Averroës

“ Imagine that the science of geometry and astronomy had become extinct in our day, and a single individual desired to find out by himself the magnitude of the heavenly bodies, their forms, and their distances from one another. Even though he were the most sagacious of men, it would be as impossible for him as to ascertain the proportion of the sun and the earth and the magnitude of the other stars. It would only be attainable by aid of divine revelation, or something like it. ”

“ Man is just because he gains something good by being so, which he cannot gain otherwise. God is just, not that He may become more perfect by His justice, but because His perfection requires him to be just. When we understand it in this way it would be evident, that He is nob just in the same way as man is just. But it is not right to say that He is not just at all, and that all His actions are neither just nor unjust, as the Mutakallimuns have thought. For it cannot be understood by human intellect, and is at the same time falsifying religion. ”

“ And have We not created you of two sexes; and appointed your sleep for rest and made the night a garment to cover you, and destined the day to a gaining of a livelihood; and built over you seven heavens, and placed therein a burning lamp? And do We not send down from the clouds pressing forth rain, water pouring down in abundance, that We may hereby produce corn and herbs, and gardens planted thick with trees.” [92] If we ponder over this verse it would be found that our attention has been called to the suitability of the different parts of the universe for the existence of man. ”

“ Hence it is that the Prophet has said, "We, the prophets, have been commanded to adapt ourselves to the conditions of the people, and address them according to their intelligence."
He who tries to instruct all the people in the matter of religion, in one and the same way, is like a man who wants to make them alike in actions too, which is quite against apparent laws and reason. ”

“ For science is the knowledge of the things by their causes, and philosophy is the knowledge of hidden causes. To deny the causes altogether is a thing which is unintelligible to human reason. It is to deny the Creator, not seen by us. ”

“ Hence all people have made capability one of the conditions for the imposition of a task, such as wisdom we find Abul Maali, saying in his Nizamiyyah, that man is free in his own deeds and has the capability of doing them. He has established it upon the impossibility of imposing a task which one cannot bear, in order to avoid the principle formerly disproved by the Mutazilites, on account of its being unfit by reason. The succeeding Asharites have opposed them. Moreover, if man had no power in doing a deed, then it will be only by chance that he may escape from evil, and that is meaningless. ”

“ Problem fifth: Of the Conditions of the Day of Judgment:—The Day of Judgment is a thing in which all the religions are agreed, and all the learned men have proved it by arguments. The religions differ about the conditions of its existence; nay, in reality they do not differ about its condition, but about the visible things by which they should explain to the common people the conditions of the unseen. There are some religions which have made it only spiritual, that is, meant only for the souls; while others have thought it to be both physical and spiritual. ”

“ When they were compelled to deny the natural forces, they had to deny with them a large number of those forces which God has made subservient to His command for the creation and preservation of things. For God has created some things from causes which He has produced from outside, these are the heavenly bodies; there are other things which He has made by causes placed in the things themselves, that is, the soul, and other natural forces, by which he preserves those things. So how wicked is the man who destroyeth philosophy, and "invented a lie about God." ”

“ We will by no means believe in thee, until thou cause a spring of water to gush forth for us out of the earth, and thou have a garden of palm-trees and vines, and thou cause rivers to spring forth from the midst there-of in abundance ”

“ To prove it by religion is still more impossible; it does not admit it. Reason alone cannot affirm that they are the special symbols of prophecy, except that in many cases they were found in people who claimed to be prophets and in none other. So in this case a proof of anyone’s prophecy is based upon two premises. First, the man who claims to be a prophet has performed a miracle, and secondly, everyone who performs a miracle is a prophet. ”

“ This is the reason why there is no creator but God—a reason which agrees with our feelings, reason and religion. Our feelings and reason see that there are things which produce others. The order found in the universe is of two kinds: that which God has put in the nature and disposition of things; and that which surround the universe from outside. ”

“ May God perpetuate your honour and bless you, and screen you always from the eyes of misfortune. Through your excellent intelligence and good understanding you have learned a great part of all these sciences, till your insight informed you of the doubt which arises concerning the eternal knowledge of God, with its being at the same time concerned with created things. Thus, in the interests of truth, it is now incumbent upon us to remove the doubt from your mind, after we have stated it clearly. For one who does not know the problem adequately cannot very well solve the doubt. ”

