One of the most fertile problems in early Muslim theology concerned the reality of the divine attributes. By introducing Aristotelian predication and semantics as a framework for tackling the problem, (Gazall was able to shift the terms of the debate. In so doing, he prepared the ground for further Platonically influenced thinkers in the mould of Ibn al-‘ArabI (1165-1240), though in the process, some of the finesse of the earlier Islamic discussions was lost.
(Gazall’s position is that the unity of the divine attributes is a case of Aristotelian accidental unity or identity (Met. 5.6.1015b18-20, 5.9.1017b26-27). The idem quod of the sentence ‘‘The First is the same as the Last’’ is one and the same, namely, God, but distinct from either the ostensible subject or the predicate term (Beautiful Names, 29-31). This resembles the identity theory of predication advanced concurrently by Peter Abelard, although again by comparison (Gazall’s remarks appear undercooked. At any rate, for (Gazall the further fact that the meaning of each term (‘‘God,’’ ‘‘first,’’ ‘‘last’’) is distinct from the others signals that each refers to a distinct quiddity and reality, whose meaning we can begin to uncover through observing its manifestations on the material plane. Notwithstanding his intentional reading of the divine names, then, (Gazall regards the attributes not only as real but as the blueprint according to which creation proceeds. They are given to the world first in the very act of God granting existence to things, second in the teleologically oriented imitation in which each thing is allowed to become what it most truly is (Beautiful Names, 79-82). The two phases correspond to Avicennian efficient and final causality, and more generally to the Neoplatonic motions of procession and return (Gr.
PrOodos, epistrophe). They also make possible the human act of cognizing and thereby the specifically human mode of perfection, which consists in knowing the realities of things (haqa’iq al-ashya’: Beautiful Names, 82-84, 146-147).
(Gazall’s insistence on understanding the revealed names first and foremost in the context of divine perfection allows him to sidestep the thorny issue of analogical versus equivocal predication when it comes to divine and worldly properties. Though we have no recourse but to use words in the light of their mundane reference, a believer will take it on faith that each of the revealed names of God refers primarily and absolutely to a transcendent form of perfection. A full disclosure of the real semantic range of such perfection terms remains conclusively out of our reach, while an imperfect understanding of them will depend on the dual process of abstraction from worldly particulars and illumination from above (Beautiful Names, 50-58, 162-171). The latter constitutes our primary task and vocation, as per Muh: ammad’s exhortation for us to meditate on the divine names. (Gazall’s cosmology thus becomes intimately intertwined with his psychology.
World History
