasted to those of human agents as being
one of «pure choosing», and choosing, strictly speaking, is an intellectual
act. For al-Ghazâlî, however, that God’s will may be distinguished from his
power and His knowledge does not imply the indeterminacy of His will with
regard to what He may choose to create. On the contrary, the act of God’s will
is determined by His wisdom, by His liberality and His knowledge. The possibles
as such are given in God’s eternal knowledge along with the knowledge of the
one possible ordering of their existences that is best with respect to all
others and His liberality and His justice require that creating He order them
in precisely this order. If it is the function of the will to distinguish and
to select between equivalent alternatives (Tahâfut, p. 40 and Iqtiçâd,
p. 106) and between the initial creation and the day of judgement one possible
universe - a unique ordering of instantiations of all the possible kinds of
things - is best absolutely with respect to all others, then within the context
of the whole there are no alternatives that are truly equivalent in all
respects. The finality of the created universe, sc., the optimum good of
created beings, is grounded not in God’s goodness and wisdom but in the natures
of the contingent essences that are given for Him as possible objects of His
action. God chooses but has no choice. On the contrary, because of His
liberality and justice He wills necessarily to create what has to be (mâ
yanbaghî) «as it has to be and in the measure that has to be». In II
jam, finally, al-Ghazâlî states without qualification that the act of God’s
will «is eternal and necessary», without having said anything either in Iljâm
or elsewhere that would unambiguously indicate that ‘necessary and eternal’ is
contextually meant to be understood in some qualified sense. Though the various
assertions al-Ghazâlî makes in connection with God’s will and the necessity of
creation come easily together so as to present a consistent and well articulated
doctrine, one has nevertheless a feeling that, for all the subtlety of his
thought and the extraordinary eloquence of its exposition, and his pretentious
certitude of the profundity of his insight notwithstanding, al-Ghazâlî’s
theology, remains somehow incomplete, at least as presented in his writings.
Most conspicuous here certainly is his failure to raise the question of the
ontological origin of the possibles as such and his failure to raise and to
discuss explicitly the question of whether or not it is possible that God have
chosen not to create anything at all. He could hardly have been unaware of
these prob-
albeit he
employs both 'mumkirí and ‘maqdûf for “possible” al-Ghazâlî hears
the latter as altogether synonymous with the former as defined by Avicenna.
lems, given their explicit presence in the works
of the mutakallimin and occasions in his work where it would be
appropriate to take up one or all of these problems are numerous enough. Did
he avoid discussing them because his mind had become so taken up in the
conceptual world of Avicenna and the falâsif 'a that he lost sight of
basic theological issues and questions that were not raised for him there?[160]
Or did he, rather, dodge these questions because to raise them explicitly and
to respond to them plainly and adequately would have the inevitable effect of
showing that the innovations that he was at pains to promote in sunni theology
were not, as he pretends in the beginning of Maqçad, merely the
substitution of a superior logic and conceptual system for an inferior one, but
quite to the contrary involved far reaching compromises of traditional doctrine
with the philosophy of Avicenna? Both doubtless played a role, conscious or
unconscious. .
In sum, then, it has long
been recognized that while al-Ghazâlî rejected some major theses of the
Avicennian system he appropriated others. What we have seen on a closer
examination of what he has to say concerning God's relation to the cosmos as
its creator, however, reveals that from a theological standpoint most of the
theses which he rejected are relatively tame and inconsequential compared to
some of those in which he follows the philosopher.
|
Ajrâm: |
ibn Sînâ, al-Ajrâm al-'ulwiyya, in Tis'Rasâ’ilfî
l-hikmah wal-fabî'iyyât, Cairo, 1326/1908, pp. 39-59 |
|
Ahwâl al-nafs: Aqsâm: Al-Arba'în: 'Arshiyya: Burhân: |
-, Ahwâl al-nafs, ed. A. F.
al-Ahwânî, Cairo, 1371/1952 Aqsâm al-'ulûm
al-'ulwiyyah, in Tis' rasâ’il, pp. 104-118 Al-Ghazâlî, K.
al-Arba'înfî ujûl al-dîn, Cairo, 1344/1925 ibn Sînâ, R. al-'Arshiyya,
Hyderabad, 1353 ibn Sînâ, Burhân al-shifâ’, ed. abû ‘Alâ ‘Afîfî,
Cairo, 1956 |
Commentary on Lambda: ibn Sînâ, Sharh Kitâb
fjarfal-lâm in A. Badawi, Arisfû Ind al-'Arab,
|
de Anima: Dîwân al-Adab: |
Cairo, 1948, pp. 22-33. Avicenna’s de Anima, ed. F. Rahman,
London, 1959 abû Ibrâhîm
al-Fârâbî, Dîwân al-adab, ed. M. ‘Umar, 3 vol’s, Cairo, 1974-77 |
|
Façlâ’ih: Fays al: al-Fûrakî: Ghunya: al-Harâsî: |
al-Ghazâlî, Fadâ’ih al-Bâfiniyyah, ed.
A. Badawî, Cairo, 1383/1964 -, Faysal al-tafriqah, Cairo,
1319/1901 abû Bakr al-Fûrakî, al-Nifâmîfî
ujûl al-dîn, MS Ayasofya no. 2378 abû 1-Qâsim al-Ançâri, al-Ghunya fi
u^ûlal-dîn, MS III Ahmet no. 1916 al-Kiyâ’ al-Harâsî, Ufûl al-dîn,
MS Dâr al-Kutub al-Miçriyya, kalâm |
|
Hidâya: |
no.295 abû Bakr al-Bâqillânî, Hidâyat
al-mustarshidîn, MS al-Azhar al-tawfrîd |
|
'Ibârât: |
no. (21) 242 abû 1-Qâsim
al-Qushayrî, 'Ibârât al-çûfiyyah wa-ma'ânîhâ, in Arba'
rasâ’ilal-Qushayrî, ed. al-Q. al-Samarrá^, Baghdad, 1389/1969, pp. 44- CQ |
|
Ibn 'Asâkir: Ibn Sida: Ihya: Ikhtisâr: |
□y abû 1-Qâsim
ibn ‘Asâkir, Tabyîn kadhib al-muftarî, Damascus, 1347 abû 1-Hasan ibn
Sîda, al-Muhkam, ôvol’s, Cairo, 1958-1972 al-Ghazâlî, Ihyâ’ 'ulûm
al-dîn, 4vol’s, Cairo, 1377/1957 al-Kâmil fî
ikhtiçâr al-Shâmil (author unknown), MS III Ahmet no.1322 |
|
Ilâhiyyât: |
ibn Sînâ, Ilâhiyyât
al-Shifâ’, ed. G. Anawati and S. Zâyed, Cairo, 1380/ 1960 |
|
lljâm: |
al-Ghazâlî, lljâm
al-'awâmm 'an 'Um al-kalâm, printed in margins of vol. 1 of‘Abd al-Qâdir
al-Jîlânî, al-Insân al-Kâmil, Cairo, 1368/1949 |
|
Insâf: |
abû
Bakral-Bâqillânî, al-Insâffîmâyajib ïtiqâduh, ed. M. al-Kawtharî, 2nd.
ed. Cairo, 1382/1963 |
|
Iqtisâd: |
al-Ghazâlî, al-Iqtisâdfîl-i'tiqâd,
ed. I. S. Çubukçu and H. Atay, Ankara, 1962 |
|
Irshâd: |
al-Juwaynî, K.
al-Irshâd, ed. M.Y. Mûsâ and A. A. 'Abd al-Hamîd, Cairo, 1369/1950 |
|
al-Isfarâlnî: |
al-Ustâdh
abû Isfrâq: an 'aqîda together with selected fragments, ed. R.M. Frank, MIDEO
19 (1989), pp. 129-202 |
|
Ishârât: al-Jawharî: |
ibn Sînâ, K. al-Ishârât wal-tanbîhât,
ed. J.Forget, Leiden 1892 abû Na$r
al-Jawharî, Tâj al-lughah, ed. M. al-Saqâ and H. Nassâr, 2nd ed.,
Cairo, 1399/1979 |
|
Jawâhir: al-Kâfiya: Lafâ’if: Luma' (A): |
al-Ghazâlî, Jawâhir al-Qur’ân, Cairo,
1352/1933 al-Juwaynî, al-Kâfiya fi l-jadal, ed. F.
Mahmûd, Cairo, 1978 al-Qushayrî, Lafâ’ifal-ishârât,ed. I.
Busyûnî,6vol’s, Cairo, 1968-1971. abû 1-Hasan al-Ash'ari, K. al-Luma',
ed. R. McCarthy in The theology ofal-Ash'arî, Beyrouth, 1952 |
|
Luma' (J): |
al-Juwaynî, K. al-Luma', in M. Allard, Textes
apologétiques de ôuwaynî, Beyrouth, 1968 |
|
Luma' (Q): |
abû 1-Qâsim al-Qushayrî, al-Luma' fi
l-i'tiqâd, ed. R.M. Frank in MIDEO 15 (1982), pp. 59-73 |
|
Mâhiyyah: |
Ibn Sînâ, Mâhiyyat al-^alâh, in Traités
Mystiques, ed. A. F. Mehren, fase. 3, Leiden, 1894, pp. 28-43 |
|
Mubâhathât: |
Ibn Sînâ, Kitâb al-Mubâhathât in A.
