Abstract
I shall restrict my remarks here to the question of whether or not God can do injustice or act wrongfully by drawing out the basic differences between the apparent position of an-Naẓẓzâm and that of the fully developed teaching of the Basrian school of the Mutazila, for which we have more adequate resources.1
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Notes
Since I am concerned here only with the basic structure and coherence of their respective positions there is no need to enter into the detail of the various arguments and to cite redundant texts in which essentially the same reasoning appears repeatedly, recast in one or another form according to the exigencies of different polemical contexts.
Abd al-Jabbâr, al-Mugn îfî abwâb al-tawh îd wal- adl, Ministry of Culture, Cairo 1959–65, 6/1, p. 127, 4 f.
Ibid., p. 140, 7.
Origen and the Patristic writers will base this on God’s being good (ἀγaθός) by His nature. Note that ‘good’ is not predicated of God in the Arabic of the kalâm. That is, the English term ‘good’ renders either `hasan’ or ḫayr’ and in the lexicon of the kalâm neither of these terms can be used to describe God. The former is employed to describe an object in an aesthetic sense (as beautiful) or to describe an action in an ethical sense (as morally good or right), while the latter is used to describe an object, event, state of affairs, or action as in some respect good (or best) for someone, i.e., as beneficial. or advantageous to or for. (‘Hayr’, indeed, is not a technical term in the kalâm.) ‘Muhsin’ (= does what is hasan) is predicated of God, but the term is derived from the ethical description of an act and is considered to be referential to the act under that description, wherefore it is said of God as an agent and not in himself. ‘Just’ (‘adl), however, is said of God essentially according to the Mu’tazila: he is such in his essential being that all his actions are just and good; he transcends (tanazzaha) imperfection and error and so will not choose to do what is wrong or unjust. We may note, finally, that ]hayr] is the term used to render the Greek ὰγaθόv in the neoplatonic literature (e.g., in the Liber de Causis), but, as is the case with much of the translation vocabulary, the usage is not properly consonant with the native semantics of the Arabic word.
5“By necessity” (or “by force”) — darûratan, etc. — is used also in an ethical or juridical sense to describe an action which is performed intentionally but unwillingly (under constraint); this usage, however, does not belong to the formal lexicon of the kalâm.
al-Khayyât, K. al-Intisâr, A. Nader (ed.), Beyrouth 1957, p. 26, 2–6.
Cf. al-Mugnî, 6/1, p. 129, 5ff.
Ibid., 13, p. 206, 5ff.
The Basrians (we have no information regarding an-Nazzâm) do recognize the occurrence of involuntary actions on the part of human agents, i.e., events which originate in the agent through his ability to act but do so without his awareness or intention; these are, however, such that in principle he is able to do them or to omit them voluntarily. Rational motivation is the basis and the condition of choosing (al-Mugnî, 6/1, p. 99, 3f. and an-Nazzâm cited in al-Ash`arî, Maqâlât al-Islâmiyyîn. H. Ritter (ed.), Istanbul 1929— 30, p. 334, 2–4.) Where there is action but no possibility of choice the action of the subject (i.e., the event which takes place in or through the subject) is caused by antecedent events (tawallada) and/or occurs necessarily, by its nature (ibid.).
Cf. al-Mugnî 9, p. 66, 2f.; and 13, p. 201, 10f.
Ibid., 6/1, p. 5 and 8, p. 91f.
The occurrences of actions of a given class in various ways are spoken of as “varieties” or “sorts” (durûb) of the class (e.g., al-Mugnî 11, p. 496, 19 and abû Rashîd al-Naysabûrî, K. al-Masâ’il fî l-ḫilâf bayna l-Basriyyîn wal-Bagdâdiyyîn, M. Ziyâdeh and R. al-Sayyid (eds.), Ma`had al-’Inmâ’ al-`Arabî, Beyrouth 1979, p. 369, 23f. and cp. the text translated in no. 21 below); these varieties or sorts, however, are not conceived as constituting formally distinct sub-classes. cf. al Mugnî 6/1, p. 130, 16ff.
