Science, religion, and philosophy constitute three different realms. Man is by necessity forced to find some way of harmonizing these different aspects of culture which co-exist in the society in which he lives; otherwise his personality would disintegrate.
Science is necessary for the welfare of all the people living in a civilized community. Their material existence is dependent on and corre¬lated with the degree of scientific knowledge. Religion is even more fundamental in human societies. As Bergson puts it, “We find in the past, we could find to¬day, human societies with neither science nor art nor philosophy. But there has never been a society without religion.”53 Philosophy is the search for truth. It has rightly been said that man is a metaphysical animal.
The great¬ness of famous philosophers - Plato, Aristotle, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, Des¬cartes, Kant, etc. - lies in placing each of these three disciplines in its proper place, both in the sphere of knowledge and of action. The first philosophers in Islam gave to science its due consideration, without devaluing religion. Al-¬Kindi, al-Farabi, and Ibn Sina were all scientists and philosophers. And with that, they were all sincere Muslims, except that they interpreted religion in the light of their scientific and philosophical knowledge.
Al-Ghazali was dissatisfied with the doctrines of the philosophers. He attacked them in his book “The Incoherence of the Philosophers” and accused them of kufr on twenty points. The eloquence of al-Ghazali, his deep know¬ledge of the art of controversy and argumentation, and his vast erudition in every study gave him a wide popularity to the point that he was considered an eminent authority on Islam (hujjat al-Islam).
Ibn Rushd answered the accusations point by point. The discussion be-tween the two great figures is really an interesting debate, which mirrors a genuine conflict in Muslim society, between religion, on the one hand, and science and philosophy, on the other, Ibn Rushd, in his capacity as a philo¬sopher aiming at truth, integrated the three apparently diverse realms. Through rational interpretation of the Qur'an, he effected the harmony of religion with philosophy. He unveiled the true way to religion as stated in the Qur'an.
He, now, turns to pave the way to science. In his enthusiastic defence of religion, al-Ghazali unintentionally shut the door to it. The mystic way of the Sufis prescribed by him is incompatible with the rational methods of science. The Muslims, unfortunately, followed al-Ghazali, the “Authority of Islam,” and neglected little by little the study of the sciences. Their once great civilization faded.
On the other hand, Ibn Rushd defended science, and medieval Europe followed the way prescribed by him to attain to it. This is the true spirit of Latin Averroism which led to the rise of European science. Science is the body of systematized and formulated knowledge based on observation and classification of facts. But the way to science is more basic than the scientific truths so obtained, since through the scientific method we can attain to the scientific realities and progress more and more in our study.
The two Tahafuts, of al-Ghazali and that of Ibn Rushd, picture the ideas which were in play on the stage of Islamic civilization during the fifth and sixth/eleventh and twelfth centuries. Some of those ideas, though now con¬sidered to be of mere historical value, were of major importance at the time.
The length at which the problem of the eternity of the world is discussed and its prime place at the head of the twenty discussions indicate the importance that al-Ghazali gave to it. Ibn Rushd considers that the main questions for which al-Ghazali charged the philosophers of being irreligious amount to three: eternity of the world, denial of God's knowledge of particulars, and bodily resurrection.
In our view, the problem which still remains of vital importance is that of causality. Scientific thought can only be established on the basis of the causal principle. While Hume criticized causality, Kant tried to find out some rational grounds on which causality can stand. Through transcendental a priori forms of pure reason, Kant believed that science is safeguarded.
The induction of Stuart Mill presupposes universal causation. Russell says “Whether from pure prejudice, or from the influence of tradition, or for some other reason, it is easier to believe that there is a law of nature to the effect that causes are always followed by their effects than to the effect that this usually happens.”54 Only contemporary science has replaced the conception of “cause” by “causal laws,” causal lines, statistics, etc.
Ibn Rushd found himself entitled to safeguard science and show the way to attain to scientific realities, since al-Ghazali undermined the necessary relation of cause and effect. As Quadri puts it: “La science perdait ainsi toute raison d'etre. La subsistance n'avait plus de fondement.... La pence scien¬tifique devait etre revendiquee et sauvee.”55
Al-Ghazali begins the dialogue about the natural sciences by enumerating the different sciences “to make it known that the Holy Law does not ask one to contest and refute them.” In this enumeration he mentions such sciences as the art of incantation, alchemy, astrology, etc. Ibn Rushd rejects such pseudo-sciences. The talismanic art is vain. Whether alchemy really exists is very dubious. Astrology does not belong to the physical sciences.56
The real reason why al-Ghazali denied the necessary causal relation is that “on its negation depends the possibility of affirming the existence of miracles which interrupt the usual course of nature, like changing of the rod into a serpent .... “57 According to Ibn Rushd, miracles must not be questioned or examined by the philosophers. “He who doubts them merits punishment.”
