For those interested, I recently acquired Free Will and Predestination in Islamic Thought: Theoretical Compromises in the Works of Avicenna, al-Ghazali and Ibn 'Arabi by Maria De Cillis
I paste the conclusion below. Should be an interesting read.
Protip: when first acquiring an academic book, always read the conclusion before the introduction. You're less likely to make erroneous judgments as to whether a book is worth reading if you read the conclusion before the introduction.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that, almost paradoxically, the aporia of the secret of qaḍā’ wa’l-qadar, despite being destined to be known by God alone, is also clearly manifest in the Qur’ān: the truth, disclosed for all believers, is encompassed in the totality of the verses which support both ideas of God’s predestination and of humans’ responsibility for their actions. The coexistence of divine qaḍā and human ikhtiyār is the quintessential evidence of divine magnanimity, and the proof that in religion there cannot be any ‘compulsion’ (Q. 2:256). Both propositions, far from being irremediably mutually exclusive are, in fact, complementary; they are embedded in the Islamic credo and are expressive of the necessary multiplicity which divides divine and human parameters, the metaphysical, the religious and the mystical outlooks.
The unconditional faith in the divine Word has led Muslim theologians, philosophers and mystics of all times in their attempts to sublimate the presupposed contradiction occurring between the notions of free will and predestination. In the course of this book it has been observed that Avicenna’s and al-Ghazālī’s endeavours to reconcile the universal ‘creationistic’ causal power of God with His ‘effusing’ nature, and their attempts to establish the theoretical truths rooted in the concepts of divine omnipotence and of human autonomy to act, the latter being supported by the psychological evidences that humans have about their capacity-to-act and their freedom of ‘choosing’, are certainly dictated by their genuine beliefs. However, they are also clearly conditioned by the necessity to bring their speculative systems into a positive relationship with the teachings of orthodoxy. Their attempts of compromise are evident not only at a theoretical level, but also at the level of language. In Ibn ‘Arabī’s thought the ‘strategy of compromise’ is played on a different plane: the theoretical efforts advanced by theologians and philosophers are smoothened and turned into an ‘inevitable’ harmonization. The omni-comprehensiveness and the exuberant nature of the waḥdat al-wujūd theory makes it necessary to encapsulate all the teachings available in order to present a global speculative system which is most fitting to express the illimitability of the only one Reality. In the absence of any pressurizing concern imposed by the religious authorities, the Shaykh al-akbar experiences, absorbs, interprets and consciously manipulates the truths offered by the philosophical and theological wisdoms, and complement them with the contents of his esoteric experience. Ibn ‘Arabī employs the philosophers’ and the theologians’ linguistic tools since all possibilities of expressions are necessary to communicate the otherwise apophatic nature of the mystical contemplative event. Yet, the theoretical substantiality of their speculations has to be sublimated: Ibn ‘Arabī’s insights into the real status of affairs are granted by Qur’ānic illuminations. Qur’ānic verses are interpreted through the language of paradox and poetry and employed to state and confirm his very personal understanding of the Truth. The compromise aimed at in the Akbarian works is simply the compromise which the limitedness of what is other than God has to come to terms with.
Avicenna’s system is able to provide a synthesis between the religious component, which is represented by the creationistic metaphysic of kalām, and the philosophical mainly Neoplatonic rational vision of the essences of things. The topic of free will and determinism, which is initially addressed with regard to causality in relation to emanation and creation, shows that Avicenna, diminishing the deterministic tones of the Plotinian emanative scheme, proposes a revisited view of the Ash‘arite concept of the formatio mundi, where an innovative interpretation of the divine creative act (ibdā) is contemplated. When Avicenna speaks of natural causation, through the notion of the wujūb bi ’l-ghayr, he is still speaking about the necessity for beings to have of a cause, suggesting that God, as the Cause of causes, is ultimately the Ash‘arite Disposer and Determiner, even if He operates through the nature of beings. Avicenna is willing to compromise between the rigid necessitarianism of traditional theology, mostly informed by Ash‘arite predestinarian axioms, without never wholly abandoning the naturalism of the philosophers and the metaphysical determinism implicit in the Aristotelian tradition.
