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| Mulla Sadra, the muslim philosophy |
Sadra’s Conception
of God as the Cause of the World
This article aims at elaborating Sadra’s
view that, the temporal antecedents of a temporal emergent are not its cause (‘illa),
but only its preparatory conditions (mu’iddat); its cause is the eternal
creative act of God (amr). That which receives the impact of this
creative act (khalk) is the temporal flow of matter, which prepares the
ground for God’s creative act. This is why the temporal flow of matter has no beginning,
for whatever is supposed to be the beginning point must itself have its
preparatory antecedents. This may be considered as a reply to a common view
that just as an individual temporal event is both temporally originated and yet
attributable to God’s causation, so can the world as a whole be regarded as
temporally created and also attributed to God’s causation. I shall, therefore,
try to show that the only thing about which Sadra (as a believer) can talk with
some cogent argumentation is the reality of the creative act of God (amr).
As far as the second part of my paper, which is concerned with how this
creative act works, Sadra’s view on this matter must be taken as speculative
metaphysics and we shall attempt to comment on this point further.
Although there are
various definitions of knowledge among the contemporary epistemologists, they
mainly agree with Kant in some key points regarding epistemic (scientific)
knowledge. This definition can roughly be formulated as in order to be counted
as scientific knowledge, any conclusion must be constituted of percepts
and concepts because "thoughts without content are empty, intuitions
without concepts are blind."1 Thus for both, Kant and contemporary
philosophers, such as Brown, Kuhn, Acikgenc and Fayerabend, knowledge can arise
only from the united co-operation of senses and understanding.2 The only
difference is the fact that for Kant, knowledge acquiring procedure is
considered as the activity of the individual scientist for the contemporary
philosopher’s knowledge is an intersubjective decision. Thus for contemporary
philosophy, in order to be counted as scientific all knowledge must be accepted
as such by the community of scientists of the same field.3
In this sense
knowledge acquiring procedure is the operation of the mind and the senses upon
the given. What we mean by the given is the object of the knowledge. We name it
as "the given" simply because we do not come up with the objects of
knowledge but we find them in nature. What we need to do is to study them
operating with our senses and mind. If eventually our conclusion gets the
approval of the community it becomes knowledge. An object of knowledge is
represented to the mind through experience (senses). Thus "experience is
the only beginning for all knowledge, without which no knowledge of any object
is possible".4
If we knew nothing through
perception we would have no scientific knowledge… However much scientific
knowledge one can acquire by instruction and testimony from someone else, the
discoveries which that knowledge represents must be made partly on the basis of
perceptual experience: if not through someone’s laboratory work or observations
of nature, then by somebody on whose perceptions the discoveries depend,
directly or indirectly.5
Moreover, we must
not forget that "scientific knowledge does not automatically arise as we
observe our surroundings. Normally, we must first raise questions about the
world they direct our inquiry. Only in the light of such questions are we in a
good position to formulate hypotheses. These, in turn, are the raw material of
scientific knowledge. Some are rejected, some are confirmed, and some that are
confirmed become knowledge"6. Since acquiring knowledge begins from the
empirical data the only realm about which we can formulate scientific knowledge
is the empirical realm or the empirical world. This means if the object of
knowledge does not belong to the empirical world we may not be able to
formulate any scientific knowledge about it. We may have opinions and thought
about it but these opinions can never be made scientific.