Badawî, Arisfû 'ind al-'Arab, pp. 119-239 |
|
Maqâfid: Maqâyîs: |
al-Ghazâlî, Maqâfid al-falâsifa, Cairo,
1300/1936 abû 1-Husayn ibn Fâris, Maqâyîs al-lugha,
ed. A.M. Hârûn, 6 vol’s, Cairo, 1969-1972 |
|
Maqçad: Mi'yâr: |
al-Ghazâlî, al-Maqçad al-asnâ, ed. E A.
Shehadi, Beyrouth, 1982 -, Mi'yâr al-'ilm, ed. M.S. al-Kurdî, Cairo,
1329 |
|
Mishkâh: Mîzân: Mujarrad: |
-, Mishkât al-anwâr, ed. A.
al-'Afîfî, Cairo 1383/1964 -, Mîzân al-'amal, Cairo,
1382/1963 abû Bakr ibn Fûrak, Mujarrad maqâlât
al-shaykh abi l-Ijasan al-Ash- 'arî, ed. D. Gimaret, Paris,
1987 |
|
Munqidh: |
al-Ghazâlî, al-Munqidh min ad-<jalâl,
ed. J. $alîba and K. 'Ayyâd, 9 th. ed., Damascus, 1980 |
|
Mushkil: |
Abû Bakr ibn Fûrak, K. Mushkil al-hadîth
wa-bayânih, Hyderabad, 1943 |
|
Mustatfâ: al-Mutawallî: |
-, al-Mustatfâ fi ’ilm al-ujûl, Bulaq, 1325 abû Sa‘d al-Mutawallî, K. al-Mughnt, ed.
M. Bemand (Supplément aux Annales islamologiques, 7), Cairo, 1986 |
|
al-Nafs al-nâfiqa: |
ibn Sînâ, R. fi l-kalâm 'alâ l-nafs
al-nâfiqah, in A. F. al-Ahwânî (ed.), Ahwâl al-nafs, Cairo, 1952,
pp. 95-199 |
|
Najâh: Ni?âmiyya: |
-, K. an-Najâh, Cairo,
1357/1938 al-Juwaynî, al-'Aqîda al-niçâmiyya, ed.
M. Z. al-Kawtharî, Cairo, 1367/ 1948 |
|
Q: Qisfâs: |
al-Qur’ân al-kartm al-Ghazâlî, al-Qisfâs al-mustaqîm,
Cairo, 1381/1962 |
|
Qudsiyya: |
-, R. al-Qudsiyya, ed. A.L.
Tïbawi in Islamic Quarterly 9 (1965), pp. 79-94 |
|
Qût: al-Quwâ l-nafsâniyya: |
abû lâlib al-Makkî, Qûtal-qulûb, 4
vol’s, Cairo, 1351/1932 Ibn Sînâ, Mabhath 'an al-quwâ l-nafsâniyyah,
in A. F. al-Ahwânî (ed.), Ahwâl al-nafs, Cairo, 1952, pp. 145-189 |
|
Risâla: |
abû 1-Qâsim al-Qushayrî, ar-Risâla, text
found in the Commentary of Zakarîyâ al-Anjâri, printed in the margins of
al-'Arûsî, Natâ’ijal-afkâr, 4 vol’s, Bulâq, 1290 |
|
Shâmil (69): |
abû 1-Ma‘âlî al-Juwaynî, K. al-Shâmil,
ed. I. al-Najjâr, Alexandria, 1969 |
|
Shâmil (SI): |
-, K. al-Shâmil, Some
Additional Fragments, ed. R. M. Frank, Tehran, 1981 |
|
Sharh al-Irshâd: |
abû 1-Qâsim al-An$ârî, Sharh al-Irshâd,
MS Princeton University Library, ELS no. 634 |
|
|
Creation and
the Cosmic System 89 |
|
al-Shîrâzî: |
La Profession de foi d’abû Ishâq
al-Shîrâzî, ed. M. Bemand (Supplément aux Annales islamologiques, no.
11), Cairo, 1987 |
|
Tahâfut: Tahbîr: |
al-Ghazâlî, Tahâfut al-falâsifa, ed. M.
Bouyges, Beyrouth, 1927 al-Qushayri, al-Tahbîrfî l-tadhkîr, contained
in MS Yeni Cami no. 705, foil. 22v-131v under the title Sharh asmâ’Allâh
al-husnâ. An abridged and mutilated form of this work was published by I.
Busyûnî, Cairo, 1968, which is cited when it contains the integral text of
the passage. |
|
Tamhîd: Ta’wîl: |
al-Bâqillânî, K. al-Tamhîd, ed. R.
McCarthy, Beyrouth, 1957 abû 1-ÎHasan al-Tabari,
Ta’wîl al-âyâtal-mushkilah, MS Dâr al-kutub al- Miçriyya, Tal'at, maj.
no. 490 |
|
Thaghr: |
abû 1-Ilasan
al-Ash'arî, R. ilâ ahi al-thaghr in ílahiyat Fakültesi Mec- |
|
al-Zajjâj: |
muasi 8 (1928),
pp. 80-108 abû Is^âq al-Zajjâj, Tafsîr
asmâ’ Allâh al-husnâ, ed. A. Y. al-Daqqâq, Damascus, 1395/1975 |
|
al-Zajjâjî: |
Ishtiqâq asmâ’Allâh, ed. A.
al-Mubârak, Najaf, 1394/1974 |
[60] It
is clear that in some of the elements of al-Ghazâlî’s theology that we shall
discuss he follows and elaborates material that was found already in
al-Juwaynî’s R. al-Ni^âmiyya and, consequently, that he was not
necessarily dependent upon Avicenna (certainly not directly) for these theses
and concepts. There remains, however, as we shall see, rather conspicuous
evidence, that al-Ghazâlî was deeply and constantly preoccupied with the
challenge which Avicenna and his writings posed for him. Indeed, it would seem
plausible, if not reasonably evident, that al- Ghazâlî’s autobiography was
written, at least in part, as a response to that of Avicenna, a response that
is complex both in respect to the questions and levels of its address to
Avicenna as well as to other matters on which al-Ghazâlî felt challenged. (Regarding
the latter, see the interesting article of J. van Ess, “Quelques remarques sur
le Munqid min açl-dalâl” in Ghazâlî, la raison et le miracle, Paris,
1987, pp. 57 ff.) Though he does not suggest that there is any direct
relationship between Avicenna’s autobiography and that of al-Ghazâlî, the
discussion of the former by D. Gutas in his Avicenna and the Aristotelian
Tradition (Leiden, 1988, p. 106 and generally Ch. 3, pp. 149ff.) would seem
to point strongly in this direction when read as a foil against which to view
the Munqidh.
[61] The
Maqçad was written after Ihya and before al-Ghazâlî’s return to
teaching, probably completed in XI/499 = VII/1106; see G. Hourani, “A Revised
Chronology of Ghazâlî’s Writings”, J AOS 104 (1984), p. 298.
[62] In a few places he
sets forth the doctrine of the falâsifa even in the tanbîh
sections, which, by convention, have to do with how the believer is to try to
realise analogously in his own life the perfections of God named in the Most
Beautiful Divine Names; cf., e.g., pp. 73, If., 82f. and 103 f.
[63] Note also that in Maqçad
al-Ghazâlî does not include ‘/lumf in it as one of the Names (as does, e.g.,
al-Qushayri in Tahbîr, foil. 45v° f. and cp. Lafâ'if 2, p. 188),
albeit he does discuss it as such in Mishkâh (p. 60), which also is a
primarily speculative work.
[64] Cp.
'Arshiyya, p. 10,2f. (ilayhttantahîl-mawjûdâtufisilsilatayi t-taraqqi
wal-tanazzul) and also Ishârât, p. 181,16f. For the traditional
interpretation, cf. D. Gimaret, Les Noms divins en Islam (Paris, 1988),
pp. 172 ff.
[65] Cf.
also 'Arshiyya, pp. 10, 23f. and 13, 4f. That God acts ulâ
li-gharad” (or lâ U-'illah) is a universal Ash'arite thesis (cf.,
e.g., Thaghr, p.98, 21, Mujarrad, p. 140, 19ff., Tamhid,
§54, Lafâ’ifï, p. 92,3, p. 284, & alibi, and Ikhtiçâr, fol.
92r°,7) and is often repeated by al-Ghazâlî (e. g., Tahâfut, p. 40, Iqtijâd,
pp. 98,141,152 and Ihyâ’4, p. 294,32f.), but the language of this
passage of Maq$ad is unmistakably parallel to that of Ishârât,
pp. 158f.
[66] Cf.,
e.g., Thaghr, p. 82,13f. and Luma'(A), § 33, Tamhid, §§ 52f.
(where the distinctions made by Avicenna are also stated) and In$âf, pp.
37f. (where Koran 28, 88 is also cited) and also al- Isfarâlnî, 'aqîda,
§IV, 15, Irshâd, pp. 21 f. and Shâmil (69), p. 186 ult.
