Averroes and the Paradigm Shift in Philosophical Theology
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine Averroes’ contribution to Islamic philosophy, his view of Islam as a rational religion, and his political theory of governance. Central to my approach is a heuristic exploration of Averroes’ unique role in synthesizing rational thought with religious truth, positioning him as a key innovator in the development of Aristotle’s philosophy. I aim to assess the extent to which Averroes can be considered an innovator of Aristotle, with critical reference to the views of al-Ghazali and Avicenna, and explore how he initiates philosophical theology as a framework for mutual witness to truth.
Intellectual Background in Islamic Spain
The philosopher Ibn Rushd, or Averroes (called in Latin) was born in Cordova in modern-day Spain in 1126 (d. 1198), into an influential family of lawyers which was prominent within the Almoravid regime (1085-1145). As judge and Imam at Cordova, his grandfather was a prominent jurist of the Malikite School, which was then dominant in Almoravid Spain and Morocco. Averroes pursued the study of the Shariah (religious law) and in due time was himself appointed judge in Seville and later chief judge in Cordova.[1]
The Umayyad caliphate in Spain was initiated (711) and had collapsed into independent mini-states and principalities during a civil war between 1009 and 1031; it came under the rule of Almoravids, Muslim Berber rulers of Maghreb (Northwest Africa: Algeria, Morocco, Lybia, and Tunisia).
Cordova caliphate in the tenth century under ‘Abd al-Rahman III was the cultural, economic, and intellectual center of learning and civilization, with seventy libraries (one of them retaining 400,000 volumes) and universities. Ancient Greek texts of philosophy, natural science, and medicine were translated into Arabic, Latin and Hebrew, so that European scholars travelled to study there. Mozarabic (Arabized) Christians and the Jews were in peaceful coexistence and shared in culture, language, and in interaction throughout dar al-Islam (land of Islam).
Toledo was conquered by Christian forces in 1085, and the Toledo School of translators was established by initiative of Archbishop Raymond of Toledo in the 12th and lasted to the13th centuries; many of leading scientific and philosophical writings in vast libraries there were translated into Latin. The Mozarabs converted to Christian Toledo, who had tolerated Muslim and Jewish culture, though in their restricted religious communities.[2]
Later in 1147, the Almohads, led by Ibn Tumart, defeated the Almoravids. Ibn Tumart studied with al-Ghazali in Baghdad. Almohad caliphate lasted to 1238. Unlike Ghazali’s refutation of philosophy, Almohad theology sought to provide a positive climate for philosophy and intellectual endeavors, but religious conservatives encouraged submission to authority (taqlīd) in opposition to independent judgment (ijtihād).
According to Almohad theology, the existence of God is essentially known through the use of reason alone. Indeed, revelation is freely accessible to believers. Islamic law should be deduced through independent judgment (ijtihād). As Almohad theology came to be dominant in al-Andalus, it was able to create the intellectual climate for philosophy to develop in its creative manner. In the cultural milieu of the Almohads, there was a philosophical enlightenment, in which Cordova culminated in peaceful co-existence and intellectual flourishing between Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
In dealing with the role of philosophy, Andalusian philosophers set apart from their major authority, al-Fārābī (d. 950), perhaps of Turkish origin, who is widely considered to be the founder of Islamic Aristotelianism. Al-Farabi is known to have studied philosophy in Baghdad possibly with the Christian translator of Aristotle’s Poetics and Posterior Analytics into Arabic. Among al-Farabi’s students at Baghdad it is known that there was another important Christian translator and logician. Al-Farabi died in Damascus around 950.
Al-Farabi was also indebted to Plato for political matters, expressing his own criteria for a virtuous city, because an Arabic translation of Aristotle’s Politics was not available at his time. He earned inspirations in political philosophy from Plato’s Republic and his Laws.
What is more crucial in al-Farabi’s political theory can be seen in his anthropological and ethical approach, which takes into account the variety of cultures and religions. Here, local differences entail religious pluralism, because a plurality of equally virtuous religions is appropriate to the different nations. Farabi’s political theory encourages tolerance between faiths. A virtuous world regime requires a multiplicity of religions to match the multiplicity of virtuous regimes.[3]
Aristotelian assumption—human beings are by nature political animals—has so reverberated that their perfection requires organized societies in living together for justice, common good, and happiness.
