3. Eternity of the World.-The proof of the philosophers for the eternity of the world starts with certain assumptions with regard to the notions of cause and will. These they take to be true axiomatically: (1) Every effect has a cause. (2) Cause must be the action of some external force other than the effect. (3) Cause or an act of will when executed must immediately lead to the effeet.46 For world’s coming from non-existence to existence there certainly should have been some cause; this cause could not be a physical cause for ex hypothe-si none yet existed. If this cause arose from an act of will by God at some specific time, then the divine will itself should have been determined by some other cause. This cause which led God to change His mind should certainly be outside His mind; but again this was not possible, for nothing outside Him yet existed. Thus, one is forced to conclude that either nothing ever arose from the being of God-which is not true, for the world does existor that the world must have been in existence from all eternity, as an immediate effect of His eternal will.
Al-Ghazālī declines to subscribe to any one of the assumptions as stated {598} above and shows that belief in the origination of the world from the eternal will of God at a specific moment of time as chosen by Him involves no violation of the fundamental principles of logic. The assumptions of the philosophers, that every effect has a cause and that a cause is a force external to its effect, do not have a logical coerciveness about them. It is quite legitimate to believe that God’s will does not have any cause or at least that this cause does not lie outside His will but in itself. Similarly, it is not logically necessary that the effect should follow a cause immediately, for it is not logically contradictory to hold the notion of “a delayed effect.” It is possible to think that God’s will is eternal and yet an object of that will has occurred at some period in time. Here a distinction should be made between the eternity of God’s will and the eternity of the object of His will. God, for example, can eternally will that Socrates and Plato should be born at such and such a time and that the one should be born before the other. Hence it is not logically illegitimate to affirm the orthodox belief that God eternally willed that the world should come into being at such and such a definite moment in time.
But the philosophers point out a real difficulty here. According to them, it is impossible to find out a differentiating principle for God’s eternal choice of a particular moment for the creation of the world. All moments of time are completely similar; how is it possible to choose between two completely similar things? Why, in short, was the world not created earlier or later than when it was created? One of the answers to this is that there arises no question of world’s being created earlier or later, for time yet was not; time too was created along with the creation of the world, i. e., both world and time are finite in duration. Al-Ghazālī adds further that should one assume with the philosophers that time is infinite, then at any present moment that infinite time has been brought to an end and a time that has an end is not infinite but finite. It is noteworthy that this is exactly the argument given by Kant in the thesis of his first antinomy.
Al-Ghazālī’s real standpoint, however, is that God just arbitrarily chose one particular moment rather than another for world’s coming into being. We need ask no more about this choice, for God’s will is completely undetermined. His will does not depend upon distinctions in the outside world, for it is itself the producer of all the distinctions therein. This creating of the distinctions in fact is the true significance of God’s will. God chooses a particular moment for the creation of the universe as He chooses a particular direction for the movement of the spheres of the (Ptolemaic) heaven, in some cases from east to west, in others from west to east (as described in the Aristotelian astronomy) even when the reversal of directions would have made no difference. There is no way to explain God’s choice either in one case or the other.
The difficulty posed by the philosophers arises because of their misguided attempt to understand the nature of divine will altogether in the terms of man’s will. Certainly, God’s will is not like man’s, as God’s knowledge is not like man’s knowledge. So far as God’s knowledge is concerned, the {599} philosophers avowedly admit that it differs from man’s knowledge in so many respects that in their final position it becomes indeed an inexplicable mystery. God, according to them, possesses the knowledge of all the universals without this knowledge necessitating plurality, without its being additional to His essence, and without its multiplying in proportion to the multiplicity of the objects known. Some of them assert after Aristotle that God is the knower, the knowledge, and the known, and that the three are one. Should we judge all this by what applies to man’s knowledge, it will be found to be an utter impossibility. While the philosophers admit that God’s knowledge cannot be compared with man’s knowledge, they insist upon drawing a comparison between God’s will and man’s will. This is exactly what al-Ghazālī calls the incoherence of the philosophers and, according to him, their thought-system taken as a whole reveals quite a number of such incoherences. Indeed, the philosophers’ very notion of eternal creation is self-contradictory and meaningless. Is it sense to speak of a creation of that which exists eternally? If God and the prime matter are both eternal existents, does it make sense to say that one is the cause of the other? Can the relation between two existents qua existents be regarded as a causal one?
