The Philosophy and Theology of Averroes

by Averroës

On the whole, if the matter about the creator and the doer be understood on this wise, there would be no contradiction, either in Tradition or in reason. So we say that the word Creator does not apply to the created things by any near or far-fetched metaphor, for the meaning of the creator is the inventor of the essences. So God has said, “God created you, and that which ye know.” It should be known that one who denies the effect of the causes on the results of them, also denies philosophy and all the sciences. For science is the knowledge of the things by their causes, and philosophy is the knowledge of hidden causes. To deny the causes altogether is a thing which is unintelligible to human reason. It is to deny the Creator, not seen by us. For the unseen in this matter must always be understood by a reference to the seen.

So those men can have no knowledge of God, when they admit that for every action there is an actor. It being so, the agreement of the Muslims on the fact that there is no Creator but God cannot be perfect, if we understand by it the denial of the existence of an agent in the visible world. For from the existence of the agent in it, we have brought an argument for the Creator in the invisible world. But when we have once admitted the existence of the Creator in the invisible world, it becomes clear that there is no Creative agent except one by His command and will. It is also evident that we can perform our own deeds, and that one who takes up only one side of the question is wrong, as is the case with the Mutazilites and the Jabarites. Those who adopt the middle Course, like the Asharites, for discovering the truth, cannot find it. For they make no difference for a man between the trembling and the movement of his hand by intention. There is no meaning in their admitting that both the movements are not by ourselves. Because if they are not by ourselves we have no power to check them, so we are compelled to do them. Hence there is no difference between trembling of hand and voluntary movement, which they would call acquired. So there is no difference between them, except in their names, which never effect the things themselves. This is all clear by itself.

Fourth Problem:—Divine Justice and Injustice. The Asharites have expressed a very peculiar opinion, both with regard to reason and religion; about this problem. They have explained it in a way in which religion has not, but have adopted quite an opposite method. They say that in this problem the case of the invisible world is quite opposed to the visible. They think that God is just or unjust within the limits of religious actions, so when a man’s action is just with regard to religion, he also is just; and whatever religion calls it to be unjust; He is unjust. They say that whatever has not been imposed as a divinely ordained duty upon men, does not come within the four walls of religion. He is neither just or unjust, but all His actions about such things are just. They have laid down that there is nothing in itself which may be called just or unjust. But to say that there is nothing which may in itself be called good or bad is simply intolerable. Justice is known as good, and injustice as bad. So according to them, polytheism is in itself neither injustice nor evil, but with regard to religion, and had religion ordained it, it would have been just and true. Such also would have been the case with any kind of sin. But all this is quite contrary to our traditions and reason. As to tradition God has described himself as just, and denied injustice to himself. He says “God hath borne witness that there is no God but He; and the angels and those who are endowed with wisdom profess the same, who executeth righteousness;”[142] and “Thy God is not unjust towards His servants;”[143] and again, “Verily God will not deal unjustly with men in any respect; but men deal unjustly with their own souls.”[144] It may be asked, What is your opinion about misleading the people, whether it is just or unjust, for God has mentioned in many a verse of the Quran, “That He leads as well as misleads the people?” He says, “God causeth to err whom He pleaseth, and directeth whom He pleaseth;”[145] and, “If we had pleased, we had certainly given every soul its direction.”[146] We would say that these verses cannot be taken exoterically, for there are many verses which apparently contradict them—the verses in which God denies injustice to himself. For instance, He says, “He liketh not ingratitude (Kufr) in His servant.”[147] So it is clear that as He does not like ingratitude even from them, He certainly cannot cause them to err. As to the statement of the Asharites that God sometimes does things which He does not like, and orders others which He does not want, God forbid us from holding such a view about him, for it is pure infidelity. That God has not misled the people and has not caused them to err will be clear to you from the following verses: “Wherefore be thou orthodox and set thy face towards true religion, the institution of God, to which He hath created man kindly disposed;”[148] and, “when thy Lord drew forth their posterity from the lions of the sons of Adam.”[149] A Tradition of the Prophet says, “Every child is born according to the divine constitution.”

