Overview of Athari Metaphysics

Metaphysics, the study of the fundamental nature of reality and existence, presents significant challenges and complexities. Within the realm of metaphysics, the Athari, a school of thought in Sunni Islam, perspective offers a unique approach to understanding the attributes and actions ascribed to Allah, or God. This overview explores the fundamental principles of their (and also my) metaphysics, including the distinction between the different types of predications when describing God’s attributes. It also considers the role of rational arguments alongside textual proofs for the existence of God and questions the concept of Divine Simplicity. Additionally, the overview delves into the uncreated nature of the Quran and the understanding of God's actions within His essence. By examining Athari metaphysics, we gain insights into the nuanced interpretation of divine attributes and deepen our understanding of God’s unknowable essence.

The Athari view disagrees with equivocal predication, predication is a way something is attributed to a subject, when describing Allah, or God. Equivocal predication, for example, when uttering the word ‘bank’, it could describe a place where monetary transactions are performed or it could describe a river bank. In this way, when describing God’s knowledge or power, while some describe it equivocally, or God is living as He creates life and death or that God has knowledge since He created knowledge, my position is of analogical predication. When it said to be analogically predicated of the subject, God in this case, an individual can be healthy, and a salad can be healthy, health is used in similar but not exact terms for if it was exact that would be univocal prediction or anthropomorphizing God which is disbelief in Islam. There is nothing in creation like unto God who is infinite. This same logic goes for other attributes of Allah such as His two Hands or when He is above His Throne as they subsist in His essence. It must be interpreted in a way that appropriately befits God’s majesty and perfection while accepting the apparent meaning of the text. A word in the Quran should be understood in the context of the verse, and the surrounding verses, and in the chapter, and in the Book, and how the Prophet Muhammad and his companions understood it, and their students. His Hands are not literally in the form of human hands nor are His Hands a metaphor for power, yet they are real in an analogical conceptual modality as only God knows His ontological reality. To deny His Hands is to deny an attribute of God. Negative theology or describing God through the negation of all similarities from Him is not necessary.

The Athari view also allows for rational or logical argumentation for the existence of God. There is a vast genre of arguments for God such as the necessity of a necessary being from the existence of a contingent being, or beings that cannot create themselves, or beings that are not necessary. To avoid infinite regression, there must be a necessary a priori explanation for all contingent existence. Textual-proofs take precedent over metaphysical arguments but they can work in tandem as the latter can support the former or vice versa. There should be no disagreement between the two. Not every attribute of God can be proven rationally, it can be proven, however, the necessity of the necessary being and certain attributes such as will and power in my other blog posts. 

The Athari view is also against Divine Simplicity as it is problematic for three main reasons. Firstly, divine simplicity entails that all of God’s actions and attributes are identical to His essence, for example, His wrath is identical to His love which is identical to Himself. If all His actions are identical to His essence and His essence is necessary, this would entail that all actions are necessary which leads to modal collapse. Secondly, related to the previous point, if all His actions are necessary then He could not do otherwise which negates the pure libertarian free will of God. Thirdly, if they are identical to His essence and He is eternal, this entails that creation is also eternal alongside God which is polytheism. God is the One, the Singular, who has no peers nor rivals, His attributes subsist and adhere in Him and cannot be separated from Him, in other words, the attributes of God are not identical to Him nor other than Him. His attributes are not created and they subsist in His essence. His essence is not dependent on independent attributes, rather His attributes depend on His essence in the sense that God’s attributes subsist in His essence, they cannot be separated from it. The dependence of His attributes on His essence is not a causal dependence otherwise they would be created, it is a counterfactual dependence. 

Proponents of divine simplicity argue that if God is composed of parts that entails that God is contingent as God would be dependent upon His attributes. For example, if there were two necessary beings, the only way to tell them apart would be if one had an attribute that the other did not and if the other did not have such an attribute, it would be contingent. To avoid this, God is simple. However, this argument is false as to claim that a composite thing is dependent upon its components which in turn contradicts its necessity is false. Rather God depends on Himself. The dependency of the composite thing on the whole is in fact a dependency on its own self and the statement of the one who says a thing depends on itself is equivalent to the meaning intended when one says that it is necessary in and of itself. Such a self-existence does not entail any dependency that contradicts dependency. God is not dependent on anything outside of Himself. When it is said that God cannot exist without His attribute and His attributes cannot exist without Him, it is a counterfactual dependence not a causal dependence. This dependence is merely by association. For example, it is an entailment of God’s existence which implies statements like the composite thing cannot exist without the existence of its parts, or two parts cannot exist without the other part, or the part cannot exist without the existence of the whole, or the attribute cannot exist without the subject of its attribution. Again, it is not a causal dependency as it is not that each of the two things, His essence and His attributes, is dependent on the other in such a way that the other is an efficient cause for it, or circular dependency, rather the existence of the two things is a condition for the other thing, they must go together, such as fatherhood and sonship (not in a Christian sense, they do not see the other persons as attributes of the Father but as other instantiations of the divine essence (the Son is another person with attributes/is fully God), furthermore it is a causal relation as shown in their doctrine of divine processions). A being without attributes can only be estimated in the mind as its existence in the external reality is impossible. 

