Intro to Islamic Philosophy, Theology, Mysticism, and Scienc

(1) The theologians, who become content with disputation and "satisfying" proofs, and consider this much knowledge of the Creator as sufficient.

(2) The philosophers and learned men [of Greek inspiration] who use rational arguments and seek to know the laws of logic, and are never content merely with "satisfying" arguments. But they too cannot remain faithful to the conditions of logic, and become helpless with it.

(3) The Ismailis [a branch of Shia Islam] and others who say that the way of knowledge is none other than receiving information from a learned and credible informant; for, in reasoning about the knowledge of the Creator, His Essence and Attributes, there is much difficulty; the reasoning power of the opponents and the intelligent is stupefied and helpless before it. Therefore, they say, it is better to seek knowledge from the words of a sincere person.

(4) The Sufis, who do not seek knowledge by meditation or discursive thinking, but by purgation of their inner being and the purifying of their dispositions. They cleanse the rational soul of the impurities of nature and bodily form, until it becomes pure substance. It then comes face to face with the spiritual world, so that the forms of that world become truly reflected in it, without doubt or ambiguity. This is the best of all ways...

St. Anselm's Ontological proof:

1) By definition, God is a being than which none greater can be imagined.

2) A being that necessarily exists in reality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exist.

3) Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God.

4)But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God.

5) Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality.

6) God exists in the mind as an idea.

7) Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality

Mulla Ṣadra's Ontological Proof

(Proof of the Righteous)

1) There is existence

2) Existence is a perfection beyond which no other perfection can be conceived

3) If God exists, God must be the ultimate perfection of existence

4) Existence is a singular and simple reality (multiple existences logically absurd)

5)That singular reality is graded in intensity on a scale of perfection of existence

6)That scale must have a limit point, a point of greatest intensity and perfection

7) This limit point, must necessarily be God and must necessarily exist

8) Therefore God must exist

Alvin Plantinga's argument:

modal axiom S5: if something is possibly true, then its possibility is necessary in some possible world or worlds.

1) A being has maximal excellence in a given possible world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good in W; and

2) A being has maximal greatness if it has maximal excellence in every possible world.

3) It is possible that there is a being that has maximal greatness. (Premise)

4) Therefore, possibly, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good being exists.

5) Therefore, (by axiom S5) it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.

6) Therefore, an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.

1) It is possible that a maximally great being exists.

2) If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.

3) If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.

4) If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.

5) If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists.

6) Therefore, a maximally great being exists.

Burhan Sidiqqīn-"like looking for the sun in a bright desert with a dim candle." "If someone says he recognized God by the evidence, ask him by what he recognized the evidence." Reality exists, and cannot be doubted, and this is known certainly by everyone intuitively. Proofs are just reminders.

God/Reality/Consciousness is epistemologically and ontologically prior to any proof of Him. Only the Absolute is absolutely certain, start from that to prove everything else.

Ibn Sīnā

died 1037, Hamadan Iran

Theology

(Kalām)

Sufism

(Taṣawwuf)

Philosophy

(falsafa)

• Child Prodigy, Court Physician (18), Philosopher, Scientist, etc.
• Canon of Medicine-medical experimentation, quarantine, used for 700 years
• Book of Healing-greatest encyclopedia of knowledge written by a single person. Mountain formation, scientific method, psychology, logic, physics, and metaphysics
• "Floating Man"
• "Essence and Existence"
• "Cosmological/Ontological Argument"
• Everything is either impossible, contingent (needs a cause), or necessary of existence
• Infinite regress or vicious circle

Intro to Islamic Philosophy, Theology, Mysticism, and Science

• Rational, dialectic exposition and defense of Islamic doctrine.
• Arose from interreligious debate and intrareligious disputes

• Mu'tazilites (~761)-Tawḥīd and Justice
• Atharis (Hanbalis, traditionalists)—anti-theology theology. Theology leads to errors and divisions.
• Ash'ari (d. 936)-Absolute Divine Freedom, occasionalism, over time, belief=rational proof, reason can't uncover moral truths and rel. between Divine attributes and Essence
• Maturidi (d.944)-reason can discover moral truths

• Aristotelian/ Neoplatonic Philosophy
• Metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, social and natural sciences (and logic)
• Almost all of Aristotle translated by 10th C

• Proof through syllogism-correct use of the intellect ('aql)-more than "reason."
• But also a "way of life"-practice of virtue essential to proper functioning of the intellect

• al-Kindī, al-Farabī, Ibn Sīnā, al-Tusī, Ibn Rushd
• al-Ghazzali's "Incoherence of the Philosophers"-responses and repercussions (Ash'ari theology)

• More on this next week

• Direct, existential knowledge of God that transcends ordinary reason and dichotomies.

• Meditation and other spiritual practices lead to spiritual purification, "recognition of things as they truly are," mystical union/annihilation in God, knowledge of God, by God

Ash'arī

Theology

Ismaili argument: either human intellect can know God on its own, or guidance from an Imam is needed

al-Ghazali: the intellect is needed to adjudicate between its claims and those of the Imam, so the intellect is necessary.

al-Razi: The original argument is false and the objection al-Ghazāli is pointless; need to show that intellect is sufficient, not just necessary in order to prove there is no need for an Imam.

