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II

Initial Ash'arite repudiation of natural causation, as
we have seen, arose out of doctrinal disputes within
kalām. The arguments, as far as the available sources
indicate, are mainly theological and metaphysical. A
second phase in the history of the Ash'arite causal
theory is marked by a more explicit attack on the
Aristotelian theory of necessary efficient causality as
adapted to the emanative metaphysics of Alfarabi and
Avicenna. Here we encounter two developments: (1)
an emphasis on the purely epistemological argument
that necessary causal connection is provable neither
logically nor empirically; (2) an attempt to uphold the
Aristotelian method of scientific demonstration and its
claims of attaining certainty, on occasionalist, non-
Aristotelian, metaphysical grounds. Both these devel-
opments are largely due to Ghazali. Elements of the
epistemological argument are found in earlier Ash'arite
writings, but it was Ghazali who gave this argument
its most forceful expression and who first attempted
an occasionalist reinterpretation of Aristotelian dem-
onstrative logic.

Ghazali's criticism of necessary efficient causation
pervades his Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (The Incoherence of
the Philosophers), directed mainly at Avicenna's
emanative metaphysics. Avicenna described the effi-
cient cause as that “which brings about an existence
other than itself.” In natural science, he held, this
existence represents motion in one of its forms. For
the metaphysician, however, and here we note his
Neo-Platonism, the efficient cause is also productive
of existence as such. In Avicenna's cosmogony, the
world emanates eternally from God as a chain of ne-
cessitated and necessitating existents, terminating in
the world of generation and corruption. In this sub-
lunar world, for the effect to follow from the efficient
cause, the material, formal, and final causes must also
exist. The efficient natural cause must be the proximate
cause and there must be no impediment. Agency, in
a natural cause, is “an essential attribute,” hence pro-
ductive of one specific kind of act. Action is also
determined by the specific nature of its recipient.
When such causal conditions obtain, the effect follows
by necessity.

Ghazali attacked Avicenna's concept of divine cau-
sality as a negation of the divine attributes of life, will,
and power. Only inanimate beings, Ghazali argued, are
said to act by necessity. By definition, a necessitated
act is not a voluntary act. Ghazali also opposed
Avicenna's scheme on the grounds that it does not
allow God to act directly in the world of men, but
only through the mediation of other causes. Since the
chain of existents proceeding from God is necessarily
connected, there can be no disruption of its order.
Miracles, defined by the Ash'arites as the disruption
of nature's habitual order, are thus impossible and a
prophet proclaiming their occurrence becomes a de-
ceiver. It is in arguing for the possibility of miracles
that Ghazali levelled his epistemological argument
against the concept of necessary causal connection:

[Trans. by the author.]

He then argued that necessary causal connection is
never observable in nature: when, for example, cotton
is brought in contact with fire, all that is seen is the
occurrence of burning “with” (ma') the contact, not
the burning of the cotton “by” or “through” (bi) the
fire. The one who enacts the burning, he asserted, is
God.

Ghazali did not deny that events in the world are
ordered in sequences of priority and posteriority, tem-
poral and ontological, ordinarily regarded as causes and
effects and on the basis of which scientific inferences
about nature can be drawn. He denied, however, that
these latter are real causes and that their order is
inherently necessary. He endorsed Aristotle's method
of scientific demonstration, but sought its interpretation
in occasionalist terms. He thus used Avicenna's argu-
ment to justify the principle of nature's uniformity, but
drew from it a different conclusion. Avicenna (basing
himself on Aristotle, Physics ii. 5. 196b 10-15) had
argued that mere observation of past uniformities does
not suffice to give us the certainly of their future
continuance; in addition, there is the “hidden syl-
logism” to the effect that if these had been accidental
or coincidental, “they would not have continued al-

ways or for the most part.” Ghazali endorsed the argu-
ment to this point, but unlike Avicenna, who concluded
that the uniformity derives from the natural necessary
connection between things, Ghazali maintained it de-
rives from God's arbitrary decree. For Ghazali, God
creates in man knowledge that the world is orderly,
but also that its order is contingent and disruptible.
When a miracle occurs, God refrains from creating in
man the expectation of the uniform event, creating
instead knowledge of the miracle. Ghazali did not
elaborate on this latter point, leaving unanswered seri-
ous questions arising from it.