To establish the mechanism governing the nature of things in relation to the issue of qaḍā wa’l-qadar, this study has addressed the question of the role matter plays in the Avicennian system. The degree of passivity, classically attributed to matter has been questioned and reconsidered in order to evaluate to what extent the material substratum can be held responsible for facilitating the formation of substantial compositions. This has allowed assessing whether it is the nature of material entities which determines their status in existence. If, on the one hand, the re-evaluation of the independent character of the formal causative action seems to connect Avicenna’s thought with the Ash‘arites’ denial of any other real cause except God, on the other hand, the Avicennian view of matter, as the Aristotelian remote cause for the formation of the compound, clearly sets a new distance between the two stances.
It has been observed that, like early theologians and philosophers, Avicenna links evil with the notion of privation, but he also associates this notion with the concepts of possibility and the autonomy of matter. Despite the acknowledgement that matter has a capacity to disobey nature’s particularized aims, Avicenna fosters the Ash‘arite view for which God is the ultimate Determiner by framing matter’s disobedience as an element which is embedded in the divine decree. Matter proves to be fundamental in the identification of freedom and in the possibility of change because it is a cooperative force in the process of substances’ formation. The theme of free will versus determinism emerges also from Avicenna’s interpretation of the relationship occurring between the soul and body. He rejects the idea that this relation might be conceived as a cause-effect connection but establishes a necessary relation between them. This is said to be ultimately depending, in Ash‘arite terms, on the will of the Necessary Existent and His decree. The human form-soul liaison is explained as being the dynamic principle of human activity which operates on material corporeality. The latter is considered responsible for a remote/causal activity which allows the passage from the abstraction of the possible to the actualization of any existent action. The capacity of the soul to know particulars and its ability to influence the realm of change, due to its legacy with corporeal matter, demonstrates that it is in the relationship occurring between the soul and the material-corporeal substrate that a certain degree of autonomy and ‘responsible’ freedom can be identified. The receptive role of matter, which is used to stress the latent possibility for souls-forms to volitional acting, explains why, in the Avicenna’s emanative system, it is more appropriate to speak of divine determinism rather than predestination.
It has been proven that, from a purely metaphysical point of view, the human being is free to act, but not in an arbitrary way; this means that the human choice is seen as an unavoidable link in the chain of an ab aeterno universal order. Man can operate ‘deterministically’, namely, according to what is his nature or inclination which, in turn, reflects his divinely prescribed role in the world’s good order. This explains why in Avicenna’s metaphysical construct, nature is never truly in competition with God’s determinations, nor does God intend to deprive nature of its efficacy. Nature becomes the ‘channel’ of God’s authority.
A series of common points between Avicenna’s idea of freedom and its Islamic mystical counterpart emerge, especially when one analyses the topic of love as the ‘very cause of existence’ and as the motor triggering human desire to return to God. The idea that man yearns to leaving the world of generation and corruption, in the attempt to resemble God in the necessity and eternal actuality of His Being, leads Avicenna to conclude that, far from kalāmic positions, the return of all entities to God does not imply a dismantling of their individualities. In addition, Avicenna, by appealing to the personal relationship between the soul and its celestial counterpart, emphasizes the value of individualization, transfiguring and eternalizing it from a mystical perspective. The intellective philosophical horizon is never eclipsed in Avicennian mysticism which reveals itself to be mainly a mystical philosophy rather than a philosophical mysticism.
To conclude, the Avicennian analysis of free will and predestination explored in philosophical, theological and mystical terms, with its combination of logic and naturalistic elements shows to include deterministic and ‘liberalistic’ views. All the topics discussed demonstrate that Avicenna accommodates the concept of free will within a naturally designed deterministic order. Whilst the inner nature of things, heavily depending on form, matter and human voluntarism, seems to leave open the possibility for human freedom to be exercised within the boundaries of individual destinies, the outer, all-encompassing ‘layer’ of the divine decree frames everything and every activity within a well-structured design. Like a set of Russian dolls, the Avicennian determinism reveals its core through a series of successive involucres. Even the ‘implanting’ of the principle of love in every being, which ‘compels’ everything ‘to choose’ and strive towards its perfection, makes the never-ceasing existence of this love a necessity for the maintenance of God’s good order of the world: a necessary outcome of God’s perfect nature.