Further, the philosophers put different constructions upon their notions of space and time. They assume time to be infinite and space to be finite, and yet consider time to be co-implicant of movement in space. Al-Ghazālī insists rightly that one who believes in the finitude of space must in consistency assume the existence of finite time, particularly when one holds the Aristotelian position that space, time, and movement in space are all related to one another.47 And if they insist that it is impossible to think of empty space, they should equally realize that it is impossible to conceive of an empty time.
These are just a few of the inconsistencies of the philosophers pointed out by al-Ghazālī in the course of his disputation with regard to the eternity of the world and they could be mentioned here only very briefly, considering the space at our disposal. One further point of criticism may, however, be added for its importance in the history of modern philosophy. Prior to its origination, the philosophers hold, the world must have either been possible (mumkin), or impossible (mumtani’), or necessary (wajib). It is impossible that it should have been impossible; for that which is impossible in itself is never brought into existence. Again, it is impossible for it to have been necessary in itself, for that which is necessary in itself is never deprived of existence. It follows then that the existence of the world must have always been possible in itself, otherwise it would never have come to be.
This possibility cannot inhere in possibility itself, nor in the agent, nor in no-substratum, for the possible is that which is in the process of becoming actual. Hence the subject of possibility is some substratum which is susceptible of possibility, and this is matter. Now, this matter cannot be considered to have been originated. If it had been originated, the possibility of its existence would have preceded its {600} existence. In that case possibility would have existed in itself, but possibility existing in itself is unintelligible. Hence matter is eternal and it is only the passing over of the forms to matter which is originated.
In rebutting this highly sophisticated argument of the philosophers al-Ghazālī points out in Kantian fashion that possibility like impossibility is a purely subjective notion to which nothing need correspond in reality. If possibility requires an existent to correspond to it, so would impossibility require something to correspond to it, but avowedly there is no existing thing in concrete reality to which impossibility may be referred. Hence possibility like impossibility is merely a concept; the assumption of an existing substratum to which this concept may be related is to have a metaphysical jump from mere thought to actual existence and is to commit as we understand now an ontological fallacy.
4. Theory of Emanation.-The entire argument of the philosophers with regard to the eternity of the world is, thus, full of contradictions and unproved assumptions, but the most manifest of their inconsistencies and the sheer baselesaness of their assumptions become signally conspicuous when they come to explain the origination of the world from the being of God in the terms of the Plotinian Theory of Emanation. Plotinus considers the world to be a necessary outflow from the being of God like light from the sun48 or better as Spinoza described it later like the properties of a triangle from a triangle.49 Muslim philosophers’ subscription to this view according to al-Ghazālī is the clearest evidence that their verbal avowal of creation is a mere dissimulation and duplicity. The problem of emanation with the philosophers, however, arises because of their over-emphasis on the abstract unity and absolute perfection of God. Creation through an act of volition implies both will and knowledge, and these cannot be predicated of God as attributes apart from His essence without doing violence to His absolute unity. Further, both will and knowledge are limitations: will in particular implies a deficiency in a being who wills, for it means that he desires or wants to have that which he lacks. Hence the philosophers elaborated an ingenious theory of emanation which contrives to erect a cosmological staircase between the stable stillness of God’s unity and the changing and varied multiplicity of the world. This staircase is constituted of a finely graded series of intelligences and souls of celestial spheres, each emanating from the other in an hierarchical fashion. The view that the celestial spheres are perfect and have souls and intelligences superior to that of man had the overwhelming authority of Aristotle50 and further it was possible and even fascinating to conceive of them in terms of angels as described by the theologians.{601}
The emanationism of the Muslim philosophers in the final analysis worked under two governing principles: First, it is not thinkable that from God who is a pure unity anything could proceed except that which is itself a unity. This gave rise to the formula: from one only one can follow. Secondly, being has two aspects: it is either necessary (wājib) or possible (mumkin); it is either essence (māhīyyah) or existence (annīyyah). In the case of God alone are essence and existence identical; in all other beings essence is separate from existence. From this it follows that all things are possible by their essence, and they become necessary by the existence given to them by God.
The first emanation from the existence of the First Principle (al-mabda’ al-awwal), the Necessary Being (al-wājīb al-wujūd), i. e., God, is the first intelligence (al-῾aql al-awwal) which is numerically one. Its existence is possible in itself and necessary through the First Principle; further, it knows its own essence as well as the essence of the First Principle. From its twofold existence and two-fold knowledge springs a multiplicity of knowledge and existence. The first intelligence, in fact, has three kinds of knowledge: of the First Principle, of its own essence in so far as it is necessary, and of its possible being. One might ask: What is the source of this three-foldness in the first intelligence when the principle from which it emanates is one? The answer is: From the First Principle only one proceeds, i.e., the essence of the first intelligence by which it knows itself. Now, its knowledge of its principle is evidently necessary, although this necessity is not derived from that principle. Again, being possible in itself the first intelligence cannot owe its possibility to the First Principle but possesses it in its own self.