Note that in classical kalâm texts *istahâla, yastahilu' is most
often used of what involves a logical contradiction.
[67] The
expression occurs already with al-Isfarâ’înî (cf. Fr. 12 and the remarks ad
loc.)-, for al- Juwaynî’s use, cf., e.g., Shâmil (69), pp.540f., 617f.,
and p. 197, 2f., where the necessary existence is contrasted to that whose
being is merely possible (jâ’izu l-wujûd: reading jâ’iz with the
Tehran ms. against the editor’s khâtf), Irshâd, pp. 59, 3 and 84, ult.
(on which see al- Ançârî’s Sharh, foil. 48v°ff.); note also ibid.,
fol. 160r, 18f.: wa-qâla ba'du l-mutakallimtnq akhassu wajfihî wujûbu
l-wujûd.
[68] For a somewhat
analogous analysis in wholly traditional language, cf., e. g., Ihyâ'4,
p. 76,17ff. Al-Ghazâlî’s use of traditional language and formula we shall
examine later.
[69] Arba'in, p. 11: al-qadaru huwa tafyîlu qadâ’ihi
l-sâbiqi bi-îjâdihâ fi l-mawâddi l-khârijati wâhi- dan bada wâhid. (The
definition is part of a quotation from a Commentary on al-Masâbîh by a
person whom he refers to as al-imâm mawlânâ 'Alâ’uddîn, whom I have been unable
to identify. The ‘-hâ’ of ‘îjâdihâ’ here refers to “the totality
of existent beings” preceding.) Cp. Ihyâ’ 4, p. 94,8f., where he says
that ‘ordainment’ is a metaphorical expression for «the detailing which
continues endlessly» (al-taffilu l-mutamâdî ilâ ghayri nihâyah). Note
that Avicenna {'Arshiyya, p. 16) identifies al-Qadar with «the
causes necessitating their effects» and distinguishes it from al-Qadâ’-,
with this cf. also his Mabâhith, § 470: «written on a piece of paper was
‘the Qadar is the existence of the higher and lower causes and the
precision of their order and their system (wujûdu l-ilali wal-asbâbi
wa-ttisâquhâ 'alâ tartîbihâ wa-nizâmihâ) until it finally arrives at the
result and the effect’ (al-ma‘lûlu wal-musabbab); it is what is
necessitated by the Qadâ’ and its consequent». Unlike al-Ghazâlî,
however, Avicenna does not identify the latter with God’s Judgement, though
note the phrase, «“tó mu'aqqiba li-hukmihF [Q 13.41] wa-lârâdda
li-qadâ- ’ihî» in ‘Arshiyya, p. 17,1. f.
[70] Cp.,
e.g., Ilâhiyyât, pp. 414ff. (= Najâh, pp. 248ff.) and 418, 5ff.
(= Najâh, p. 287, 9ff.), as well as Ilâhiyyât, pp. 159ff. and
185ff., and 'Arshiyya, pp. 15f.; and see Gardet, La Pensée religieuse
d’Avicenne, Paris, 1951, p. 132 and G. Hourani, “Ibn Sînâ’s Essay on the
Secret of Destiny”, BSOAS 29 (1966), p.36. AI-Ghazâlî’s association of
the thesis that God acts for no end (gharad) with His liberality (jûd)
(e.g., Maqsad, p, 87, Ihyâ’4, p. 294, 28ff., and Iqti$âd, p.
165) is also reminiscent of Avicenna; cf, e.g., Ilâhiyyât, p. 366 (= Najâh,
p. 250), where the language reflects that of Muslim religious discourse, and 'Arshiyya,
pp. 10f.
[71] There
is a superficial examination of al-Ghazâlî’s treatment of the question of creation
and causation in the sublunary world in B. Abrahamov, “Al-Ghazâlî’s theory of
causality”, Studia Islámica (1988), pp. 75ff.
[72] Lafâ'ilailiallâhu
ta'âlâ wa-innakullamawjûdin min khalqin wa... ilâghayridhâlika mimmâ yantaliqu
ilayhi smun, fal-munfaridu bi-ibdâ’ihîhuwa: Ihya 4, p. 242,4f. The English is somewhat awkward,
but the logical subject of the second sentence is “kullu mawjûdin”.
There are, thus, two assertions, one concerning God and the other concerning
creatures.
[73] [Huwa]
khâliqu l-mahalli l-qâbili wa-khâliqu sharâ’iti qabûlihî wa-mâ yaktanifuhû:
Maqçad, p. 125,9 f. ; note that ‘khalaqa1 is here used in
its ordinary sense, not in the formal sense assigned by al-Ghazâlî that we
noted above.
[74] «Thus
those who attribute every [action] to God are the ones who use the word in the
strict sense and know the truth and the proper sense [of the word] while those
who attribute it to others are the ones who employ métaphores and images in
their speaking;... the one who determined the lexicon stipulated the noun
‘agent’ for the one who creates» (al-mukhtariy. Ihyâ’ 4, p. 252, If.
Thus «there are in existence only God and His actions...» (Maq$ad, p.
57; cf. also ibid, pp. 84 and 108); cp. 'Arshiyya, p. 10: kullu
mâ siwâhu fi'luhû wa-hwa fâ'iluhû wa-mûjiduhû.
[75] The
expression ‘dâ'iyatu l-irâdah' seems curious, since the motivation,
properly speaking, is the cognitive act of the mind or the sensation that moves
the will. What he appears to mean here is the motivation as embodied in the
volition to the particular act.
[76] Ihyâ’4, p. 249,19-24; see generally pp. 241-250 and cp.
Arba 7n, p. 242 and Maqçad, pp. 103 f. and 156 f. Note that what
is implied in 'mahallun wa-majran’ here appears in some respects to be
very close to the traditional Ash'arite conception. Exploiting the connotations
of the use of the verb ‘sakhkhara, yusakhkhiru' in the Koran with God as
the subject (e. g., 13,2,14.32,29.61, et alibi pass, where it is taken
to mean «to subject to His command and His will» [dhallalahû li- amrihî
wa-irâdatihî]: Ibn Fâris, s. v.), al-Ghazâlî employs it almost as a formal
expression. It is understood basically to mean «to force someone to do what he
does not wish to do, to subdue» (Ibn Sida, s.v.), «to subdue, to subject» (qahartuhû,
dhallaltuhû: Lisân al-Arab, s.v.), «to require/to force someone to work
without compensation» (kallafahû 'amalan bi-lâ 'ujrah: al- Jawhari,
s.v.). Avicenna uses it in Ajrâm (p. 47,3) of action that takes place
without antecedent volition.
[77] Ilâhiyyât, p. 437, 1-5 (= Najâh, p. 300, 12-15);
cf. also the almost identical statement, ibid, p. 439,12-15 (= Najâh,
p. 302,14-17).
[78] Ihyâ’ 4, p. 250,26ff., reading irtibâta 1-mashrûfi
bil-sharti for irtibâfa l-sharfi bil-mashrty in line 28 as is
required by the sense (cp. p. 249,29f.); see generally ibid., pp. 86f.
and 249f. and also Tahâfut, pp. 277ff., Mi'yâr, pp. 109f.
(discussed by M. Marmura in “Ghazâlî and Demonstrative Reasoning”, JHP
3 (1965), pp.294ff.), and Iqtiçâd, pp. 96ff. and 223f., where several
examples involving different kinds of events are discussed. The expression “irtibâfu
l-ma'lûli bil-'illah" here would seem perhaps a little curious since
in Tahâfut, p.96f., he rejects the falâsifa’s assertion that God
is related to creation (al-'âlam) as the 'illah to its ma'lûl
(but cf. Maqâçid 2, pp. 43 ff. where he uses ''illah' and 'ma'lûT
to explicitate the meaning of ‘sabab’ and ‘musabbab’). In the
present context, however, he has to use these expressions for the sake of
clarity because he has explicitly stated that he means ‘$abab’ and 'musabbab'
in the sense of ‘condition’ and ‘what is conditioned’.
[79] Ihya 4, pp. 86 f.; cf. also al-Iqtijâd, p.
97, where he carries the series one step further back, noting that the
existence of a spatial location (hayyiz) is the condition of the
existence of the atom or material substrate (jawhar). Regarding the
sense in which he uses ‘jawhar', cf. Iqtiçâd, p. 24, where,
following the traditional Ash'arite vocabulary he speaks of «jawharan fardan
wa-ini ’talafa ilâ ghayrihî nusammîhi jisman». In Ihyâ’ 4, p. 118,
16ff. he explicitly speaks of atoms (juz') in a routine explanation.
Concerning the description of two conjoined atoms as a body (jism), see
R. Frank, “Bodies and Atoms, the Ash'arite Analysis” (in Islamic Theology
and Philosophy: Studies in Honor of George E Hourani, ed. M. Marmura,
Albany, 1984), pp.39ff. (where note that the phrase ‘are formally strict’ has
been dropped following ‘two predicates’ on p. 49, line 2).
[80] «It
is inconceivable that the will be aroused except by the judgement of the sense
or of the imagination or by a decisive judgement of the mind» (ibid., p.
