Ibn Sina - From the necessary existence to God.
To make this possible we will discuss a selection of attributes of this necessary being in roughly the order chosen by Ibn Sina: uniqueness, simplicity, ineffability, intellection, and goodness, with implications on several more attributes stemming from the latter.
2. A) Uniqueness: Here Ibn Sina presents a philosophical argument for the Islamic doctrine of Tawhid. Ibn Sina uses a strategy of reductio to prove the oneness of the necessary being. He supposes that there are 2 necessary existents, and that contradiction follows.
3. Suppose 2 necessary existents. A and B. if A is distinct from B as a result of something that follows from necessity of existence, then B would share that feature (after all, it, too, is necessarily existent) and the two would not be distinguished after all.
4. But if A is distinct from B as a result of something not implied by necessity of existence, then this individuating factor will be a cause for A (since it makes A exist separately from B), and this will compromise the necessity of A.
5. He adds another argument. Suppose that there are two necessary existents, A and B, which exist together, neither causing the other, and both being necessary. This time, we ask not what makes A and B distinct, but what accounts for their being together in necessary existence.
6. If either A or B is the reason for this, then it causes the other to be together with it which violates the assumption that both are uncaused. If something other than A or B is the cause, this is even worse: both A and B will be caused.
7. Ultimately it amounts to this: If an existent is necessary, then everything about it must be necessary. A necessary existent cannot “just happen” to have an equal partner, or, indeed, “just happen” to have any other trait.
8. Avicenna is telling us that the uniqueness of the First is after all established by its being uncaused, and not its being a cause.
9. B) Simplicity: Avicenna’s arguments for divine simplicity are closely linked to his arguments for divine uniqueness, and likewise proceed on the basis of God’s being uncaused.
10. The argument for simplicity is that anything made up of parts is in some sense an effect of those parts. Since the necessary existent is uncaused, it cannot have parts.
11. Again, to prove this, Ibn Sina uses a reductio. Suppose the necessary existent is not simple, but “a multiplicity (kathra).” In that case, we would have a number of elements of the composite necessary existent, which would stand in need of differentiation from one another.
12. If the internal parts of the necessary existent are themselves necessary and non-identical, then there must be some feature that individuates them. But this individuating feature cannot derive simply from the necessity of the part that it individuates,...
13. ...since otherwise it would be possessed by each of the necessary parts. Nor can it be merely accidental to the part that it individuates, since it would belong to the part contingently and hence require an outside cause.
14. C) Ineffability: Ibn Sina says that the possession of any positive quiddity or attribute apart from necessary existence would compromise simplicity. This allows Avicenna to exclude both genus and differentia from the necessary existent.
15. In establishing more positive attributes than he has so far, Avicenna will presumably need to exploit the fact that the necessary existent is also a cause. He will indeed go on to do this, as we will see shortly.
16. D) Intellection: One of Ibn Sina's central “positive” claims about God derives ultimately from the “negative” premise that the necessary existent is uncaused. This is his claim that God is an intellect.
17. It might seem uncontroversial, in Avicenna’s context, that God is immaterial, and little more controversial that necessary existence implies immateriality. After all, materiality is associated with potentiality or possibility, a point made by Avicenna.
18. Ibn Sina takes immateriality to imply intellection and self-intellection. But why suppose that, if the necessary existent is immaterial, it engages in (self-)intellection?
19: Here is the argument: An immaterial object is something intelligible. Now, we know that some intelligible things are intellects. So the question is, in fact, what would prevent an intelligible thing from being an intellect?
20: The answer is that intelligibles which subsist in something else are not intellects. So an intelligible thing which subsists through itself, not in matter or in an intellect, will itself be an intellect.
21: Obviously the necessary existent will pass this test, it is the self-subsisting existent par excellence, and is therefore an intellect.
22: As for self-thinking, of course, Avicenna holds that God knows His creatures by knowing Himself. But He does so precisely by knowing Himself as a cause.
23: E) Goodness: In general, Ibn Sina says the good is that which everything desires, and that through which it is completed. Evil has no essence, but is either the absence of substance or of some state beneficial to the substance. Thus existence is goodness.
24: Perfection of existence is goodness of existence, the existence that is untouched by absence – whether absence of substance or absence of something that belongs to substance – rather, it is perpetually actual. So it is pure good.
25: The necessary existent is “pure good” and free of evil, because evil is lack or deficiency. Having established this, Avicenna reminds us that the necessary existent provides existence and perfections of existence. This, too, allows us to affirm His goodness
26. From another point of view, Good refers to God’s status as the source of existence and perfection for other things. This provides a basis for further attributes, like the attribute of generosity, sufficiency and even will.
27: These are some of the attributes Ibn Sina uses to prove the necessary being is in fact the Islamic conception of God, with the use of a variety of philosophical arguments.
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