Theistic Arguments in the Islamic Tradition: Existence and God

Abstract

Islamic philosophical and theological heritage is an intellectual tradition that expands over a period of more than fourteen hundred years and has produced innumerable thinkers. It has been influenced by the Hellenistic, Persian and Indian philosophical and theological traditions. Muslim philosophers and theologians have also been an important influence on thinkers of other philosophical and theological traditions. Its originality comes from the Islamic holy book, the Qur’ān, the narrative tradition of the Prophet Muhammad and the various different Islamic saints and the efforts of its different thinkers. The current study delves into one aspect of this tradition, namely, the endeavour to find a proof for God’s existence. This endeavour can only be explained through the role that is given to reasoning as a tool for proving the existence of God. Therefore, chapter one begins with the role of reasoning in the Islamic intellectual tradition. In chapter one, I give a brief historical account of the different issues which contributed to the increase and decrease of the role of argument in the Islamic philosophical and theological tradition. In chapter two, I attempt to provide a categorization of theistic arguments in the Islamic philosophical and theological tradition. The rest of the study is dedicated to the explanation of four traditional Islamic proofs for the existence of God and one of my own. The four theistic arguments include the Demonstration from the Possible to the Necessary, the Demonstration from the Neediness of the Possible and two versions of the Demonstration of the Veracious. I present the proofs and the discussions related to those proofs and compare them with similar proofs and discussions in the Latin and the Christian traditions. I also present the criticisms that have been directed towards the arguments both by Muslim and non-Muslim thinkers and show that they have either misunderstood the premises or that they do not apply. I end the discussions regarding the Islamic theistic arguments for the existence of God with an ontological proof of my own.