阿尔法拉比从偶然性证明上帝存在

AL-FARÂBÎ AL-FARÂBÎ AND THE CONTINGENCY ARGUMENT FOR GOD'S EXISTENCE A STUDY OF RISALA ZAYNÛN AL-KABÎR AL-YÛNÂNÎ by Joseph Kenny http://www.diafrica.org/nigeriaop/kenny/phil/Zeno.htm Introductory Study English Text Arabic Text Introductory Study Al-Farâbî's Risâla Zaynûn al-kabîr al-yûnânî opens with a presentation of the contingency for God's existence. Although it is a small and seldom quoted work, this section of his work is unsurpassed by any of his other writings. Before going into this work, let us see what the contingency argument is all about. The contingency argument Among the arguments for God's existence, that of contingency occupies a foremost place. Among the five arguments presented by Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) in his Summa theologiae, (1) it occupies the third place, after motion and causality, and before grades of being and design. The third way is taken from possibility and necessity, and runs thus: We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated and to corrupt, and consequently they are possible to be and not to be. but it is impossible for these always to exist, for that which is possible not to be at some time is not. Therefore, if everything is possible not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence. Now if this were true, even now there would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existencewhich is absurd. Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary. But every necessary thing either has its necessity caused by another, or not. Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another, as has been already proved in regard to efficient causes. Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God. Apart from Christian sources, Thomas had access to the works of Ibn-Sînâ which clearly express this same argument. ln his `Uyûn al-masâ'il, Ibn-Sînâ (980-1037) clearly develops the distinction between the "necessary existent" (wâjib al-wujûd) and the "possible existent" (mumkin). (2) In the theology section of his encyclopedic work ash-Shifâ' he bases this distinction on the identification or real distinction of essence (dhât) and existence (inniyya) in these things. (3) In his short work, Fuªûª al-Œikma, (4) he founds it on a distinction between the abstract essence (mâhiyya) and the concrete essence (huwiyya). The latter distinction separates God from creatures which are multiple individuals in their species, but it does not apply to spiritual creatures whereThomas Aquinas points outthe abstract essence is the same as the concrete essence. The constant dependence of all creatures on God for their existence is related to the question of creation from nothing, which Ibn-Sînâ introduced into Arab philosophy. (5) For him it was a support for his idea of a universe without beginning or end, whose existence always comes from God. Apart from the idea of a universe without beginning, Muslim theologians, especially the Ash`arites, adopted into their own armory Ibn-Sînâ's distinction between necessary and possible being. Only it was not their preferred argument to prove the existence of God. They rather relied on the hazardous premise that the universe must have had a beginning, and therefore must have been created. Al-Fârâbî's other treatment of the existence of God Al-Fârâbî (875-950), in his major works doesn't anticipate Ibn-Sînâ's distinction. In his Mabâdi' ârâ' ahl al-madîna al-fâ²ila and as-Siyâsa al-madaniyya, his starting point is "the First Existent" (al-mawjûd al-awwal). (6) Instead of trying to prove such a being, al-Fârâbî merely presents an outline of a Plotinian emanantist universe, with a first cause from which all other beings flow, one from the other. In his Ta`lîqât he says that knowledge of the First necessary being is primordial (awwaliyya), and does not come by learning or acquisition (min ghayr iktisâb). (7) On the other hand, in his Falsafa Aris³û³âlîs, al-Fârâbî repeats Aristotle's argument for a first mover. (8) Only in his Risâla Zaynûn al-kabîr al-yûnânî and in ad-Da`âwî al-qalbiyya does he present the argument from contingency, saying that all possible being depends on and flows from a necessary being whose essence and existence are identical. The former of these two works is the one we now want to study. Risâla Zaynûn al-kabîr al-yûnânî The title means "Treatise of Zeno the Great man of Greece". Who was this Zeno? In the first lines of the text al-Fârâbî says he was a student of Aristotle. This is a case of historical confusion, since Aristotle had no such student. There were three Zenos among the ancient Greek philosophers: (1) Zeno of Elea, a pre-Socratic (c. 490-430 B.C.), (2) Zeno of Citium in Cyprus, a Stoic (336-364 B.C.), and (3) Zeno of Sidon, an Epicurean (c. 150-73 B.C.). (9) All we can gather is that al-Fârâbî's Zeno was pseudonym for some author whose treatises (rasâ'il) al-Fârâbî claims to have obtained from some eastern Christians. Although al-Fârâbî's work claims to be a commentary on Zeno, everything after the first paragraph is attributed to Zeno. Evidently, al-Fârâbî was using Zeno, a quasi-mythical philosopher of the past, as a fictitious literary mouthpiece to express his own ideas. As for his other works, al-Fârâbî presents Platonic or Plotinian thought in an Islamic dress. The Greek pantheon yields to the "First Principle" (He does not use the word "Allâh") and the heavenly intelligences. The philosopher-king becomes the Prophet, and the laws become the Sharî`a. Although I present the entire text of this short treatise, the focus of my interest is in the contingency argument for the existence of God. Although its expression is different, it is essentially the same argument as that picked up by Ibn-Sînâ and passed on to Thomas Aquinas, as seen in the text of the Summa theologiae cited above. The only difference is that for al-Fârâbî God is the universal Creator only in the sense that he acts through a chain of intermediate causes; He himself creates only one thing. For Thomas, however, all things depend immediately on God for their existence, as the following text form Summa contra gentiles (10) makes clear: Then, too, the order of causes necessarily corresponds to the order of effects, since effects are commensurate with their causes. Hence, just as effects are referred to their appropriate causes, so that which is common in such effects must be reduced to a common cause. Thus, transcending the particular causes of the generation