Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Revisiting the Concepts of Necessity and Freedom in Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) (c. 980–1037)

  • Published:
Sophia Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The article examines Ibn Sīnā’s account of necessity and freedom both in God and in the created order. The first part of the article argues that Ibn Sīnā attempts to reconcile seemingly contradictory notions of divine freedom and divine necessity on the premise that if there is necessity in the First this comes solely from ontological, moral, and intellectual perfection and not from an external source or principle, or an internal desire to realize an unrealized potentiality. The First acts, necessarily and voluntarily, in conformity with Its perfection. Hence, the First’s acts may be described as simultaneously necessary-cum-voluntary. The article then, in light of the previous discussion, turns to examine how Ibn Sīnā establishes freedom in the created order. The second part of the article focuses on the notion of existence (wujūd) and how Ibn Sīnā’s distinction between physical and metaphysical causality leads to the idea that the ‘gift’ of existence grounds freedom in entities. The third section examines his construction of essences (māhiyya) as uncaused and eternal objects of the divine knowledge. The First knows and existentiates essences in accordance with Its knowledge, but It does not determine what they are. The idea that there is no cause for an entity to be what kind of entity it is in the First’s knowledge further affirms the idea of freedom in the created order.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Al-Ghazālī. The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfūt al-Falāsifa), a Parallel English-Arabic Text. ed. and trans. M. E. Marmura. (Provo UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1997), 161 and 172.

  2. For an excellent study of al-Ghazālī’s logic of ‘agents’ and ‘acts’ in comparison with that of Ibn Rushd (Averroes), please see Barry S. Kogan, Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 17–70.

  3. Al-Ghazālī, Tahāfut, 126–28.

  4. Ibid., 169.

  5. Ibid., 56–57.

  6. For Rāzī’s position, please see Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s Pointers and Reminders Ed. S. Dunyá. (Cairo: 1957–1960) V. 3, 69–71. For Thomas Aquinas’ account, please see Quaestiones disputatae de potentia. Ed. P. M. Pession. (Turin: 1965) III.4. Also, see É. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (London: 1955), 213.

  7. This divergence from al-Ghazālī’s criticism appears to start earlier than al-Jurjānī. With Ibn, Arabī and Ṣadraddīn al-Konawī Muslim theology begins to consider the possibility of the eternity of possible beings without this negating the divine will. We see a similar effort among the later theologians such as al-Amidī, al-Ijī, and Taftazānī. For an excellent analysis of this issue, please see Ömer Türker’s introduction to al-Jurjānī’s Sharh al-Mawāqif in Seyyid Serif Curcānī, Serhul Mevakif, 3 vols. Trans by Ömer Türker (Türkiye Yazma Eserler Kurumu Baskanlığı, Istanbul: 2015) I, 17–88.

  8. There is however at least one incident in al-Jurjānī’s writings in which he states that ‘necessary emanation of the world from God, who is necessary in itself, does not negate God being a willer,’ Sharh al-Mawāqif, 78. My translation. However, the general tone of his theology suggests that IS metaphysics does away with the divine will.

  9. al-Jurjānī, Sharh al-Mawāqif, 42.

  10. Said Nursi, Sözler (Istanbul: Sözler Neşriyat, 2005), 25 the word, 1, 1, 3. Translation is mine.

  11. A.-M Goichon, La distinction de l’essence et de l’existence d’après Avicenne (Paris, 1937). 162–3.

  12. L. Gardet, “La pensé religieuse d’Avicenne’ (Ibn Sina),” in Études de Philosophie Médiévale, 41 (Paris, Vrin, 1951), 45–6.

  13. G. F. Hourani, ‘Ibn Sina’s ‘Essay on the Secret of Destiny’, BSOAS, 2.1 (1966), 25–48.

  14. J. [Yahya] Michot, La destinée de l’homme selon Avicenne (Louvain, 1986). In particular 61–4.

  15. Richard Frank, Creation and the Cosmic System: Al-Ghazālī and Avicenna (Heidelberg, 1992). 23–4.

  16. Michael E. Marmura, “The Metaphysics of Efficient Causality in Avicenna”, in Michael E. Marmura Islamic Theology and Philosophy, (Albany: SUNY, 1984), 175. For similar necessitarian readings of IS, please also see Richard Frank, Creation and the Cosmic System: Al-Ghazālī & Avicenna (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1992) 22–5. Barry Kogan argues that Ibn Rushd also thinks IS is a necessitarian. For his discussion, please see Barry S. Kogan, Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 17–70.