For a more detailed discussion of the Basrian analysis of this see my Beings and their Attributes: The Teaching of the Basrian School of the Mutazila in the Classical Period, State University of N.Y. Press. ,Albany N.Y. 1978, pp. 127 ff.
al-Mugnî 7, p. 65, 9f.
Ibid., 12, p. 215, 2 and 7, p. 65, 9f.
Ibid., 11, p. 168, 13.
Ibid., 6/1, p. 140
Thus, ‘Abd al-Jabbâr asserts against abû 1-Hudhayl (al-Mugnî 6/1, p. 128, 7f.; cf. Maqâlât, pp. 200, 12–15 and 556, 7f.) that it is not absolutely impossible (i.e., logically contradictory) that God do something which is unjust. He allows, therefore, the formal correctness of the proposition If God did an unjust act, then this [act] would indicate (dallaalà) that He is in error ….’ It is valid, however, only as itibâr, i.e., when one denies the consequent (that there exist an entity such as would require us to infer that God is in error) and thereby the antecedent. ‘Abd al-Jabbâr insists, further, that since one cannot grant the (concrete) possibility (jawâz) of the truth of the antecedent, no predicate in the conclusion can be either true or false of its subject; see the lengthy discussion of this and other subjunctive conditionals dealing with God’s action and his foreknowledge in alMugnî 6/1 pp. 127–156; rules for conditionals are given ibid., pp. 151–154 and in 4, pp. 292–294; see also the citation of al-Jubbâ’î concerning subjunctive conditionals in Maqâlât, pp. 204f. = 560f. Al-Jubbâ’î’s example of the invalid form of the subjunctive conditional (sc., that in which the antecedent is possible and the consequent impossible) is worth citing here since it involves the problem of God’s foreknowledge and shows quite clearly that the Basrian mu`tazila at the end of the 3rd/9th century had a thorough grasp of the problem and its basic elements. He says that the proposition If a person of whom God knows and has stated [i.e., has revealed to us] that he will not believe came to believe,then it would be the case that God’s knowing and His statement would be …’ must be self-contradictory (mustahîl). That is, the proposition (al-kalâm) is self-contradictory since the antecedent is possible in principle (it is true of any unbeliever that he is able to believe, wherefore the existence of his belief —‘îmânuhû — is possible: maqdûr) while the consequent is altogether impossible under any interpretation, for “if (1) one says that [God’s] statement ‘he will believe’ will come to be prior to the event since (a) the previous statement will come not to have been [verified] by his not believing and since (b) God will come not to have known eternally [that he would not believe] , then the proposition is impossible, since (a) it is impossible that it come to be the case that what in fact has been come not to have been and since (b) it is impossible that God come not to have known eternally what He knows eternally. If (2) one says that the statement that he would not believe and the knowledge that he would not believe will be true and valid even though the thing of which it was known and of which it was said that it would not come to be came to be, then the proposition is impossible. If (3) one says that the true statement will change into a false statement and the knowing into error, then the proposition is impossible.” Maqâlât, p. 204, 12ff; p. 561, 5ff.
