Averroes on God's Knowledge of Particulars
University of Cologne
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This article discusses a central issue in the debate between philosophy and theology in the Islamic Middle Ages. In his attempt to show that Greek philosophy was contrary to Islam, theologian al-Ghazz
l
charged Muslim philosophers with unbelief (kufr) on three counts: the eternity of the world, bodily resurrection and God's knowledge of particulars. The latter was particularly significant within an Islamic context. If God does not know particulars, how can He know for instance individual prophets or pass judgement on Doomsday? The main target of al-Ghazl's criticism was Avicenna and his contention that God knows particulars in a universal way. In the Aristotelian epistemological model followed by Avicenna the subject and object of knowledge become one in the epistemological process. Since God is immutable He cannot know particulars in time, therefore He must know individuals insofar as they are universal.
In his response to al-Ghazzl, Averroes' main contribution is his rejection of Avicenna's formulation that God knows particulars in a universal way. Averroes criticizes this view because it does away with the distinction between divine and human knowledge. While in humans the process of knowing entails abstraction of universals from individual substances, God's knowledge cannot be characterized as universal or particular. It is neither particular—because it does not involve sense experience—nor universal—because it is not abstracted from individuals.
Consequently, Averroes presents the essence of God's knowledge as at bottom unknowable to the human mind. This position may resemble al-Ghazzl's overall negative stance concerning our understanding of this issue but in actuality it is radically different. By way of stating what it is not, and by clearly showing the differences between divine and human knowledge, Averroes provides a clearer grasp of what divine knowledge must be like.