  17. Catarina Belo, Chance and Determinism in Avicenna and Averroes (Boston: Brill, 2007), 53. See in particular Chapter 3 and Conclusion.

  18. Kara Richardson (2013) Avicenna’s Conception of the Efficient Cause, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 21:2, 220–239, 228.

  19. Kara Richardson, “Causation in Arabic and Islamic Thought”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/arabic-islamic-causation/>.

  20. Ibn Sīnā, Al-Shifā’ al-Ilāhiyyāt (The Metaphysics of The Healing: A Parallel English-Arabic Text). Edited and translated by Micheal. E. Marmura (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2005), 27. From now on SI.

  21. Ibn Sīnā, Dānesh Nāma-i ʿAlāī, MS Nuruosmaniye Library, No. 2258/2682, 60a. Translation is mine.

  22. SI, 302.

  23. Ibn Sīnā, Pointers and Reminders with Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s Commentary, ed. S. Dunyá. (Cairo: 1957–1960) V. 3.

  24. A. Ivry, “Destiny Revisited: Avicenna’s Concept of Determinism” in Michael E. Marmura Islamic Theology and Philosophy, (Albany: SUNY, 1984), 163–4.

  25. A. Ivry, “Destiny Revisited: Avicenna’s Concept of Determinism,” 167.

  26. J. Janssens, ‘The Problem of Human Freedom in Ibn Sina’, in Actes del Simposi

    Internacional de Filosofia de l’Edat Mitjana (Vic-Girona, 1996), 117.

  27. M. Rashed, “Théodicée et approximation: Avicenne,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy,

    vol. 10 (2000), 223–257. See in particular 227, 229, 232.

  28. L. E. Goodman, Avicenna (London, 1992), 81.

  29. Anthony Ruffus and Jon McGinnis, ‘Willful Understanding: Avicenna’s Philosophy of Action and Theory of the Will’ in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, January 2015, 171.

  30. One can find similar distinctions made by both Plato (Phaedo 74a, Republic 509b, Timaeus 50c) and Aristotle (Posterior Analytics 92 b–93a and Metaphysics 1003–1004). Ibn Sīnā however turns this distinction into his starting point.

  31. SI, 10. See also ‘Just as the existence and the one are among the things common to the categories.’ SI,186. In other words, ‘existence’ is what the scholastics called a transcendental notion; on this idea, cf. T. Koutzarova, Das Transzendentale bei Ibn Sīnā (Brill, 2009).

  32. SI, 180.

  33. SI, 262.

  34. SI, 263.

  35. SI, 276.

  36. SI,299.

  37. SI, 292.

  38. SI, 274. As a side note, we must mention that this passage seems relevant to the discussion on the primacy of existence or essence in Ibn Sīnā. This passage actually suggests that existence precedes essence. For more on this discussion, please see Robert Wisnovsky’s essay, ‘Avicenna and the Avicennian Tradition’ in Adamson and Taylor (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). For a good and lucid study on the connection between God’s existence and the divine attributes, cf. P. Adamson, ‘From the necessary existent to God,’ in P. Adamson, Interpreting Avicenna (CUP, 2013). Also, for T. Izutsu’s discussion on Ibn Sīnā’s take on this issue, please see T. Izutsu, A Comparative Study of the Key Philosophical Concepts in Sufism and Taoism (Tokyo: Keio University; second ed., Sufism and Taoism, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983 [1966]), 3–5. For a good examination of Suhrawardī’s position on this discussion, please see Rizvi, S.H. (2000). ‘Roots of an Aporia in Later Islamic Philosophy: the Existence-Essence Distinction in the Philosophies of Avicenna and Suhrawardī,’ Studia Iranica, 29: 61–108; and S.H. Rizvi, (1999). ‘An Islamic Subversion of the Existence-Essence Distinction? Suhrawardī’s Visionary Hierarchy of Lights,’ Asian Philosophy, 9(3): 219–27. For al-Fārābī’s account, please see N. Rescher, ‘al-Fārābī on the Question: Is Existence a Predicate?’ in Studies in the History of Arabic Logic, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963), 39–42; for an overview of the discussion N. Rescher ‘The Concept of Existence in Arabic Logic and Philosophy’ in Studies in Arabic Philosophy, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966), 69–80.