249,5f.). On the determination of the volition by sense or by mind, see also ibid.,
pp. 108f. and on the identification of the functioning of the power to act with
animal spirit, see ibid., pp. 111 f. and below. For this use of ‘inba'atha,
yanba'ithu', cp., e. g., de Anima, pp. 182f. and 194f. In the
present context the expression implies the operation of a determinant,
efficient cause; speaking of the kinds of “moving causes” al-Ghazâiî uses it (Tahâfut,
p. 240, lOff.) in offering the example of the operation of purely natural
forces, «such as nature in the downwards motion of a stone». For ‘baith =
‘dâ'iyah’ (motivation), cf., e.g., Tamhîd, p. 31.4. Al-Ghazâlî,
however, uses this word in a strictly causal sense as when he speaks of an irâdatun
ba it hah (Arba'in, p. 226, 1 and 15) as a
[81] In
its fundamental sense the word is not really equivalent to English ‘cause’. It
is a rope, bond, tie and thus «anything by which something is [or may be]
reached/attained/accomplished» (al- hablu wa-kullu mâ y uta ways alu bihî
ilâ ghayrihî: al-Jawharî, s. v. and Dîwân al-adab 3, p. 39b). It is
used broadly in literary Arabic and also by the mutakallimîn, albeit
their use of it as a formal expression for “cause” is narrower than that of the
falâsifa.
[82] With
this cp. the definition of condition given by al-Juwayni: «mâ lâyûjibu
thubûta mashrûfihî, walâkin yamtaruu l-mashrûfu bi-ntifâ’ihi 'alâ l-wajhi
l-ladhî ntaçaba sharfan» (Shâmil (69), p.708, cited in Ghunya, fol.
59r, Iff., q.v.f.); the definition follows one given by al-Bâqillânî (cited in Shâmil
(69), p. 110,18f.).
[83] In
ordinary classical Arabic, the verb 'rajah a, yarjihu, rujhânan’ means
basically to be weighty, heavy or grave, to be preponderant (as one side of a
balance) and, with the preposition ''ala’, to outweigh (cf. Ibn Fâris
and Dîwân al-adab, s. v.). Avicenna uses the factitive, 'rajjaha,
yuraj-
[84] The
same example is raised in Tahâfut, where his argument that the human
agent is not the cause of the movement of the water (p. 109, 3f.) hinges on a
cavil concerning the meaning of JaT.
[85] Cf.
also ibid p. 100,5 (-Arba'tn, p. 15,4f., where the term is used
of the mechanical operation of a water-clock) and Qistâs, p. 24,4. and
cp. the expression «idhâ jará sababun y ukhrijuhâ lia l- wujûd» (Ihyâ'
1, p. 86,12). Superficially the connotations of ' taw aliada' appear to
be different in Ihyâ 3, p. 359,22f., where he says «Conceit motivates
one to pride since it is one of its causes (ahadu asbâbihî), just as we
have mentioned; pride is produced by conceit and from pride the many defects (fa-yatawalladu
mina l-ujbi l-kibru wa-mina l-kibri l-âfâtu l-kathirah) ...». Here
al-Ghazâlî may simply be following a usage that is fairly common amongst the
sufis (cf., e.g., the citation of al-Junayd in Risâla 3, p. 150), but in
the context of his universal determinism it is not implausible that he means to
use the word in the formal sense of efficient causation. In the previously
cited texts, in any case, the word is unquestionably employed as a formal
expression. Though not frequently, the word is also used by Avicenna, e. g., Ilâhiyyât,
p. 359,16 (= Najâh, p.247).
[86] Cp.
Arba'tn, pp.240f., where natural phenomena (here plants from rain, rain
from clouds, &c.) being musakhkharah point unambiguously to “the
First”, though he adds that the apparent choices of men present a difficulty.
[87] Cp.,
e.g, Irshâd, p. 210,3-6 and al-Mutawallî, p. 37,12ff. Because, however,
the power to act comes to exist in the subject simultaneously with the event
that is its object, the event has the status of being the action or performance
of the subject rather than simply something he undergoes. Thus it is according
to al-Bâqillânî’s analysis, that while the created power to act does not cause
or produce the existence of its object (sc., the occurrence of the event), it
does have an effect on the event insofar as it determines its status with
respect to the human agent.
[88] Note
also that he speaks of «the spirit [= soul] and the perceptive and the motive
powers» in Tahâfut, p. 279. The métaphore of Ihyâ’ 4, p. 243f. is
quite clearly based on this assumption, as the will says (p. 244, 12ff.) «I
didn’t get up of myself but was gotten up; I didn’t arise but was aroused by an
overpowering judgement and a decisive command; I had been at rest prior to its
arrival» (... kuntu sâkinatan qabla majtihî) and the power of acting (p.
244, 7f.), and the power, «I was at rest and sleeping such a sleep that some
might think I was dead or non-existent» but the will «got me up and forced me
to move». Thus with regard to various of the normal psychological responses of
men as founded in God’s “custom” {Ihyâ’ 4, 289, 26f.) he states
nonetheless clearly that they are part of a natural disposition that belongs to
man’s nature (gharîzatun fî l-fibâ*).
[89] We
have already seen unambivalent instances of al-Ghazâlî’s use of the word 'qudrah'
in both senses, i. e., for (1) the facultative power to act (see the previous
note and also Ihyâ ' 4, pp. 111 f. and p. 248,25 cited earlier) and for
(2) the act or activation of the faculty (Ihyâ’ 4, p. 248,8 and p.
249,15, cited above); the latter sense is unambiguously clear wherever he uses
the plural, 'al- qudar’, e. g., Ihyâ’4,112, cited in the
preceding note. The activation of the power takes place as
[90] Within
this context, note the ambivalence of al-Ghazâlî’s statement that the motion
«is created as the realised object of a power to act which is [the servant’s]
attribute» (khuliqat maqdûratan bi-qudratin hiya wasfuhu), in which the
*&-’ of ‘bi-qudratirí can as well be read as instrumental and so
“through [i.e., by means of] a power of action...”; and note too the
ambivalence of the statement at the end of the section (p. 88,10 = Ihyâ’
1, p. 110,22f.), «ya^haru anna ta'alluqa l- qudrati laysa makhsû$an
bi-husûli l-maqdûri bi-hâ»; the relationship does not consist exclusively
in the object’s coming to be through it. With regard to this see the discussion
of Iqtiçâd, pp. 91 f. above.
[91] It
is thus that al-Juwaynî is in fact inconsistent in what he has to say on these
subjects in the majority of his works (e.g., in Irshâd, p. 210,2ff.) and
what he says in R. al-Nizâmiyya (e.g., pp. 46ff.); cf. the remarks to
this effect made by al-Ansârî (a student of al-Juwaynî and fellow student of
al-Ghazâlî) in Ghunya, foil. 120r° and 142v°.
[92] Al-Maqçad, p. 83 (cp. Qût 2, pp. 109,22ff.). Cf.
also Munqidh, pp. 86f., where the same hadîth is cited, and note how the
heavy religious language, together with this and the other traditions cited
there, are, as in the present passage, to be interpreted allegorically in terms
of the operation of the agent intellect, the actual reception of whose action
depends on the prerequisite achievement of the required state of receptiveness
that is produced by other celestial and terrestrial causes within the
universal system. Cf. also Ihyâ’ 3, p. 18.
[93] Cp.
Maqsad, p. 92, lOf. and p. 93,8f. Note al-Ghazâlî’s phrasing here; he
wants to be very exact and so says that God is a cause of the forms’
existence in particulars and their existence in particulars is a cause
of our acquiring them. The angel of the Throne, together with a host of lower
secondary causes, also causes the forms’ existence in particulars and so too
the causes of our perception are also causes of our acquisition of them as
intelligibles. From the outset the whole conception is a rejection of
traditional Ash‘arite doctrine, according to which the rela-
[94] Concerning
al-Ghazâlî’s occasional “either without intermediary or with ...”, see the
discussion of Ihyâ’, 4,250, Iff., infra and see n. 125. On the
role of angels in the development of the foetus in the womb, cf., e.g., Tahâfut,
p. 290, Iff. and Ihyâ’ 4, 251, 8f. and cp. Qât2, p. 143, 31 ff.
[95] So
also it is an angel that is responsible for the transformation of water into
air (Maqçad, p. 122). Generally concerning the operation and function of
the “terrestrial angels”, whose numbers are vast, cf. Ihyâ’4, pp. 117f.
It is this form which may come to exist in the mind as a universal; note,
however, that, for al-Ghazâlî, the angel which is the giver of forms is not
that which serves as the agent intellect. It would appear likely, indeed, that
al-Ghazâlî may envisage a plurality of angelic agents who serve as “givers of
forms”.
[96] Again
here the argument is in part simply dialectical, given the sense in which he
understands ‘agent’ and ‘inanimate’ (cf. ibid., pp. 96 and 99); on the
other hand, however, since the work is addressed to the falâsifa and
consistently employs their lexicon, one can hear ‘/47T and as ‘efficient cause’
and ‘efficient causation’. It is to be noted that he states the thesis which he
will reject as one according to which «the fire alone is the
agent/efficient cause of the burning» (p. 278, 10). Within this overall context
it is interesting to note that at one point al-Ghazâlî suggests that included
among the things that can be causally determinant (murajjih) is a conjunction
of events in which a prophet needs a miracle (Tahâfut, p. 289,6ff.), a
situation whose outcome, as we shall see, is programmed into the system from
the outset.