The Ghazālīan perspective on free will and predestination has revealed to encompass Ash‘arism, Avicennian metaphysics and Sufi influences. The analysis has started with the Mishkāt al-anwār: in this work, through his revised Neoplatonic emanative scheme, al-Ghazālī consolidates the very sound, and for the most part, Ash‘arite concept of tawḥīd. It has been observed that in the first part of the Mishkāt, al-Ghazālī denies the ontological nature of the Avicennian emanative scheme, and emanation becomes readable as a divine outpouring of God’s light; the denial of ontological emanation implies denial of natural determinism. This position is used by al-Ghazālī to reinforce the Ash‘arite notion of God as the only Creator and Innovator: no efficient power is conceded to any creature through emanation. These views have also revealed that al-Ghazālī espouses a clear form of Gnosticism which looks at the divine light as the manifestation of knowledge which is granted to creatures for the specific purpose to awaken their consciences about the real essence of things, indirectly conveying awareness of pure tawḥīd. In the second section of The Niche of Lights, emanation has been presented in causative terms, following not only Neoplatonic, but also Ash‘arite and Sufi perspectives. By exploring the beliefs of those ‘knowers’ the veils tradition refers to, al-Ghazālī highlights that their limited perceptions of the divine are dictated by their personal drives and individualised creeds. The group of believers which are outside the perimeter of mysticism are presented as being trapped in their speculative theological and philosophical strictures. These limitations, that is, the veils which are mentioned in the ḥadīth, are shuttered only by the experience of God made available for the Attainers: for them experiential Sufism never decays into pantheism because the knowledge of God’s essence remains accessible exclusively to God alone. Al-Ghazālī’s Sufism is so heavily loaded with Ash‘arite principles to be conditioned by them: even from a mystical view, God becomes an unspeakable Being of whom nothing can be said except that He is the Ash‘arite Creator of everything that exists. The determinism implied within the ontological version of emanation comes to be substituted by divine predestination which is occasionalistically arranged by God at each moment in time, through a responsibility that is shared between primary and secondary causes. The topics of predestination and causality have been shown to be evidently intertwined within the concept of tawḥīd: the question of the movements of the heavens, for instance, triggers the problem of the definition of God as muḥarrik al-samāwāt, a definition which ultimately engenders the divine unity. Even the proposition of the deity as ‘Mover by way of command’ is set aside because considered threatening for God’s tawḥīd.
In his Niche of Lights, any form of secondary efficient causality is simply instrumental: al-Ghazālī condemns the philosphers’ view for which the act of obedience of the angel is a natural act, and he forwards the idea that looks at obedience as an inducted or acquired act which is created (and as such predetermined) in the angels by the command of God, whose nature remains obscure. Finally, by leaving the nature of the obeyed one vague, the mystic al-Ghazālī is ready to avoid any threat of pantheism and deism, embracing the safety of a revisited Ash‘arite kalām.
The discourse on free will and predestination is presented in a rather longwinded way in the Iḥyā’, it is evident that in the final analysis, the Ash‘arite predestinarian construct continues to shape inexorably al-Ghazālī’s approach and treatment of the whole topic. Nonetheless, the Ash‘arite predestinarian character is mitigated through a fascinating concatenation of metaphysical and Sufi stances alongside deterministic bearings. Al-Ghazālī’s control over such deterministic tones, however, is well mastered due to his outstanding capacity to knit everything within notion of divine tawḥīd and the dogmatic Ash‘arite notion for which God is the only the Real Agent. The necessity to stress divine unity and unicity urges al-Ghazālī to shroud the Ash‘arite notion of kasb: the capacity-to-act is not a human acquisition and, consequently, humans are compelled to acquire the act according to their divinely given capacity. No one acts except God as there is nothing but Him and His acts. Even the distinction occurring between the modes of actions, in the end, proves that there is no such thing as a purely voluntary action: the human being can be labelled as a ‘compelled chooser’ simply because he is the locus of disclosure of the divine decree. Notwithstanding his modified Ash‘arite background, al-Ghazālī’s discourse remains positioned within a philosophical framework, mainly with regard to cosmogonic concepts and in relation to the role played by human nature. Particularly, the Avicennian claim which looks at the nature of things as the sufficient cause which determines their present and future conditions, is partially accepted by al-Ghazālī. In his view, existents are certainly predisposed towards actions by nature even though existents’ natures are entrenched within the unchangeable divine custom. The latter encompasses all natures’ variants and their capacity to deviate from their usual pattern and is, for this reason, accountable for the incidence of miracles. Even the notion of tawakkul which should theoretically entail the possibility for any individual to either trust or not trust God’s benevolence, is engrained as an element of divine qaḍā’. Hence, it has been observed, the lack of trust in the divine provisions, stressed by the revealed Law, becomes not simply an offensive manifestation of human ignorance, but also an unlawful disruption of the divine prescriptions.