of this or that thing is the universal cause of generationthe sun; and above the particular governors of the kingdom, as, indeed, of each city in it, stands the king, the universal cause of government in his whole realm. Now, being is common to everything that is. Above all causes, then, there must be a cause whose proper action is to give being. But we have already shown in Book I that God is the first cause. Everything that is must, therefore, be from God. The Arabic text presented here is from the Hyderabad edition of 1349 H., except that I added punctuation and revised the paragraph divisions. COMMENTARY ON THE TREATISE OF ZENO, TNE GREAT MAN OF GREECE by Abû-Naªr MuŒammad al-Fârâbî I saw some treatises by Zeno the Great, a student of Aristotle, and by the Greek Elder. Some Christians had written commentaries on them, leaving out some material and making some additions. I wrote my own commentaries on the essentials of these works as a commentator should. The first few of these treatises belong to Zeno, the Great man of Greece. He said: The first chapter is to prove the existence of the First Principle; the second is about His attributes, the third about the relationship of things to Him. The fourth talks about prophecy, the fifth about revealed law, and the sixth about the last things. 1. A proof for the existence of the First Principle If all things in the world of generation and corruption first did not exist and later came into existence. before coming into existence they were possibly existent, for were they impossible of existence they would never have come to be. And were they necessary existent they could never not exist. For something that is possibly existent to exist it needs a cause to bring it out of nothingness into existence. For everything that has existence not from its essence is possibly existent. And everything that is possibly existent has its existence from something other than itself. If that other is possibly existent, then what we say about that is the same as what we said about the first. So for something possibly existent to exist, it must necessary depend on something that necessary exists by its essence. Nothing can be a cause of itself, since a cause essentially precedes its effect. For example, if we say that A is a cause of B, we mean that the existence of B is actually from the existence of A. The conclusion is that the existence of the cause precedes the effect, and a thing cannot have two existences, one which precedes and is a cause, and the other which is after and is an effect, so that a thing would be the cause of itself. By this way we know that the essence of a thing cannot be a cause of the existence that comes to the essence, since the existence of the cause is the reason for the existence of the effect. An essence cannot have two existences, one of them giving and the other receiving. And there cannot be two things which are causes of one another, such as A and B, with A the cause of B's existence, and B the cause of A's existence. For if B's existence comes from A, then A's existence must precede B's and not be its effect. This leads to the conclusion that A, as a cause, must exist before B, and as an effect of B it must exist after B; thus at the same time it is existent and non-existent, and B is the cause of itself, since the cause of a cause is a cause. So if B is the cause of A and A is the cause of B, then B is the cause of itself, and that thing's existence must precede its existence. That is untenable. That is not the case of two things in a chain, for they have a third thing binding them together. But possible causes cannot go on infinitely, since each of them is an intermediary, being caused under one aspect and a cause under another. Everything that is intermediary must have a limit, and a limit is an end, so that possible things must depend on the existence of a necessary existent, who is unaffected by causes, whether material, formal, final or efficient. 2. His attributes He must he one, since in any pair one is first and the other is second. There is a natural precedence of one over two, even if they are together. For they would either share in everything, and in that case there would be no duality between them, or they would differ, and in that case one of them would have to be the reason for the other, since one of them would be necessary existent. If the other were necessary existent, neither of them would be distinguished and identified as necessary existent, but would be distinguished by something else. But there is no problem for something to he necessary existent if its existence is one as far as the meaning of its essence is concerned. He cannot be a body or a surface or a point, since a body is composed of matter and form, and matter and form are two causes of a body, while a surface, line or point are founded in a body. But for a body to be founded in matter and form, and all that, contradicts being necessarily existent by essence. Therefore He is one in every aspect. He understands His essence, and that by His essence, not by anything outside His essence witch would he a cause of His understanding His essence. By reason of His being an intelligence He is understanding (`âqil); by reason of His essence being understood He is understood (ma`qûl). By reason of His understanding His essence by His essence and not by anything else outside and apart from it, He is intelligence (`aql). It may be surprising to say that He is intelligence, understanding and being understood, but that does not entail any plurality, once our statement is understood that He understands His essence by His essence. He is living, since any of us is said to be living because he has intelligence, whereas He is intelligence itself, and someone who knows everything is all the more living. In His case, "living" and "life", like "intelligence" and "understanding" are one thing. He is knowing, and his knowledge does not change, since He knows things by their intelligible reasons and the arrangement of their existence, and not by sense knowledge. Intellectual knowledge does not change, but what is obtained from the senses does change. He is absolutely wise, since His wisdom is His essence. He is willing, since in Him there is no opposition to things. 