1. Medieval Islamic Theology

2. Ibn Sina (Avicenna; 980-1037)

3. Avicenna’s Argument Contingent: has a reason for its being Necessary: has no reason for its being God = the necessary being

4. Avicenna’s Argument Suppose there were no necessary being Everything, including the current state of the world, a, would be contingent There would be an infinite series:.... <— e <— d <— c <— b <— a But then the conditions for a’s existence would never be satisfied So, there is a necessary being, God

5. Al-Ghazali’s Objections Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), The Incoherence of the Philosophers: skepticism Why not an infinite regress of reasons or causes?

6. Infinite Regress It’s not self-evident that the world could not extend back infinitely far Plato, Aristotle, al-Farabi, and Avicenna thought of some things other than God as eternal Is there an argument?

7. A Possible Argument Imagine the series.... <— b <— a It would have to be necessary or contingent It consists of contingent beings, so it can’t be necessary But it doesn’t depend on anything outside itself

8. Al-Ghazali’s Reply But the series could be necessary, even though every event in it is contingent

9. Averroes (Ibn Rushd;1126-1198)

10. Averroes Harmonizes religion and philosophy, and refutes al-Ghazali, in The Incoherence of the Incoherence

11. Two Kinds of Causes Efficient cause: once caused, result is independent of cause Dependence: result continues to depend on cause— cause and effect are inseparable

12. ‘Contingent’, ‘Necessary’ Ambiguous Contingent = having an efficient cause = having a causal explanation OR Contingent = depending on something else Necessary = having no causal explanation OR Necessary = independent, self-sufficient

13. Averroes’s Argument The world of efficient causes:... <— c <— b <— a | G1 | G2 | God

14. Leibniz (1646-1716) Principle of Sufficient Reason: “Nothing happens without a sufficient reason.” So the universe— the series of contingent causes— must have a sufficient reason for its existence: Something which is its own sufficient reason for existing: God

15. Sufi Mysticism The ideal of union with God is the driving concept of much mystical thought The Sufism of al-Ghazali and other Islamic mystics shares this idea A Sufi believes it possible to have direct experience of God This is the goal of mystic practices

16. Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya (717?-801)

17. Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya Rabi’a teaches an intensity of commitment typical of mystics According to her, the only acceptable motivation for any act is love of God Concern for oneself should not count She uses sexual imagery to report her quest for contact and indeed union with God

18. First-person Knowledge Like many Sufis, she stresses the importance of experience We cannot understand things we have not experienced The Sufi exalts a first-person point of view: My experience of God gives me insight into God’s nature that I can communicate only through poetry

19. Zeb-un-Nissa (1638-1702) Zeb-un-Nissa speaks of God as the Beloved, for whom she desperately yearns But God spurns her, only occasionally yielding glimmers of hope God is the Hunter of her soul, the one who inspires a sort of madness unintelligible to the world but understood by all others who know the Beloved

20. Union with the Divine Real religion, she maintains, is an internal matter, a matter of the heart The mystical impulse transcends any particular religion, expressing what all religions share: An unfulfilled and unfulfillable striving for knowledge of and union with the divine

21. Moth to the Flame She uses the image of traditional Sufi poets, that of a moth drawn to a flame, who attains what it desires only at its own destruction But she also uses images drawn from other traditions, including Plato’s allegory of the cave, to probe the depths of mystical experience