Since
the falÉsifah’s major activity was to reconcile the Greek with the
Islamic thought, their concept of causality is inevitably the outcome of that
activity. The first permeation of the peripatetic concept of causality to the
Muslim philosophers is to be found in the thought of al-Kindi (d. 257/ 870). He
is the first renowned Muslim scholar who was concerned with the attempt to
transmit the Greek thought into the realm of Islamic intellectual tradition. His
notion of causality is to be found in the opening section of his renowned
treatise FÊ al-Falsafah al-ÕlÉ al-Kindi:
We do not find the truth we are seeking
without finding a cause; the cause of the existence and continuance of
everything is The True One, in that each thing, which has being has truth. The
True One exists necessarily, and therefore beings exist. The noblest part of
philosophy and the highest in rank is the First Philosophy, i.e. knowledge of
the First Truth Who is the cause of all truth. ….the knowledge of the cause is
more noble than knowledge of the effect, since we have complete knowledge of
every knowable only when we have obtained full knowledge of its cause.[1]
The focal point of the foregoing quotation is the notion of
God as the cause. This point is the crux of al-Kindi philosophy and the
starting point of his concept of causality. Since his concept of causality is
predominantly divine causation, we shall discuss his concept of causality from
his concept of God.
Al-Kindi’s
attempt to reconcile the concept of God in Islam and in Aristotle is apparent
when he prefers to employ the term al-WÉÍid al-×aqq (The True One) as
one of the names and attributes of God. al-×aqq is the Qur’anic term to
denote the name of God [ÙÉhÉ (20): 114 and al-Kahfi (18):44], but
the term “The True One” is also parallel to the term used by Aristotle
in his Metaphysics (993b, 27-30).[2]
At the end of al-Falsafah al-ÕlÉ al-Kindi clearly blended the concept al-×aqq
with “the First, the Creator, and the Sustainer of all that He has created.”[3] More clearly, in al-ØinÉ‘at al-UÐmÉ, while
substituting Aristotle’s concept of Unmoved Mover with al-×aqq he
remains of the opinion that God “does not move, but in fact causes motion
without moving Himself”.[4]
Al-Kindi’s
attempt to bring his concept of God in term of divine causation is manifest in
another treatise.[5]
Here al-Kindi identified God of the Qur’an with the Greek epithet such as the First
Mover and the First Cause. He also describes God as the one living being, who
is absolutely not multiple, as the first cause who Has no cause, as the agent
who Has no agent, the perfecter who Has no perfecter, the bringer of existence
(al-mu’ayyis) to everything out of non-existence, and the one who
makes some of them causes for others. His argument of divine causality begins
with the statement that everything that comes to be must have a cause for its
existence. The series of causes are finite, and consequently there is a prime
cause, the true cause, which is God.
Conceding
the four causes enumerated by Aristotle, i.e. material, the formal, the
efficient, and the final causes,[6]
al-Kindi posited that God is the efficient cause. However, according to him there
are two kinds of efficient causes; the first is the true efficient cause
and its action is creation from nothing (ibdɑ); the second is
not the true one, because it is only intermediate cause, i.e., they are
produced by other causes, and are themselves the causes of other effects. They
are called cause only by metaphor. Only God is the true efficient cause.
However,
in his FÊ al-IbÉna he employs the term remote (bÉ‘idah)
and proximate (qarÊb) efficient cause for the true efficient
cause and intermediate cause respectively. These terms are given special
emphasis to deal with the cause of generating and corrupting movement. The
proximate (qarÊbah) efficient cause is like an arrow, whereas the remote
efficient cause is like the shooter of an arrow. The remote efficient cause of
the generation and corruption of sensible and intelligible entities is the
first cause, God. The proximate efficient cause, which reveals the operation of
divine tadbÊr is the heavenly sphere and its inhabitants, namely the
heavenly bodies. The proximate causes of
our coming-to-be are the movement of the sun and the planets. The arrangement
of the heavenly bodies in relation to one another and the proportion of their
distances, their movements and their proximity and distances from the center
show that the heavenly bodies as the causes of the things falling under
generation and corruption and their endurance of their form, destined by their
Creator.[7]
God, the Creator of these heavenly bodies and their arrangement is described as
the first director (mudabbir awwal) or the director of every director,
agent of every agent, generator (mukawwin) of every generator, the first
of every first and cause of every cause.[8]
Besides
positing God as the true and the remote efficient cause, al-Kindi in his al-Falsafah
al-ÕlÉ applied the four Aristotle’s types of causes to his ontology. He
holds that every body (jirm) is a cause to something, producing an
effect, which is either already in itself, like heat in and from fire or not in
itself, as wall-ness is not the builder of a wall (p.249). In this respect,
al-Kindi also employs Aristotelian principles that a thing is either always in
actuality, always in potentiality or passing from potentiality to actuality.
