Avicenna On Divine Agency

"What may cause a problem in this connection is the [question of ]
potency in the sense of power . For it is thought that it exists only for those
who have the prerogative ? of acting and the prerogative of not acting . If
[potency is attributed] to one who is given only to act,' then they do no t
perceive that he has power . This, however, is not true . For [this is only
true] if this thing that only acts, acts without wishing or willing, in which
case he would have neither power nor potency in this sense . If, however ,
he acts through will and choice, except that he is perpetually willing a d
does not undergo change, then, [regardless of whether] his will constitutes
an existence which is coincidental or [one] whose change is impos -
sible in an essential manner,' he acts with power . This is because the definition of power with which these people prefer to define it is present here . This is because [this definition] would
be true for the [agent] to act when he wills and not to act if he does not
will. Both these [statements] are conditional—that is, "If he wills, he
acts," and, "If he does not will, he does not act ." The two are included in
the definition of power only inasmuch as the two are conditionals . It is not a condition for the truth of a conditional that there should be in any
way a repetition of [antecedent or consequent] 10 or a categorical truth.
For it does not necessarily follow that, if our statement, "If he does no t
will, he does not act," is true, the statement, "But at some time he did
not will," is true . Nor does it follow from the falsity [of the statement] ,
"He did not will at all," that our statement, "If he did not will, he did not
act," is necessarily false . For this entails that, if he did not will, he woul d
not have acted, just as, if he wills, he will act . [Now,] if it is true that, if he
wills, he acts, it would be true that, if he acts, he has willed ; that is, i f
he acts, he acts inasmuch as he has power . From this it would correctly
follow that, if he did not will, he did not act, and, if he did not act, he di d
not will . But there is nothing in this to imply necessarily that at som e
time he did not will . This is clear to whomever knows logic ."[Metaphysics, book#4, chapter#2, para#8&9]

According to the Muslim theologians an agent is said to be potent [qadir] or possessing power [qudrat] if in relation to an affair it is possible [mumkin] for it both to act and not act, in that it may choose either to perform the deed or not to perform it, such that prior to the performance of the act the agent is an agent in potentiality with the possibility for it to become an agent in actuality; and becomes an agent in actuality subsequently due to some other factor such as the emergence or origination of a will [irada] which was previously non-existent; in other words as per the doctrine of the theologians, a potent and independent [fayl-e-qadir-o-mukhtar] agent is one whose existence [wujud] is temporally-prior [taqaddum-e-zamani] to its act or alternatively speaking a potent or a free agent according to them is one whose act is temporally-posterior [mut’akhir-e-zamani] to the agent, resulting in there being a temporal gap between the agent and its act such that there is a period of time in which the essence [zat] of the agent exists without its act, followed by a period of time in which the agent’s essence exists along with its act. Now this doctrine is impossible to accept in Avicenna’s opinion because an agent is an agent either solely by virtue of its essence [zat] or not, and if it is not an agent solely by reason of its essence then it must be an agent by reason of its essence and some extraneous factor [amr-e-zaid] added to the essence; if an agent is said to be an agent solely by reason of its essence alone then given the essence, its act must also exist when the existence of the essence is posited, such that if the existence of the essence of the agent is posited from eternity so the act must also exist from eternity with the essence and through the essence, without there being any temporal separation or gap between the agent and its act. Now the theologians may object to God’s being an agent by essence by asserting that if the act is said to exist together with its agent, so this would eliminate the status of the Divine in being prior to His creation which is His act, and consequently a God that is not prior to His creation or act, is no God; Avicenna responds to this objection by stating that while it is true that in case of God, who is an agent solely by reason of His sublime Essence [zat], and His act, there can be no priority or posteriority in a temporal sense, but who said that priority and posteriority are only caused by time [zaman], in fact the greatest and the most supreme form of priority is essential [taqaddum-e-zatti/rutbi] in nature and not temporal [zamani], because in temporal-priority that which is prior is said to be prior, not by reason of its essence alone, but by reason of being in a period of time in which its essence exists without its act; in other words in temporal-priority that which is prior is recognized as such due to time, which means that its priority is dependent and determined, not by its own essence but by a factor other [ghayr] than its essence, meaning time, and that which is dependent upon being prior on something other than its own essence cannot be Absolutely-Independent [ghani-e-matlaq]; this therefore proves that that which is prior by itself and is not reliant upon some extraneous factor for its priority, is nobler than that which is prior by reason of another, meaning an extraneous factor such as time; in other words that which is prior by virtue of its essence alone is nobler than that which is temporally-prior.