  39. SI, 283.

  40. SI, 284.

  41. Ibid.

  42. This indicates that human moral perfection has a real connection to the divine perfection in that intellectual and moral struggle would make us like the divine (taʼalluh).

  43. SI, 284–5. See also ‘this is because inasmuch as its haecceity (huwiyya) is denuded (from Matter) it is intellect (ʿaql)...inasmuch as it is denuded (of matter) it is intelligible (maʿqūl), ..and in as much as it is denuded (of matter) it is intellector (ʿāqil).’and ‘intellectual apprehender’ requires something which is ‘intellectually apprehended.’ SI, 285.

  44. SI, 299.

  45. To see Ibn Sīnā’s discussion on the relationship of the concept of existence and other attributes, please see Book Eight, Chapter Seven. Especially SI, 291–8. Also, see Ibn Sīnā, Kitāb al-Najāt, ed. Majid Fakhry (Beirut: Dar al-Afaq al-Jadida, 1985), 263–65.

  46. SI, 299.

  47. SI, 138.

  48. SI, 360.

  49. SI, 291.

  50. SI, 292.

  51. SI, 294.

  52. SI, 327.

  53. SI, 328.

  54. Ibn Sīnā, Kitāb al-Ta‘līqāt, ed. S. H. Mousavian (Tehran: 2013). Pg 11–17 was translated in Ruffus and McGinnis, ‘Willful Understanding: Avicenna’s Philosophy of Action and Theory of the Will,’ 184.

  55. SI, IX.4 [3].

  56. SI, 59 and 258.

  57. SI, 276. See also, ‘the possible in itself must become necessary through a cause and with respect to it.’ SI, 31; and ‘if it were not for that cause ‘this’ by itself would not be a necessary existent, nor ‘that’ by itself a necessary existent- that is not with respect to existence but with respect to accident... But it has been stated that whatever is a necessary existent through another is not a necessary existent in itself; rather within its own domain it is a possible existent.’ SI, 35.

  58. SI, 277.

  59. SI, 196.

  60. For different evaluations of Ibn Sīnā’s account of causal relations, please see Étienne Gilson, ‘Avicenne et les Origines de la Notion de Cause Efficiente,’ Atti Del XII Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia, 1958, 9: 121–130; Étienne Gilson 1962, ‘Notes pour l’histoire de la cause efficiente,’ Archives d’Histoire doctinrale et littéraire du Moyen Age, 37: 7–31; Taneli Kukkonen, ‘Creation and Causation,’ in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, R. Pasnau and C. Van Dyke (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 232–246; Robert Wisnovsky, ‘Final and efficient causality in Avicenna’s cosmology and theology,’ 2002, Quaestio, 2: 97–124; Amos, Bertolacci, ‘The Doctrine of Material and Formal Causality in the «Ilāhiyyāt» of Avicenna’s «Kitāb al-Shifāʾ»,’ 2002, Quaestio: 125–154.

  61. SI, 7.

  62. SI, 2.

  63. SI, 9.

  64. For a further analysis of this topic, see Robert Wisnovsky, ‘Towards a history of Avicenna’s distinction between immanent and transcendent causes,’ in Before and After Avicenna, D. Reisman (ed.), (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 49–68.

  65. SI, 194–5.

  66. Cf. Aristotle, Physics, Book VIII, translated with commentary By Daniel W. Graham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999)

  67. SI, 185.

  68. This also suggests that Ibn Sīnā actually knows the problems of the Aristotelian take on the definition, despite that the founder of the Illuminationist School, Suhrawardī, criticizes him on this. Suhrawardī writes for example, ‘it is clear that it is impossible for a human being to construct an essential definition in the way the Peripatetics require—a difficulty which even their master [Aristotle] admits.’ Suhrawardī, The Philosophy of Illumination. A New Critical Edition of the Text of Hikmat al-Ishraq, with English trans., notes, commentary and intro. J. Walbridge and H. Ziai (Provo UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1999), 11. 5–9.