On the contrary, Andalusian philosophers conceived of their task as an individual pursuing of wisdom in a solitary undertaking. Philosophy in metaphysics, rational theology, and political philosophy—all of these questions did not find consistent answers until Averroes’s systematic contribution and commentaries on Aristotle.
Abu Ya qub Yusuf, a well-educated prince had succeeded Abd al-Mu’min, follower of Ibn Tumart (d. ca. 1129–30). The new caliphate was so impressed with Averroes’ knowledge of Aristotle, becoming his strong patronage.
Averroes’ legacy can be seen in his tremendous influence on the Jewish philosopher Maimonides and European scholasticism. His number of commentaries on Aristotle became widely circulated in Latin Europe. Beginning in 1180, Averroes produced five Long Commentaries: Posterior Analytics (1180), Physics (1186), De caelo (1188), De anima and Metaphysics (1190). The Long Commentaries came beforethree important theological works with considerable philosophical significance: The Decisive Treatise Determining the Nature of the Connection Between Religion and Philosophy, the Explanation of the Sorts of Proofs in the Doctrines of Religion, and his famous Incoherence of the Incoherence, which is a philosophical and dialectical refutation of al-Gazali’s critique of Avicenna and al-Farabi, the Incoherence of the Philosophers. His Middle Commentary on the “Republic” of Plato came in 1194 (at that time, an Arabic translation of Aristotle’s Politics was not available).[4]
However, Averroes’ vigorous endeavor in reconciling Greek philosophy with the teachings of Islam was seriously attacked on the part of conservative religious scholars, who accused him of heresy. For complex political and doctrinal reasons, he has lost favor with al-Mansur, a successor to power upon the death of his father Yusuf in 1184. His books were ordered to be burned, and Averroes was put into exile, spending some time in Lucena where Jewish village was dominant. His contact with Jewish thinkers during that time helped him involve the Jewish intellectual community.
Shortly thereafter Averroes was restored to a position of prominence at Marrakesh, where he died in 1198. His legacy can be seen in his defending of falsafa, as an Aristotelian Islamic enterprise underlying the intellectual, rationalistic development. His Incoherence of the Incoherence remains the most notable example in explicating the way in which he secures the philosophical position in response to al-Ghazali’s refutation.
God’s Eternal Will and Creation of the World
In his Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), al-Ghazali emerges as a fierce critic of Islamic philosophy, arguing that it was incompatible with Islamic religious doctrine. In response, Averroes wrote Tahāfut al-Tahāfut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence), which can be seen as a deconstruction of al-Ghazali’s critique—a philosophical rebuttal that effectively challenges the earlier deconstruction.[5]
According to Averroes, many of al-Ghazali’s claims are themselves untenable and unqualified—his own criteria for adequacy and critique fail to demonstrate the validity of the philosophical theses (falsafa) through demonstrative proof. However, in a sense, al-Ghazali’s opponent, Avicenna, had also gone astray.
In fact, al-Ghazali’s charge against al-Farabi and Avicenna—accusing them of unbelief due to their views on the eternity of the world, divine ignorance of particulars, and the denial of bodily resurrection—was dangerously misleading for the unlearned. Furthermore, it was insufficiently grounded and unjustifiable.
Despite Avicenna’s alleged shortcomings, it stands to reason that the entire practice of philosophy cannot be considered defective or inadequate. Avicenna’s failure, according to Averroes, lies in his lack of conceptual clarity, his deviation from Aristotle’s principles toward Neo-Platonism, and his irrational mysticism. A philosophy more closely aligned with Aristotelian principles, Averroes argues, would be immune to Ghazali’s attack. Nonetheless, Averroes does not reject the place of faith and God in his philosophy; rather, he seeks to redefine the relationship between reason and faith, positioning them in a mode of correlation.
In Avicenna’s modal ontology (following Aristotle and Plotinus), the world does not have a beginning but has always existed as an emanation. Since there is a world, there must be a ‘Necessary Existent’ (God), who brought the world into being.
