God as necessary and first existence: comparing Avicenna to Alfarabi
Also, see:
Introduction
The aim of this article will be to make a comparison of Alfarabi’s notion of the First Cause and Avicenna’s notion of the Necessary Existent in order to trace similarities and differences in both accounts and to reconstruct to what extent, if any, Avicenna’s reasoning of the Necessary Existent and its attributes might be said to be possibly inherited from Alfarabi’s notion of the First Cause.(1) The comparison will come about by i) reconstructing Alfarabi’s analysis of the First Cause, ii) reconstructing Avicenna’s analysis of the Necessary Existent and iii) comparing those two ontologies and critically discussing them. Since it is known that Avicenna did read Alfarabi’s books thoroughly (Gutas 2017), and that both were heavily influenced by Neoplatonism (2), and Alfarabi’s influence from the notion of the Active Intellect seems to be quite evident in Avicenna (3) , the comparison is interesting because it allows us to make a comparative ontological endeavour and thereby to lay bare the type of arguments employed by both philosophers to sustain that absolute ‘beginning’, or being, from which everything follows.
Alfarabi’s First Existence
In his Perfect State, Alfarabi briefly (albeit consistently) discusses the First Cause, as the First Existent from which all the other existents came about. (P.S. 1.1) In order to understand what the First Cause is, we have to understand it qua First Existent foremost. Both its existence and its “firstness” are harmonized in necessity and reality. Firstly, the First Cause must be an existence without deficiencies. (P.S. 1.1) All other existences suffer from deficiencies because they are at least dependent on something else to exist, rendering their existence contingent; the First Cause is uncaused and can suffer from no deficiency characterized by contingent existents. Contingent existents suffer deficiency not only because they are dependent, but also because they can be non-existent and potentially existent. The First Cause is free from substrate and matter, because that would make it dependent on matter qua matter or by it being sustained by matter. It is in fact is absolutely (i.e. materially and immaterially) incorporeal because it is not in need of parts. If it would have parts, the First cause would be divisible. (P.S. 1.1;1.4) Moreover, this means that the meaning of the First Cause cannot even be divided into different parts which would define it (P.S. 1.4). Its essence however, is contained in its “oneness” (P.S. 1.6), which means that it is nothing more than it pertains to, namely itself: the essence of the First Existent is the First Existence. This means for Alfarabi that this Existence is actual and intelligent (P.S. 1.6) . Precisely because it exists and is in no need for matter - something on which contingent existents are dependent - there is nothing ‘blocking’ the Necessary existent from being an existent. It is an Intellect and therefore thinks (being His state of existence as pure actuality) and thinks its essence, that is, itself. It has permanent knowledge, because it thinks itself (a permanent non-ending existent) (P.S. 1.7). The type of knowledge may be characterized properly as wisdom, because it knows the most excellent being, namely the First Necessity. (P.S. 1.8) Interestingly enough, the activity of thinking predicates love and beauty (P.S. 1.14-1.15) for Alfarabi, making the First Necessity a beautiful and loving being, one that is perhaps also easier associated with the monotheistic (Islamic) God.(4)
Avicenna’s Necessary Existent
In his Metaphysics of Healing, Avicenna describes the Necessary Existent in negating terms: firstly, it has no quiddity (Met. 8.4.3-8.4.7) , because quiddity is caused by something else (Met. 8.4.9-8.4.13) and is dependent on existence in the following way: a human has the quiddity “humanness”, because it is an abstraction of its being in essential terms, but the abstraction is in fact dependent on what the existent is. This dependence is mutual, for a human cannot be human without having humanness. If the existence is a necessary existent, there is nothing else that can be abstracted from it, because that would render it contingent: after all, the quiddity of humanness does not necessitate any particular human; it is a mere possibility that is actualized by particular beings pertaining to its essence that didn’t have to be. So for the necessary existent to be necessary, it shouldn’t be dependent on anything outside of it. The Necessary Existent has an essence however, namely his oneness (Met. 8.5.1), which is nothing more to say that the Necessary Existent is essentially the Necessary Existent.(5) Following similar lines of reasoning, the Necessary Existents can also not have a genus or differentia (Met. 8.4.14-8.4.16) and perhaps oddly enough no definition. (6) Why-ness, or the purpose of the First Existence is also excluded from what it is, that is, the First Existence has no purpose. (7)
Comparing Alfarabi to Avicenna
It is striking to see many a similarity in the attributes of a Necessary, First Existent between Alfarabi and Avicenna in that it denotes something that is unique, one, uncaused, and itself. However, at first sight these can be said to be basic Neoplatonic denotations of the ‘unmoved mover’. A first notable main difference in form of discussing the Necessary Existent between Avicenna and Alfarabi is the approach they take to address the subject. In the Perfect State, Alfarabi begins with discussing the highest Being and explains it as a First cause. Avicenna has to work his way through physics into metaphysics where the necessary Existent follows from the accumulation of a vast body of logical and metaphysical evidence. Here a difference emerges in the notion of necessity.. On the one hand according to Alfarabi, the First Existent is necessary because it is uncaused and lacking deficiencies, while on the other hand the Necessary Existent according to Avicenna is something in which the total set of contingent existents can be dissolved because it itself is not dependent on anything else (from which it follows that it is uncaused). A great difference to me seems to be the persistent emphasis by Avicenna that the Necessary Existent has no definition and that, for reasons explained by footnote 6, Alfarabi’s notions of love and beauty actually do define the First Existence. Namely, insofar as these notions contain a meaning, they are parts of the First Existence, without coinciding with its essence (see footnote 4). I think a deeper notion of necessity is established by Avicenna in his account of the Necessary Existent lacking in quiddity, from which he can argue that it has no further abstraction in which it is to be conceived (conceptually). Lastly, both philosophers exclude the why-ness, or the purpose of the First Existent on similar grounds: namely, that it is something independent from purpose, because it would establish something to depend upon outside itself.
