The Philosophy And Theology Of Averroes on Superphysics

The Delineation Of The Relation Between Religion And Philosophy

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The Problem Of Eternal Knowledge

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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.

The Study of The Law

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The science which needs most examples from other sciences is that of Law.

For the study of jurisprudence cannot be completed except in a very long time. If a man today would himself learn of all the arguments discovered by the different disputants of diverse sects, in problems which have always excited contentions in all the big cities, except those of Al-Maghrib, he would be a proper object to be laughed at on account of the impossibility of the task, in spite of the existence of every favourable circumstance.

The Day of Judgment

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If the Law is divided into these 3 parts, to which of these does the the Day of Judgment belong?

I answer that it belongs to that part in which there is some difference of opinion.

Interpretations

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Philosophy alone can grasp what is interpreted.

This is why:

the duty of the learned person is to interpret
the duty of the common people is to take it literally, both in conception and in verification.
- This is because they cannot understand more.

A student of law sometimes finds interpretations which have a preference over others, in a general way by verification:[58] that is, the argument is more convincing with the interpretations than with the literal meanings.

Arguments On The Beliefs Of The Faith

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The Law is of 2 kinds:

The Third Premise

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The third premise says that that which cannot be separated from a created thing is itself created, is equivocal.

It can be understood in 2 ways:

The thing which cannot be separated from the class of created things, but can be removed from its units
That which cannot be separated from any one of the things in question, as if one were to say, “That which cannot be separated from this blackness in question.”

The second meaning is the correct one, that is it cannot be separated from a certain accident, which is created, for it is absolutely necessary that it[104] should also be a created thing. For if it be eternal it becomes devoid of that accident, from which we suppose that it cannot separate.

The Unity Of God

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If this is the method adopted by the Law we can ask: What is the way of proving the unity of God by means of the Law; that is, the knowledge of the religious formula that “there is no god, but God.”

The 4 Divine Attributes

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The Quran assigned attributes to the Creator. These are only the perfect forms of those which are found in man:

Knowledge
Life
Power
Volition
Hearing
Seeing
Speech

Knowledge

God in the Quran has said:

Divine Perfection

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The Law teaches the common people:

the existence of God
the denial of other gods
the knowledge of His attributes

It is really an addition to, and deduction from, and change and interpretation of this very limit and extent which has not been productive of good to any and all the people.

Al-Ghazzali

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For the learned men, the purpose of knowledge is both knowledge[184] and action. The man who interprets anything of the Law, thinking that his interpretation is the real purpose of it, and then discloses it to the common people, is like a man, who finds a medicine which an expert physician had compounded to preserve the health of all, or of a majority of the people; then there came a man with whom that medicine did not agree on account of the coarseness of his disposition.

Direction

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This is a quality which all the people learned in Law have tried to prove. [174]

This was until the Mutazilites denied it.
They were followed by the later Asharites, like Abul Maali and those who follow him.

All the exoterics of the Law go to prove it. God says:

The Actions Of God

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We ask 5 questions:

A proof of the creation of the universe
The advent of the prophets
Predestination and fate
Divine justice and injustice
The Day of Judgment.

The Creation of the Universe

The Law teaches that the universe was invented and created by God, and that it did not come into being by chance or by itself. The method adopted by the Law for proving this is not the one upon which the Asharites have depended.

Question 2: Prophetic Mission

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There are 2 points regarding the Prophetic Mission.

The proof of the coming of the prophets
An explanation of the fact that the man claiming to be a prophet is really so and does not lie.

Many people are desirous of proving the existence of the prophets by analogy—and such are the Mutakallimun.

Question 2: Prophetic Mission

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The people have differed in taking the Quran to be a miracle at all. For in their opinion one of the conditions of a miracle is that it should be quite different from any act which may have become habitual. But the Quran is of this sort, because it is only word, though it excels all created words. So it becomes a miracle by its superiority only, that is, the impossibility for people bringing anything like it, on account of its being highly eloquent.

Question 3: Fate and Predestination

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This is one of the most intricate problems of religion.

The traditional arguments about this problem are contradictory, similar to the arguments of reason.

The contradiction in the arguments of the first kind is found in the Quran and the Traditions.

Question 3: Fate and Predestination

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God’s knowledge of these causes, and that which pertains to them, is the cause of their existence.

So no one can have a full knowledge of these things except God. Hence He is the only Knower of secrets.

Question 4: Divine Justice and Injustice

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The Asharites have expressed a very peculiar opinion, about this problem both with regard to reason and religion.

They think that:

Question 5: The Day of Judgment

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The Day of Judgment is a thing in which all the religions are agreed. All the learned men have proved it by arguments.

The religions differ about the conditions of its existence, specifically about the visible things by which they should explain to the common people the conditions of the unseen.

The Indivisible and Divisible

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The things found in the Law can be divided into 5 kinds.

But in the first place, there are only 2 kinds of things:

Indivisible[303]
Divisible

The divisible is divided into 4 kinds.