However, al-Ghazali finds a problem in Avicenna’s conception of God and the eternity of the world. In his objection to the philosophical position, Ghazali argues: “Time is generated and created, and before it there was no time at all. The meaning of our words that God is prior to the world and to time is: He existed without the world and without time…with Him there was the world and there was time…: the existence of the essence of the Creator and the nonexistence of the essence of the world, and nothing else.”[6]
Against al-Ghazali, Averroes argues in the Aristotelian tradition that the first cause is absolutely unmoved. It is the cause of all entities in nature, where movement, motion, and change are inseparably connected to time. If “the priority of the unmoved being to the thing in motion” is compared to “the priority existing between two things in motion,”[7] it is in error.
Given this, Averroes concurs with Ghazali’s observation; “the priority of the Creator to the world is not a temporal priority.” But “the posteriority of the world to the Creator…can only be understood as the posteriority of effect to cause.”[8]
If God’s priority is not bound by time, then the posteriority of the effect cannot be either. The effect cannot be delayed after the cause once the conditions for action are fulfilled.
In Ghazali’s account, however, the philosophers maintain that everything that happens is necessitated and has its cause. So, “it is impossible that there should be an effect without
a necessitating principle and a cause.” So, a cause cannot exist with delayed effect, because “all the conditions of its necessitating, its causes and elements are completely fulfilled.”[9]
A philosophical notion of causation, according to Ghazali, does not fit a theological understanding of God (creator-agency with sovereign power), who involves volitional activity. God is a volitional agent, who has brought the world into being rather than through non-agential causation. If God creates the world, Ghazali claims, God must do so as a volitional agent – since God is the proximate cause of every event. In doing so, a theological occasionalism becomes dominant in Ghazali’s thought.
In his volitional model of God, according to Averroes, Ghazali maintains “that the First Agent causes the burning without an intermediary He might have created in order that the burning might take place through the fire. But such a claim abolishes any perception of the existence of causes and effects.”[10]
God’s Volitional Power and Human Projection
Against Ghazali’s argument, Averroes claims, no one doubts that the fire is the cause of the burning. Ghazali’s theology runs the risk of propagating an idea of arbitrary mystery and absolute power of God, which would sound in a similar way to Calvinist predestination. An illustration can be served to clarify how Ghazali understands God’s power beyond human imagination:
‘Let us imagine a child and a grown-up in Heaven who both died
in the True Faith, but the grown-up has a higher place than the child.
And the child will ask God, “Why did you give that man a higher
place?” And God will answer, “He has done many good works.” Then
the child will say, “Why did you let me die so soon so that I was
prevented from doing good?” God will answer, “I knew that you would
grow up a sinner, therefore it was better that you should die a child.”
Then a cry goes up from the damned in the depths of Hell, “Why, O
Lord, did you not let us die before we became sinners?”[11]
Averroes’ strategy in response is evident in his rejection of Ghazali’s arbitrary, even dictatorial, image of God. He contrasts this with an agential-volitional model, in which God brings the world into existence. According to Averroes, such a claim is clearly anthropomorphic, and thus tends toward heresy in his view.
However, Ghazali argues that the words in the Quranic verses and traditions carry an anthropomorphic significance, as their interpretation aligns with conventional metaphors in Arabic.[12]
In the thinking of God as a voluntary agent, the difference between God and human beings would be blur and unclear. What matters is for Averroes to keep a striking difference between God’s will and human will. A generality in describing God as volitional agent bringing the universe into being would also imply an ideal of the omnipotent God, who could have done otherwise. Thus God would become precarious, even incomprehensible.
In Averroes’ view, Ghazali tends to see God’s will analogous to human will. For example, the actual divorce is delayed after the formula of divorce until when its condition is fulfilled. The divorce does not take place all of sudden, but it takes time until actual realization is fulfilled. In a like manner, the realization of the world can be delayed after God’s act of creation until its condition is fulfilled.[13]
For the connection between God’s eternal will and temporal creation of the world, Ghazali deals with the issue of how God can create a non-eternal world outside of time. God existed alone at one stage, then had decided to create the world at a time, all of sudden and created it. “God before the creation of the world was able to create it, say, one year or two years before He did, and there is no limit to His power; but He seemed to have patience and did not create. Then He created. Now, the duration of His inactivity is either finite or infinite.”[14]
Averroes counters that Ghazali’s solution fails because it makes God’s will appear arbitrary and precarious, even suggesting that human projections influence God’s act of creation. Why, Averroes asks, would God suddenly choose to create the world? How can we, as human beings, know of such a volitional decision from a human standpoint? When we delay our actions after making a decision, it is often due to practical obstacles that hinder the causal efficacy of our intentions. However, God cannot be subject to such obstacles. So, why should God’s decision to create the world be delayed at any point?