Since the topic of
our paper is Sadra’s conception of God as the cause of the world, first we need
to clarify that God and God’s actions can never be the objects of our
knowledge. Whatever we say about God and his actions one of the main
constituents of scientific conclusion, perception, is always absent so that our
opinions about God will always remain as metaphysical speculations that may
never be made scientific. God and his actions do not belong to the
empirical realm. They are transcendent for us. They belong to a transcendent
world where our senses can never penetrate. We can never make of them an object
of our scientific inquiry. This does not mean that our claims concerning this
world are never true. But we would like to make it clear that they can never
take the status of scientific truth.7
Another key point
that has to be clarified when we deal with "Sadra’s conception of God as
the cause of the world" is his being a theist and a Muslim. This is what
represents the essential difference between his and, say, Aristotelian
conception of God. Sadra is a believer. For him revelation (the Qur’an), like
for every Muslim, is a book which in itself contains God’s words. These words,
for Muslims represent the Truth par excellence as they are said by God, and
accepted as such by an act of belief. Revelation is an empirical source, which
can be touched, seen, read and understood, which means it is a given. Since it
has the status of the given it means that it can be an object of epistemic
knowledge. Since Aristotle is trying to define God based solely on his rational
capacities and the contingency principal Sadra is using these for an epistemic
explanation of an empirical reality. For believers there is no difference
between universe and revelation as realities. If the universe is a reality
created by God revelation is another reality said by God. The contingency
principle only presses us to think that there must be a cause for the world and
this must be God; but it never gives as any information about God and his
actions. Nature is constructed in such a way that when we study it, it makes us
conclude that it must have a cause for its existence but never gives any
empirical ground about what this cause is, nor how this cause is, and where
this cause is. The source that contains empirical information directly related
to this cause and waits for our epistemic (scientific) analysis is revelation.
Thus the sources that we can scientifically study are God’s words (Revelation)
and God’s work (universe)8. God himself, on the other hand, will always remain
a transcendent existence that we would never be able to deal with
scientifically. Being aware of this situation Sadra himself, in most of the
cases, declares very openly the failure of reason to penetrate into the
transcendent reality of God. Human mind, according to Sadra, captures only
essences. God, on the other hand, is considered as pure existence. Pure
existence has no objective essence at all. So that God as pure existence cannot
be captured by the human mind, which captures only essences. In fact
There is not proof for God’s
uniqueness and unity except God himself who, witnessing the self-conscious
failure of reason, fulfils it by his sheer grace.9
Being guided by
revelation, which provides clear cut statements in favour of the inability of
reason alone to know God, Sadra is sure of this position; but his thirst for
knowledge and desire to show that the causal influence of God upon the universe
is a kind of truth that can even be understood easily by the mind, made him go
beyond revelation and try to explain God’s relation to the universe based on
rational explanations alone without giving any empirical ground neither from
universe nor from revelation where he would base his claims.
For Sadra and
other Muslim philosophers God is the creator of the universe but since the
process of creation is not explained in clear-cut terms by revelation, they try
to do this in terms of cause effect relationship. At the same time, this
approach may be considered as an activity of reconciliation between revelation
and Aristotelian metaphysics, because as we know, Aristotle was a great
authority in science. They thought that Aristotelianisation of revelation meant
scientifisation of it. This is not true on the basis of recent developments in
epistemology. We may claim again on the basis of this development that every
rational conclusion is not necessarily true and also, every truth is not
necessarily subject to rationalization, i.e., cannot be rationalized.10
For Sadra God is
the only true cause of the universe. As far as other natural causes are
concerned, they are only temporal causes and cannot be considered as real
causes. These temporal causes are only preparatory conditions because in
Sadra’s view they only cause movement and change and do not give existence to
the effect. For the effect comes from God in the actual sense. In fact
A true cause is only that which not
only gives existence to its effect but also continuity, so that it becomes
inconceivable that an effect should last without a cause.11
For both, Mulla
Sadra and other Muslim Peripatetic philosophers, the effect needs the cause for
its existence. But since for the peripatetics the effect later on comes to
acquire a reality of its own, for Sadra "the world is real only when
related to God; when not so related, it has no being whatever"12. Sadra
"describes the relationship of the world to God not as a building is
related to its builder or even as a writing is related to its writer, but as a
speech is related to the speaker: The moment the speaker ceases to speak,
speech vanishes"13. Sadra’s claim that God is the only one who gives
continuity to the contingents in their existence is true and it can be clearly
confirmed by empirical statements from revelation. It is also a scientific
truth because Muslim scientists are unanimous regarding this matter. But his
comparison of this continuity with the relation of the speech to the speaker
remains without empirical basis. The creative act of God is a reality that has
a transcendent status. Thus it can never become an epistemic reality because we
can never penetrate into the nature of this reality in order to epistemise
it. Speech, on the other hand, is a kind of activity that we experience every
day and it can easily be counted as an epistemic truth. The analogy between a
known and unknown thing can never be considered knowledge; it can only have the
status of metaphysical speculation, or an opinion that may be useful for our satisfaction,
but not science or scientific explanation.