These being contradictions in this problem we should try to reconcile them so that they may agree with reason. The verse, “Verily God will cause to err whom He pleaseth, and will direct whom He pleaseth” refers to the prearranged divine will, with which all things have been endowed. They have been created erring, that is, prepared to go astray by their very nature, and led to it by inner and outer causes. The meaning of the verse, “If we had pleased, we have given unto every soul its direction,” is that He thought of not creating people ready to err, by their nature, or by the outer causes or by both, He could have done so. But as the dispositions of men are different the words may mislead the one and direct the other. For these are the verses which speak of misleading the people. For instance, “He will thereby mislead many, and will direct many thereby: but He will not mislead any thereby except the transgressors”[150]; and, “We have appointed the vision which we showed thee, and also the tree cursed in the Quran,”[151] and the verses about the number of angels of hell. “Thus doth God cause to err whom He pleaseth and He directeth whom He pleaseth.”[152] It means that for evil natures, these verses are misleading, as for the sick bodies even good drugs are injurious. But some one may object and ask, what was the need of creating a class of men already prepared to err, for this is the worst kind of injustice? We would say that divine wisdom designated it so. The injustice would have consisted in its being otherwise. For the nature and constitution of men, in His very creation, are such that they require some men, though very few, to be wicked and evil by their nature. Such is also the case with the outer causes, made for directing the people to the right path, which requires that some men must be bad. If many had been good then the divine law would not have been fulfilled, because either there had not been created things in which there is little evil and much good, for the good would have disappeared on account of that little evil; or there had been created things with much good and little evil. Now it is well known that the existence of many good ones with a few evil ones, is better than the non-existence of much good for the sake of little evil. This very evil was the thing which remained hidden to the angels when God informed them that He was going to create upon the earth, a vicegerent, that is, a man. “When God said to the angels, I am going to place a substitute on earth, they said, wilt thou place there one who will do evil therein, and shed blood? but we celebrate thy praise, and sanctify Thee. God answered, Verily I know that which ye know not.”[153] He means that the thing which is hidden from them is that when there is found both good and evil in a thing, and good overpowers the evil, reason requires the creation of the one for the destruction of the other. So from all these it is clear how misleading can be attributed to Him, in spite of His justice, and injustice disproved. The causes of misleading are created, because from them appear the causes of direction to good. For some people have not been given causes of direction to good in which there is found nothing which may lead to erring. Such is the condition of the angels. So also the causes of good have those evil, though in their nature much evil be not found; this applies to man. It may be asked: What is the use of these contradictory verses, thus compelling the people to take refuge in interpretations, which you have absolutely forbidden? We would say that to explain this problem to the common people, they have been compelled to adopt this method. For they should know that God is just, and that He is the Creator of all good and evil, instead of believing, as many nations have done, that there are two Gods, the creator of good, and the creator of evil. So now they know that He is the Creator of both. As misleading is evil, and as there is no Creator but He, it was necessary that it should be attributed to Him, like the creation of evil. But this should be done without qualifying it, that is, that He created good for its own sake, and evil for the sake of good—on account of their connection with one another. In this way His creation of evil would be quite just. To illustrate: fire has been made because of its necessity for the existence of things, and without it they could not have existed at all. It also destroys things by its very nature. But if you think of the destruction and evil which it causes, and compare it to the advantages which we derive out of it, you will find that its existence is better than non-existence, that is,—good. Now the verse of the Quran “No account shall be demanded of him for what He shall do; but an account shall be demanded of them,” means that He does nothing because it is incumbent upon him for it is degrading to him, to need doing a thing. If it be so, God needs that thing for His own existence, because of necessity or to be more perfect in His Being—and God is free from such imperfections. Man is just because he gains something good by being so, which he cannot gain otherwise. God is just, not that He may become more perfect by His justice, but because His perfection requires him to be just. When we understand it in this way it would be evident, that He is not just in the same way as man is just. But it is not right to say that He is not just at all, and that all His actions are neither just nor unjust, as the Mutakallimuns have thought. For it cannot be understood by human intellect, and is at the same time falsifying religion. These people knew the meaning but were misled. For if we say that He is not at all just, we falsify the principle that there are things which are just and good in themselves and others which are evil and unjust. Again, if we suppose that He is just in the same way as man is, it becomes necessary to admit there is some defect in him. For one who is just, his existence is for the sake of things for which he is just, and so he is dependent upon another.

It should now be known that it is not necessary for all the people to be told this interpretation in its entirety. Only those should be told it who have some doubts about this problem. For not every one among the common people is confronted by these contradictions in the universal verses, and Tradition. Such people must believe in the exoteric meanings of them. There is another reason for these verses. The common people cannot differentiate between possible and impossible, while to God is not ascribed power over the impossible. If they be told what is impossible (Mustahil) and they think that God has power over it, and then told that God has no power, they begin to think that there is some defect in God, because He cannot do a certain thing and hence He is weak. As the existence of things free from evil was possible according to the masses, God has said, “If we had pleased, we had certainly given every soul its direction; but the word which hath proceeded from Me must necessarily be fulfilled, when I said, Verily I will fill the hell with genii and men, altogether.”[154] This verse means one thing to the common people, and the other to the learned. The former take it to mean that it is not incumbent upon him that He should create a class of men to whom evil may be attached. But it really means: Had we thought we could create men with whom evil could not be attached, but would have been good in all and all, and hence every one had been given his guidance. This much is enough for this problem. Now we would deal with the fifth question.

