God Does Not Know Particulars; The Avicenna–Ghazālī Debate [1]
Categories
Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Theology, Philosophy of ReligionTags
Metaphysics, Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind, Kalām (Islamic Theology), Phenomenology, God and Philosophy, Philosophy of Time, Reason and Critical Thinking, TheismSummary
A brief philosophical examination of what is meant by the claim attributed to Avicenna that “God does not know particulars,” focusing on divine knowledge, the universal–particular distinction, and Ghazālī’s objections to this view.
Writing
“God does not know particulars!”
This statement is commonly attributed to Avicenna, yet he did not express it in this exact form; it is closer to Aristotle’s position. Aristotle states that “God knows only Himself.”
So what does Avicenna actually say? God does not know particulars as particulars; He knows particulars through universal principles. In other words, divine knowledge is not instantaneous, changing, or event-based in the way human knowledge is.
Why does Avicenna hold such a view? Because, according to him, God is absolutely simple and immutable. There can be no newly acquired knowledge in God. To say “He now knows” or “He has just learned” would imply change.
For Avicenna, change is a characteristic of contingent beings. God, however, is the Necessary Existent (Wājib al-Wujūd).
Thus, he reasons as follows: God knows everything by knowing Himself. Since God is the first cause of all existence, all particulars are necessary consequences of this cause.
To illustrate: God does not receive momentary information such as “Ali performed this action at this second.” Rather, He knows the laws and causes that make Ali’s entire chain of existence possible.
Avicenna’s position resembles, in some respects, the idea I occasionally describe, namely that God has established everything in advance in an algorithmic manner, and that new possibilities emerge within different algorithms depending on choices. However, Avicenna formulates this view primarily to ground the claim that God exists outside of time.
Ghazālī’s objections to Avicenna’s view can be summarized as follows:
- If God does not know particulars, prayer becomes meaningless;
- Divine justice is undermined;
- God can no longer be said to stand in relation to human beings.
In the next post, I will examine these opposing positions in more detail. According to the Qur’anic narrative, does God exist outside of time while also knowing things moment by moment? If so, would this not confine God within time as well?
