The Problem of Evil: Ibn Sina's Theodicy 9781463206543

Table of contents :
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Frontmatter
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Table of Contents
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Preface
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Chapter One. The Problem of Evil Formulation and Historical Solutions
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Chapter Two. Analysis of the Theories of Evil of Ibn Sns Predecessors
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Chapter Three. Ibn Sns Analysis of Metaphysical Evil
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Chapter Four. Ibn Sns Notion of Moral Evil
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Chapter Five. Ibn Sns Solution for the Problem of Evil and the Problem of Destiny
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Chapter Six. Summary and Conclusions
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Abbreviations
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Bibliography
[9781463237318 - The Problem of Evil] Index

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The Problem of Evil

Gorgias Islamic Studies

8

Gorgias Islamic Studies spans a wide range of subject areas, seeking to understand Islam as a complete cultural and religious unity. This series draws together political, socio-cultural, textual, and historical approaches from across disciplines. Containing monographs, edited collections of essays, and primary source texts in translation, this series seeks to present a comprehensive, critical, and constructive picture of this centuries- and continent-spanning religion.

The Problem of Evil

Ibn Sina’s Theodicy

Second Edition Shams Inati

gp 2017

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2017 by Gorgias Press LLC

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1

2017

ISBN 978-1-4632-0654-3

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The Problem of Evil: Ibn Sînâ’s Theodicy Second Edition

Do not delete the following information about this document. Version 1.0 Document Template: Template book.dot. Document Word Count: 12772 Document Page Count: 197 To my brother Hanna

‫وﻓﮭﯿﻢ وﻋﻠﯿﻢ‬ ‫وﺣﻠﯿﻢ وﻛﺮﯾﻢ‬ ‫وﻟﺬا ﺣﻨﺎ زﻋﯿﻢ‬ ‫ﻓﻲ اﻟﻔﻜﺮ اﻟﺴﻠﯿﻢ‬ ‫ﻋﻦ ﺗﻌﺎﻟﯿﻢ اﻟﺤﻜﯿﻢ‬ ‫وﻟﮫ ﺷﻜﺮ ﻋﻈﯿﻢ‬

‫ﺛﺎﺑﺖ اﻟﻌﺰم ﻗﻮﯾﻢ‬ ‫وﺧﻄﯿﺐ وﺑﻠﯿﻎ‬ ‫ﺷﺎﻣﺦ ﻓﻜﺮا وﻗﻠﺒﺎ‬ ‫ﻛﻢ ﺗﻠﻘﻨﺖ دروﺳﺎ ﻋﻨﮫ‬ ‫ﻓﻠﮫ أھﺪي ﻛﺘﺎﺑﻲ‬ ‫وﻟﮫ ﺟﻞ اﺣﺘﺮاﻣﻲ‬

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents .....................................................................................v Preface......................................................................................................vii Chapter One. The Problem of Evil: Formulation and Historical Solutions ...........................................................................................1 I. Formulation of the Problem of Evil ...................................1 II. The Problem of Evil in Ibn Sînâ’s Philosophy ...............5 III. Main Types of Solutions to the Problem .......................8 Chapter Two. Analysis of the Theories of Evil of Ibn Sînâ’s Predecessors ...................................................................................15 I. Plato .............................................................................................15 1. Metaphysical or Cosmic Evil .............................................17 2. Psychological or Moral Evil ..............................................21 II. Aristotle .....................................................................................30 1. Metaphysical Evil ................................................................30 2. Moral Evil .............................................................................39 III. Plotinus ....................................................................................48 1. The Downward Movement ...............................................49 2. The Upward Movement .....................................................53 3. The Plotinian Theodicy ......................................................54 Chapter Three. Ibn Sînâ’s Analysis of Metaphysical Evil ................65 I. Essential Evil ..............................................................................67 1. Essential Evil Is Privation in Being ..................................67 2. Essential Evil Is Privation of the Natural .......................67 3. Essential Evil Is Identified with Disorder.......................79 4. Essential Evil Is Evil in All Respects ...............................79 5. Essential Evil Is Uncaused ................................................80 6. Essential Evil Is Due to Matter ........................................81 II. Accidental Evil .........................................................................84 1. Existing Accidental Evil .....................................................86 2. Non-Existing Accidental Evil ...........................................93 v

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Chapter Four. Ibn Sînâ’s Notion of Moral Evil ..............................101 I. The Descent and Structure of the Soul ...............................101 II. The Nature of the Good ......................................................105 III. The Way to Knowledge ......................................................108 1. The Role of the Imagination ...........................................108 2. The Role of the Theoretical Intellect .............................110 3. The Role of the Practical Intellect ..................................113 IV. The Bliss of the Knowledgeable Soul ..............................119 V. Moral Evil and the States of the Various Souls.................121 Chapter Five. Ibn Sînâ’s Solution for the Problem of Evil and the Problem of Destiny .............................................................125 I. The Solution for the Problem of Evil .................................125 1. God Is Good and Providential, But God’s Providence Is Not to be Understood in the Traditional Sense ..........................................................125 2. There Is More Good Than Evil in the Universe .........131 3. Evil Is a Necessary Consequence of the Good............135 4. Evil Is a Necessary Means for the Good ......................142 5. God Cannot Create the World Free from Evil ............144 6. Essential Evil Is Privation of Being ...............................146 7. Human Evil Is Due to Human Free Will......................151 II. The Solution for the Problem of Destiny .........................159 Chapter Six. Summary and Conclusions ..........................................165 Abbreviations .......................................................................................171 Bibliography .........................................................................................173 Works by Ibn Sînâ ......................................................................173 Other Primary Sources ..............................................................174 Secondary Sources ......................................................................175 Index ......................................................................................................183

PREFACE When I was a child, I often heard my sick and frail grandmother address God, saying, “What have I done to you to cause me so much pain and treat me in this terrible way, though, you are good? If I have wronged you in any way, remind me; perhaps I have forgotten.” And she would add in her Arabic slang: “shî bi-kaffir” (this can lead one to disbelief). Though my grandmother had no formal education, she was concerned with the issue that constitutes part of what is known as “the problem of evil,” not from a logical but simply from an experiential standpoint. (The difference between the logical and the experiential positions will be explained in Chapter One.) Her questioning God about why He causes suffering, a form of evil, despite His goodness stayed with me. As a Ph.D. student, I found myself drawn to exploring this issue in depth in hope of finding a solution. In particular, I was fascinated by one of the elements of this issue, namely, the concept of evil and wished to understand the common feature to all things we call “evil” in order to see whether or not some or all are incompatible with God’s nature. I first attempted to explore the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic concerns with the notion of evil and the so-called “problem of evil.” To further my understanding in this regard, I found it useful first to study the views of the philosophers who influenced him. Thus I turned to ancient Greek and medieval Arabic philosophy, among other topics. There, especially in the thought of Ibn Sînâ (known to the West as Avicenna) 1 I found a Ibn Sînâ (980–1037 A.D.) is also known as ash-Shaykh ar-Raʾîs (Master and Head). His full name is Abû ʿAlî al-Ḥusayn Ibn ʿAbd Allah Ibn ʿAlî Ibn Sînâ (Abû ʿAlî being his nickname). The titles Master and 1

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wealth of ideas that are unknown, not only to the West but in Eastern intellectual circles as well. These include his ideas on evil and the manner in which the problem of evil may be addressed. I discovered during my research that, despite some brief accounts here and there about this very serious topic, there is a great need for a thorough study of these views and how they feature in the context of Ibn Sînâ’s general philosophy. This fact, coupled with the realization that much has already been done on Aquinas’s notion of evil, forced me to abandon my earlier plan of focusing on Aquinas, devoting my effort instead to a completely original study of Ibn Sînâ’s thought on the subject. The present work is a result of this effort. 2 Before tracing Ibn Sînâ’s response to the problem of evil, the nature of the problem itself must be explored. The first chapter makes such an inquiry and presents the main types of proposed solutions to the problem. This discussion should be kept in mind throughout the book because it provides background and proper historical context for the philosophical thought studied later. Head refer respectively to his prominent rank in learning and his high political position as a vizier (A. F. al-Ahwânî, Ibn Sînâ [Cairo: Dâr alMaʿârif, 1958], p. 18). This corresponds to his other title, al-Ḥakîm alWazîr (Wise Man and Vizier). He was further known as Ḥujjat al-Ḥaqq (Proof of the Truth). For his life and works, see his autobiography, which was completed by his student Abû ʿUbayd al-Jûzjânî and transmitted by a number of biographers, including al-Bayhaqî (d. 1170), al-Qifṭî (d. 1248), Uṣaybiʿa (d. 1270), and Ibn Khallikân (d. 1282). See A. Z. al-Bayhaqî, Târîkh Ḥukamâʾ al-Islâm, ed. M. K. ‘Alî (Dimashq: Maktabat al-Miffed alJadida, 1976), 52–72; A. Y. al-Qifṭî, Târîkh al-Ḥukamâʾ, ed. J. Lippert (Leipzig, 1903), 413–26; I. A. Uṣaybiʿa, ʿUyûn al-Anbâʾ fî Tabaqât alAṭibbâʾ, ed. S. az-Zayn (Beirut: Dâr ath-Thaqâfa, 1987), 3: 2–28; I. Khallikân, Wafayât al-Aʿyân wa-Anbâʾ Abnâʾ az-Zamân, ed. Iḥsân ʿAbbâs (Beirut: Dâr Sâder, 1978), 2: 157–62. For an English translation of the autobiography/biography, see W. Gohlman, The Life of Ibn Sînâ (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975). 2 An earlier version of this work is contained in my Ph.D. dissertation (State University of New York at Buffalo).

PREFACE

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The second chapter examines the notion of evil in the thought of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus and how these philosophers respond (or might respond) to the problem of evil. These philosophers were selected for study, not because they are the only predecessors of Ibn Sînâ who concerned themselves with the issue of evil and related problems, but because the legacy they left in this area and their influence on later thought, especially on Ibn Sînâ, are unparalleled. Chapters Three and Four respectively offer a thorough and detailed analysis of Ibn Sînâ’s notions of metaphysical and moral evil. These two chapters prepare the reader to understand the most complex and essential element of Ibn Sînâ’s theodicy, namely, the element of evil. Chapter Five is a detailed analysis and a critical examination of Ibn Sînâ’s theodicy. Finally, Chapter Six summarizes the findings of the work and draws the final conclusions. In this edition, the preface and the rest of the text have been edited and undergone some necessary changes. In particular, inclusion of new literature on the subject has been added to Chapter One. The bibliography has also been expanded to include materials that appeared after the publication of the first edition of this work. A number of people have aided in completing this work. I owe a special debt, however, to the late Professor George Hourani, my Ph.D. dissertation adviser, for his support, stimulating discussions, and gentle and constructive criticism throughout the earlier phases of the work; Professor Edward Madin for his insight into Ibn Sînâ’s solution for the problem of evil, which contributed mightily to Chapter Five; Professor Jorge Gracia for his helpful comments on Chapter Three that have vastly improved the final result; Dr. Alison Anderson for her assistance in assembling the final version; Aicha Mokhayere and Naziha Mustafa for their careful proofreading of parts of the final draft. Last but not least, the intellectual curiosity that prompted me to undertake this project and the determination and perseverance that enabled me to complete it stem from the intellectual depth, guidance, and unwavering support of my parents, sisters, and brothers. To them I will always be grateful for having instilled in me the thirst to delve into the truth and the will to seek it.

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May this work be of assistance to the seekers of knowledge about good and evil and those perplexed by the enormous problem of evil.

CHAPTER ONE THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: FORMULATION AND HISTORICAL SOLUTIONS This chapter is divided into three main parts: a presentation of the problem of evil; an identification of the version of the problem for Ibn Sînâ; and a classification of the main types of solutions for this version of the problem that have been offered by various philosophers and theologians throughout history. I. Formulation of the Problem of Evil What has traditionally been referred to as “the problem of evil” is the apparent logical incompatibility in jointly asserting: 1. God exists. 2. God is good. 3. God is omnipotent. 4. God is omniscient. 5. Evil exists in the world.

The traditional problem has been formulated in various ways. First, according to one formulation, the problem arises from the joint assertion of statements 1, 2, and that any evil at all exists; or, in more detail, statements 1 through 4 and that any evil at all exists. This formulation appears, for example, in Thomas Aquinas, and recently as a formal incompatibility in John L. Mackie and Antony Flew. Aquinas writes: It seems that there is no God. For if, of two mutually exclusive things, one were to exist without limit, the other would cease to exist. But by the word “God” is implied some limitless good. If God then existed, nobody would ever encounter evil.

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY But evil is encountered in the world. God therefore does not exist. 1

Mackie in his “Evil and Omnipotence” charges that the theist’s essential beliefs suffer from inconsistency: In its simplest form the problem is this: God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false. But at the same time all three are essential parts of most theological positions: the theologian, it seems, at once must adhere and cannot consistently adhere to all three. 2

Flew says:

The issue is whether to assert at the same time first that there is an infinitely good God, second that he is an all-powerful creator, and third that there are evils in the universe, is to contradict yourself. 3

Some philosophers such as Mackie have noticed, correctly, that the contradiction does not arise immediately; to show it we need some additional premises, or perhaps some quasi-logical rules connecting the terms “good,” “evil,” and “omnipotent.” 4

One such additional premise is that “good” is absolutely opposed to “evil.” Unless “good” is understood to be absolutely opposed to “evil,” the difficulty thought to exist among the basic parts of the theological doctrine clearly disappears, for the difficulty is believed to lie between statements 2 and 5 (that is, provided that 1, 3, and 4 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, in Theological Texts, ed. and trans. Thomas Gilby (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964–66; rep. Durham, N.C.: Labyrinth, 1982), vol. 1, 9.2, art. 3, obj. 1. 2 John L. Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence,” in God and Evil, ed. Nelson Pike (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 47. 3 Antony Flew, God and Philosophy (London: Hutchinson; New York: Harcourt Brace, 1966), 48. 4 Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence,” 47. 1

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are accepted as true). Statements 2 and 5 are not incompatible unless the terms “good” and “evil” are mutually exclusive. Another necessary additional premise is that “God’s omnipotence and omniscience are absolute and continuously so.” If God’s power and knowledge were limited, always or even sometimes, it goes without saying that there may then be things that lie outside God’s control. This would be the case because (1) God is unable to perform them; or (2) God is unable to refrain from performing them; or (3) God does not know them, or know what is occurring to them, or know what must occur to them. Perplexity and puzzlement enter the picture for us only when it is believed both that there are no restrictions of any sort on God’s attributes and that at the same time evil exists in the world. Such puzzlement was once expressed by Epicurus’s questions, repeated centuries later by David Hume’s Philo: Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil? 5

A solution to the problem in this formulation must show that at least one instance of evil is compatible with God’s goodness, knowledge, and power. Second, among those who believe that such a solution can be offered (that is, that an instance of evil is compatible with God’s goodness, knowledge, and power), there are some who are nevertheless still troubled by being unable to explain how a good, knowing, and powerful God would create or allow, not just any evil but the various types and amounts of evil that the world actually contains. Thus, in another formulation of the problem, the difficulty arises from asserting statements 1 through 4, and that certain types or amounts of evil exist (not just any evil). Charles Campbell, for example, formulates the problem in this way:

Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, quoted in Pike, ed., God and Evil, 22–23. 5

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY What does disquiet us is the occurrence of undeserved suffering that is both immoderate in degree – sometimes excruciating – and also long protracted. 6

Edward Madden and Peter Hare follow suit by stating:

It must be made clear at the outset that the problem we raise is not why there is any evil at all in the world. Although the latter problem is a legitimate one and leads to interesting discussions about God’s alleged ability or inability to create a perfect world, this problem is sterile one in every other way since some evil obviously serves good ends. But much evil resists simple explanation; it is prima facie gratuitous. The really interesting problem of evil is whether the apparent gratuity can be explained away by more ingenious measures or whether the gratuity is real and hence detrimental to religious belief. 7

There are of course other variations on the formulation of the traditional problem of evil, 8 which is also known as the logical, the a priori, or the deductive version of the problem of evil. There are also formulations of the problem in its nontraditional form, such as the contemporary evidential formulation, also known as the a posteriori, or inductive version of the problem of evil. This formulation of the problem, for example does not claim that it is logically impossible to reconcile God’s existence with the presence of evil in 6 Charles Arthur Campbell, On Selfhood and Godhood (London: Allen and Unwin, 1957), 288. 7 Edward H. Madden and Peter H. Hare, Evil and the Concept of God (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1968), 3. 8 See, for example, Dewey J. Hoitenga, “Logic and the Problem of Evil,” American Philosophical Quarterly 4 (1967): 114–26. Hoitenga insists that The problem of evil is not (except superficially) a question of formal inconsistency of propositions, but a question of the meaning of the terms these propositions involve. The problem of evil challenges, I shall argue, our fundamental conceptions of good and evil, freedom and causation, the Divine and the Human; not our ability to detect or construct sets of propositions that are formally consistent or formally contradictory. (114)

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light of His absolute attributes, but that it is just improbable or unlikely for such a god with such attributes to exist considering the presence of evil. 9 In addition to the above types of theoretical consideration of the problem of evil, there is the experiential consideration exemplified in my grandmother’s complaint mentioned in the Preface about God’s causation of evil. This action on the part of God remained incomprehensible to her and, at times, led her to say this is something that could lead to disbelief. In any case, what concerns us here, however, is not the various versions of the problem of evil, but the one that Ibn Sînâ addressed. These versions have been addressed in order to show that there is more than one formulation of the problem of evil, and that when we speak of “the problem of evil” we should specify which problem we have in mind. Because our concern in the present work is with Ibn Sînâ’s solution to the problem of evil, we have, first of all, to identify the problem of evil with which he was concerned. II. The Problem of Evil in Ibn Sînâ’s Philosophy In ash-Shifâʾ al-Ilâhiyyât, we find Ibn Sînâ twice raising the objector’s point that “it was possible for the First Governor to bring into existence absolute good, free from evil” and “why is evilness primarily not prevented from [being present in the last type of things just mentioned], so that it would be all good?” 10 (the “last type of things” being the sublunary world, which for Ibn Sînâ is the only part of the world that contains evil). In these two passages we do not find Ibn Sînâ asking why it is that “the First Governor,” who for him is pure good (khayr maḥḍ) 11 does not free this world from certain kinds or amounts of evil (the traditional problem in its second formulation). Rather, he asks why it is that such a God does not free this world from any evil by “bringing into existence absoSee Nick Trakakis, “The Evidential Problem of Evil,” in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-evi/. 10 Ibn Sînâ, Ish., Book Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 22; Na., 64–66. 11 Ibid., 421. 9

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lute good, free from evil,” or a world that is “all Good” (the problem in its first formulation). So, even though Ibn Sînâ never explicitly formulates the problem of evil, one can draw out his formulation of the problem from the above-mentioned passages taken together with his other views of God’s attributes. The formulation is something like this. If 1. God exists, 2. God is good, 3. God is omnipotent, 12 4. God is omniscient, 5. the world contains some evil, then how is it that God creates or allows this evil in the world? Regarding statements 3 and 4, it is extremely important to point out that there are two trends of thought in Ibn Sînâ: the Islamic and the Neoplatonic. According to the former, all God’s attributes, including power and knowledge, are unquestionably absolute. According to the latter, God, as we will later see, is limited in various ways. For example, everything God does in the universe is not the result of God’s choice and power, but is necessitated by God’s nature. And God’s knowledge is limited. It is true that Ibn Sînâ extended God’s knowledge to things beyond God, but the question is whether he extended it “enough to cover all things and all events, thus making it absolute.” Whether the Islamic element in Ibn Sînâ is present due to sincere conviction on his part, or merely to avoid conflict with Muslim theologians, is a matter beyond our power to determine, since it is a question of intention. What matters is that it is there, and that it often conflicts with his Neoplatonic views. One such point of conflict is related to God’s knowledge. Like all Muslims, Ibn Sînâ says that “God knows the whole.” 13 In fact, he declares God’s providence to be in part “the First [Being]’s knowledge of the whole.” 14 But when he comes to elaborate what he means by God’s U. H., 48. Ish., Book Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 22. 14 Ibid., Ch. 27. 12 13

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knowledge of the whole, we find that for him it consists in God’s knowledge of the universals in their particularity and of the particulars in their universality – that is, for example, God’s knowledge of the conditions for the occurrence of a certain event but not of when or whether that event happens. To describe God’s knowledge in this way was certainly unsatisfactory to the Muslim theologians, who insisted on God’s absolute knowledge. But Ibn Sînâ, even while describing God’s knowledge in this way, nevertheless refuses to accept the charge that he is limiting God’s knowledge. This refusal to admit the obvious consequences of his view may again be a sign of his caution in avoiding offense to his fellow Muslims. But it is this refusal to admit the consequences of his Neoplatonic views that makes the problem of evil more serious for him than it would have been if he were openly ready to admit such consequences. Thus the problem of evil for Ibn Sînâ is the problem in the first formulation presented above. This is the problem, therefore, that will hereafter be referred to as “the problem of evil” and will concern us in the present volume, with the understanding that there are other problems of evil that are also interesting and important. We will be concerned as well with another important problem that faced Ibn Sînâ. A particular form of the problem of evil, it is that of reconciling the following two propositions: 1. God is just. 2. There are divine rewards and punishments. This problem was particularly serious for the thought of those who, like the Ash’arites and Ibn Sînâ, believed in predestination or determinism. In al-Ishârât wat-Tanbîhât Ibn Sînâ puts the problem thus: “If there is destiny, then why is there punishment?” 15 If God is just, one may ask, then why, for example, would God punish John for stealing his friend’s bicycle when John was destined to do so, or, in other words, had no choice in the matter? This problem differs from the problem of evil in that the latter concerns itself with how a good God allows evil in the world, 15

Ibid., Ch. 27.

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while the former concerns itself with a reconciliation of God’s justice (an aspect of God’s goodness) with what seems to be God’s injustice (punishing and rewarding those whose behavior was predetermined for them). But it is a form of the problem of evil in that, like the latter, it concerns the incompatibility between evil and God’s goodness. III. Main Types of Solutions to the Problem Various solutions to the problem of evil have been attempted. There is no room here to enumerate all these solutions or to discuss them in detail. We shall be content to categorize the main solutions and discuss them briefly. It seems that Mackie is correct in pointing out that the solutions fall into two main categories: one in which at least one of the propositions presented at the beginning of this chapter is denied, the other in which all the propositions are retained. Mackie considers the former category as involving “adequate” solutions and the latter as involving “fallacious” solutions.16 Let us now elaborate the two categories a bit further. An important example of the first category is the argument that God’s power is not absolute. For example, Plato’s Demiurge or God in the Timaeus cannot exercise limitless power, for there are in the world two principles: matter and form. The Demiurge is incapable of molding the former into just any form He pleases; He is incapable of affecting the latter at all. The Platonic God, therefore, cannot be blamed for not making every chair, table, lion, and so forth into perfect things, for, after all, the matter from which these things have been made and which is the source of their imperfection offers resistance to the will and action of God. This is not to say that the Demiurge is free from any responsibility or blame for any evil that has occurred or will occur in the world. For we will see in Chapter Two that He could at least have refrained from certain actions that led to evil and that were within His power to do or not to do. However, Plato’s denial of the Demiurge’s absolute power eliminates the problem of evil as one of contradiction, for 16

Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence,” 47–49.

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the presence of at least some evil, namely the imperfection of material things, is something over which the good Demiurge has no control. A second view that asserts with no inconsistency that God is good and evil exists is that of the Manicheans. According to this view, God, identified with the good, has no power except over good things. Evil things are created by another principle or God, an evil one. The problem of evil does not arise here either, for whether it is the good or the evil God that is the subject of discussion, it is easy to see how the contradiction is avoided. The good God has no power except over good things; hence evil arises not because of but in spite of God’s will. As for the evil God, He is not only one whose power is limited since He has power only over evil things, but He is also not supposed to be good – in fact, He is to have an evil nature. His creation of evil, therefore, not only does not conflict with His nature but seems to be the proper consequence of it. A second type of solution falling within the first category, instead of eliminating one or more of God’s attributes, eliminates evil. One such solution considers evil an illusion, another a privation of good. Some Hindu sects such as the Madhyamika, for example, believe that the whole phenomenal world together with everything that appears in it – animate or inanimate things, good or evil – is nothing but an illusion. It is manifested to us as real because our minds are limited in their comprehension as a result of their being conditioned by their separation from the macrocosmic or absolute mind. Were we able to rid ourselves of the limitation of our minds and see things as they appear to the macrocosmic mind, all that we experience of phenomenal things, including misery and happiness, evil and good, would disappear; what remains is only a vision of the whole, reflecting no distinction among things, values, or anything else. Whether such a view is sound is a question beyond the scope of the present work. What concerns us here is the fact that its basic tenets do not suffer from any inconsistency arising from the presence of evil – at least not as these tenets are expounded in their explicit form – since evil has no real existence in the world. As for the view that reduces evil to a privation of good, we shall say nothing more about it here, since much will be said about it in later chapters. We mention it only as a reminder that, like the

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view that makes evil an illusion, it attempts to solve the problem by eliminating evil as a positive reality. Under Mackie’s second category, in which all the propositions are maintained, we find four main types of solutions, based on four interpretations of evil. 1. Evil is a necessary effect of good. It is impossible for some goods to exist without some evil necessarily resulting from them. Fire, for example, is a good – it is used for cooking, for warming, and for many other good purposes – but it cannot exist as fire without at the same time also having the power to burn something valuable under certain circumstances. Evil is therefore an inevitable result of the presence of certain goods; to eliminate it would at the same time be to eliminate its cause, which happen to be goods whose positive value outweighs the negative value of evil. In contrast to the solutions listed under the first category, this type of solution along with the three following ones denies none of the basic components of the theist’s doctrine. All God’s attributes are retained, and retained as absolute; evil is also recognized as a fact in the world. What is attempted is a justification of God’s causing or allowing evil. 2. Evil is a necessary means to the good. According to this view, evil always takes place in order to bring about something better than what already exists. Spanking a child, for example, is an evil, but it helps in disciplining the child. Earthquakes, floods, fires, and other such disasters are also evils, yet they have good effects such as holding down the population, teaching those who escape alive how to cope with suffering and hardship, and perhaps causing events that are good in relation to the universe as a whole – goods that with our limited view we do not (or perhaps cannot) understand as goods. Because of this claim, this type of solution has been referred to as the “higher good defense.” Nelson Pike is one of the best-known twentieth-century proponents of the “higher good defense.” Pike makes the point that it does not follow “from the claim that a being is perfectly good that he would prevent suffering if he could.” He argues that it is possible for a person to be good and yet at the same time bring about evil, but only if that person has “a morally sufficient reason” for doing so:

CHAPTER ONE: THE PROBLEM OF EVIL To say that there is a morally sufficient reason for his action is simply to say that there is a circumstance or condition which, when known, renders blame (though, of course, not responsibility) for the action inappropriate. 17

11

For example, a father who gives his son a spoonful of bitter medicine is not to blame, for he does so in order to cure his son from a disease. Taking the medicine is a painful experience for the son, and is therefore some kind of evil, but it is used as a means to a higher good – to restore the son’s health. Therefore the father, in spite of being responsible for giving the medicine to his son, is free from any blame for causing the evil: he has “a morally sufficient reason.” Pike contends that the same argument can be applied in the case of God. God, who has knowledge of the suffering that particular things undergo when stricken with disease, pain, and so forth, and who has the power to prevent such suffering, still does not prevent it. Yet God is not to be charged with being evil, since the reason for doing so is morally sufficient: God’s causing or not preventing evil is for the purpose of producing higher goods, either for the individuals stricken with the evil or for the universe as a whole. In other words, for God to refrain from producing certain evils is for God to refrain from producing certain higher goods. But we all know that this analogy between human beings and God does not hold. It may be impossible for the father, with his human limitations, to cure his son from the disease without giving him the bitter medicine. But God is supposed to enjoy absolute power, and must therefore be able to obtain goods without having to employ any evil means. It must be noted here that both this defense and the previous one implicitly restrict God’s power, although both claim that they retain all the basic propositions. 3. Evil adds to the variety in the world and hence renders our world the best of all possible worlds. According to this view, evil is justified not by the claim that it is unavoidable in order for some important goods to exist, but by the claim that it has its own positive value. Take away evil and we are left with less variety (as Leibniz would say) or fewer fulfilled possibilities (as Ibn Sînâ would say) 17

Nelson Pike, “Hume on Evil,” in God and Evil, 88.

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than there can be – in other words, less good than there can be or than we already have. The idea is, the more variety and the more fulfilled possibilities the better, with the proviso that the variety and the fulfilled possibilities are integrated with unity and order. The presence of evil endows our world with a greater amount of variety than it would have without it; hence this world is better than it would be without evil and better than any world that lacks this mixture of good and evil. 4. Evil is not an act of God or the product of such an act; rather it is the product of human free will. This is the defense used to free God from the responsibility for moral rather than metaphysical evil. If it is people who, due to their freedom, bring about moral evil, then the presence of such evil does not, it is argued, conflict with God’s goodness. But it must be mentioned that referring moral evil to the free will of human beings does not by itself offer a complete solution to the problem of evil. In addition to the fact that a separate solution must be provided for metaphysical and physical evil, two important points concerning human free will must be treated: the reason for God’s causing or allowing the existence of human free will, knowing that by the existence of such free will the possibility for evil also exists; and whether God can make people do right at all times in spite of the fact that they are free. The defense that carries answers to these two points is nowadays called the “free will defense.” The “free will defense” claims that a world with beings who have the power to do what is good and what is bad freely is better than one in which beings only do what is right, but not freely. This is the answer to the first point mentioned above, but it is only one thesis of the “free will defense,” and not the most fundamental one. The line of argument taken in response to the second point is the one that has been at the center of heated discussions in contemporary thought. According to this argument, God cannot give freedom to God’s creatures and at the same time guarantee that these creatures will always freely do what is right. This latter thesis requires the former one in order for the defense to be complete. If God cannot give people freedom and at the same time make them always and freely perform right actions, why does God not avoid giving them freedom in order to avoid the existence, or even the possibility, of moral evil? The free will defender must be prepared to argue that freedom is better than non-

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freedom, and that a world with such freedom is more desirable and better than a world without it. In other words, the “higher good defense” is the first step that must be taken in the “free will defense.” When that step is taken, the free will defender has then to argue for the incompatibility between the propositions “People are free” and “God can determine people always freely to do right.” Such an incompatibility is strongly defended by people like John Hicks and Alvin Plantinga. 18 But the incompatibility, the core of the “free will defense,” also has its vehement opponents, including John Mackie, Antony Flew, and Dewey Hoitenga. For example, Mackie says: If God has made men such that in their free choices they sometimes prefer what is good and sometimes what is evil, why could He not have made men such that they always choose the good? If there is no logical impossibility in a man’s freely choosing the good on one, or on several occasions, there cannot be a logical impossibility in his freely choosing the good on every occasion. 19

The free will defender, then, seeks to solve the problem of evil by implicitly denying God’s omnipotence. After giving human beings freedom, God cannot guide their actions; otherwise they would not be free. In other words, human freedom impose a limitation on God’s power. The opponent to the “free will defense,” on the other hand, retains the belief in God’s omnipotence, holding that God can give human beings freedom and at the same time remain able to guide their action. To this opponent, therefore, the problem reSee, for example, John Hicks, Philosophy of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1936; 1973); Alvin Plantinga, “The Free Will Defense, in The Philosophy of Religion, ed. Basil Mitchell (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). 19 Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence,” 56. For Flew’s and Hoitenga’s criticisms see Flew, “Divine Omnipotence and Human Freedom,” in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. Flew and Alasdair MacIntyre (London: SCM, 1955), 151–53; Dewey J. Hoitenga, “Logic and the Problem of Evil,” 119, 120, 123–4, 136. 18

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mains, for it can still be asked why God, who can make human beings go right, allows them to go wrong, if God is all-good. To summarize, it has been said in this chapter that of the several possible formulations of the problem of evil, the problem Ibn Sînâ faced is the reconciliation of God’s absolute attributes with God’s creating or allowing any evil in the world. A related problem that troubled him is the reconciliation of God’s justice with God’s rewarding and punishing human beings for actions that God Himself causes. The main solutions to the problem of evil can be divided into two types: 1. The type of solution in which at least one of the propositions listed at the opening of the chapter is denied. Examples of this type of solution are (a) one that eliminates one or more of God’s attributes, such as power; and (b) one that eliminates the presence of evil. 2. The type of solution that does not explicitly deny any of the propositions. Examples of this type of solution are that (a) evil necessarily results from good; (b) good requires evil as its means; (c) evil adds to the variety or fulfillment of possibilities in the word, something that is good; and (d) moral evil is caused by human free will. A discussion of Ibn Sînâ’s attempt to solve the problem of destiny is given in part II of Chapter Five.

CHAPTER TWO ANALYSIS OF THE THEORIES OF EVIL OF IBN SÎNÂ’S PREDECESSORS The theories of evil of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus will be the subject of this chapter. Due to limitations of space, other views that had little or no influence on Ibn Sînâ will not be addressed.

I. PLATO

Socrates: Evils, Theodorus, can never be done away with, for the good must always have its contrary; nor have they any place in the divine world, but they must needs haunt this region of our mortal nature. 1

This passage includes three admissions on Plato’s part: (1) the good requires its contrary; (2) evil 2 is an ineradicable fact; and (3) evil is a fact only in our non-divine world. We will look at these in turn. (1) What is asserted here is the view that the good has no reality except in reference to its contrary, that is, evil. If, for example, there is no such thing as down, there would not be any such thing as up. The same is true of left and right, big and small, and all other pairs of contraries. If this is so, then for good to exist is also for Plato, Theaetetus, in The Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntingdon Cairns (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), 176A, 5–8. All references to Platonic dialogues in this volume are from this collection. 2 “Evil” is used by Plato to refer to a variety of things, among which are poverty, disease, pain, sickness, harm, injustice, badness, discord, chaos, disorder, ugliness, weakness, and deformity. 1

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evil to exist. According to Plato, since the world of forms, which is good, exists, it follows that evil must also exist. (2) The world of forms does not, according to Plato, only exist; it exists eternally. And since as long as good exists, evil also exists, it must be the case that evil is also eternal; hence the statement that evil can “never be done away with.” This is not to say that any particular evil is ineradicable, only that evil in general is so. This view of evil as ineradicable was to be held also by Plotinus a few centuries later. 3 (3) If the divine world is that of the good only, it cannot also contain evil. The place for evil must therefore be in the only world left, that is, our world. In short, our world has always contained and will always contain some evil. And to wish its removal is also to wish the removal of the good. But Plato does not stop here. Instead, he goes on to analyze evil and to try to determine its source or sources. 4 Let us, therefore, Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. Stephen MacKenna, rev. B. S. Page (London: Faber and Faber, 1956), III, 2, Ch. 5. 4 The Platonic position on how many sources of evil there are in the universe is, like many other Platonic positions, the subject of great controversy. Scholars such as Gregory Vlastos (“The Disorderly Motion in the Timaeus,” Classical Quarterly 33 [1939]: 80–82); Alfred E. Taylor (A Commentary on Plato’s “Timaeus” [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928, 1937], 117; Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work [7th ed., London: Methuen, 1966], 445 n.2, 492); Francis Cornford (Plato’s Cosmology [London: Kegan Paul, 1937], 209–10); and Eduard Zeller argue in support of the thesis that to Plato there is only one source of evil. They disagree, however, as to the nature of that source. Vlastos believes that the only source of evil in Plato is matter; Taylor and Cornford that it is soul or a part of soul; and Zeller that it is always one. For Zeller, Plato changed his views as to what that one source is: before the Laws, evil resulted out of matter; in the Laws evil came to be as the result of the evil world-soul. Others, such as Harold Cherniss (“The Sources of Evil According to Plato,” in Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Gregory Vlastos, vol. 1, Metaphysics and Epistemology [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971]), arguethat to Plato there is more than one source of evil. Cherniss begins his article by declaring that “the 3

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follow his analysis and try to find the ultimate sources of evil. When that is done, we will be better able to determine the very important issue of whether “the problem of evil had any important and organic place” in the philosophy of Plato, as Solmsen claims, or whether such a problem “never seriously concerned Plato at all,” as Palas contends. 5 We have pointed out in note 2 to this chapter that Plato uses “evil” in reference to various specific points. In general, however, he divides it into two main types: cosmic, physical, or metaphysical evil; and psychological or moral evil. 1. Metaphysical or Cosmic Evil For Plato this category of evil is divided in turn into two subdivisions: static and dynamic evil. (1) Static Evil We are told that in the pre-cosmos there were two principles: the forms or ideas identified with being, unity, sameness, truth, beauty, order, and good; and the receptacle, also referred to as the nurse or matrix of change in the world. The receptacle, being characterless, acted as a mirror on which the forms were impressed or reflected. The result of this reflection was a picture-like image or copy of the forms. Now a picture or copy of a thing is obviously different both from the thing of which it is a picture or copy and from the medium in which it appears. Yet, even though the reflections of the forms are different from both the forms and the receptacle, they are nevertheless somewhat similar to both. The similarity of the reflections to the forms consists in their having to some degree the characteristics of the forms: the same being, unity, goodness, and so forth. The similarity of the reflections to the receptacle consists in their sharing with it some degree of lack of qualities. The reflections, therefore, are a halfway house between the forms and the point in this paper is the plural in its title” (244). The view I take in the present work is in agreement with Cherniss, that there is more than one source of evil in Plato. 5 Cited in Cherniss, “Sources of Evil,” 244–45.