In Sadra’s view,
the stuff of which the world process is made, matter, is inherently incapable
of receiving the impact of God’s creative act all at once. Thanks to the
substantive change (harakah jawhariyyah) that matter possesses, the
world becomes capable of receiving the impact of Gods act of creation
continuously, in terms of newness and emergence. This, according to Sadra, is
what makes the world a continuous process and saves it from becoming a world of
discrete events.14 Sadra thinks that he is giving us knowledge about how God’s
act of creation (amr) works in the universe. No matter how much
speculation we do regarding transcendent realities we will never be able to
make them objective knowledge. Our inability to penetrate into the nature of
God’s transcendent act of creation compels us to satisfy ourselves with
rational speculation over the actions of his creation. But, in reality, we
realize that God’s creation and the natural phenomena are never capable of
helping us to scientifically understand the nature of transcendent realities.
Sadra seems very
much impressed by Muslim emanationists in his explanation of how existence
proceeds from God. God as the first cause is the absolute and simple existent.
By being what he is (God) produces His first and only effect. Since the first
cause is simple, its effect becomes simple too. This means that this effect
does not have two aspects, one as a being and the other as an effect, but its
being consists wholly in being an effect15. This first effect is described by
Sadra as the "first self-manifestation" of God to himself, or as the
"self-unfolding existence" (al-wujûd al-munbasit). According
to Sadra, every being exists, thanks to this self-unfolding existence16. This
first effect or first being comes into existence when God, as necessary
existence, reflects upon himself. This effect is "in a sense, identical
with God himself as pure existence but as being the result of his
self-reflection, it is something different as well"17. In fact this first
being, in Sadra’s view, is not even an emanant, just as the Neo-Platonist
emanationists would claim, but it is just an act "an act of
self-reflection so far as God is concerned and an act of pure effulgence so far
as it itself is concerned"18. In fact Sadra considers this as the real
existence. It is the stuff of which all existents are made, and it is called
the self-unfolding existence (al-wujûd al-munbasit)19. The relation of
this first being to existents is the same as the relation of matter to all
material objects. The only difference between this first being and matter is
that while the first being is pure actuality, matter is pure potentiality20.
Thinking that he is giving certain explanations about the act of creation,
Sadra, continues further with his metaphysical speculations about this first
being. Accepting the transcendent unity of God as unknowable, as we mentioned
before, he claims that the first being, as different from God, is knowable.
Sadra describes this being as:
… absolute and modeless but exists
in all modes – with the eternal it is eternal, with the temporal, temporal;
with the necessary, it is necessary; with the contingent, contingent; with the
stable it is stable, with the transient, transient21.
This is also
considered as God’s witness in all things. It is the shadow (zill) of
God in all things. Sometimes Sadra speaks of it as an act, and sometimes as a
relation that mediates between God and the world of contingency22. When this
first emanant from God or the self-unfolding being
… enters the realm of contingency
and through its self-determination beings with essences arise, it is called
‘the Breadth of the Merciful (nafas al-Rahmân)’, …this substance- the Breadth
of the Merciful- is the self-unfolding being insofar as it gives rise to
contingent beings and manifests essences. The factor that generates this change
in the self-unfolding being and brings it down from the level of pure existence
is again in the mind of God23.