Though only one should proceed from one, yet it is possible that the first effect may come to possess not from the First Principle but by itself certain necessary qualities which express some relation or negation of relation and give rise to plurality. Thus, from the three kinds of knowledge possessed by the first intelligence emanate three beings, but only one from each kind. As it knows its principle there proceeds from it a second intelligence; as it knows its essence there proceeds from it the first soul of the highest sphere (which is the ninth heaven); and as it knows itself as possible in itself there proceeds from it the body of that sphere. In a similar fashion from the second intelligence emanates the third intelligence, the soul of the stellar sphere and the body of that sphere. From the third intelligence emanates the fourth intelligence, the soul of the sphere of Saturn and the body of that sphere. From the fourth intelligence emanates the fifth intelligence, the soul of the sphere of Jupiter and the body of that sphere. Now there are, according to the then current Ptolemaic system, only nine celestial spheres in all including the sphere of the fixed stars all in concentric circles with earth in the centre.51 So, starting from the First Principle the emanations proceed on till the last or the tenth intelligence appears and {602} with it the last sphere of the moon and its soul. The tenth intelligence, also called the active intellect (al-῾aql al-fa῾῾āl),52 acts in our world. It produces the first matter (hayūla) which is passive and formless but which is the basis of the four elements from which all creatures arise. The composition and decomposition of the elements is the cause of generation and corruption of all bodies. But all these transformations take place under the influence of the movement of the spheres. As the active intellect is the producer of matter, so it is the dispenser of forms, dator formarum (wāhib al-şuwar). It gives to each matter its proper form and it also gives each body a soul (which in fact is its form) when that body is ready to receive it. Thus, active intellect is also the source of the existence of the human souls. But the human soul does not feel at home in its physical abode and yearns for nothing less than the First Principle Himself. Hence it starts its spiritual journey back to the original source traversing through the various stages of the intelligences of the spheres. This is a rounded though brief description of the emanationistic world-view so enthusiastically elaborated by the Muslim philosophers, by ibn Sina, for example, in both of his major works on philosophy, viz., Kitāb al-Shifā᾿ and Kitāb al-Najāt and by al-Farabi in his al-Madīnat al-Fāďilah.53
Determinism implicit in this emanationistic world-view is so opposed to the theistic voluntarism of the Ash῾arite world-view that al-Ghazālī launches the moat vehement attack against it. His strictures against this grand cosmological construction made out of so many various foreign imported ideas are the strongest and the bitterest of all others that may be found in the entire Tahāfut. All this, he inveighs, is arbitrary reasoning, idle speculation; a wild guess work; darkness piled upon darkness. If someone says he saw things of this kind in a dream, it would be inferred that he was suffering from some disease. Even an insane person could not rest satisfied with such postulates.54 In our own times, to say nothing of the scientists, F. R. Tennant who may be described as an eminent “religious positivist” holds the theory of emanation more or leas in the same estimation. 55
Al-Ghazālī’s criticism of the emanatiorustic argument consists in showing, on the one hand, that it fails to account for the multiplicity and composition in {603} the universe and, on the other, that it does not at all succeed in safeguarding the absolute unity of God. If the formula ever so glibly repeated that from one only one proceeds should be observed strictly logically, then all the beings in the world would be units, each of which would be an effect of some other unit above it, as it would be the cause of some other unit below it in a linear fashion. But in fact this is not the case. Every object, according to the philosophers themselves, is composed at least of form and matter. How does a composite thing such as a body then come into existence? Does it have only one cause? If the answer is in the affirmative, then the assertion that only one proceeds from one becomes null and void. If, on the other hand, a composite thing has a composite cause, then the same question will be repeated in the case of this cause so on and so forth till one arrives at a point where the compound necessarily meets the simple. This contact between the compound effect and the unitary cause wherever it occurs would falsify the principle that only one proceeds from one. Now, strictly speaking, all the existents in the universe are characterized by composition and only the First Principle, i. e., God, alone can be said to possess true simplicity or unity, for in Him alone there is the complete identity of essence and existence. This would lead us necessarily to the conclusion that either the principle of “only one from one” fails to account for the composition and multiplicity which is apparent in the universe or that even God does not possess a genuine unity. But the philosophers cloak the issue with their artificial subtleties and the grandiose constructions they put upon their emanationistic foundations.