[97] Cf.,
e.g., Ihya1, pp. 36f. and p.99,28ff. and4, p. 86,23f., p. 241,15ff.
andp. 243, Ilf. where he presents a hadîth to authorise the practice and
see also ibid. p. 327,17f. Concerning Avicenna’s attitude and practice and its
background in the Aristotelian tradition, cf. D. Gutas, op. cit, pp.
225-234 and 299-311. Concerning al-Ghazâlî’s conception of the intellectual
capacities of men and the distribution of knowledge, see our “al-Ghazâlî on Taqlid”,
forthcoming in ZGAIW.
[98] In
some places he simply dodges the issue (e. g., Ihyâ’ 4, p. 249,22-33,
esp. 29-33) and in others puts it off with a simple “this ain’t the place to go
into that” (e.g., Maqçad, p. 145,12) or “most people couldn’t understand
it” (e. g., Mishkâh, p. 91,12). Note how this contrasts to Avicenna, who
explains the system in detail on the same topics (e.g., Ilâhiyyât,
pp.435ff. =* Najâh, pp.299ff.).
[99] Maqçad, p. 98, 9ff. = Arba in, p. 13, 7ff. He
lists these instruments and principles as «the heavens, the earth, the seas,
the air, and these immense bodies» {ibid., p. 101, 8f.); cf. also ibid.,
p. 82, 3f. where he speaks of the stars, the earth, water as «immense parts of
the world». (There is a longer list in Arba'in, pp. 13 and 16). Note the
definite, «the instruments which are the fundamental beings» (al-âlâtu
l-latîhiya l-ujûl: Maq$ad,p. 100,10 = Arba'in,p. 15.11);they are
original and originating with respect to all sublunary beings and events. In Maqçad,
p. 82,3, he speaks of the organisation of the parts of the universe and the
reason for «the stars’ being above and the earth’s and water’s being below and
all the other kinds of ordering that are found in the immense parts of the
universe» (fî l-ajzâ'i l-'i^âmi min ajzâ'i l-'âlam). For the purposes of
the present study there is no need to pursue his elaboration of the métaphore.
[100] The
phrase ‘bi-qadarin ma'lûm' evokes Q 77.22 where the context is that of
the creation of the
[101] Note
the use of the singular here instead of the usual plural. He says in Tahâfut
that the Muqar- rabûn (the angels who are placed near [to God]) and the
Cherubim and the Pen are called ‘pure intelligences’ Çuqûlun mujarradah)
and ‘self-subsistent substances’ in the terminology of the falâsifa (pp.
248,7 and 255, 5ff. and cf. p. 225,6f. and Mi'yâr, p. 165), while they
describe the «heavenly angels» (abmalâ’ikatu l-samâwiyya) as the souls
that move the heavenly spheres (pp.249, 4 and 255, 4); the “Cherished Tablet”
they identify with «the souls of the heavens» (ibid., p. 254). He notes (Mishkâh,
p. 91,1 ff.) that some individuals mistake the mover of the first sphere for
God, saying that their reasoning is «... that the mover of each heaven is
another entity which is called an angel [and]... these heavens are contained
within another sphere with whose motion the whole is moved one revolution in a
day and a night, so that it is the Lord Who is the one who moves the outermost
body which contains all the spheres, since multiplicitiy is totally absent from
him»; with this cp. Avicenna’s Commentary on Lambda, pp.23f. As we
noted, he speaks in Maqçad (p. 100, 5f.) of the aperture in the
apparatus as “the first cause” (i. e., the first within the apparatus) of the
whole set of movements that take place in the waterclock. It is clear, thus,
that while ‘the Throne’, following common usage, may in some contexts (e.g., Iqtiçâd,
p.56, 3f.) refer to the outermost sphere, in others it is to be understood as
referring to an angel associated with the outermost sphere. This is made
altogether clear in Iljâm, p. 20, translated below. Avicenna, in Aqsâm
al-'ulûm (p. 113, 9ff.), distinguishes a first rank of angels, the
Cherubim, from the lower, «second level spiritual substances ..., viz., the
angels that are entrusted with the heavens, the porters of the Throne, those
that direct nature, and those that have charge of the things that are generated
in the world of coming to be and passing away»; cf. also the allusion to «the
four angels and the bearers of the Throne» in al- Quwâ l-nafsâniyya, p.
177, 20. It should be noted that the association of angels with the individual
heavenly spheres is not peculiar to the falâsifa but is traditional;
thus al-Farrâ’ (d. 207/
[102] Al-Ghazâlî,
like Avicenna, uses 'al-huktri (judgement) for apperception in general
(of the senses, of the vis ¿estimativa, and of the intellect). For the
background of these identifications, cf. the statement of al-Bayhaqî discussing
the divine name “al-Hakam'\ that «His judgement is His statement (khabaruhu)
and His statement is His saying (qawluhd) and thus the intention of the
term refers to His Speaking (kalâmuhû)» (al-l'tiqâd, p. 34; the same
formulation is found in Tahbîr, fol. 73r°). Al-Ghazâlî exegetically
identifies all three terms {khalq, taqdir, and amr) in Q54.49f.
to which he alludes in Maqçad, pp. 98, 16f. and 102,6 (cited above) and
in Ihyâ’ 4, p. 94,7 (cited below).
[103] Iljâm, p. 20 (on which see below) and Maqsad,
p. 129,18f. Concerning this identification and al-Ghazâlî’s identification,
thus, of God’s speaking with «the first, universal ordering», it should be
noted that abû Isfcâq al-Isfarâ’înî is reported (Fr. 49 and 52) to have held
that “internal speaking” (ql-kalâmu l-qâ’imu bil-nafs) is what is termed
*tadbir’.
[104] Cf.,
e.g., Iqtiyad, pp. 80ff. The argument here follows that of al-Juwaynî’s
in R. al-Nizâmiyya, p.20.
[105] Elsewhere
(Mi'yâr, p. 73, If.) he says that ‘chooses’ {mukhtâr) is used
equivocally in two senses, viz., to mean (1) «who has the power to omit [the
action]» (al-qâdiru 'alâ l-tark) and (2) «who proceeds to do something
because of his appetite and because of the arousal of a motivation within
himself» (al-ladhî yaqdumu 'alâ l-shay’i li-shahwatihi wa-nbi'âthi dâ'iyatin
min dhâtihi).
[106] It
is clear, there is no question of God’s action being the function of some
purely intrinsic, natural determinism like the action of fire, in the example.
Such purely natural events are sometimes described as taking place “by
coïncidence” (bil-ittifáq)-, see, e.g., Maq$ad, p. 81, ult.,
translated above and n. 92 below.
[107] For
the background, cp. the statement of al-Bâqillânî (Hidâya, fol. 19r°),
«His acts have to take place through volition (bil-irâdah); He has no
need of any motivation that would move Him to the act of willing (lam yahtaj
Uâ da in yad'ûhu ilâfa'li l-irâdah), whence it is necessarily the case that
He acts or does not act because of His will». See also Miy'âr, p. 73, 1,
cited below.
[108] Al-qudratu
'ibâratun 'ani l-ma'nâ Idadhîbihîyûjadu l-shay’u mutaqaddiratan bi-taqdîri
l-irâdati wal-'ilmi wâqi'an 'alâ waqfihimâ: Maqyad, p. 145, Iff. (cp. 'Arshiyya, p. 10).
(The translation here is rather unsatisfactory, since the Arabic sentence is
difficult to render without distortion, as both ‘mutaqaddiratan' and 'wâqi'an’
are circumstantial to 'yûjadu). With this, cp. Ifyyâ’1, p. 90,
9-12, where he expresses himself in very traditional terms and later on the
same page (11.28f.): «ahdatha l-khalqa içhâran li-qudratihî li-mâ sabaqa min
irâdatihî wa-li-mâ haqqa fîl- azali min kalimatihî».
[109] Ibya
4, p. 94, 5 ff., reading
bakht (luck) for bahth in line 6; cp. Maqçad, p. 81, ult.,
translated above. With this cp. Ilâhiyyât, p. 415,2f. (= Najâh,
p. 284,12f.): «There is no way you can deny the marvelous evidences (al-âthâru
l-'ajîbah) of the world’s becomings and of the parts of the heavens and the
parts of animals and plants, none of which are produced by coïncidence but on
the contrary require that there be a given ordering» (lâ taçduru ttifâqan
bal yaqtadî tadbîran- mâ), an ordering which he identifies with God’s
providence ('inâyah). Note that Avicenna’s ‘tadbîrun-mâ’
corresponds to the Judgement or Ordainment that al-Ghazâlî also refers to as a tadbîr.
By ‘coïncidence’ (ittifâq) here Avicenna does not mean chance or a
fortuitous occurrence but whatever takes place simply by nature and without an
end or purpose that is known and in some way intended or chosen (cf. Burhân,
p. 298,11-15 and Ilâhiyyât, pp. 172f. and cp. 'Arshiyya, p.
