Its often argued by theists using the Kalam cosmological argument or merely the first cause argument, that God is the first cause. The most basic explanation for this presupposition comes from "will", if the universe exists it must have been chosen or willed into existence by God. Ofcourse the existence of a "god" was a basic "truth" in the earlier centuries of philosophy, so much so that most of early century philosophy was devoted to explaining the nature of god, gods workings, function or purpose. What was certain was that the existence of God breached the principle of Occam's razor.
Some of the greatest debates as to the nature of God was presented by the Ash'aria school, the Mu'tazilis school, Ibn Sina, Al Ghazali and Ibn Taymiyya.
The consensus was the basis for the debate, if the universe was willed into existence by God, then God has the function of "choice", the will must proceed the choice, and a choice is proceeded by the intent of purpose; therefore God intended to create the universe, chose to pursue this intent and then acted upon it (willed it); God had a purpose for the creation of the universe.
The general belief of every theistic religion was that god is sufficient-- apart from the world, that god is independent of creation and does not require creatures. The Ash'aris and the Mut'azilis recognized that the quran remarked the same argument:
(3:97: Allah is free from need of the worlds.)
(29:6: Indeed, Allah is free from need of the worlds.)
The above description and analogy provided by god led to complications, contradictions and a paradox to the original premise proposed by the kalam dynasty; and held by the mut’azilis and the ash’aris. How could God assert a purpose when creating the universe, yet be independent and sufficient from his creation? In light of this the quran also exerts an undisputed independence of god, which is to say that god does not need any of the worlds it created; so how can there be a purpose for creation?
If God does not need the world then why did he create it?
The 9th century-12th century philosophers applied time to god, but because this concept has changed after their times, some of the arguments made may sound contradictory to self-efficiency.
The ash’arias emphasized gods self-efficiency and independence, to the extent that merely asking the question “why” seemed inappropriate; god does what god does without cause or reason. To the Ash’aris god created the world in ‘time ex nihilo’ when he willed; there is no reason why god willed to create the world at the point that he did, god would be no better or worse off without it; for the ash’arias god does not need the world to be god.
The Mut’azilis agreed with the ash’arias for the most part, they agreed that god created the world ex nihilo and that god does not need the world to be god. However they disagreed with once concept, the mut’azilis argued that the ash’arias made the world seem arbitrary; the mut’azilis somewhat perceived the ash’arias to be deists rather than theist, and with good reason to, especially when one studies the teachings of the ash’arias.
The Mut’azilis argue that god created the world not for himself, but for mankind. God does indeed create on account of a cause(purpose), but this cause/purpose is separate from him. This cause is outside of God and so god retains his sufficiency apart from the world. The ash’aris reject this solution, if god acts for a cause outside of himself; then god was first imperfect and then acted on account of the cause to perfect himself. On the other hand if the cause is in god, then change/ temporal origination occur in god. Either way the cause has some kind of impact on god, an impact outside of it.
Ibn Sina otherwise known as Avicenna in European languages, actually had a different view of the world, he believed the world is eternal because its cause is eternal. Ibn Sina acknowledged god as a perfect entity, pure good, pure actuality, pure perfection and that there was no imperfection in god. To Ibn Sina god has no need, and there is no unrealized potentiality or possibility in god. God does not change because change would lead god away from his perfection. Ibn sina was somewhat of a panentheist, he believed god emanates the world as a necessary accompanying. That the world was existing or occurring with god--a concomitant. Because of this Ibn sina believed the world to be eternal as the cause. Ibn sina also rejected the mut’azilis solution, arguing that god does not act for a cause or purpose external to himself, as that would entail change in god.
To understand Ibn Taymiyyah we must understand his vision of god, Ibn Taymiyyah was different to the theologians mentioned above; the ash’aris, the mut’azilis and ibn sina (along with other eastern philosophers/ theologians)—all envisioned a greek-like god; a perfect, eternal, immutable, unchanging and timeless god—a god who does not move or change. If god changed in anyway it would only be away from perfection and into imperfection.
Now Ibn Taymiyyah saw the illogical absurdity of this god, rather ibn taymiyyah introduced a new meaning to gods perfection, a god of activity and movement. In short a god who is motionless and inactive is imperfect, and the hallmark of gods perfection is perpetual activity, dynamism and creativity.
Ibn Taymiyyah somewhat believed in an eternal world, infact most of his arguments for god were similar to Ibn Sina; so when the ash’aris claimed that the world was not eternal, ibn taymiyyah stood up and refuted. Ibn Taymiyyah argued that a temporal origination and movement can never arise out of an eternal and motionless cause. The eternal can never give rise to the temporal.
When the ash’aris exclaimed that god created the world ex nihilo, ibn taymiyya refuted by arguing: what caused god to create the world at the point that he did and not at some other point? If the ash’aris reply that nothing caused god to do that; then it follows that something came out of nothing, ibn taymiyya found this to be absurd.
Ibn Taymiyya denies that an eternal will can give rise to a temporal origination and a temporal world; he asserts that it is impossible for god to will an individual existent in eternity. He argued that if god had an eternal will that applied to all things, then everything would be eternal and nothing could originate—this is contrary to what we see in everyday life, the movement of the stars, sun, the moon and all the celestial bodies. Rather ibn taymiyyah asserts belief in causation, gods willingness for something to happen, occurs at the moment it happens; essentially ibn taymiyyah believed in simultaneous causation—in modern philosophy and science, this form of causation possesses absurdities including god having to be tense with the past.
The Ash’aris rejected this view as it yielded an infinite regress of causes becoming effects in time of a prior cause, which prior cause is an effect in time of a cause even prior; and so on for eternity. Ibn Taymiyyah acknowledged this, but refuted the other points.
The second ash’ari objection was that if god acts on account of an originating cause, it subjects god to change and time, temporal events end up subsisting in gods essence and god becomes subject to time. Ibn Taymiyyah saw no problem with this and accepted it.
From the above its very clear that the notion of god required breaching Ockams Razor, and entailing a complicated explanation of god actions, will and purpose. No matter what form of argument is provided, God either becomes subject to time, to temporal change, the problem of ex-nihilo, external cause and an impact on God itself. In such a case if every variation of god is reduced to a temporal material change in time, then this god is subject to being incoherent and absurd, its no longer a god but a phase; a temporal phase working within the frameworks of time, existing in a finite space of continuous temporal change.
Source: The Near East School of Theology, Theological Review
http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1502/2/Hoover,_J._2006_Ibn_Taymiyya_as_an_Avicennan_Theologian._Theological_Review_27.1_pp._34-46_scan.pdf
Topic: The Incoherence of God