However, the miracle of Islam lies not in such miracles as changing the rod into a serpent, but in the Qur'an, “the existence of which is not an inter¬ruption of the course of nature assumed by tradition ... but its miraculous nature is established by way of perception and consideration for every man.... And this miracle is far superior to all others. “58
In fact, Ibn Rushd repeats here what he has stated before in his twin books the Fasl and the Kashf. . Recent Muslim theologians, Muhammad `Abduh, Ameer Ali, and others, have adopted this Rushdian view which is now current in all Muslim societies. A return to Ibn Rushd is one of the incentives to recent renaissance in the East. Muhmmad 'Abduh says : “It is impossible for the people of Islam to deny the relation existing in this world between causes and effects.”59
We pass from this prelude to the heart of the discussion. Al-Ghazali posits the theme like this: “According to us the connection between what is usually believed to be a cause and what is believed to be an effect is not a necessary connection, each of the two things has its own individuality and is not the other... the satisfaction of thirst does not imply drinking, nor burning contact with fire.... For the connection in these things is based on a prior power in God to create them in a successive order, though not because this connection is necessary in itself.”
Ibn Rushd starts his answer from common sense, which in his view is the basis of certitude. “To deny the existence of efficient causes which are observed in sensible things is sophistry, and he who denies them either denies with his tongue what is present in his mind or is carried away by a sophistical doubt .... “60
But philosophy cannot be based on common sense. Empiricism is useful for practical ends, not for exact sciences. Both practical empiricism based on common sense and scientific knowledge believe in causality, except that the first is less sure and the latter more precise. To be scientific is to be able to predict what will happen in the future when a cause is given. Belief in science and its power results from our ability to predict on the basis of causal necessity.
Modern science still believes in causality, not in its older form of cause-effect relationship, but in causal lines and structures. To sum up, belief in causality is a matter of faith, originating from the animal faith in expec¬tation. Ibn Rushd had complete faith in nature, and maintained that every¬thing in the world happens according to a perfect regularity which can be understood in terms of cause and effect.
This brings us to the picture of the physical world as conceived by Ibn Rushd, and the way it can be scientifically known. The world is a continuum of things and persons interrelated through necessary causality. Two principles are presupposed, though not enunciated: the one is the permanence of things and the other is the law of causation. These two postulates are the result of metaphysical assumptions derived from Aristotelianism, namely, the idea of substance and the idea of the four causes.
Al-Ghazali denies the two principles. As to the permanence of things, he reproduces the counter-argument of some philosophers in a comical manner that “if a man who had left a book at home might find it on his return changed into a youth ... a stone changed into gold, and gold changed into stone; and if he were asked about any of these things he would answer, `I do not know what there is at present, in my house.”61
Al-Ghazali accepts the challenge saying “There is no objection to admitting that anything may be possible for God.” An example of this possibility is the miracle of Ibrahim when he was thrown into fire and was not burnt. Fire by the will of God lost its quality of burning. Fire in itself is not an efficient cause. The true cause is God who through His will and power gives the things their qualities. There is no reason, then, why they might not be con¬trary to what they are.
To meet this argument, ibn Rushd looks at the problem from the philosophi¬cal point of view already mentioned. The permanence of things permits us to attain to the essence of a thing, its definition, and giving it a name. “For it is self-evident that things have essences and attributes which determine the special functions of each one of them and through which the definitions and names are differentiated. If a thing had not its specific nature, it would not have a special name nor a definition, and all things would be one.” 62
As to the second postulate concerning causality, “all events have four causes, agent, form, matter, and end.” Human mind perceives the things and conceives their causes. And, “intelligence is nothing but the perception of things with their causes, and in this it distinguishes itself from all the other faculties of apprehension; and he who denies causes denies the intellect. Logic implies the existence of causes and effects, and knowledge of the effects can only be rendered perfect through knowledge of their causes. Denial of causes implies the denial of kntwledge.”63
If they call the relation of cause-¬effect a habit, habit is an ambiguous term. Do they mean by habit (1) the habit of the agent, or (2) the habit of the existing things, or (3) our habit to form a habit about such things? Ibn Rushd rejects the first two meanings and accepts the last which is in harmony with his conceptualism. Because it is impossible that God should have a habit. The habit of existing things is really their nature, since habit can only exist in the animated.
On the whole, the way to science starts with faith which is the basis of certitude. Sceptics and agnostics have no place in science. Armed with this faith in the existence of the world as such, the intellect discovers the causes of things. Scientific knowledge is the knowledge of things with their causes which produce them.
Sabtu, 28 September 2024