10,2ff, which is discussed below). It is in this sense that we should
understand al- Ghazâlî’s use of the word here. ‘Al-qadâ" here does
not name the Accomplishment, which is the concrete system or mechanism of the
universe, but rather the Eternal Decree (Maqçad, p. 103,5), on which see
below.
[110] In
both of these places in Maqçad the editor has failed to note the Koranic
allusion and reads ka-lamhi l-bajar rather than ka-lamhin bil-ba$ar
with Q 54.50 and as in Ihyâ’, loe. cit; cf., however, Aqsâm, pp.
113f. One might suggest that there is a background for these identifications in
[111] Cf.
Thaghr, p. 93,11 f. and Ta’wîl, fol. 108v°, 7f. «.. .fa-khâlafa
bayna ajnâsil-barriyyatibi-luffi l-tadbîri wa-bayna anwâ'i l-khalîqati bi-husni
l-taqdîr». (For this lexical usage of 'khâlafa, yukhâlifti’, see
also Ibn Qutayba, Ikhtilâf, p. 14,7f. and La(d'if5, p. 287, If.
and cp. the use of ‘mâthala, yumâthilu' in the opposite sense in Mushkil,
p. 16,8.) Cf. also, e.g., Mujarrad, p. 37, 16f.
[112] Cf.,
e.g., Mujarrad, pp. 125, 3f. and 246, 12ff., Lafâ'ifl, p. 165 (ad
6.38), Tahbir, fol. 79r°, 6ff., and particularly Sharh al-Irshâd
foil. 159r°f. It is clear that the mutakallimîn were aware that this is
an important question, but because it was not a focus of major controversy (e.
g., between the Ash'arites and the Mu'tazila) it did not receive much
attention, at least in the available manuals. The falâsifa don’t raise
the issue, because it was not raised in their sources.
[113] Cf.,
e. g., Ikhtiçâr, fol. 205v°; Sharh al-Irshâd, loe. cit. and Ghunya,
fol. 106r°. At-Juwaynî takes the position that there is no way to know whether
the classes of possible beings are infinite or not (Ikhtiçâr, foil.
205v°, 19f. and 129r°f.).
[114] Cf.,
e.g., Tahâfut, pp. 39 ff., Iqtisâd, pp. 101 ff., and Qudsiyya,
p. 85 (= Ihyâ’ l,p. 108,16ff.).
[115] In
this dogmatic introduction that precedes al-Qudsiyya in Ihyâ’
al-Ghazâlî adheres formally to the tradition of the manuals in both topics and
language. ‘Qâ’imah’ occurs thus as a part of a traditional doctrinal
formula and accordingly need not be understood literally or as it would if
found in the earlier Ash'arite manuals.
[116] Iqtiçâd, p. 102,1 ff. and Qudsiyya, p. 85,6f. ;
cp. de Anima, p. 194,9, where Avicenna says that the perceptive
faculties (viz. sense, imagination, æstimatio, and intellect), having only
apperception and judgement, are not motive.
[117] By
itself this expression might also be rendered “all the intelligibles”, but such
would not.be correct in the immediate context since the discussion here is not
restricted to the possibles (al- mumkinat) as such, sc., as universals.
[118] This
clearly envisions but a finite number of essences, instantiations of which are
possible. In the immediate context, it might be objected, that he appeals to
creation as given in order to prove that God wills and that it would be
therefore inappropriate for him to raise the question of the possibility of
other essential kinds. Theologically, however, the issue is of such importance
that he should certainly have brought it up if he did not hold that the classes
of the possibles are restricted. The question was disputed (see n. 96 above)
and al-Ghazâlî cannot have been unaware of the problem; and he was certainly
not shy about introducing issues into contexts where their presence is not
strictly required, but on the contrary, as we shall see, occasionally does so
apparently to signal his revision of traditional teaching. It might be suggested
that since the matter was commonly presented in the Ash’arite texts as a
question of whether or not the classes of possible “accidents” are infinite,
al-Ghazâlî felt that it was not really pertinent to the Aristotelian conceptual
framework of his own doctrine. That is, in the traditional kalâm of
al-Ghazâlî’s predecessors, accidents (al-a'râd) are conceived as
entities (dhawât) properly speaking and their classes are classes of
essences, while bodies (corporeal beings) are merely conglomerates or
composites of atoms and accidents, atoms (al-jawâhir) being identical
members of a single class of entities; any diversity of essences and of the
beings of the world of our experience will, within this context, necessarily
have its reality as a diversity of “accidents”. Since the falâsifa did
not raise the question, but took for granted that the possibles are simply
possible instantiations of the kinds of things that already exist and since, in
the Aristotelian framework al-Ghazâlî had adopted, accidents (e.g., colors) are
not properly speaking, entities or essences (forms, species, etc.) anyway (are
not possibles in the most primary and significant sense) hé may have felt free
to ignore the matter. If this is the case, however, either he did not grasp the
significance of the issue or he willfully dodged it on the basis of an
equivocation of ‘accident’. There are a number of questions involved here, however,
and the matter is too complex for us to pursue in the present context.
[119] In
Tahâfut he twice states (pp. 173 and 176) that Avicenna held that the
species and genera of universals (and by implication, therefore, of possibles)
that God knows are infinite. I know of no place where Avicenna says this nor,
moreover, can I think of how such a thesis would be integrated into his
metaphysics. Al-Ghazâlî, in any case, says nothing to suggest that he holds
such a position himself.
[120] Cf.
Iqtisâd, pp.83ff. and below. For the earlier discussion of this
question, cf., e.g., Tamhîd §565f., Shâmil (69), p. 375 and La(â’if5,
p. 141 translated below. Al-Ghazâlî’s argument here (p. 85,4ff. and cp. pp. 181
f.), sc., that its existence is impossible (muhâT) because if it were to
come to be then God’s eternal knowledge would become error (jahl) is
common with the Ash'arites (cf., e. g., al-Harâsî, fol. 192v°f.) and was
elaborated already by the Mu'tazilite, abû 'Alî al-Jubbâ’î (Maqâlât, pp.
204 f. - 560f., which is translated and discussed in our “Can God do Evil” (in Divine
Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy, ed. T. Rudavsky,
Utrecht, 1985), pp. 77 f.
[121] The
sentence is architecturally quite complex. The primary subject, “everything
that is between the heaven and the earth” has syntactically two predicates, (1)
“hâdithun” (comes to be) with its pair of modifiers and (2) “lâ
yutaçawwaru an yakûna...” (is such that it is not conceivable that it be
...), which itself is followed by two predicates, ‘as ... come to be’ and ‘[as
it] is according... exists’. From a purely grammatical standpoint, the compound
clause “lâ yutaçawwar" could be read as a qualifier of “a
consequent rightness” (or of “a necessary order and a consequent rightness”, if
the two terms are taken together as representing but one thing) rather than as
a second predicate to “everything ... earth”, but such a reading would seem
unlikely on stylistic as well as on intentional grounds.
[122] With
the use of the Koranic verse here, cp. Avicenna’s statement (Ilâhiyyât,
p. 415, cited above) that the order of the universe did not happen “by
coïncidence” but rather is the result of providence Çinâyah).
[123] For
the background, cf., e.g., Luma' (A), § 115, Tamhid, pp. 312f.,
and Lafâ’ifS, p. 98. Thus the ‘bil-haqq’ of Q 44,39 is glossed in
Lafâ’if 5, p. 385 «bil-hukmi l-haqqi wa-bil-amri l-haqq».
[124] For
the traditional use, cf.,e.g., Luma'(Q), p.61,19 and see ibid., p. 73,
n. 16 to the translation. That this traditional sense of ‘right’ is apparently
alien to al-Ghazâlî, v. infra.
[125] Ibn
Fâris (2, p. 15) says that in its basic meaning the root «signifies ihkâmu
l-shay’i wa-sih- hatihí», i. e., is to do or make something with skill and
perfection (the way it ought to be done if it is to be done right) and the
things’s being good (correct, valid). The verb, ‘haqqa, yahiqqu' is
defined as an equivalent of 'wajaba, yajibu’ in Maqâyîs, Dîwân
al-adab, and 73/ al-lugha, s. v. In the present context ‘necessary’
or ‘obligatory’ in the traditional, juridical sense is excluded, since God is
not subject to the command of another. Although 'al-haqq' in the
separate lexical sense of what truly is (what exists and is a fact) or of what
is true (the verbal presentation and assertion of what is in fact the case) is
not revelant to the present passage, it may be noted that al-Zajjâjî (p. 307)
defines ‘Ziaçça, yahuqqu’ by 'wajaba, yajibu’. For al-Ghazâlî’s
use of 'yan- baghî in contexts such as this, see below.
[126] The
terms will thus be in basic conformity with al-Ghazâlî’s usage on the preceding
page (p. 249, 32ff.), where he says, «Nothing comes before and nothing after
save bil-haqqi wal- luztim and thus are all the actions of God (the exalted);
were this not the case, to make things occur before and after would be
pointless ('abath) and analogous to the deeds of the insane». Though
perhaps rhetorically effective, the statement is somewhat vague. "Bil-haqqi
wal-
[127] In
some cases one event may be said to be the cause of another insofar as the
relationship is such that the one juridically determines the status of the
other, as, e. g., the intention of the subject may be said to cause the washing
(a) to be an act of obedience to God and (b) to be an ablution rather than a
mere washing and the washing’s being an ablution is the cause of the
achievement of the state of ritual purity in the subject. In such cases,
however, no entity comes to be, no new existence is realised.