The expression “always in actuality” means that the outermost body eternally
actual and moving by its essence causes the things below to pass from
potentiality to actuality.
Even
though al-Kindi employs Aristotle’s principle, he also departed from him in
some points. On the one hand, Aristotle leaves aside the discussion of the
first cause, which belongs to first philosophy, in order to turn to the second
material cause and later to the moving cause of the heaven.[9]
On the other hand, al-Kindi put the first cause in a central position. He
places God in the most active and prominent role in the world and in the
planetary system, by giving the specific epithet mudabbir. The central
concept is thus God’s tadbÊr, while maintaining the unity of God, the
greatness of His power, the perfection of His direction. This means that al-Kindi
does not follow Aristotle’s physical argument and turns instead to a cosmological
one, by positing the heavenly spheres or bodies as the proximate efficient
cause of generation and corruption.
In Aristotelian metaphysics, the Prime
Mover set the world in motion, but in the Hellenistic tradition, time and
motion are intrinsically linked. Matter set in motion eternally exists, since
it exists before motion (and therefore before time). In this system, time is
defined as the extension of the series of movements. Thus, time begins with
movement. In al-Kindi’s system, matter, time and movement are all finite, with
a beginning and a cessation at some future point. Al-Kindi
quite bluntly states in his RisÉla fi al-fÉ‘il al-Íaqq
al-awwal, all causes other than God “are called agents only metaphorically".[10]
The
same case is with Neo-Platonism. In spite of appropriating the philosophical
ideas, which were current in later Neo-Platonism, al-Kindi developed his own
philosophy, which in some points is at variance with the Neo-Platonic doctrine,
and even differs from the Hellenistic
philosophical tradition, primarily in espousing the belief that the world was
created ex nihilo. Positing the creation of the world is diametrically
against the doctrine of Neo-Platonic emanation.
But in this point al-Kindi does not seem to be consistent, for in his al-ØinÉ‘at al-UÐmÉ, he
still in the opinion that God does not move, He causes motion
without moving Himself.
Thus,
al-Kindi’s concept of causality is primarily divine causality, meaning that God
is the cause of everything and its continuance and thus the cause of reality
and truth. By positing the relation between being and truth, al-Kindi believes
that all beings owe their existence to the necessary existence of The True One.
To some extents al-Kindi has successfully maintain the concept of God as the
creator of the world, but when he depicts God as Unmoved Mover he contradicts
his own position that God is the creator ex nihilo.
[1] Alfred L.Ivry, al-Kindi’s
Metaphysics, A translation of Ya‘cËb ibn IsÍÉq al-Kindi’s Fi al-Falsafah
al-ÕlÉ, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1974):
55-56.
[2] Even though the
term truth is employed by both al-Kindi and Aristotle, it does not necessarily
signify the same
concept. The truth in Aristotle, if it refers to God, is not God who is the
creator of the world. It is because he holds that matter is un-generated and
eternal, and hence the world is not created. The concept of God as Unmoved
Mover and final cause is passive god, in the sense that being the cause, it is
not an agent that moves everything in the universe. To grasp the nature of Unmoved Mover in the
sense of cause and effect is elusive, just as it is hard to conceive god as the
First Cause with direct knowable contact with the universe. The God-world relation cannot be regarded as
an activity, since it is a sort of influence that one person may unconsciously
have on another. See Aristotle, De
Caelo, 301b31, 279b12ff.
[3]
Alfred, al-Kindi’s Metaphysics, 114
[4] Alfred., al-ØinÉ‘Ét al-UÐmÉ, as
quoted by Rosenthal, in “Al-Kindi and Ptolemy” (Rome: Studi Orientalistici,
vol. II, 1956), 455. The treatise is not yet edited, Rosenthal gave some
excerpts and analyzed it.
[5] Al-Kindi, FÊ al-IbÉnah ‘an al-‘illat
al-fÉ’Élah al-QarÊbah li al-kawn wa al-fasÉd, (Explanation
on the Proximate Efficient Cause of Generation and Corruption), ed. M.A.H.
Abu Rida, 2 vols, vol. I, (Cairo
[6]
Al-Kindi, al-Kindi’s Metaphysics
, 56, Arabic text, 98.
[7] Al-Kindi, FÊ al-IbÉnah vol.I, 226, 122-27.5; See also 215.10-13
[8] Al-Kindi, FÊ al-IbÉnah,
vol. I, 214 and 10-11
[9] Aristotle, The Generation and
Corruption. I, 3.318a 6f.
[10] Al-Kindi, RasÉ’il, ed.M.
