The existence of God

After Wensinck’s brilliant study, a fresh examination of the argument for the existence of God in Islam might appear impertinent. Some justification for the present discussion, however, may be found in the fact that some of the material on which this study is based was not available to Wensinck, when his monograph appeared in 1936, and in the slightly different interpretation of certain relevant data here attempted.

The systematic examination of the proofs of the existence of God should be preceded by a legitimate enquiry: Is the demonstration of God’s existence possible at all? In the Latin scholastic treatises of the Middle Ages, as for example in the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) this enquiry figures as the prelude to the demonstration of God’s existence proper.

Although Wensinck has discussed some aspects of the problem of knowledge (erkenntnislehre) in his celebrated Muslim Creed, he does not touch upon this particular aspect of the problem in his monograph, except incidentally, as, for example, in connection with Al-Ghazali’s attitude to the question of God’s existence. But this question, it would seem, requires a fuller treatment than is accorded it in that parenthesis.

In his two little tracts; Fasl al-Maqal and al-Kashf ‘an Manahij al-Adillah, Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) raises this question in a systematic way. In the former tract, he is concerned with a wider problem:

Whether the philosophical method tallies with the teaching of revelation or not – to which he replies in the affirmative. “for if the aim of philosophy,” he writes, “is nothing other than the consideration of existing things and their examination, in so far as they manifest the Creator –viz. in so far as they created objects… revelation (al-shar‘) definitely enjoins the consideration of existing things and commends it” – a thesis which he supports by a wealth of Quranic quotations.

When he returns to this question at the beginning of Al-Khasf, he distinguishes between three schools of thought on the specific problem of God’s existence: The Literalist who reject rational argument altogether and claim that God’s existence can be known by means of authority (al-sam‘) only.

The Ash‘arites (with whom he includes the Mu‘tazilites) who admit the possibility of a rational demonstration of the existence of God from the concepts of temporality (huduth) or contingency (jawaz), as we will see later and finally the Sufis who claim that we apprehend God directly but “whose method,” as Ibn Rushd observes, “is not speculative at all” and which, even if its validity is conceded, is not common to all men.

The earliest systematic discussion of the problem of knowledge (erkenntnis) as a prelude to theological discussions which has come down to us is found in Al-Baghdadi’s (d. 1037) Usul al-Din. It is possible that Al-Baghdadi continues a more ancient tradition, initiated by the Mu‘tazilite doctors of the 9th century, as their preoccupation with such abstract questions as notions (ma‘ani), science (‘ilm), etc. suggests. But it is significant that al-Baqilani (d. 1013), who is credited by some ancient authorities with having refined the methods of Kalam, does not dwell on this question at any length in the opening chapter of his Tamhid.