The Philosophy and Theology of Averroes

by Averroës

Now we come to the attributes of hearing and seeing. The Law has proved them to be possessed by God by saying that hearing and seeing are the two essential qualities for knowing the meaning of things, which cannot be acquired by intellect. So a maker must know everything about the object which he is making, it is necessary that he should possess the two senses of hearing and seeing. So He must have these two faculties. All this proves their existence in God, by means of the Law, through the teaching of the knowledge which is found in him. Moreover, One on whom the name of God and the Adorned is applied must necessarily possess all the senses. For it is useless for man to worship him who cannot know that he is being worshipped, as God has said, “O my father, why dost thou worship that which heareth not, neither seeth, nor profiteth thee at all;”[61] and, “Do you therefore worship, beside God, that which cannot profit you at all, nor can it hurt you?”[62] This is the power which has been ascribed to God, and which the Law has commanded the common people to know and nothing else.

Of the innovation which this question of attributes has given rise to, one is whether they are the same as Divine Essence or something added to it, that is, whether they are found in the essence itself (Nafsiyyah), or are only applied to it, (Maanawiyyah). By Nafsiyyah we mean those attributes which are found in the thing itself, and are not attached to it for the purpose of adding something to the essence, for existence, we say one or eternal. By Maanawiyyah we mean the attributes which are applied to a thing for some purpose which is found in it. The Asharites say that these attributes are only Maanawiyyah, that is qualities which are only added to the Divine Essence. So they say that he knows by a knowledge which has been added to His essence, and lives by life attached to it and so on. This has compelled them to admit that the Creator has a body, for there must be the quality and the qualified, the bearer and the borne. This is the condition of the body, so they must say that the essence is existent by itself, and the qualities exist through it, or they must say that these attributes are independent of each other, then there must be a number of gods. This is the belief of the Christians, who say that the three personifications are those of Existence, Life and Knowledge. God has said about it the following, “They are certainly infidels, who say, God is the third of the three.”[63] One of them stands by itself, the others being dependent upon the former. So it becomes necessary that there should be essence, existing in itself, and the accidents depending on something else. The place in which the essence and the accidents are found together must necessarily be a body. Such is also the case with the Mutazilites about the question, that the essence and the attributes are one and the same thing. This they think, is for the primary principles of knowledge or may be opposed to them. For they think that according to the primary principles knowledge must be existent without the one knowing. But knowledge and the one knowing cannot be the same, except that it may be possible that the two may be very close to each other, just as the father and the son. This teaching is very remote for the understanding of the masses, and to explain it to them in detail is innovation, for it would more likely mislead than guide them to the right path. The Mutazilites have no argument to advance in proof of their proposition, for they have none. Such is also the condition of the Mutakallimun in the case of denying a body to God. For when they have established it, they are compelled to admit the creation of the body, because it is a body. We have already said that they have no argument for it. Those who have such are the learned people, the philosophers. It is at this point that the Christians have erred. They believe in the multiplicity of attributes that they are essences existing not by the help of another, but by themselves, like the self, (Zat). They also believe that the qualities with these attributes are two in number—knowledge and life. So they say that God is one from the three causes. That He is three they say because He exists, lives and knows. They say that He is one, because He is a collection of all the three qualities. And so there are three religious opinions among them. One party believes that they are all the self (Zat) alone without any number; the other only believes in numbers of qualities. This is divided into two parties: one which thinks that they exist by themselves, and the other which makes them exist by something else. All this is in contrast with the purpose of the Law.

It being so, it is necessary that one who wants to teach the knowledge of these things to the common people should tell them as much as the Law orders him to do—and that is only a confession of their existence without entering into details. For it is not possible for the common people to believe and understand them at all. By common people here I mean all those who are unacquainted with the laws of reasoning, though they may or may not know the science of scholastic theology. It is not in the power of scholastic theology to know of these things even when it is said that it is not a science of reasoning but of dogmatics, for these things can never be clearly understood by dogmatics alone. So, by now, the extent of these questions which should be disclosed to the common people, and the method adopted for this purpose must have become clear to you by what we have said.

OF DIVINE PERFECTION

We have already described the way which the Law pursues in teaching the common people the existence of God, the denial of His having any associates, and thereby the knowledge of His attributes, and the extent to which they have been explained in details in it, one after another. It is really an addition to, and deduction from, and change and interpretation of this very limit and extent which has not been productive of good to any and all the people. Now it remains for us to know the method which the Law has adopted in explaining to the common people the perfection of God and freedom from all defects, and the length to which it has gone in detailing it, and the cause of restricting its knowledge to them. Then we should mention the methods which it adopts in teaching the people the knowledge of His actions, and the latitude which it has allowed in this respect. Having done so, we shall have accomplished the purpose for which we began this book.

So we say that the knowledge of things known as perfection and holiness are found in many verses of the Quran, the most clear and definite of them being the following, “There is nothing like Him, and it is He who heareth and seeth;”[64] and, “Shall God, therefore, Who createth, be as he who createth not.”[65] The second verse is an argument for the verse “there is nothing like Him.” For it is one of the characteristics of the dispositions of all the people to think that the Creator must either be unlike the things which He has created, or having qualities which may be different from these which He has given to the created; otherwise he who is himself created cannot be a Creator. When we have admitted that the created cannot be the creator then it becomes incumbent upon us to say that the qualities of the created should either be not found in the Creator, or found in Him in some different way than they are in the created. We say, “in some different way,” because we have proved the divine qualities to be those which are found in the noblest of God’s creatures, man, as knowledge, life, power, volition and so on. This is the meaning of the Tradition of the Prophet, “God created Adam after His own image.” So it has been established that the Law has denied the similarity between the Creator and the created with fitting arguments. The denial of similarity is of two kinds, first, that there may not be found in the Creator many qualities of the created; and secondly; there may be found in him the qualities of the created in so perfect and excellent a form as could not be imagined. Of these two kinds it should be seen which one the Law has explained, and about which it is reticent. We would also try to find out the cause for this reticence.