What earthly and even unearthly relation is there, al-Ghazālī questions rightly, between the first intelligence’s having a possible existence and the body of the sphere of the second intelligence which is supposed to proceed from it? Neither logic nor experience can substantiate this wild supposition and as such it is no more than pure nonsense. Further, how is it possible that from two kinds of knowledge of the first intelligence, that is, knowledge of the First Principle and that of itself, should arise two kinds of existence, first, that of the second intelligence and, second, that of the soul of the highest sphere? How can the knowledge of a thing lead to the existence of a thing (as we would now put it after Kant) without committing an obvious ontological fallacy? How can the knower emanate from the knowing, al-Ghazālī rightly wonders, as does F. R. Tennant, and like him deplores that of all the people, philosophers should believe in such mythical nonsense.56
Even if the triplicity with which the philosophers characterize the first intelligence should be taken for granted (which indeed cannot be done) it fails to account for all that they want to deduce from it. The body of the highest sphere, which according to them proceeds only from one aspect of the essence of the first intelligence, is surely not unitary in nature but composite and that in three ways. {604} First, as stated above, it is composed of form and matter, as indeed all bodies are according to the philosophers’ own admission. True, form and matter always exist conjointly in all bodies, yet they are so different from each other that one cannot be the cause of the other. Hence, form and matter of the body of the highest sphere require two principles for their existence and not one. A unitary aspect of the three-fold character of the first intelligence fails to account for it.
Secondly, the body of this sphere has a definite size. Its having a definite size is something additional to the bare fact of its existence. Certainly, it could have come into existence with a different size, bigger or smaller than what it is. Hence, over and above that which necessitated the existence of the body of the sphere, there should be an additional cause to account for the adoption of this particular size.
Thirdly, in the highest heaven, there are marked out two points as its poles, which are fixed. This fact was admitted by the philosophers in accordance with the Aristotelian astronomy. Now, either all the parts of the highest sphere are similar in which case it is impossible to explain why two points should be chosen in perference to all the others as its poles; or they are different, some of them possessing properties which are not possessed by the others. Hence, we require yet another aspect in the first intelligence to be the cause for differences in the various parts of the highest sphere which differences alone would justify the choice of two points therein to be the poles.
In view of what has been stated above, it is sheer “ignorance” on the part of the philosophers to hold that the body of the highest sphere has emanated only from one aspect of the essence of first intelligence. Either the principle that only one proceeds from one is true, in which case the first intelligence which is not a mere triplicity but a whole multiplicity remains unexplained, or this principle is an empty formula signifying nothing, and, thus, making it possible that “many may proceed from one.” In the latter case the infinite variety and plurality of the world can be directly derived from the unity of God and there is no need to erect an emanationistic staircase between Him and the world.
The above principle certainly collapses when we come to the second intelligence, for it is supposed to be, in one of its aspects, the cause of the sphere of the fixed stars. These are twelve hundred or so (according to the then Greek or Arab astronomers’ reekoning)57 and are different in magnitude, shape, position, colour, and in respect of their special function in nature, etc. Each one of these factors in every single star needs a separate cause as its {605} determinant (murajjih). All this necessitates a bewildering multiplicity in the second intelligence and also indirectly presupposes the same in the first intelligence in so far as the latter is the emanative cause of the former.
Should the above arguments fail to convince the philosophers, there is another way to show that the first intelligence is more than a mere triplicity. Is the self-knowledge of the first intelligence identical with its essence or other than it? It is not possible that it should be identical, for knowledge is not the same thing as that which is known. Hence, the first intelligence is not a triplicity but a quadruplicity, to wit: its essence, its knowledge of itself, its knowledge of the First Principle, and its being a possible existent by itself. To all these four aspects there can be added yet another, namely, its being a necessary being whose necessity is derived from an external cause. All this proves that the first intelligence has five aspects and not three, as arbitrarily assumed by the philosophers. Whether the first intelligence has five aspects or three, it certainly is not of purely unitary character according to the philosophers’ own admission. This shows that there is something in the effect which is not present in the cause, i. e., the First Principle, and this is scandalous.