All possible arguments for and against an thesis: Example, the existence of time: 12 proofs that time is only subjective, 21 arguments that time is directly perceived and not in need of proof, 4 proofs for real existence of time (counterproofs for almost all positions).

al-Rāzī

(d. 1210)

al-Ghazalī

(d. 1111)

• Midterm review
• Islamic Intellectual traditions
• Theology, Philosophy, Sufism, Sciences
• Ibn Sina's Proof of God's existence
• (Clarifications from Tuesday)

• Case Study of Debates: Surah Hadid
• Divine Attributes and Essence
• Fate and Free Will
• God's Knowledge
• Reading/Viewing Next week

al-Biruni

Islamic Science

• 973-1048?—employed at different courts
• Maths-cubic equations
• Astronomy
• skeptical of predictive astrology
• attacks Aristotelian celestial physics, posits vacuum and elliptical orbits.
• hyperaccurate and reliable astronomical data, still used today.

• Time and calendars-Jewish, Hindu, Persian
• Debates and Discussions with Ibn Sīnā
• Geodesy
• measured radius of the earth within 1% accuracy
• Mountain formation, fossil record as proof of portions of earth being underwater
• Pharmacology and mineralogy-20 languages
• Comparative Religions-Book on India-account of Hindu religion, science, culture, and history. Greek and Hindu civilization, "two families in the same house."
• Wrote 140 books

• Islamic Science seen as part of religion, not separate from it, and certainly not opposed to it. Connect the appearances, the phenomena back to their spiritual Principle and Origin. Qualitative as well as Quantitative. (Moroccan story)

• Anachronistic term-multiple disciplines considered together. Happy Accident-these disciplines were remarkably united by overarching worldview, philosophical assumptions, and methods. Conceptual coherence.

• Islamic Science, Christian Science, Modern (Western) Science

• Took up Greek, Indian, Babylonian, Persian, and Chinese sciences.
• Most scientists were polymaths
• Jābir (scientific and lab method), al-Birūnī and Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Haytham.
• Important and unique advances in mathematics, logic, medicine, astronomy, biology, physics, chemistry, geography, engineering, architecture, automation/programming, social sciences, and the scientific method.

• What happened?

'Umar Khayyam

• 1048-1131
• "Treatise on Demonstrations of Problems of Algebra"-general methods for cubic and other higher order equations, "Pascal's triangle"-binomial coefficients
• non-Euclidean geometry
• Astronomy, calendar reform-Iranian solar calendar-more accurate than Gregorian calendar
• Philosophy
• Poetry

Mystical Philosophy

• Suhrawardi (d. 1191)-Philosophy of Illumination-reworks Aristotelian/ Avicennan logic and philosophy integrating mystical intuition—like Plato or Plotinus, but more systematic. "Knowledge by presence vs. Knowledge by representation." Hierarchy of philosophers.

• Ibn 'Arabi (d. 1240)-"Greatest Master", Sufi theorist engages and critiques philosophers and theologians. Qunawi famous debates with Tusi. "Oneness of Being."

• Mulla Sadra (d. 1640)-synthesized Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Ibn 'Arabi, and Shi'ite traditions. Union of philosophy/rational proof and spiritual/mystical intuition. One without the other is useless. "Union of intellect, intellected, and intellector."

Surah Hadid

God's Knowledge of Particulars

Tanzīh vs. Tashbīh

( incomparability vs. similarity)

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifies God, and He is the Mighty, the Wise.

Unto Him belongs the sovereignty of the heavens and the earth, He gives life and death and He is Powerful over all things.

He is the First, and the Last, and the Outward/Apparent and the Inward/Hidden, and He is the Knower of all things.

It is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days, then he mounted the throne. He knows that which enters the earth and what emerges from it, and that which descends from heaven and that which ascends thereto. He is with you wheresoever you are, and God sees whatever you do.

Unto Him belongs the sovereignty of the heavens and the earth, and unto God are all matters returned.

He makes the night to enter the day, and makes the day enter the night, and he knows what lies within the breasts.

• How does God sit on a throne?

• Literal Anthropomorphism?
• ta'wīl-allegorical interpretation?
• "Without any how?"

• Attributes and Essence
• Mu'tazili and Philosophers-identical (but in different ways)
• Ash'ari-separate but can't be rationally conceived
• Sufis-relationships between creation and Creator, windows onto the Divine-identical and not-identical.

• "There is nothing like Him, and He is the Seeing the Hearing." Ibn 'Arabi, anthropomorphism is theomorphism, or God sees and hears through us, or "two eyes"- transcendence of transcendence

• Does God know particular things?
• Theologians-of course, God has to be omniscient
• Philosophers, no because particulars are bound in matter, that would imply that God has physical senses and is somehow material OR change in God's eternal knowledge.
• Philosophers-God is the first cause of everything, knows Himself perfectly, so knows things via His Essence, their cause.
• Later Philosophers and Mystical Philosophers
• God's knowledge is not separate from the existence of things, but God's knowledge of them is their very existence. Dreamer and dream

Free will vs. Fate

Is the universe created or eternal?

• Different verses of the Qur'an take different perspectives: "God creates you and what you do" vs. "You are accountable for what you do."

• Early responses: 'Ali-lift your feet, Ja'far al-Sadiq: neither free-will nor predestination, but between the two.

• Jabirites-Fate, choice is an illusion
• Mu'talzilites-Free will-without it, no justice, the whole thing falls apart without choice.
• Ash'arites-acquisition of responsibility

• Ibn 'Arabi-"you threw not when you threw, but God threw." Distinction between Divine Will and human will rests on division between human and Divine, which is relative.

• Philosophers: Eternal-ceration would require change in God
• Theologians: created, nothing co-eternal with God