[128] Cf.,
e.g., Iqtiçâd, p. 172f. and Z/iyd’4, p. 289,27f. and cp., e.g.,al-Quwâ
l-nafsâniyya, p. 175, lOf. That the lawful operation of the universal
system is in fact inalterable, cf. Iljâm, pp. 20f., discussed below. It
is within this context that one has to read some of al-Ghazâlî’s statements
about the miracles that lie within God’s power (e. g., Tahâfut, pp.
277f. and 285f. and Iqtiyâd, pp.97f.); i.e., in order to ascertain what
al-Ghazâlî actually asserts and what he does not
[129] Maq$ad, p. 137, 9ff. The context here is the discussion
of “The Thith” (or “The Real”) as one of God’s names. 'Al-haqq' is
commonly interpreted by the Ash’arites as the equivalent of ‘existent’ or ‘the
truly existent’ (cf. Irshâd, p. 153,6 and generally Gimaret, Norns,
pp. 140ff.) and, following the ordinary lexical usage (cf., e.g., al-Zajjâj, p.
53), is commonly employed in kalâm for “[is] real” or “(is] a fact”.
Al-Ghazâlî plays with the various senses of the term here and within the
context plays also on the overtones of its presence in 'istahaqqa,
yastahiqqu’’ (ordinarily “to deserve” but frequently in formal usage “to be
such/of such a kind/of such a nature as to”). Al-Ghazâlî’s text here is a
paraphrase of llâhiyyât, p. 356, lOff., where one has the same play on 'istahaqqa',
the same description of the possible as bâfil, and where the same Koran
verse is cited. Regarding the intrinsic non-being of the possible and of the
contingently existent, cp. Z/iyà’4, p. 86,30f., where he says, «You are
something [s/iay’ = an existent entity] since the creator of things has made
you something, but are nothing when you are of the opinion that you have
something which comes from your own being as such» (min dhâtika). For an
analogous discussion in terms of “light”, cî.Mishkâh, pp. 53 f. For this
opposition of al-haqq and al-bâfil, cf. also Akhbâr al-Hallâj,
no. 37. Avicenna often uses 'al-haqq' to name or to describe his “first
principle” (e.g., llâhiyyât, p.27, Commentary on Lambda, p.23,
21), the really existent whose existence is not an accident.
[130] «Existence
is like the accidental with respect to the intelligible quiddity, since the
quiddity can come to be in the mind together with doubt as to whether the
particular quiddity has concrete
[131] Maqçad, p. 105, 15-17. Note the analogous structure p.
106, 9ff. where he speaks of God as liberal (jawâd) in giving the human
body all the parts it has and needs and as just ('adl) for putting each
in its proper place. Note also that the citation of Q 20.50 (a'(â kulla
shay’in khalqahû thumma hadâ) - the completion of which any of
al-Ghazâlî’s readers would hear from the portion he cited - implicitly carries
through here into the statement about liberality with its second element, “and
then gave it right guidance”. Cp. also Maqfyid 2, p. 84, where the same
Koran verse is cited arid also Ajrâm, pp. 51 f.
[133] Fr.
no. 94 The same definition is used by al-Mâturîdî, Tawhîd, p. 97.
[134] Al-Bayhaqî,
l'tiqâd, p. 34; this the most common Ash'arite definition of justice or
the ethically good; cf., e.g., Mujarrad, pp. 125 and 139ff., and
al-Juwaynî, Kâmil, pp. 38f. That God is not bound by any ethical rule
and that He may command men what He does not will that they do, cf. the
discussion in our “Moral Obligation in Classical Muslim Theology", pp.
214f.
[135] On
this see also nn. 123 f. above. Al-Ghazâlî’s doctrine here may appear to
resemble the doctrine of the Mu'tazila according to which God is morally
obligated to certain universal rules of ethical good and bad which require that
having created men He deal justly with them and, according to the Baghdâd
school, that He do what is best for them. The intuitionist deontology of the
Mu'tazila, however, is essentially different in conception and in its
theological consequences from the basically consequentialist theory based on
the good of essential natures that underlies the doctrine of al-Ghazâlî.
[136] Maqçad, p. 109, 8-10 (and cp. also p. 68, 7ff.,
translated above, and pp. 105f.). (‘What ...’ here refers to the universal
system, the apparatus of universal causes.) It is clear enough from analogous
and parallel passages that it is not al-Ghazâlî’s intention in the present
passage to suggest that God might have created a totally different universe
(one containing quite different . kinds of things), but only that the
arrangement of the kinds of things we know might have been different.
“Something else” (amrun âkhar) means not another (kind of) entity (shay’un
âkhar) but another situation or circumstance. Note the parallel occurrence
of the phrase ‘'alâ mâ yanbaghî wa-kamâ yanbaghr in Ihya 4, p.
252, translated above. With this cp. 'Arshiyya, pp. 16f., Ishârât,
pp. 185f., Ilâhiyyât, pp. 414f. (= Najâh, pp. 284f.). The
assumption that this
is the most perfect possible universe would seem
almost certainly to be something al-Ghazâlî acquired as an integral element of
the metaphysics he adopted from thefalâsifa. It is interesting to note
that while he rejects the emanationist elements of the Neoplatonic metaphysics
of al- Fârâbî and Avicenna, he accepts the notion that there can be a best
possible universe and that its actuality is a result of God’s liberality, something
whose theological consequences are far more serious and more obviously
incompatible with traditional orthodoxy. This is particularly conspicuous when
one considers the cogency of the arguments set out against emanation in Tahâfut
and the gratuity of his assumption of the perfection of the universe (see,
e.g., the citation of Tahâfut in n. 132 above).
[137] E.g.,
Maqçad, p. 152,13, cited above; and cp. Ajrâm, pp. 51 f.
[138] Al-Harâsî,
foil. 57v° f. and Ghunya, fol. 20v°, where the thesis of the eternity of
the world is attributed explicitly to Aristotle. For analogous arguments of the
Mu'tazila, cf., e.g., 'Abd al- Jabbâr, al-Mughnî 11, 122 ff.
[139] Op.
Cit., fol. 176r°. Here
with al-Ançârî we are in the context of traditional Ash'arite doctrine. Note
also the analogous denial by ‘Abd al-Jabbâr that God’s generosity requires that
He bring about what is best (al-ajlah), e.g., al-Mughnî 11,
p.81ff. Against this Avicenna (Ilâhiyyât, p. 380) calls the mutakallimîn
“miTaftilah” (deniers of the reality of God’s attributes), using an
expression employed by the Ash'arites in their condemnation of Mu'tazilite
teaching.
[140] For
this cf., e.g., Mujarrad, pp. 125 and 139ff.; this is the argument
presented by al-Anÿârî concerning generosity and miserliness in the passage
cited in the preceding note. On this problem, v. our “Wo Islamic Views of Human
Agency” and more generally concerning the traditional Ash'arite conception of
God’s justice, our “Moral Obligation in Classical Muslim Theology”, pp. 207ff.
Injustice and niggardliness are associated, as the latter is identified with
withholding what is rightfully due (e.g., Luma* (A), §41).
[141] There
is analogous material, e.g., in Fadâ'ih, pp. 104 and 106 and Ihya
1, p.90 (= Arbâ'în, pp. 19f.), though, for our present interests, not so
clearly set forth and discussed.
[142] Note
that al-Ghazâlî’s arguments through this section of Iqtiçâd tend perhaps
to sound more traditional than they are because of the explicit formulation of
the original thesis and counterthesis and also because of the ambivalence of 'wâjib'.
One can only admire the way he has managed to maintain a semblance of
traditional concepts and constructs while saying something very different from
them. In the present context, e. g., note the formulation, «.maná I-
[143] Cf.,
e.g., Ilâhiyyât, p. 403, 13-15 (= Najâh, p.275, 1-3) and cp. Miy'âr,
p. 195, 4, discussed below. Note that in the formulation of al-Ghazâlî, one
could read yûjadu from ‘awjada’ and so render “from which is
caused to exist...”. Further, note that the formulation employed here (and
later on, p. 50) could be read in a quite traditional way, given that the
Ash'arites hold that God exists necessarily and commonly identify what it is to
be God (al-ilâhiyyah) as to have the power to create. In the context,
however, largely because of the vocabulary and style of Maq- ?ad, the
formulation evokes the language and doctrine of Avicenna, more than that of the
Ash*arite manuals.
[144] Cf.,
e.g., Tamhtd, §§565f. and Ghunya, foil. 144v° and 67r° and generally
al-Harâsî, foil. 192v° f. According to some (e. g., Ibn Fûrak and abû Ishâq
al-Isfarâ’înî) God wills not only that what is to be shall be but that what is
not to be shall not be; cf., e. g., Ghunya, fol. 71r°, 19. See also the
references cited in n. 137 below.
