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Taking Avicenna Seriously: Reevaluation of al-Ghazali’s objections on creation
Abstract by Mr. Yasin Basaran On Session 149  (Ghazali and His Interlocutors)

On Saturday, November 19 at 10:00 am

2016 Annual Meeting

Abstract
One contribution to the recent upsurge in Avicenna studies would be a reevaluation of his fundamental ideas against the criticisms of al-Ghazali. In this paper, I am dealing with the strengths and weaknesses of the Avicennan account of creation in his Remarks and Admonitions against the background of al-Ghazali’s criticisms in The Incoherence of the Philosophers. I think, by carefully distinguishing between metaphysical and natural causations, Avicenna offers a concept of creation which is much more powerful and coherent than al-Ghazali takes it to be. According to Avicenna, the efficient cause has two distinct meanings, one metaphysical one natural. When it is used in the metaphysical sense, it means the cause of being; a clear indication that the Efficient Cause creates things out of nothing. In a natural sense, however, the efficient cause is the cause of movement within the boundaries of time, space and all other natural constraints. In this case, Avicenna takes God to be ‘the condition’ of the existence of everything other than himself even though he calls God ‘the cause’. Thus, for Avicenna, creation is a purely metaphysical, timeless, and no-location concept. In two points, al-Ghazali fails to take the Avicennan distinction seriously. First, when arguing for the possibility of temporal creation, al-Ghazali is mainly busy demonstrating the inconsistency of specific arguments for eternal creation. However, his criticism falls short to appreciate the overall implications of Avicenna’s account which insists on distinguishing the ways natural and metaphysical causation work. This failure of al-Ghazali forces him to downgrade divine agency to the level of natural causation. Second, even though al-Ghazali’s argument against the necessity of the natural cause-and-effect relationship is compelling, it is far from damaging the Avicennan conception of creation. This is because al-Ghazali’s objection is valid against the natural causation but it does not fully affect metaphysical causation. Moreover, when Avicennan account of natural causation is revised in the light of al-Ghazali’s criticisms, the overall conception of creation as delineated by Avicenna gains more strength. In other words, if we combine Ghazali's account of natural causation and Avicenna's theory of metaphysical causation, we will have a more satisfactory theory of causation.
Discipline
Philosophy
Geographic Area
All Middle East
Sub Area
7th-13th Centuries