Ibn Sina

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Ibn Sina

• Avicenna and the proofs for the nature of God

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Avicenna

• 980-1037
• Influence of Aristotle
• Influence on Aquinas
• The tension between anthropomorphic and
  philosophical understandings of God

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Format for the Arguments

• Set up the problem.
• Often with definitions
• Provide a demonstration.
• This is a version of medieval disputation.

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That there is a Necessary Being

• All being is either contingent or necessary
• A contingent being has a reason for being
• A cause
• If that contingent beings reason is a contingent
  being then that being also has a reason for
  being
• A cause

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That there is a Necessary Being II

• If there is only a chain of contingent beings
  there is no being.
• Nothing exists
• We know that things do exist.
• There must be a first being that has no reason
• A first Cause
• There must be a Necessary being
• An uncaused being

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Of the Unity of God

• Notice that this argument is that necessary being
  is one.
• This is an argument against the Christian
  understanding of a trinity

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Of the Unity of God II

• If there are two (or three) necessary beings
  they must be distinguishable
• Distinctions are accidental (adjoined to
  something after its essence is established) or
  essential (part of what the thing is)

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Of the Unity of God III

• If the things are distinguished by accidental
  characteristics
• Each may have accidental characteristics and so
  both are caused.
• One may have an accidental characteristic so
  that one is not a necessary being.
• We are left with only one necessary being.

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Of the Unity of God IV

• If the things are distinguished by essential
  characteristics
• If the distinctions are in both then both are
  compound and both are caused. Neither is a
  necessary being.
• If the essential distinction is in one only then
  it is compound and so caused. It is contingent
  and the other is necessary
• God is Necessary and One.

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God is without cause

• Active causethat from which a thing has its
  being
• Final cause-that on account of which a thing has
  being
• Material cause-that in which a thing has being
• Formal causethat through which a thing has being

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Gods attributes

• Their multiplicity does not destroy his unity (p.
  67)
• Can you explain this

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Gods knowledge

• Self-thinking thought
• Gods knowledge of his essence is his knowledge
  his being known and his knowing.