Now if one were to ask that how can a distinction be made in terms of essential priority and posteriority between two contemporaneous things such as an agent and its effect or act existing simultaneously, so in response to this question Avicenna draws our attention towards instances where events occur contemporaneously such as the motion of the hand and the simultaneous motion of the ring, where evidently the hand’s motion is held to be essentially-prior to the ring’s motion because the former motion is the cause of the latter movement in that the ring moves because the hand moves, and not that the hand moves because the ring’s moves; this demonstrates the fact that essential-priority belongs to the essence which is the cause; now since the Necessary Being is the agent-cause of His act, therefore He is essentially-prior to His act, meaning creation.

Now here one may raise another question by saying that the notion of God being an agent solely by reason of His Essence such that His act emanates solely from His Essence is apparently inconsistent with the idea of His act emanating from His Will or a combination of the essence and His will and consequently with His being a free-agent because it was stated earlier that a free-agent is one whose act emanates from its free-will and consequently an agent whose act emanates solely from its essence and not from its will or a combination of the essence and His will, cannot be considered a free-agent, because assuming the Essence to be a perfect-cause [illat-e-tamma] the act either emanates from the Essence alone or the Will alone or solely a combination of the essence and the will, this is because a single effect cannot have multiple causes therefore the divine act cannot be caused both by the essence and the will or by the essence and an essence-will composite simultaneously, assuming both to be perfect-causes and hence the act can only be caused by either the essence alone or the will alone or solely by the essence-will composite; Avicenna answers this question by stating that here the entire confusion lies in considering the divine-will to be something additional to and distinct from the Divine-Essence, where in truth the twain are identical such that the divine-will is not an extraneous affair that is super-added to the essence or distinct from it; on the contrary the will is identical to and indistinct from the Essence such that the Essence is the will [irada]. Now because the will is identical to the essence therefore to assert that the divine-act emanates solely from the essence is the same as the assertion that the act emanates from the Will and therefore the complexity mentioned in the question does arises in the first place.

Now one who does not believe in the necessity of divine simplicity [basatat] may ask that on what grounds do you assert that the essence is identical to the will and why can’t the two be indistinct and separate, meaning that why can’t the essence be other than the will; Now in response to this question it may be stated that if the essence is held to be distinct and separate from the will, so God will become an essence-will composite and every composite is dependent upon its parts and that which is dependent cannot simultaneously be Necessary in Itself [wajib bil zat] because a Necessary Being must be necessary from all aspects [wajib-min-jami-ul-jihat] but that which is dependent cannot be necessary from the aspect of Independence; therefore that which exists but is not essentially-necessary must be essentially-contingent [mumkin-bil-zat] and that which is essentially-contingent cannot at the same time be essentially-necessary as this amounts to a conjunction of contraries [ijtima-e-naqizain] which is impossible.     

Another objection raised by the theologians pertains to the nature of a Free-Agent [fayl-e-qadir-o-mukhtar]. According to the theologians, if it is accepted that God is an agent solely by reason of His sublime Essence alone, so this would lead to His Essence and His act existing contemporaneously, and this simultaneity between the agent and its act or between a cause and its effect, negates the notion of its being free in its agency or causality, and reduces the Divine Agent to the level of natural agents [fayl-e-tabi’yi], such as fire and ice, where heat in the case of fire, and cold in the case of ice are contemporaneous effects of these respective natural-agents. Avicenna once again counters this objection by the argument that, that which negates the freedom of an agent is not the contemporaneous existence of the agent’s essence [zat] and its act or effect, but in truth that which negates the freedom of an agent-cause is the absence of a Free-Will [irada]; in other words in determining whether an agent is free or not, one should ensure whether or not its act emanates from a free-will; now if the act does emanates from a will [irada], then the agent is a free-agent regardless of whether or not its act is contemporaneous to its essence, and if the act does not emanates from a will, then the said agent cannot be said to be free even if its act is not contemporaneous with its essence. As to responding to the accusation leveled by the theologians in reducing or assimilating [tashbih] God to the natural agents such as fire and ice it can be safely asserted that that which negates the freedom of these agents is the absence of a will from the essences of these natural-agents and not the fact that their acts emanate solely from the essences of these agents resulting in an essence-act simultaneity; now since the act of God emanates solely from His Essence which is identical to His Will such that the act emanates from the Will, therefore God is undoubtedly a free-agent because as stated above a free-agent is one whose act emanates from a free-will. Not to mention the fact that natural agents have no awareness, consciousness or knowledge of their own essences nor of their acts whereas God has absolute knowledge not only of His Essence but also His acts.