Quran and Creation
In philosophical-theological arguments and counter arguments, Quranic story deserves attention, because it affirms that the heavens and the earth were once “one single entity, which We then parted asunder” (21: 30). One unit of the heavens and the earth is presupposed as a possibility of pre-temporal existence of the universe before God’s action of parting asunder.
Following the big explosion or parting asunder, God involves temporal creation of terrestrial realms by Saying and their obedience. God created the night and the day, the sun, the moon (planets included)—all the celestial bodies swim along in their own respective courses or orbits. God established the natural laws in the universe (21:33)
Averroes’ position of pre-temporality of the universe as one single unit would be implicated, while Ghazali’s volitional agential model finds its validity in divine action of creation in celestial and terrestrial spheres.
Other than that, Quran implies an idea of expanding universe. “We who have built the universe with [Our creative] power; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it” (51:48). This refers to the process of creation in ongoing and expansive manner through God’s power and preservation, and continuous creation. Divine action and creation entails another conception of expanding universe, which cuts through limitation of Averroes-Ghazali’s disputation.
Constructing a framework for divine action in both the natural and human worlds should be a vital endeavor, especially in light of the relationship between creation and evolution, within the context of the expanding universe and the dialogue between science and religion.
Averroes’ Critique: Avicenna and Ghazali
Averroes involves a critique of Avicenna’s metaphysic, in dealing with the relation between corporeal form and prime matter in De Substantia Orbis (On the Substance of the Universe). Averroes undertakes a task to complete Aristotle’s theory and to refute the false opinions of earlier interpreters and commentators, particularly in the case of Avicenna.[15]
According to Aristotelian physics, four causes—matter, agent, purpose, and form—are central to all natural beings. Additionally, three principles (form, matter, and privation) are involved in the process of becoming. The privation of form is considered the nature of matter. In all cases of coming-to-be, there must be four elements involved in the process of change. Nothing comes into being from nothing; coming-to-be does not occur ex nihilo. Prime matter holds a potentiality for the forms that are realized in the four elements, leading to the final actuality.
According to Avicenna, however, prime matter possesses a ‘corporeal form’ (in addition to potentiality). This corporeal form, a substantial form, imparts corporeality and dimensions to Prime Matter, which is otherwise deprived of actuality, and is impressed into matter.
In Avicenna’s view, the two principles of a natural body are prime matter and corporeal form. The material cause is a passive principle associated with potentiality, while the formal cause is an active principle associated with actuality. Due to its potentiality, prime matter does not exist by itself; it can only exist if actualized by the active principle of form. “Absolute matter is a substance which exists in actuality only when it receives corporeal form by virtue of the potentiality it has to receive forms.”[16]
The combination of corporeal form and incorporeal matter constitutes the natural body, whose actualization is entirely dependent on the corporeal form. The Neo-Platonic theory of the priority of form over matter seems to play a central role in shaping Avicenna’s metaphysics.
Against Avicenna’s Neo-Platonic metaphysics, however, Averroes argues that “prime matter has no proper form nor does it have a line nature existing in actuality, but its essence is to be only potential. It is for this reason that it can receive all forms.”[17]
Averroes rejected Avicenna’s definition of corporeal form, instead focusing on the principles of the reciprocal transformation of the four elements, which underlie the relationship between matter and form in terms of potentiality and actuality. In Averroes’ view, nature is connected to the final cause, with purpose as its guiding principle. Nature serves as a material cause while being directed toward an end. As such, natural beings exist sometimes in potentiality, sometimes in actuality. This process involves contingency or contingent action, which is distinct from Avicenna’s notion of the necessity of natural beings, which emanate from the Necessary Existent through the Nous (Intelligence as the Giver of Form) and the world soul.