God is perfect in all His attributes and distinct from His creation as He is qualitatively infinite meaning that for any attribute that He has, it is perfect. A simple being can only cause another simple being, for example, if God only could create one thing, if that thing has both existence and essence, which did God create – the existence or the essence? If a divinely simple God creates complex or composite things, it would imply that the created entities possess qualities or attributes that are absent in the creator. This would contradict the principle of reflection, suggesting a disparity between the creator and the created. Furthermore, if a divinely simple God is the ultimate cause of all things, it would be logical to assume that the effect or creation would also mirror the nature of its cause and since creations have multiplicity, so does God. God is the only creator of multiplicity in this world, all things are created through Him and not another, and is therefore not simple. The multiplicity and perfection of His attributes do not necessitate multiple necessary beings. For example, I as a human have multiple attributes but I am not considered to be multiple humans. The fusion of Greek philosophy and metaphysics with religion begets the corruption and Hellenization of the faith, diluting its essence until it becomes what it sought to avoid. Furthermore, each of His divine attributes are different from each other and it is not that the attributes of God come together to form Him, as mentioned before, they subsist in His essence. God is not quantitatively infinite, opposed to the qualitatively infinite mentioned earlier, as that entails that He is in everything as there is no distinction between Him and His attributes nor anything in creation which will entail pantheism. How does one affirm God having two hands as one may suggest that having only two is an arbitrary limitation while His attributes are qualitatively infinite? God is infinite in all His attributes and the attribute of having two hands is only known through scripture and not through rational deduction. It is not an arbitrary limit as it is the affirmation of the Quran and its understanding is necessary. Furthermore, God’s two hands have no bounds.

           The Quran is uncreated as it is the words of Allah, or God and whatever is related to the actions of creation is created. However, our recitation and our writing of the Arabic Quran is uncreated as what is being written down or recited is the words of God which subsist in His essence. The actual actions of doing these things by the human are created. Speech can only be attributed to the original source in which it subsists. For example, when I speak it is obvious that the words I speak are originating from myself. If someone copies my blog post and writes it down, it is still my speech as it originated from myself. The names of Allah are also not created. 

            God’s act is an attribute of the one that is acting, it subsists in His essence and therefore the effect of the act is distinct from the action as the effect is creation itself. Nothing that is created can subsist in His essence because God is uncreated. The description of an attribute is also distinct from the thing that it is being attributed to. When I call God beautiful, the speech of me calling God beautiful is a description of God and the attribute that I am referring to subsists in His essence. This also goes for the speech of God. Everything apart from God is created and all His attributes subsist in Him and God is greater than all. His act of speaking is tied to His will and His power as God chooses to speak by His will. It is important to mention that the way God hears is unlike the way we hear things but the plain meaning is affirmed. It is analogically predicated of God.

           Does Allah, or God act in succession, or does He do one thing and then do another? Yes, He can go from speaking to Moses to not speaking to him – volitional acts. His actions also subsist in His essence. Therefore, there are new occurrences that happen within the essence of God. However, is it the case that everything that is recent is created and therefore if it is in the essence of God then God is created? No, temporality does not mean created. An action of God is an attribute of Him as previously established. The one upon whom the action is done is other than God, or created. His occurrences are not similar to those of creation. When it is said that I stood up, it is not said that I created my standing and the act of me standing is not separate from me either. God always has His attributes and there are temporal actions in the essence of God. There must be voluntary acts in God’s essence for change to arise in the world. To deny acts subsisting in God is to deny that He is acting and originating. Activity would necessarily mean change in the condition of the agent if he had to conform to the matter he is creating or reforming, or to exert effort to execute his volitions, such that his acts are the expression of demands made upon him by conditions external to himself. If God, however, has infinite power, then His voluntary action is simply pure self-expression that is concerned with nothing foreign or external to the self; it neither adds something not of the self to the self, nor makes something of the self into that which is not of the self. Change of the essence and essential attributes is not conceivable of the Eternal, but this does not preclude Him from engaging His creation temporally and effecting His eternal power in successive acts of creation, provision, giving life and death.

On the topic of universals and particulars, if it is said that I exist and a rock also exist, no one would say they are the same because they both participated in existence. That is because there is nothing in the external world in which they participate. Rather, the mind abstracts the universal concept. And if it is said that this exists and that exists, then the existence of each of them pertains to it uniquely, and others do not share in it, even though the name is a reality in each of them. Particulars preceded the universals. The universals are mental conceptions abstracted through the human experience of the world, yet they are real in the mind alone. If it is said that the necessary and contingent participate in the name of existence and self-subsistence, and that both of them are living, knowledgeable, and capable, then it follows that whatever is possible for one of them is possible for the other, it would be said: they are not alike in this matter in which they participated. What is established for God in this regard is not like what is established for the created being and if it is said that they participate in this matter, then this means that they participate in the absolute universal, which does not exist in its absoluteness except in the mind, not in the external world. Whatever each of them has of this is specific to them and not shared by others. This shared thing does not imply any deficiency or imperfections, the referents of being existent, self-subsistent, living, knowledgeable, and capable, if it is said that they are shared, then whatever is necessary, possible, or binding for the common measure, the Lord is described by, and there is nothing objectionable to this. The objection is only concerning the attributes specific to the created beings, for the Lord is exonerated from their characteristics.

In conclusion, the study of metaphysics presents profound challenges in understanding the fundamental nature of reality and existence. The Athari perspective offers a unique (and in my opinion, correct) approach to comprehending the attributes and actions attributed to God. Overall, Allah is uncreated and the creator of all, He is the only God and He has no partners. His attributes are not identical to Him (rejection of divine simplicity) and they subsist in His essence. His actions are uncreated and their effects are created. The Quran that is in the hearts of the believers is uncreated while our human act of reciting it and writing it is created. Finally, our God is a God who can interact in the world.