[145] The
Mu'tazila conceived the will and its role differently than did the Ash'arites,
holding that volition’s function is to determine the modality of the occurrence
of the event in such a way as to determine its secondary characteristics. On this
and concerning the question of human agency generally according to the
Mu'tazila, cf. R. Frank, “The Autonomy of the Human Agent”, le Muséon 95
(1982), pp. 323 ff. That God does not will the wrongful acts of men, cf., e.g.,
'Abd al-Jabbâr, al-Mughnî6/2, pp.296ff. According to the Mu'tazilite
conception, God cannot, strictly speaking, be said to will human actions at
all. For the Ash'arites, because of their doctrine of the universal
effectiveness of God’s eternal will, the question of how it is that God commands
what He does not will and wills what He does not command becomes a major topic
of discussion. It should be recalled here that neither of the two schools seems
ever completely to have succeeded in conceiving God as wholly above and
outside the temporal framework of our material universe. For this reason there
are a number of theological difficulties that they were never able to resolve
completely.
[146] E.g.,
Injâf, p.36, 12, al-Isfarâ’înî, 'Aqîda, §IV, 24, al-Mutawallî,
p.23, 19., al-Fûrakî, fol. 101v°, 9, and Ikhtitfr, fo. 93r°, 3 ff.
[147] Concerning
the argument see the references in n. 104 above. Note the contrast between this
and al-Ashean’s exegesis of the same verse (reported in Mujarrad,
p. 72), which addresses the possibility that God have willed to do other than
what He does. That God does not act by his nature («like the fabâ’i'
according to the doctrine of those who assert their existence»), cf. al-
Isfarâ’înî, Fr. 11.
[148] In
this case the assertion will be essentially equivalent to that of aI-An?ârî
where he says (Ghunya, fol. 29r°, 9f.): «wujûdu l-ilâhi lâ yu’qal
dûna çifâti dhâtihî lâ li-kawnihâ min çifâti nafsihî bal li-wujâbi wujûdihâ
wa-li-dhâtihâ». Because of the context and the way it is formulated, there
is nothing in al-Anÿârî’s statement, however, that carries ambiguity of
al-Ghazâlî’s fi jamî’i jihâtihr. It should be recalled that al-Juwayni,
among others, understood *qadtm\ when predicated of God, to mean “whose
existence is necessary” (wâjibu l-wujûd) (see references above, nn.
15f.), following the more common Ash'arite analysis of the term as “whose
non-existence is impossible” (al-mustahilu ’adamuhû). Basically,
however, the word is understood to mean when said of God “has no beginning” and
accordingly ‘wâjib’ is not simply
[149] In
the discussion of possible and necessary existence in Mi'yâr parallel to
that of Iqtiçâd, p. 84 f., he employs only one term, azaliyyah’,
«fal-'âlamu wâjibun mahmâ faradnâ l-mashî’ata l-azaliyyata muta'alliqatan
bi-wujûdihî» (the world is necessary when we assume that the eternal will
has its existence as its object: p. 194, 2f.).
[150] With
this cp. Ihyâ’ 4, p. 248,2: «The upper world ('âlamu l-malakût)
is from God and for this reason you shall find in it no variation and
inconsistency at ail» (là tajidu fîhi khtilâfan wa- tadâddan açlan). He
quotes Q35.43 also in regard to the psychology of the human soul (ibid., p.
289, 27, cited above). On the background of the formulation here cp. La[â’if3,
p. 94 (ad 10.33). Al-Ghazâlî’s use of Q 35.43 here is to be compared
with its use in the argument of his opponent in Tahâfut, p. 372 and
similarly his use of Q 45.50 to describe God’s originating Determination and
Command in Maqçad should be set alongside its occurrence in the same
passage of Tahâfut; the contrasts are illustrative of the very subtle
interaction between al- Ghazâlî and Avicenna. For the opponent of Tahâfut
these verses assert that the world must exist eternally and always the same and
for al-Ghazâlî that the laws of the cosmos are necessarily as they are and are
invariant and unalterable now, i.e., since the beginning and “until the
document shall reach its term”.
[151] Cp.
al-Ghazâlî’s use of the word in Mîzân, p. 40,7 f., where he says
«actions are the products of moral character (natâ’iju l-akhlâq), just
as descending downwards is the product of natural weight». This use of the word
is frequent in ethical contexts (of., e. g., Lafâ’if 1, p. 119,4, p. 20,
and 5, p. 320), but al-Ghazâlî’s addition of the physical analogy gives an
altogether different connotation to the ‘product’ than is usual. ‘Natijah.’
is a common word for the product, result,
[152] Note
that this statement is unqualified, while the following one, viz., that God has
the power (qâdirun 'alâ) to bring about the end of this world now, is
qualified by the ensuing condition. The second statement, thus, remains
formally true, though, as we have seen, it is in fact not possible that God
have willed to create a world in any respect different from the one we know,
since to have done so would have been inconsistent with His liberality and His
justice. For the description of what it means to have the power to act, cp. the
passage of Iqtiçâd cited in n. 53 above.
[153] He
has insisted earlier that God’s providence (al-inâyah) does not imply
any «final cause» ('Arshiyyah, pp. 6,21 ff. and 10,23ff.). Note that
though this remark is not reflected in Maq-
[154] The
text here is somewhat problematic, though the sense is clear enough. Plainly
the ‘wujûdani ttifâqiyyan’ of p. 172,1 has (1) to be a circumstantial (hâl)
phrase for something, either for the proceeding llâ yataghayyani
(omitting the following w4w) or for something that has been lost and is (2)
conjoined to the ‘aw-yastahilu ... dhâtiyyan' phrase as an alternative.
The sense of the 'ittifâq’ here, then, is not the same as that of Ilâhiyyât,
p. 415, which we saw earlier. Père Anawati’s rendering (La Métaphysique du
Shifâ', livres Ià IV, Paris, 1978, p. 217), “fortuite", thus,
is in error. Concerning the sense of 'ittifâqiyyan' in the present
context, cp. Arshiyya, p. 10, 5f.: «it must be the case that its action
is either variable or constant» (...an yakûna fïluhû mukhtalifan
aw-muttafiqan).
[155] The
same passage of Arshiyya is paraphrased also in Maqfyid 2, p. 85
(where read min for wa- after Id budd in line 19).
[156] As
we have noted, the ensuing remark on God’s having the power to end the world
now has to do only with what is counterfactually possible. It is interesting to
note that in contrast to his emendation of Avicenna’s ‘natîjatu l-'ilmi
l-sâbiq' mentioned above, he here states the counter- factual in terms not
of the determination of God’s will but of his eternal foreknowledge.
[157] One
has to read carefully. In A rba 'in, pp. 19 f. al-Ghazâlî says of God,
«ahdatha l-khalqa izhâran li-qudratihî.. .lâ li-ftiqârin wadâ li-hâjatin
wa-annahû mutafaâddun bil-khalqi wal-ikhtirai wal- taklîfi lâ 'an wujûbin
wa-mutafawwilun bil-in'âm ...», where the 'mutafaddil ■ • • lâ 'an
wujûb’ might erroneously be taken to mean “gratuitously..., without any
necessity” as denying that God creates necessarily what He creates, whereas in
fact ‘wujûb’ here means moral obligation; we saw earlier in analysing Iqtiçâd,
pp. 174ft. what al-Ghazâlî means when he says that no action is “necessary” for
God in the sense of being morally obligatory or incumbent Him.
[158] See
Ihyâ’ 4,248f. and Maqçad p. 87, discussed above, and cp. llâhiyyât,
p. 366, lOff. (= Najâh, p. 250,3ff.) where it is said that God’s will is
unlike ours; since he can have no purpose (ghara<j) «He wills per
se (li-dhâtihi) this kind of pure intellectual volition» (al-irâdatu
l-'aqliyyatu l- mahdah)', cf. also Mubâhathât, § 471 ff.
[159] One
sees here one of the consequences and symptoms of al-Ghazâlî’s rejection of the
traditional analysis and the degree to which the conceptual framework of the falsafa
dominates his thinking. That is, following the traditional vocabulary and
analysis to say that something (generally a particular) is possible (maqdûr)
is analytically to say that it is a [potential] object of God’s power: ‘maqdûrun
li-llâh' = ‘Allâhu qâdirun 'alayM* — ‘li-llâhiqudratun 'alayhP (where ‘a
power’ becomes the subject term of the final analytic transform), and, by
implication, then, that its existence is possible. lJaiz'
(concretely possible) as well as ‘mumkin' will be explained in terms of
God’s power to cause existence (e.g., Ghunya, foil. 91v°, lOff. and
125v°, 23ff;cf. also, e. g., the discussion in Shâmil (69), pp. 375 f.;
note that prior to the time of al-Juwayni 'mumkirí is normally used of
logical possibility, not ontological). Al-Ghazâlî, however, following
Avicenna, begins from the abstract notion of the neutral relationship of the
universal as such to the contingent existence or non-existence of its
instantiations. As we noted earlier,
[160] E.
g., was his sense of the possibles as universals that are instantiated in the
various spedes that make up the present world so dominant as to banish the
earlier Ash'arite problematic from his mind and preclude his being able
seriously to entertain the question of their ontologically needing an origin at
all?
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