Ultimately, since providence is the ultimate and only source of causation – chance lies in direct opposition. Providence precludes the possibility of chance because it essentially presupposes a final cause:
‘In no way can one deny the wondrous traces in the generation of the world, and the parts of the heavens and the parts of the animal and the plants. All that does not proceed (sadara) from chance (ittifàq), but presupposes a certain arrangement (tadbìr)’. (Cited in Belo, 109, Avicenna, Al Shifa, al Ilahiyyat, pg. 415)
Despite Avicenna’s work integrating Greek philosophy into Islamic thought, later orthodox Sunnism would completely reject this integration of Greek rationalism and adopt the theological doctrine of occasionalism. Occasionalism denies the possibility of any secondary causality, emphasizing that everything is caused by God and there are no efficient causes in the world. Thus in occasionalist thought chance events cannot exist as they lie outside the realm of God’s knowledge and …show more content…
al-Ghazali uses many examples to demonstrate his argument that what is habitually perceived as a cause and effect is not necessarily so. (Incoherence, 166) He claims that anything observable in nature as being either a cause or effect is only due to the decree of God, Who could separate them and make their relationship unnecessary but simply exist side by side. (Incoherence, 166) The example he uses is fire, which he argues does not produce the burning itself as fire is inanimate, but we cannot see any other possible cause. He also uses the example of sperm fertilising an egg, and the transferral of a father's features through this process. From this he deduces the principle that the existence of something can happen with a thing but it does not prove that it happens by that thing (Incoherence,
‘In no way can one deny the wondrous traces in the generation of the world, and the parts of the heavens and the parts of the animal and the plants. All that does not proceed (sadara) from chance (ittifàq), but presupposes a certain arrangement (tadbìr)’. (Cited in Belo, 109, Avicenna, Al Shifa, al Ilahiyyat, pg. 415)
Despite Avicenna’s work integrating Greek philosophy into Islamic thought, later orthodox Sunnism would completely reject this integration of Greek rationalism and adopt the theological doctrine of occasionalism. Occasionalism denies the possibility of any secondary causality, emphasizing that everything is caused by God and there are no efficient causes in the world. Thus in occasionalist thought chance events cannot exist as they lie outside the realm of God’s knowledge and …show more content…
al-Ghazali uses many examples to demonstrate his argument that what is habitually perceived as a cause and effect is not necessarily so. (Incoherence, 166) He claims that anything observable in nature as being either a cause or effect is only due to the decree of God, Who could separate them and make their relationship unnecessary but simply exist side by side. (Incoherence, 166) The example he uses is fire, which he argues does not produce the burning itself as fire is inanimate, but we cannot see any other possible cause. He also uses the example of sperm fertilising an egg, and the transferral of a father's features through this process. From this he deduces the principle that the existence of something can happen with a thing but it does not prove that it happens by that thing (Incoherence,