In Avicenna’s epistemology, a key point is that essences exist either potentially in conceptualization or concretely in particulars. Things are known through experience only in relation to the mind—that is, through conceptualization and understanding.
What is the significant difference between an essence existing in matter and an essence existing in the mind (conceptualization)? In the latter case, the essence exists as something universal or general, while in the former case, the essence in matter exists as something particular or individuated.
Both modes of existence share something in common, as the essence considered in itself bridges the gap between the concrete, particular world (extra-mental) and the universally conceptualized mental world.[18]
This epistemological cleavage leads al-Ghazali to question where, in the world, these modal properties exist (not just in the world of the mind). If things are defined by reference to their inseparable accidents, this does not necessarily depict their reality. If existence is particularized into one essence, how can we use that particular oneness as the conceptual basis for distinguishing it from anything else—unless it has some reality? To deny essence is to deny reality itself, because without the reality of existence, its intelligibility is lost.[19]
In Avicenna’s definition of God as the Necessary Existent (quiddity), Ghazali argues that if God is the essence-in-itself, belonging solely to Him, then no one else can share in that essence. Consequently, Ghazali suggests discarding the term “Necessary Existent” if it does not refer to an eternal existent without an efficient cause.[20]
In light of this critical point, Averroes contends that it is incorrect for Avicenna to say that “existence only indicates a necessary attribute of the essences of things.” [21] The necessary attribute, Averroes argues, cannot resolve the question of what a thing is. If existence has a univocal meaning, he asks, how can an accident be univocally predicated of things that are essentially different? Avicenna, however, regarded this as possible.
Averroes denies Avicenna’s innovation. He questions how we can equate essences in the mind with those in concrete particulars. Are they the exact same thing, both in the mind and in the world—namely, an essence in itself, in the simplest realist sense? If the essence in itself is supposed to provide the link between the empirical (phenomenal) world and the mental (conceptualized) world, how can we be certain that these two worlds are identical, or even equated with one another?
Furthermore, how does Avicenna relate mental objects (as conceptualizations) to objective things in the world within the dynamic process of potentiality and actuality, as it unfolds through the causal interaction of material, formal, efficient, and final causes? Within this framework, Averroes argues that “one does not arrive at the First Principle as Avicenna thought.”[22]
Indeed, Avicenna does not take modality into account in the Aristotelian sense. Aristotle’s hylomorphism, which consists of matter (hyle) and form (morphe), involves a correlation rather than a dual character between a mental thing and an objective thing. For example, the human body is essentially ensouled, because things are defined by their functions. However, prime matter cannot be described as pure potentiality, existing solely on the form side and in separation from the elements.
This perspective implies a notion of universal concrete, because we know universals, first of all, by virtue of our experience or knowledge of particulars; not from the universals conceptualized by intellectuals (like Avicenna).
If the world exists modally according to Avicenna’s notion of the Necessary Existent or emanation, then God knows universals only in a universal (not particular) way. This leads to the problem of how God can know particulars. For Avicenna, God (the Necessary Existent) does not know particulars because He is entirely outside the temporal order. Possibility and change do not belong to God, who exists beyond temporality. Therefore, God does not know particulars as temporal phenomena or events. Rather, as the principle and cause of all things, God knows everything, down to the individual level.[23]
Thus, al-Ghazali takes issue with Avicenna’s position that “God knows other things in a universal knowledge which does not fall under the concept of time and which is not differentiated through past, future, and present.” In Avicenna’s view, God “knows individual things in a universal way.”[24]
In his critique of Avicenna, Ghazali continues, “God does not know the accidents of Zaid, Amr, and Khalid and that He knows only man in general, through a universal knowledge, and that He knows the accidents and properties of man in general.”[25] However, God cannot know the individual Zaid, whether Zaid becomes a heretic or a true believer. God can only know the unbelief and the belief of man in general.[26]
In Averroes’ account, God knows real possibilities in the world. His knowledge is connected to particulars in a way that allows Him to predict, for instance, what a human individual will do. He admits that “God comprehends things in one single knowledge in everlasting eternity, and that His condition does not change.”[27]
Thus, the nature of the actual existent is a consequence of eternal knowledge, because knowledge, qua knowledge, can only refer to something that has an actualized nature, as instantiated in the individual. “If, for instance, knowledge of Zaid’s coming reaches the prophet through a communication of God, the reason why the actual happening is congruous with the knowledge is nothing but the fact that the nature of the actually existent’ ‘is a consequence of the eternal Knowledge…”[28]
In Averroes’ view, however, al-Ghazali assimilates divine knowledge to human knowledge by comparing the two. [29] In fact, God’s knowledge is universally connected to the particular through cause-effect interactions. Against a literalist view that accommodates God’s knowledge to human knowledge, Averroes maintains:: “The First Intellect is pure act and a cause, and His knowledge cannot be compared to human knowledge.”[30] God’s Knowledge transcends classification in terms of universal or particular.
Averroes and the Non-Contradiction Between Truths
The Decisive Treatise does not explicitly address political issues or propose detailed reforms, but its main themes have implications for political reform, particularly regarding the coexistence and harmony between Islamic law and philosophy (including a critique of theology). This position stands in contrast to the popular notion of antagonism, which was commonly held by traditional Islamic scholars of that period.[31]
Averroes’ Decisive Treatise begins: “The purpose of this treatise is to examine, from the standpoint of the study of the Law, whether the study of philosophy and logic is allowed by the Law, or prohibited, or commanded—either by way of recommendation or as obligatory.” [32]
This purpose suggests that an account of Islamic law can be expounded and clarified through the lens of falsafa (Muslim philosophy), which incorporates the tradition of natural law in the Greek tradition, particularly through Aristotle, who is regarded as the father of natural law.
Religious Law and Intellectual Reasoning
Aristotle helps Averroes mediate between divine law and human law within the Islamic context. Human beings participate in Quranic revelation and its eternal law. Averroes is concerned with the correlation of religious truth, law, and philosophy, seeking harmony and reconciliation. This underscores the significant role of law in shaping moral obligation.
The Quran itself commands “reflection on beings, and the pursuit of knowledge about them, by the intellect.”[33]
The Quranic verse “Reflect. You have vision” carries textual authority, obligating Muslims to engage in the study of God and His creation through intellectual reasoning. This type of reasoning refers to the philosophical-legal method of demonstration, which produces certainty and necessary truth by understanding causes. It is distinct from rhetorical, dialectical, or fallacious reasoning.
Yet, the Quran calls all people to engage with its message, even though human natures differ in their paths to assent—whether through demonstration, dialectical arguments, or rhetorical arguments.[34]
Central to his understanding is the principle of the unity of truth, grounded in Tawhid, which serves as the foundation for reconciling reason and revelation as complementary paths to the truth.
“Truth does not contradict truth but rather is consistent with it and bears witness to it.”[35]
In fact, demonstrative truth (in the deductive sense of syllogism) does not stand in conflict with scriptural truth, because in the case of an apparent contradiction scriptural text must be interpreted in allegorical or metaphorical sense, without violating Islamic consensus, but for reconciling with intellect and tradition.[36]
Religious language can be allegorical, meaning it is often equivocal in relation to ordinary language. On the other hand, Scripture provides practical knowledge, specifically commandments on how to live our lives. “The situation is different in practical matters: everyone holds that the truth about these should be disclosed to all people alike, and to establish the occurrence of unanimity about them we consider it sufficient that the question [at issue] should have been widely discussed and that no report of controversy about it should have been handed down to us. This is enough to establish the occurrence of unanimity on matters of practice, but on matters of doctrine the case is different.”[37]
In doing so, Averroes is convinced that an apparent contradiction between the necessary truth of demonstrative philosophy and the divinely inspired truth of the Quran must be overcome. Scripture bears inner meanings that correspond to the differing dispositions of human beings. In cases of apparent contradictions, Scripture serves as a guide to proper action for all, while an allegorical or metaphorical interpretation of Scripture must remain intact.
Although Averroes follows Aristotle’s conceptual distinction between demonstrative and dialectical arguments, he does not place intellectual reasoning above religious truth as understood through dialectical or rhetorical reasoning, or through allegorical interpretation. Indeed, demonstration in the Aristotelian system is the highest form of philosophical reasoning, one that uncovers truths through empirical and rational explanation.
Averroes and the “Double Truth”
Averroes would not accept a strategy of “double truth” in which the truth of religion is set against the truth of demonstrative reasoning. Such an approach does not align with Averroes’ thought.
As discussed earlier, Averroes does not dispute the fundamental principles of religion—such as miracles, revelation, or the resurrection of the body—that transcend human understanding. Thus, Averroes supports belief in the resurrection of the flesh, not on intellectual grounds, but for practical reasons: it brings happiness to the many, in the Aristotelian sense of telos. His position is clearly articulated in the final section of The Incoherence of the Incoherence.
“But the philosophers in particular, as is only natural, regard this doctrine as most important and believe in it most, and the reason is that it is conducive to an order amongst men on which man’s being, as man, depends and through which he can attain the greatest happiness proper to him,”… “man cannot live in this world without the practical sciences, nor in this and the next world without the speculative virtues”…” the practical virtues can only become strong through the knowledge and adoration of God by the services prescribed by the laws of the different religions, like offerings and prayers and supplications and other such utterances by which praise is rendered to God, the angels, and the prophets.”[38]
His position is far removed from the Latin Averroistic theory of double truth, as represented by Siger of Brabant, a Belgian priest-professor at the University of Paris Arts Department. When Scriptural teachings conflict with those of Averroes, Siger argues that a philosophical position could still be true, even if it contradicts Scripture. This theory of double truth does not align with Averroes’ philosophy of harmony, in which scriptural truth remains a normative guide.
Without violating scriptural truth, Averroes advocates for combining natural intelligence with religious integrity and moral virtue.[39] It implies a form of philosophical theology that employs philosophical methods to analyze theological concepts in a rational and intelligent manner. This approach has a constructive element, making the scriptural message more relevant to contemporary issues while opposing a literalist (or anthropomorphic) attitude.
Averroes’ strategy of interpretation defends the significance of philosophy against Ghazali’s charge of unbelief, a charge previously leveled against Farabi and Ibn Sina. Averroes considers their arguments—such as the eternity of the world, God’s ignorance of particulars, and bodily resurrection—to be tentative, not definitive.[40]
Coda
Averroes rejects a simplistic, literalist interpretation due to its excessive tendency toward anthropomorphism. He takes issue with both the Ash’arite (allegorical) and Mu’tazilite (transcendental-dialectical) approaches to Scripture, though he acknowledges that the latter generally sounds more reasonable in their statements. However, their incorrect interpretations of the law have had the opposite effect in Muslim societies, fostering hostility, sectarianism, and division—sowing discord among Muslims.[41]
Averroes’ position opens up an interpretation of conflict within the philosophical realm, providing demonstrative reasoning to engage with philosophical-theological systems. This reasoning, along with dialectical and rhetorical methods, aids in comprehending scriptural passages. However, it does not reduce or exhaust the inner meaning of Scripture for unlearned believers in a rationalist manner, as in the double truth theory.
The philosophical-demonstrative approach has its own special function in understanding and exploring the truth of the inner meaning symbolized in Scripture, and this holds true for dialectical and rhetorical reasoning as well.
In the Decisive Treatise, Averroes sets out to defend his distinctive philosophy within the framework of philosophical theology. In his later work, The Incoherence of the Incoherence, Averroes acknowledges religion as obligatory, guiding all human beings toward wisdom in a universal way. They “seek the instruction of the masses generally.” But “philosophy only leads a certain number of intelligent people to the knowledge of happiness.”[42]
In Averroes’ vision, reason and faith are both equally efficacious, though they follow different paths toward the same truth. For Averroes, the term revelation refers to a high level of philosophical knowledge that allows for the correlation between reason and divine truth, thereby reinforcing the significance of a philosophical theology that respects the inner meaning of Scripture.
Theology is conceptualized through dialectical reasoning, beginning with common notions and allegorical interpretation. Since Muhammad’s prophecy is an effective tool for guiding people to the truth, it provides epistemic justification that cannot conflict with philosophy. As he says: “If the judge after exerting his mind makes a right decision, he will have a double reward; and if he makes a wrong decision he will [still] have a single reward.”[43]
Philosophy should be the ultimate arbitrator of religious disputes in dealing with legal issues. Theology does not necessarily contradict philosophy, since dialectical reasons (like rhetorical or analogical reasons) can be epistemic (leading to the truth) for philosophical (demonstrative) reasoning.
Philosophy does not entail anything that contradicts the religious truth of Islam. Averroes emphasizes the unity of truth in his well-known claim at the beginning of Chapter Two of the Decisive Treatise: truth does not contradict truth, or, more fully: “Now since this religion is true and summons to the study which leads to knowledge of the Truth, we the Muslim community know definitely that demonstrative study does not lead to [conclusions] conflicting with what Scripture has given us; for truth does not oppose truth but accords with it and bears witness to it.”[44]
Religious truth is understood as the truth arrived at through demonstrative, rhetorical, or dialectical methods, all of which yield epistemic justification. When the subject matter of scripture pertains to theoretical truths, these truths align with those known through philosophy.
This epistemic position refers to the mutual witness between philosophy and theology regarding revelation (aletheia), drawn from the shared text and narrative of the Quran. It necessitates a discourse that harmonizes religious and philosophical perspectives. Averroes may concede the unique epistemic role of prophecy, especially in contrast to philosophy. This ultimately leads him to characterize his philosophical theology, where philosophical reasoning is regarded as the most crucial means of understanding the textual world of the Quran.
Faith seeks an understanding of the word of God, which is also mediated through rational discourse and human reason. In alignment with the Divine Words, Averroes states, “those who are deeply versed in knowledge say: we believe in it, it is all from our Lord’.”[45]
[1] Richard C. Taylor, “Averroes (Ibn Rushd),” in A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages , eds. Jorge J. E. Gracia and Timothy b. Noone (Maiden: Blackwell, 2002), 182.
[2] Hans Kűng, Islam: Past, Present, and Future, trans. John Bowden (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007), 376-377.
[3] Deborah L. Black, “Alfarabi,” in A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, 114-115. See further Charles Edwin Butterworth. Alfarabi: The Political Writings (Cornell University Press, 2015).
[4] Taylor, “Averroes ,” in A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, 182.
[5] Averroes, Tahafut al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence), trans. Simon Van den Bergh (London: Luzac, 1969).
[6] Averroes ,The Incoherence, 76. E-text conversion, Muhammad Hozien. https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/incoherence.pdf.
[7] Ibid., 77-8.
[8] Ibid., 78.
[9] Ibid., 39.
[10] Ibid., 420.
[11] Introduction by Van den Bergh, in Averroes (E-text): 5.
[12] Al-Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, 235.
[13] Averroes (E-text): 39.
[14] Ibid., 51.
[15] Averroes’ De Substantia Orbis, ed. and trans. Arthur Hyman (Cambridge, Massachusetts and Jerusalem: The Medieval Academy of America, 1986), 28.
[16] Avicenna, Hudud, ed. A.M. Goichon (Cairo: Institute français d’archéologie orientale, 1963), 17.
[17] Averroes, De Substantia Orbis, 51.
[18] Jon McGinnis, Avicenna (New York. NY: Oxford University Press, 2010), 35.
[19] Al-Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, 134.
[20] Ibid., 129.
[21] Averroes (E-text):298.
[22] Ibid., 310.
[23] McGinnis, Avicenna, 173-4.
[24] Averroes (E-text): 359.
[25] Ibid., 361.
[26] Ibid., 362.
[27] Ibid., 365.
[28] Ibid., 423.
[29] Ibid., 366.
[30] Ibid., 367.
[31] Ayesha Omar, “Ibn Rushd’s The Decisive Treatise: A Text for Political Reform,” The Medieval History Journal, 22, 1 (2019): 131–155.
[32] Averroes, Decisive Treatise: On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy. Trans. George F. Hourani (London: Luzac, 1961), 2.
[33] Ibid., 45.
[34] Ibid., 49.
[35] Ibid., 50.
[36] Ibid., 51.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Averroes (E-text): 467.
[39] Averroes, Decisive Treatise, 48.
[40] Ibid,. 52.
[41] Averroes, Decisive Treatise, 68.
[42] Averroes (E-text): 468.
[43] Averroes, Decisive Treatise, 55.
[44] Ibid., 50.
[45] Averroes (E-text): 420.