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receptacle, that is, between being and non-being. This halfway house is the phenomenal or sensible world. Now if the forms are absolutely good, then the phenomenal world, being at some distance from them, must be less than absolutely good. In other words, it must be deficient in goodness, which is to say it must be somewhat evil. Evil of the phenomenal world is therefore inherent in the character of that world. This type of evil can be classified as static since its dwelling place is in the static reflections. It is denominated “negative evil” since, as mentioned, it is nothing other than the reflections’ falling short of the absolute perfection of the forms. 6 If one were to ask about the cause of “negative evil,” the answer is that it has no cause: it is a lack, or, in a sense, nothing, whereas a cause always causes something. However, there is a principle that underlies “negative evil.” This principle is the receptacle, for it is only due to the non-being of the receptacle that the reflections are not fully perfect. This principle of “negative evil” can therefore be called the source of this type of evil. Static or negative evil will hereafter be designated E1. (2) Dynamic Evil In addition to E1, which inheres in the reflections, there is another type of evil that also attaches to the reflections but does not inhere in them. (Here “attach” means association to a subject without belonging to it; “inhere” means being fixed in, or belonging to, a subject.) This kind of evil is the chaotic and disorderly motion of the reflections. This motion is evil because it is contrary to what is orderly, which, as mentioned above, is identified by Plato with the good. In contrast with E1, which as we have said is a deficiency and has no character of its own, this type of evil can be described as having a positive reality – after all, it is the presence of a certain type of motion rather than the absence of one thing or another. Designating this type of evil E2, we can then say that, because of the posi-

6

Timaeus, 52a–c; Phaedo, 74d–75d.

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tive reality of E2, its source must also be a positive reality or principle, for a thing cannot come out of nothing. The principle of E2 is necessity. Note, however, that by “necessity” as used in the Timaeus we are not to understand a personification of a rational principle, as the term is used in the Myth of Er or by the Stoics. Instead, we are to understand by it a blind, irrational, and irregular principle. It is clear, therefore, that E1 and E2 pertain to the same constituents of the world, namely, the reflections or phenomenal world. E1 is a lack, a deficiency or privation in the reflections; E2 is a dynamic force that drives the deficient reflections in a disorderly manner. This distinction between E1 and E2 is an important one that has been neglected at times. The two have sometimes been identified, but such an identification cannot hold: for even if the disorderly motion of the reflections stopped there would be no reason to assume that the reflections would go out of existence; and, so long as the reflections are there, E1 must also be there. In addition to the forms, there is in the divine realm God or the Demiurge, who is good. Because of His goodness, He is free from envy. A being of this sort, we are told in the Timaeus, will bring about as much good as possible. 7 Looking at this world and finding the great amount of evil in it, God decided to do something about it. God knew that nothing could be done about E1, for, as we have noted, this type of evil is inherent in the nature of the reflections, and so, since the existence of the reflections is eternal (because they are the unavoidable consequence of the eternal forms and the receptacle), E1 is eternal. Could something be done about E2? God thought that E2 could be somewhat rectified by imposing order on the cosmos, thereby reducing or controlling the disorder in it. 8 The way to introduce order, thought God, is to put reason or intelligence into soul, and to put soul into the world. God, therefore, having nothing available to work with other than the elements in the world,

7 8

Timaeus, 29e.1 – 30a.1–3. Ibid., 30a.3–6.

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took these elements, mixed them, and began creation. 9 God first created some gods and assured them of eternity. 10 After that, God created a world-soul containing intelligence and placed this soul into the world. The world-soul has three aspects: sameness, which resides at the outermost sphere of the universe; otherness or difference, which has its place in the center of the universe; and being or essence, whose place is between sameness and otherness. Being is given this place in order that it can mediate between the two extremes of the soul. Because otherness is in the center of the universe, it is in touch with the corporeal world. The main function of the world-soul is to try to control necessity by imposing order on it, order that proceeds from reason and is conveyed to necessity by means of being and otherness. The presence of the world-soul transforms the world, therefore, from a highly disordered world to a world in which some order is found. While necessity, the cause of E2, is not completely abolished, its power and operations are somewhat restrained, for creation turned necessity into a slave for reason. But it must be mentioned that necessity is a willing slave, not a forced one, for it was by the persuasion of reason that necessity changed the course of its action. 11 The present world differs, therefore, from the pre-cosmos in that it is “the combined word of necessity and mind,” 12 while the pre-cosmos was the work of necessity alone. The difference in the degree of order found in the pre-cosmos and in the world as created constitutes the difference in the amount of E2 as it had existed By “creation” here is only meant God’s putting into a more orderly state whatever was already in existence, not making something out of nothing. 10 When these gods were created, God informed them that they were to be eternal. This is so only because God chose not to destroy them, not because he did not have the power to do so but because He had no reason to. For why would He destroy His own creation, which, being created by Him, must be good? A good God promotes rather than destroys the good. 11 Timaeus, 48a.1–5. 12 Ibid., 47e.5–48a. 9

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prior to the creation and as it now exists. The amount is less than formerly, but E2 is by no means completely absent. 2. Psychological or Moral Evil Psychological evil, like cosmic evil, has two subdivisions: evil of the evil soul and evil of the good soul. (1) Evil of the Evil Soul After creating the gods and the world-soul, the Demiurge informed these gods that His job had now ended but the job of creation had not yet ended: the world was still incomplete. The world cannot consist of just the gods and the world-soul, the reason being, I suppose, that many forms would still be unrepresented, or, to put it differently, there would still be a wide variety of possibilities that are not yet realized. Other possible creatures can still be created and therefore must be created. The reason for this will soon become clear. It is of crucial importance to understand why Plato found it necessary to limit the work of the Demiurge to the creation of the gods and the world-soul. Being good and eternal, God cannot create anything that is less than good and eternal. But the completion of the world requires that corruptible or perishable things, that is, things that are other than good and eternal, come into being. This point reveals that Plato was fully aware of the problem of evil, and that he was willing to compromise God’s power in order to safeguard God’s goodness and hence keep the problem of evil from arising. The question whether Plato actually succeeded in avoiding or solving the problem of evil will be addressed later; meanwhile, let us continue our analysis of the different types of evil. At the request of the Demiurge, the gods created corruptible or perishable things. Among the things they created were fish, birds, and people. Our particular concern here is the creation of people, for it is in this that the ground for most psychological evil lies. Any attempt to analyze psychological evil must therefore start with an understanding of how people were put together. When the turn for the creation of people came, the gods took the mixture that had already been used by God for creating them and the world-soul. But by then the mixture had lost its purity, for it had already been mixed a few times and the purest part had already

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been extracted. From this remaining impure mixture the gods created people. It must be mentioned that the human rational element or soul was already present prior to the creation of people by the gods. According to Plato, human reason, like every other rational soul, is a god, for it is self-moved and the source of movement and governance for its body, as is every other soul, 13 and being self-moved and the source of movement and guidance for other things is a prerogative of God only. Being a god, human reason must therefore have been created by God. It is easy to see, then, why Plato considers our rational soul an eternal element in us. If reason was already in existence, the job of the gods was to fashion a body for it in order to make its survival in this world possible. But between human reason and its body lies a wide gap, comparable to that between reason in the world-soul (or worldreason) and necessity. Therefore, as God found it necessary to attach to the world-soul two lower parts in order to bridge the gap between it and necessity and act as mediators between the rational and irrational elements in the cosmos, so did the gods try to bridge the gap between human reason and body by introducing two further parts of the human soul. These parts are lower than reason, and hence closer to the nature of the body, something that would enable them to mediate between reason and body. These two parts are the spirited (or that part of the soul responsible for the higher and nobler emotions) and the appetitive (or that part of the soul responsible for the lower and baser emotions). 14 As the elements of being and otherness control and guide necessity at the command Laws, 10.896a, 10,899a.5–899b.6. At the end of the Republic the three parts of the soul are described metaphorically as a man (reason), a lion (the higher emotions), and a chimera (the lower emotions) (Republic, 588b.6ff.). But the three parts of the soul and their relation to each other are best illustrated in the Phaedrus, where reason is likened to a charioteer and the lower parts to a team of horses – the higher emotions, being the nobler, are described as a white horse and the lower ones, being baser, as a black horse (Phaedrus 246a.6ff.). The image of the charioteer depicts the life of a human being as a constant struggle on the part of reason to control the team of horses. 13

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of, and in accordance with, the world-reason, so also do the lower parts of the human soul control and guide the body at the command of, and in accordance with, human reason. But the job of the lower parts of the soul, be that the cosmic or human soul, is hard indeed, for they are attached to both reason and necessity or matter. While they seek to impose order on the disorderly, as reason commands, they also attempt to drag reason to the disorderly level, and hence to evil. When the latter happens, the soul itself is classified as evil. The evil of such a soul is of two types: ignorance, which is compared to a deformity of the soul, and disagreement among the parts of the soul, which is discord or disharmony in the soul. This latter type is compared to a defect or disease of the soul. 15 The source of these two types of evil is the inability of reason to perform its proper functions: on the one hand, knowing, and on the other, organizing and guiding the lower parts of the soul in accordance with its knowing. It must be mentioned that the soul cannot organize and guide its lower parts well unless it is a knowing soul. The more knowledgeable the soul, the better organized are its parts and hence the more they are in agreement and harmony. And the less knowledgeable or more ignorant the soul, the more it is run by disharmony. Therefore the presence of ignorance renders the presence of disharmony unavoidable. But what is the source of ignorance? This type of evil could not arise were it not for the existence of the lower parts of the soul, for ignorance takes place only when reason is dragged down by the irrational elements and blinded by these elements from seeing the light of truth. The irrational soul provides not only the possibility for the presence of ignorance and discord in the soul, but also the realization of such a possibility. As long as reason is in the body, in other words, as long as reason is attached to the irrational soul, some evil is an unavoidable consequence of it. Plato insists that complete knowledge and hence complete goodness are unattainable by the soul as long as it is fettered by the irrational soul, for the latter is always polluted by the impurities of the body. 15

Sophist, 227d.13–14; 228a–e.1–5.

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To recapitulate, evil that results from the evil soul is either ignorance or discord. But the latter is the outcome of the former: whenever ignorance is present, discord or disharmony is also present. But at least some degree of ignorance is unavoidable as long as reason is still in company with the lower parts of the soul. Not only is it impossible for the rational soul to be free from its irrational partner unless it acquires complete knowledge and goodness, and hence impossible for it to be free from evil while it endures such an attachment, but it is also impossible for complete knowledge to be acquired unless this attachment ends. This is one of the perplexing paradoxes in Plato: the detachment of the rational from the irrational soul is a prerequisite for complete knowledge, but complete knowledge is also a prerequisite for detachment. A final comment regarding this type of evil, that is, the evil of the evil soul, which will hereafter be designated E3. Plato insists that this type of evil is involuntary: “No wise man believes anyone sins willingly or willingly perpetrates any evil or base act. Wise men know very well that all evil or base action is involuntary.” 16 But this point must be further clarified. The soul cannot choose evil in the sense of what it thinks harmful to its individual self. It can choose moral evil, in the sense of injustice to others and so forth. If it is to avoid this kind of evil, it must know two things: first, what injustice is, and second and more important, that injustice to others (moral evil) is harmful to oneself. The harmony of justice and interest is what the Republic is primarily about. Since everyone wants to possess the real good, no one “really” wants to be unjust, because it is harmful to oneself. In this sense, of the “real will,” it is involuntary. But in the ordinary sense of the “actual will,” people will do injustice and evil all the time. Thus the criminal “knows what he is doing” – robbing and murdering, doing evil to others – but he does not know what he is doing to himself – ruining his own soul. It must be mentioned that on some occasions Plato speaks as if people always acted voluntarily. 17 But his general view is that they do not. The reason for labeling this type of evil involuntary is that, as mentioned, it is due to 16 17

Protagoras, 345e.1–4. See Laws, 10.904c, d.

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ignorance, and a decision from ignorance cannot be said to be a free decision. When a soul chooses evil, it does so only because it does not know that that thing is evil. The soul cannot, according to Plato, know the evil and at the same time choose it. Why? Because the soul, he argues, does not desire evil, let alone desire to possess it. 18 Therefore, if the soul chooses evil, it is because it thinks it good. But, surely, this kind of choice cannot be considered free, especially since ignorance is not something that one chooses but is, as we have seen, the unavoidable outcome of being bound to the irrational soul, something in which no human being has any say. But this view of evil as involuntary is hard to reconcile with the other Platonic view that makes rewards and punishments consequent on the kind of life the soul lives in this world. 19 (2) Evil of the Good Soul Not all evil of souls is caused by the evil soul. The good soul, too, has its own share of bringing about evil. But in contrast to the evil soul, which produces evil as a result of its ignorance, and produces it in a direct manner, the good soul produces evil as a result of its knowledge, and in an indirect manner. But if the good always produces the good, as Plato holds, how can the good soul produce evil? The answer to this question is given in Book X of the Laws. There it is said that the good soul is responsible for one type of evil, namely, incidental evil. The good soul brings about evil in an incidental manner for the following reason. All that the good soul intends is something good, but in order to bring about that good it sometimes has to use as a means certain evils. But these evils are evils only with respect to particular things, and, as evil, they are incidental to the whole. But the good of the whole is to be preferred to the good of the part. Thus He who provides for the world has disposed all things with a view to the preservation and perfection of the whole, wherefore each several thing, also, so far as may be, does and has done to it what is meet. And for each and all there are, in every

18 19

Ibid., 5.731c.3–8. Ibid., 10.904b.2–8 – e.1–3.

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY case, governors appointed of all doing and being-done-to, down to the least detail, who have achieved perfection even to the minute particulars. Thine own being, also, fond man, is one such fragment, and so, for all its littleness, all its striving is ever directed toward the whole, but thou has forgotten in the business that the purpose of all that happens is what we have said, to win bliss for the life of the whole; it is not made for thee, but thou for it. 20

This type of evil, that is, the incidental evil brought about by the good soul, will hereafter be called E4. It is clear from this discussion that the source of E4 is the good intention of the soul – its intention to bring the disorderly into order for the sake of the whole, as it sees fit with its knowledge of the forms. To summarize, our analysis of the notion of evil in Plato shows that: 1. Evil exists. 2. Evil is an unavoidable fact. 3. The existence of evil is limited to the phenomenal world. 4. There are two main types of evil: A. Cosmic or metaphysical evil. This in turn is divided into: E1. Static evil, which is a mere derogation from the forms, hence the name “negative evil.” The source of this type of evil is the receptacle. E2. Dynamic evil, which is the chaotic and disorderly motion of the phenomenal world. The source of this type of evil is necessity. Even though the creation is supposed to have reduced the amount of this evil in the world, since reason was made to control necessity, some degree is still present, for the operations of necessity were not completely abolished but only restrained. B. Psychological or moral evil. This too is divided, into: E3. Evil of the evil soul, of which there is ignorance and discord, the latter being the outcome of the former, and the former the outcome of the attachment of the rational soul to the two lower parts that are attached to the body. This type of evil is involuntary, and its source is the dwelling of the rational soul in a body. 20

Ibid., 10.903b.5 – c.1–6.

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E4. Evil of the good soul. This is brought about by the soul for the purpose of the good of the whole. Its name, therefore, is “incidental evil.” The source of this last type is the good intention of the soul. Now that the types and sources of evil have been pointed out, we can proceed to a discussion of whether the problem of evil exists in the philosophy of Plato. This problem would exist, as we have seen in Chapter One, if God is conceived of as all-good, allpowerful, and all-knowing, yet at the same time thought to be responsible for creating or allowing evil in this world. The first point to be made is that Plato’s God is not said to be all-powerful. It is true that He is declared “able” in Book X of the Laws, but there it is said that the gods “can do all that is possible to be done by mortal or immortal.” 21 To say that one has the power to do all that is possible to be done by mortals or immortals is not to say that one is all-powerful, for it is possible that neither mortals nor immortals are able to do everything. Furthermore, when cosmic or metaphysical evil is being discussed, no power to eradicate it completely is attributed to God. On the contrary, it is made clear that, because of the character of the receptacle and the actions of necessity, no matter how much God tries, He remains unable to free this world from its evils. As for God’s goodness and knowledge, they are thought by Plato to be complete. 22 With such attributes, and with the presence of evil, can we then hold the Platonic God responsible or blameworthy for the presence of evil? It seems not, at least not for all the types of evil, for at least one element necessary for doing so is absent – this element being absolute power. But to answer this question more adequately an elaboration is needed of God’s relation to the various types of evil. It is clear from what has been said previously that neither E1 nor E2 nor E3 is caused by God or by any other good soul. All evil with the exception of incidental evil lies outside the realm of God’s causation. Only the good or that which leads to the good is perIbid., 10.903a.1–3; 10.901d.8–9. For God’s goodness see Republic, 2.379b.102; for God’s knowledge see Laws, 10.901d.3–5. 21 22

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formed by God. For God is good, and the good cannot perform anything except the good. We are told: Then the good is not the cause of all things, but of things that are ill it is blameless… Neither, then, could God, said I, since he is good, be, as the multitude say, the cause of all things… For good things are far fewer with us than evil, and for the good we must assume no other cause than God, but the cause of evil we must look for in other things and not in God. 23

In fact, as we have seen, Plato is quick to pull his God out of the process of creation as soon as it came to the creation of evil things, as an assertion that a good god cannot produce any evil. But while God does not cause E1 and E2, and has no power to eradicate them completely, the case with E3 is different. For, while God does not cause this evil, it seems that God has the power not to have allowed it to come into being. This is so because this type of evil is caused, as mentioned above, by the evil soul, and it was at God’s request that the gods created the evil soul by attaching the two lower parts to the rational soul. Why did God request this, if God is, as Plato assumes, all-knowing? For God must then have been aware that the coming into being of the evil soul would be the source of a further type of evil, which God, because of His good nature, must reject. Plato’s response might be that God also knew that the world must be completed, and to do that is, as mentioned, to create various imperfect things such as the evil soul. It may be asked, “But why is a complete world to be preferred to an incomplete world with less evil?” The answer, according to Plato, is that only the complete is fully good, and anything else is less good or more evil. But it may still be asked, “Would such a less good or more evil world be more evil than a world that is complete and yet has types of evil that could have been absent?” Though there is no explicit answer in Plato to this question, the answer must be “yes”; otherwise Plato would not have seen the necessity for the completion of the world. But certainly this does not tell us why an incomplete world that is free from a certain amount of evil is more evil than a world that is complete yet contains that amount 23

Republic, 2.379b.17–18; c.2–7.

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of evil. In Chapter Five we will see that Ibn Sînâ, who holds a view similar to the one just expressed, gives us a reason for the correctness of this view. If the completion of the world is a better or higher good than its non-completion, then, Plato would argue, God, who always seeks the good, can be held responsible but not blameworthy for allowing the existence of the evil soul, which is the direct cause of E3. God can be held responsible for that, because it was at God’s command that such a soul was brought into being, but God cannot be held blameworthy for that, because God’s command was motivated by His seeking the higher good. This argument is the “higher good defense” identified in Chapter One. In the philosophy of Plato it may not suffer from the same difficulties as it does in other philosophies such as that of Nelson Pike, for the Platonic God, not being all-powerful like the God of Pike, does not seem to be able to complete the world unless the evil soul is one of its components. Therefore, bound by the good and having no power or alternative to achieving as much of it as possible except by completing the world, Plato’s God has done the best He can do, and is hence blameless of the evil that accrues from the relationship of the rational soul to the irrational soul. But unless a reason, and a good one, is given for preferring a completed world with a certain type of evil to an incomplete world free of that type of evil, one is not justified in freeing the Platonic God from all blame for E3. As for E4, God is the cause of it, and is hence responsible for its presence. But is God then blameworthy for causing it? To answer this question, the following two questions would have to be answered: Why is the good of the whole to be preferred to the good of the part? And could not God have achieved the good of the whole without having to sacrifice the good of the part? While Plato would answer the second question with a “no” by reminding us that God’s power is limited, it is not clear how he would answer the first; all we know is that he makes no attempt to answer it at all. If so, one wonders whether God can be blameless for E4, since no good reason, or any reason at all, is given for God’s bringing it about for the sake of the whole. In conclusion, God is neither responsible nor blameworthy for either E1 or E2. God is responsible for E3 and E4, and it seems that Plato does not provide for freeing God from blame for E3 and E4.

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II. ARISTOTLE

The problem of evil does not arise for Aristotle, as we will see later. But since Ibn Sînâ’s notion of evil is greatly influenced by that of Aristotle, a discussion of the latter would be in place here. Let me make clear at the outset that the following treatment of the Aristotelian notion of evil is by no means complete, for such a treatment would require a volume of its own. The Aristotelian points presented here are only those that had a direct or indirect influence on Ibn Sînâ. As it is for Plato, evil in Aristotle is divided into metaphysical and moral. Let us therefore take up these two types of evil one at a time. 1. Metaphysical Evil Plato, as we have seen, teaches that the form of being is good. But to Plato the form is a separate entity or substance. As is well known, Aristotle, retaining the view that the form is good, rejects the view that the form is or can be separate from particular things. The only way for the form to be is to be attached to matter, and together with matter it constitutes a separate or independent reality or substance. To Aristotle, therefore, the good, being identified with the form, is not (as it is for Plato), only outside the sensible world. Rather, the good must be in the sensible world, since the form with which it is identified is in this world.24 A man, a table, and a chair, for example, are good, not insofar as they participate in the forms manness, tableness, and chairness, as Plato has it, but insofar as they possess these forms. The more they possess these forms the better they are; to the degree that they fall short of possessing them they fall short of complete goodness. Now what is the form? The form is a completeness or a fullness of what a thing must be. Its other name is entelechy, or actuality as complete or perfect. 25 But the form or entelechy of each Whether Aristotle actually sticks to this view and to his opposition to Plato is a matter that will be addressed later. 25 De Anima, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), 414a, 16. All works of Aristotle re24

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thing is identified with its essence, “which is the end of the process of becoming.” 26 But the essence is identified with the nature of a thing: “every essence in general has come to be called a ‘nature.’ because the nature of a thing is to be one kind of essence.” 27 Now, if the good is identified with the form and the form with the entelechy, essence, or nature, then the good is also the entelechy, essence, or nature. And hence, what makes a thing good is, as mentioned, the possession of its form, entelechy, essence, or nature. From this, and from the Aristotelian claim that evil is contrary to the good, Aristotle concludes that a thing is evil if it lacks its nature or any aspect natural to it. But it must be mentioned that Aristotle uses “nature” in more than one sense. The nature of a thing in the primary sense is the essence of a thing, but it is also anything normal. Thus it is natural for a human being to have reason, in the sense that it is essential, but it is also natural for a human to have hands, ears, and eyes, in the sense that it is normal to have such parts. Hence the more natural a thing is in either of these two senses the better; and the less natural the worse or more evil. Evil is then a lack or privation. But not every privation is evil. To understand what type of privation is evil, let us consider the various types of privation in Aristotle. We are told: Privation has several senses: for it means (1) that which has not a certain quality and (2) that which might naturally have it but has not it, either (a) in general or (b) when it might naturally have it, and either (a) in some particular way, e.g., when it

ferred to are from this edition. Actuality as complete, or complete actuality, must be distinguished from actuality as activity. Even though in general Aristotle uses the two terms interchangeably, he distinguishes them on occasion. The latter is movement (Metaphysics, Θ, 1047a, 30–32) that tends toward the former (1050a, 21–23). The former is static, the latter dynamic. 26 Metaphysics, Δ, 1015a, 9–10. 27 Ibid., Δ, 11–13. For our present purposes, “form,” “actuality,” “entelechy,” “essence,” and “nature” will be used interchangeably, since the differences among them do not concern us here.

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY has it not completely, or (b) when it has it not at all. And in certain cases if things which naturally have a quality lose it by violence, we say they have suffered privation. 28

Aristotle here lists two types of privation: (1) privation of that which does not belong to, or is not natural to, a thing (the example given by Aristotle of this type is the lack of eyes in a plant); 29 and (2), privation of that which belongs to, or is natural to, a thing. This type in turn can be either (a) a general privation, that is, a privation that extends to all members of a species (Aristotle’s example here is blindness in a mole; moles as a species are blind but it belongs to the genus of moles – animal – to have sight); or (b) a lack in a particular individual of a species, that is, a lack that goes contrary to the natural state of a species as a whole (Aristotle cites blindness in a human being as an instance of this type of privation). But (b) in turn can be either: (a) partial, such as blindness in one rather than both eyes, or (b) complete, such as total blindness. Finally (c), privation can be a loss through violence of what a thing possesses naturally – losing one’s sight as the result of a plane crash would be an example of this type of privation. It must be mentioned that, while in the above passage (c) is said to occur “in certain cases if things which naturally have a quality lose it by violence,” in Metaphysics Θ, chapter 22 (c) is said to be “the violent taking away of anything.” In other words, while privation in the case of (c) is said in the former passage to be of something naturally possessed, in the latter there is no mention of the taking away of what is naturally possessed. Instead, the privation resulting from violence is said to be of anything, which is to say it could be of something not natural. Of the two basic types of privations, (1) and (2), only the second, that is, the lack or of the natural, is evil. For a plant to lack eyes is not evil for it: it is not natural for it to have them. But for a cat to be deprived of eyes is evil for the cat, for it is the nature of a cat to have eyes. Privation of the natural, with all its abovementioned kinds, whether relating to a species or to an individual 28 29

Metaphysics, Θ, 1046a, 30–36. Metaphysics, Δ, 1022b, 2–3.

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or individuals in a species, whether complete or partial, whether resulting from violence or not, are therefore all forms of evil. To summarize, if the good is the form or nature of a thing, then evil, being the contrary of the good, must be a privation of the form or nature of that thing. One may wonder why Aristotle usually contrasts form not with privation but with matter or potentiality. The former type of contrast is obviously a reasonable one, even though it is not made explicit in Aristotle. Aristotle makes the latter type of contrast, I suppose, as a result of his view that form is the principle of actuality and matter the principle of potentiality. But potentiality is the privation of actuality. Hence the contrast between form or actuality and matter or potentiality is, in truth, a contrast between form and privation. Matter, being the principle of potentiality, is thus the ultimate source of evil, since it is the source of potentiality and since potentiality is the source of privation or evil. It is true that, as the lack of actuality, potentiality could be identified with privation, and as such it is evil and static. This type of evil is similar to static evil in Plato, since both are nothing but the mere falling short of perfection. But there is another aspect to potentiality: potentiality is also the principle of motion, and, as such, it is not to be identified with privation, that is, it is not to be identified with evil. 30 As the principle of motion, potentiality is a dynamic force. The idea that potentiality (and hence its principle, matter) is always evil is false, for only when looked at as a static principle is potentiality (and hence matter) evil. As a dynamic principle, potentiality has a different value. As a dynamic principle, potentiality could go in one of two directions: either toward actuality (that is, good actuality) or in the opposite direction (that is, the destruction of actuality or bad actuality): Everything of which we say it can do something, is alike capable of contraries, e.g., that of which we say that it can be well is the same as that which can be ill, and has both potencies at once; for the same potency is a potency of health and illness,

Whitney Jennings Oates, Aristotle and the Problem of Value (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), 105. 30

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY of rest and motion, of building and throwing down, of being built and being thrown down. The capacity for contraries, then, is present at the same time.31

A boy can become a man, but he can also die and become nonexistent as a human being, or perhaps become criminal. A man can become healthy, but he can also become sick. The potentiality is in itself neither good nor bad, for it is neither the actuality nor its contrary. Potentiality acquires value only in relation to actuality: … while the good must be one of them [the contraries], the capacity is both alike, or neither; the actuality [i.e., the good actuality] then is better [than the potency]. Also in the case of bad things the end or actuality must be worse than the potency, for that which “can” is both contraries alike. 32

Potentiality is therefore less good or more evil than good actuality, but it is better than bad actuality. The reason is that the capacity is both contraries alike, or neither. That is to say, if potentiality is considered as both contraries, then it would in part involve bad actuality or evil. In that case good actuality is better since it is free even from the possibility of involving evil. If, on the other hand, potentiality is considered as being neither of the contraries, that is, neither good actuality nor bad actuality, then it is indifferent to value. In that case, good actuality would still be better than potentiality, because a good thing is better than that which is neither good nor bad. If we turn now to potentiality in relation to bad actuality, if potentiality is considered as both contraries, then it is in part good, for it involves good actuality. But that which is good, at least in part, is better than that which is completely bad, in which there is not even the possibility for the good. Potentiality as neither contrary is, as we have seen, indifferent to value. And that which is indifferent to value must be better than that which is bad. The evilness or goodness that is attributed to potentiality is therefore not intrinsic to it but only relative to actuality. 31 32

Metaphysics, Θ, 1051a, 5–10. Metaphysics, Δ, 1051a, 12–17.

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To recapitulate, while potentiality as a principle of privation is intrinsically evil, potentiality as a principle of motion is neither good nor evil in itself, but acquires value only in relation to actuality. Now if, in the case of bad things such as a scandal-monger or a thief, the actuality is worse or more evil than the potentiality, and certainly worse or more evil than the actuality of good things such as a teacher or a mother, then what becomes of the Aristotelian claim that the actual or complete is always good? According to this claim, even a scandal-monger or a thief can be called good – “we speak of a complete scandal-monger and a complete thief; indeed we even call them good, i.e., a good thief and a good scandalmonger.” 33 Scandal-mongers and thieves are good insofar as they are complete of their kind: What is called “complete” or … that which in respect of excellence and goodness cannot be excelled in its kind; e. g., we have a complete doctor and a complete flute-player, when they lack nothing in respect of the form of their proper excellence. 34

But they are also evil in respect to some other beings whose kind is higher and better than theirs. The completion of any nature is good, but it is also evil in relation to the completion of better natures. Aristotle assumes that there is a scale of natures or beings. The completion of each of these natures is good, but not so good as the completion of the natures that are above it in the scale. Thus “good” and “evil” in Aristotle must be qualified and not used in an absolute sense. 35 If the nature of a table is to have four legs, then a good table is one that has four legs and a bad table is one that does not. Or, if the nature of a thief is to steal, then a good thief is one who does steal and a bad one is one who does not. But this does not mean that a good human being, for example, has four legs or steals. In other Ibid., 1021b, 19–21. Ibid., 12–18. 35 Physics, 198b, 9–10. 33 34

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words, what is good or evil for one thing may not be the same for another. Aristotle teaches, however, that things must and do seek the fulfillment, not only of their natures or forms, but also of the natures or forms that are higher. And the fulfillment or completion for a thing of a nature higher than its own is better than the fulfillment of its own nature. The question that arises, then, is what is the highest good of a thing. Is it the completion of its own nature, or is it the completion of a nature higher than its own? If the former, then, if the table completes its nature, that must be the highest good of the table. In that case, the completion of natures higher than that of the table cannot count as better for the table than the completion of the table’s own nature. If the latter, then the claim that the completion of a thing’s nature ensures the goodness of that thing collapses. For, according to this latter view, even if the table has a complete nature, it will still be incomplete, and hence evil. It must also be noted that in the latter case evil is not merely relative: even if a table has its full nature, it may still be incomplete not only in relation to other things but also in relation to what it can or must be. The Aristotelian scale of natures or beings culminates, as is well known, in the most complete nature of God. Being the most complete, God is the best; and, being the best, God is the end of all things in the universe. In fact, God’s major function is being the end or final cause of everything below God. As the best end, God is the object of desire or love, and by means of that God moves the universe toward Him, 36 that is, toward the highest perfection. Thus God is called the first or primary cause. God is good because goodness is full actuality, and, as mentioned, God is fully actual. Being at the top of the scale of being or actuality, God is not only good but the highest good or perfection in the universe. We began our discussion of Aristotle by asserting that Aristotle brought value down from the separate Platonic realm to the sensible one. Now we find that value in its highest degree is identified with God, who is separate and outside this world. 36

Metaphysics, Λ, 1072b, 5–6.

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Plato tells us that the forms are good and desirable and the sensible world evil and undesirable. The sensible world desires the forms and their goodness, and tries to reach them by participating in or imitating them. The forms are final causes that bring about change in the world by being standards of beauty and goodness. There certainly are difficulties in the Platonic view. But so much is clear. Plato offers “participation” or “imitation” as ways in which the sensible world shares in the value of the separate forms. How does Aristotle relate the sensible realm to the highest value? Aristotle’s Divine is a being, desirable, beautiful, and good, moving the world, as mentioned, by being its final cause. Everything in the world moves toward God by a desire to imitate Him. Are we not then falling back into the Platonic theory of imitation? It is true that there is no adoption of the participation part of the Platonic theory, but is there not an adoption of the imitation theory, which seems to be the theory preferred by Plato himself at the end of his career? 37 To recapitulate, Aristotle rebelled against his teacher for erecting the forms or standards of perfection in a realm separate from ours. But after bringing these forms down to this world and merging them with it, Aristotle gradually starts raising them above the sensible, until he separates value once again from matter as did his teacher. Finding himself with the same problem in which his teacher was entangled, that is, the problem of joining the two realms, he falls back on his teacher’s final solution, the imitation theory. So far, two types of good have been discussed: that in the individual and that in God, the latter being the higher of the two. There is a third type, still: the good in the universe. This type of good is contained not only in the individual but also in the organization, interconnectedness, or order of the universe. Why is that good? Because only through order is the purpose of the whole served, and the purpose of the whole is always a good. Things in the universe are made to fit in with other things in such a way as to serve this general purpose:

37

Physics, 106, 1–23.

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY And all things are ordered together somehow, but not all alike – both fishes and fowls and plants; and the world is not such that one thing has nothing to do with another, but they are connected. For they all are ordered together to one end … and there are functions similarly in which all share for the good of the whole. 38

Evil in the universe consists, therefore, of disorder. This is not to say, however, that earthquakes or floods are necessarily disorders, for they may be necessary features of the interconnectedness of things. Furthermore, what counts as a disorder in the natural state of an individual, and is hence evil for that individual, may enhance the order of the whole, and in that sense its evil character may be secondary or accidental to the whole. All this is quite Platonic. But in Plato the source that brings about this order is clearly the good soul. In Aristotle, on the other hand, it is not clear what the source is. Sometimes Aristotle speaks as if order is a tendency of nature, that is to say, something intrinsic to nature. But at other times he makes it appear as if order is dependent on an outside principle, usually understood to be God. 39 But the two views are not really in conflict. First, to say that order “depends” on God means that it “depends” on God not as its source but, perhaps, as its sustainer. Second, even to speak of God as the source of order does not rule out the possibility that another principle or principles may also share in the production of order or serve as a precondition for it, and hence count as a source. Both the father and the mother can be called sources of the child, in the sense that both are necessary conditions for the birth of the child. So, too, nature may have the tendency for order, but that alone is not sufficient to bring order about; God or a final cause is needed to direct this tendency and give it determination. In other words, both nature and God are necessary conditions for order, but neither alone is a sufficient condition. It takes both to bring about order. 38 39

Metaphysics, Λ, 1072a, 16–25. Ibid., 15–16.