The mystical aspect that is highlighted in the Avicennian system and which regards the purification of the human soul as the result of both the individual’s strife and the illuminating guidance of the angels-intellects is found also in al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyā’. Once again however, the deterministic element present in Avicenna, which acknowledges the self-strife as the consequence of the soul’s inherent nature is superseded by the Ghazālīan predestinarian tone, stressing that any personal endeavour is simply an element inscribed in the divine decree. There is a sense that al-Ghazālī is consciously making use of philosophy not attempting to avoid it altogether. The often quoted sentence ‘our Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid penetrated into the body of philosophy; then he wanted to come out of it but could not’,1 is acceptable only to a certain degree: al-Ghazālī’s real effort is to escape only from any inconsistency between philosophical issues, in particular Avicennian and Neoplatonic ones, and mainstream Islamic theology.2 This attitude, shared in al-Ghazālī’s juridical thought and his ethical and sapiential musings, is carefully guarded in relation to the predestination issue. The synthesis of philosophical and theological ideas emphasize the Ghazālīan use of safe Neoplatonic tools: al-Ghazālī is manoeuvring Avicennian ideas, like the notion of human nature and the philosophically limited ethical resolution of the theodicy, and he is blending them with Ash‘arite topics like the supreme defence of God as the only Creator who acts according to customs engraved in His ab aeterno design.
In al-Maqṣad al-asnā, despite its mystical flavour, the Ash‘arite view of divine predestination shines bright; Avicennian positions are to be found again but adjusted to suit the idea of a Creator who determines everything beyond human comprehension. Finally, in the Iqtiṣād and the Tahāfut, al-Ghazālī borrows from Aristotelian logic in order dismiss philosophical positions such as the Avicennian principle of causality. However, al-Ghazālī’s technique betrays fundamental philosophical influences which are smoothened by oblique Ash‘arite typecasts. The reader becomes aware that al-Ghazālī’s adherence to the Ash‘arite tradition, as Frank argues, is mainly ‘on the level of language, not of substance’.3 This is particularly evident in al-Ghazālī’s insistence on the reality of agency as being governed by the nature of the subject. Agents are such because of their intrinsic nature as rational and willing beings.
Any reader should remember that al-Ghazālī intended to gain acceptance among the religious authorities and he aimed to offer a developed theological apparatus which, in his opinion, had to encompass all the sciences and disciplines formally recognized by Islam. Noticeably, his successful attempt to compromise never unbalances his theoretical synthesis. His use of Avicennian, Sufi, Ash‘arite and, in a few instances, Mu‘tazilite stances either clearly delineates his own ideas, making them more familiar to an audience already accustomed to such parlances, or fudges his real opinion on issues – such as the nature of emanation and the extent of the efficacy of secondary causality – which could be contentious from the orthodox perspective. Nonetheless, throughout his writings, al-Ghazālī impressively manages to render his positions harmonious and consistent.
The analysis of the concepts of free will and predestination has shown that Ibn ‘Arabī is not particularly concerned with bridging the ‘orthodox’ perspective and the more ‘esoteric’ positions on qaḍā’ wa’l-qadar. After all, he was convinced that God will judge, to quote his words, ‘on the basis of religion unobscured by ray and shall be in disagreement with the teachings of the scholars in most of His judgements’.4 This position is gauged through his unveiled references to both Neoplatonic and Ash‘arite cosmological stances. The Shaykh al-akbar speaks of creation, using terms such as khalq, and yet, in an Avicennian style, he admits that it is by the divine superabundance that the world is necessarily emanated. Creation becomes synonymous with God’s knowledge, and it is explained as the result of God’s Self-awareness which He attains through His Self-manifestation. The cosmos comes into existence due to fulfil the divine decree and God’s desire to be known.