Conclusion
Concluding on the question whether it is possible to trace Alfarabian influence in Avicenna’s notion of the Necessary Existent, we can state that it is very much possible to do so. However, a remarkable difference in argumentation can be recognized between both philosophers. Both seem to establish what the Necessary Existent is, by rejecting what it is not. Avicenna in my view goes much deeper in his negating technique with the notion of rejecting quiddity to the Necessary Existent, because it allows him to exclude abstraction from what it is, that is the Necessary Existent. From the passages that I have analysed, I have to state also that Avicenna’s notion of a Necessary Existent seems a lot less like a religious being then Alfarabi’s portrayal of it as a loving and beautiful being. In contrast, Avicenna puts forward the notion that the Necessary Existent lacks definition. Insofar the religious denotations are concerned, they seem to be lacking in Avicenna’s account of the Necessary Being. Lastly, both agree on similar grounds that it cannot be asked why there is a Necessary Existent. Avicenna in this regard seems to have used certain arguments (or at least notion) already used by Alfarabi, while refining them thoroughly.
Footnotes
1) It should be clear that this endeavour is made between the first Chapter of Alfarabi’s On the Perfect State and excerpts from the eight book of Avicenna’s Metaphysics of Healing and therefore doesn’t base the current analysis on a thorough reading of the First Existent in both authors, but discusses it within the framework in which the author believes both philosophers are quite consistent and coherent in their discussion on the First Existence qua First Existence. On another note, the words First Existence and Necessary Existence will be used throughout this analysis interchangeably, as both seem to denote the same concept.
2) Druart, Therese-Anne. 2017. "Al-Farabi". Plato.Stanford.Edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/al-farabi/. (consulted on 27-04-2017); for a detailed account of the Neoplatonic influence on AlFarabi see: Galston, Miriam. 1977.
3) An exhaustive comparative study on the notion of the Active Intellect between Islamic philosophers was carried out by Davidson in: Davidson, Herbert A. 1992. Alfarabi, Avicenna, And Averroes, On Intellect. 1st ed. New York u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press. This study however makes no extended comparison between the topic here discussed, but is instead more focussed on the Neoplatonic emanationism present in Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes.
4) It here seems to me that since Alfarabi puts up the essence of the First Existence as its oneness, which on the one hand cannot be defined, but on the other hand might be substituted by notions or descriptions that pertain to the same notion as the First Existence. However, to me it looks impossible that to substitute the First Existence with “Pure Beauty”, or “Pure Love”, would in fact not take into account the notions of both necessity, nor existence. That it coincides here with the First Existence nonetheless is therefore in my opinion problematic, although the theological allusion here might be easily seen as presenting this First Existence not as a ‘traitless’ thing, but as a caring existent to which people can truly appeal to (through religion).
5) A major distinction between quiddity and essence in Avicenna is not immediately present in his writings: both seem to pertain to the “whatness” of a thing. The essence of the Necessary Existent is also to be understood as itself, so that we may say that quiddity and essence might be used interchangeably here, leaving the same conclusions.
6) Met. 8.4.16; I say oddly, because according to Avicenna no definition is possible because the Necessary Existent has no genus or differentia. I take it to mean that defining in this sense is to be understood as ‘describing the essence of X’, in which case a definition would indeed be impossible if the Necessary Existent, being essentially itself, is understood as “X as the essence of X”, or “X is X”, in which nothing ‘more essential’ than the thing itself is described. One might consider the difficulty of this way of describing definition, because sometimes we are satisfied with a definition as something which does not describe the essence of the thing it is about, such as “X in the row <X, Y, Z> is neither Y, nor Z”, but this is exactly what Avicenna seems to be avoiding to subscribe to definition. Rather, it is clear that the Necessary Existent becomes more evident, the more things are negated of it. But this doesn’t pertain to a description of an essence different from what it is, it simply leaves us with what there is left, namely the Necessary Existent insofar it is a necessary existent. It is true, however, that a necessary existent can be characterized by certain traits of being necessary and an existent. However these ‘traits’ are predicated on the necessary existent and that in a way seems to constitute a definition, but we may address this with the critique that those traits (e.g. being One, being perfect) do not stand outside of the Necessary Existent, but coincide with it in that they are not excluded from the Necessary Existent qua Necessary Existent.
7) This notion of the lacking of a purpose of the First Existence, NB: God, is perhaps understood better somewhat counterintuitively: if God has a purpose, then that purpose comes from something different than what makes His existence necessary, and his necessity would be dependent on that what gives His existence necessity. That notion, Avicenna and Alfarabi teach us, is absurd.
References
Avicenna (trans. Marmura, M.E.) 2005. The Metaphysics Of The Healing. 1st ed. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press
Davidson, Herbert A. 1992. Alfarabi, Avicenna, And Averroes, On Intellect. 1st ed. New York u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press.
Druart, Therese-Anne. 2017. "Al-Farabi". Plato.Stanford.Edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/al-farabi/.
Galston, Miriam. 1977. "A Re-Examination Of Al-Fāribī's Neoplatonism". Journal Of The History Of Philosophy 15 (1): 13-32.
Gutas, Dimitri. 2017. "Ibn Sina [Avicenna]". Plato.Stanford.Edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ibn-sina/.
Walzer, Richard, and al- Farabi. 1985. Al-Farabi On The Perfect State. 1st ed. Clarendon Press.