’Abd al-Qâhir al-Bagdâdî, al-Farq bayn al-firaq, M. ’Abd al-Hamîd (ed.), Cairo n.d., p. 138, 1f; al-Shahrastânî, K. al-Milal wan-nihal, M. Badrân (ed.), Cairo 1375/ 1955, p. 79, 7ff. These are all considered to be voluntary movements (at-tahar-ruku bil-’irâdah: al-Bagdâdî, p. 137, 2). With this compare the thesis that voluntary movement (πpoαιρετικἡ κίvησις) is characteristic of man and other animals (τὰ ἕµΨνχa) in Methodius, de Autexusio 13, 1. The following is worth pointing out in the present context: (1) Methodius (loc. cit.) plainly takes morally wrongful actions (τὰ κaά) as a γέυoς and so is able to speak of murder and adultery as two of its είδη. That he speaks of them formally in terms of classes (of a genus with its species) is analogous to what appears from the reports to be the teaching of an-Nazzâm and al-Kabî. (2) Where, however, Methodius speaks of the εἴδη of a γένoς, the Basrian Mu`tazila and an-Nazz âm speak only of ‘ajnâs. How an-Nazzâm conceived, grouped and divided ‘ajnâs is not certain, given the paucity of the indications given in our sources. The Basrians employ the term primarily to speak of the lowest, essential classes of beings, though they do commonly use it also for more extensive classes. ‘Abd al-Jabbâr, for example, speaks of “the class of visible entities” (jinsu l-mar’iyyât: al-Mugnî 4, 132, 7f.), which includes colors, whose basic classes (‘ajnâs) are black, white, green, etc., but remarks that “to describe the visible as visible does not imply its assignment to one or another class” (lâ yûjibu tajnîsan) (ibid., lines 4ff.). When one considers the use of the terms here as compared with that of Methodius it is worth noting that the mutakallimûn of the classical period were basically nominalists and so have no place for εἴδη; i.e., the system has no place for forms, for single essences shared or participated in by many individuals or as the intentional presence of such essences to the mind.
Maqâlât, p. 356, 6ff.; cp. al-Milal, p. 77, 10ff. and for the analogous distinction in the teaching of the Basrian s̀chool, cf. the passage of al-Mugn î translated in the following note. In would seem clear from the consistent usage of the texts in their citations and reports of an-Nazzâm and al-Ka`bî that they did not distinguish between `sahha, yasihhu, sihhah’ and ‘jâZa, yajûzu, jawâz’ as did the Basrians.
Contrast the statement of ‘Abd al-Jabbâr (al-Mugni 6/1, p. 58, 6ff.): “Our general position is this: acts that are bad are of two sorts, (1) those which are bad intrinsically and not by virtue of a relationship to something else, e.g., an unjust act’s being unjust, a false statement’s being false, to will a wrongful act, to command a wrongful act… , and (2) those which are bad by virtue of that to which they are conducive, which is the case with those acts which are revealed by God to be bad (al-qabâ’iḥu š-šar `iyyah), wich are bad only in that they are conducive to one’s doing something which is rationally bad (qabîhun aqlî)…” Concerning the distinction made here between what is rationally bad (i.e., known to be bad by autonomous reason) and what is bad since God prohibits it, and the reduction of the latter to the former, see my ‘Reason and Revealed Law,’ in Recherces d’Islamologie, Recueil d’articles offert à Georges C. Anawati et Louis Gardet (Bibliothèque philosophique de Louvain, 26), S. van Riet (ed.), Institut supérieur de philosophie, Lo uvain-la-Ne uve 1978, pp. 124 ff.
The expression “essential attribute” (sifatun dâtiyyah) in a-Šahrastânî, loc. cit. is equally ambivalent in this context and is most likely no more than a paraphrase of the li-nafsihî’ found in al-Ash`arî.
al-Masâ‘il, § 138, p. 354, 22f.
al-Intisâr, p. 38, 24.
al-Intisâr, p. 28, 6: li’anna 1-qâdira ‘alà šay’in ġayru muhâlin wuqû `uhûminhû.
al-Mugnî 6/1, p. 141, 7f.
‘Abd al-Jabbâr appears to recognise this, for in the context of a general apology for the Mu`tazila as a whole he mitigates the statements he makes concerning an-Nazzâm’s teaching in the Mugnî where he is arguing for the correctness ofthe doctrine of his own school. Thus, against the accusation that an-Nazzâm held that God does not act by choice but by the necessity of his nature, he says, “This is not so, since he (an-Nazzâm) holds that there is no ethically bad action of which one can give a concrete example (yušâru ‘ilayhî) save that God is able to do acts which are similar to it (‘amiâluhû) and which are ethically good, wherefore it is possible (yasiḥḥu) that He choose one good action over another” (Fadl al-I’tiZâl, p. 348, 12–14; cp. al-Intisâr, p. 39, 1–4).
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Frank, R. (1985). Can God do What is Wrong?. In: Rudavsky, T. (eds) Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy. Synthese Historical Library, vol 25. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7719-9_4
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