We would say that the qualities of the created which have been denied by Law as pertaining to God are those which show some defects; for example, death, as God says, “And do ye not trust in him who liveth, and dieth not,”[66] or sleep and things which lead to negligence and carelessness, as regards senses and the protection of the existent things, as He says, “Neither slumber nor sleep seizeth Him.”[67] Of such qualities are error and forgetfulness, as God has said, “The knowledge thereof is with my Lord, in the book of His decrees: my Lord erreth not, neither doth He forget.”[68] A knowledge of those qualities the existence of which has been denied in God is one of the necessary things of common education and is why the Law has been very explicit about them. It only warns us not to meddle with those things which are far from the primary principles of knowledge, because it knows the small limits of human knowledge, as God has said in many different verses of the Quran, “But the greater part of men do not understand.” For example He says, “Verily the creation of heaven and earth is more considerable, than the creation of man; but the greater part of men do not understand,”[69] and “The institution of God to which He has created mankind disposed; there is no change in what God hath created. This is the right religion; but the greater part of men know it not.”[70] Now it may be said, what is the proof—that is, the proof advanced by the Law—of the fact that these defects are not found in God. We would say that it is apparent from the universe itself. It is quite safe. No confusion or corruption overtakes it. Had the Creator been subject to negligence, carelessness, error or forgetfulness the whole of the universe would have been destroyed. God has made this clear in many verses of the Quran. He says, “Verily God sustaineth the heaven and the earth, lest they fail: and if they should fail, none could support the same besides him;”[71] and, “The preservation of both is not burden unto him, He is the high, the mighty.”[72]

If our opinion be asked about the anthropomorphic attributes of God, whether the Law has denied them as attributes to the Creator or is only silent about them, we would say, that it is evident that the Law is quite silent about them, and their mention in it is quite near to their denial altogether. It has come to be so because the Quran in many verses speaks of His hands and face, and these verses are taken as showing physical attributes which the Creator has bestowed upon the created, just as He has given him the qualities of power, volition and so on—qualities which are common between the Creator and created, except that they are more perfect in the former. On account of this many Muslims believed that the Creator has a body different from all other bodies. Such is the case with the Hanbalites and their many followers. But in my opinion we should follow the path of the Law; and this should neither deny nor try to prove them, and whenever asked by the common people to do so, we should answer with words of God, “There is nothing like him; and it is He who heareth and seeth,”[73] in this way preventing them from questioning. It is so because of three reasons. It is neither near to the first, nor to the second, nor to the third grade. This would be quite clear to you from the method adopted by the Mutakallimun. They say that the proof of the fact that He is not a body is that it has been proved that all bodies are created things. If they are asked to point out the method of proving the latter proposition, they adopt the method, which we have already pointed out, concerning the creation of accidents, that that which cannot be separated from created things is itself created. You have already seen, from what we have said, that this method is not a philosophical one, and had it been so, even then a majority of the common people would not have grasped it. Moreover, whatever these people have said about God, that He is a Self (Zat) and divine attributes added to it, proves by itself that He has a body, on account of the denial of creation, rather an argument denying anthropomorphism. This is the first reason why the Law does not speak of these things in clear terms. The second reason is that common people think that all that is existent they can imagine and feel, all else being non-existent to them. So when they are told that there exists One who has no body, their imagination does not work and He becomes almost non-existent to them, particularly so when they are told that He is neither outside our knowledge nor in it, neither above nor below. That is why the sect which believes in anthropomorphism thinks of those who deny it, that they also believe in it; while, on the other hand, the party thinks its opponents to be believing in a number of gods. The third reason is that had the Law denied anthropomorphism altogether there would have arisen many a misgiving about what has been said concerning the Day of Judgment, and other beliefs.

Of these one is the problem of Divine Vision which we find stated in authentic Traditions. Those who have been very explicit in denying it are the two sects of the Asharites and the Mutazilites. The belief of the latter has driven them to deny the vision altogether; while the Asharites have tried to make the two things agree, but this was impossible for them to do. So they have taken refuge in many sophistic arguments, the weakness of which we would show when talking of the Divine Vision. Another problem which rises out of this is that it evidently gives rise to a denial of the direction in which God is. For if He has no body then the Law becomes an allegory. For the advent of the prophets is founded upon the fact that Divine Revelation is sent to them from the heaven. Upon this very principle is also based our religion, for the Divine Book has come down from the heavens, as God says, “Verily we have sent down the same (the Quran) on a blessed night.”[74] The descending of the divine revelation from heaven is based upon the fact of God’s being there. So also is the descending and ascending of angels from heaven, as God says, “Unto him ascendeth the good speech; and the righteous work will He exalt;”[75] and says He, “The angels ascend up unto and the spirit.”[76] We would mention all the things which the deniers of direction bring to prove their proposition when we come to talk of this problem.