Averroism

“ By a similar court revolution Averroes, in his old age—he died A.D. 1193—was expelled from Spain; the religious party had triumphed over the philosophical. He was denounced as a traitor to religion. An opposition to philosophy had been organized all over the Mussulman world. There was hardly a philosopher who was not punished. Some were put to death, and the consequence was, that Islam was full of hypocrites.
Into Italy, Germany, England, Averroism had silently made its way. It found favor in the eyes of the Franciscans, and a focus in the University of Paris. ”

“ In works of contemporary art Averroes is at one time the comrade of Mahomet and Antichrist; at another he lies with Arius and Sabellius, vanquished by the lance of St Thomas. It was in the universities of North Italy that Averroism finally settled, and there for three centuries it continued as a stronghold of Scholasticism to resist the efforts of revived antiquity and of advancing science. Padua became the seat of Averroist Aristotelianism ; and, when Padua was conquered by Venice in 1405, the printers of the republic spread abroad the teaching of the professors in the university. ”

“ The parties seemed to have changed when Averroism thus took the side of the church; but the change was probably due to compulsion. Nifo had edited the works of Averroes (1495-1497) ; but his expressions gave offence to the dominant theologians, and he had to save himself by distinguishing his personal faith from his editorial capacity. ”

“ An incorporeal existence is impossible for such a soul as this. If it could exist incorporeally it would be something different from what it is. In the absence of evidence of the sort required, it is arbitrary and gratuitous to assert that in the future the soul will be capable of, and will enjoy, an entirely different mode of being.
Such was the substance of Pomponazzi's argument. Curiously enough, three years before his book De Immortalitate was published, that is in 1 5 13, the Pope sent out a bull against Averroism as denying the immortality of the soul 1 . ”

“ It has no more been destroyed than the material particles of which such animals consist. They have been transmuted into new forms—it has taken on a new aspect. The sum total of matter in the world is invariable; so, likewise, is the sum total of force.
Theory of Averroes.These conclusions resemble in many respects those of the philosophy of Averroes, but they are free from the heresy which led the Lateran Council, under Leo X., to condemn the doctrines of the great Spanish Mohammedan. ”

“ But beyond these, Averroes claims as the highest bliss of the soul a union in this life with the actual intellect. The intellect, therefore, is one and continuous in all individuals, who differ only in the degree which their illumination has attained. Such was the Averroist doctrine of the unity of intellect—the eternal and universal nature of true intellectual life. By his interpreters it was transformed into a theory of one soul common to all mankind, and when thus corrupted conflicted not unreasonably with the doctrines of a future life, common to Islam and Christendom. ”

“ In regard to the second charge, Averroes himself remarks that philosophy only protests against reducing the divine to the level of the created mind. But the real grandeur of Averroes is seen in his resolute pro secution of the stand-point of science in matters of this world, and in his recognition that religion is not a branch of knowledge to be reduced to propositions and systems of dogma, but a personal and inward power, an individual truth which stands distinct from, but not contradictory to, the universalities of scientific law. ”

“ For the nature and constitution of men, in His very creation, are such that they require some men, though very few, to be wicked and evil by their nature. Such is also the case with the outer causes, made for directing the people to the right path, which requires that some men must be bad. If many had been good then the divine law would not have been fulfilled, because either there had not been created things in which there is little evil and much good, for the good would have disappeared on account of that little evil ”

“ It was left then for Averroës to vindicate once more the validity of human reason, and this he did by proclaiming that science, rightly understood, was the true way of entering into intellectual communion with the Deity. All, however, agreed in teaching that the soul of man was but an individual and temporary manifestation of the Divine, from which it had proceeded, and into which it would again be absorbed. ”

“ The origin of created beings was a problem which received much attention from Averroës. His ideas on this subject will be seen when we come to speak of the important digression he wrote under the title of Quaestiones Nicolai Peripatetici. [154] In every man he perceived the existence of a passive intellect or reason, in relation to which the other Heavenly Intelligence, or Divine Wisdom, presented itself to him as the Active Reason: that in whose motions Thought was always accompanied by Power. ”

“ Thus, if I understand what is meant, which is rather subtle, it might be said, that as in the common theory particular sensations furnish means to the soul of forming general ideas, so, in that of Averroes, the ideas and judgments of separate human souls furnish collectively the means of that knowledge of universals, which the one great soul of mankind alone can embrace. This was a theory built, as some have said, on the bad Arabic version of Aristotle which Averroes used. ”

“ In this way, if one thinks that were the Eastern movement to become Western and vice versa, there would be no difference in the universe, then he has destroyed philosophy altogether. He is like a man who thinks that were the right side of the animals to become left, and vice versa, there would be no difference at all for one of the two alternatives is there. For as it is possible to say that it is made according to one alternative by an independent Maker, so it is possible to assert that it was all made by chance alone. For we see so many things coming into being by themselves. ”

