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Notes on Averroes on the Eternity of the World (Tahafut Al-Tahafut, First Discussion)

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Notes on Averroes on the Eternity of the World (Tahafut Al-Tahafut, First Discussion) Notes on Averroes on the Eternity of the World (Tahafut al-Tahafut, First Discussion) Arguments attributed to Al-Ghazali’s comments Averroes’ comments the philosophers by Al- Ghazali 1 Let us restrict ourselves in this chapter to those proofs that make an impression on the mind. 2 The philosophers’ First Proof: It is impossible that the temporal should proceed from the absolutely eternal. For assuming the eternal existing without the world proceeding from him, then if at a certain moment the world proceeds from him, then it did not proceed before, because there was no determining principle and its existence was pure possibility. When the world begins in time, there either arises or does not arise a new determinant of its existence. If, not the world does not begin (a contradiction). If so, then there either arises or does not arise a new determinant of the arising of the determinant of the world, etc. Thus either the world does not proceed or an infinity of new determinants must arise. 3 This argument (of Avicenna) is dialectical, rather than demonstrative. (This statement refers to three levels of discourse posited by Averroes in Harmony of Philosophy and Religion, namely, rhetorical, dialectical, and demonstrative. Only the demonstrative level constitutes knowledge.) This is because its premises concern common notions, not principles proper to the genus in question, and common notions approach the equivocal. For “possible” is equivocal between what happens more often than not, what happens less often than not, and what has equal chances of happening and not happening. These do not have the same necessity for a determining principle….Furthermore, there is the possible in the agent and in the patient. Of these, only the possible in the patient needs a determinant, and even so in nature this is not always evident. This is why the old philosophers investigated motion in nature and the distinction between internal and external movers. It is believed that the possible in the agent can sometimes be actualized without an external principle. Furthermore, changes requiring an external principle can be in one of four categories: substance, quality, quantity, and place, In addition, the eternal is divided according to the eternal in itself and the eternal through another. Additionally, sometimes there can be a change in the eternal, as in matter…Furthermore, agents are divided into human and natural and perhaps others. Thus the argument in question treats a multitude of problems as if they were one. (Note: according to the editor, S. van den Bergh, this statement is inconsistent with Averroes’ overall position and reflects the criticisms of Proclus by Philoponus [Alexandrian Christian, 490-570 AD, and commentator on Aristotle].) 4 Why can you not say that an eternal will decreed that the world began at a certain time, that its non-existence lasts until the moment it (the non-existence_ ceases) and its existence begins at the moment it begins…? 5 This argument is sophistical. For Ghazali admits that a delay in the effect is impossible if either a natural agent acts or a voluntary agent chooses—but he would admit a delay if a voluntary agent merely wills. However, the difficulty is unchanged, for the new act of the agent, even though delayed, will require either a prior change in the agent or a change without a cause. But his adversaries maintain that (1) the act of the agent requires a change, and that every change requires a cause, and that (2) there can be no change in the Eternal. (Note: I think therefore that the sophism here is to beg the question. MB) (Note: the philosophers, I believe, hold that the act of the Eternal is eternal and identical with His existence. MB) 6 Averroes’ comment: The Ash’arites (occasionalists) are forced to admit either a new act or a new agent, since the disposition of the agent re the effect cannot be the same with the agent acting and not acting. So there must be a new disposition or relation either in the agent or in the effect or in both. But then there must either have been an earlier agent or earlier act of the same agent, both of which are contrary to supposition. Otherwise there is an event without a cause, an absurdity. [Note: I think is is the temporal nature of a event that makes it in every case require a cause. There can be an uncaused being, namely God. MB] 7 Averroes’ further comment: Al-Ghazali’s argument depends on a transferring of the concept of will, which is derived from the human will, and is equally disposed towards contrary acts, and a supposed eternal will, which must belong, if it does belong, to a necessary being. [Apparently it is Averroes’ position, according to van den Burgh’s notes, that God’s acts are neither voluntary nor involuntary. MB] 8 To this the philosophers reply (substantially as in #5) 9 This is a correct argument. But then Ghazali goes on to confuse the issue by ascribing to the philosophers inapplicable arguments from convention: 10 The philosophers also say that in convention and volition there cannot be a delay in the effects of human action once all the conditions are actual and all obstacles removed. Example: divorce. 11 Ghazali has introduced this argument to weaken the case of the philosophers by having their seeming to allow conditional will dependent on a future condition, as in divorce. But the example of divorce is not relevant, because conventional and rational things do not behave in the same way. 12 Al-Ghazali says: the impossibility of an eternal will producing a temporal effect must either be proved through a middle term, and you philosophers can’t produce one, or as self-evident, and then why do the many not believe it? 13 Averroes: a truth self-evident to the philosophers is not necessary self-evident to the many. 14 Al-Ghazali: your maintaining that it is self- evident that there can be no cause without an effect is like the Ash’arites maintaining that it is self-evident that there can be no knowledge of plurality without there being plurality in the knowledge, or that there can be no identity in the knower, the knowledge, and the known, (Here Ghazali explicitly calls the philosophers “heretics”.) 15 Averroes: What is necessarily true cannot be disproved. Hence disputes about proof and disproof can only be settled by sound understanding. Denial of truth does not trouble the conviction of those to whom it is self-evident. 16 Al=Ghazali goes on: in the theory of the eternity of the universe, the revolutions of the Sun, the precession of the equinoxes, and the number of revolutions of Jupiter and Saturn are all infinite, even though they have ratios to each other. Is this infinite number odd, even, both odd and even, or neither odd nor even? 17 Averroes’ reply: the right answer to this question is that the infinities of revolutions are only potential, as opposed to an actual infinites, and therefore do not have the same ratios as their respective parts do in a given finite duration. One potential infinity cannot be larger or smaller than another. 18 The greatest difficulty that our adversaries formulate about infinity is that the eternity of the world requires a past infinity of movements, which they say is impossible. But they fail to distinguish between movements that are merely successive and movements that form a causal series in the production of a single effect. For this kind of cause only the materialists allow an infinite series, because this is tantamount to an effect without a cause. 19 From the existence of an eternal prime mover (which the philosophers have proved) it follows that there can be no beginning for his act or for his being. Thus there is no series of acts of his whose later members are dependent on earlier ones for their actions. There are infinite series of accidentally ordered causes, such as the generations of man, but the existence of theses series are essentially dependent on higher causes, and ultimately on an eternally acting cause. This cause can have no temporally first essential instrument. The theologians confuse essentially and accidentally ordered causes. Without an eternal mover there could be no motions or elements, and the accidentally ordered series (plural) of subordinate movers have no beginning and no end. (Beginning and end are correlative.) The infinite series of movements that preceded the current one, therefore, not only had no beginning, but have had no end. The arguments that Ghazali cites, both of the theologians and the philosophers, are not demonstrative. 20 The philosophers say that the theologians err in not recognizing that non- simultaneous existents cannot form a totality. 21 Ghazali replies: every number must be even or odd. [But by the addition of one the even becomes odd and the odd even. Therefore, how can the infinite be either even or odd?] 22 Whatever can form a totality must either exist as finite in the past outside the soul or be represented in the soul as finite. Therefore, there are some things, like the past revolutions of the world, that are finite and aggregated as represented in the soul, but are not finite or aggregated in reality. (What is the “law of non-being” to which he alludes here? MB) 23 What about the infinity of the immortal souls of the dead that Avicenna and perhaps Aristotle accepted? 24 The argument here again is that there can be no arbitration between the two sides. But again the only arbiter is the sound understanding.
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