AbË RiÌÉ, 2 vols, vol. 1 (Cairo, n.p. 1369/1950),
Since
the falÉsifah’s major activity was to reconcile the Greek with the
Islamic thought, their concept of causality is inevitably the outcome of that
activity. The first permeation of the peripatetic concept of causality to the
Muslim philosophers is to be found in the thought of al-Kindi (d. 257/ 870). He
is the first renowned Muslim scholar who was concerned with the attempt to
transmit the Greek thought into the realm of Islamic intellectual tradition. His
notion of causality is to be found in the opening section of his renowned
treatise FÊ al-Falsafah al-ÕlÉ al-Kindi:
We do not find the truth we are seeking
without finding a cause; the cause of the existence and continuance of
everything is The True One, in that each thing, which has being has truth. The
True One exists necessarily, and therefore beings exist. The noblest part of
philosophy and the highest in rank is the First Philosophy, i.e. knowledge of
the First Truth Who is the cause of all truth. ….the knowledge of the cause is
more noble than knowledge of the effect, since we have complete knowledge of
every knowable only when we have obtained full knowledge of its cause.[1]
The focal point of the foregoing quotation is the notion of
God as the cause. This point is the crux of al-Kindi philosophy and the
starting point of his concept of causality. Since his concept of causality is
predominantly divine causation, we shall discuss his concept of causality from
his concept of God.
Al-Kindi’s
attempt to reconcile the concept of God in Islam and in Aristotle is apparent
when he prefers to employ the term al-WÉÍid al-×aqq (The True One) as
one of the names and attributes of God. al-×aqq is the Qur’anic term to
denote the name of God [ÙÉhÉ (20): 114 and al-Kahfi (18):44], but
the term “The True One” is also parallel to the term used by Aristotle
in his Metaphysics (993b, 27-30).[2]
At the end of al-Falsafah al-ÕlÉ al-Kindi clearly blended the concept al-×aqq
with “the First, the Creator, and the Sustainer of all that He has created.”[3] More clearly, in al-ØinÉ‘at al-UÐmÉ, while
substituting Aristotle’s concept of Unmoved Mover with al-×aqq he
remains of the opinion that God “does not move, but in fact causes motion
without moving Himself”.[4]
Al-Kindi’s
attempt to bring his concept of God in term of divine causation is manifest in
another treatise.[5]
Here al-Kindi identified God of the Qur’an with the Greek epithet such as the First
Mover and the First Cause. He also describes God as the one living being, who
is absolutely not multiple, as the first cause who Has no cause, as the agent
who Has no agent, the perfecter who Has no perfecter, the bringer of existence
(al-mu’ayyis) to everything out of non-existence, and the one who
makes some of them causes for others. His argument of divine causality begins
with the statement that everything that comes to be must have a cause for its
existence. The series of causes are finite, and consequently there is a prime
cause, the true cause, which is God.
Conceding
the four causes enumerated by Aristotle, i.e. material, the formal, the
efficient, and the final causes,[6]
al-Kindi posited that God is the efficient cause. However, according to him there
are two kinds of efficient causes; the first is the true efficient cause
and its action is creation from nothing (ibdɑ); the second is
not the true one, because it is only intermediate cause, i.e., they are
produced by other causes, and are themselves the causes of other effects. They
are called cause only by metaphor. Only God is the true efficient cause.
However,
in his FÊ al-IbÉna he employs the term remote (bÉ‘idah)
and proximate (qarÊb) efficient cause for the true efficient
cause and intermediate cause respectively. These terms are given special
emphasis to deal with the cause of generating and corrupting movement. The
proximate (qarÊbah) efficient cause is like an arrow, whereas the remote
efficient cause is like the shooter of an arrow. The remote efficient cause of
the generation and corruption of sensible and intelligible entities is the
first cause, God. The proximate efficient cause, which reveals the operation of
divine tadbÊr is the heavenly sphere and its inhabitants, namely the
heavenly bodies. The proximate causes of
our coming-to-be are the movement of the sun and the planets. The arrangement
of the heavenly bodies in relation to one another and the proportion of their
distances, their movements and their proximity and distances from the center
show that the heavenly bodies as the causes of the things falling under
generation and corruption and their endurance of their form, destined by their
Creator.[7]
God, the Creator of these heavenly bodies and their arrangement is described as
the first director (mudabbir awwal) or the director of every director,
agent of every agent, generator (mukawwin) of every generator, the first
of every first and cause of every cause.[8]
Besides
positing God as the true and the remote efficient cause, al-Kindi in his al-Falsafah
al-ÕlÉ applied the four Aristotle’s types of causes to his ontology. He
holds that every body (jirm) is a cause to something, producing an
effect, which is either already in itself, like heat in and from fire or not in
itself, as wall-ness is not the builder of a wall (p.249). In this respect,
al-Kindi also employs Aristotelian principles that a thing is either always in
actuality, always in potentiality or passing from potentiality to actuality.