Now if an agent is not an agent solely by reason of its essence then it must be an agent by reason of its essence and some extraneous factor [amr-e-zaid] such as a will, added to the essence, thereby rendering a combination of the essence and that extraneous factor, say will, to be the true agent or cause, but in that case God would become dependent upon that extraneous factor for His agency or causality and this is inadmissible. Moreover if the true agent or cause is a combination of the essence and the will so this reduces God to being an essence-will composite [murakkab] and every composite is dependent upon its parts and that which is dependent cannot simultaneously be Necessary in Itself [wajib bil zat] because a Necessary Being must be necessary from all aspects [wajib-min-jami-ul-jihat] but that which is dependent cannot be necessary from the aspect of Independence; therefore that which exists but is not essentially-necessary must be essentially-contingent [mumkin-bil-zat] and that which is essentially-contingent cannot at the same time be essentially-necessary as this amounts to a conjunction of contraries [ijtima-e-naqizain] which is impossible. It therefore follows that God cannot be an essence-will composite.

Now if the act does not emanate solely from the Essence of the Agent until an extraneous factor such as a will is added to the essence, so the occurrence or the addition of this extraneous factor to the essence must be either due to the essence itself in so far as it is that particular essence or due to a cause other than the essence of the agent; now assuming that the occurrence or the addition of the will to the essence is due to the essence itself in so far as it is that particular essence, so given the essence the extraneous factor or will, will either occur to the essence or not; if it does occur to the essence so its act will also emanate simultaneous to such occurrence such that both the agent and the act would co-exist contemporaneously without there being any temporal separation between the agent-cause and its act; and if given the essence the said extraneous factor, meaning a will, does not occur to the essence so this would be contrary to the assertion that the occurrence or the addition of the extraneous factor is due to the essence itself in so far as it is that essence thereby resulting in a conjunction of contraries, and this is impossible. Now if the occurrence or the addition of the extraneous factor such as a will is due to a cause other than the Divine Essence of the agent, so God would become dependent upon this external-cause for becoming an agent and that which is dependent upon another cannot be Necessary in Itself because that which is essentially-necessary must be necessary from all aspects.

Now if an agent is not an agent solely by reason of its essence but is an agent by reason of its essence and some extraneous factor [amr-e-zaid] such as a will, added to the essence, so such an extraneous factor will either be good for the essence or not; assuming it is good for the Divine Essence, so the Essence will either have the potency to cause this factor to occur to itself or not; assuming that it does have the potency to cause this factor to occur to itself, then given the divine essence, any delay in the occurrence or the addition of the said factor, namely a will, to the essence would be contrary to the doctrines of Divine Justice and Wisdom because a wise-agent never delays that which is good for itself unless it lies beyond its power; therefore given the essence along with the requisite potency to cause the occurrence of the said factor, the Essence, the Will and the Act all three will exist simultaneously. Now if it lacks the potency to cause this factor to occur to itself, then some other cause must have caused the will [irada] to occur to the divine essence, and this is inadmissible firstly because by attributing a lack of potency it violates the doctrine of Omnipotence, and also because it renders God dependent where He was presumed to be Necessary in Itself, but that which is in any way dependent cannot be Necessary in Itself; therefore God cannot be dependent upon another for its agency or causality.

However according to Avicenna nothing can be good for the Divine Essence in the sense that the Essence seeks it so as to become complete [kamil] or perfect because seeking or desiring occur where there is a lacking or a privation [nuqs], but since the Necessary Being is held to be necessary from every aspect so there can be no lacking or imperfection in such an essence otherwise it would not be necessary from all aspects, and that which is not necessary from all aspects is a composite of necessity [from certain aspects] and possibility [imkan] or impossibility [imtin’a] from the aspect from which it is not necessary, and this is inadmissible in case of God because as has been mentioned that every composite is dependent upon its parts and that which is dependent cannot be Necessary in Itself. God cannot desire or seek anything because being Absolute-Good [khyar-e-mehaz] everything derives its goodness from Him without Him depending upon or deriving its goodness from others.

Now let us assume that extraneous factor to be an evil for the essence such that the essence  either has or does not have the potency [qudrat] to avoid that evil; assuming it does not have the potency to avoid that evil, so this assumption violates the doctrine of divine omnipotence; secondly if lacking the potency to keep it away, the extraneous factor does occur to the essence so the cause of this occurrence would either be the essence itself or something else, but it could not be the essence itself because a Wise and Omniscient being would shun evil and not seek it, therefore to assert that the cause of the occurrence of that extraneous factor is the essence itself is to contradict the notions of divine justice, wisdom and knowledge. Therefore if the cause of the occurrence is not the essence then it must be something other than the essence, but this would render God a recipient [qabil] of extraneous influence [athar] from another [ghayr] and dependent upon that other. Moreover if this extraneous factor such as a will is something evil for the essence so subsequent to its occurrence the essence would become a composite of good and evil, and everything that is a composite of good and evil is a combination of existence and non-existence because good is existence and evil is non-being, and therefore cannot be an Absolute-Good [khayr-e-matlaq] or Pure-Being [wujud-e-mehaz].