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Now is God on whom this order depends less than, equal to, or better in value than this order? Aristotle compares the good in the universe to the good in an army, and the good in God to that in the leader of the army. But the good in the leader, he says, is greater than that in the army, “for he does not depend on the order but it depends on him.” 40 Again, God is found to be the highest good, and anything else including the order in the universe does not measure up to God’s goodness; that is, everything other than God is deficient and must therefore to some extent be evil. In the discussion of Aristotle I have concentrated more on his notion of good than on that of evil, our present subject. The reason is that Aristotle has much more to say about good than about evil. His view of evil can easily be derived from his view of good, however, since for him good and evil are contraries. For example, from the assertion that God alone is the highest good since He is the fullest actuality, one can derive that, since anything in the universe is to some degree deficient in actuality, anything in the universe must be less than the highest good, that is, must contain some degree of evil. 2. Moral Evil The discussion of Aristotle’s notion of metaphysical evil was preceded by an analysis of his notion of good. The same procedure will be followed in the discussion of Aristotle’s notion of moral evil: a discussion of moral good will first be introduced, from which the notion of moral evil will be derived. The highest human good is asserted by Aristotle to be happiness. Both the commoners and the cultured, he says, agree on this point. 41 The question now is what is happiness. Aristotle’s answer is that happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with virtue. 42 The first point to be noticed is that happiness is an activity, not just a state or disposition. But in order to understand happiness we must first understand virtue. Virtue is defined by Aristotle as “a Physics, 106, 1–23. Nicomachean Ethics, 1095a, 16–20. 42 Ibid., 1098, 16–17. 40 41

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disposition involving choice and lying in the mean relative to us.” 43 This statement involves four points: (A) in contrast to happiness, virtue is a disposition; (B) virtue involves a choice; (C) this choice is of a mean; and (D) this mean is a mean relative to us. Points (B) through (D) require some elaboration. (B) Aristotle lists three classes of actions: (a) voluntary actions; (b) non-voluntary actions; and (c) involuntary or compulsory actions. 44 Only class (a) concerns us here. A voluntary action is defined as one in which the moving principle is from within the agent. 45 Now voluntary action can be attributed to any living being. But there is a species of it, choice, that is limited to intelligent beings, for choice involves deliberation and moral character. 46 Children and animals can act voluntarily, in Aristotle’s view, but they cannot be said to choose. The objects of choice are one’s acts and dispositions of character responsible for desiring certain ends. In short, choice involves an internal motive, knowledge about what is done, intelligence or deliberation about acts or dispositions. (C) The mean is an intermediate or middle ground between two extremes. Courage, for example, is said to be a mean between rashness and cowardice. If you look at health and strength of the body, Aristotle says, you find that either an excess or a deficiency of food and exercise destroys them, while a moderate amount of food and exercise maintains them and helps them grow. 47 But, you may say, what about theft? Can one steal not too much and not too little and be said to hit the mean? Aristotle says “no.” He admits that there are some dispositions and actions for which there is no mean; that is, they cannot be virtuous. Shamelessness and envy can be cited among the former, adultery, theft, and murder among the latter: Ibid., 1106b, 36 – 1107a, 1. Ibid., 1109b, 30. 45 Ibid., 1110a, 15–18. 46 G. E. R. Lloyd, Aristotle: The Growth and Structure of His Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 230–31. 47 Nicomachean Ethics, 1104a, 11–19. 43 44

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Nor does goodness and badness with regard to such things depend on committing adultery with the right woman, at the right time, and in the right way, but simply to do any of them is to go wrong. 48

However, Aristotle does teach that there is a mean for most states, actions, and affections: For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity, and in general pleasure and pain, may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue. 49

(D) The mean is not an arithmetical or an objective one. If ten loaves of bread, for example, are too much for a person for a week, and two loaves too little, it does not follow that the mean for that person must be six loaves per week. Furthermore, even if four loaves are determined to be the mean for that person, it does not follow that this amount is also the mean for all other human beings. Various factors must be taken into consideration is determining a mean: the circumstances of the individual in question, the kind of object under consideration, the relationship of the individual to the object, the manner in which the action is to be conducted, the motive of the agent, the propriety of the time, and so on. Now that the definition of moral good with all its constituents has become clear, we can proceed to inquire about the nature of moral evil. As the good rests on virtue, so does evil rest on vice. To understand evil, then, one must first try to understand vice. As virtue is a disposition, so also is vice. And as choice is an element of virtue, so also is it an element of vice. Virtue and vice differ, however, in that, while the former is a choice of the mean, the latter is a choice of either an excess or a deficiency. 48 49

Ibid., 1107a, 15–18. Ibid., 1106b, 17–23.

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Socrates and Plato hold, as we have seen, that no one errs freely, that is, toward oneself. In other words, free choice is not involved in the type of evil produced by the human soul toward its individual. Such an evil is to them produced by ignorance, and ignorance cannot be said to involve freedom, for freedom presupposes knowledge. While Aristotle agrees that freedom presupposes knowledge, he denies that a wrongdoer is necessarily deprived of knowledge and is hence not free. Not only virtue but vice also is freely chosen, Aristotle argues: Now the exercise of the virtues is concerned with means. Therefore virtue also is in our own power, and so too vice. For where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act, and vice versa; so that, if to act, where this is noble, is in our power, not to act, which will be base, will also be in our power, and if not to act, where this is noble, is in our power, then to act, which will be base, will also be in our power. Now if it is in our power to do noble or base acts, and likewise in our power not to do them, and this was what being good or bad means, then it is in our power to be virtuous or vicious. 50

But it is important to note that, while to Aristotle the wrongdoer knows what he or she is doing and can thus be described as free, it is not on the basis of this knowledge that one does wrong. It is lack of self-control or weakness of will (akrasia) that drives one to commit the wrong. Virtue and vice differ, therefore, not only in that, while the former is a choice of a mean, the latter is a choice of an extreme, but also in that, while the former’s source of choice is knowledge, the latter’s source of choice is weakness of will. It is of great importance, however, to point out the following. In his discussion of akrasia, Aristotle draws a distinction between one who knows and is not using the knowledge and one who knows and is using the knowledge. If the former errs, he says, it is not “strange,” but if the latter does, then it is. 51 The incontinent may in a sense be said to (1) know the principle or the universal actually but to know the particular only potentially; or (2) know 50 51

Ibid., 1103b, 6–14. Ibid., 1146b, 30–35.

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both the universal and the particular actually but not know that this universal is applicable to this particular; or (3) know the universal and the particular in the sense in which a drunk, a sleeper, or a madman can be said to know it. 52 That is, as a sleeper, for example, may know many things when unconscious and of which he or she regains full knowledge when awake, so the incontinent’s knowledge is suppressed by emotions and is regained when the individual is no longer under the influence of such emotions. 53 Now the akrates may be regarded as a man in whom the consciousness of principle – the state of emiteme – is buried under a load of passion. If he utters the words of practical wisdom, either they are mere words of which he has not yet fully realized the meaning, or he is (as it were) talking in his sleep – or like the drunkard, or a man in delirium. 54

Aristotle therefore admits that akrasia is due to some form of ignorance. This his view that vice is freely chosen is violated, for vice that results from akrasia turns out to be based on ignorance since akrasia is based on ignorance and, as mentioned, ignorance cannot provide freedom. The Socratic and Platonic view that moral evil results from ignorance, and therefore must be unfree, is therefore rejected by Aristotle, but only to be reaffirmed in his treatment of akrasia. In short, Aristotle believes, as has been stated, that choice is an important element in both virtue and vice. But we have just seen that this turns out not to be so in the case of vice. There is a further consideration still, in light of which it becomes difficult for Aristotle to show that choice is always involved in either vice or virtue. Moral virtue and vice, we are told, arise from habit. 55 A person acts justly, for example, if that person is in the habit of being just. But one wonders, here, first, whether this claim fits with the other Aristotelian claim, namely that habit itself is formed as a result of exercising or practicing, justice in this case. Ibid., 1146b, 30 – 1147a, 9. Ibid., 1147b, 10–25. 54 Harold H. Joachim, The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), 225. 55 Nicomachean Ethics, 1103a, 16. 52 53

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It seems that one cannot practice justice unless one has the habit of being just, but one cannot have this habit unless one practices justice. Second, and more important for our present purpose, it may be asked: can one freely form one’s habits and can one unform them? Aristotle’s answer is that the former is possible but the latter is “not possible.” 56 Once one is in the habit of being a just person or a drunkard, one’s actions are no longer within one’s power. Hence, for Aristotle, virtue and vice, at least as resulting from habit, must not be free. As for acquiring habits, it is difficult for Aristotle to show that people freely choose certain habits and not others. Psychology today teaches that most habits develop when one is still a child; for Aristotle, however, choice is not possible for children, who for him are deprived of reason, without which one cannot choose. If children are incapable of choice, the habits they form must therefore not be chosen freely by them, but by parents, teachers, and others. All this does not show that choice is impossible either in forming or in unforming habits, but it does indicate that Aristotle has not shown, and perhaps cannot consistently show, that choice is always an element in virtue and in vice. Aristotle teaches that, if we are morally virtuous, we desire the right end, 57 and if we are not, we seek the contrary. But desiring the right end is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for achieving the good. Also needed is a choice of the right steps that lead to that end. An overweight man may desire to lose fifty pounds, but this desire alone gets him nowhere. He must also know that such an end can be achieved, for example, by exercising and eating less fattening foods. But where do we get the knowledge of the right steps? This type of knowledge is supplied by “practical wisdom,” 58 which is one of the five intellectual virtues, and the only one that concerns us here because of its tie to moral virtue. When the right end and the right means are both present, then action proceeds and leads to the good. If one’s reason fails in determining the right end and the steps to achieve it, “one can always ask the man of practical Ibid., 1144a, 11–23. Ibid., 1141, 7. 58 Ibid., 1144a, 8. 56 57

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wisdom.” 59 The man of practical wisdom is a fully knowledgeable person, that is, fully self-controlled and free from attachments to bodily pleasures. It must be noted that in all this it is we, Aristotle assumes, who discover the right and wrong. No transcendent being or beings, principle or principles, are set for us either as standards or as beings who determine value or help us discover it. The moral good has been described as an activity of soul in accordance with virtue. But there are types of virtues. The better and more complete the virtue, the higher the good. The highest human good, therefore, must be “in accordance with the best and most complete” virtue. 60 Now the best and most complete virtue of anything is activity that is in accordance with or an exercise of the proper function of that thing. The essence of human beings is thought by Aristotle to be reason. It follows that the proper function of human beings is the activity of reason or contemplation. But reason is immortal and divine in comparison with everything else in us; therefore its activity must be divine in comparison with the activity of everything else in us. 61 Contemplation, therefore, is the highest virtue because it enables a person to transcend the mortal sphere and become divine by means of exercising the divine element in us. This is happiness in the truest sense, in contrast to the practical good, which has been previously described and is concerned with human affairs. Now, first, of what does the contemplative life consist, and, second, how can it be achieved? The contemplative life consists of reflection on the forms of things or the universals. It is described as good because, since to Aristotle the knower and the known are one, it follows that to reflect on or know the forms of all things is to become those forms. And, if the form of anything is good, the forms of all things must be far more good. Hence to become those forms is far better than being one form, such as that of a human being. In other words, to know the whole is to be the whole, and to Ibid., 1106b, 36. Ibid., 1098a, 18. 61 “If reason is divine, then, in comparison with man, the life according to it is divine in comparison with human life” (Ibid., 1177b, 30 – 1178a, 4). 59 60

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be the whole includes more goodness than to be a part. Hence to know the whole includes more goodness than to know the part. 62 This is the contemplative life: a state of transcending the particular. But how can it be achieved? Not by neglecting external goods such as money, or bodily goods such as physical beauty, strength, or health, but by having these as preconditions yet going beyond them to strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it [i.e., reason] be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything. 63

But what are the steps to achieve this divine part in us? In the De Anima, after discussing the soul as the form of the body, Aristotle goes on to develop his theory of mind, intellect, or nous. Of nous, we are told, there are two parts: the potential or passive and the active. 64 The former is at first empty and nothing. Then it acquires its objects, the forms, from the imagination, which in turn receives them from perception and memory. An analogy is drawn between the passive mind and sense perception. As sense perception picks ut the form of, let us say, wax, without at the same time picking up the wax itself, so also does the passive intellect pick up the forms or universals from the imagination without at the same time picking up the remaining content of the imagination, that is, the particular aspect. Imagination differs, however, from sense perception in that, while the latter requires its objects to be present to it, the former does not; yet the objects of both are nevertheless similar in that they are particulars. However, what is abstracted from the content of the imagination is only the universals; the particulars are left behind. When these universals are acquired by the passive intellect, this intellect is no longer passive but becomes actual. As actual, it is described by Aristotle as being all things, for, as mentioned, to have knowledge of all things is to become all things. But how, it may be asked, is the passive intellect capable of acquiring its content when, De Anima, 430a, 4. Nicomachean Ethics, 1177b, 30 – 1178a, 1. 64 De Anima, 430a, 14–16. 62 63

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being passive, it cannot do anything? The answer, according to Aristotle, is that independent of us there is something called the active intellect, which is fully actual, eternal, divine, and separate. It is also described as a light, 65 which when shed on the imagination makes the objects of the imagination visible. When this happens, these objects are impressed on the passive intellect. The passive intellect does not, therefore, do anything in order to acquire its content; rather it acts as an eye would when confronted with a lighted object. When the passive intellect becomes actual, it acquires the qualities of the active intellect, for it shares in the knowledge of the whole as does the active intellect. The actual intellect is therefore fully actual, eternal, divine, and separate. But these terms with which the active intellect is described, and which are also applicable to the actual intellect, are the same terms used to describe God. No wonder happiness, the activity of the actual intellect, has been seen by scholars such as Whitney Jennings Oates as resembling the life of God. Oates draws attention to the fact that happiness is described by Aristotle in the same terms as those he uses to describe the first actuality, or God: “We can hear the echo in the words, ‘prized,’ ‘perfect,’ ‘first principle,’ ‘divine,’ and the ‘cause of things good’.” 66 In short, even though Aristotle does not say that the contemplative life can be described as a union with God or that it can be identified with God, such a description would not be far-fetched in consideration of the language used to describe both. If such a union or identification is not attainable, a state at least similar to that in actuality and value must be attainable. An important question can be raised here. If the actual or contemplative life is separate from us, why should we strive to reach it? After all, reaching it must be irrelevant to us, in that it is separate and incapable of retaining any memory of what occurs in the life of a human being. 67 The actual or active intellect may be good, but it would seem useless to our human purposes. It seems we are required to set everything aside in order to know the whole Ibid., 16–17. Oates, Aristotle and the Problem of Value, 270. 67 De Anima, 430a, 23–25. 65 66

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and become divine, but when that happens the achievement and happiness are no more ours and we are left where we started. The highest metaphysical good, as we have seen, turns out to be the highest actuality, and anything less than that is evil to some degree. The highest human good or happiness is not identified by Aristotle as the highest actuality. However, there is nothing in Aristotle to contradict such an identification – in fact, the highest human good is described as “immortal” and “divine.” But only full actuality can be described thus. Anything not fully actual, in other word, anything potential, may – as Aristotle puts it – “possibly not be”; 68 that is, it cannot be immortal, and what cannot be immortal cannot be divine. Finally, God’s role in the universe is in being the standard of the highest metaphysical and perhaps the highest human good. But God does not create the universe or anything in it, including good and evil – the universe is eternal. Nor does God have any knowledge of anything in the universe; His knowledge is limited to Himself. For knowing anything else is knowing something less than the highest perfection, and that does not befit God. For the known and the knower are the same. It is clear, therefore, that the problem of evil does not arise for Aristotle. Evil exists, it is true, but that is due either to the natural constitution of things, or to the imperfection of the universe as a whole, or to human decisions and actions, never to God or to any principle outside the universe.

III. PLOTINUS

There is another strong influence on Ibn Sînâ that should not be left out of this discussion. Two essential elements in his philosophy, emanation and mysticism, are also found in Plotinus, whose works were available to Ibn Sînâ under the false title Aristotle’s Theology. Plotinus teaches that there are two movements in the universe: one downward and one upward. The former is emanation, the descent of the universe from God, which ends in the extreme degree of evil; the latter is a return to the source of emanation, a 68

Metaphysics, Λ, 1071b, 19.

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return that leads to the departure from evil. In order to understand the reality and source of evil in the Plotinian cosmos and to determine whether any being or beings are to blame for the presence of evil in the universe, we must first understand the downward and the upward movements. 1. The Downward Movement Beyond this universe, according to Plotinus, there is God, who is one, simple, and the same. In this respect, the Plotinian God is similar to Plato’s idea of the good, but while the latter is the highest form, the former is not a form at all, but formless and indeterminate. 69 Thus this God is also different from Aristotle’s God, who is the most complete form or being. The Plotinian God, being empty of form or being, cannot be in the universe and must therefore be beyond even the Aristotelian unmoved mover, who is at the top of the scale of being. Because God is not a being – in other words, because He does not exist – He is ineffable and can be described only in negative terms: Thus The One is in truth beyond all statement: any affirmation is of a thing; but all-transcending, resting above even the most august divine Mind – this is the only true description, since it does not make it a thing among things, nor name it where no name could identify it; we can but try to indicate, in our own feeble way, something concerning it. We do not, it is true, grasp it by knowledge, but that does not mean that we are utterly void of it; we hold it not so as to state it, but so as to be able to speak about it. And we can and do state what it is not, while we are silent as to what it is. 70

God cannot, for example, be said to have choice, to design, and so forth. Nevertheless, goodness is attributed to Him, 71 goodness in its highest degree. And goodness to Plotinus is, as it is to Plato and Aristotle, the source of production and creativity. To better understand how God’s goodness can be the source of production and Enneads, V, 5, Ch. 11. Ibid., 3, Chs. 13–14. 71 Ibid., 5, Ch. 10. 69 70

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creativity, we must first understand what is meant by God’s goodness. Aristotle holds, as we have seen, that the good and contemplation or activity of thought are identical, and so does Plotinus. But contemplation is creativity, so it follows that goodness is creativity. But the better the object of contemplation, the better the product. God does not know anything outside Himself – for knowledge of anything other than Himself would introduce plurality in God and thus destroy His unity and simplicity. God only reflects upon His own nature, and His nature is the best of all natures. The product of this reflection on the best nature must itself be extremely good, yet not so good as its source – Plotinus assumes without argument that the product can never be equal in value to its source. This first product is the first being in the universe. It is intelligence or nous. In contrast to its source, nous involves multiplicity: 72 first, because there are to it at least two aspects – its reflection upon its source and its reflection upon itself; but, more important, because it includes all the ideas or forms, not only those admitted by Plato but others as well. Even for matter there is an archetype in nous. When nous reflects upon God, the world-soul emanates. When nous reflects upon itself, the material world comes into being, for the material world is nothing but a reflection of the ideas in nous. Even though the world-soul is not so good and strong in reflection as is nous, it nevertheless can and does reflect. Being remote from God, the world-soul has no access to God as does nous. The only objects of reflection it can have are nous and itself. Reflecting upon the former, it begets the particular souls in the material world; reflecting upon itself, it begets the particular material things, such as John’s or Mary’s body. The process of emanation stops with matter, which is different from Aristotelian matter in that it is not informed but completely devoid of form. 73 Form is the principle of being; matter, therefore, having no form, must be absolute non-being. Since Plotinus, like Plato and 72 73

Ibid., VI, 4, Ch. 4. Ibid., II, 4, Chs. 1, 4, 9, 10.

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Aristotle, identifies goodness and form, matter, being formless, must to him then be absolutely evil. Three points must be mentioned here. (A) The whole universe is an overflow of God, even though God is said to produce nous only: everything in the world other than nous is produced by God in an indirect manner. (B) The overflow is necessary in the sense that it has to be, and has to be in the way that it is. It is not that God has freely chosen it to be so and could have chosen it to be otherwise. First, as mentioned, being a non-existent, God cannot have any choice; and second, being perfect, God cannot but overflow, and in the manner He does. (C) The overflow of the universe from God does not diminish God. As the universe requires God for its source, so does God require the universe for His determination. One may compare God and the world in Plotinus to the primordial and the consequent natures of God in Alfred North Whitehead, with the difference that the Whiteheadian primordial nature of God is not one and simple. Like nous, it contains all the possibilities of creation, the eternal objects, and hence is punctuated with plurality. But the two are similar in that they are both indeterminate, and in that they depend upon the world for their determination as much as the world depends upon them for its production. Many questions can be raised about the Plotinian theory of God or the One. There is no room here to discuss them all. However, one question is important for our subject. If matter is evil because it is indeterminate and devoid of form, why is the One, which is also indeterminate and devoid of form, not evil but good? It seems that Plotinus’s answer to this question might be something like the following. What gives the One His goodness is His being simple and the same; what gives matter its evil character is its fleeting nature. This view is similar to that of Parmenides and Plato, namely that unity, simplicity, and sameness are good. The reason is that they enable us to fix our thoughts upon them, for it is impossible to have thought and knowledge of what is always changing and never the same. You may say, then, that it turns out that what counts as primary good is what makes thought and knowledge possible, and not reflection or thought itself, as stated earlier. The answer of the ancients is that what makes thought possible and thought itself are one and the same. Metaphysical evil, for Plotinus, it is true, lies in the lack of form, but this is so only be-

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cause the lack of form creates instability in matter. But why is the One not unstable because of His lack of form? Here there seems to be a difficulty in Plotinus. On the one hand, he wants to assert that it is form that gives stability and hence serves as the ground for knowledge and goodness; on the other, he insists on the goodness of the One that is free of any form. It has been mentioned that nous contains the form of matter. But this archetypal matter is only an idea, a possibility for matter in this world. Matter in nous is not evil; the evil matter is only that which is found in this world. Moral evil also has its ground in metaphysical evil. As the individual soul descends from the world-soul, it acquires, as does the Platonic soul in its descent, two lower parts responsible for moral evil. The descent of the soul in into the body can be described as a physical as well as a metaphysical and moral fall. Even though Plotinus sometimes speaks as if the soul falls as a result of its own desire for what is lower, his view, which should be taken more seriously because it fits better with his general view of emanation, is that the soul’s fall is a necessary consequence of the world-soul’s reflection upon itself. Plotinus feels the tension between these two views. The latter view is required by his system, but it leaves the attribution of moral evil to the soul and the responsibility for it indefensible. The former view enables Plotinus to attribute moral evil and responsibility to the soul with justification, but it does not fit into his system, which excludes any possibility of free will. The two parts that adhere to the soul bring evil upon it by attaching it to the body and involving it with bodily pleasures and affairs. Moral evil results, therefore, by having the two parts distract the attention of the soul from its true nature, which is originally intelligent and divine, to the preoccupation with the body. When that happens the soul is blinded by its concern with its particularity, which is not essential to its nature, that is, to its universal character and to the whole of which it is an aspect. But does its being blinded in this way, that is, its ignorance, make it evil? Since knowledge and the object of knowledge are one and the same, for the soul to think of itself as attached to the body is to be as low in value as the body, while to understand its nature as divine is to be divine.

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2. The Upward Movement Not only is the source of evil clear, so also is the way out of evil. The former occurs through ignorance; the latter is achieved through knowledge. The upward movement consists in ending the isolation of oneself from the whole of reality. This movement begins by means of love for the good, a love that permeates all beings in the universe. Everything is driven by this principle of love to acquire what is higher and better than it; this movement toward the good continues until the best is achieved. The movement toward the good begins with inward reflection, which helps the soul transcend its interest in, and concern with, the body. Thus, transcending the particular, the soul is elevated to the level of nous, which alone contains the universals. The soul, grasping the universals, becomes nous – this follows from what has already been said about knowledge and the object of knowledge. But we know that nous alone has the privilege of reflecting upon God. The soul, having become nous, must now be able also to reflect upon God. But reflecting upon God implies, in the Plotinian philosophy, union with God. This union is described as the life of gods and of godlike and blessed among men, liberation from the alien that besets us here, a life taking no pleasure in the things of earth, the passing of solitary to solitary. 74

Temporary union with God is possible while still in the body, but a more lasting union is possible only after the soul is freed from the fetters of the body. In the state of union, even nous is lost sight of, and consciousness of everything disappears. Here again we get entangled in paradoxical language. The aim sought by the soul is knowledge of the universal and the whole. But it turns out that the true aim is the complete loss of such knowledge in order that the union with God be complete. There remains the very important issue of whether God is to blame for the presence of evil in the world, or whether the blame should be placed on other beings, or whether blameworthiness for 74

Ibid., VI, 9, Ch. 11.

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the presence of evil is out of place in the Plotinian system. Plotinus was aware of this issue and discussed it at length. His discussion, which left a clear mark on later thought, will be the subject of the following section of this chapter. 3. The Plotinian Theodicy The distinguishing features of the Plotinian view of Providence are, in the main, two. First, the term “Providence” is not used in the usual sense to mean God’s guidance and care for God’s creation. Rather, the term is used in a technical sense that will become clear in the course of this section. Second, it is not God who is said to be providential, but rather the intellectual principle or universal intelligence, which is the first product of God. The reason for attributing Providence to the universal intelligence and not to God is evident to anyone familiar with the Plotinian metaphysics. As has been stated above, God, the One, is void of any qualities, including those of being and reason, which, as we shall soon see, are essential to the Plotinian concept of Providence. The universal intelligence, on the other hand, is the first to have these two qualities, and to have them at the highest degree.” To illustrate and elaborate on these two features, let us now analyze the relevant Plotinian text point by point, remarking where appropriate on certain difficulties or inconsistencies. Plotinus presents his views on Providence in the first treatise of the second tractate of the Enneads. These views can be put as follows: It is contrary to good sense to assume that the existence and coherence of the structure of the universe depends on automatic activity or chance. 75 The missing conclusion is that the universe is run or controlled by intelligence. If so, how can we explain the coming into being in this sphere of individual things that seem so It should be mentioned that Plotinus uses the term “universe” to refer to our sphere or the earth, not to the whole of existence. This will become clear from his constant contrasts between the universe and the divine or authentic realm, which contains at least some beings, such as the universal reason and the universal soul. 75

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undesirable or evil? 76 At this point, Plotinus tries to establish the universal, not the particular Providence; the latter, which manages affairs in accordance with the good of particular things, is to be found in the former. According to Plotinus, the universe is eternal. It is posterior to the divine realm only in essence, not in time. The nature of the universe is thus uncaused because it, too, was here from eternity. Therefore there could not have been a reasoned plan by God or any other being for bringing the universe into existence with all the possible perfections. Providence is not the result of a reasoned plan on the part of God or any other thing to cause and protect the goodness of this universe. Rather, it is a universal consonance with the Divine Intelligence to which the Cosmos is subsequent not in time but in the fact of derivation, in the fact that the Divine Intelligence, preceding it in kind, is its cause as being the Archetype and Model which it merely images, in the primal, by which, from all eternity, it has its existence and subsistence. 77

This cosmos subsists as a result of being derived from that authentic or divine cosmos. But contrary to the authentic realm, which is one, this realm is multiple. Besides, its different parts are not selfsufficient. To fulfill their needs, these different parts have to search outside themselves. Thus, conflict and animosity arise between them and the objects they need. They block each other’s way and destroy each other. This they do sometimes by necessity and sometimes by choice. The intellectual principle, on the other hand, was the first and had “all there is of power.” Plotinus interprets this to mean “that it is productive without seeking to produce.” It cannot make any effort to seek anything because it does not need anything – you seek

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good.

The hidden assumption behind this question is that intelligence is

Enneads, III, 2, Ch. 1. The remainder of the quoted material for this section comes from this same chapter. 77

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only what you need. 78 The intellectual principle brought the universe into being by communicating to matter the reason form that flows or emanates from it. It imposes on the universe reason, which is harmonious and orderly. But the universe is not purely reason. Rather, it is “the meeting ground of necessity and divine reason.” Therefore, it is not purely harmonious and orderly. By its presence, soul governs the conjunction of the two extremes of the universe, necessity and divine reason, and, therefore, the establishment in this world of harmony and its contrary. In spite of this, the cosmos is beautiful just because it is the best of all possible physical realms. No charge can be laid against its source. First, remember the universe is the result of the necessary flow from the divine realm. Second, even if it were the result of a reasoned plan, it would still be inappropriate to condemn its maker. This is because it is complete, serving at once its own purpose and that of all its parts which, leading and lesser alike, are of such a nature as to further the interests of the total.

Therefore it is unreasonable to condemn the whole on the basis of the value of the parts whose real value consists in whether or not they enter into the whole harmoniously. Things in the cosmos participate in goodness to different degrees. So, in terms of their goodness, we are told they are ranked, from the lowest to the highest, as follows: (1) those that just exist (inanimate things); (2) those that have just the lowest form of life (plants); (3) those that have life with sensation (animals); (4) those Ibn Sînâ, an eleventh-century Muslim Neo-Platonist, holds a similar view, according to which, God and the other higher causes are selfsufficient and, therefore, cannot intend or seek to do anything for us or for anything else: “It is impossible for the exalted causes to do what they do for our own sake or to be in general concerned about anything, motivated by a motive and subject to the occurrence of any preference” (Ibn Sînâ, Sh. Il., 414). The reason given by Ibn Sînâ is that the object of the intention is more complete or better than that which has the intention (Ibid., 395). God and the exalted causes being complete, they cannot have anything as the object of their intention. 78

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that have life with reason (human beings); (5) finally, those objects in the cosmos that have “life in all its fullness” (good souls of the heavens). 79 It is unreasonable to demand equality among unequal objects. For example, the finger is not to be asked to see; there is the eye for that; a finger has its own business – to be finger and have finger power.

That one thing destroys another should not be astonishing to us. After all, the destroyed object rose from the ruins of another object. Besides, “for every fire quenched, another is kindled.” Conflicts among objects of this sphere are necessary, for these objects came into existence because the universal reason, which has all of them in identity, necessarily outflows over matter. Likewise, the conflict among human beings may be the result of their desire for the good. Still, when they wrong each other, they are punished by the mere fact that they have hurt their own souls and degraded them to a lower place. 80 This is a universal judgment that nobody can escape. Our actions can earn us happiness only if they are good. Plotinus insists that, first, where there is matter there is evil. Second, evil is necessary for the coordination and completion of the universe. The universal reason uses the destruction of a thing for the birth of another. Third, some evils, such as poverty and Plotinus does not tell us what he means by “life in all its fullness.” But it is reasonable to assume he means “immortality,” as this was the common view among ancient and medieval philosophers. Again, he does not identify with clarity these various beings that have various degrees of goodness. However, the interpretation given here is consistent with a careful reading of the text and with the general view of Neo-Platonists may for example, call the heavenly souls “angels,” but the idea is the same (Cf., Augustine, The City of God, trans. Markus Dods [New York: The Modern Library, 1950], 360). 80 This is the Socratic and Platonic view, according to which, when you wrong somebody, you hurt your own soul and not that of another. That is why it is said that it is better to be wronged than to wrong another (Cf., Gorgias, 489). 79

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sickness, are helpful to those afflicted by them. 81 (However, we are not told how this is so.) But vice is said to give a lesson in good action, and sometimes vice produces good. It does this by making human beings encounter “the ways and consequences of iniquity.” Thus, it pulls them out of lethargy and stirs up their minds. It shows the value of the right by contrasting it with the evil committed. But evil does not exist for this purpose. However, once it exists, the universal reason uses it for good purposes. By definition, evil is “a falling short in good, and good cannot be at full strength in this Sphere.” The good here is in something different from itself – this thing being evil and that which constitutes the falling short. We are reminded that we should not be misled into thinking that beings do not receive what they deserve just because a good person seems afflicted by a calamity or an evil person seems to get ahead. The affliction is not evil for the good, nor is anything else evil for him. Similarly, getting ahead is not good for the evil, nor is anything else good for him. Conditions on this earth have no effect on ultimate happiness. But one may still say: Even though external conditions do not affect the ultimate state of the soul, why is it that the good receive afflictions or ugliness and the wicked receive thriving and handsomeness? Plotinus responds by reiterating the point that if you are good and are afflicted by a calamity or you look ugly, do not complain, for that will not reduce your goodness; hence, it will not reduce your happiness. Providence must reach not only the whole but also all the parts, especially if these parts have life and reason. Plotinus now moves to show how the parts of the universe are also “just.” To begin with, we are called upon not to expect the excellence of this sphere to be the same as that of the divine realm. This one has matter, which is the source of evil, and that one does not. The excellence of this sphere consists in having all the qualities its nature allows it to have of the divine nature – no more and no less. It is by understanding this “principle of gradation” that one can understand the marvels of Providence. 81

However, we are not told how this is so.

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To begin with, the evil acts of souls are to be blamed on the choice these souls exercise. Souls become involved in the world not because matter exists, but because, as Plotinus puts it: Before the world was, they had it in them to be of the world, to concern themselves with it, to presuppose, to administer it: it was in their nature to produce it – by whatever method, whether by bringing forth some emanation while they themselves remained above, or by an actual descent, or in both ways together, some presiding from above others descending.

The question remains why evil is distributed unfittingly among the classes of people. Plotinus finally confronts the issue by saying that this distribution is not an evidence that Providence does not reach our sphere. It is obvious that it does from the fact that reason is present even in lower things. But is reason here just present, or is it also master? Plotinus seems to be saying that it is master. The ruling reason produces the best part of this sphere, such as the head and face in a human being. But “accidents,” “necessity,” or “the incompetence of unaided nature” produce the inferior parts of this sphere. However, the fact that the parts are imperfect in themselves does not justify our considering the whole evil. The upper parts of every being are the most beautiful. The middle and lower parts are inferior. Gods and the heavens constitute the upper and greater part of the universe. Human beings are said to constitute the middle and lower part. 82 Even though this earth occupies a central position in the cosmos, it plays a small role in relation to the whole. 83 People waver between divinity and beastliness; some become like the divine, others like beasts. But the ma-

Why lower also so? One would assume they are just the middle as Plotinus himself asserts: “But humanity in reality is poised midway between gods and beast.” 83 Plotinus does not elaborate the reason for his making this assertion. Ibn Sînâ makes a similar point only to show that no matter how much evil we have on this earth, it is still very small because the earth is very small in relation to the whole universe (Ibn Sînâ, Sh. Il., 417). 82

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jority are neutral. 84 Besides, victims in this world are inferior because they have not trained themselves in self-defense. They are punished by their own laziness. “The law decrees that to come safe out of battle is for fighting men, not for those that pray.” The aggressors are also punished. First, their human quality is damaged. Second, death is not the end for them. Rather, a natural sequence of worse conditions awaits them after death, as better conditions await the good. Furthermore, because we manage our affairs in the manner we please and with no regard to the gods, we are not justified in expecting the gods to keep perfect conditions for us. If wickedness did not have bad consequences, we might wonder about a Providence that allows the victory of evil. However, to believe there is nothing in existence other than Providence is to destroy Providence, for it is to destroy any field of action for It. Providence is not to destroy all other things, but to preside over them, preserving the character of their nature, which is subject to the divine law. This law dictates that the good will reap the good both here and later. The opposite is true of the bad. But the law does not dictate that others should sacrifice themselves for the wicked in response to the prayers of the wicked, or that the gods should live their divine lives in order to direct the daily lives of the wicked. We must not complain about the existence of beings inferior to people either. First, they are serviceable to themselves and to others, and second, they hurt others, as we do, only out of mistrust. Plotinus now raises the question he expects the opponent to ask: Are people to blame for the evil they do, if they do it involuntarily, whether due to the necessity of the celestial movement or of the sequence resulting from the first cause? The answer he gives is this. Human beings commit evil involuntarily, in the sense that they do not desire to do so. However, Compare this with Ibn Sînâ who claims that even in this sphere, the only sphere where evil occurs, “evil only strikes individuals, and at certain times. The species, on the other hand, are preserved. Except for one kind of evil (i.e., the accidental one), real evil does not extend to the majority of individuals” (ibid.). See also Ibn Sînâ, Ish., Book Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 23. 84

CHAPTER TWO: IBN SÎNÂ’S PREDECESSORS this does not alter the fact that wrongdoers, of their own choice, are, themselves, the agents; it is because they themselves act that the sin is their own; if they were not agents they could not sin.

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The necessity underlying human evil is not an external force compelling people to do this or that. Rather, it is a “universal relationship.” Again, the celestial movement does not leave us powerless. Here Plotinus expects another question: Has the reason principle not brought souls into matter and twisted them against their nature? His response is as follows. First, the souls are members of the reason principle. Second, it did not pervert them, “but has set them in the place here to which their quality entitles them.” We are reminded that, in addition to the present, there is also the past and the future. A man who enslaves others will be enslaved. A man who murders his mother will become a woman who will be murdered by her son. So if a person does not seem to pay for his misbehavior now, he will pay for it later. A man does not become a slave by accident or a prisoner by chance. There is unavoidable retribution (adrasteia). Plotinus believes that in seeking more good than we have we show a failure to understand that the form or nature given to any entity is sufficient in itself. 85 Imperfect things increase their value by increasing their resemblance to the perfect things. Again, the question is raised as to how we can explain the state of constant war among the objects of this sphere if the Divine reason prevails, and if all that exists is a part of a rational scheme. Plotinus says that this war is necessary for the transmutation of living things. These things cannot retain their forms forever even if they are not killed. So why should we consider it bad that, because they have to go anyhow, they are planned to be serviceable to others? Besides, so what if they are devoured by others as long as they will return in a new form? It comes to no more than the murder of one of the personages in a play; the actor alters his makeup and enters into a new role. The actor, of course, was not really killed; but if dying is but chang85

Plotinus means sufficient for that particular entity.