“ One who denies any part of God’s creation denies His work which falls very near to a denial of a part of His attributes. On the whole as their opinion is based upon hasty conclusions, which come to the mind of a man by superficial thought and as apparently it appears that the word “intention” can be applied to one who has power to do bad or otherwise, they saw that if they did not admit that all the creation is possible, they would not be able to say that it came into existence by the action of an intending creator. ”

“ Our acknowledgement of a man who claims to be the messenger of a king is not true unless we know that the symbols which he has are those of the royal messenger, which can only happen, if a king tells his subjects that whenever they happen to see such and such symbols with a man, which are particularly his, they should take him as his messenger. When this is so, one can object, from where does it appear that performance of miracles is the special sign of the prophets? This can be proved neither by law nor by reason. To prove it by religion is still more impossible ”

“ As to the last sky it is evident that beyond it there must be no body. For had it been so, it would be necessary that beyond it be another body and so on to infinity. So there is no space at all for the last body of the universe, for it is not possible that in it be found any body, it being necessary that there be found a body in every space. So when there is an argument for the existence of a thing in that direction, it is necessary that it be not a body. So one who denies His existence there goes against his own ideas. ”

“ So, if one of the conditions of verification be freedom of choice, a learned man, and he alone, should be held excused, if he makes a mistake on account of some doubt. Hence the Prophet has said that if a magistrate judges rightly he receives two rewards, and if he makes a mistake he deserves only one. But what magistrate is greater than one who judges the universe, whether it is so or not. These are the judges—the learned men—whom God has distinguished with the knowledge of interpretation. ”

“ For, as they think, if it is possible for the things to have any other form than they have now, then there can exist no harmony between man and other existent things by the creation of which God has obliged man and commanded him to be thankful to Him. This opinion, by which the creation of man, as a part of the universe, is just as possible, for instance, as his creation in the void, is like the opinion of those who say that man exists but he could have been created in quite a different shape, and yet could perform actions like a man. ”

“ On the whole, a man who denies the existence of the effects arranged according to the causes in the question of arts, or whose wisdom cannot understand it, then he has no knowledge of the art of its Maker. So also a man who denies the existence of an order of effects in accordance with causes in this universe, denies the existence of the Creator altogether. ”

“ The Law is silent about it because there is not found in the universe anything unseen without a body, except that which is found by arguments among things seen as existent with this quality, and that is the soul. ”

“ But when we have once admitted the existence of the Creator in the invisible world, it becomes clear that there is no Creative agent except one by His command and will. It is also evident that we can perform our own deeds, and that one who takes up only one side of the question is wrong, as is the case with the Mutazilites and the Jabarites. Those who adopt the middle Course, like the Asharites, for discovering the truth, cannot find it. For they make no difference for a man between the trembling and the movement of his hand by intention. ”

“ Then they are asked how can a created thing come from an eternal intention. They answer that the eternal intention became connected with the action at the time of the creation especially, and that is the time in which the universe was made. Then they may be asked, that if the relation of the intending Creator towards the created thing at the time of its non-existence be the same as at the time of its creation, then that created thing is by no means better than the other thing, when at the time of its making, the action which was not found in its non-existence is not connected with it. ”

“ If all that they say be true, we should accept it and if there be something wrong, we should be warned by it. Thus, when we have finished this kind of research we shall have acquired instruments by which we can observe the universe, and consider its general character. For so long as one does not know its general character one cannot know the created, and so long as he does not know the created, he can [20] have no knowledge of the Creator. Thus we must begin an inquiry into the universe systematically, such as we have learned from the trend of rational inference. ”

“ And if the jurist does so in many of the legal injunctions, how very befitting would it be for a learned man to do the same with his arguments. For the jurist has only his fanciful conjectures to depend upon, while a learned man possesses positive ones.
We hold it to be an established truth that if the Law is apparently opposed to a truth proved by philosophy it admits of an interpretation according to the canons of the Arabic language. ”

“ But this is an objection which cannot be advanced by the masses. But if any sceptic controversialist were to advance it, he may be told that one who has power to create one thing has power to create the whole. So now again it comes to the same thing, whether they agree or not, and how can they help each other in work? As to working by turn, it would be a defect in both of them. It is more probable that if there be two gods, there must be two universes. But as the universe is one, its Maker must also be one, for a single work can only be done by one maker. ”

“ But on the other hand the existence of either of two possibilities shows that they may have been performed by a not-knowing Maker and by chance alone. Just as a stone falling on the earth may fall in any place, on any side, and in any form. ”