The Argument from Contingency [Burhan-al-Imkan]

Proofs or evidences can be both rational and empirical where rational evidence is the one provided by the intellect or reason and empirical evidence is the evidence obtained through sense-perception, observation and experience. Now since God is an immaterial or a metaphysical being that is incorporeal and non-sensible, lying beyond time and space therefore there can be no direct empirical or sensible evidence of the existence of the Divine Essence because the senses only perceive that which is sensible, corporeal, physical or material in nature and hence cannot apprehend a reality that is non-sensible and immaterial, because there has to be suitability between the perceived object and the one who perceives and there is no suitability between something metaphysical or immaterial and the human sense organs that are material or physical. However having said that this is not to deny the absence of rational proofs for the existence of God and the philosophers from time to time have advanced various arguments for the existence of God.

Essences [zawat/mahiyat] which is the answer to the question "what is it?" can be classified into three distinct categories namely 1) necessary, 2) contingent and 3) impossible ; now a necessary being or a necessary essence is one for which existence is necessary and non-existence is impossible , meaning it is an essence that cannot fail to exist ; an impossible essence on the other hand is one for which existence is impossible and non-existence is necessary such as "Shareek-al-Bari" or a "four sided triangle" ; a contingent essence on the other hand is an essence that negates both the necessity of existence and the necessity of non-existence, such that both existence and non-existence are equally possible but neither is equally necessary for such an essence, therefore such an essence requires an external-cause or agent to prefer the possibility of its existence over the possibility of its non-existence and convert the possibility of its existence into a necessity, therefore only a contingent essence depends upon a cause for its realization or actualization in reality as an actual existent and hence all effects are essentially-contingent since something that is either Necessary or Impossible is needless of a cause for its existence and it is only a contingent-essence that requires a cause. A Necessary being is needless of a cause because if a cause is said to exist for it so it would no longer be necessary by its own essence but would become necessary through another , meaning its cause, and this would lead to a contradiction because we had assumed it to be necessary by its own essence and not through the essence of another, but that which is made to exist by another is rendered necessary by that other and hence cannot be necessary in itself meaning through its own essence.

Now a necessary being must be necessary from all aspects, meaning that all perfections that are consistent with and not inconsistent with the status of the divine must be necessary for it , such as life, knowledge, power, creativity-causality, perception etc and if a necessary being is not necessary from any single aspect of perfections , so then it must be possible from that aspect but in that case it will become a composite of necessity and possibility and every composite is dependent upon its parts and that which is dependent cannot be necessary from all aspects, in brief that which is composite and hence dependent upon its parts cannot be necessary by its own essence, and any existent which is not necessary by its own essence must have been rendered necessary through another and is therefore ultimately an effect of some external cause.

Now we know that the cosmos exists and since it exists therefore it cannot be impossible in essence because as has been explained above an impossible essence is one for which existence is impossible and non-existence is necessary, therefore the cosmos must either be necessary through its own essence or contingent in essence ; now it cannot be necessary through itself because the cosmos is composite being material in nature and as mentioned earlier every composite is dependent upon its parts and that which is dependent cannot be necessary from all aspects, in brief that which is composite and hence dependent upon its parts cannot be necessary by its own essence, and any existent which is not necessary by its own essence must have been rendered necessary through another and is therefore ultimately an effect of some external cause and hence contingent in essence, therefore the cosmos is also an effect of some Cause.

A further proof for the contingency of the universe is the fact that the cosmos is composite, being material in nature, and every composite is dependent upon its parts for effecting its composition and these individual units or parts of the cosmos are also dependent upon one another for constituting the whole meaning the composite-cosmos and hence none of these individual units or parts can be said to be essentially-necessary, and are therefore contingent and that which is dependent upon a contingent is also contingent therefore the cosmos is also contingent since it depends upon other contingents [its parts] for its composition, and every contingent is an effect of some cause therefore the cosmos is also an effect in need of a cause.This is the famous philosophical proof for the existence of God known as the Argument from Contingency [Burhan-al-Imkan].

An alternative version of the Argument from Contingency [Burhan-al-Imkan] is as follows :

When the intellect considers an object existing in the external reality and is able to abstract its essence [mahiyat] ,which is the answer to the question "what is it?" from its existence, so this proves the fact that existence is not integral to and inseparable from the existence of that object because had existence been integral to and inseparable from the essence of that thing , so it would never have been possible for the intellect to abstract or separate the essence of that thing from its existence, but that would only have been the case if its essence would have been identical to its existence ;n for instance if the intellect is able to abstract the essence of man which is humanity from his existence so that proves that existence is not integral to and inseparable from or necessary for man's essence, and since existence is not necessary for man's essence therefore man cannot be a necessary being ; now he would either be impossible in essence or contingent , but he cannot be impossible since he exists, this therefore proves that man is essentially-contingent; now we can repeat the same process of intellectual analysis for the cosmos to prove that it's contingent.