  69. SI, 276. See also, ‘the possible in itself must become necessary through a cause and with respect to it.’ SI, 31 and ‘if it were not for that cause ‘this’ by itself would not be a necessary existent, nor ‘that’ by itself a necessary existent— that is not with respect to existence but with respect to accident... But it has been stated that whatever is a necessary existent through another is not a necessary existent in itself; rather within its own domain it is a possible existent.’ SI, 35.

  70. SI, 283; See also. ‘potency needs to be actualized by something existing in act at the time of the thing’s being in potency.’ 141; ‘Act is prior to potency in perfection and purpose. For potentiality is a deficiency, while actuality is a perfection. The good in all things is in conjunction with being actual,’ 142; ‘in as much as it is an existent, it is not evil; but it would be an evil in as much as it lacks the existence,’ 142; ‘You have thus learned that, in reality, act is prior to potency and moreover, that it is prior in terms of nobility and perfection,’ 143; ‘some other thing through which the potential becomes actual. Otherwise, there will be no act at all, since potentiality by itself is insufficient to become an act but requires that which would change it from potentiality to actuality,’ 143.

  71. SI, 284.

  72. This whole discussion can also be understood in the context of kalam discussions on the divine attributes. Like Mu‘tazilites, Ibn Sīnā holds that God’s attributes are all reducible to the divine essence (ḍāt). God’s knowledge and God’s essence are one and the same thing. They expressed this by using such formulas as ‘alim bi‘ilm huwa huwa (knowing by a knowledge that is Him), qādir bi-qudra hiya huwa (powerful by a power that is Him), and hayy bi-hayāt hiya huwa (living by a life that is Him). See for example Ash‘arī, Maqālāt, 165–174; Qādī Abduljabbar, Sharh, 183. Robert Wisnovsky provides an excellent study of this topic in relation to Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysics. Please see Robert Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics In Context (New York: Cornell University Press, 2013). In particular Chapter 13.

  73. Also, see ‘because He intellectually apprehends His essence (ḍātihi) and that He is the principle of all things, He apprehends by His essence all things.’ SI, 291.

  74. Ibn Sīnā, Avicenna’s De anima, ed. F. Rahman. (London: 1959) V.6 [239].

  75. See for example

  76. SI, X.4 [7].

  77. SI, 273.

  78. SI, 205. And, ‘hence, that which bestows a thing’s existence inasmuch as it is existence has the greater claim to existence than the thing.’ SI, 207.

  79. SI, 208.

  80. This interpretation appears to be bolstered by Rashed’s observation in that certain irregularities in and unpredictability of movements of the celestial spheres affirms freedom and contingency in the created order. Rashed, ‘Théodicée et approximation: Avicenne,’ 227, 229, 232.

  81. SI, 273.

  82. SI, 333–4.

  83. SI, 208.

  84. SI, 140. Italics are mine.

  85. SI, 290.

  86. In a passage, Ibn ‘Arabī asserts something very similar. ‘God knows things as they are in themselves. Because, the knowledge follows the known (al-‘ilmu yatba‘u al-ma‘lūm)…In this case God can speak to one in the following way: “this is from you, not from me. I would not know you as you are, if you were not what you are.’ Translation is mine. Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūhāt al-Makkiyya, 9 vol. (Cairo, 1911; reprinted, Beirut: Dâr Sâdir, n.d.), VII. 41.

  87. SI, 273.

  88. Ibn Sīnā, Kitāb al-Shifāʼ/Ṭabī‘iyyāt (1): as-Samāʼ aṭ-Ṭabī‘ī, ed. S. Zāyid (Cairo, 1983), 1.11, 53, 4–12. Cited in Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context, 177–8.

  89. N. Ṭūsī, Sharḥ al-Ishārāt, no ed. (Qum, 1983 or 1984), 193,31–194, 6. Cited in Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context, 91.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bayan Claremont/Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, CA, USA

    Ozgur Koca

Authors
  1. Ozgur Koca
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ozgur Koca.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Koca, O. Revisiting the Concepts of Necessity and Freedom in Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) (c. 980–1037). SOPHIA 59, 695–712 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-0706-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-0706-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation