God's Creativity and Human Action

Christian and Muslim Perspectives

Lucinda Mosher, David Marshall, Lucinda Mosher, David Marshall

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781626164864
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Ecumenism & Interfaith

A record of the 2015 Building Bridges Seminar for leading Christian and Muslim scholars, this collection of essays explores the nature of divine and human agency through themes of creation's goal, humankind's dignity and task, and notions of sovereignty. Part I sets the context for the book with "Human Action within Divine Creation: A Muslim Perspective" by Mohsen Kadivar of Duke University and "On the Possibility of Holy Living: A Christian Perspective" by Lucy Gardner of Oxford University. The rest of the book includes paired essays—one from a Muslim perspective, one from a Christian perspective—that introduce scriptural material with commentary to aid readers in conducting dialogical study. In her conclusion, coeditor Lucinda Mosher digests the illuminating small-group conversations that lie at the heart of the Building Bridges initiative, conversations that convey a vivid sense of the lively, penetrating but respectful dialogue for which the project is known. This unique volume will be a valuable resource to scholars, students, and professors of Christianity and Islam.

PART I

Overviews

Human Action within Divine Creation

A Muslim Perspective

MOHSEN KADIVAR

HUMAN ACTION WITHIN divine creation has been the subject of long and controversial discussions among Muslims since the eighth century, first as the subject of study and debate in commentaries on the Qurʾān and Ḥadīth and then continuing as one of the first problems of Islamic theology. The Muslim philosophers and mystics engaged deeply in the subject and enriched its literature from their specific perspectives.

We may classify the Muslim perspectives on this important subject under esoteric and exoteric approaches. The perspective of all mystics such as Ibn al-ʿArabī and some philosophers such as Shahab al-Din Suhrawardī and Mulla Sadrā, in some of their works (not all of them), is classified as “esoteric.” I will not mention this approach in this essay.

I limit myself to the “exoteric approach,” which comprises a wide spectrum from the ultraliteral interpretation of Zahiris to the maximal rationalism of Muslim philosophers such as Avicenna and Averroes. This spectrum can be seen as having two subcategories: thought that is best understood as “Islamic theology,” which is relatively more textual and less rational, and thought that is more properly understood as “Muslim philosophy,” which is more rational and less textual.

The theological perspective includes eight schools of thought: Ashʿarī, Māturidī, Ḥanbalī, and the banned Muʿtazilī in Sunnī Islam; Jaʿfarī, Zaydī, and Ismāʿilī in Shiʿite Islam; and finally ʿIbāḍī. The philosophical perspective includes four schools of thought: peripatetic, illuminative, transcendent, and independent philosophers such as Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī, al-Bīrūnī, Fakhr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī, and Abu’l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī.

Providing a general overview of twelve schools of thought on one of the most controversial problems in the history of Islam is not easy. I will focus on the key similarities and differences between these two main perspectives without going into the details and the apologetic debates. I will offer major verses of the Qurʾān and a few ḥadīths for each perspective as the main evidence—as well as a few theological or philosophical arguments. My goal is to demonstrate how Muslims, especially at the present time, understand human action within divine creation.

Introductory Remarks on the Unity of God

There is consensus among Muslims—regardless of their different schools, sects, and perspectives—that the cornerstone and inseparable master principle of Islamic thought is the unity of God (tawḥīd). This master principle has at least four levels: unity of God’s essence (al-tawḥīd al-dhāti), unity of His attributes (al-tawḥīd al-ṣifāti), unity of His actions (al-tawḥīd al-ʾafʿālī), and unity of worship (al-tawḥīd ʿibāḍī). Although there are different understandings in the second and third, there is unanimity in the general understanding of the first and the fourth. Human action within divine creation is a factor at two levels of controversy regarding the unity of God: on “unity of His actions” (for the most part), and on “unity of His attributes” (to a lesser degree). To have a better understanding of the challenge, we must elaborate on the first level of tawḥīd—that is, unity of God’s essence and its effect to other levels of this master principle of Islam.¹

Deep study of the visible world (ʿālam al-shahāda), or natural world, teaches us that the actions and reactions of all particular beings—regardless of whether they be earthly or heavenly beings—are in intrarelation to each other, and there is no being out of this framework. Every action or reaction relates to the whole universe. From this fact we can infer a kind of unity, a large system designed and run by one operator. This is the first principle.

This natural, visible world could not be spontaneous. It is contingent and an effect of God—directly, as some “occasionalist theologians” in the Ashʿarī school (such as al-Ghazālī) believed, or indirectly, with the mediation of a chain of vertical, intellectual, immaterial causes (or angels), as all the Muslim philosophers and some theologians (such as Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī) believed. According to both approaches, the ultimate originator of the world in all of its parts and aspects is no one except God. This is the second principle.

According to the principle of cause and effect, the cause of the cause of a thing is finally the cause of that thing, and the effect of the effect of a thing is finally the effect of that thing. When all of the causes lead to the Ultimate Cause—that is, God—it means that all beings, regardless of what they are, are His effects. There is neither independent existence nor any necessary being in itself except God. There is no originator of existence except God. This principle is clear in occasionalism too. It is the meaning of unity of God-as-Sustainer (al-tawḥīd fī’l-Rububiyya). No god but God (Lā ilāha illā Allāh).

In the other words, God is the complete cause (adaquata causa; al-ʿilla altāmmah) for all beings as well as their agent cause (efficient cause; al-ʿillah al-fā’iliyyah). He is independent in His origination absolutely as well as self-subsistent in His existence and causality. He is the real one who effects. There is no one who effects in existence except God. He is the agent of all things, and all the causes are as His agents—subjects and contingent to Him. It is the common ground of Islamic thought, and all Muslims are unanimous without any differences in the master principle of unity of God.

God’s Creation and His Goal

What is God’s goal in creation? Why is there anything at all? Why isn’t there “nothing”? Why does God create in general? These are the questions of teleology and philosophy. I will discuss three issues in this section: God’s goal in creation, creation of the world, and the immanence or transcendence of God in Islam.

God’s Goal in Creation

On the primary point of the necessity of a goal in actions, there are at least three approaches to this issue. The first approach is that the goal of action is exclusive to contingent dependent beings; action should have a goal in order to perfect their incompleteness. An independent ultimate being—that is, God—does not have any goal in His actions. It is the meaning of “God’s actions are not justified with purposes.” Ashʿarite theologians such as al-Taftāzani and al-Jurjāni and the philosopher Suhrawardī went in this way.²

The second approach, in contrast, contends that there are goals and benefits in God’s actions—not for Himself, because He is rich—but for His creations and servants. The Muʿtazilite and Shiʿite theologians believed in this way.³ The Qurʾān explicitly denies vain creation: “Did you think We created you in vain, and that you would not be brought back to Us?” (al-Muʾminūn [23]:115).⁴ The goal of the creation is worship and service of God: “I created jinn and humankind only to worship Me” (al-Dhāriyāt [51]:56). This verse indicates that the creation has a goal. This goal is the worship of God. In the other verse, just end and recompense are introduced as the goal of creation: “God created the heavens and the earth for a true purpose: to reward each soul according to its deeds. They will not be wronged” (al-Jāthiyah [45]:22).

The third approach belongs to the mainstream of the Muslim philosophers: There is no action without a goal.⁵ The goal always refers to the agent and is always the perfection of the agent. The need of an agent to a goal is necessary only in the case of a material agent. In incorporeal agents, the goal is the essence of the agent itself, not something out of it. The inference of this argument is that the goal of God in His actions, including creation, is His transcendent essence—nothing else.

The benefit of the creation could not be the essential goal of God in His creation because the goal should not be lower than the existential level of the agent. This kind of goal requires the influence of the other on God’s will, and that is not accepted in the independent agency of God. There could be no motive in His action except His transcendent essence. The benefit of the others is the accident of the divine actions.

Being is good. God is the source and origin of every good. He emanates existences because their creation is good. Origination of good is God’s habit, and He necessitated it to Himself, as “He has taken it upon Himself to be merciful” (al-Anʿām [6]:12, 54).

God does not need worship, because He is perfect. God loves His transcendental essence. Worshipping Him is justified in this way or could be the accident of creation. According to a ḥadīth commenting on this verse, worship is the intermediate goal. The ultimate goal is “knowing God” (maʿrifat Allāh).⁶

Creation of the World

In Islamic understanding, the creation of the world was not a one-time action that happened in the past and was finished. creation has been continued, and God is a permanent creator.⁷ God admired Himself because of the creation of humanity: “glory be to God, the best of creators!” (al-Muʾminūn [23]:14). “We create humanity in the finest state” (al-Tīn [95]:4). The priority of humanity is because of God’s spirit in all human beings. He orders the angels to prostrate to humans because of this spirit in human beings: “When I have fashioned him and breathed My spirit into him, bow down before him” (al-Ḥijr [15]:29–30). This spirit in human beings guides them to the straight path if it is not suppressed by carnal soul or devilish ego. This tendency to the good and knowing God is called primordial disposition or original nature (fitra): “So as a man of pure faith, stand firm in your devotion to the religion. This is the natural disposition God instilled in humanity—there is no altering God’s creation—and this is the right religion, though most people do not realize it” (al-Rūm [30]:30).

Among the Muslim scholars, two approaches are taken to questions about the creation of the world. The first approach is to say that God creates ex nihilo: the giving of existence out of non-existence. The second approach is to claim the eternality of the world because matter, motion, and time are concomitant. That is, it is impossible to have time but no matter. The incorporeal world is eternal but is not God. The major distinction between God and His creation is not eternality but the contingency and dependence to God. All beings, be they corporeal or incorporeal, are contingent to God and are dependent on Him. The need of temporal being to Him is temporal, and need of eternal being to Him is eternal. This is the approach of mainstream philosophers and some theologians. However, most of the theologian...