Problem fifth: Of the Conditions of the Day of Judgment:—The Day of Judgment is a thing in which all the religions are agreed, and all the learned men have proved it by arguments. The religions differ about the conditions of its existence; nay, in reality they do not differ about its condition, but about the visible things by which they should explain to the common people the conditions of the unseen. There are some religions which have made it only spiritual, that is, meant only for the souls; while others have thought it to be both physical and spiritual. The reconciliation in this matter depends upon the testimony of divine revelation, and the necessary arguments of all the learned men, that is, that for a man there are two blessings: of the present world, and of the world to come, which is itself established upon principles, admitted by all to be true. One of them is that when it is clear that all the existent things have not been created in vain, but for some particular work assigned to them, which is the sum total of their life, then man is far fitter to be placed under this category. God himself has warned us of the existence of this purpose in all the created things. He says in the Quran, “We have created the heavens and the earth, and whatever is between them, in vain. This is the opinion of the unbelievers.”[155] Again, He says, describing and praising the learned men, who have understood, the real and inner purpose of this existence, “Who remember God standing, and sitting, and lying on their sides; and meditate on the creation of heaven and earth, saying, O Lord, thou hast not created this in vain; far be it from thee therefore, deliver us from the torment of hell fire.”[156] The ultimate purpose in the creation of man is still more evident in him, than in other things. God has informed us of it in many a verses of the Quran. He says, “Did ye think that we had created you in sport; and that ye should not be brought again before us,”[157] and, “Doth man think, that he shall be left at full liberty, without control?”[158] and further on He says, “I have not created genii and men for any other end, but that they should serve me.”[159] That is the genius out of all creation which could know him. Again, He says, informing us of the importance of knowing God, “What reason have I that I should not worship him who hath created me? for unto him shall ye return.”[160] Now it being clear that man has been created for a certain work, it is evident that the work should be of a particular kind. For we see that everything has been created for a certain work, which is found in it, and in none other; that is, it is specialised in it. This being so, it is necessary that the real purpose of man’s creation be those deeds which are found in him, and in no other animal. These deeds pertain to his rational powers. As there are two portions of the rational powers,—practical and theoretical—it is evident that the first kind of thing is demanded of him. That is, that his faculties of knowledge and science should be found in their perfection. The deed by which soul acquires perfection in those two faculties are goodness and virtue, and those that retard it are evil and wicked. And as these actions are most of them fixed by divine revelation, religions appeared to fix them. With that there also appears a knowledge of those qualities, exhorting the people towards them. They ordered men to act upon goodness, and shew evil. They taught them the quantity of the deeds which will be good for all the people, both in practice and in knowledge taken together. They also taught them the theoretical knowledge of things, which all the people should know, such as the knowledge of God, angels, of higher creation, and of goodness. In this way they also taught them the quantity of the acts which would be necessary to make the souls excel in virtue. This is especially the case with our religion, Islam, for when compared with other religions, it is found that it is absolutely the best religion. Hence it was the last of divine dispensations.

Now divine revelation has informed us in all the religions that the soul will live, and all the argument of the learned people have established the same. The souls are freed from physical desires after death. If they be pure, their purity is doubled by this freedom from desires. If they be evil this separation increases their depravity, for they are troubled by the evil which they have already earned, and their regret increases about the opportunities which they lost before their separation from the body, for this purification is not possible without it. It is to this that following verse refers:—A soul would say, “Alas, for that I have been negligent in my duties towards God: Verily I have been one of the scorners.”[161] All the religions agree about this condition of man, and call it his last goodness or misery. This being so, there could not be found in the visible world anything which may be given as an illustration, so there is a difference in its description in the revelations given to different prophets. We mean to say, that there is a difference in illustrating the condition of the good and bad soul on that occasion. There are some which have not given any illustrations of that happiness or misery which the good and bad souls will have there. They have only said that the conditions there would be only spiritual, and pleasures angelic. Others have given instances from the visible world; that is, they have given the examples of the pleasures here for the pleasures of the next world, after deducting the trouble borne in acquiring them, and in the same way, they have illustrated the misery there, by the example of misery here, after deducting the pleasure which we derive from it. Either the people of these religions received from God revelations which those did not receive who made the next world purely spiritual, or they saw, that illustrations from things visible are best understood by the common people and that they are best led so or checked from an action through them. So they said that God will put back the good souls in their respective bodies, and the best possible ease—in paradise. The bad souls will also return to their bodies, where they will be in the worst possible misery, which they call hell-fire.

