Introduction to Islamic Philosophers’ Argument for God (Prof. Erlwein)

“Both kalām exponents and philosophers showed akeen interest in advancing arguments for the existence of God […] to respond to physicalist atheism [among other motives]” (Ayman Shihadeh, “The Existence of God,” in TheCambridgeCompanion to Classical Islamic Theology,ed. T. Winter(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2008), 197–217), Ayman Shihadeh notes in his chapter “Theexistence of God” in the Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology. In her monograph FreethinkersofMedieval Islam,Sarah Stroumsa notes, insimilar fashion, that “[a] significant part of kalām works,written by Muslim […] theologians, isdedi cated to the attempt to provethat God does exist,” adding that “[i]n theological summae this discussion [is] presented as the cornerstone of religious thought” (Sarah Stroumsa, Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Rāwandī,AbūBakr al-Rāzī,and Their Impact on Islamic Thought, 1). In past decades, numerous academic articles have been published which identify and analyse arguments for God’s existence in the works of medieval Islamic thinkers. After Majid Fakhry’s 1957 introductory article “The Classical Islamic Arguments for the Existence of God (Majid Fakhry, “The Classical Islamic Arguments for the Existence of God,” TheMuslim World 47/2 (1957): 133–145), Lenn E. Goodman discussed “Al-Ghazālī’s Argument from Creation. (I) &(II)” (1971) (Lenn E.Goodman, “Al-Ghazālī’s Argument from Creation. (I),” International Journal of Middle East Studies 2/1(1971): 67–85; “Al-Ghazālī’s Argument from Creation. (II),” International Journal of Middle East Studies 2/2(1971): 168–188), while Michael E. Marmura examined “Avicenna’sProof from Contingency for God’s Existence” (1980) (Michael E. Marmura, “Avicenna’s Proof from Contingencyfor God’sExistence in the Metaphy sics of the Shifāʾ,” Mediaeval Studies 42/1 (1980): 337–352).

In 1986,Binya min Abrahamov proffered an analysis of “al-Kāsim ibn Ibrāhīm’s Argument from Design” (BinyaminAbrahamov, “al-Kāsim ibn Ibrāhīm’sArgument from Design,” Oriens 29/30 (1986): 259–284), and Taneli Kukkonen discussed “Averroes and the Teleological Argument” in 2002 (Taneli Kukkonen, “Averroes and the Teleological Argument,” Religious Studies 38/4 (2002): 405–428).
In the secondary academic literature, the medieval Islamic discourse (Sara Mills, Discourse,The New Critical Idiom, 1–25) on arguments for God’sexistence is then frequently linked to the discourse on arguments for God’sexistencefound in the Western tradition (Jan-Peter Hartung, “Schulen, Netze, Traditionen: Zur Institutionalisierungvon Wissen in der persophonen Welt der Frühen Neuzeit,” in Stifter und Mäzene und ihre Rolle in der Religion:VonKönigen, Mönchen, Vordenkern und Laien in Indien, China und anderen Kulturen, ed. BarbaraSchuler, 135–147). They had amutual influenceoneach other: the Islamic discourse first took its inspiration from Greek philosophical thinking and later came to shape the European philosophical tradition in turn. Davidson observes in this regard that “[t]he starting point both for the history of the [Islamic] proofs and the history of their components is, with rare exceptions,Aristotle. […]The direction in which the Aristotelian conceptions developed in the Middle Ages was, however,often determined by the late Greek philosophers […][such as] Pro clus (5th century) and, in greater measure, John Philoponus (6th century)” (Davidson, Proofs,7).

Davidson Has also drawn attention to the influence Islamic arguments for God’s Existence Had on the same class of arguments in the West ern philosophical tradition. He remarks: [f]rom the time of Descartes, thereappears aseries of both cosmological and ontological proofs of the existence of God as a necessarily existent being. Althoughprecise filiation cannot be traced, inspiration undoubtablycame from the medieval cosmological proofs, initiated by Avicenna, of the existence of a being necessarily existent by virtue of itself. Des cartesand, to a greater extent,Spinoza and Leibniz wereafter all familiar with the medieval discussions (Davidson, Proofs,388). William Lane Craig has likewise stated that the so-called “kalām argument as a proof for God’sexistence[this being aparticular version of the cosmological ar gument] originated in the minds of medieval Arabic theologians,who bequeath ed it to the West,whereitbecame the centreofahotlydebated controversy (William Lane Craig, The Kalām Cosmological Argument).

the way a cosmological argument for God’s existence works can be summarised as follows: cosmological arguments are, as the name implies,attempts to infer the existenceofGod from the existenceof the cosmos or universe. Such arguments maytakeastheir starting point the existenceofthe universe as awhole, the existenceofparticular objects or the ex istenceofeventhe individual object.These arguments aresometimescalled first-cause ar guments [sic]because they attempttoinfer that God must exist as the first cause or ultimate cause of the universe. (Evansand Manis, Philosophy,67).