The expression “always in actuality” means that the outermost body eternally
actual and moving by its essence causes the things below to pass from
potentiality to actuality.
Even
though al-Kindi employs Aristotle’s principle, he also departed from him in
some points. On the one hand, Aristotle leaves aside the discussion of the
first cause, which belongs to first philosophy, in order to turn to the second
material cause and later to the moving cause of the heaven.[9]
On the other hand, al-Kindi put the first cause in a central position. He
places God in the most active and prominent role in the world and in the
planetary system, by giving the specific epithet mudabbir. The central
concept is thus God’s tadbÊr, while maintaining the unity of God, the
greatness of His power, the perfection of His direction. This means that al-Kindi
does not follow Aristotle’s physical argument and turns instead to a cosmological
one, by positing the heavenly spheres or bodies as the proximate efficient
cause of generation and corruption.
In Aristotelian metaphysics, the Prime
Mover set the world in motion, but in the Hellenistic tradition, time and
motion are intrinsically linked. Matter set in motion eternally exists, since
it exists before motion (and therefore before time). In this system, time is
defined as the extension of the series of movements. Thus, time begins with
movement. In al-Kindi’s system, matter, time and movement are all finite, with
a beginning and a cessation at some future point. Al-Kindi
quite bluntly states in his RisÉla fi al-fÉ‘il al-Íaqq
al-awwal, all causes other than God “are called agents only metaphorically".[10]
The
same case is with Neo-Platonism. In spite of appropriating the philosophical
ideas, which were current in later Neo-Platonism, al-Kindi developed his own
philosophy, which in some points is at variance with the Neo-Platonic doctrine,
and even differs from the Hellenistic
philosophical tradition, primarily in espousing the belief that the world was
created ex nihilo. Positing the creation of the world is diametrically
against the doctrine of Neo-Platonic emanation.
But in this point al-Kindi does not seem to be consistent, for in his al-ØinÉ‘at al-UÐmÉ, he
still in the opinion that God does not move, He causes motion
without moving Himself.
Thus,
al-Kindi’s concept of causality is primarily divine causality, meaning that God
is the cause of everything and its continuance and thus the cause of reality
and truth. By positing the relation between being and truth, al-Kindi believes
that all beings owe their existence to the necessary existence of The True One.
To some extents al-Kindi has successfully maintain the concept of God as the
creator of the world, but when he depicts God as Unmoved Mover he contradicts
his own position that God is the creator ex nihilo.
[1] Alfred L.Ivry, al-Kindi’s
Metaphysics, A translation of Ya‘cËb ibn IsÍÉq al-Kindi’s Fi al-Falsafah
al-ÕlÉ, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1974):
55-56.
[2] Even though the
term truth is employed by both al-Kindi and Aristotle, it does not necessarily
signify the same
concept. The truth in Aristotle, if it refers to God, is not God who is the
creator of the world. It is because he holds that matter is un-generated and
eternal, and hence the world is not created. The concept of God as Unmoved
Mover and final cause is passive god, in the sense that being the cause, it is
not an agent that moves everything in the universe. To grasp the nature of Unmoved Mover in the
sense of cause and effect is elusive, just as it is hard to conceive god as the
First Cause with direct knowable contact with the universe. The God-world relation cannot be regarded as
an activity, since it is a sort of influence that one person may unconsciously
have on another. See Aristotle, De
Caelo, 301b31, 279b12ff.
[3]
Alfred, al-Kindi’s Metaphysics, 114
[4] Alfred., al-ØinÉ‘Ét al-UÐmÉ, as
quoted by Rosenthal, in “Al-Kindi and Ptolemy” (Rome: Studi Orientalistici,
vol. II, 1956), 455. The treatise is not yet edited, Rosenthal gave some
excerpts and analyzed it.
[5] Al-Kindi, FÊ al-IbÉnah ‘an al-‘illat
al-fÉ’Élah al-QarÊbah li al-kawn wa al-fasÉd, (Explanation
on the Proximate Efficient Cause of Generation and Corruption), ed. M.A.H.
Abu Rida, 2 vols, vol. I, (Cairo
[6]
Al-Kindi, al-Kindi’s Metaphysics
, 56, Arabic text, 98.
[7] Al-Kindi, FÊ al-IbÉnah vol.I, 226, 122-27.5; See also 215.10-13
[8] Al-Kindi, FÊ al-IbÉnah,
vol. I, 214 and 10-11
[9] Aristotle, The Generation and
Corruption. I, 3.318a 6f.
[10] Al-Kindi, RasÉ’il, ed.M.
AbË RiÌÉ, 2 vols, vol. 1 (Cairo, n.p. 1369/1950),