This is true of our religion, Islam, in illustrating the conditions of the next world. There are many verses of the Quran which contain arguments as to the possibilities of the conditions of that world, which can be understood and verified by all. For our reason cannot apprehend these things more than the possibility of knowing which is common to all, and which is of the kind of analogy of the existence of the like from the being of the like, that is of its coming into being. It is an analogy of the coming into being of the small from the existence of the big and the great. For instance, God says, “And He propoundeth unto us a comparison and forgetteth His Creation.”[162] In these verses the argument used is the analogy of the return of the beginning, when both are equal. In the following verse the argument of those is refuted who differentiate between the real and return of the same thing. He says, “He giveth you fire out of a green tree.”[163] The doubt is that the birth was from heat and moisture, while the return will be from cold and dryness. So this doubt is met by the fact that God can create the contrary from the contrary, as He can create the like from the like. The analogy is drawn from the existence of the little from the great. For example, God says, “Is not He who has created the Heavens and the earth able to create new creatures like unto them! yea, certainly; for He is the wise Creator.”[164] These verses have two arguments for proving the resurrection and at the same time refuting the arguments of those denying it. Were we to quote the verses which give this proof our discourse would be lengthened. But all of them are of the kind we have mentioned.

So, as we have already said, all the religions are agreed that there is a blessing or misery for the human soul after death, but differ in illustrating the conditions of that moment and in explaining it to the common people. It seems that the illustration in our religion is the most perfect of all for the understanding of the people, and at the same time most inciting of them all to gain for their souls the advantages of that day. And it is the many with whom lies the primary purpose of religion. The spiritual illustration would be least inciting to the common people for desiring the things of hereafter. So they would have little liking for it, while they would fear the physical illustration. So it seems that the physical illustration would be most exciting to them, than the spiritual, while the latter would appeal only to the controversialists among the scholastic theologians, who are always very few in number. Hence we find that the Muslims have been divided into three parties about the meaning of the conditions of the Day of Judgment. One party says that that existence would be just like our present one, as regards pleasures and enjoyments, that is, they think that both are of the same genius, but differ in perpetuity and termination: the one is for ever and the others come to an end. The other party thinks that the two existences are different. But this is again subdivided into two parties. The one thinks that that existence with our present faculties is spiritual, but has been described as physical. For this there are many religious arguments which it would be useless to repeat here. The other party says that that existence is physical only; but they at the same time believe, that the body will be different from our present body. This is only transient, that will be eternal. For this also there are religious arguments. It seems that even Abdullah B. Abbas held this view. For it is related of him that he said, “There is nought in this world of the hereafter, but names.” It seems that this view is better suited to the learned men because its possibility is based upon principles, in which there is no disagreement according to all men: the one being that the soul is immortal, and the second is that the return of the souls into other bodies does not look so impossible as the return of the bodies themselves. It is so because the material of the bodies here is found following and passing from one body to another, i. e.; one and the same matter is found in many people and in many different times. The example of bodies cannot be found, for their matter is the same. For instance a man dies and his body becomes dissolved into earth. The earth ultimately becomes dissolved into vegetable, which is eaten by quite a different man from whom another man comes into being. If we suppose them to be different bodies, then our aforesaid view cannot be true.

The truth about this question is that man should follow that which he himself has thought out but anyhow it should not be the view which may deny the fundamental principle altogether. For this would be denying its existence. Such a belief leads to infidelity, on account of a distinct knowledge of this condition being given to man, both by religion and by human reason, which is all based upon the eternal nature of the soul. If it be said whether there is any argument or information in the Law about this eternal nature of the soul, we would say that it is found in the Quran itself. God says, “God taketh unto himself the souls of men at the time of their death; and those which die not He also taketh in their sleep.”[165] In this verse sleep and death have been placed upon the same level, on account of the change in its instrument, and in sleep on account of a change in itself. For had it not been so it would not have come to its former condition after awakening. By this means we know that this cession does not effect its essence, but was only attached to it on account of change in its instrument. So it does not follow that with a cessation of the work of the instrument, the soul also ceases to exist. Death is only a cessation of work, so it is clear that its condition should be like that of sleep. As someone has said that if an old man were to get the eyes of the young, he would begin to see like him.