Not only does the formula that only one proceeds from one become shamefacedly invalid right at the outset, but further, according to al-Ghazālī, the entire emanationistic line of argument does great violence to the concept of God’s unity and, thus, nullifies the very purpose for which it is adopted. There is no reason, according to him, that the very arguments which the philosophers advance to establish the triple character of the first intelligence should not be applied to God Himself. One of the aspects of plurality in the first intelligence according to the philosophers is its being a possible existent by itself. It may be asked: Is its being possible identical with its existence or other than it? If it is identical, no plurality would arise from it. If it is other than its existence, then why should it not be possible to say that there is as much plurality in the First Principle, i. e., God Himself, for He not only has existence but is necessary in His existence ? The necessity of existence as such is other than existence itself. In truth, existence may be considered to be a generic concept divided into necessary and possible. If one specific difference is an addition to existence per se in one case, it should be considered so in the other also. If the philosophers insist that the possibility of existence is other than existence in the case of the first intelligence, through the same argument they should admit that necessity of existence is different from existence in the case of the First Principle.
Similarly, al-Ghazālī asks: Is the first intelligence’s knowledge of its principle identical with its existence and with its knowledge of itself or other than the two ? If it is identical, then there will be no plurality in its nature. But if it is other than the two, then such a plurality exists also in the First Principle, for He too knows Himself as well as what is other than Himself. Thus, al-Ghazālī contends that either there can be no plurality in the first intelligence or if it is there, then it is for the same reasons in the First Principle too, and, therefore, the beings characterized by diversity and plurality {606} would directly proceed from Him. Al-Ghazālī forces this conclusion upon the philosophers through their own logic.
For himself al-Ghazālī believes that: “The First Principle is an omnipotent and willing agent; He does what He wills, and ordains as He likes, and He creates the similar and dissimilar things alike, whenever and in whatever manner He wills? The impossibility of such a belief is neither a self-evident truth, nor a matter of inferential knowledge.” 58 Al-Ghazālī frankly and rightly confesses that the problem of God’s relation with the universe in the final analysis remains ever beyond the comprehension of human understanding. The inquiry into the manner in which the world proceeded from God’s will, he urges, is “an idle and aimless venture.” The modus operandi of God’s creative activity is wholly inexplicable and this inexplicability is inevitable; indeed, if it were explicable, it would not be “creative.” Explanation in all its forms establishes some connection or similarity with what is experienced, whereas God’s creativity is an activity through which the experients and what is experienced by them come to be. How can human comprehension envisage the mode of God’s act of creation when it is itself the creature of that act?
The philosophers try to avoid the charge of plurality with regard to the First Principle so far as His knowledge is concerned by affirming that the First Principle does not know anything other than Himself and that His self-knowledge is the same thing as His essence; so the knowledge, the knower, and the object of knowledge are all one in Him. This indeed was originally the position of Aristotle according to whom God is describable as thought thinking itself. In Aristotle’s own words, ` . . . it must be itself that thought thinks, and its thinking is thinking on thinking.” 59 This view of God as reflective thought, reflective in the literal sense of turning back upon itself, has been subjected to severe criticism by al-Ghazālī. According to him, self-knowledge of a literal and direct sort is An impossibility. He argues with Plotinus that self-knowledge even in the case of God implies an epistemological subject-object dualism and, therefore, would impede the philosophers’ thesis of the absolute unity of the First Principle. Not only the Aristotelian conception of God as thought thinking thought does not absolve the philosophers from introducing plurality in the First Principle, but further lends them into many more difficulties with regard to their emanationistic world-view.
Consider, for example, the relative positions of the First Principle and the first intelligence in terms of their knowledge. The First Principle which is the emanative cause of the first intelligence does not know anything other than Himself, whereas the latter knows not only its cause but further knows itself and the three {607} effects which proceed from it, viz., the second intelligence, the soul of the highest sphere, and the body of that sphere. It is a strange theory, al-Ghazālī observes, which makes the effect have the knowledge of its cause but not the cause of its effect.
The necessity of a cause possessing the knowledge of its effect is more compelling than the necessity of an effect possessing the knowledge of its cause. In fact, the philosophers make the first intelligence superior to and “nobler” than the First Principle in so far as from the First Principle only one thing proceeds, while from the first intelligence three things proceed. Further, the First Principle does not know what prodeeds from Him; in fact, He does not know anything other than Himself, while the first intelligence knows itself, its cause, and its three effects.
Al-Ghazālī feels so bitter at the Aristotelian conception of God as thought thinking itself that he goes to the length of saying that the philosophers by limiting God’s knowledge to the sphere of self-knowledge virtually reduce Him to the status of the dead. 60
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