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ing a body as the actor changes a costume, or even an exit from the body like the exit of the actor from the boards when he has no more to say or do, what is there so very dreadful in this transformation of living beings one into another? To recapitulate, the universe, which is eternal, depends on an intellectual principle that is good. But this principle is a model for, not a creator of, the universe. Providence, therefore, cannot be a design on the part of this principle to cause or to complete goodness in the universe. Thus, if evil exists in the universe, and obviously it does, this would be not because of, but in spite of, this principle. Evil is caused by choice, which is intrinsic to any human soul, and matter, which is devoid of intelligence and, hence, devoid of goodness. The intellectual principle cannot be blamed for the presence of evil, not only because it is not the cause of evil, but also because it is the source of reason that overflows to matter, imposing on it order, which reduces the amount of evil in matter. The following are the main reasons given for absolving this principle from blame for the presence of evil: (1) The natures of the deficient multiple objects in this sphere force these objects to seek satisfaction of their needs at the expense of other objects. (2) This is the best of all possible worlds because it serves the purpose of the whole and that of the part – this is what constitutes its completion of its own kind. (3) The parts of the cosmos share in goodness differently. Therefore we cannot expect them to be equal in all respects. (4) No one can escape the universal judgment that the good reap the good and the bad reap the bad. (5) Some evils are useful for those afflicted by them. (6) An affliction does not affect the goodness of a good person, as a good event does not affect the badness of a person. (7) This earth, which is the only place that has evil, is small in relation to the cosmos. Also, even on this earth, there is more good than evil – evil touches only a minority of individuals. (8) Victims are in part to blame for not training themselves in self-defense. (9) To demand nothing but Providence in the cosmos is to demand the impossible, for Providence essentially requires a field of action that involves irrationality and evil; otherwise, Providence would not be Providence. (10) Sooner or later, the form or soul of anything in this universe will take off the body it has and take on a new one. So for the old body to be used up by another thing is neither harmful for that body because it was going

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to be destroyed anyhow, nor for the form that is separate from the body because this form will inhabit another body. God and the rest of the divine realm have nothing to do with the existence of evil, but they are given credit for the existence of goodness. This is the Plotinian theodicy, and these are its theses. With this background in mind, we can now move to a study of Ibn Sînâ’s own view of evil and his solution to the problem.

CHAPTER THREE IBN SÎNÂ’S ANALYSIS OF METAPHYSICAL EVIL Ibn Sînâ seems to have been the first Muslim philosopher to preoccupy himself with the problem of evil. In order to work out his theodicy he first examined the reality of evil and then its cause or causes. Like his predecessors who concerned themselves with the issue of evil, he divided it into two main types, metaphysical and moral evil. This chapter will discuss the first of these. Up to the time when David Hume asserted, or was said to have asserted, that there is a logical gap between “is” and “ought,” fact and value, 1 most major philosophers accepted the idea that value and reality go hand in hand. This can be seen in the discussion in Chapter Two on Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. Goodness was, in fact, to be found in nature, in being, and in existence. The consideration some philosophers now give to this gap did not occur to ancient, medieval, or many modern thinkers. Plato, as we have seen, taught, in the most emphatic manner, that being is good and the more being the better. In this he was followed by Aristotle and Plotinus. Ibn Sînâ, whose philosophy was more or less a synthesis of Platonic, Aristotelian, and neo-Platonic elements, readily accepted as unquestionably true the claim that goodness is ontologically grounded. Together with Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus he repeated Whether Hume was referring to a logical gap between is and ought is controversial. See, for example, William D. Hudson, ed., The Is-Ought Question: A Collection of Papers on the Central Problems in Moral Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1969), Part One. 1

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that being is good (khayr) 2 – “being” is here to be understood as concrete being or existence (al-wujûd) – and goodness is being or existence. The more full a thing is in being or existence, the more goodness it has, that is, the higher it is on the scale of goodness. The degree of goodness of a thing is measured by how much being or existence that thing has. Absolute perfection, therefore, is that which belongs to a thing whose being or existence is complete. To Ibn Sînâ, therefore, being is, as the medievals were fond of saying, convertible with, that is, coextensive with, the good. This is to be understood in the sense that each kind of being is convertible with the corresponding good, not with just any kind of good. To be a good knife, for example, is to have a sharp edge. For it is in having its proper nature (ṭabʿ) that a thing is good, and, since the proper nature of the knife is to cut, the knife is good if it can cut. Since good and being are coextensive, we may proceed to ask what about evil (sharr). Like Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, Ibn Sînâ concludes that, if evil is contrary to good, and if good is being, then it follows that evil is non-being or privation or lack (ʿadam) of being. The more being, the better; the less being, the worse or more evil. The hierarchy of goodness corresponds to that of being (an elaboration of this doctrine will be provided in Chapter Four). But, even though evil to Ibn Sînâ is privation, there is for him another kind of evil, an evil that is not to be identified with privation but is a kind of being. The former is either essential or accidental, the latter is accidental only. This is to say that essential evil (ash-sharr bidh-dhât) is privation, but accidental evil (ash-sharr bil-ʿaraḍ) is either being or privation. The main purpose of this chapter is to analyze Ibn Sînâ’s two main types of evil, the essential and the accidental. The main features of essential evil will first be pointed out, together with some difficulties in certain interpretations of it. From there we move to a discussion of accidental evil, including both the positive and the privative or negative, that is, both existing and non-existing accidental evil. Existing and non-existing evil will each be further divided into two kinds. Difficulties with and inconsistencies in the 2

Sh. Il., 416.

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notion of accidental evil will also be pointed out in their proper place.

I. ESSENTIAL EVIL

The following are the main features of essential evil according to Ibn Sînâ. It must also be mentioned that all but two of these features are also applicable to accidental evil in its privative form. 1. Essential Evil Is Privation in Being Essential evil is a privation of being, but this notion must not be understood in the sense of absolute privation (ʿadam muṭlaq) or negation. This type of evil is a negation, but it is a partial negation of being in being, as will be seen later. As for absolute privation or non-being, it would be evil in an absolute sense, or general evil, if it were to exist. 3 This follows from the identification of being with the good. For, if to be is to be good, then not to be at all is to be absolutely evil. But absolute privation does not and cannot exist, for the notion of its existence is self-contradictory. This is so because privation must always be a privation in being, but absolute privation is the consuming of being. In other words, in order for absolute privation to be, being is required, for every privation presupposes the presence of being. But in order for absolute privation to be, being cannot be present, because absolute privation also presupposes the total lack of being. 2. Essential Evil Is Privation of the Natural It has been mentioned that essential evil is privation in being, but it is not just any kind of privation (kull ʿadam) in being. We are told: Thus, essential evil (ash-sharr bidh-dhât) is privation (al-ʿadam), but not just any kind of privation. Rather, it is privation that necessitates the removal from the nature (ṭibâʿ) of a thing of the perfections that are fixed for the species and nature (ṭabîʿatih) [of that thing]. 4

3 4

Ibid. Ibid.

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Compare this with the following passage from Thomas Aquinas: … if a man has no wings, that is not an evil for him, because he was not born to have them; even if a man does not have blond hair, that is not an evil, for though he may have such hair, it is not something that is necessarily due him. But it is an evil if he has no hands, for these he is born to, and should have – if he is to be perfect. Yet this defect is not evil for a bird. Every privation, if taken properly and strictly, is of that which one is born to have, and should have. So in this strict meaning of privation there is always the rational character of evil. 5

Essential evil is the privation of the fixed perfections of that which is natural or normal for a being – “normal” not in the sense not of common or usual, rather in the sense of belonging to the species. But what is meant by “fixed perfections,” “natural,” or “normal?” The basic difficulty in understanding what is exactly meant by much of what the proponents of the doctrine of evil as privation say is that they often use these terms loosely. But two senses of these terms as used by Ibn Sînâ can be isolated. (A) One way these terms are used is to refer to what is essential. It is important, therefore, to determine first of all the meaning of “essential.” The term “essential” in Ibn Sînâ is used to refer to the constitutive concomitance of a being. 6 And we are told that By “the constitutive” I do not mean the predicate which the subject requires for the realization of its existence, such as the fact that a human being is begotten, created, or made to exist; and the fact that black is an accident. But [I mean] a predicate which the subject requires for the realization of its essence, and [which] enters its essence as a part of it. An example is figure for the triangle or corporeality for the human being. 7

Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 5, art. 1. See Amélie Marie Goichon, Lexique de la langue philosophique d’Ibn Sînâ (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1938), 386–87. 7 Ish., Book One, First Class, Ch. 9. 5 6

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(B) Another way in which these terms are used is to refer to any element common to the species, be it constitutive or nonconstitutive. This is confirmed by some examples of essential evil, which is the privation of such perfections. Some of these examples are the absence of an arm or sight in a human being. It cannot be claimed that either of these is a constitutive concomitant of a human being, that is, that it is a quality without which a human being cannot be conceived as a human being. In short, the above-mentioned terms are used to refer to anything essential, that is, that without which a being cannot be conceived as it is, or to any common feature of a species. For human beings, for instance, rationality is a fixed perfection in the former sense, the eye, hand, leg, stomach, and so forth in the latter sense. Essential evil, therefore, refers to the privation of either the essence or anything at all that belongs to the species. The absence of a sharp edge in a knife, of wings in a bird, of eyes, heart, or mind in a human being, of a trunk in an elephant are all examples of essential evil. For they are the lack of perfections that are fixed for the natures of the knife, the bird, the human being, and the elephant – perfections natural for these beings and their species. In order for us to understand what essential evil is, we must first understand in more detail the nature of fixed perfections, since the former is nothing other than the removal of the latter, as has already been mentioned. Fixed perfections, whether in the former or latter sense, are to be distinguished from non-fixed perfections, in that they are necessary for a being to be what it is, not only conceptually but also existentially. Now is it the eye itself, for example, that is a fixed perfection without which a human being cannot be what he or she is, or is it seeing, and if it is seeing, is it the power of seeing or the act of seeing? Some of the examples of fixed perfection given by Ibn Sînâ are organs, such as the human eye; some are capacities or powers, such as human sight; and some are the act or fulfillment of such powers, such as the act of seeing. The real perfection among these three is the act, for of what use, for example, is the human eye or its capacity to see, if it does not actually see? It is only because the capacity to see is a requirement for seeing that such a capacity is considered a perfection. Likewise, because the eye is necessary for sight, the eye is spoken of as a perfection. Therefore, if essential

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evil is the privation of a fixed perfection, and if a fixed perfection is the act, the capacity, or the organ, then essential evil can be spoken of as the privation of any of these perfections. Some discussion of perfection as capacity or power and perfection as act is in order here. To Ibn Sînâ perfections are divided into three kinds: primary perfections (kamâlât aûlâ), those of powers; secondary perfections (kamâlât thâniya), those of acts; and tertiary perfections, those of useful yet non-natural qualities. The perfections of organs are not given special treatment. Tertiary perfections, the last type, are clearly regarded by Ibn Sînâ as unnecessary or unfixed for the nature or species of a being (a discussion of this type will be given in a later section of this chapter). Primary and secondary perfections are fixed perfections, which is why they concern us here, but not all primary and secondary perfections have the same degree of value to the being to which they belong. The reason for this will soon become clear. We are told that “primary perfections” are those such that, “if removed, that of which they are perfections ceases to exist.” Secondary perfections” are those “whose removal does not lead to the cessation of the existence of that thing of which they are perfections, but leads only to the cessation of its well-being. Primary perfections are “powers” (qiwâ) from which secondary perfections proceed. Secondary perfections, on the other hand, are “acts” (afʿâl), which are the result of primary perfections and “come after” them. 8 They also “manifest the benefit” of primary perfections. 9 In short, primary and secondary perfections can be characterized as follows. Primary perfections are (a) powers from which secondary perfections proceed, and (b) perfections whose privation leads to the cessation of the existence of the thing to which they belong. Secondary perfections are (a) acts consequent on primary perfections, and (b) perfections whose privation does not lead to the cessation of the existence of the thing to which they belong, but only to the cessation of that thing’s well-being. 8 9

Na., 100. Sh. Il., 422.

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Let us call the removal of the existence of a thing R1 and the removal of the well-being of a thing R2. If essential evil is to be defined as privation of being, then it is clear that R1 is a more serious type of essential evil than R2. For with the former there is complete annihilation of a being, while with the latter, which is exemplified by something like the privation of the act of seeing, it can be argued that it is possible not only to survive but even to live well. The questions one may pose are the following. First, in what sense are primary perfections powers and secondary perfections acts? Second, is it the case that the removal of primary perfections necessarily leads to the removal of the existence of the thing to which these perfections belong, while the removal of secondary perfections does not lead to that but only to the removal of that thing’s well-being? First, primary perfections, according to Ibn Sînâ, are powers and secondary perfections are acts. But he uses the term “act” in more than one sense. Take motion, for example. We are told that “motion is an act,” 10 but this does not mean that motion is necessarily a secondary perfection. The word “act” is used by Ibn Sînâ, as it was by Aristotle, to refer to motion toward completion as well as to completion itself. Act as completion is a secondary perfection, but act as motion toward this completion is a primary perfection. It must be emphasized, however, that the latter is a primary perfection with respect to the act as completed, not with respect to just anything. This is so because it is the power or potency for the completed act. Thus, even though motion is an act, it is also a primary perfection. But it is a primary perfection “of the thing which is in potency with respect to its essence which is in potency,” as illustrated in the following example: The body which is in a certain place actually and in another place potentially, so long as it is at rest in the former place, is then potentially moving [toward] and potentially reaching [the latter place]. If it moves, there occurs in it a primary perfection and act by means of which it attains a secondary perfection

10

Na., 105.

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY which is the reaching [of the goal, i.e., the completion]. But so long as this perfection, that is, the primary perfection, belongs to it, it is then potentially of the essence which is the end of the motion. Thus, motion is a primary perfection for what is in potency with respect to its being in potency. 11

In short, every power or potency for a certain perfection is a primary perfection with respect to that perfection. Acts as completed or secondary perfections can in turn function as primary perfections, with respect to things that are in a different state of actuality from the one in which they themselves are. Suppose that John, for example, is at point A and has the power to reach point B. If he reaches B, he acquires a secondary perfection with respect to his being at A, but his being at B may be a primary perfection with respect to his being at C, D, E, and so on. There remains the following question. What is the primary perfection for the reaching at B: being at rest at point A and having the power to move to point B, or the actual motion toward B? In the above-cited passage, the motion toward reaching the goal is said to be the primary perfection for that reaching. But, if the primary perfection is to be understood as the power for reaching the goal or for completion, then the primary perfection may be present apart from any movement or activity. For not all powers are exercised at all times, yet no one, including Ibn Sînâ, would want to deny that they remain as powers. And if “power” is to be understood in the sense of potentiality, as he seems to be using the term here, 12 then being at rest at A is more of a power or primary perfection for the completion than it is for the motion. The reason is that being at rest is pure potentiality, while motion is further away from potentiality. It seems that, to Ibn Sînâ, both the pure potentiality for completion and the motion toward the completion are primary perfecIbid. The Arabic term for power in the sense of potentiality and in the sense of faculty is the same (quwwa), but since in this context Ibn Sînâ contrasts quwwa with actuality it would be reasonable to assume that he is using the term in the sense of potentiality. 11

12

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tions for the completion. This is so because, if power is to be identified with potentiality, and if even in the motion toward completion there is still some degree of potentiality since the completion is not yet attained (even though there is no potentiality in the motion for moving as such), then even the motion toward the completion is a primary perfection for the completion, since it is the power for the completion (let alone its pure potentiality). Second, I would like to argue that it is not the case that the removal of any primary perfection leads to the removal of the existence of the thing to which that perfection belongs, while the removal of any secondary perfection leads not to that but only to the removal of that thing’s well-being. If this can be shown to be the case, the implication would be that the removal of some primary perfections is less serious and detrimental for a being, or less evil, than the removal of some secondary perfections. Let us now elaborate on the reasons. It seems that there are at least some primary perfections or powers that can be left out of a being’s nature without affecting the existence of that being. Examples of such powers are the power to hear, the power to see, the power to move the little fingers on the hands, and so on. It is clear that one can lose any or all of these powers and yet remain alive as a human being. No doubt such a being would be deficient as a human being, yet we would still consider this being a human being, as does Ibn Sînâ, for it can be argued that, according to him, a being loses its existence, or cannot exist as it is, only if it is 50 percent or more unnatural. This point follows from considering the following five cases: (1) where a being exists and is fully natural; (2) where a being exists and is more natural than not; (3) where a being exists and is equally natural and unnatural; (4) where a being exists and is less natural than not; (5) where a being exists and is totally unnatural. Let us call these five cases respectively C1, C2, C3, C4, and C5. Because the unnatural and the evil are identified in Ibn Sînâ’s philosophy, these five cases would correspond to the five cases of value he mentions: We say that things in imagination are, if imagined as existing, either (a) things which cannot but be absolutely evil; (b) things

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY whose existence is good, it being impossible for them to be evil and deficient; (c) things in which goodness predominates if their existence comes about, anything other than this being impossible for their nature; (d) things in which evilness predominates; or (e) things in which the two states [goodness and evilness] are equal. 13

Here a, b, c, d, e correspond respectively to C5, C1, C2, C4, C3. Ibn Sînâ believes that all these are conceivable but that they do not all exist. He continues in the same passage: As for that in which there is no evilness, it exists in the nature [of things]. Regarding that which is completely evil, or that [in which evil] predominates, or also that [in which evil] equals [the good, these] do not exist. However, for that in whose existence the good predominates, it is more suitable that it exists – if what is predominant in it is its being good.

Ibn Sînâ makes this statement, but he does not argue for it. I suppose that he may have had in mind some sort of algebraic formula, such as “positive + positive = negative”; “positive + negative which is numerically less = positive”; “positive + negative which is numerically greater = negative”; “negative + negative = negative.” As for “positive + negative which is numerically equal,” or the controversial zero, in this schema the result is “negative.” According to this view, a being, for instance, can exist only if it is either 100 percent natural or normal (C1) or if it is 51 percent to 99 percent natural or normal (C2). If it is 50 percent natural or less, then it cannot exist. However, to say that a being cannot exist does not mean that whatever is left of it cannot exist in any form, but only that it cannot exist as that being. It is unreasonable, though, to assume, for example, that the removal of the ability to move the little fingers, either by itself or coupled with the removal of the ability to hear and see, amounts to the removal of 50 percent or more of what is natural for a human being. For the powers that would be retained are many more than three, and some of them are much more pertinent than these three 13

Sh. Il., 421.

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for being a human being: for instance, the powers to breathe, to digest, to think, to pump blood to various parts of the body, and so forth. If so, then the removal of some primary perfections does not lead to the removal of the existence of the being to whom those perfections belong. It has been suggested to me that perhaps Ibn Sînâ considers the primary perfections powers of the soul and not of the body, and that this is why the removal of a bodily organ such as the eye, or the inability of the eye to see, does not lead to the removal of the existence of the human being. For, to start with, even though the eye is a necessary instrument for the actualization of sight, its removal does not affect the primary perfection, sight, which is in the soul itself. It is only when the primary perfection in the soul is removed that the human being is no more a human being. To this I would like to say the following. Ibn Sînâ’s theory of the soul-body relationship is neither purely Platonic nor purely Aristotelian. He sides with Plato in that he allows for the independence of the rational soul from the body. But the remaining parts of the soul are to him, as the soul is to Aristotle (at least in parts of De Anima), tied up with the body in an essential unity. The primary perfection of the rational soul, which is the power to think, and primarily to think the intelligibles, is separate from the body. The powers of the remaining parts of the soul and the powers of the body are not separate from each other, but one and the same. This is why primary perfections are sometimes attributed to the soul, while at other times, as in the following passage, they are attributed to the body: The separate principles preserve the bodies and their perfections, these perfections being either primary perfections … or secondary perfections … The separate principle preserves these secondary perfections, not by itself, but by placing in the bodies powers which are primary perfections. 14

But the body that has primary perfections is the ensouled or alive body. In short, the primary perfections, with the exception of that of the rational soul, are perfections of the whole human being, 14

Na., 100.

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who, to Ibn Sînâ is in this life a unity of soul and body. If the removal of any primary perfection necessarily leads to the removal of the existence of the human being, then the removal of any bodily organ, such as the eye, must necessarily lead to the removal of the existence of the human being. For with the removal of that organ the power or primary perfection of that organ is removed. Furthermore, even if Ibn Sînâ’s view were that the whole soul is a completely independent reality in this life and the primary perfections belong only to it, it would be hard for Ibn Sînâ to show that the latter point is correct. For it seems that the soul as independent of the body cannot have certain primary perfections such as the power to move the little fingers, to walk, to digest, or to perform any other bodily function. Now if some primary perfections cannot be shown to belong to the soul apart from the body, and if the removal of any primary perfection leads to the cessation of the existence of the being to which that perfection belongs, then it cannot be shown that the following statement is false: “It is not the case that the removal of any primary perfection necessarily leads to the cessation of the existence of the being to which that perfection belongs.” As for secondary perfections, one can cite at least the heart’s act of beating and the lungs’ act of breathing as examples of secondary perfections that seem necessary, not only for the well-being of, say, a human being, but also for the being’s mere survival. If the heart and lungs of a human being have the power to operate, but their operation is hampered by some artificial means, then that human being ceases to exist. It is true that many of the secondary perfections, such as walking, seeing, and laughing, may cease without affecting the existence of human beings (in sleep, for instance, human beings do not normally walk, see, or laugh, yet they remain alive), but this does not seem to be the case with all secondary perfections. It is important to mention in this connection that at times Ibn Sînâ goes even further than what has been argued here, to claim (contrary to his usual view) that secondary perfections, without exception, are necessary for the preservation of “the nature of the

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species,” 15 which is to say that their removal must lead to the destruction of the nature of a species and its individuals. But we shall see later that he does not adhere to this claim for long; he again wavers on the nature of secondary perfections. Indeed, he ends the same chapter in which he makes this claim by identifying secondary perfections with the tertiary or additional perfections, which are over and above the perfections required for the nature of the species. This is to say that the removal of secondary perfections should not affect the existence of a being at all. It has been shown that some secondary perfections are necessary for the survival of a being and that, contrary to his own general view, Ibn Sînâ at times asserts that all of them are. It follows that at least some secondary perfections must be necessary for the survival of the being to which they belong, and their removal, therefore, must constitute R1, the most serious kind of essential evil. Perhaps he wants to say that the primary perfection that belongs to the essence is the kind of perfection which, if it is removed, the being to which it belonged will cease to exist, and not that, if any primary perfection that belongs to a being in this life is removed, then the being to which it belongs ceases to exist. Or, perhaps, he meant that, if any primary perfection is removed, that to which it belongs ceases, not in the sense of ceasing to exist but in the sense of ceasing to be completely what it is. In either case, Ibn Sînâ’s view would be more defensible, for it would be hard to argue against the view that a human being, for example, could remain as a human being after losing the ability or power to think, or that a human being after losing an arm could remain as completely human as one who has both arms. Someone who loses an arm does not, as has been argued here, lose his or her essence as a human being. But it can be argued that such a person is no longer as complete a human being as he or she would have been with both arms. Unfortunately, it is not clear that Ibn Sînâ held either of these views. The only view that can be attributed to him with any certainty is the one that is explicit in the passages cited earlier, that is, that 15

Sh. Il., 417.

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if any primary perfection is removed, the being to which it belongs ceases to exist. It has been shown that, even though some primary perfections are, for Ibn Sînâ, necessary for the survival of a being, some are not, and that, even though not all secondary perfections are necessary for the survival of a being, some are. However, to say that some primary and secondary perfections are not necessary for the survival of a being, but only for its well-being, is not to say that these perfections are not fixed perfections of, or natural for, that being. Neither the power to walk nor walking is necessary for the survival of a human being, yet both are natural attributes of a human being. Not to have such perfections, therefore, also counts as essential evil, yet as R2, which, as discussed above, is less serious than R1. To recapitulate, essential evil is the privation of the natural, be that the essential (that is, the constitutive) or the non-essential. Essential evil has been divided into two types: R1, the removal of the existence of a being, and R2, the removal of the well-being of a being, the former being the more detrimental. According to Ibn Sînâ, the removal of any power constitutes R1, while the removal of any act constitutes R2. But it has been argued here that the removal of some powers and acts constitutes R1, while the removal of other powers and acts constitutes R2. It is better to translate the expression ash-sharr bidh-dhât as “essential evil” rather than “evil in essence.” The reason is this. The expression “evil in essence” may be taken to mean that evil has an essence, and that this essence is such and such. But evil for Ibn Sînâ has no essence, so one cannot say that “its essence is such and such.” In the phrase “essential evil,” on the other hand, evil is understood as the removal of the basic aspect of a thing, in other words, as a fundamental defect or deficiency of something required by the nature of a thing. Finally, I would like to mention that the examples of essential evil given by Naṣr ad-Dîn aṭ-Ṭûsî, the well-known commentator on Ibn Sînâ, do not illustrate this type of evil well unless they are modified. His examples are “death, poverty, and ignorance.” 16 Death, 16

Ish., Book Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 23.

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for example, is not a privation of what is due to living things or of what belongs to their natures, except if it happens at an early time with respect to the individuals of the species. It belongs to the human species, for instance, that individuals die at a certain age, normally around 70 to 90 years. Only if they die at, say, 5, 20, or 30 years of age would their death be considered a privation of what is natural and hence an essential evil. As for poverty, it goes without saying that Ibn Sînâ would not consider it the absence of something that is natural for human beings. Not only is it only possible for him that humans survive (and even survive well) in poverty, but, like Plato and other mystics and contrary to Aristotle, he teaches that negligence of material possessions is a necessary step to happiness. In other words, he might even consider poverty a perfection and its absence an evil. Ignorance, however, can be considered an essential evil, but only on condition that it be taken as general rather than specific ignorance, the latter being the absence of specific knowledge such as geometry. As rational animals, it belongs to human beings to know; however, it does not belong to them to know geometry. We will have occasion to come back to this point later. 3. Essential Evil Is Identified with Disorder What is the disorder with which essential evil is identified? Disorder is the irregular performance or malfunctioning of natural processes. If, for example, the heart, which normally pulsates at 68 to 72 beats per minute, pulsates instead at 155 beats per minute, it can be said that the heart is in disorder. As we have seen, every nature has fixed perfections, and the removal of any such perfections stands in the way of the normal functioning of that nature. 4. Essential Evil Is Evil in All Respects Essential evil is further qualified as evil in all respects. That is, there is no aspect to it by virtue of which it is good. As for the lack of perfection and health [of the harmed thing], it is not evil only in relation to [the harmed thing] – so that it would have a presence by virtue of which it is not an evil. Rather, its very presence is nothing but an evil in it, and in the manner of being evil. Thus, blindness cannot be except in the

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY eye; and, inasmuch as it is in the eye, it cannot but be evil, with no aspect to it by virtue of which it would be other than evil. 17

5. Essential Evil Is Uncaused Because essential evil is non-being, it cannot have a cause, for a cause is always the cause of something. By “cause” here is meant an agent or efficient cause, not just any principle required for the production of an effect. The agent or efficient cause always produces something and not nothing; and everything, every being or positive reality, with the exception of God, assumes an agent or efficient cause. So when Ibn Sînâ says that essential evil is not caused, he means merely that no agent or efficient cause brings it about. Such evil arises, we are told, “not because the agent deprived [the matter of the proper form], but because the receptive element did not accept [it].” 18 This type of evil or privation is due to the inability of matter to receive its proper form or character, rather than to the action of an external cause or causes. This reminds us of what Plato terms “negative evil,” which, as discussed in Chapter Two, arises in the phenomenal world, not because of any agent but because of the inability or refusal of the receptacle to receive or to mirror the forms in their fullness. Compare this image with the following: As for the evil whose principle is the deficiency and shortcoming that occur in the natural constitution [of things, that is, the evil] which is not enacted by an agent but [comes about] because the agent does not enact [something] …

These evils are not due to the action of the agent but to the inaction of the agent because the recipient is not ready [to receive the form imparted by the agent], or does not move toward such reception. 19

It may appear that Ibn Sînâ wavers on whether essential evil is the result of the unreceptivity of matter or of the inaction of the agent. Sh. Il., 416. Ibid. 19 Ibid., 420, 422. 17 18

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And, more puzzling, he sometimes goes so far as to claim that this type of evil is the result of the action of “external causes of evil,” 20 as we shall soon see. Leaving the last alternative aside for the time being, we can consider that what he may have in mind is that there is evil whenever the agent does not enact or impose the proper form on things, but that any time this happens it is due to the resistance of matter. So in the last analysis it turns out that, even if the agent tries to impose the form on the matter, it may not be able to do so if the matter is not ready for that form or does not move in the direction of receiving that form. Thus, in a sense, it can be said that according to Ibn Sînâ this type of evil is the result of the inaction of the agent. 6. Essential Evil Is Due to Matter But why is it that matter is sometimes not ready to receive its proper form or does not move in the direction of receiving that form? We are told two things in this passage. (A) Privation and hence evil follow on (yalḥaq) matter “due to a primary thing that happens to it [from itself], or to an unforeseen [external] thing that happens to it later on.” The first happens “when some external causes of evil occur to certain matter at the beginning of its existence, such that they take hold of it in such a way as to impede the special preparedness [of that matter for] the perfection which was stricken by a counter-balancing evil.” Somehow evil then takes hold (tamakkan) of that matter. In Ibn Sînâ’s own example, if the matter out of which a human being or a horse is made is affected by causes that “make it worse in composition and more resistant in substance, it becomes unreceptive of designing, shaping, and reforming. [If this happens] its natural constitution then becomes deformed.” 21 Here a question must be raised. How can Ibn Sînâ assert that this first type of privation is due to something in the matter itself while insisting at the same time that the privation has external causes? Is the privation caused by something external and then in20 21

Ibid., 416. Ibid.

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cluded as part of the matter itself? He does not give us a clue as to how he might answer such a question. He would seem to be in difficulty, however, whether his answer is negative or affirmative. If the former, then how is the talk about “external causes” to be reconciled with the view that this privation in matter arises “not because the agent deprived [the matter of the proper form] but because the receptive element did not accept [it]?” If the latter, then how is this first type of evil different from the second type, except in that its causes produce it early in the existence of matter while the causes of the second produce it later on? This difference would not be satisfactory to Ibn Sînâ, who, as we shall soon see, wants to say that the difference between the two types of evil involves more than priority in the time of action of the these two types of causes. As for the thing that happens to matter later on, it can be either something that stands in the way of and prevents perfection, or something that opposes and destroys it. This thing that happens to matter later on, negating and preventing the good and necessitating its privation, is one of the types of evil that will be classified as accidental. An example of something that stands in the way of and prevents perfection is extremely bad weather that by preventing schools from opening prevents students from acquiring education and consequently stands in the way of students’ perfecting themselves as students. An example of something that opposes or obliterates perfection is a thunderbolt that strikes and kills a person: it not only stands in the way of a being’s perfecting itself but destroys that being completely, and together with that destruction destroys that being’s perfection. To this we will return later. (B) We are also told that matter is imperfect, not because its natural constitution has been deformed at an early stage of its existence, whether by external causes or because of something internal to it or something that happens to it later and either stands in the way of or destroys its perfection, but simply because matter is by nature potential, and potentiality is the principle of privation and evil. From Aristotle Ibn Sînâ borrows the notions of potentiality and actuality, together with the conviction that the former is the matrix of privation and hence evil, while the latter is a fullness, a completion, and hence a perfection. “Evil follows only that which

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has in its nature what is potential and [potentiality] is due to matter.” 22 Thus evil always accompanies potentiality, and anything free from potentiality is at the same time free from evil. Matter is always potential, and because of this it is always burdened with evil. Matter, Ibn Sînâ says, is the only thing in the universe that is potential, and because of that it is privative and evil: “Matter is the habitat of privation, and no matter how much it has form, there is nothing in it except relative privation; and were it not for [the form], absolute privation would consume it.” 23 Let us illustrate the difference between the points made in (A) and (B). According to the former, blindness in the human eye, for instance, is evil because the eye is such that it cannot have its form, that is, sight, due to some internal or external impediment. The latter, however, does not call for any impediment or deformity in the eye for evil to arise – on the contrary, the eye may be fully normal and its perfection free from any obstacles, yet still count as evil because it is material. For what is material is, as mentioned, always characterized by potentiality, the principle of lack and deficiency. The human eye may have 20/20 vision, but this is full vision only with respect to what we have taken the best human vision to be, not with respect to what vision as such can be. Matter is a limitation, which is to repeat that anything material is somewhat evil. Regardless what the source of evil in matter is, one thing is clear – that it is matter and matter alone in which evil resides. Form (aṣ-ṣûra), the only other principle in things, is always an actuality, in other words, free from any potentiality, and must therefore be free from any evil. As for existence (al-wujûd), the actual, concrete being of form and matter together as one substance, it too is free from evil. For “the existence of anything is perfection at its highest and has nothing in potentiality.” 24 A better way to read this sentence would be “… since it has no potentiality.” It is because existence lacks potentiality that it is perfect. The reason for its lacking potenIbid. R. Ish., in Traités mystiques, 7. 24 Sh. Il., 416. 22 23

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tiality lies in its being an act (in the sense of completion) and being therefore devoid of any potentiality. But this view of existence as a complete act is in conflict with Ibn Sînâ’s view that existence is energy, a motion toward completion, that is, that existence is an act, not as complete but as motion toward completion. It is in conflict with it because to say that existence is a motion is to say that it still has some degree of potentiality, that is, that it is still not complete. But to say that it is a complete act is to say that it cannot go any farther, that it has reached the goal. The former cannot be perfection at its highest as can the latter. To recapitulate, essential evil is (1) a privation in being; (2) not any privation in being, but only that which is of the natural; (3) identical with disorder; (4) evil in all respects; (5) uncaused; and (6) due to matter.

II. ACCIDENTAL EVIL

As for accidental evil, it is, we are told, “the non-existent or that which withholds perfection from what deserves it.” 25 One manuscript, however, has it as “Accidental evil is the destroyer (almuʿdim)” rather the non-existent (al-maʿdûm). George C. Anawâtî and Sa‘d Zâyed believe that it is the “nonexistent” rather than the “destroyer” that best describes accidental evil in Ibn Sînâ. 26 This is also the view held by Amélie Marie Goichon and Jamil Ṣalîba. George Hourani, on the other hand, is of the opinion that the manuscript with “destroyer” better expresses Ibn Sînâ’s intention. 27 Ibid. Marmura, trans., Sh. Il. Bk. 9. Ch. 6, 5. Anâwâti’s and Zâyed’s views are reflected in Sh. Il., 417. 25 26

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It seems that each party in the dispute has a portion of the truth. This is perhaps because each party bases its view on a certain manuscript rather than another. Like many medieval writings, Ibn Sina’s texts have not reached us completely free from corruption. I propose that most likely he intended to define accidental evil as: (A) existing, including (a) something that withholds what deserves perfection and (b) a destroyer of perfection; and (B) non-existent. The reasons for this proposal are presented here. That some existing beings can be evil is clear from the following discussion. (a) There is a type of accidental evil that, as we have seen, Ibn Sînâ describes as one that “withholds perfection.” Here there is no disagreement among scholars. This type must exist, for withholding perfection is performing an action; even if it can be described as a negative action, it is an action nonetheless. But an action is a positive reality, a being, and being, as pointed out above, cannot be produced by non-being. That which withholds perfection must therefore be, or exist. Ibn Sînâ gives the cloud that stands between the sunlight and the beings that require sunlight for their growth and perfection as an example of this type of accidental evil. And surely a cloud is an existing being and not nothing. (b) There is a further type of accidental evil, which exists, like the previous type, but is to be distinguished in that it destroys rather than withholds perfection. Fire that burns the legs and renders them unfit for walking is an example of this type of evil. Ibn Sînâ distinguishes between the two types of existing evil as “either (a) something that stands in the way of, obstructs, and makes distant the perfective; or (b) something that opposes, [comes] in contact [with], and destroys the perfected.” 28 The former withholds perfection, the latter destroys perfection. It is also clear that the non-existent can in certain instances be accidental evil, for example, the privation of a certain perfection that is over and above what makes a being what it is. Not all perfections are of the fixed type. Knowing physics or chemistry is a Goichon, Lexique, 158; D. Ṣalîbâ, Dictionnaire philosophique (Beirut: Dâr al-Kitâb al-Lubnânî, 1978), 1: 695; Hourani, “Ess. Sec.,” 25–48. 28 Sh. Il., 416. 27

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perfection for a human being, but it is not a common or natural feature of a human being. The destruction of a fixed perfection is essential evil. Since not all perfections are fixed, not all destruction or privation of perfection is essential evil; what is non-essential must be accidental, for qualities are either essential or accidental. An elaboration on this type of evil will be provided later. It follows from this discussion that the correct formula for accidental evil includes that which withholds or destroys perfection, as well as the non-existent, that is, both the existent and nonexistent types. Further evidence for this will be given in the discussion that follows. Let us now discuss the two types of accidental evil. 1. Existing Accidental Evil This kind of evil is predicated of anything that, as mentioned above, creates a privation of the good, whether by withholding or by destroying the good. Now what things can be classified as evil in this sense? A careful reading of ash-Shifâʾ, Ilâhiyyât, book IX, chapter 6 shows that four kinds of evil can be classified under existing accidental evil: pain and grief; blameworthy acts such as injustice or adultery; principles of character behind the blameworthy acts; and any agent that brings about a privation in the nature of anything. Such agents are either remote or proximate and connected (that is, connected to the thing harmed by them). An example of the former is “the clouds when they cast their shade, preventing thereby the sun’s rising on what needs to perfect itself by the sun.” An example of the latter is the fire that touches a person’s arm, thereby creating a burn, or a lack of what is natural to that arm. 29 It seems that Ibn Sînâ means to identify the remote with that which withholds perfection, and the proximate and connected with that which destroys perfection. The example given for the remote (the clouds preventing the sun from reaching what needs or deserves it) is the same as that given for that which withholds perfection. And while the examples given for the proximate and connected and for that which destroys (for the former, fire that touches a 29

Ibid., 415.

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human organ; for the latter, cold that closes in on plants and freezes them to death), 30 the two examples are similar in that they both speak of something that is proximate and touches (that is, is connected) and destroys. Let us now examine the features of existing accidental evil. (1) Existing Accidental Evil Is Being In contrast to essential evil, which is a privation of being, existing accidental evil is in itself a being, but its effect is privation. Pains and griefs, blameworthy acts, the principles behind such acts, and any sort of agent or cause of privation are for Ibn Sînâ positive realities. Take pain and grief for example: “Even though the essences of pains and griefs are positive and not privative, it is as if privation and deficiency follow from them.” 31 Parviz Morewedge asserts in The Metaphysica of Avicenna that in ash-Shifâ’, 415, Ibn Sînâ says that “Deficiency is viewed in one sense as privation and in another sense as pain.” 32 But what is actually said there is not that deficiency is either privation or pain, but that evil is either deficiency or pain: You must know that evil (ash-sharr) is said to be of [various] types. Thus, (1) “evil” is said of what is deficiency (an-naqs), such as ignorance (al-jahl), weakness (ad-da‘f), and deformity (attashwih) in the natural constitution; and (2) “evil” is said of what is like pain (al-alam) or grief (al-ghamm). 33

Morewedge in his translation replaces “evil” by “deficiency” and “deficiency” by “privation” (ʿadam). The replacement of “evil” by “deficiency” is to be rejected on the ground that, as the previously cited passage shows, there is at least one thing (that is, pain or grief) which is not a deficiency at all but a positive essence or reality, yet is considered by Ibn Sînâ as a kind of evil. Deficiency is evil, but not all evil is deficiency. The two cannot therefore be used in-

Ibid., 416. Ibid., 419. 32 The Metaphysica of Avicenna, trans. Parviz Morewedge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), 132 n.2. 33 Sh. Il., 415. 30 31

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terchangeably in his philosophy. Replacing “deficiency” by “privation” is also to be rejected, for, again, the two things do not mean the same thing for Ibn Sînâ. While deficiency is always privation, since it is the lack of perfection, not all privation is deficiency. For example, we would not call the lack or privation of horns in a cat or a human being a deficiency. Only the privation of what must be is a deficiency. This not to say that all privation, including of what must not be, is to be described as deficiency. (2) Existing Accidental Evil Is Good Because existing accidental evil is being, and because being is good (as discussed above), it follows that existing accidental evil is in itself good. Evil is attributed to it only because it causes evil. Pain and grief are, as we have seen, positively real, and insofar as they are thus, they are good. Their real evil is in relation to that which suffers their effects, such effects being only incidental to pain and grief. Nor are acts in themselves privative; that is to say, they are not in themselves evil. But their effects can be deficiencies, and hence evil for what is stricken by those effects: Evil in acts exists only in relation to the one who loses perfection by the reaching of [evil] to that person, [evil] such as wronging (aẓ.-ẓulm); or in relation to the perfection one loses which is required by religious policy, [evil] such as adultery. 34

We are told in the same passage that what is called an evil act

is only evil in relation to the cause [which is] receptive to it, or in relation to another agent prevented [by that act] from acting in that matter to which [this agent] has more claim than that act.

And when acts have such evil effects evil is then predicated of them, not essentially but only accidentally. Again, even principles of character can be evil, but only when privative effects result from them:

34

Ibid., 419.

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Principles of character are only evil by virtue of the proceeding of these [evils] from them – [such principles of character] are compared to the soul which is deprived of perfections that belong to it.

Finally, the agent or cause of deficiency, be that the remote or the proximate and connected, is in itself good, since it is positively real. A cloud, for instance, is good; when it causes harm in other beings we call it “evil,” even though the harm or evil is not in the cloud and does not touch it in its being, but is in something else. (3) Existing Accidental Evil Is a Good for the Cause Enacting It We have said that pains and griefs, blameworthy acts, principles of character, and other causes of deficiency are good in themselves, and evil only in relation to what is affected or harmed by them. But what value do these causes of deficiency have in relation to the causes enacting them? The answer is that they are always good in relation to their causes. We are told that any act that, for example, is called “evil” is a perfection in relation to the cause that enacts it. 35 Take the act of domination (al-ghalaba), for instance, which Ibn Sînâ identifies with injustice (aẓ-ẓulm). This act proceeds from, or is caused by, the spirited power. Domination is the perfection of this power. Everything is created to seek its perfection, as we will discuss in more detail in Chapter Four, and the spirited power was created to be directed toward domination, seeking it and rejoicing in it. Therefore, [domination] in relation to it is a good for it; [but] if it weakens from [exercising domination], [then] in relation to it [domination] becomes an evil for it.

An issue here needs to be clarified. It has been said that the act of domination is a perfection of the spirited power. Now note that, when this power is too weak to dominate, the act of domination becomes an evil of it. But if this act is a perfection of this power, then the evil in relation to this power must be not the act itself but the privation that may result from the weakening or inability of this Ibid., 419–20. The discussion and quotations for the rest of this section come from these pages. 35

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power to produce this act. This confusion between the privation of the act and the act itself is also evident in the next passage, along with a different kind of confusion: [This power] is evil only with respect to the one suffering wronging or with respect to the rational soul whose perfection is to override it and control it. If [the rational soul] is unable to do this, this then would be an evil for it. The same is true of the cause enacting pains and burning, such as fire. If it burns, for example, then burning is its perfection; yet [burning] is evil in relation to the one who has been deprived of health by it – due to the loss of what one has lost. 36

In the first part of this passage, the spirited power is said to be evil in relation to “the one suffering wronging,” and in relation to another power of the soul, the rational soul. In the second part, however, it is not the power but the act of that power that is considered evil in relation to what is harmed. It is not fire, the power to burn, but the burning itself that is evil from the perspective of the burned. Powers, their acts, and even the effects of such acts are not always kept distinct by Ibn Sînâ, and it is sometimes very difficult to untangle his statements about such matters. (4) Existing Accidental Evil Necessarily Results in Evil We have said that evil as belonging to existing things is accidental to those things. But we are also told that, given the natures those things have, evil never fails to result from them. 37 In other words, evil is a necessary outcome of the natures of some things. This is to say that what is accidental to the nature of a thing can at the same time be a necessary aspect of that thing. But that which is accidental to a thing is something without which the thing can continue to exist. What is necessary to a thing, on the other hand, is something without which the thing cannot continue to exist. Is Ibn Sînâ, therefore, inconsistent by asserting that: (1) evil is accidental to things, that is, those things can continue to exist without that evil; 36 37

Ibid. Ibid., 421–22.

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and (2) evil is a necessary outcome of those things, that is, those things cannot continue without resulting in evil? Before we answer this question, the following must be made clear. Even though Ibn Sînâ uses “necessary” in the above-mentioned sense, he also sometimes uses it in other senses. So it is important to understand in what sense he is using the term when he says that evil is a necessary consequence of existing things. Aristotle distinguishes three types of necessity. The first is simple or logical necessity. Something is necessary in this sense if it always holds true, for example, “5 + 5 = 10.” The second is natural necessity, for example, “If x occurs, then y must occur” (that is, y is a necessary condition for the occurrence of x). This type of necessity is hypothetical or conditional. The third type is forced or violent necessity; something is necessary in this sense if it can be made to go contrary to nature. 38 Ibn Sînâ accepts the distinction among these three types of necessity. It is the second type he has in mind when he says that the occurrence of evil is a necessary outcome of certain existing things. If a human arm is burned, then fire must have been present. But this does not mean that whenever there is fire a human arm is burned. Fire is a necessary condition for the burning of the arm, but its presence alone is not a sufficient condition for the burning. Only under certain additional circumstances does the burning of the human arm become unavoidable. It is in this way that such an event is said by Ibn Sînâ to be a necessary outcome of fire. In other words, under certain circumstances or conditions, if fire does not result in such an evil, then fire would not have the nature of fire – those circumstances or conditions being the presence of fire and the actual clashing of fire with some combustible element, such as the human arm. This point is made explicit in the following passage. Anthony Preus, Science and Philosophy in Aristotle’s Biological Works (Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1975), 185. Preus refers us to some works of Aristotle, including Metaphysics, Δ, 5, 1015a, 20–615; Λ, 7, 1072b, 11; Physics II, 9. 38

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY If the existence of fire consists in its burning something; and the existence of that which burns something is [such] that, if it touches the poor man’s garment, it burns it; and [if] the existence of the poor man’s garment [is such] that it is receptive of burning; and [if] the existence of each one of them [is such] that it is subject to the occurrence of diverse motions; and [if] the existence of the diverse motions in things that are thus described is an existence of what is subject to the occurrence of coming together; and [if] the existence of coming together of the agent and the patient is by nature an existence which necessitates action and reaction; then if what [comes] second is not, then what [comes] first is not; therefore, the active and the receptive, the celestial and the terrestrial, the physical and the psychical powers have only been arranged in the whole in such a manner that they would lead to the universal order – with the impossibility of their being what they are without leading to evils. 39

In short, things such as fire can be themselves and can continue to be themselves without resulting in a particular evil; however, under certain conditions they necessarily result in those particular evils. This is how the following statements “Evil is accidental to certain things” and “Evil is a necessary outcome of those things” can be reconciled. The necessity is hypothetical. Two points are relevant to this discussion. First, the coming together of all the conditions necessary for the bringing about of any evil such as the burning of the human arm is unavoidable. There are in the world diverse motions of things, which make it inescapable that such things will clash at times and deprive each other of certain perfections. 40 In other words, the clashing of something like fire with something burnable is required by the existence of these diverse motions. What about the existence of the diverse motions themselves – is that also necessary? Like everything else in Ibn Sînâ’s universe, the diverse motions must necessarily exist. So, even though the storm, for example, is conceivable 39 40

Sh. Il., 421–22. Ibid., 422.

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apart from the destruction it creates to the tree branches (which is to say that such destruction is accidental and not necessary to the storm in the sense of being an ever-present property), it is not accidental in the sense that the particular storm that serves as a necessary (and perhaps sufficient) condition for the destruction could have come into and gone out of existence without serving as such a condition. That particular destruction can, in that respect, be considered essential or necessary to the being of that particular storm. Second, while a particular evil may be claimed to be accidental to a particular thing, in the previous sense, not all evil may be claimed to be accidental to all things, as Ibn Sînâ claims. It is true that many storms may come and go without creating any destruction or evil, and that many clouds may also come and go without preventing the sunshine from reaching the plants that require the sun for their perfection (or functioning as a precondition for any kind of evil). But, if we take something like fire (his favorite example of existing accidental evil), we find that the situation is different. It is true that fire does not have to deprive a human arm, for example, of certain perfections in order to be itself, for necessity rarely requires it to clash with a human arm. However, it is also true that every fire cannot be fire without depriving something of its nature, be it wood, fuel, cotton, paper, human flesh, or what have you. This is to say that fire cannot exist without having to create evil continuously. Evil, therefore, is not something fire can do without and hence might be considered accidental to fire, even though a certain type of evil is accidental in this sense. Rather, evil enters the being of fire as an essential aspect of it. This point seems closer to saying that evil is necessary to fire in the sense of simple and not hypothetical necessity, for it is impossible to have fire of any sort without at the same time having evil of some sort. 2. Non-Existing Accidental Evil Non-existing accidental evil is of two types. (1) As the Effect of Existing Accidental Evil The effect of existing accidental evil is, as we have discussed, always a privation of what must be, and hence is evil. It is precisely because of this kind of privation that existing things which cause such privation, and are in themselves good, are called evil. The

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blindness of a man that is caused by the kicking of a horse is a privation of what is natural for the man and is, because of that, evil. This type of evil is accidental, yet it must be remembered that it is accidental with respect to its cause (the horse, in this case). It is important to mention this because, while this kind of evil is accidental with respect to the horse, it is essential with respect to the human being who is affected by it. (2) As the Privation of Additional Perfection Ibn Sînâ’s treatment of the various types of privation should help us identify the second type of non-existing accidental evil. We are told that evil in the sense of privation is evil either (a) with respect to a necessary thing, or (b) [with respect to] a beneficial thing close to being necessary, or (c) with respect not to that but to something that is possible in a minority of individuals. 41

According to this passage, there are two types of privation. The first is a privation of what is necessary or essential to a being. Primary perfections and some secondary ones have already been classified as necessary for a being. A privation of such perfections must therefore be a deficiency or evil in a primary or essential sense. Since our present discussion centers around non-existing accidental evil, this type of evil does not concern us here. It is not accidental but essential, and has already been covered in the discussion of essential evil. The second type of privation does not concern us here either, for it is a privation of a perfection that is useful and serves the well-being of the thing to which it belongs. The privation of some types of secondary perfections such as walking, moving the little finger, and so forth is an evil of this sort. This type of privation can also be classified under essential evil, for the examples given in the text are of privations of natural qualities. The third type of privation is the lack neither of what is necessary nor of what is useful, but of certain tertiary perfections that are

41

Ibid.

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possible for some beings. This type of privation is the second type of non-existing accidental evil. Tertiary perfections are not required by or necessary for the nature of a species or its individuals. 42 If such perfections exist, therefore, they must be over and above the perfections that either are (in whole or in part) constitutive of the nature of a being or are common features of that nature (i.e., of primary or secondary perfections). A privation of such a tertiary perfection is, then, “evil not with respect to the species but with respect to a consideration additional to what is necessary for the species.” Examples of such a privation are “ignorance of philosophy,” “ignorance of geometry,” and “not having radiant beauty.” 43 We have given examples of tertiary perfections, but we have not said in what respect the knowledge of geometry, say, is a perfection at all if it is not required by the nature of the species. Things such as knowledge of geometry are perfections if they are required by an individual. 44 A privation of such a perfection is therefore evil with respect to a certain individual, not with respect to the species. But what makes the knowledge of a certain field of learning like geometry required by certain individuals and not be other individuals in the same species? Ibn Sînâ’s response is that An individual requires it not from being a human being or a soul, but only because the goodness of that which is missing has been confirmed [so that] the individual desires it and becomes fully prepared for it. 45

But the missing element is not an evil without the confirmation of the goodness of what is missing; the evil seems to lie in desiring the goodness one does not have. If, for example, Tom comes to understand the goodness that philosophy has, yet finds himself unable to attain that goodness, or perhaps attains it and loses it, then Tom’s not having that goodness is evil for him, since it creates in him suffering as a result of desiring that goodness. Ibid Ibid. 44 Ibid., 417. 45 Ibid. 42

43

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But are things such as knowledge of philosophy and geometry tertiary perfections for those to whom the goodness of such things has been confirmed, or are they tertiary before such confirmation and become necessary after the confirmation? That is, are they then among the perfections that are indispensable to the nature of human beings? The following statement may be taken to imply the latter alternative: Prior to [the confirmation of the goodness of that which is missing, that goodness] is not among [those things] toward which a thing is moved to preserve the nature of the species, [as in the case of] being moved toward the secondary perfections which come after the primary perfections. 46

It is as if, after such confirmation, the goodness of such things is of the same type as the things that preserve the species. The above statement is misleading because it is similar to a mother’s statement to her daughter, “Before you eat your dinner, there is no candy for you,” which is usually taken to mean that there will be candy for the daughter after she eats her dinner. But we know that Ibn Sînâ’s view is that the goodness of things like those mentioned above is always tertiary to the nature of a being. This is made clear in the statements preceding and following the passage just cited. The following points also support this position. First, the statement under consideration does not say that after such confirmation the goodness of such things becomes necessary, even though it is ordinarily taken to mean so. Second, in no other place is this kind of goodness asserted to be other than tertiary. And third, it would be indeed strange for Ibn Sînâ to assume that something like radiant beauty or knowledge of geometry is necessary for the preservation of one’s nature. For it seems possible for all people to look ugly and be ignorant of geometry without losing any feature of their natural constitution. This is what Ibn Sînâ means when he says that such perfections are additional to what is necessary for a species. Such perfections must therefore be tertiary even after their being confirmed as being perfections. And without that confirmation they are not perfections of any sort. 46

Ibid.

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In short, Ibn Sînâ is denying the value of things such as knowledge of philosophy or geometry, and extreme beauty, apart from the confirmation to us of the goodness of such things. If Sarah, for example, does not know that knowledge of philosophy is good, then that knowledge would not be good for her; even when it does become good for her, it is not necessary for her being a human being. I would like to argue, however, first, that, even if one does not know the goodness of something such as the knowledge of philosophy, that knowledge may nevertheless be good for one. Second, even if one knows the goodness of such things, those things may not be good for one. And third, the evil resulting from the absence of tertiary perfections can be shown to be something other than, or in addition to, the sorrow experienced at not having such perfections. First, it seems that one may not only not know the goodness of any branch of knowledge, such as philosophy or psychology, but may even consider such knowledge bad. Yet if one happens to acquire it one may benefit greatly from it: philosophy may sharpen one’s mind, and psychology may help one get along better in society, regardless of one’s beliefs about the value of such fields. Again, consider a child who does not know that the knowledge that fire causes pain is good. No one would deny that such knowledge is good for the child in spite of the child’s ignorance of that goodness: such knowledge may protect the child from harm and even death. Furthermore, it is rather strange that Ibn Sînâ lists knowledge of philosophy among the tertiary perfections. As we will see in Chapter Four, such knowledge, according to him, is necessary for the completion of a human being who is not a prophet. In that respect, knowledge of philosophy is not only not a tertiary perfection (a perfection only for those who understand it to be so), it is a basic perfection for being a complete human being. Second, it seems that knowing the value of what Ibn Sînâ refers to as tertiary perfections is not necessarily good for the one who knows it. Consider a beautiful-looking woman who understands that extreme beauty appeals to others and may even blind others to her defects. Such a woman may neglect cultivating some of her potentialities, including the intellectual ones, and rely for success on her appearance. Obviously such a woman is not benefit-

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ing from the knowledge that beauty is good and that she possesses such beauty. But even though the knowledge that beauty is good may act as an impediment to some human beings’ progress, it certainly does not have to do so, if we know how to use our knowledge of the goodness of beauty. The point here is that it is possible to misuse the knowledge and turn its goodness into an evil for oneself. Third, according to Ibn Sînâ, the knowledge that a thing is good leads to the desire to have it, but if one does not have it or is unable to obtain it, sorrow and suffering are experienced. Experiencing these feelings is described as the evil of the absence of tertiary perfections. But suppose the claim is true that, if one knows something to be good, one thereby desires it and prepares oneself to have it. It can still be shown that the evil of the absence of tertiary perfections is not necessarily the experienced sorrow, even though that sorrow may also count as evil. The previous argument has shown that tertiary perfections may be perfections apart from our knowledge of them as perfections. Since for Ibn Sînâ the contrary of a perfection – that is, the privation of a perfection – is always evil, it follows that the privation of such perfections is evil in itself, apart from anyone’s experience of any kind of feeling about it. The sorrow is some kind of added evil; with or without it, the absence of tertiary perfections should also count as evil. Finally, even though Ibn Sînâ distinguishes secondary and tertiary perfections in the manner previously discussed, he sometimes confuses the two types. This confusion is clearly seen in the following passage: Indeed, evils that are deficiencies of secondary perfections are predominant; however, those are not the evils that our discourse is about. Examples of such evils are ignorance of geometry, lack of radiant beauty, and the like. [These evils] do not harm the primary perfections or the perfections that come after the primary ones and manifest their benefit… These evils

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are the privation of goods that fall under the type of superabundance and excess. 47

At the beginning of this passage, secondary and tertiary perfections are identified. First, secondary perfections are said to be outside the concern of the present discourse, but the discourse reveals that only tertiary perfections do so. Second, the examples given of secondary perfections are the same as those of tertiary perfections: “ignorance of geometry, the lack of radiant beauty, and the like.” But these perfections are then immediately distinguished from secondary perfections: they “do not harm the primary perfections or the perfections that come after the primary ones and manifest their benefit”; here the perfections that come after the primary ones are the secondary ones. It remains for us to ask how the privation of tertiary perfections comes about. The answer is that such privation is not due to the action of an agent, but to the inaction of the agent either because the recipient is not ready [to receive the form imparted by the agent], or does not move toward [such] reception. 48

But this point is questionable, for, after all, it seems that a tertiary perfection, say, a woman’s beauty, may be removed if a horse kicks her and deforms her appearance by knocking her teeth out and blowing her nose off. It is true that the non-existence or even the loss of such perfections may be due to the natural constitution of a being, but this does not seem to be the case for all of them. To summarize our findings concerning accidental evil, this type of evil is either of the following: 1. Existing accidental evil, under which fall (a) that which withholds perfection and (b) that which destroys perfection. The former is described as remote, the latter as proximate and connected. Four types of things can be classified under one or the other of these: pain and grief, blameworthy acts, principles of character that 47 48

Ibid., 422. Ibid.

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motivate such acts, and other agents of privation, such as fire that burns a human organ. Existing accidental evil has been characterized as (a) being, (b) good, (c) evil only in relation to what is harmed by it, and (d) necessarily resulting in evil. 2. Non-existing accidental evil, under which fall (A) the effect of existing accidental evil (this is accidental only with respect to its cause), and (B) the privation of tertiary perfections. This chapter has discussed and commented on metaphysical evil with both its essential and its accidental types. There remains according to Ibn Sînâ a further type of evil: moral evil. This type of evil will be the subject of Chapter Four.

CHAPTER FOUR IBN SÎNÂ’S NOTION OF MORAL EVIL So far, only metaphysical evil has been discussed in detail. Moral evil was touched on briefly in the discussion of existing accidental evil. When blameworthy acts and their principles were classified under existing accidental evil, their metaphysical character was pointed out, but nothing was said about their moral nature. It was said that a blameworthy act exists and that real evil does not enter its being. But its moral character derives not from this categorization but from its relation to human conduct. What is thought to differentiate human conduct from that of other beings on this earth is the fact that the former is the conduct of beings that can reason, and the latter is not. Since moral evil is other than metaphysical evil, and since Ibn Sînâ admits the presence of both, a complete study of his notion of evil must include a discussion of moral evil. The discussion below falls into five main parts. First, Ibn Sînâ’s definition of moral evil, followed by a discussion of the descent of the human soul into the body and its relation to the body in the present life. Second, an analysis of the nature of the good. Third, a description of the way to the good, together with a study of the various human faculties whose proper function is required for reaching the good. Fourth, a depiction of the state of having reached the good. Fifth, a discussion of Ibn Sînâ’s view of the various moral states of the soul and the consequences of these states.

I. THE DESCENT AND STRUCTURE OF THE SOUL

Moral evil is the evil of the human soul, resulting from ignorance. Ignorance in turn is the result of being removed from the intelligible world due to being immersed in matter. But how does the immersion of the human soul in matter take place? 101

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Ibn Sînâ was a Neo-Platonist, and the notion of emanation is one of the most fundamental principles of his system. The world proceeds or emanates from God as a result of God’s contemplating God’s own nature. The first being that emanates from God, that is, the first caused by God’s act of contemplation, is the first intelligence. This intelligence is different from the Plotinian first intelligence or nous in that it is not the first being but the first caused being: to Ibn Sînâ, God is being in the primary sense, as opposed to the Plotinian One, or who is above being. The first intelligence can contemplate three things: (1) its cause, God, the necessary in Himself; (2) itself as necessary through God; and (3) itself as possible in itself. As it contemplates the first of these, a second intelligence emanates – the intelligence of the first heaven. As it contemplates the second, the first soul emanates – the soul of the first heaven. As it contemplates the third, the body of the first heaven emanates. The second intelligence goes through the same process of contemplation. As it contemplates its cause, a third intelligence emanates – that of the heaven of the fixed stars. As it contemplates itself as necessary through the first intelligence, a second soul emanates – that of the heaven of the fixed stars. And as it contemplates itself as possible in itself, a second body emanates – that of the heaven of the fixed stars. This process of emanation continues in the same fashion resulting simply from the reflection of intelligence on its various aspects, until it culminates in the intelligence of the moon, often considered to be the tenth intelligence in Ibn Sînâ’s cosmology. 1 This position is also supported by the statement that the number of the separate intelligences is “ten after the first.” Thus Sh. Il., 401. It can be argued that the intelligence of the moon, even though often referred to as the tenth intelligence, is actually the eleventh: 1

1. The intelligence of the moon is the last celestial intelligence. 2. Every celestial intelligence except for the first is the intelligence of a celestial body. 3. The moon is the tenth and last celestial body. 4. Therefore the intelligence of the moon, that of the tenth celestial body, is the eleventh celestial intelligence.

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the last of these, that of the moon, is the eleventh. This intelligence is the active or agent intellect, known also as the giver of forms. At the point that the process of emanation reaches this intelligence, the power of contemplation, the light of intelligence or energy of being, is greatly diminished. As a result, the product of its contemplation breaks down into many individual intelligences, souls, and bodies, a sign of weakness and evil (under the Platonic and Aristotelian view that only the simple is good). When this last celestial intelligence contemplates its direct cause, the human intelligence, known as the theoretical or speculative intellect (al-ʿaql annaẓarî), emanates. When it contemplates itself as necessary through its cause, the practical intellect (al-ʿaql al-ʿamalî), which is similar to the celestial souls, emanates. (For consistency, one would want to call it the “human soul,” but it is advisable not to do so because Ibn Sînâ uses this name for both the human intellects taken together.) And when the last celestial intelligence contemplates itself as possible in itself, the individual bodies on this earth come about. The celestial intelligences and souls are called angels: the former angelic intellects or cherubim (al-karrubiyūn), the latter angelic souls or active angels (al-malâʿika al-ʿamala). 2 The two faculties of the human soul are also called angels; the same functions assigned to the celestial angels are assigned to the human or terrestrial angels, but performed in a less perfect manner. The function of the celestial intellects is by their knowledge to guide the souls of their spheres. The function of the celestial souls is to look up to their intellects; to desire their goodness and try to imitate it; and in accordance with that desire to try to move their spheres. The function of the theoretical intellect is to know and be an example for the practical intellect. The practical intellect is to desire and try to imitate the theoretical one, and in accordance with this desire to try to move and direct the body. In Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓân, the theoretical intellect is said to be the angel whose place is on the right and whose function is to dictate and order; the practical intellect is the angel on the left, whose function is to write and obey. 3 2 3

Sh. Il., 435. Ḥayy, 18.

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This is the origin and nature of the human soul. But because we are human beings our soul is not purely human. Having surpassed plants and animals in being, we possess what they cannot possess, the human soul. But we also retain what they possess, the plant and animal souls. For Ibn Sînâ the soul of a human being is divided into three parts, also called souls: the vegetative soul (annafs an-nabâtiyya), the animal soul (an-nafs al-ḥayawâniyya), and the human or rational soul (an-nafs al-insâniyya or an-nafs {an-âṭiqa}). The first two constitute the irrational soul. Each of these parts is further divided into powers or faculties. (1) The faculties of the vegetative soul are the reproductive (al-muwallida), the nutritive (al-mughadhdhiya), and the growth (almunammiya). (2) The faculties of the animal soul are the intellective or sensitive (al-mudrika) and the locomotive (al-muḥarrika). The intellective faculty consists of the external senses (al-ḥiss al-khârij) and the internal senses (al-ḥiss al-dâkhil). The former include sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. The latter include common sense (al-ḥiss almushtarak); the representational faculty (al-khayâl or al-muṣawwira); imagination (al-mutakhaiyyla) or the cognitive faculty or al-mufakkira) – it is called “imagination” if the estimative faculty is used and cognitive if the “intellect” is used; 4 the estimative faculty (al-wahm); and memory (al-mutathakkira or al-ḥâfiẓa). The intellective faculty plays a very important role in determining the kind of life one leads, and will be discussed further later on. As for the function of the locomotive faculty, it is to order the organs that serve it to move and act in the direction of objects it considers good and pleasurable or away from objects it considers harmful. (3) The human or rational soul, as mentioned above, is divided into two faculties, the theoretical and the practical. Aristotle saw the soul as consisting of four parts: the nutritive, the intellective or sensitive, the locomotive, and the rational. Ibn Sînâ combines the intellective and the locomotive into the animal soul and reduces the parts of the soul to three, as they are in Plato (Plato’s appetitive, spirited, and rational souls corresponding to the vegetative, animal, and rational/human souls described above). 4

T. R., Hindiyya edition, 29.

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This is how the human soul descends to the body, and this is the metaphysical structure of our whole soul, of which the human soul is a part in this life. Now we can return to our original problem: how does evil enter the human soul, which is a part of us, and what is the way out? Much of what Ibn Sînâ says concerning moral value is directly connected with the good. But since evil is, according to him, the contrary of the good, his discussion of the good will help us understand his notion of evil. Most of the discussion in the following pages will therefore be an elaboration of Ibn Sînâ’s view of the good.

II. THE NATURE OF THE GOOD

For Ibn Sînâ the good is defined as the desirable, or that which is sought by a thing. 5 For example, every faculty of the soul mentioned above always moves toward what from its own perspective is good and suitable for it. 6 For no being moves “except to seek a thing which is better and more suitable for it than that thing’s absence.” He is aware that not everything sought by a being is necessary actually good for that being, but what is sought (even if not actually good) must be good either in belief or in imagination. 7 In short, the object sought is always good, qualified in two ways. The object must always be good in relation to the being seeking it, in actuality, belief, or imagination. There is an inclination planted in every being to move always toward what is good and suitable for it. This inclination is what Ibn Sînâ calls “love” (ʿishq). 8 Thus it is by virtue of love that all things, including the various parts of the soul, move toward the good and the suitable when it is absent, and have the urge to unite with it when it is present. 9 R. Ish., 2. By “suitable,” Ibn Sînâ means “the good in relation to a thing, such as the sweet for taste” (U. H., 59). 7 Ish., Book Two, Third Class, Ch. 27. 8 R. Ish., 3. 9 Ibid., 4. This object of the natural inclination or love is good, so the inclination or love itself is also described as one of the two elements of the specific good of a being: “the specific good [of a being] is in reality 5 6

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Risâla fî Mâhiyyât al-ʿIshq portrays clearly the love for the good that flows in every being and every element of the universe. The vegetative soul, for example, having three faculties, also has three loves: The first concerns the nutritive faculty. This is the source of the [being’s] yearning for the readiness of the nutrition, when the body needs it, and its restoration in the fed, after its transformation into the [being’s] nature. The second concerns the growth faculty. This is the source of the [being’s] yearning for acquiring a proportionate growth in the parts of the fed. And the third concerns the reproductive faculty. This is the source of the [being’s] yearning for preparing the principle of a being similar to the one that begets it. 10

This love is instinctive, and “necessarily accompanies” these faculties of the vegetative soul as well as all the faculties of the other parts of the soul. “Hence these [faculties of the soul] are by nature loving.” Thus love moves all these faculties toward what is good for them. The realization (idrâk) of these faculties, in the sense of attainment of their good, is pleasurable (ladhîdh) for them. The sweet, which is the good and suitable for the taste, is pleasurable for it when it acquires it. The same is true of light in relation to sight, and of domination in relation to the spirited faculty. 11 But Ibn Sînâ reminds us that the various faculties of the soul are not equal in their capacities for the realization of their objects, and the objects themselves of these faculties are not equal. From this he concludes that the pleasures of these faculties are not equal. Taste, sight, and the spirited faculty, for example, are “deficient in realization,” and their objects are “deficient in existence.” That is why the pleasure of

the inclination to a thing, and the consideration as to whether [that thing] is in reality suitable for it.” 10 Ibid., 7–8. 11 U. H., 59.

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these three faculties and any like them is asserted by Ibn Sînâ to be deficient. 12 The human or rational soul’s ability to realize its objects, on the other hand, is complete, and its objects, the first principles (of which the highest is the First Truth), are complete in existence. The rational soul’s realization of its objects must therefore be the “most pleasurable thing.” This state of realization is described as the state of knowledge, and the pleasure accompanying it as the attainment of the highest good that any faculty of the soul can possess. Since pleasure and happiness are in general identified in Ibn Sînâ, this pleasure is referred to as the highest or greatest happiness. But at times he refers to it simply as happiness, implying that no other pleasure can really be characterized as happiness. 13 If the rational soul’s realization of its objects does not appear to us as intensely pleasurable, or appears only slightly pleasurable, that would be due to a preoccupation of the soul with the body. Such preoccupation is compared by Ibn Sînâ to a disease, and souls so preoccupied are comparable to the sick who do not find the sweet pleasurable, or find it harmful. But if the impediment is removed, the sweet is found pleasurable and the bitter painful. This is also like the one who is under anesthesia, and does not feel either pain or pleasure. 14

Preoccupation with the body not only prevents us from tasting the highest pleasure, it prevents us from feeling any pain at not having that pleasure. If the rational soul that is not so preoccupied fails to realize its objects, it is then pained, for such realization is the specific function of the soul, and “every faculty’s loss of its specific Ibid. Compare this discussion with the following passage from Aristotle: “Now sight is superior to touch in purity, and hearing and smell to taste; the pleasures, therefore, are similarly superior, and those of thought superior to these, and within each of the two kinds some are superior to others” (Nicomachean Ethics, 1176a, 1–4). 13 Ibid. The term “happiness” will hereafter refer only to the highest pleasure, that is, the pleasure of the rational soul. 14 Ibid. 12

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function is painful to it, if it apprehends the loss.” 15 When it is immersed in the body, however, the rational soul is unable to know what it has lost of pleasure, and therefore does not feel the pain. For pain is only felt when we know that a good can be achieved and is not, or that a good was achieved and is now lost. In short, the preoccupation of the soul with the body stands in the way of the rational soul’s realization of its objects. Such preoccupation also stands in the way of that soul’s understanding that it has not achieved the pleasure it can and should achieve, and so prevents the soul from feeling pain at the loss of this pleasure. When the rational soul is freed from the fetters of the body, its pleasure at realizing its most primary object, the Good, is then heightened, and its pain at losing sight of the Good becomes tormenting. Such pleasure and pain are far more intense than the pleasure of tasting the sweet and the pain of not tasting it or of tasting its contrary. 16 This highest pleasure or happiness, the grasping of the highest good, is the best state a human being can and should achieve, and its absence is the worst evil a human being must avoid. But how is this state reached, what are the obstacles in its way, and what are the consequences of reaching or not reaching it? These questions and others are addressed on the following pages.

III. THE WAY TO KNOWLEDGE 1. The Role of the Imagination One of the faculties of the animal soul is, as has been mentioned, the intellective faculty. This faculty is the first path that leads to the state of knowledge, that is, knowledge of the universals and first principles. The external senses pick up the forms of physical objects, inasmuch as these forms are still mixed with matter and its accidents. These senses cannot pick up these forms as abstract essences:

15 16

Ibid., 60. Ibid.

CHAPTER FOUR: MORAL EVIL It is as if the [external] sense is a stripping of the form from the matter, and the taking of the form into itself; but this stripping is such that, if matter is removed, it too is removed. It is a stripping associated with the material accidents. 17

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From the external senses, these forms enter the internal ones, starting with common sense and ending with imagination. In common sense the forms are somewhat purified of their material aspect. They are then stored in the representational faculty, which has the capacity to make the forms even more abstract than they already were. “That is why it can retain the form, even after the form’s material object disappears.” But this faculty cannot completely free the forms from all material attachments, for it “does not apprehend the forms except as they are conveyed to it by the [external] sense [i.e., mixed with matter].” The cognitive faculty can then have access to these forms. This faculty can conceive of non-sensible essences, but never apart from their representational quality, that is, as still mixed with matter. As the representational faculty is the store for common sense, so is memory the store for the cognitive faculty. 18 Imagination now comes in to strip what it pleases from the contents of both stores. It combines and recombines, constructs and reconstructs the contents of the representational faculty and memory. 19 But whatever it comes up with must still be at least somewhat mixed with the material, since this is the nature of the raw material with which it works. Thus none of the faculties of the animal soul is capable of “conceiving the essence of a thing as abstracted from attachment to matter.” 20 Because of this, no complete knowledge can be given to us by any of the faculties of the animal soul, not even by imagination, the highest of them, since knowledge is the grasping of pure essences. The objects of imagination are still somewhat dark and invisible. Setting aside the objects of imagination for the time being, let us Ibid., 42. Ibid. 19 T. R., 29. 20 U. H., 42. 17 18

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investigate the part of our soul that is said to be capable of attaining knowledge. 2. The Role of the Theoretical Intellect The human or rational soul is said to be the only part that can conceive the essence of a thing as free from any matter. This soul can “conceive anything in itself and free from material attachment; this is the essence that is applicable to many.” 21 But it is not the human soul as a whole but the theoretical intellect alone that has the capacity for this knowledge. Knowledge, however, does not come to the theoretical intellect directly, but rather in stages: the potential or material intellect, the actual intellect, and the acquired intellect. The potential intellect is the theoretical intellect prior to any acting or knowing. It is the mere capacity or potentiality for knowing the intelligibles. Hence its name is also “material intellect,” not because it is material but because it stands to knowing as matter stands to form, that is, in a state of potentiality. The habitual intellect is the theoretical intellect “brought out of [the potential stage] to actuality by means of the occurring of the primary intelligibles to the soul. 22 The last two stages are described in the following way: A third stage is the soul’s possession of the acquired intelligibles, thus becoming an actual intellect. And those intelligibles themselves are called the acquired intellect. 23

It is clear what the potential intellect is, but a word must be said about the other three. Even though the habitual intellect is said to be actual, it is said to be so only with respect to the potential intellect. With respect to the actual intellect, however, it is still in potentiality. It is a halfway house between pure potentiality and pure actuality. When the theoretical intellect fully attains the intelligibles that are in the habitual intellect, it is then the actual intellect, not only with respect to the potential and habitual intellects, but also U. H., 42. Ibid., 42–43. 23 Ibid. 21 22

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with respect to its essence as actual. When this happens it has reached the highest actuality it can ever reach. The intelligibles that are the objects of the actual intellect are also called the “acquired intellect.” It may be helpful here to point out the distinction that al-Fârâbî draws between the actual and the acquired intellects. The actual intellect is the acquiring of the intelligibles from the potential intellect. There is no habitual intellect for al-Fârâbî; from pure potentiality the theoretical intellect jumps to pure actuality. The acquired intellect, on the other hand, is the reflection of the actual intellect on “the intelligibles that are forms in it, insofar as they are intelligibles in actuality.” In other words, the acquired intellect is the reflection of the actual intellect back onto itself, since the actual intelligibles in it on which it is said to reflect are nothing but itself, for the known and the knower are one. 24 This description of the acquired intellect as a reflection on the actual or acquired intelligibles seems to make more sense than Ibn Sînâ’s description of it as the acquired intelligibles, for, after all, an intellect is a reflection or the power of reflection, while the intelligibles are objects of reflection. And thus they cannot be described as an intellect, but rather as the content or objects of an intellect. The question now is how the potential intellect acquires the intelligibles since it is a mere capacity. A mere capacity of potentiality cannot of itself, according to Ibn Sînâ, become actual. The only way for it to become actual is through something that is already actual, and which can extend its actuality to it. 25 The potentiality of the theoretical intellect cannot, therefore, become actual except through something already actual and capable of extending its actuality to the potential intellect. That actual thing is the agent or active intellect. The agent intellect has three functions: (1) to induce change in the sublunary sphere; (2) to impose the proper forms, including our souls, on matter, when the latter is made ready by various celestial influences; and Al-Fârâbî, Abu Nasr. The Letter Concerning the Intellect, in Philosophy in the Middle Ages: The Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Traditions, ed. Arthur Hyman and James J. Walsh (New York: Harmer and Row, 1967), 216–17. 25 U. H., 43. 24

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(3) to provide the theoretical intellect with the intelligibles, turning it thus into an actual intellect. It is this last function that concerns us here. The way the agent intellect actualizes the potential one is compared to the way the sun makes the physical things actually visible to sight: As the sun shines on the physical objects making them, thereby, visible to sight, so also does the effect of the agent intellect shine on the objects of imagination, making them intelligible by abstracting them from matter, conjoining them, thereby, to our souls. 26

The traditional view as expressed by Michael Marmura in his article, “Avicenna’s Theory of Prophecy in Light of Ash‘arite Theology” is the following: In Avicenna, the material images themselves are not transformed into abstract concepts. They merely prepare the soul to receive the intelligibles from the active intellect. 27

But the above passage shows that the material images are transformed into abstract concepts, and do not only serve to prepare the soul for the reception of the intelligibles. This passage says that the agent intellect sheds its light on the objects of imagination, which are material images, “making them intelligible by abstracting them from matter.” The abstract concepts are extracted from the material images by casting the material aspect of these images aside. So the agent intellect does not bring the abstract concepts in from outside the soul and impose them on the potential intellect. Rather it finds them in the imagination in a state of impurity. This is not to say that the agent intellect cannot, or does not in some cases, impose these abstract concepts on the theoretical intellect from outside, and without making use of the objects of Ibid. Michael Marmura, “Avicenna’s Theory of Prophecy in like of Ash‘arite Theology,” in The Seed of Wisdom: Essays in Honour of T.J. Meek, ed. William S. McCollough (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 166. For a similar view see Henry Corbin, Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Pantheon Books, 1960), 140. 26

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imagination. But the agent intellect does that only in the case of the prophet. The proceeding of knowledge from the agent intellect to the human soul can therefore be either in stages (the case of the philosopher, as we have been describing here) or immediate (the case of the prophet). The former requires the soul to prepare the objects for knowledge in imagination, which the agent intellect then lights, making them knowable to the theoretical intellect. The latter requires no action on the part of a human being – all it requires is as perfect a bodily composition as is possible for a human being to have. Both philosophical and prophetic knowledge are described as emanating from the agent intellect. But this is to be understood in the sense that the former type of knowledge comes about only with the emanation of the light of the agent intellect on the objects of imagination, while the latter is derived in content and in visibility from the agent intellect. It should be pointed out that the philosophers and the prophets are a minority, and most of them are philosophers. The majority, on the other hand, live on the imagination level, the level of confusion, half truth and half falsity. 28 To summarize, the majority of people do not reach the highest form of knowledge (this majority will later be divided into those who are ignorant and those who fall in a state between ignorance and knowledge). Of the minority of people who know, some are philosophers and some prophets. The former outnumber the latter; their knowledge is achieved in stages, some involving the active participation of the human being. The knowledge the latter have, on the other hand, is direct, and is the result of an external force, the agent intellect. Knowledge, whether philosophical or prophetic, renders its possessor, the human soul, eternal and divine, as the objects of knowledge are. This is the highest state of good and happiness possible for a human being. 3. The Role of the Practical Intellect It remains for us to determine the role of the other faculty of the human soul, the practical intellect, in acquiring knowledge. If only a 28

Ḥayy, 7.

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non-material substance can grasp the first principles – a conviction based on the identification of the knower and the known – then the further the human soul is from the body, the more capable it is of knowing, and the closer it is to the body, the less capable it is of knowing. Since the human soul cannot in this life be completely free from the body, it has to do the best it can to act in the body while remaining as free from it as possible. But since the human soul is immaterial and the body material, a connecting link is needed. This connecting link between the human soul and the body is the practical intellect. The function of the practical intellect consists in trying to run the body and the whole practical life of a human being in accordance with the ethical principles it receives from the theoretical intellect, the terrestrial angel that dictates and orders. The ethical principles emanate from the theoretical intellect, which in turn has received them from the higher celestial intelligences. In accordance with the dictation given by the theoretical intellect, the practical intellect tries to move the body. The practical intellect can be compared to a soldier whose function is to try to put order into his chaotic city by obeying the laws of the state. Every faculty of the body is directed by nature toward its own good, regardless how that affects the order of the whole human being. It is inevitable that the interests of these various faculties clash at times, harming each other and sometimes harming the whole individual. It is the function of the practical intellect to create health and peace by allowing each faculty to fulfill its desire, in order that it may survive, yet without any excess, greed, or violation of the proper functioning of the other members of the body. To perform this function, the practical intellect must not only know what is right and what order consists of, it must also have the power to act on the body and react with it. In contrast to the human soul’s realization of the universals, which occurs in the soul by itself, the actions and reactions of this soul occur in it as it is related to the body. The actions of the human soul, or more precisely of the practical intellect, are the considerations of and prudence in what must and what must not be pursued in particular matters – all such considerations and prudence are in accordance with choice.

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As for the reactions of the practical intellect, they are “states consequent on preparedness for [things such as] laughter and crying.” 29 The two faculties of the human soul are described thus: One of these is to prepare for acting [and reacting]; and its face is turned toward the body. By means of it, what should and what should not be done, what is good and what is bad of particular matters, are distinguished. This is the practical intellect. It is perfected in people by experiences and habits. The second is a faculty prepared for theoretical knowledge … ; and its face is turned upward. By means of it, divine emanation is received. 30

The primary function of the human soul, however, is knowledge. 31 So the primary function of the soul is that of the theoretical intellect. The function of the practical intellect is merely to help prepare the way for this knowledge. And the practical intellect is said to have prepared the way for knowledge when it performs its function, that is, when it guides the body in accordance with the ethical principles the knowledge of which comes to it from the theoretical intellect. (The relationship of the practical and theoretical intellects to each other is critically examined in Chapter Five.) When the practical intellect performs its function well, it acquires its perfection, which by itself is the means to worldly happiness. And this worldly happiness is the first step to happiness in the afterlife. Now the question is this. If the practical intellect is to obey the ethical principles, what kind of life would it have to impose on the body? The answer is that it has to impose a life of the virtues “temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice” and the avoidance of their contraries. Temperance is a virtue of the appetitive power, courage of the spirited power, wisdom of the rational soul, and justice of the functioning of these three powers in accordance with their “principles and branches.” 32 Functioning in this way, these powers result in virtues such as generosity and contentment, which U. H., 41. Ibid., 42. 31 Ibid., 40. 32 R. Akh., Ms. Kopûbi 1607, 92b. 29 30

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belong to the appetitive power. It is due to virtues such as these that the appetitive power is temperate. Patience and forgiveness are examples of the virtues that belong to the spirited power. Wisdom, firmness, and honesty are counted among the virtues that belong to the rational soul. 33 The vices that should be avoided are, as mentioned, the contraries of these virtues: impatience, love for revenge, divulging secrets, and so forth. The greatest vice of all, we are told, is “ignorance,” the deficiency of knowledge “which is the greatest virtue of the rational soul.” 34 Two questions are here in order. (1) What is the nature of these virtues? (2) How are these virtues formed, and is it possible to unform them? (1) The nature of virtue. “Most of these virtues,” we are told, are “means between vices.” Temperance, for example, is a mean between the vices greediness and loss of appetite. Generosity is a mean between stinginess and extravagance. And justice is a mean between wronging and being wronged. 35 (2) Forming and unforming virtues. The answer to the question how virtues are formed and unformed can be drawn from the following passages: Every human being is born with a power by virtue of which one does the good acts; and by virtue of the power itself one does the bad acts… All morality, the good and the bad, is acquired. When one does not have an actual moral character, it is possible for one to move to the contrary of that character by means of one’s will…

That by means of which a human being achieves for oneself a good character, and acquires it when one has no moral character, or moves oneself from a moral character one has, is habit. By “habit” I mean the repetition of performing one thing

Ibid., 93a. Ibid., 95. 35 Ibid. 33 34

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many times, for a long time, at close intervals. A morally good character is only the product of habit, and the same is true of the morally bad character…

If we are in the habit of doing things by virtue of whose habit a morally good character accrues to us, [these] are the habits of performing acts that belong to morally good persons. Similarly, if early in our lives we get accustomed to performing the acts of the morally bad persons, from such habit a morally bad character accrues…

The case in this is the same as that in the [other] skills. Thus expertise in carpentry, for example, is achieved by a human being only when he is in the habit of performing the acts of an expert carpenter… … morality occurs only as a result of the habit of performing acts that proceed from moral characters. 36

The following points are made in the above passages: A. The power of being a moral individual is inborn and is natural to us. B. The power for doing the good is the same as that for doing the bad. C. Morality is acquired. D. The acquiring of morality is the result of habit. E. It is possible to change our moral character by means of the will. F. That by means of which we move ourselves from one moral character to its contrary is habit. 36

Ibid., 95–96. According to Aristotle,

but if the acts that are in accordance with the virtues have themselves a certain character, it does not follow that they are done justly or temperately. The agent also must be a certain condition when he does them; first he must have knowledge, second, he must choose the acts and choose them for their own sakes, and third his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character. (Nicomachean Ethics, 1105a, 28–34)

Ibn Sînâ might agree with this qualification, but there is no statement to this effect.

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G. The habit of performing good acts is acquired by repeating often, for a long time and at close intervals, the acts of the morally good person; the habit of performing bad acts is acquired by repeating often, for along time and at close intervals, the acts of the morally bad person. 37 Something must be said concerning (E) and (F). Suppose you have trained yourself to tease your grandmother and thus have acquired the habit of teasing her. But suppose that after awhile you decide that teasing her is a bad habit, and that you want to stop it. According to (E), you can stop it if you so will. But (F) shows that willing alone is not sufficient for breaking this bad habit. What is now needed is the forming of a new habit that is the contrary of the one you want to break. The way to break the habit of teasing is to form the habit of not teasing. But one may wonder whether every habit has a contrary. For Ibn Sînâ, a habit is “the repetition of performing a thing many times.” A habit is therefore a positive act or performance. So, while you can be said to be in the habit of teasing or the habit of killing, it would be strange to say that you are in the habit of not teasing or the habit of not killing. But if to break the habit is to move to the habit which is its contrary, and if some habits do not have contraries, how then are those habits to be broken or unformed? To return to the main discussion, when the practical intellect fulfills its function by running the body in accordance with ethical principles, the human soul is said to have the upper hand. In this state, the soul is free from the blind demands of the body. And thus it becomes free to contemplate the higher principles. To recapitulate, two conditions must be fulfilled if knowledge, goodness, and happiness are to be achieved. (1) The practical intellect must have control over the body through having the body live through the rules of the four cardinal virtues. (2) This only prepares the soul for the reception of knowledge. Knowledge is then abstracted by the agent intellect from the content of imagination by the mere reflection of the agent intellect’s light over this content. This is what happens in the case of the philosopher. In the case of the prophet, there is no need for fulfilling these two condi37

R. Akh., 96.

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tions. For the body of the prophet is already well-ordered and lives a life of virtue: this is its natural state. The agent intellect sheds its knowledge on the prophet directly without having to use the content of imagination.

IV. THE BLISS OF THE KNOWLEDGEABLE SOUL

When the human soul grasps the infinite intelligibles, it is described as “without matter,” for all matter is finite, and “what is finite cannot have the power to seek or enact the infinite.” 38 From this Ibn Sînâ concludes that That which realizes the intelligibles, that is, the human soul, is a substance not mixed with matter, free from bodies, separate in essence, in constitution, and in intellect. 39

When knowledge becomes actual, the soul that has it, be it the human or the celestial soul, is said to be divine. 40 For, after all, to be separate from matter is to be fully actual, and to be fully actual is to be perfect and divine. The thing to keep in mind is that it is by means of grasping the infinite intelligibles that the soul becomes separate from matter, infinite, and divine. But the knowledge of the intelligibles must be preceded by the … knowledge of the true causes, especially the First Cause, as it is impossible for the intelligibles to exist without being preceded by the existence of those causes, especially the First Cause which is pure and absolutely good in Itself. 41

This is to say that knowledge of the intelligibles is at the same time knowledge of the First Cause. And how could the grasping of the First Cause be other than divine? All the intelligibles are proper objects of the human and angelic souls, but it is the First Cause which is the most proper object of these souls. And because, as mentioned, the proper object of any

U. H., 45. Ibid., 46. In T. R., p. 38, this statement ends as follows: “… actually separate in essence and constitution.” 40 R. Ish., 18. 41 Ibid. 38 39

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faculty is a good for that faculty, and is hence loved by it, the First Cause must, therefore, be the best object for the human and angelic souls, and most loved by them. It is true that It is a good for everything in the universe, since It is the First Cause of everything’s constitution, and the being that sustains everything in existence. 42 However, It is not the proper object of everything, for the proper object of a thing cannot be something that the thing is made not to be able to seek. But it has been said that the finite cannot seek the infinite. Since most things in the universe are finite, and since the First Cause is infinite, it follows that most things in the universe cannot seek It. The human and angelic souls, however, are infinite, and can therefore seek It. And unless they grasp It they remain incomplete. It has been said that the knowledge required to know the intelligibles must be preceded by knowledge of the First Cause. But when the First Cause is known, all the intelligibles are also known. For they are in It. To know It is at the same time to know all the intelligibles, essences, or realities, to have these reflected in the soul. This reflection of the intelligibles in the soul is the perfection of the soul. 43 A question arises here. If any faculty’s realization or grasping of its object is a perfection or pleasure for that faculty, then why is the human soul’s realization of its object a higher perfection and pleasure than the perfection and pleasure that can be achieved by the other faculties at reaching their own objects? Ibn Sînâ’s answer can be understood along the following lines. When the human soul realizes its objects, it becomes infinite, eternal, and divine, as its objects are. But the case with the other faculties is different. At realizing their objects, those faculties realize a transient perfection and pleasure, as their objects are. Such a perfection and such a pleasure leave them where they were, that is, finite and perishable. The eternity and happiness reached by the human soul is referred to by al-Fârâbî as the “afterlife.” 44 Ibn Sînâ must agree, since a soul in this state has no more contact with the body, the principle Ibid., 20. Ibid., 21. 44 al-Fârâbî, The Letter Concerning the Intellect, 220. 42 43

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of the worldly life. This state of eternity can be achieved temporarily in this life and permanently after death.

V. MORAL EVIL AND THE STATES OF THE VARIOUS SOULS

The way of reaching the highest good has already been described. Evil is acquired in the following way. If the practical intellect is not strong enough to take hold of the desires and demands of the body, it is then overruled by these desires and demands. This will blind the soul, and render it unfit and unable to receive the light of the agent intellect. When this happens, it is not possible to go beyond the light of imagination, and the road to truth, goodness, and happiness is then closed. With that, the life of ignorance, that is, the life of evil, prevails. In discussing which souls receive happiness in the second life and which do not, Ibn Sînâ compares the states of the souls to those of the bodies. Bodies, he tells us, can be in three states. (1) The state of extreme beauty and health. A person in this state receives an abundant portion of worldly and physical happiness. (2) The state of the lack of extreme beauty and health. A person in this state receives a medium portion of worldly and physical happiness. (3) The state of ugliness and illness. 45 Nothing is said about what a person in the third state receives; we are left to assume that such a person receives an abundant portion of worldly and physical misery, since a person in the contrary state receives the contrary of this. Similarly, souls are found in three states. (1) The state of full virtue of character and mind. A person in this state “will have the highest degree of happiness in the future life.” (2) The state of the lack of full virtue of character and mind. A person in this state “is among those who are in safety and receives a portion of the goodness of the future life, even though not having a great store of the knowledge required for [happiness] in the second life.” (3) The state that is similar to that of the ugly and ill. A person in this state is harmed in the future life. 46 45 46

Ish., Book Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 24. Ibid.

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It is clear from this that there are two types of souls that receive happiness in the future life: the fully virtuous and knowledgeable and those that are not so. And there is one type of soul that does not receive happiness, but receives harm instead: the soul characterized by the qualities contrary to virtue and knowledge, that is, by vice and ignorance. And the two types that receive happiness, as noted, receive it not in the same amount or the same kind: the happiness received by the first is of a nobler kind than that received by the second. 47 There is a problem in distinguishing the second and third types of souls. Not to have virtue and knowledge (the second type) may be to have vice and ignorance (the third type). The same is true of the states of bodies: if they are not of beauty, they may be of ugliness. If so, the second type should be made more specific; otherwise, it might be argued that souls in the third state can be saved, a position that goes contrary to Ibn Sînâ’s view. We find that the third state is not of one kind either. First, it is the state of “a kind of ignorance”; a person in this state is subject to “eternal destruction.” Second, it is the state of “a kind of vice or an aspect of it”; a person in this state is subject to “limited suffering.” 48 But what kind of ignorance and what kind of vice lead to these states is never stated. The picture becomes even more perplexing in light of the following passage: Do not listen to the one who considers happiness limited to [a certain] number [of people] and denied to the ignorant and sinful, a denial to eternity – God’s mercy is plentiful. 49

But we have been told that a kind of ignorance creates eternal destruction. So, in addition to the fact that we are not told what kind of ignorance leads to eternal destruction, we are no longer sure whether such ignorance does or does not lead to eternal destruction. In attempting to understand moral evil in Ibn Sînâ, one must note that he first points out that this kind of evil is ignorance. The Ibid., Ch. 25. Ibid. 49 Ibid. 47 48

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reason for this claim is made clear by indicating the value of knowledge. While there is no clear claim that knowledge of the First identifies us with the First, there is at least the claim that, by revealing the Eternal to us, knowledge makes us eternal and thus helps us transcend the transient, the source of evil. Knowledge, therefore, is described as the source of pleasure or happiness. Since the only way to know is to be separate from matter, the real source of moral evil is taken back to the falling of the soul into the body. The Neo-Platonic downward and upward movements are clearly seen in Ibn Sînâ as representing respectively the movements toward evil and good. If knowledge is described as that which provides us with a happy worldly life as well as a happy afterlife, and if ignorance is the falling short of this knowledge, then ignorance must lead to worldly as well as spiritual misery. This ignorance is the source of moral evil. Early in this chapter it was shown that ignorance results from the attachment of the human soul to the body. Therefore moral evil, which is this ignorance, is metaphysically grounded. Detach the human soul from the body, and you abolish ignorance, and with that you abolish moral evil. The following chapter will discuss, among other things, who, if any being, is responsible for moral evil.

CHAPTER FIVE IBN SÎNÂ’S SOLUTION FOR THE PROBLEM OF EVIL AND THE PROBLEM OF DESTINY Now that the nature of evil has been analyzed, we come to two very important questions. How does Ibn Sînâ reconcile the presence of evil with the absolute goodness of God, whose other attributes are also all absolute? How does he reconcile God’s justice with the requirement for rewards and punishments in a deterministic system? These questions will be answered in order.

I. THE SOLUTION FOR THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Ibn Sînâ’s attempt to solve the problem of evil consists of a number of theses. Each thesis is intended to tackle one aspect of the problem; all of them together are used to form a theodicy. Let us consider them one by one. 1. God Is Good and Providential, But God’s Providence Is Not to be Understood in the Traditional Sense Ibn Sînâ misses no opportunity to assure us that his belief in God’s absolute goodness is firm indeed, and that this goodness cannot fail to lead to providence (al-‘inâya), whose presence is evident. Providence, we are told, is something that cannot be denied, for it is clearly manifested in

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY the amazing marks of the formation of the world, the parts of the heavens, and the parts of the animals and plants that do not come about accidentally but require a certain governance. 1

But we are often reminded that the meaning of “providence” is not the traditional one. 2 Rather the term is used in a very technical sense, to mean (1) the knowledge the First has in Himself of [the manner of arranging] existence according to the good; (2) the fact that He is in Himself a cause of goodness and perfection inasmuch as that is possible; and (3) the fact that He is satisfied with the order [of the good] in the way previously mentioned. 3

God’s providence, therefore, consists of three elements: (1) God’s knowledge of the place of every existent in the order of the good; (2) God’s being the cause of every possible perfection; and (3) God’s being pleased with the order of the good as it stands. (1) God knows the order of the good, how its parts are interconnected, and the proper place of every part. God does not create the possibility for, or make up, the order in which all the pieces fit. The possibility for the order was there; all God did was to think it, know it, and reflect on it. 4 Sh. Il., 415. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines providence as consisting of three elements: (1) God’s foreseeing the future of everything; (2) God’s guidance of the universe; and (3) God’s concern and care for God’s creation (6: 509–10). See Paul Edwards, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan/Free Press, 1967). This view of providence was adopted (at least in its most important elements – God’s guidance and care for the universe) as early as Plato (see Laws 887–888). Traces of it are found in Plotinus (Enneads III, 2 [47], ch. 9; III, 1, [3], chs. 9–10), and in some Stoics (e.g., Epictetus, Discourse, 1.16). But it is most evident in Christianity; see, for example, Matthew 6: 25–33; 10: 29–31. 3 Sh. Il., 415; cf. Ish., Book Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 22. 4 Lawrence Dewan in his article “St. Thomas and the Possibles” gives a similar view of the relation of the Thomistic God to possibility. He argues that Beatrice Zedler is mistaken in asserting that to Thomas Aquinas the possibility for things is the result of God’s creation. Rather the 1 2

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 127 (2) By God’s reflecting on it, it proceeds or emanates from God, since reflection is production. Thus God can be said to be the cause of perfection and goodness. But the important thing to keep in mind here is that, even though what emanates from God is good, it is so only “inasmuch as that is possible.” Surely we cannot conclude from this that what emanated from God cannot, therefore, be absolutely good, since it is not possible for it to be so. We can conclude only that if it is not absolutely good – and the presence of evil in the world leaves no room for it to be absolutely good – then this is all that was possible for what emanates from God to be, that is, to fall short of absolute goodness. The following question should be raised here. Is Ibn Sînâ saying that the order of existence, which is good and which emanates from God, is not absolutely good? Or is he saying that only certain parts of it are not absolutely good but, perhaps, as these imperfect parts are situated in their proper place in the order, the order becomes completely perfect? There is no doubt that many parts of the universe that proceed from God are admitted by Ibn Sînâ to be themselves imperfect. What about the order itself, then? The answer is not clear. We are told that God “thus thinks the best possible order of the good, and hence what He thinks emanates from Him as the best order and good which he thinks.” But to say it is “the best possible order” in no way helps us understand whether it is to some degree lacking in goodness – not the goodness that belongs to it (that type of goodness is complete), but goodness as such. And from the fact that some of its parts are deficient it would not follow that it itself must therefore also be deficient. For one may argue that the parts may be broken and deficient in themselves, yet the whole may be completely perfect thanks to its consisting of such parts. We will see later this is precisely the view Ibn Sînâ advocates. Because there is some deficiency or evil in parts of the world, the order is sustained and made completely good of its kind, but this possibility for things is an element in God’s being, and is prior to God’s willing and (hence) creation (see Introduction to Aquinas, On the Unity of the Intellect Against the Averroists, trans. Beatrice H. Zedler [Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1968]).

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does not tell us whether the evil renders it completely good as such. It would seem that, even though nothing is directly said to indicate that the order of being or the good falls short of absolute goodness, it must be the case that it does. For nothing but God can be absolutely good. (That this is Ibn Sînâ’s view will be further elaborated on and argued for in the next section of this chapter.) (3) The third element of providence is God’s being pleased with the order of the good. It is interesting that this point is made after Ibn Sînâ has already stated that God is the cause of the order. It seems that his reason is that he does not want to be taken to mean that it is as if God knows the order; that this knowledge of it leaves God pleased with it; and that because of this pleasure God brings it into existence. Its coming into existence has nothing to do with whether God is pleased with it, but is the unavoidable consequence of God’s knowledge of, and reflection on, the order. Thus the order that emanates is nothing but a manifestation of the order known by God – in fact, it is an exact copy of that order. Hence “the existence corresponds to the known.” 5 Whether God was pleased with the order had no effect on the order’s emanation. It so happened, however, that as God reflected on it after it had emanated, God was pleased with it. All this shows that, even though God is described as good and providential, that goodness and providence do not extend beyond God’s knowledge of what the order of the good consists of; that God’s knowledge necessarily leads to the production of the good; and that God approves of it when considering it. But if God is absolutely good, you may ask, why would God not try to guide and take care of all individual beings? Why would God’s providence not extend beyond God’s knowledge? Ibn Sînâ’s answer is that it is precisely because of God’s goodness that God cannot stoop down to do anything for any being. According to Ibn Sînâ, it is impossible for God to intend to do anything for what is below God: It is impossible for the exalted causes to do what they do for our own sake or in general to be concerned in anything, moti-

5

Ish., Part Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 22.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 129 vated by a motive and subject to the occurrence of any preference. 6

This is so, Ibn Sînâ teaches, because

every intending is for the sake of the intended, and is more deficient [in] existence than the [intended]. For anything that is a purpose for another thing has a more complete existence than that other thing – inasmuch as it and the other thing are as they are. Rather, by means of it, the other thing acquires the measure of existence the intention called for. It is impossible that the more complete existence be acquired from a less complete thing. 7

If, for example, you intend to become a teacher, then “teacher” is your intended object or purpose and must therefore be more complete than what you are. In other words, for God to intend to produce the world or anything for it is for God to seek something from the world. But, since God is complete in existence, there can be nothing for God to seek from the world, since the world is less in existence than God. It is impossible, therefore, for the emanation of the world to be the result of God’s intention. 8 But what becomes of Ibn Sînâ’s view that the good in the world is intended essentially, while the evil is not intended essentially but only accidentally? George Hourani, in his discussion of whether evil, for example, is intended or purposed, says: The apparent evils which befall this world are, on the principles of the Sage, not purposed for the world – the good things alone are what is purposed, the evil ones are a privation, while according to Plato, both are purposed as well as willed. 9

Hourani points out that “purpose” or “intention” is used by Ibn Sînâ in two senses – to refer to desiring something either essentially Sh. Il., 414. Ibid., 395. 8 Ibid., 402. 9 Hourani, “Ess. Sec.,” 32. 6 7

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or accidentally. It is by means of this distinction that Ibn Sînâ can attain a reconciliation of the Aristotelian and Platonic views. We can now see how the statement attributed to both Aristotle and Plato could be harmonized with Ibn Sînâ’s position, by defining “purpose” in narrower and wider senses respectively. Aristotle’s statement is right in the sense that evil is not desired by God, “purposed essentially” or for its own sake, while Plato’s statement is right in the sense that evil is intended by God, “purposed incidentally” to what He desires – and unavoidably if the greater good is to be fulfilled. 10 It is only the good that God wills or intends for the world essentially, in the sense of desiring it for its own sake. Evil, on the other hand, is willed or intended accidentally, in the sense of its being known to be an effect of what God desires. 11 But the question remains how God could, according to Ibn Sînâ’s own teachings, intend essentially even the good in the universe. Have we not said that to intend something essentially, or for its own sake, is to be less in existence than the thing intended? What could God, the absolutely good, derive from the good in the universe? Ibn Sînâ’s view of intention may be unsound in the first place, but, even if it is sound, it leaves no room for God to intend anything in the world, including the good in it. If God has any relationship to the world, it is one of mere knowledge that leads to God’s causation of the world, not one of intention or desire for the sake of anything in the world. Even God’s knowledge of the world and its order is necessitated – God cannot but know all the possibilities, including that of the present order of existence. Also, because God’s knowledge amounts to production, God’s being the producer of the present order must also be necessitated. Therefore, if the good caused by God is not complete and does not reach all beings equally, then God cannot be held responsible. For, after all, everything that emanates from God emanates necessarily, that is, not as a result of God’s free choice or intention. But it goes without saying that, where free choice and intention are absent, responsibility too must be absent. 10 11

Ibid., 38. Sh. Il., 421; Ish., Part Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 23.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 131 God either cannot or can intend anything in the world. In the former case, it follows that God cannot intend even the good in the world. But this conclusion is in sharp conflict with Ibn Sînâ’s teachings that all the good in the world is intended by God. In the latter case, then it must not be that God cannot seek something less good than God, for even the best thing in the world is less good than God. But if God can seek something less good than God, then it cannot be impossible for God to intend or seek evil. Therefore, if God does not seek evil in the world, it is not because God cannot do so. The reason for God’s not seeking evil must lie in something else, such as God’s inability to seek other than the good. 2. There Is More Good Than Evil in the Universe According to Ibn Sînâ, all the causes of evil are in the sublunary sphere. But the sublunary sphere is small in relation to the whole universe. And even in this sphere we find that evil only strikes individuals, and at certain times. The species, are preserved. Except for one kind of evil [i.e., accidental evil], real evil does not extend to a majority of individuals. 12

Take burning, for example. Ibn Sînâ would ask how many individuals of a species are harmed by it, and how often in their lives. His own answer is that in general “the majority of individuals of a species are in safety from being burned.” The same is true of all harmful things. 13 In short, essential evil strikes only our small world, and only rarely, affecting only a minority of individuals. The rest of the universe and the majority of our small place in it are untouched by real evil. Evil in the universe is far less than the good; hence the statement that what is common is “the realization (ḥuṣûl) or the good intended in nature.” 14 Ibn Sînâ anticipates that someone might object by saying that “Evil is not a rare or a minor thing, but is predominant.” In reSh. Il., 417; Ish., Part Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 23. Sh. Il., 420. 14 Ibid. 12 13

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sponding to this objection, he reminds us that “there is a difference between the numerous and the predominant.” Essential evil, he asserts, can be said to be of the former type but not of the latter. He gives diseases as an example of something “numerous but not predominant.” He admits that secondary and tertiary evils are predominant, but says that these are not the evils the present discourse is concerned with. 15 The reason, I suppose, is his consideration of such evils as unimportant and so without much relevance to a theodicy. But one may argue, first, that even according to Ibn Sînâ’s own teachings, evil must extend outside our sphere; second, that, even if essential evil is rare, that does not solve the problem of evil; and third, that the presence of secondary and tertiary evils does have to be accounted for in a theodicy. First, it seems that even Ibn Sînâ’s celestial sphere must also include evil from top to bottom. This is so for two reasons. (1) All matter, as was explained earlier, is potential, and potentiality is the source of privation, and hence of evil. The celestial sphere with its ten heavenly bodies must therefore have a certain degree of evil, since these bodies are by nature material. Ibn Sînâ would respond by saying that it is true that these bodies are material, yet their materiality is to be differentiated from that of the sublunary sphere. The former is complete and has nothing in potentiality, whether in quantity or quality, except in locomotion, while the latter has other potentialities, such as those for growth and decay. Even if this distinction between the celestial and the sublunary bodies is accepted, the heavenly bodies remain incomplete, in at least one respect: locomotion. They constantly fall short of being at another point than the one at which they are. This is an eternal deficiency in them, and no matter how much they run in their own circles the deficiency remains. Thus they run again and again in the same fashion. If this were not a deficiency, that is, if they reached their goal or perfection, their need for motion would cease, for “If an action reaches the perfection [it seeks], the motion ceases at the

15

Ibid., 422.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 133 point of reaching [that perfection].” 16 But we know that their need for this motion is eternal. The heavenly bodies are thus made such that they must be imperfect. The consequence of their being otherwise would be a cessation of their motion, something that would lead to the cessation of the generation and corruption that are an essential part of our world because they are caused by the celestial circular motion. Worse than this, they would be raised to the level of God, who is the only absolutely perfect being. (2) Not only must the celestial bodies be somewhat imperfect, and hence evil, but the celestial souls and even the intelligences must also be so. I have said earlier that the further from God, the more evil. From this it follows that even the first intelligence, who is far more perfect than any being below him, must be at least somewhat imperfect, for there is at least a small distance between the first intelligence and God. Admittedly, Ibn Sînâ describes this intelligence, as well as all the other celestial intelligences, as pure goods 17 (since they are free from matter and potentiality), which is to say as fully actual, something that renders them perfect and stationary. These intelligences “are infinite powers, free from matter, and do not move, either essentially or accidentally.” 18 But he also tells us that that which in itself is possible in existence is not a pure good, because it in itself does not necessarily exist. thus it in itself may not exist, and what may not exist is not in all respects free from evil and deficiency. 19

We know that, according to Ibn Sînâ, everything other than God is in itself possible in existence. This is to say that everything other than God, including the celestial intelligences, cannot be “pure goods” or “free from evil or deficiency.” Furthermore, if the celestial intelligences were pure goods, there would be a plurality of Gods. For if they were so, ontologically as well as temporally, they Ibid., 389, 388. Ibid., 393. 18 Ibid., 386. 19 Na., 229. 16 17

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would have to be in the same rank as God. 20 But what is without magnitude, eternal, and unmovable is purely good. Thus all the Aristotelian unmovable movers must be purely good, as is the unmovable mover, or God, In fact, Aristotle does call all these movers "gods." These Aristotelian movers are the same as Ibn Sînâ's celestial intelligences, except that they differ in number; the former are 55 or 47, the latter 11 or 10. From all this it follows that imperfection or evil is not limited to our small world, but must also pervade every other part of the universe. Otherwise Ibn Sînâ’s view of the cosmos must undergo some serious changes. Second, the problem of evil for Ibn Sînâ, as was shown in Chapter One, is one of incompatibility between God’s goodness and any evil at all. To accept that there is even the slightest amount of evil leaves us with the problem. Fortunately, Ibn Sînâ seems to Ibn Sînâ’s view that the celestial intelligences are infinite powers, eternal, fully actual, stationary, and hence pure goods, is a remnant of his Aristotelian heritage. In Metaphysics XII, 8, speaking about a plurality of movers (55 or 47), Aristotle tries to show that, since eternal motion is always imparted by one mover to one moved, and since we have a plurality of celestial bodies with a plurality of eternal motions, we must have a plurality of unmoved movers. He tells us that 20

since we see that besides the simple spatial movement of the universe, which we say the first and unmovable substance produces, there are other spatial movements – those of the planets – which are eternal (for the body which moves in a circle is eternal and unresting; we have proved these points in the physical treatises). Each of these movements also must be caused by a substance both unmovable in itself and eternal. For the nature of the stars is eternal just because it is a certain kind of substance, and the mover is eternal and prior to the moved, and that which is prior to a substance must be a substance. Evidently, then, there must be substances which are of the same number as the movements of the stars, and in their nature eternal, and in themselves unmovable and without magnitude, for the reason before mentioned. (Metaphysics, XII, 8, 1073a, 29–40)

But what is without magnitude, eternal, and unmovable is purely good. Thus all the Aristotelian unmovable movers must be purely good, as is the unmovable mover, or God. In fact, Aristotle does call all these movers “gods.” These Aristotelian movers are the same as Ibn Sînâ’s celestial intelligences, except that they differ in number; the former are 55 or 47, the latter 11 or 10.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 135 be aware of this. And that is why he made other attempts at solving the problem, as we will see in the following pages. It seems that the present thesis was not intended to offer a complete solution, but only to minimize the seriousness of the problem. Third, even though non-essential evil is not so serious as essential evil, it is nevertheless serious enough, in that it can be the source of misery and suffering for those stricken by it. How many ugly-looking and unintelligent people spend their lives wishing they were otherwise, and exhaust much of their energy trying to do something about their situation, in many cases in vain! The question how a good and just God could allow such predominant suffering and evil is most in order. To concern ourselves with paralysis, cancer, deafness, and so forth is understandable indeed, but it should also concern us that there is so much inequality in beauty, intelligence, and strength that seem to be the ideals of all. One may argue that our ideals may be the wrong ones; whether they are is debatable. The important fact is that Ibn Sînâ also holds such qualities to be the proper ideals. And for someone with such a view there is a problem, and a serious one. 3. Evil Is a Necessary Consequence of the Good Ibn Sînâ now expects the opponent to raise the question quoted when we formulated the problem of evil in Chapter One: Why is evilness primarily not prevented from [being present in the last type of things just mentioned], so that it would be all good? 21

In other words, the fact that evil is slight does not solve the problem. Why should there be any evil at all? Ibn Sînâ, as has been pointed out, does not seem to believe that the rarity of evil solves the problem, even though it minimizes its seriousness. But it seems that for him the following may amount to a solution: whatever amount of evil there is must be a necessary outcome of the good. He describes evil as

21

Sh. Il., 421.

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY a necessary consequent upon the need for the good. Were [the] elements not to oppose each other and be acted upon by the dominant [element among them], these noble species would not have arisen from them. If among these [elements] fire [for example] were not such that, if the clashes occurring in the course of the whole led by necessity to the meeting of a noble man’s garment, [that garment] necessarily burns, then fire would not be [something] from which general benefit could be derived. Hence, it is required by necessity that the good possible in these things be a good only after [it is possible for] such an evil to occur from, and with [such a good]. 22

An example of an evil that is a necessary consequence of the good is the following. The existence of the good causes, for instance the celestial sphere, which is necessary for the universal order, requires the existence of the causes that lead to evil accidentally. It is held by Ibn Sînâ that it is required “to bring into existence the good causes which come before the causes that lead accidentally to evil.” No reason is given for this, other than the claim that, if the good causes did not exist, “there would have been in the world the greatest fault in the universal order of the good.” 23 The reason behind this claim seems to be that the absence of these good causes leaves in the universal order a gap that should be occupied, not by any kind of existence, but only by absolute existence that is absolutely good. Since the existence of the causes that lead accidentally to evil is consequent on the good causes, the former must exist; otherwise the latter would be absent. This is so because a denial of the former necessarily leads to a denial of the latter. But the existence of the latter is, as mentioned, required. Thus the causes that lead to evil must exist. Ibn Sînâ does not present the argument in this form. All we are told is that the good causes must exist, and that the existence of the good causes implies the existence of the causes that lead accidentally to evil. The conclusion – “The latter must therefore exist” 22 23

Ibid., 418. See also Ish., Book Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 23. Sh. Il., 418.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 137 – is missing. After the second premise there is a jump to saying that “there would have been in the world the greatest fault in the order of the good.” However, since what Ibn Sînâ is trying to show here is that the existence of the sublunary sphere must come about in spite of the evil in it, it is reasonable to supply the conclusion that has been supplied above. This argument depends on the claim that the existence of the good causes is indispensable to the universal order of the good, a claim that cannot easily be challenged. But it cannot be merely assumed either. The problem is not in accepting the need or the existence of the good causes in themselves, but in accepting the existence of such causes if they are to lead inevitably to evil. What has to be shown is (1) that the existence of the universal order is better than no order at all; (2) that the universal order requires the existence of the celestial sphere; and (3) that the celestial sphere necessarily leads to ours which is the source of evil. All three claims are assumed, but none are argued for. Ibn Sînâ insists that evil is unavoidable if we are to have the predominant goods that lead to it. “So why not remove the predominant goods?” the opponent may ask. Ibn Sînâ’s answer amounts to saying that this is so because the good produced by the causes of evil far outweighs the evil produced by those causes or by the absence of those causes. The causes that lead to evil can be removed, as causes of evil, in one of two ways: (A) by changing the natures of the elements; or (B) by completely removing the elements that lead to evil. Either way, is unprofitable. (A) If the elements were made such that they did not lead to the evils they lead to, they would have natures other than the ones they have. Indeed, they would have the natures of celestial beings. 24 The first question that comes to mind is, “So what if these elements lose their present natures and acquire celestial ones?” Ibn Sînâ would respond that it is because many of the good consequences of the elements having their present natures would also be lost. It is true, for instance, that fire with the nature it now has leads to destruction under certain circumstances, but more often than not what proceeds from fire is good. Many species would not 24

Ibid., 421. See also Ish., Book Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 26.

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be preserved were it not for the heat of fire that keeps them warm and helps them cook their food, forge metals for their use, and so forth. (B) To remove the existence of these elements completely would remove the evil, but to do so would also require the removal of the presence of a predominant good, for these elements are all in themselves good because they have being and all being is good. Their removal, in fact, would amount to the removal of their good consequences and the removal of their own being, and these are far greater goods than the evil consequences that would also be removed with their removal. While removing the evil in the manner discussed in (A) leads to the removal of the good consequences of these elements, removing it in the manner discussed in (B) leads to the removal of those good consequences as well as the elements themselves. Suppose one asks, “If, in order to remove the evil, the good must also be removed, then why not remove the good? What reason is there for preferring a world with predominant good and slight evil to one with no good and evil, or to no world at all? Would it not have been better, or less evil, or at least equally evil, to have no good at all than to have good with evil?” Ibn Sînâ would respond as follows. If the good that would have been removed by the removal of evil did not exist, it would not have been better than or equal in value to the present world that is mixed with evil. Rather it would have been even worse than such a world. This is so, because the privation of that whose existence in the nature of matter is possible is a greater evil than one privation since it consists of two privations. 25

Thus to exclude the predominant good from existing is to bring about a greater evil than the evil already present as a consequence of this good. God who knows the order of the good must also know that our sphere that includes evil has to exist if the order of the good is to be complete. He thus thinks that

25

Sh. Il., 418.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 139 the merit of such a mode of things, as existing – allowing necessary evil that occurs with it. It is necessary, therefore, that the existence of such a mode of things emanate. 26

Regarding (A), two comments are here in order. First, while it can be claimed that without the consequences of fire as we know it the well-being of many species ceases, it would be difficult to show that some species would not have been preserved (that is, would have discontinued existing) were it not for something like fire. It is true, for instance, that it may be difficult or impossible for some human beings to survive in very cold areas without the warmth of fire. However, it seems that the warmth of fire could be replaced by warm clothing, houses built for solar heating, and similar devices. And if this does not work the human race could still exist by inhabiting only the warmer regions, such as Africa. Again, it seems possible for human beings to survive without cooked food. They can survive by eating uncooked food such as fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, and even raw meat. Similar arguments can be advanced to show that human beings can survive without the use of all the things that require heat. There is no doubt that the warmth of fire makes life with its present requirements less uncomfortable than it would be without the warmth, but this is not to say that the lack of the present kind of fire would necessarily lead to the destruction of the human race. Thus it seems possible for human beings to exist without the existence of fire in its present nature. Second, if these elements acquire other natures not leading to evil, these natures may result in consequences other than the ones they now have, but that situation may be as good as or even better than their present good consequences. Regarding (B), I will now attempt to interpret and evaluate the basic premise on which the argument rests, the “two-privation thesis,” or the claim that the non-existence of the elements of the world or of the world as a whole involves two privations, and is hence more evil than their existence, which involves only one privation. 26

Ibid.

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After advancing an interpretation of the nature of the two privations, I will argue that this interpretation, if correct, renders the two-privation thesis false. And if that is so, then, even if it is accepted that evil is privation, 27 as Ibn Sînâ has it, it does not follow that the non-existence of the elements in the world or of the world as a whole is a greater evil than the existence of these elements or of the world. (1) The Nature of the Two Privations Let us now ask what the two privations are that would result from the removal of this world. To start with, it must be said that, whatever they are, each must be a privation of the existence of what is natural or essential for the world. So, if the world were removed, what would those two privations of what is natural for the world be? According to Ibn Sînâ, the sublunary world is created in such a way as necessarily to contain evil – one such privation of what is natural. Earthquakes, for instance, which shake the natural stability of the earth and kill many living beings, are a necessary part of this world as created by God. The same is true of floods, hurricanes, and so forth. But this world contains much more good than evil: many more of its natural qualities and occurrences exist than not. So the world as it is is characterized by both what is privative and what is natural, the former occupying a small space in the latter. If so, the two privations that would result from the removal of this world must be (1) the privation that is already present; and (2) the privation of the existence of the remaining natural states and occurrences in the world. To simplify matters, we will call the former privation P and the latter P1. Now that we have some idea what the two privations are, we can move to an examination of the two-privation thesis.

The claim that evil is privation will be discussed later in this chapter. Our purpose here is merely to try to determine the nature of the two privations and to examine the soundness of the present argument. 27

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 141 (2) An Examination of the Two-Privation Thesis If we suppose that the sublunary sphere is a block in a room – the latter representing the universe – and the evil (that is, P, the first privation) in the universe a hole in this block, then what Ibn Sînâ is saying amounts to the following. If the block is destroyed or is non-existent, then two privations emerge: P (which was already there before the destruction or removal) and P1, the absence of the remaining predominant natural or essential states of the block. In other words, one privation is in the block and the other appears in the room as a result of the destruction or non-existence of the rest of the natural qualities of the block, which is to say, of the block as a whole. But the question is whether we can still speak of the presence of the block after P1 comes about. It seems not, because P1 is the lack of the remaining essential qualities of the block in which P is present, and leaves us with the absence of the whole of what is considered the nature of the block. Now, if there is nothing that counts as the block, it would follow that we cannot speak of the hole in the block. In other words, if the block is destroyed, there should be one rather than two privations or holes, namely that created by the absence of the block. As for the hole that was already in the block, it is not to be found anywhere any more, for it was destroyed with the destruction of the block. To allow for its existence even after the destruction of the block is to allow for the existence of a hole in nothing; and the existence of a hole in nothing is an impossibility, for a hole is always a gap or opening in something. We say that there is a hole in a wall, or a hole in a chair, but never a hole floating around by itself. If this is so, the removal of the sublunary world cannot result in two privations, one already present in it and the other the loss of the sublunary world as a whole. Granted that two privations is a greater evil than one, it nevertheless seems that one cannot claim that the absence of this world results in a greater evil than the evil the world already contains. This is so because, as has been shown, if this world is absent, the evil in it must also be absent. It is clear from this that the two-privation thesis cannot serve as a ground for justifying God’s allowing the presence of this world with all the evil in it or anything else in it that results in evil. For, if the interpretation given here of the two privations is the correct one, the absence of this world which results in evil would not seem

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to be a greater evil or a lesser good than its presence. The question then is why it should be allowed at all. Put differently, if the absence of this world does not bring a greater evil than its presence, what reason would a good God who does nothing except for the good have in bringing it about? Our purpose here is not to answer this question, but only to show that the present thesis leaves the question open and hence cannot count as a ground for the theodicy Ibn Sînâ intends. In short, neither change in the natures of the elements of this world nor their total removal necessarily leads to more evil or less good than we already have. 4. Evil Is a Necessary Means for the Good It was pointed out in the previous section that Ibn Sînâ considers evil a necessary consequence of the good. The present discussion will center around his view that evil is also a necessary means for the good. The burning of fire that harms a human arm, for example, is a necessary consequence of something good, that is, fire. This particular instance of burning is caused by something good, but has a bad consequence. Other instances of burning and of evil in general necessarily lead, according to Ibn Sînâ, to good consequences: for example, the burning of fire that warms living beings in cold climates and the killing of other living beings for the purpose of nourishment and hence survival. Ibn Sînâ sometimes confuses rather than clarifies the difference between evil as a necessary consequence of the good and evil as a necessary means for the good. The reason could be the fact that a given instance of evil which is a necessary consequence of the good might also, from a different point of view, be considered a necessary means for the good. That is why we find that when he is talking about one type he lapses into talking about the other. Let us now move to a discussion of evil as a necessary means for the good. Our discussion of metaphysical evil has shown that a thing, an act, or a principle may be evil in relation to one being and not so in relation to another. These evils are in fact necessarily good in relation to their causes. They are also good in relation to the universal order. For, if such evils are good for their causes, and if their causes are beings, and if every being has its place in the whole which cannot be occupied by any other being, it follows that these evils are indispensable to the whole, because they preserve the existence

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 143 of certain components of the whole. For a lion to kill certain kinds of animals is evil. But this evil is necessary for the preservation of the lion species. And, since the lion species has its important place in the universal order, the evil is good, when looked at from the point of view of the universal order: For the sake of the universal, attention should not be paid from the point of view of the particular. Similarly, for the sake of the whole, attention should not be paid from the point of view of the part. Thus an organ that hurts is severed in order that the body as a whole may be saved. 28

The universal order, we are told, cannot be sustained without the occurrence of certain evils. Ibn Sînâ is claiming here not that those evils are in themselves good for the whole, but that they are necessary means for the presentation of the elements without which the whole would not be complete. To require the existence of those elements in order to complete the whole is at the same time to require what leads to the good or preservation of those elements. In short, evil is relative to the being that is harmed by it. To some other beings it is indifferent, and to still others it is good. For the world as a whole, it is always good. God is concerned with the whole. If the good of some parts is in conflict with the good of the whole, God sacrifices the former in order that the latter may be promoted. Thus God wills the existence of something like fire, which harms certain beings under certain circumstances, since the whole requires it. In fact, God wills all existing things, even though God knows that some things are at times harmful to other things. But since evil is a necessary consequence of certain things, as has been discussed in the previous section of this chapter, and since it is a necessary means for the preservation of certain things, as has been elaborated here, Ibn Sînâ says that “Evil was also [so to speak] willed in an accidental manner.” 29 It is interesting to note that evil is asserted to be willed. But the subject of the willing is missing. This is to be contrasted with 28 29

Ish., Book Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 27. Sh. Il., 420.

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the assertion that God wills all things. It is clear, however, that it is God who is said to will evil. It is to be remembered, though, that God wills evil in an accidental manner, whereas God wills the good in an essential manner. Soon enough, however, a more daring statement is introduced, which amounts to the following. God is not said to will evil as such. He is said, nevertheless, to be aware of its presence but to pay no heed to it: “since He knows it is necessary, He minds it not.” 30 Against the present thesis one can argue that it seems possible to have made human beings, for example, in such a way as to eat earth and to drink water, instead of having to depend for their nourishment on other living beings. Ibn Sînâ might object, saying, “But this would change the nature of a human being at least to some extent, something we have already argued against.” The answer to this objection is that it seems possible that human beings could derive nourishment in the above-suggested way without any significant change in their nature. Why, for example, cannot all the proteins, minerals, and vitamins we need be planted in the earth and water? Ibn Sînâ might respond, “But this would change the nature of the earth and water.” But, even if we agree that everything in the world has to retain its present nature, this can be accomplished with the addition to the world of small containers of these nutrients, without having any of the present elements undergo any alteration in nature. If one insists that we should be fed animals and plants, it seems that we could have been made at least not to require as much nourishment as we do, and hence use less evil as a means of survival less than we do. This by itself would certainly not solve the problem of evil, at least not in the form that concerns Ibn Sînâ, but it would no doubt minimize its seriousness. 5. God Cannot Create the World Free from Evil Ibn Sînâ is aware that the opponent can raise the following objection: “It was possible for the First Governor to bring into existence absolute good, free from evil.” He answers that 30

Ibid., 421.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 145 This was not possible in a mode of existence such as this, even though it was possible in absolute existence, since that mode of absolute existence free from evil is other than this one. 31

Ibn Sînâ never says that it is not possible for God to bring absolute good into this sphere; he says that is not possible that this sphere be absolutely good. However, if God is the cause of everything, including this sphere, and if this sphere cannot be other than it is, it would follow that its cause has no power to make it other than it is. Thus, even though God’s absolute power is not denied explicitly, it is denied implicitly. Everything God does, God does necessarily. It is necessity that seems to have the upper hand in every action in the universe, including the divine ones. God, like everything else, is an instrument in the hands of necessity. It is true that Ibn Sînâ speaks of God’s will, and sometimes of God’s free choice, but even God’s will, if there is such a thing, runs by necessity. And surely this leaves no room for free choice. Having by necessity the nature God has, God could not have produced anything other than what God has produced. Can we therefore praise God for the existence of this world if we agree that this is the best of all possible worlds? And can we blame God if we believe that this world cannot be better than it is? To praise God in the first case would be like praising a person for being born handsome; to blame God in the second case would be like blaming a person for being born deformed. Neither person could have done otherwise, and an act can be praised or blamed only if it is the result of free choice. This thesis succeeds, therefore, in dissolving the problem of evil for Ibn Sînâ. For, as we noted in Chapter One, the problem of evil exists for one who asserts that God is all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful, but that evil exists in the world. But the problem disappears if either evil or any of God’s absolute attributes (such as God’s power) is denied.

31

Ibid., 418.

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6. Essential Evil Is Privation of Being Ibn Sînâ allots more room in his theodicy to the notion of evil than to any other point discussed. This is so because this notion is intended to serve as a ground for what appears to be the most significant aspect of the theodicy. Ibn Sînâ is convinced that, if essential or real evil is nothing but a privation of being, and if, to be a cause (in the sense of efficient cause), a thing must cause some thing or being, rather than nothing or non-being, then it follows that no being, including God, can be a cause of essential evil. Non-being is not caused, only being is. All beings in the universe are caused by God. But all beings are by definition good. The conclusion to be drawn is that all the good in the world is caused by God, while all the real evil is not. It must be pointed out that Ibn Sînâ does not present this argument in the above-mentioned form: in fact, the conclusion to this argument is totally missing. The reason could be that he wants to avoid a straightforward denial of God’s absolute power. To say that God cannot cause evil is, in a sense, to say that there is at least one thing that God cannot cause. However, it is reasonable to assume that it is this argument as constructed here that he intended. First, it was a common argument in the Middle Ages: Augustine, Ibn Rushd, and Aquinas are among those who used it. Second, it would be odd for Ibn Sînâ to allow so much room for explicating the notion of evil in the course of his attempt to introducing a theodicy, if this argument was not what he intended. How else could he have used the notion of evil as a privation of being to reconcile God’s goodness with the presence of evil? Third, it is not unusual for Ibn Sînâ and some other medieval thinkers to present an argument with something missing, be it a premise or even the conclusion. Hourani notes, for example, that Risâla fî Sirr al-Qadar presents neither the problem raised nor the conclusion to the argument offered: But we are not told what the problem is. We are taken straight into three “premises,” on which the secret is said to be “based.” Then perhaps we may find out what the problem is when we come to the conclusion, to which the premises will lead. But there is no conclusion either! So both the problem and its solution have to be inferred, from the premises and

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 147 from what we know of Ibn Sînâ’s concerns and ways of thinking in other writings. 32

Thus the fact that the conclusion to this argument was never drawn in the fashion we have sketched is not inconsistent with Ibn Sînâ’s stylistic character. I would now like to argue that Ibn Sînâ’s notion of evil as privation of being cannot solve the problem of evil. This will be demonstrated by: (1) a discussion of Ibn Sînâ’s failure to show that real evil is identical with privation of being; and (2) an attempt to show that, even if real evil is privation of being and God, who cannot be responsible for privation of being, is not responsible for it, the problem remains with us because at least some kinds of accidental evil are not a privation of being. (1) If the nature of human beings, for example, suggests that human beings are rational, that they have two hands, two feet, certain bones, muscles, tendons, veins, arteries, hair skin, stomach, liver, appendix, and so forth, would one be justified in holding that only what is natural or normal for human beings is good, and every privation of what is natural for human beings is evil? It seems possible to have in our being a privation that is not evil. Removing wisdom teeth, shaving a beard, removing a kidney or one of the little toes are examples of how it is possible to have a privation of being without creating any evil or disorder. (Elaboration on this point will be provided later. Some of these examples may in fact be examples of some good. Shaving one’s beard, for example, may help one be cooler when it is hot. Ibn Sînâ might agree that removing your wisdom teeth, your appendix, and one kidney is not evil so long as it does not bring about any disorder. But does not removing wisdom teeth and so forth deprive a human being of some natural or normal thing, does it not create a privation of being, and is this not evil for Ibn Sînâ? If the good is to be defined as the natural, or as the fullness of being, does it not follow that these examples of privation are examples of evil? Thus the absence of one’s wisdom teeth, appendix, “Ess. Sec.,” 34. For a discussion of the reasons for this technique, see the last section of the essay. 32

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and a kidney must be evil for Ibn Sînâ. We pointed out earlier that the notion of the natural, the normal, or that which befits or belongs to a thing is used very loosely by Ibn Sînâ and most other proponents of the privation theory of evil. But if the natural, the normal, and so forth include not only the essence but also any common feature of a species, then anything at all that is common to the majority of the species must be natural. The hair of a man’s beard, on the head, on the legs, and under the arms, for instance, must all be natural. But, as we have noted above, it is difficult to show that the privation of the hair of a man’s beard is evil and not good. H. J. McCloskey also argues that it is difficult to show that the absence of things such as the hair on the head, on the legs, and under the arms is a privation and hence evil: This leaves it unclear whether lack of hair on the head would be a privation in man. It is an existent feature or phenomenon in man, and as such the lack of it ought to count as a privation. So too with hair under the arms or on the legs. Yet it is hard to see that lack of hair under the arms or on the legs constitutes a privation which is an evil. On the contrary, in women such a privation may be valued as an excellence. Similarly, it is arguable that baldness is thought to be an evil in our society only because of our aesthetic or social preferences, and even so, with the development of synthetic wigs, this seems to be becoming less true. A society could well prize baldness as aesthetically pleasing, and as an excellence, and come to regard hairiness as we now regard facial hair in women. 33

Let me attempt here to remove some confusion in the notion of evil in Ibn Sînâ. As we have seen, he says that evil is the unnatural, and also that evil is disorder. But which of these does he mean? His answer would be that the question makes no sense, because to be natural in the sense of being actual is to be ordered, and to be ordered is to be good. As the God of Leibniz created the world with harmony and order, so did the God of Ibn Sînâ. Order is therefore an aspect of the world as created by God, and any violation of this H. J. McCloskey, God and Evil (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), 32–33. 33

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 149 order is a violation of the work of God, which, because it is produced by God, is good. Ibn Sînâ’s logical equation, then, is as follows. Evil is the unnatural; evil is disorder; hence, by transitivity, the unnatural is disorder. Returning to our examples, we can see that the removal of wisdom teeth or a kidney, shaving a man’s beard, and removing one of the little toes are privations in being, but do they result in any disorder? It is true that wisdom teeth could be used for chewing, but the molars have the same function and do it perfectly well, with or without the wisdom teeth. Each kidney has an important function in the body, but it has been proven that the body can function very well with the removal of one kidney, since the other can perform all the bodily functions the first would have performed. In fact, this is true in the case of many paired organs, like the lungs. It is also natural for a man to grow a beard, and if the privation of the beard in a man creates any disorder, men would suffer from the disorder every day as a result of shaving their beards. But that does not seem to be the case. As for the little toe, like all the other toes it helps in balance, but one can do without it very easily by training oneself to use the other toes. In short, all this shows that Ibn Sînâ’s identification of privation of the natural with disorder, or the natural with order, is not valid. 34 Now if, as has been shown, the privation of some things that are normal for human beings to have does not create any disorder, is such a privation still evil? Again, the question is which is the evil, the privation as such or the disorder. If Ibn Sînâ chooses the first alternative, our examples above must be examples of evil. But what would his argument be for holding that they really are so, when they do not create any disorder? If he chose the second alternative, that evil is disorder (as I think he would), he would first have to In support of the objection to the view that the unnatural is disordered or the natural ordered, science today proposes that there are two tendencies in the universe, one toward order and one toward disorder; the latter means that at the heart of nature, of being, lies disorder. This view offers further plausible ground for rejecting Ibn Sînâ’s identification of the natural with order or the unnatural with disorder. 34

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show that disorder is evil. 35 He would also have to drop the view that evil is the lack or absence of the natural, for, as has been argued, disorder is not identical with the lack of the natural. Hence, to say that evil is disorder is a denial of the position that the lack of the natural is evil or that the natural or actual is good. If Ibn Sînâ chooses the position that evil is disorder over the position that evil is a privation of the natural, then (for him) to say evil is disorder or good is order is to say that anything other than disorder is not evil. Hence the unnatural is not evil, which means that to be natural is not good. Now if some privation of the natural is not evil, or may even be good, there would be no reason for God to refrain from producing some privation of being. In fact, God must produce some privation, that is, the good privation, since God creates all the good in the universe. Besides, if God is only responsible for the natural, as Ibn Sînâ has it, then God must be responsible for some evil, since, as has been shown, some natural features can be evil. (2) In Chapter Three evil was divided into the essential and the accidental, and the latter was said to consist of two types, one of which is existing accidental evil. Existing accidental evil is, as its name indicates, an existent or being. The examples given of this type of evil are things like pain; the cloud that casts its shadow over the plants, preventing them from getting the sunlight they require for growth; and the fire that burns human flesh. Since this kind of evil is being, it must be caused by God, for God causes all being. To this Ibn Sînâ would have no objection. After all, something like the above-mentioned cloud is in itself good; it is called evil only because it causes evil. However, the fact that the cloud causes evil is a necessary or essential part of that cloud, necessary not in the sense of being a part of the concept of a cloud, but in the sense of being part of the The Platonic and Aristotelian view, as well as that of Ibn Sînâ and other medievalists, that order is good and disorder evil, is debatable. Philosophers such as Charles Hartshorne argue that the good or beauty is balance between disorder (chaos) and order, and that order is as distant from the good as disorder is. See his Creative Synthesis and Philosophical Method (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Co., 1970), Ch. 16. 35

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 151 nature of that particular cloud – it is an unavoidable element of that cloud. Everything is born with a complete plan for every single event in its existence, including its being a cause of some evil or some good. This plan has to be carried out without the possibility for any change of any of its elements. If God is the cause of everything, God must be the cause of the complete plan of every being. But since the causation of evil is a part of the plan for some beings, it would follow that God is the cause of this evil, that is, its primary cause. 7. Human Evil Is Due to Human Free Will Finally, Ibn Sînâ believes that human evil is caused by people’s own free choice (ikhtiyâr). A human being is a rational being, and every rational being has the power to know. But knowledge is freedom. This is so because freedom requires that movement originate in the individual. However, a movement cannot originate in an individual unless it is the individual’s judgment that leads to the movement. But the individual cannot be said to have judgment unless he or she is aware of the means and the end and how they relate to each other. That is why to Ibn Sînâ, as to Thomas Aquinas, animals are incapable of being free. 36 Their pursuit of the desirable and the suitable and their avoidance of the undesirable and the unsuitable are the result not of their judgment but of instinct, which is common to all animals and has been planted in them by God. The source of human beings’ movement, on the other hand, is their rational judgment, which sets everyone free to act in any way he or she sees fit. It is therefore by virtue of our knowing nature that we have a measure of the freedom enjoyed by the celestial angels and by God. It was stated earlier that, for example, our practical intellect’s consideration of what must or must not be done of practical matters is a free enterprise. We not only possess a will, which any other being endowed with a soul possesses, but we also possess a rational power, the power to know, by means of which this will is directed. Therefore we are said to determine the kind of life and future we 36

Aquinas, De veritate, q. 24, art. 1.

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have. In Ibn Sînâ’s Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓân it is made clear that the way is open for us. We can allow ourselves to be dragged by the demons of our souls, that is, the lower parts of our souls, and so remain in the Occident, the realm of darkness, war, strife, hatred, and gluttony. Or we can follow the harder yet better path that prepares us to be guided by Ḥayy, the agent intellect, the Holy Spirit or the Angel Gabriel, to the Orient, the realm of light, peace, harmony, love, and satisfaction. The epistle ends with Ḥayy’s words, “If you will, follow me.” 37 This invitation presupposes that we have the power to choose to follow or not follow. It is this ability to be free, according to Ibn Sînâ, that lays the responsibility for our behavior on our own shoulders, rendering us proper subjects for blame or praise. God, therefore, cannot be blamed for our evil acts; only we can. This argument is a form of the first thesis of the free-will defense discussed in the second section of Chapter One. According to that thesis, God gave people freedom even though God knows that this freedom creates the possibility for evil, because freedom is better than non-freedom. While Ibn Sînâ upholds the first part of this thesis, that God gave people freedom, there seems to be no textual support for his upholding the second part, that freedom is better than non-freedom. However, an argument in support of this part can be constructed. Freedom is possessed by God and the angels. Since whatever God and the angels possess is better than what they do not possess, it must be the case that freedom is better than non-freedom. I would now like to show that for Ibn Sînâ human freedom is impossible and hence there is no room for responsibility, blame, or praise. I shall argue as follows. First, the way to knowledge is blocked. Second, even if knowledge were accessible to us, that is not sufficient ground for asserting the presence of free choice. Third, even if knowledge were accessible and its accessibility resulted in free choice, knowledge itself cannot be freely chosen or fallen short of. And where the basis of freedom is unfree it would seem odd to speak of freedom. 37

Ḥayy, 22.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 153 Before pursuing these arguments, it is important to note that in the history of philosophy “freedom” has been spoken of in various senses. We specify here, therefore, (1) the major views on freedom; (2) the sense in which Ibn Sînâ is using the term; and (3) the sense or senses according to which it will be claimed that freedom is impossible in Ibn Sînâ’s system. (1) There have been two major viewpoints on the nature of freedom: the soft determinist or reconciliationist and the hard determinist or libertarian. The first position can be put either negatively or positively, as “freedom from” or “freedom to.” In the former sense, a being can be said to be free if there are no external restraints (human, natural, divine, or what have you) on his or her actions. In the latter sense, a being can be said to be free if his or her actions are the result of internal motives, desires, ideals, and so forth. According to the second position, freedom is a spontaneous act of choosing, not determined by any external or even internal causes. The hard determinist and the libertarian view freedom in the same way, but the former denies its existence and the latter asserts it. (2) If Ibn Sînâ believes that freedom is caused by knowledge, then his view of freedom must be the first of these positions. We are free, not because there are no causes of our choices, but because our choices are determined by an internal aspect, our knowledge. Even God is spoken of as free only because God’s knowledge makes it impossible for God not to choose the good over the bad. Knowing that X is better than Y causes God to choose X over Y, and it is impossible for God to do otherwise. (3) The following arguments will show that freedom, even as understood by Ibn Sînâ, is impossible in a world like his; that is, we are determined by external, not internal forces. Therefore, freedom and responsibility, we will see, have no possible place in his system. First, it was noted earlier that the faculty of knowledge is the theoretical intellect. Now regardless how knowledge occurs to this intellect, one thing is clear. Unless the practical intellect prepares the way for knowledge by acting virtuously, that is, in accordance with its knowledge of ethical principles, then knowledge, that is, of the theoretical intellect, cannot take place. But the practical intellect acquires its knowledge of the ethical principles from that of the theoretical intellect.

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A paradox arises here. Without the practical intellect’s knowledge of the ethical principles, which is derived from the knowledge of the theoretical intellect, the practical intellect cannot act virtuously: knowledge of the theoretical intellect is a prerequisite for knowledge and actions of the practical intellect. But without the virtuous action of the practical intellect knowledge of the theoretical intellect cannot be achieved: the practical intellect’s knowledge and acting is also a prerequisite for the knowledge of the theoretical intellect. All this is like saying that unless Paul succeeds in his business he cannot be happy, but unless he is happy he cannot succeed in his business. The performance of both intellects must be at a standstill, for neither seems capable of knowledge prior to the other’s knowledge. And there seems to be no way out of the dilemma. In the face of this difficulty, knowledge becomes impossible, except for prophets, who are born as metaphysically perfect as is possible for human beings. It is thus impossible for the majority of people, including philosophers, who Ibn Sînâ says are capable of it. If this is so, and if knowledge is the basis of freedom, then the majority of people cannot be said to be free. Thus it cannot be claimed that Ibn Sînâ succeeds in upholding freedom even in the first sense of the term, in that he allows for freedom to be caused internally – by knowledge. For knowledge itself, the ground of this causation, is unavailable. Second, even if people can be said to know, this does not necessarily mean that they are free. To be free requires that we know, but knowledge does not necessarily lead to freedom: it is a necessary but not sufficient condition. To be free requires that we know the ends of our behavior, the means that lead to them, and how these ends and means relate to each other. But it also requires that we possess a will caused by this knowledge. Also this knowledge must in turn be free, that is, not determined by outside factors. Aristotle says that the free is that “which has its own cause.” The question that then must be asked is “Is our will caused thus?” In Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓân the disciple, after hearing about the beauty of the Orient, asks Ḥayy to guide him to it, but the reply is that he and every other person in his position cannot yet take such a trip. They will remain barred from doing so until destiny comes to their aid to sever the eternal from the non-eternal part of them. And it is

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 155 not yet time for that severing. There is a time set for its happening, which we do not know. 38 Three claims are made here. (1) Without destiny the separation of the eternal from the non-eternal in us cannot occur. (2) There is a time fixed for destiny’s act of separation. (3) We do not know that time. (1) Destiny is the divine law that governs the universe. It is a power external to us. But to be free is not to have any external causes. It is true that destiny is internalized in every being in the form of a plan for the nature of that being. One may mistake the unfolding of this plan for freedom, since one is not aware of the real external causes of the plan and its unfolding. We are reminded here of Spinoza, who is as much a determinist as Ibn Sînâ but is willing to carry his determinism further. Spinoza suggests that human beings believe they are free because they understand what they are doing but do not understand that there are causes determining what they do: Thus the madman, the chatterer, the boy, and others of this same kind all believe that they speak by a free command of the mind, whilst in truth they have no power to restrain the impulse which they have to speak; so that experience itself, no less than reason, clearly teaches that men believe themselves to be free simply because they are conscious of their actions, and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined. 39

There are difficulties with Spinoza’s view. When he speaks of the possibility of human improvement he appears to imply that human beings are free. Yet in the kind of deterministic system he puts forth there is no room for any kind of possibility. And where there is no possibility there is no freedom, for freedom is the power to choose, with no external causes, among various possibilities. Spinoza’s denial of human freedom is a proper conclusion from his Ḥayy, 7. Spinoza, Ethics, in Ethics and “De intellectus emendations,” trans. Boyle (London: M. Dent; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1910, revised 1959), Bk. II, Prop. II, Scholium. 38

39

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basic philosophical position; his lapsing into implicit acceptance of human freedom is inconsistent with it. Ibn Sînâ’s problem, on the other hand, is that in spite of his basic philosophical position he sometimes explicitly asserts human freedom. His requirement that human beings try to improve can be reconciled with his explicit assertion of human freedom. But this latter assertion cannot be reconciled with what seems to be his hard determinism. To return to our point that for Ibn Sînâ everything is determined by destiny, it must be said that, even though whatever particular act each of us is performing at this moment is dictated by our own different natures, those natures have been planned such that we cannot but act the way we do. The character of our acts is decided for us. Our lives are given to us with a plan that cannot be altered at any moment. All we can do is to act out this plan, and we have no choice but to do so. (2) Not only is the character of our acts determined for us, their timing is also determined. My act of September 11, 2016 at 5 p.m. must be reading these lines, and it must be at this specific time. (3) Even if the claim that “the possession of knowledge is a guarantee of freedom” is true, Ibn Sînâ makes it clear here that such a guarantee is absent for at least some of our actions, since we do not have enough knowledge about them. As mentioned, we are told that we cannot know or even in any way anticipate the time of the separation of our eternal and non-eternal parts. This point shows that knowledge is not always accessible to us, which is to say we cannot always be free. Furthermore, it must not be we ourselves who decide the course of all our actions; otherwise it would not be impossible for us to know the time of our performing some of our actions. All this shows that our movement is not the result of a will that is directed by our own knowledge. We may know what we are doing, but this is not to say that what we are doing is caused by our knowledge. More about this will be said below. Third, even if we agree that knowledge guarantees freedom, it can be argued that in Ibn Sînâ’s philosophy knowledge itself must be unfree, which is to say, at least indirectly, that knowledge is caused externally. As we have discussed, the practical intellect receives its knowledge, the basis for our judgment, from the theoretical intel-

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 157 lect. But the latter cannot have this knowledge unless there is metaphysical perfection of the soul. This perfection can be brought about either by being inborn (the case of the prophet) or by being acquired (the case of the philosopher). If it is inborn, we clearly have no say in it. If it is acquired, we may ask why some people and not others can acquire it. Ibn Sînâ’s answer to this question is that the souls of those who acquire metaphysical perfection were stronger to start with than the souls of those who do not. The stronger the human soul, the more capable it is of overcoming the lower parts of the soul; hence it becomes metaphysically fit to receive knowledge. But the question then is how the strength of the soul come about. It must be either inborn or determined by some other inborn qualities or external causes. But if it is to be either, it cannot be free, for freedom is based on the decision of the individual, and clearly in neither case is there such a decision. It cannot be claimed that freedom is the basis of this strength of the soul. For freedom presupposes knowledge, and knowledge presupposes the metaphysical perfection of the soul. This is to say that, unless there is strength of the soul there is no freedom, so freedom cannot serve as a ground for the strength. From these brief comments, it can be seen that even what is said to be acquiring metaphysical perfection cannot be freely chosen. In short, the metaphysical perfection that is the ground for knowledge is either inborn or acquired. For the former possibility, it goes without saying that what is inborn is not freely chosen. As for the latter, it is acquired either by inborn qualities or external causes or by free choice. If it is acquired in either of the first two ways, it is obviously acquired unfreely, and acquiring it in the last way is impossible (for in order to choose freely one must already be knowledgeable, which presupposes metaphysical perfection, which presupposes the strength of the soul). So freedom cannot be the source of metaphysical perfection. Furthermore, whether in the case of the prophet or that of the philosopher, the true source of knowledge is the agent intellect, an external force. It is true that the soul must be perfected before it acquires knowledge. But the fact remains that this knowledge is not something intrinsic to the soul: without the light of the agent intellect, there is no knowledge.

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If so, even if the will can be said to be caused by our judgment, it cannot be said to have free movement. For this judgment is the consequence of an external cause. Therefore the movement of the will is unfree, even if “free” is understood in Ibn Sînâ’s sense, since this movement is the consequence of a series of causes that can be traced back to external ones. Ibn Sînâ is a hard determinist, and very openly so. Every being and every action is the necessary consequence of external causes. One may wonder why, in spite of his determinism, he still insists that human beings are free. The answer is that his religious and philosophical background makes it hard for him not to advocate human freedom. He might say, as Aquinas would later, that both faith and reason demand that we admit that a human being has free choice. 40 Faith demands this because without free choice the merit and demerit required by religion cannot be upheld. Reason, too, demands that a human being be free. For, we are told, the things that have their principle of motion from within are of two types – human beings and brutes (which need not concern us here). Human beings, it is claimed, move themselves by rational judgment, for they deliberate on the course of their actions. The rational soul human beings possess enables them to judge which to choose, since, as mentioned, they know the end and the means of their behavior and how these stand to each other. This is to say that human beings can be said to be the cause of their own judgment, which in turn is the cause of their movement. But it seems that neither the argument from faith nor that from reason is successful. Religions such as Islam and Christianity, which require merit and demerit, and hence freedom, have always had a problem reconciling this freedom with God’s being the cause of everything in the world. This is especially true of Islam, which seems to include contradictory statements concerning human freedom. 41 Thus, before Ibn Sînâ rushes to support the Islamic demand for human freedom, he must recognize that Islamic faith also at times requires Aquinas, De veritate, q. 24, art. 1. For determinism, see Qurʾân, S. LXXI, 28–29. For free will, see Qurʾân, IV, 70–80; VI, 107; X, 99; XVII, 29; LXXIV, 56; LXXVI, 29–31; LXXI, 28–29. 40

41

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 159 that we be unfree. Unless he can give good reasons for interpreting Islam to be advocating freedom against non-freedom, the claim that faith demands that we be free is untenable. The argument from human reason and knowledge does not work either, for, as we have shown earlier, knowledge is not a guarantee of freedom. But if human beings cannot be free and hence responsible for their own actions, should the responsibility be laid on God? The answer is also no. For God is no less unfree than we are. It is true that God is primarily determined by God’s own nature, not, as we are, by external causes – a kind of determinism Ibn Sînâ and Spinoza after him call freedom. But remember that God’s nature is the working of necessity. To be free implies that one could have done other than what one has done, but God cannot at any moment choose to do anything except what necessity has determined God’s nature to do. Therefore God is not responsible for producing a series of causes that lead to the existence of our specific natures, which in turn produce good and evil. Where then is the responsibility to be placed for human evil? The answer is nowhere. In a system like that of Ibn Sînâ, there is no room for moral responsibility, for all beings in such a system, including God, cannot help doing what they do.

II. THE SOLUTION FOR THE PROBLEM OF DESTINY

If human beings are not free, and hence responsible for their own actions, but are rather determined by God’s power or destiny to do whatever they do, would it be just of God to reward or punish them? In other words, the problem is this: 1. God causes human actions. 2. God is just. 3. Yet God rewards and punishes human beings for their actions. This problem of reconciling God’s justice with God’s dispensing rewards and punishments to beings whose actions God causes is what Ibn Sînâ means by the “problem of destiny” (al-qadar). 42 This 42

“Ess. Sec.,” 25.

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problem was the center of much attention in medieval Islam. It was raised by the Muʿtazilites as early as the end of the eighth century, as a result of studying the difficulties raised by the Qurʾân; and it was still being discussed in Ibn Sînâ’s time by the Persian Muʿtazilite ʿAbd alJabbar (c. 937–1025), chief justice of Rayy, whose great work al-Mughnî was very probably known to him. 43

Ibn Sînâ addresses this problem in Risâla fî Sirr al-Qadar, Risâlat alQadar, and al-Ishârât wat-Tanbîhât. His answer is as follows. “Rewards” and “Punishments” are not what they are understood to be by the theologians: Chastisement of the fornicator, for example, by putting him in chains and shackles, burning him in the fire over and over again, and setting snakes and scorpions upon him. 44

What are rewards and punishments, then? They are not of God’s dispensing in the second life, but are the effects of our worldly life: And it is not to be imagined that after the resurrection there are obligations, commandments, and prohibitions for anyone, so that by witnessing Reward and Punishment they should be scared or refrain from what is proscribed to them and desire what is commanded to them. So it is false that Reward and Punishment are as they have imagined them. 45

Rather, they are as the ancients understood them to be:

Reward is the occurrence of pleasure in the soul corresponding to the extent of its perfection, while punishment is the occurrence of pain in the soul corresponding to the extent of its deficiency. So the soul’s abiding in deficiency is its “alienation from God the Exalted,” and this is “the curse,” “the Penalty,” [God’s] “wrath” and “anger,” and pain comes to it from that deficiency while its perfection is what is meant by [God’s] “sat-

Ibid., 35. Ibid., 33. See also R. Q. in T. R., 17–20. 45 Ess. Sec., 33. 43 44

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 161 isfaction” with it, its “closeness” and “nearness” and “attachment.” This then and nothing else is the meaning of “Reward” and “Punishment” according to them. 46

And in al-Ishârât he says:

Punishment of the soul for its sin is, as you know, similar to the disease of the body for its gluttony. Thus it is one of the necessary consequences to which past conditions have led – which together with their consequences were inescapable. 47

Furthermore, it is not the nature of God to punish and reward in the manner described by the theologians: For this is the behavior of one who wills to slake his wrath against his enemy, through injury or pain which he inflicts on him out of hostility against him; and that is impossible in the character of God the Exalted, for it is the act of one who wills that the very being who models himself on him should refrain from acts like his or be restrained for repeating such acts.48

In short, rewards and punishments are the effects of our own behavior in the present life; because of this, and because of God’s good nature, God cannot be said to reward and punish in the second life in the manner understood by the theologians. There remains the following question. What becomes then of the Qurʾânic, as well as Ibn Sînâ’s, talk about divine commandments and prohibitions and divine praise and blame? Of what use are the former in light of the fact that God determines all human action; and are the latter justifiable in light of the same fact? Let us first present Ibn Sînâ’s answer to this question, and then try to examine its validity. His answer to the problem of commandment and prohibition is given in the following passage: … and that the commanding and forbidding of acts to responsible beings, by revelation in the world are just a stimulant to him of whom it was foreknown [by God] that there would oc-

Ibid., 32. Ish., Part Three, Seventh Class, Ch. 27. 48 “Ess. Sec.,” 33. See also R. Q. in T. R., 17–20. 46 47

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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY cur in him [performance of] the commandments, or (in the case of prohibition) a deterrent to him of whom it was foreknown that he would refrain from what is forbidden. Thus the commandment is a cause of the act’s proceeding from him of whom it is foreknown that it will proceed, and the prohibition is a cause of intimidation to him who refrains from something bad because of it. 49

The following claims are made here. 1. Commandments and prohibitions are made to responsible beings. 2. There are some people who will act rightly, and some who will refrain from acting badly. 3. Those who will act rightly, and those who will refrain from acting badly, are known to God as doing so. 4. The commandments are stimuli to those from whom the good will proceed; and the prohibitions are restraints to those from whom the bad will not proceed. 5. Therefore the commandments are causes of people’s doing the right, and the prohibitions are causes of people’s avoiding doing the bad. But, first, we showed earlier that human beings cannot be responsible beings, because their behavior is fully determined by God’s power or destiny. So the commandments and prohibitions cannot be said to be made to responsible beings. Second, the remaining four points are most interesting and important. According to the second, people’s behavior will go in a certain direction; and, according to the third, God knows the direction the behavior of every individual will take. But, according to the fourth and fifth, God sends the commandments and prohibitions as causes for people’s behavior. The question is whether a person who is known by God to perform the commandments, and hence act rightly, would act rightly were it not for the commandments. It seems that Ibn Sînâ wants to say that such a person has the capacity for acting rightly, but will not do so except if stimulated by the commandments. In other words, the second point is incomplete by 49

“Ess. Sec.,” 32.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PROBLEMS OF EVIL AND DESTINY 163 itself. It acquires its full meaning in the context of the fourth and fifth points, so as to read: “There are some people who will act rightly, and some who will refrain from acting badly, as a result of being stimulated to do so by God’s commandments and prohibitions respectively.” In short, god knows that there are some people who will do the right if stimulated by the commandments, and some who will refrain from doing wrong if restrained by the prohibitions. That is why God reveals the commandments and prohibitions. They are therefore not additional to the causal system but part of it. What about praise and blame? They too have their respective functions in increasing the good and decreasing the bad: As for praise and blame, these have just two objects. One is to incite a doer of good to repeat the like act which is willed to proceed from him; the second is to scare the one from whom the act has occurred from repeating the like of it, and [ensure] that the one from whom that act has [not] occurred will abstain from doing what is not willed to proceed from him, though it is in his capacity to do it. 50

To recapitulate, God does not reward or punish. Rewards and punishments are the effects of our worldly conduct. What God does instead is to send commandments and prohibitions, to cause those who have the capacity to abide by the former to do so, and to cause those who have the capacity to refrain from doing the forbidden to do so. Praise and blame are also used by God to increase the good doing and decrease the bad doing. By means of the former, the doer of the good is encouraged to do more good. By means of the latter, the doer of the bad is scared to do more bad and the non-doer of the bad is restrained from doing the bad. But regarding rewards and punishments it can be argued that, if God is the cause of human action, and if rewards and punishments are effects of human action, then rewards and punishments must have God as their primary cause. The solution to the problem of destiny does not lie in Ibn Sînâ’s denial of God’s causation of rewards and punishments, for, as we have seen, he must admit such 50

Ibid., 33.

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causation, but in admitting that God has no power over such causation, since all God’s actions are necessitated and not due to God’s free will. As for prohibitions and commandments, blame and praise, it can also be objected that, if God promotes the good by encouraging good action, and reduces evil by discouraging bad action, then it is not clear why God does not prevent bad action altogether. Again, Ibn Sînâ’s answer must be that it is because this is all God can do. God has no freedom or power to cause any human action in any way other than the way God does cause it.

CHAPTER SIX SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS I have attempted in this volume to reconstruct and clarify Ibn Sînâ’s theodicy and to examine its validity. The following seven theses for solving the problem of evil have been isolated in this theodicy. 1. God is good and providential, but, precisely because of His goodness, God cannot intend any good or evil in the world. It is contended that to intend something is to seek something better than what one already has. Because there is nothing, good or evil, that is better than what God possesses, God cannot intend anything for Himself or for the world. It is true that God is said to cause the world, but He is said to do so by necessity. God cannot therefore be blamed for the presence of evil in the world. I have argued that Ibn Sînâ’s view of intention is violated by his strong conviction that everything good in the world is intended by God essentially, that is, desired for its own sake. If God can seek something less valuable than what God already possesses, namely, everything that is good in the world, then it cannot be impossible for God to seek the presence of evil in the world. This is not to say that because of this God must seek it, but that the present thesis does not show that God cannot or does not seek it. Furthermore, this thesis is an implicit denial of God’s absolute power. If it is a solution, it is not because God is absolutely good, but because God’s goodness is a limitation.

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2. There is more good than evil in the universe. Essential evil is rare; only nonessential evil is predominant. According to Ibn Sînâ, there is no evil except in the sublunary sphere, and, even there, real or essential evil only affects a minority of individuals. Against this I have argued as follows. First, it seems that the celestial sphere must also involve evil, for two reasons. (1) All matter, according to Ibn Sînâ, is potential, and potentiality is the source of privation and hence evil. The celestial sphere has heavenly bodies, that is, some sort of matter, and hence must be somewhat evil. (2) The celestial souls and even intelligences must also be somewhat evil. For everything in the world, including the celestial intelligences, is to Ibn Sînâ possible in itself, and whatever is possible in itself is for him “not a pure good,” which is to say somewhat evil. Second, I showed in Chapter One that the problem of evil for Ibn Sînâ is one of incompatibility between God’s goodness and any evil at all. If so, to claim that evil is rare and is not found except in our world is to leave us with the problem. Third, I have advanced arguments to show that, even though non-essential evil is not so serious as essential evil, it is nevertheless serious enough, and must be accounted for in a theodicy. This thesis also leaves us with a question concerning God’s power. If God is all-powerful, why does He not eliminate all kinds of evil? In other words, if God’s absolute goodness is as strongly adhered to as it is by Ibn Sînâ, then this thesis must rest on the conviction that God cannot free the world from all evil. 3. Evil is a necessary consequence of the good, and to wish the removal of evil is to wish the removal of the good. According to Ibn Sînâ, the causes that lead to evil can cease to be causes of evil either (A) if the natures of the elements are changed or (B) if the elements that lead to evil are completely eliminated. But either way, according to him, is undesirable. (A) would lead to the destruction of many species, and create a basic alteration in the natures of things, in such a way as to render these natures similar to the natures of celestial beings. (B) would result in more evil than is already present, by bringing about two privations: one of the world or its elements and one already present in the world.

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Two objections are raised concerning (A). First, it is difficult to show that some species would not have been preserved were it not for something like fire as we know it. Second, if these elements acquire other natures not leading to evil, these natures may result in consequences that may be equally good as, or even better than, their present good consequences. Concerning (B), it is argued that, if the sublunary world or its elements that contain evil are removed, it cannot be held that more evil comes about than what was there already, since there are then two privations, one of the world and one already present in the world. It is argued that the former privation cancels out the latter. Furthermore, it can be argued that evil is a necessary consequence of the good. But this is so only if God cannot bring the latter into existence without the former. Like the previous two theses, this one must also rely on the claim that God is not omnipotent. 4. Evil is a necessary means for the good. But it seems possible to have made beings that require evil as a means for their preservation in such a way as not to require such evil. Evil can only be claimed as a necessary means to the good if God cannot do anything about it. Again, this thesis involves the denial of God’s absolute power. 5. God is not omnipotent; that is, God cannot free the world from evil. This seems to be the strongest thesis for freeing God from blame for the presence of evil, except that it is nowhere explicitly stated. Chapter Five, however, provides evidence in support of the claim that Ibn Sînâ must have adhered to this thesis. 6. Essential evil is privation of being, and therefore cannot be caused by God, who is the cause of being only. Against this thesis, it is argued that Ibn Sînâ’s notion of evil, as privation of being, does not offer us a solution for the problem of evil. This is shown by (1) a discussion of Ibn Sînâ’s failure to show that real evil is identical with privation of being; and (2) an attempt to show that, even if essential evil is privation of being, and if God cannot be responsible for it since God cannot be responsible for

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privation of being, the problem remains with us because at least some kind of accidental evil, according to Ibn Sînâ, not a privation of being. In addition to the fact that this thesis is untenable as it stands, it, too, presupposes a limitation of God’s power. To say that God cannot cause privation of being is obviously to restrict God’s power. 7. Human evil is due to human free will, resulting from knowledge. The objection raised against this thesis is that to Ibn Sînâ human freedom is impossible, and hence it cannot be claimed that human evil is caused by human freedom. Three points are raised in argument here. (1) Knowledge, the basis of freedom, is impossible. (2) Even if knowledge were possible, it would not be a sufficient ground for asserting the presence of freedom. (3) Even if knowledge were available, and its availability led to freedom, knowledge itself could not, according to Ibn Sînâ, be freely chosen or avoided. And if the basis of freedom is unfree, it would seem unreasonable to advocate freedom. Besides, whatever the cause of human evil (be it human freedom or what have you), it should be possible only if God is unwilling or unable either to prevent it from coming into being or to eliminate it. We know that for Ibn Sînâ God is absolutely good, and for him the good always promotes the good. So it cannot be that God is unwilling. The only possible answer, then, is that God is unable. As for the problem of destiny, Ibn Sînâ attempts to solve it by assuring us that rewards and punishments are not inflicted on us by God in the second life. Rather they are results of our own conduct. To say, therefore, that “God is just” and “there are rewards and punishments” is not inconsistent. God’s justice encourages good action and discourages its contrary, and has nothing to do with rewards and punishments. However, rewards and punishments, it is argued, have God as their primary cause, since God is the primary cause of human action. Yet God is not to blame for that, since God does not freely choose what to cause and what not to cause. The limitation of God’s power must also be the reason for God’s merely encouraging the good and discouraging the bad, and not completely eliminating the latter.

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In examining Ibn Sînâ’s solution for the problem of evil, we have found that six of his seven theses (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7) involve some difficulties in their explicit form. Furthermore, all six have been found to rest implicitly on the only thesis which is defensible and which succeeds in dissolving the problem of evil: thesis (5), that God is not all-powerful. Likewise, the problem of destiny, which is a form of the problem of evil, has also been shown to rest on thesis (5). The conclusion that can be drawn is that by introducing thesis (5) Ibn Sînâ succeeds in dissolving the problem of evil. But unless he is willing to adopt this thesis openly – and he is not, as noted in Chapter One, for fear of the theologians – an apparent problem remains for him.

ABBREVIATIONS “Ess. Sec.” George F. Hourani, “Ibn Sînâ’s Essay on the Secret of Destiny.” Ḥayy. Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓân.

Ish. Al-Ishârât wat-Tanbîhât, ed. Sulaymân Dunyâ. Na. Kitâb an-Najât, ed. Majid Fakhry.

R. Akh. Risâla fi al-Akhlâq, Ms. Kopûbi.

R. Ish. Risâla fi Mâhiyyat al-ʿIshq, in Traitès mystiques. R. Q. Risâlat al-Qadar.

Sh. Il. ash-Shifâ al-Ilâhîyyât, ed. G. C. Anawâtî and Saʾîd Zâyed.

Sh. Manash-Shifâ al Manṭiq, vol. 6, ed. A. F. al-Ahwânî.

T. R. TisʾRasâʾil, sponsored by A. Hindiyya.

Tr. Traitès mystiques d’Abou Ali al-Hosain b. Abdallah b. Sînâ ou d’Avicenne, ed. M. A. F. Mehren. U. H. ʿUyûn al-Ḥikma, ed. ʿAbd ar-Raḥmân Badawî.

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Aḍḥawiyya fī al-Maʿâd li-Ibn Sînâ. Ed. Hasan Asi. Beirut: alMuʾassasa al-Jâmiʿiyya lil-Dirâsât wal-Nashr wal-Tawzî, 1987.

Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓân. In Traités mystiques d’Abou Ali al-Hosain b. Abdallah b. Sînâ. ou d’Avicenne. 4 vols. in 1. ed. M. A. F. Mehren. Leiden: E. G. Brill, 1889–99.

Hourani, George F. “Ibn Sina’s Essay on the Secret of Destiny.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 29, pt. 1 (1966): 25–48.

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INDEX A accidental evil, 66–67, 85–100, 131–32, 137, 145–46, 149– 50; as either being or privation, 66–67; as either existing or non-existing, 66, 84; as either existing or destroyer, 83–84, 85; existing, 85– 91; existing as being, 86–87; existing as good, 87–89; existing as resulting in evil, 89– 93; non-existing, 93–99, non-existing and privation, 93–99; summary, 99–100 actual intellect (Aristotle), 47– 48, 110–12 actuality, 33–36, 38–39, 47–48, 72–73, 110–11 afterlife, 115, 123; al-Fârâbî, 111–12, 121 agent (active) intellect), 103, 111–13, 118–21, 152, 157; and prophets, 113, 154 al-Ahwânî, A. H., viii akrasia, Aristotle, 42–43. See also ignorance Anawâtî, George C., 84–85 angels, 103, 152–53; in Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓân, 103 animal soul, 104, 108–9 appetitive faculty, 102–3; Plato, 22 Aquinas, Thomas, vii, viii, 1, 2,

183

68, 147, 150, 158 Aristotle, ix, 15, 30–48, 75, 91, 130; classes of actions, 40; Divine, 36–37; mean, 40–41. See also, actuality; akrasia; cause; choice; form(s); God; gods; good; matter; mean; metaphysical evil; moral evil; nature; necessity; nous; potentiality; privation; soul; virtue(s); individual titles Aristotle’s Theology (Plotinus), 48 Ashʿarites, 7, 112 Augustine, 146 B al-Bayhaqî, A. Z., viii C Campbell, Charles Arthur, 3–4 cause, 10, 81–82, 87–90, 93–94, 100–103; Aristotle, 36–38; Plato, 18–29; Plotinus, 61– 62. See also First Cause Cherniss, Harold, 16–17n choice: Aristotle, 39–40, 42–43; Plato, 24 Christianity, 127 n, 158 contemplation: Aristotle, 45, 50; by intelligences, 102–3; Plotinus, 50 Corbin, Henry, 112 n Cornford, Francis, 16 n cosmic evil. See metaphysical evil

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D De Anima (Aristotle), 30 n, 46– 47 46 n, 75 Demiurge (Plato), 8–9, 19, 21– 22; limitation to creation of gods and world-soul, 21–22 destiny, 7–8, 154–56, 162–63, 169 determinism, 7, 155–59. See also destiny domination, 90. See also faculties, spirited downward movement, 123; Plotinus, 49–54 dynamic evil (Plato), 17, 18–19, 26 E emanation, 49–52, 59, 102–3, 113–15, 128–29 Enneads (Plotinus), 16 n, 49 n, 54, 55 n, 126 n entelechy. See actuality; nature Epicurus, 3 essential: defined, 68–69; and primary perfections, 77–78 essential evil, 66, 67–84, 86, 131–32, 146–50; as always privation, 66; as absence of fixed perfections, 69; and being, 67; and disorder, 80; as evil in all respects, 79–80; and matter, 81–84; and the natural, 67–80; as privation in being, 146–51; summary, 84; as uncaused, 79–80. See also perfections evil: as contrary to good (Aristotle), 30; as disorder (Aristotle), 38–39; as eternal (Plato), 15; of the evil or good soul (Plato), 21–25, 26–29; as falling short of good (Plo-

tinus), 58; as illusion (Hinduism), 9; as ineradicable (Plato, Plotinus), 15–16; as making this world the best of all possible, 12; as necessary consequence of good, 10; as necessary for good (Pike), 11–12, 15; as necessary means for good, 10–11, 142–44; as privation of good, 9–10, 66; as product of human free will, 12–13, 15. See also accidental evil; dynamic evil; essential evil; free will defense; higher good defense; metaphysical evil; moral evil; privation; static evil evil soul (Plato), 21–25; created at God’s request, 22, 28; defined, 23; and ignorance, 23–24; involuntary, 24 F faculties: angels as faculties of human soul, 103; of animal soul (intellective and locomotive), 104; move toward their respective goods, 105; of human soul (theoretical and practical), 104; loss of function as painful, 107; spirited, 22; of vegetative soul (nutritive, desiderative, reproductive), 104, 106 al-Fârâbî, 111–12, 120 First Being, 7 First Cause, 60–61, 119–20; best object for human and angelic souls, 120 Flew, Antony, 1, 2, 13 form(s), 81–84, 102, 108–9, 111, 114; always actuality, 83–85,

INDEX 94–95; Aristotle, 31–33, 35, 37, 45; as attached to matter (Aristotle), 30; identified with being, unity, sameness (Plato), 17; identified with good (Aristotle), 30; Plato, 16–19; Plotinus, 49; as separate entity (Plato), 30; versus sensible world (Plato), 30, 37; world of forms eternal (Plato), 15. See also nature free will defense, 12–14. See also Plantinga; Hicks G God, 1–6, 1–14, 80, 102–3, 125–64; Aristotle, 36–38, 47, 48; good versus evil God (Manicheans), 8; as limited (Plato), 6, 7–8, 15, 27–28; levels of creation (Plato), 20–22, 27–28; Pike, 29; requires universe for His determination (Plotinus), 51; versus Plotinian One, 102; Plotinian as empty of form or being, 49; Plotinus, 48– 52, 53; Whitehead, 51. See also Demiurge; nous; providence gods: Aristotle, 133–34; 20–21; Plotinus, 59–60 Gohlman, William E., ix n Goichon, Amélie Marie, 84 Good: all intended by God, 128–30; only the complete is fully good (Plato), 28; and contemplation (Aristotle), 50–51; and contemplation (Plotinus), 51–52; God as absolutely, 125, 128; identified with form (Aristotle), 130–32; more good than evil

185 in the universe, 133–136; must be in sensible world (Aristotle), 30; nature for Ibn Sînâ, 105–8; as object for human soul, 107–9; only outside sensible world (Plato), 30; requires its contrary (Plato), 15–16, 102; three types (Aristotle), 38–39. See also evil good soul (Plato), 24–25; responsible for incidental evil, 24–25; source of order, 38 Gracia, Jorge, ix H habit(s), 117–19; Aristotle, 43– 44 happiness, 79; as contemplation (Aristotle), 45; highest human good for Aristotle, 39, 47–48; not received by souls in third state, 122; Plotinus, 57, 58; and virtue (Aristotle), 39, 44–45; worldly and practical intellect, 115 Hare, Peter H., 3–4 Hartshorne, Charles, 151 n Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓân, 104, 152, 154– 55 Hicks, John, 13 higher good defense, 10–11. See also Pike Hinduism, 9 Hoitenga, Dewey J., 13 Hourani, George F., 84, ix, 129– 30, 147 Hudson, William D., 65 n human (rational) soul, 101, 103, 104–6, 109, 115, 119–21; as able to conceive essence without matter, 109–11; said to be divine when it grasps

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the infinite intelligibles, 119; cannot be free from body in this life, 114; descent of, 101–5; preoccupation with the body. 107–9; Plato, 22 Hume, David, 3, 65 I Ibn Rushd, 146 ignorance: Aristotle, 43; as deformity of the soul (Plato), 22–23; as essential evil, 79; and eternal destruction, 122; as greatest vice, 116; Plato, 22–24, 26–27, 42; as source of moral evil, 124; Plotinus, 53 imagination, 110; Aristotle, 46; intellectual faculty of animal soul, 104; role in way to knowledge, 108–9 intellects: Aristotle, 45–47; Plotinus, 46–47. See also actual intellect; passive intellect; practical intellect; theoretical intellect intelligences, 101–3, 112, 114, 132–34; Plotinus, 54–55 intelligibles, 101–3, 112–14, 119–20; as imperfect, 132– 34 irrational (evil) soul (Plato), 22– 23 al-Ishârât wat-Tanbîhât, 7, 160, 161 Islam, 6–7, 168–60 J Joachim, Harold H., 43 n K Khallikân, Ibn, viii n Kitâb an-Najât (Na.), 72, 73, 74 knowledge: and First Cause, 119–20; greatest virtue of ra-

tional soul, 118–19; greatest virtue of rational soul, 116; majority of people do not reach highest form, 113; for prophets, 112–13; renders human soul eternal and divine, 113, 119; way to, 108– 19

L Laws (Plato), 16 n, 17 n, 25, 27 Leibniz, 148 Lloyd, G. E. R., 40 n love, 53, 105–6 M MacIntyre, Alasdair, 13 n MacKenna, Stephen, 16 Mackie, John L., 1–3, 8, 13; two categories of solutions, 8–10 Madden, Edward H., 4–5 Manicheans, 9 Marmura, Michael, 84 n, 112 matter, 82–84, 132; Aristotle, 30–33; Plato, 23, 26, 30, 37; Plotinus, 50 McCloskey, H. J., 148 McKeon, Richard, 30 n mean, Aristotle, 40–42 Metaphysica of Avicenna (Morewedge), 87–88 metaphysical evil, 12–13, 67– 100; Aristotle, 30–39; Plato, 17–20, 30; Plotinus, 51–52; as static and dynamic, 17– 21. See also accidental evil; essential evil Metaphysics (Aristotle), 31–36 Mitchell, Basil, 13 n morality as acquired, 117 moral evil, 12, 13, 102–23; as evil of the evil soul (Plato), 21–25; as evil of human soul, resulting from igno-

INDEX rance, 101, 122–23; and states of souls, 121–23; Aristotle, 39–48; Plato, 21–25, 27–29 Morewedge, Parviz, 87–88 Muʿtazilites, 160 Myth of Er, 19 N nature: 66–70, 73–74, 76–79; Aristotle, 30–32, 35–36; completion of any nature as good (Aristotle), 35; Plato, 18–19, 22, 29; scale of natures (Aristotle), 35 necessity, 90–92; versus Aristotle, 91–92; Aristotle’s three types, 91; Plato, 22–23 negative evil (Plato), 18 O Oates, Whitney Jennings, 33 n, 47 One (Plotinus), 50–52, 54 P Parmenides, 51 participation (Plato), 30, 37 passive intellect (Aristotle), 46– 47 perfection(s): fixed, 68–70; of “evil” in relation to a cause, 89–90; and non-existing accidental evil; not all are fixed, 87; as powers and acts, 70–72; primary, secondary, and tertiary defined, 70; removal of primary as not always affecting existence, 73–76; removal of secondary as more serious than of primary, 76–77; privation of tertiary, 94–95; secondary and tertiary confused, 98–99

187 phenomenal world: Hinduism, 9; Plato, 16–18, 80 philosopher versus prophet, 118–19 Phaedrus (Plato), 22 n physical evil. See metaphysical evil Physics (Aristotle), 35, 37, 39 Pike, Nelson, 10–11, 29 Plantinga, Alvin, 13 Plato, ix, 15–29, 37–38, 75, 79– 80, 130; sources of evil, 16– 17 n. See also cause; Demiurge; dynamic evil; evil; God; gods; good; form(s); human soul; irrational soul; matter; metaphysical evil; moral evil; necessity; nature; participation; phenomenal world; privation; providence; receptacle; reflections; soul; static evil; individual titles Plotinus, ix, 15–29, 48–63, 104, 122. See also downward movement; form(s); God; gods; good; matter; metaphysical evil; necessity; nous; One; providence; soul; theodicy; upward movement; world-soul; individual titles potentiality, 72–73, 82–84, 110– 11, 133, 166; Aristotle, 32– 35; al-Farabi, 111; contrasted with actuality (Aristotle), 33–35; as source of privation, 133 power(s). See faculties practical intellect: as connection of soul and body, 113–15; emanation from last celestial intelligence, 103; function in

188

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: IBN SÎNÂ’S THEODICY

proper function of faculties, 114; if not strong enough, 121; role in acquiring knowledge, 113–18, 153, 156–57; stages of knowledge, 110; and virtues, 115–16 pre-cosmos (Plato), 17, 20–21 predestination. See determinism Preus, Anthony, 91 n privation: absolute privation does not exist, 67; Aquinas, 68; Aristotle, 30, 31–32; versus deficiency, 87–88; evil as privation of being, 66–71, 146–52; Plato, 18; potentiality as source of, 133; twoprivation thesis, 141–43 problem of destiny. See destiny problem of evil: and Demiurge (Plato), 21–22; does not arise for Aristotle, 30, 48; formulation in Ibn Sînâ’s philosophy, 5–8; in Plato, 27–30; Plato’s awareness of, 21–22; summary of solutions, 13–14; traditional solutions, 8–14; traditional formulations, 1–4. See also free will defense; metaphysical evil; moral evil prophets, and knowledge, 112– 14 Protagoras (Plato), 24 n providence: 5, 125–31, 165; not to be understood in traditional sense, 125–31; three elements of God’s, 126–28; Plotinus, 54–55, 58–60. See also God psychological evil. See moral evil

Q al-Qifṭî, A. Y., x n Qurʾân, 158 n, 160–61 R realization of faculties, 106–7 reason: as a god (Plato), 22; and necessity in world-soul (Plato), 22. See also necessity receptacle (Plato), 17–19; 80 reflection(s), 111, 118, 120; alFârâbî, 111; Plato, 17–20; Plotinus, 49–53 Republic (Plato), 22–24, 27n rewards and punishments, 125, 159–61, 163–64, 168 Risâla fi al-akhlâq (R. Akh.), 115 n Risâla fi Mahiyyât al-ʿIshq, 105–7 Risâla fi Sirr al-Qadar, 146, 160 Risâlat al-Qadar, 160 S Ṣalîba, Jamil, 84 ash-Shifâʾ, al-Ilâhiyyât, 5–6, 67, 73–74, 79, 86, 87, 91, 95, 98, 99, 127, 129, 131, 136, 135 Sophist (Plato), 23 n soul, 75–76, 89–91, 95; and afterlife, 121–24; appetitive, spirited, and rational, 107–7; Aristotle, 39, 41–43, 45; celestial, 103–4; kinds of, 104; descent and structure, 101– 5; four parts (Aristotle) 104; Plato, 20–26, 37–38, 50, 52– 54, 56, 57–61. See also animal soul; human soul; vegetative soul Spinoza, Benedictus de, 158 static evil (Plato), 17–20, 26, 28, 31, 80 Stoics, 19

INDEX Summa Theologiae (Aquinas), 68 T Taylor, Alfred E., 16 n Theaetetus (Plato), 15 theodicy, 125–65, 167; Plotinus, 54–63, 65 theoretical intellect: emanates from last celestial intellect, 103; as example for practical intellect, 103; as faculty of knowledge, 153; potential, actual, and acquired, 110; as primary function of the soul, 115; potentiality requires agent intellect to become actual, 111–12; relation to practical intellect, 115, 154– 55; as way to knowledge, 109–15 Timaeus (Plato), 8–9, 16 n, 19 Tisʾ Rasâʾil (T. R.), 104 n, 109 n Aṭ-Ṭûsî, Naṣr ad-Dîn, 78–79

189 U universals. See forms upward movement, 123; Plotinus, 53–54 Uṣaybiʿa, I. A., x n ʿUyûn al-Ḥikma (U. H.), 105–12 V vegetative soul, 104, 106 vices. See virtues virtue(s), 115–19, 121–22; of particular faculties, 117, 118; as imposed by practical intellect, 115–16; Aristotle, 39, 41–43, 45 Vlastos, Gregory, 16–17 n W Whitehead, Alfred North, 51 world-soul: Plato, 19–20, 21; Plotinus, 50, 51 Z Zâyed, Saʿd, 84–85 Zeller, Eduard, 16n