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, The Essential Ideas of Islamic Philosophy A Brief Survey

By

Prof. Mashhad Al-Allaf

The Edwin Mellen Press, USA, 2006 ISBN: 0-7734-5848-4, HC, 345 pp.

Proofs of the Existence of God (the One God)

Al-Kindī presents three kinds of proof for the existence of God:

1. the proof of essence and generation of the universe,

2. the proof of unity and multiplicity, and

3. the proof of design.

My discussion focuses on the first proof of essence and generation,

because it represents a new aspect of Islamic philosophy. This argument is

related to Islamic scholastic theology (cilm al-kalām), in that it shares

terminology such as cause, effect, and generation. In this argument, al-

Kindī tries to show that the universe cannot be caused by itself. In other

words, the universe cannot generate its own existence.

The second argument of unity and multiplicity focuses more on

proving that the cause is one than in proving its existence.

Al-Kindī’s proof of essence and generation (al-māhiyya wa’l-

Hudūth)

It is impossible for a thing to be the cause of the generation of its

essence.

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Al-Kindī already proved that the idea of the eternity of the world is

self-canceling, and it is a contradiction on both mathematical and logical

levels. Thus al-Kindī proved that the world is not eternal, in other words, it

came into existence, or its existence was generated.

Al-Kindī went beyond this to prove that the world, as an originated

phenomenon, cannot be the cause of its existence (its essence), and thus

must have been brought into existence by something else other than itself:

God.

Al-Kindī’s argument

It is not possible for a thing to be the cause of the generation of its

essence, its becoming a being is either from something or from nothing.

Thus, we have four possibilities:62

First: a nonexistent thing and its essence is nonexistent

Second: a nonexistent thing and its essence is existent

Third: an existent thing and its essence is nonexistent

Fourth: an existent thing and its essence is existent

The first (a nonexistent thing and its essence is nonexistent) is

impossible, because it is nothing and its essence is nothing. “Nothing” is

neither a cause nor an effect (cause and effect are predicated only of

something). Therefore, it is not the cause of the generation of its essence.

The second (a nonexistent thing and its essence is existent), of course,

with a similar proof, is impossible. It is also impossible by another proof

based on the law of identity. Al-Kindī says,63

62 Al-Kindī, Al-Kindī’s metaphysics (trans. Ivry), p.76.

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1. If it is nonexistent and its essence is existent, then its essence is

different from the thing itself.

2. Thus, its essence would not be it (the thing).

3. However, the essence of everything is that thing itself.

4. Therefore, a thing would not be itself and it would be itself, but

this is an impossible contradiction (according to the law of

identity).

5. Therefore, a thing cannot be the cause of the generation of its

essence.

The third is impossible (an existent thing and its essence is

nonexistent) for the reason above, according to the law of identity.

The fourth (an existent thing and its essence is existent) is also

impossible, al-Kindī says,64

1. If the thing is an existent thing and its essence is existent, and

it were the cause of the generation of its essence, then its

essence would be its effect.

2. But the cause is different from the effect.

3. Therefore, it would be the cause of its essence while its essence

would be its effect.

4. Thus, its essence would not be it (the thing). However, the

essence of everything is that thing itself (according to the law of

identity).

5. But from this argument it follows that it would not be itself,

and that it would be itself. This is an impossible contradiction.

63 Ibid., p.77.

64 Ibid.

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6. Therefore, a thing cannot be the cause of the generation of its

essence.

Clarification

Let us take gold as an example. If the essence of gold is its atomic

number in the periodic table in chemistry which is 79, then the thing

which is gold with its physical and chemical characteristics such as its

yellow color, its malleability, and so on, cannot generate and give existence

to its essence which is the atomic structure. In fact the atomic structure

itself is what gives gold its characteristics, and if this essence changed to

more or less than 79, then a different thing with different qualities will

appear. Therefore, a thing cannot generate its essence, otherwise the

existence of the “thing” will be prior to its existence, and this is

contradictory.

Another example is that humans cannot generate their own existence,

if we are the cause of the generation of our existence, then we will not die

(because we can give ourselves existence), but we know that we die and

perish, therefore we are not the cause of our own existence.

Conclusion

Al-Kindī concludes from previous arguments that the world is not

eternal and cannot come into existence on its own. The world cannot be a

cause of the generation of its essence. Thus it came into existence by a

cause other than its essence and that cause is God who created the world

from nothing.