3. The relationship of things to Him Nothing came from Him which does not fit Him. Were it not for Him nothing would remain in existence. Nor can He be said to have acted to gain perfection by His act, with the implication that His act is superior to and more worthy than Him, for that would mean that he was lacking in something and had to be perfected by His act, and this cannot be said of the Most High Creator and the First Intelligence who understands Himself. From Him came an intelligence which is possibly existent from its own essence but necessarily existent from an Other; so duality comes about in this way. This second intelligence understands the First Intelligence and understands its own essence. By understanding the First an emanation [of another intelligence necessarily comes from Him, and by His understanding of Himself there comes from Him a form related to matter, that is, the soul of a heavenly sphere. This should not be surprising, since we ourselves, by imagining something delightful and pleasant, experience some reaction in our members, and by imagining something sour experience a reaction of tremor and sheer revulsion. So why should anyone be surprised if an intelligence separated from matter should understand something and something should come into being as a result of his understanding, or that there should be duality or even trinity in the first creature. For there comes from him an intelligence as well as the soul of the sphere, which form is the cause of its matter actually existing. The agent gave the latter existence by means of the former, resulting in the body of the sphere with its matter and form. From one thing only one thing can come. Were two different things really to come from one thing, the cause would not really be one, as is apparent to anyone who gives the slightest consideration to the question. I heard my teacher Aristotle say that if two things came from something really one, the two would have to be either really different or one in every respect. If they were one in every respect they would not be two, but if they were different the cause would not be one. The first creature, designated as B, understands its essence, as we have said, and the essence of his Creator, and there result from it an intelligence from its understanding the First Creator, and the soul of the sphere by its understanding its own essence. Its own essence is not one, but has an aspect that comes from without, namely, its existence which comes from the First, the Blessed and Most High. So this intelligence understands its Creator as one and real, and understands its own essence and its ordination for existence. Then the third intelligence, designated as C, understands the Most High First Creator and its own essence, and there result from it an intelligence and the soul of the sphere of the fixed stars as well as the body of this sphere. It is not surprising that the second intelligence understands what pertains to its Creator and His essence and that three things should come from it, while other intelligences understand things and three things do not come from them. But it is surprising that someone should not know how these things come forth by an intellectual process that involves cause and effect. In this way you now can observe how a universal necessitating cause is not replicated; this will be easy for you to see by the slightest consideration. The fourth intelligence, designated as D, understands the first, second and third intelligences and there comes from it an intelligence designated as E, a soul designated as F, pertaining to the sphere of Saturn, and the body of that sphere. This process goes on as far as the agent intelligence, which is called "the giver of forms". This intelligence constantly understands the First and constantly understands whatever is under the First. Forms come necessary from it, but the souls of the spheres help it in preparing causes for the reception of forms from it, just as a doctor does not give health, but prepares causes for the reception of health. 4. Prophecy A holy prophetic soul, at the beginning of its purpose, at the beginning of its ecstasy, receives emanations in one strike, without any need of a reasoning process. A soul that is not holy receives intuitive knowledge by an intermediary and receives other knowledge by way of reasoning. The prophet lays down customs (sunan) and laws (sharâ'i`) and gets people to follow them by raising their desires and fears, teaching them that there is Someone who will repay them according to their deeds, rewarding goodness and punishing evil, and not demanding of them any knowledge that they are incapable of. For the level that belongs to knowledge is higher than anyone can reach. My teacher Aristotle told a story he heard from his teacher Plato, that someone who towers with knowledge is higher than any bird can fly, and that the canopy of mental vision is more encompassing than any traveller can go around. 5. Revealed law A prophet imposes on them instructions regarding deeds, such as ªalât and zakât. For ªalât includes a state of humble prayer, abstraction and preparation to receive the emanation of mercy and consciousness of God and his Prophet. Zakât includes justice, equity and care for the poor; it helps preserve general order in the world observed in other acts of worship. That is because it includes good morals, detachment of soul, avoidance of obstacles, and other benefits; it would require a long discourse to explain the wisdom of any one of them. Revealed law has spoken about this, and we are only explaining what is in accord with the law and the Prophet. It concerns either intellectual pleasures or sensible pleasures, as Plato said: "Each man's tomorrow is as he hopes it will be." Note that I heard from my teacher Aristotle, who said he heard from Plato, who said he heard his teacher Socrates say: Anyone who wishes to talk with the knowledge of wisdom should be a young man, open-hearted, not looking for worldly advantage, of a good temperament, so in love of knowledge that he prefers it to everything that the world can offer, truthful, not saying anything but the truth; he should be a lover of equity by nature, not by command; he should also be faithful, religious, occupied with physical labour and legitimate offices, not procrastinating in carrying out his duties. For anyone who procrastinates carrying out the duties that any of the prophets of God the Most High commanded and then comes looking for wisdom deserves to be shunned and left alone. 6. The last things He should deny himself everything that the prophet of his religious affiliation forbade. He should agree with the ma