“ On three points Averroes, like other Moslem thinkers, came specially into relation, real or supposed, with the religious creed, viz., the creation of the world, the divine knowledge of particular things, and the future of the human soul. But the collision was rather with the laboured ratiocinations by which the Asharite and Motazelite theologians aimed at rationalising dogma than with the doctrine of religion in its simplicity. True philosophy is the foster sister of religion, but is the critic of scholastic subtleties. ”

“ Averroes maintains that a return must be made to the words and teaching of the prophet; that science must not expend itself in dogmatizing on the metaphysical consequences of fragments of doctrine for popular acceptance, but must proceed to reflect upon and examine the existing things of the world. Averroes, at the same time, condemns the attempts of those who tried to give demonstrative science where the mind was not capable of more than rhetoric: they harm religion by their mere negations, destroying an old sensuous creed, but cannot build up a higher and intellectual faith. ”

“ In it he has noted down many kinds of interpretations and has decided that their interpreters were not infidels though they may go against the consensus of opinion. Since he has done so, he is dangerous to the Law for some reasons, to philosophy for others, and to both for some other reasons. So this man, by disclosing them, has shown that he is dangerous for both the things in reality and profitable to them only by accident. For teaching philosophy to one who is not fit for it, will either falsify philosophy or religion absolutely or will show conformity between them by accident only. ”

“ We may go on in this way, finding all the obscure and intricate doubts, from which, not to speak of the common people, even clever men, learned in scholastic theology, in philosophy, cannot escape. So if the common people be burdened with a knowledge of these things, it would be an unbearable problem for them.
Then again the methods adopted by the Asharites in proving the creation of the universe are defective for all classes of men. The common people, by their very nature, cannot understand them, and they are at the same time in no way reasonable. ”

“ They know, as we have said, that it is necessary, on account of the order existent in nature, that it must have been brought into being by some knowing creator, otherwise the order found in it would be by chance. 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 ”

“ Thirdly, "Say, unto the idolators, if there were gods with Him, as ye say, they would surely seek an occasion of making some attempt against the possessor of the Throne." [7] The argument contained in the first verse is implanted in our dispositions by our very nature. For it is well known that if there be two kings, and the orders of the one be as effectual as those of the other, it is not possible to have even a single city under their guidance. It is impossible to have one action of a single kind from two actors. ”

“ Justice is known as good, and injustice as bad. So according to them, polytheism is in itself neither injustice nor evil, but with regard to religion, and had religion ordained it, it would have been just and true. Such also would have been the case with any kind of sin. But all this is quite contrary to our traditions and reason. As to tradition God has described himself as just, and denied injustice to himself. He says "God hath borne witness that there is no God but He; and the angels and those who are endowed with wisdom profess the same, who executeth righteousness;" ”

“ Now divine revelation has informed us in all the religions that the soul will live, and all the argument of the learned people have established the same. The souls are freed from physical desires after death. If they be pure, their purity is doubled by this freedom from desires. If they be evil this separation increases their depravity, for they are troubled by the evil which they have already earned, and their regret increases about the opportunities which they lost before their separation from the body, for this purification is not possible without it. ”

“ For since their intellect cannot go beyond their imagination that which they cannot imagine is non-existent for them. To imagine a thing which has no body is not possible, and hence a belief in the existence of an object which they cannot imagine, is impossible for them. It was for this reason that the Law refused to disclose this secret to them, and described God, for their sake, in terms which they can imagine, ascribing to him the attributes of hearing, seeing, having a face, &c. ”

“ And as these actions are most of them fixed by divine revelation, religions appeared to fix them. With that there also appears a knowledge of those qualities, exhorting the people towards them. They ordered men to act upon goodness, and shew evil. They taught them the quantity of the deeds which will be good for all the people, both in practice and in knowledge taken together. They also taught them the theoratical knowledge of things, which all the people should know, such as the knowledge of God, angels, of higher creation, and of goodness. ”

“ For from the existence of the agent in it, we have brought an argument for the Creator in the invisible world. 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. ”

“ Here the doctrine of Averroes, of the unity of the "passive" or "potential" intellect, is distinctly understood to be a separation between "intelligence" and "the soul [34] "; and St Thomas meets this conception in limine by insisting that intelligence as in man is the very fact to be explained [35] . Consequently his criticism of Averroes hypothesis of an independent
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intellectual principle which thinks in our thinking [36] is that this is irrelevant as an account of human knowledge. A scientific account of man must explain man as he is, that is, as a thinking being. ”

“ The existent things from our volition are completed by two things our intention and the other causes. But when the deeds are referred to only by one of these agencies, doubts would rise. It may be said is a good answer, and here reason is in perfect agreement with religion, but it is based upon the principles that these are agreed that there are creative causes bringing into existence other things; while the Muslims are agreed that there is no Creator but God. ”

“ For when they have established it, they are compelled to admit the creation of the body, [155] because it is a body. We have already said that they have no argument for it. Those who have such are the learned people, the philosophers. It is at this point that the Christians have erred. They believe in the multiplicity of attributes that they are essences existing not by the help of another, but by themselves, like the self, (Zat) . They also believe that the qualities with these attributes are two in number—knowledge and life. So they say that God is one from the three causes. ”