Darʾ Taʿâroud al-ʿAql wa-n-Naql - Ibn Taimiya - (1/403)

Darʾ Taʿâroud al-ʿAql wa-n-NaqlIbn Taimiya

Examples of this include the words of Allah Most High:

“A guidance for the God-fearing” [al-Baqarah: 2],

and His words:

“You are only a warner to those who fear it” [al-Nāzi'āt: 45],

and:

“You only warn those who follow the Reminder” [Yā Sīn: 11].

What is meant here is complete guidance, which necessarily results in actually becoming guided. This is the guidance sought in His words:

“Guide us to the straight path.”

Likewise, complete warning necessarily entails that the person warned fears and guards against the punishment of which he has been warned. This differs from His words:

“As for Thamūd, We guided them, but they preferred blindness to guidance” (Fussilat: 17).

Here, what is meant is clarification and direction conducive to becoming guided, although this depends upon certain conditions and may encounter impediments.

The same applies when it is said, “He is a necessitating cause by virtue of His essence,” or “He is a cause by virtue of His essence,” and similar expressions. If this means that, through His will and power, He necessitates whatever effects He produces, at the time He wills them to exist, then this is true. On this interpretation, there is no incompatibility between His being a necessitating cause and His acting by choice.

But if this means that He necessitates through an essence devoid of attributes, or that He is a complete necessitating cause whose effect is simultaneous with Him—which is their position—then both notions are false.

Conclusive proofs have established that He possesses affirmative attributes. Conclusive proofs have also established that an effect cannot be simultaneous in time with its causal agent and that agent’s causal action, even if the agent acts without will and power, as natural causal agents do. How much more, then, does this apply to an agent acting through His will and power? This makes it evident to rational people that nothing brought about by His power can be eternal and beginningless, having always existed and continuing forever.

Whoever fully understands these matters necessarily recognizes that nothing in the world can be beginningless. This is the conclusion sought.

ومن هذا الباب قوله تعالى: {هدى للمتقين} [البقرة: ٢] ، وقوله: {إنما أنت منذر من يخشاها} [النازعات: ٤٥] ، وقوله: {إنما تنذر من اتبع الذكر} [يس: ١١] ، فالمراد به الهدى التام المستلزم لحصول الاهتداء، وهو المطلوب في قوله: {اهدنا الصراط المستقيم} . وكذلك الإنذار التام المستلزم خشية المنذر وحذره مما أنذر به من العذاب، وهذا بخلاف قوله: {وأما ثمود فهديناهم فاستحبوا العمى على الهدى} (فصلت: ١٧) ، فالمراد به البيان والإرشاد المقتضى للاهتداء، وإن كان موقوفاً على شروط وله موانع. وهكذا إذا قيل: هو موجب بذاته، أو علة بذاتة، ونحو ذلك،: إن أريد بذلك أنه موجب ما يوجبه من مفعولاته بمشيئته وقدرته، في الوقت الذي شاء كونه فيه، فهذا حق، لا منافاة بين كونه موجباً وفاعلاً بالاختيار على هذا التفسير. وإن أريد به أنه موجب بذات عرية عن الصفات، أو موجب تام لمعلول مقارن له - وهذا قول هؤلاء - وكل من الأمرين باطل. فقد قامت الدلائل القينية على اتصافه بصفات الإثبات، وقامت الدلائل اليقينية على امتناع كون الأثر مقارناً للمؤثر وتأثيره في الزمان، ولو كان فاعلاً بدون مشيئته وقدرته كالمؤثرات الطبيعية، فكيف في الفاعل بمشيئته وقدرته؟ فإن هذا مما يظهر للعقلاء امتناع أن يكون شيء من مقدوراته قديماً أزلياً لم يزل ولا يزال. فمن تصور هذه الأمور تصوراً تاماً، علم بالاضطرار أنه يمتنع أن يكون في العالم شيئ قديم، وهو المطلوب.