The lack of
empirical ground regarding the nature of God and his actions and our inability
to scientifically penetrate into the nature of transcendent realities will
always encourage us to continue with our old-fashioned, traditional
metaphysical speculations regarding these realities. If God’s transcendent
unity cannot be known by us, and this, as we indicated above, is what Sadra
claims too, why should the first emanant from God or (the self–unfolding
being), be known? If God’s unity is transcendent, and this is because we have no
empirical reference to it neither in revelation nor in the universe, the first
emanant from Him that Sadra speaks about, is transcendent too. This
self-unfolding being is something in Sadra’s mind only. If there is not any
objective empirical sign that refers to it neither in revelation nor in the
universe it cannot be considered an object for our scientific analysis and
interpretations. If this is the case, and we have no scientific reason to
consider it differently, then how can we take Sadra’s self-unfolding existence
seriously? In fact, all his words, about God as the cause of the universe and
the nature of His act of creation that cannot be based on any empirical ground
from God’s words or work, are only metaphysical speculations or Sadra’s act of rational
self-satisfaction. Sadra’s words about this self-unfolding existence and its
relation to the contingent world from a contemporary epistemological
perspective, may not be considered as more than mere speculation. Science deals
almost exclusively with things, or the given, or the empirical world, not with
ideas or transcendent world.
I do not see any
difference between, Sadra’s self-unfolding being, Muslim emanationists’ first
intelligence, Plato’s Demiurge and Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, from a scientific
point of view. The only scientific expression we possess in relation to all
these things is ‘we simply do not know what they are’. Since they do not have
the status of ‘the given’ they cannot be the objects of scientific inquiry.
Only ‘the given’ objective existents may become subjects for different or
similar interpretations by different individuals, groups, or generations of
scientists.
The problem of
scientific knowledge with respect to Sadra has another aspect which indeed
gives him an original and novel approach in the history of Islamic philosophy.
This aspect comes from his Illuminationist background which brings fore two
more points; first is his insistence on the sole reality of Existence and the
fact that this reality cannot be captured by the mind, which brings him
immediately at home with the contemporary epistemology. The second is his
insistence that the actual reality and the complete metaphysical world process
can be captured by a mystical intuition. This aspect of his epistemology is lacking
in its modern counterpart. If we want to benefit from his philosophy we need to
study this aspect of his epistemology and try to reformulate it in terms
familiar to us today. There are already certain works coming out in recent
times but I believe that we need to do more to catch up with Mulla Sadra. I
hope that we can continue along the Sadrean lines to develop such a
contemporary epistemology and that these studies will be a good starting point
for us.
Notes:
1-Immanuel Kant, Critique
of Pure Reason, Trans. By Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St.Martin’s Press,
1965), 93.
2-For Brown see
the next footnote, for Acikgenc see note 4, for Kuhn see The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970),
for Feyerabend see Against Method (New York: Verso, 1988).
3-Harrold Brown, Perception
Theory and Commitment (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1977), 151.
4-Alpaslan
Acikgenc, Scientific Thought and its Burdens (Istanbul: Fatih University
Press, 2000), 28.
5-Robert Audi, Epistemology
(New York: Routledge, 1998), 250.
6-Ibid, 252.
7-Harold Brown, op.cit.,
151-2.
8-See Frank
Emanuel. The Religion of Newton (Oxford: University Press, 1974), 16 .
9-Al-Hikmat
al-Muta’aliyah fi’l-Asfâr al-‘Aqliyyah al-‘Arba’ah (Beyrut: Dar
Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, 1990), 2: 301-3, henceforth refered to as Asfâr.
For translations I followed Fazlur Rahman and adopted his terminology, for the
reference see note 10.
10-See Brown, op
.cit.
11-Fazlur Rahman, The
Philosophy of Mulla Sadra (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1974), 74.
12-Ibid, 77.
13-Asfâr, 2: 216.
14-Ibid, 137-8.
15-Ibid, 299.
16-Ibid, 301-3.
17-Fazlur Rahman. Philosophy
of Mulla Sadra, op.cit., 85.
18-Ibid.
19-Asfâr, 2: 328, and
330-331.
20-See ibid.
21-Asfâr, 2:.328.
22-Ibid, 294.
23-See
Fazlur-Rahman, op.cit, 86.