It has been analysed that notions like ‘immutable entities’ and ‘eternal predispositions’ play an imperative role in the configuration of Ibn ‘Arabī’s argument on predestination because existents fulfil the scope for creation by way of being loci for the divine manifestation. Creatures become the Avicennian receptacles because existence is conceived as the capacity to become a ‘place’ for God’s disclosure. Even after formation, things continue to be the Avicennian mumkināt, remaining what they are because their possible nature is immutable. Their developments in existence occur following their inherent nature, and this reveals that natural determinism is unquestionably at work.
In the Akbarian system great importance is assigned to the interplay occurring between divine knowledge and the perceived objects of knowledge. It has been observed that Avicenna considered God’s knowledge to be limited by divine perfection, the latter preventing divine knowledge to change. Similarly, for Ibn ‘Arabī, God’s knowledge is limited because it is subordinated to what is known. The reason for this is not due to divine perfection, but to the divine oneness. God knows and creates the cosmos according to what He knows of it as a non-existing cosmos, namely, according to the measure of knowledge the deity attains through His immutable components. According to the Shaykh, the cosmos is subjected to what the Ash‘arites defined as a perpetual creation. The reader becomes aware that this notion is used by Ibn ‘Arabī to serve his theory of divine oneness and to explain the variety of manifestations in existing beings. The concepts of predestination and determinism are constantly intertwined: existents are the loci for the accomplishment of God’s acts but, simultaneously, God’s acts are determined by the properties of the receptivity of His a‘yān thābita. Despite the fact that the immutable entities are able to direct their destinies in harmony with their predisposition to receive existence and knowledge, it is clear that their nature is still shaped by the fact that they are not different from their original Essence that decrees what they are since eternity.
Hesitantly, one can sense that an ‘accidental’ attempt of compromise is advanced when the Shaykh merges the Avicennian and the Ghazālīan perspectives on causality: the arrangement of existents bears evidence that the world has a Maker who is aware of His creation and who establishes condition-conditioned relations between things. God is that Being who does not act in vain, but, rather, sets in His works causes which are determined to be signs through which man understands the divine nature. Causes are not denied as long as they function as veils aimed at illuminating mankind on the real nature of good and evil. In contrast to goodness, evil has a non-ontological quality and is connected to the blemishes of the world which is in itself non-existent.
In the context of the essential nature of man as a servant to God, human freedom comes to be viewed through the prism of paradox: freedom becomes an expression of the unswerving servitude towards God. By distinguishing between servanthood and servitude, the Shaykh highlights that the nature of man as a ‘abd is to be seen both as an intrinsic human condition, which is embedded in the human fīṭra, and as a privileged status to which the Gnostic aims to arrive. It is only the person informed of the real status of things who understands how real freedom is nothing else but acknowledgement of one’s poverty in relation to the Creator. Freedom becomes enjoyable through compliance with the status quo of phenomena, which is established by the divine decree, and it is attained through the station of ‘abandoning freedom’. Human ḥurriyya is gained through the investiture of the divine attributes which are divinely bestowed upon the perfect of the servants and the perfect of men. By expanding previous Sufi findings, the Shaykh al-akbar links the notion of the perfect man to his theory of divine oneness by rendering the insān al-kāmil the locus of divine manifestation par excellence. Potentially all men are perfect; potentially all humans are given the capacity to carry the Trust of God as they are only potentially able to fulfil their role as divine vice-regents on earth. It is for this reason that, like in Avicenna’s and al-Ghazālī’s systems, within Ibn ‘Arabī’s thought too the esoteric experience becomes characterized by the individual striving towards perfection. Humans are humans only once they attempt to achieve the level of the insān al-kāmil. Despite the fact that the divine decree predetermines who will become a perfect servant, humans are still credited with the moral choice of striving to draw close to this status. Their endeavours are spurred by the example of the Prophet: as the personification of the Primary reality called Ḥaqīqa Muḥammadiyya, and as the epitome of the perfect servant, Muḥammad becomes the synthesis of divine decree, natural determinism and, ultimately, the embodiment of freedom.
I find it highly ironic, how, for instance, orthodox Hanafites will talk about a golden age of islamic philosophy without realising the profoundly mystical implications of the philosophy of said epoch. I do not subscribe to the view that the islamic golden age was an Arab golden age. Instead, I advance the contention that the so-called 'Islamic golden age' was the 'belle époque' of 'Islamdom' (the Islamic world — Islamic civilisation,) if you will.)
Topic: Theoretical Compromises in the Works of Avicenna, al-Ghazali and Ibn 'Arabi