God’s Knowledge Article Swipe

God's KnowledgeIn this sourcebook we are seeing many points of disagreement between Avicenna and later thinkers, especially those affiliated with Ashʿarite kalām.This chapter by contrast deals with a point of agreement, over the claim that God is "knowing" or "knowledgeable," as stated in the Qurʾān.1 Notoriously, Avicenna took an unusual stance on the manner of God's knowledge, holding that He knows things other than Himself "only in a universal way," setting off a debate we will document in the next chapter.But it was not at all contentious for him to say that God is in some sense a knower.Instead, the controversy charted in this chapter concerns the question of how to prove the agreed conclusion that God does, indeed, know about the things that He causes to exist.For some critics, this was something that Avicenna had failed to establish properly; for others, it was something not even consistent with other principles of his philosophy.It was alleged that if, as Avicenna held, all other things proceed from God automatically or necessarily, rather than by a gratuitous act of will, then God would not know about other things, any more than the fire or the sun know about the heat and light that they radiate [T2, T4].Avicenna would reply that since He knows Himself, God should know all the necessary "concomitants (lawāzim)" of His essence, and since He necessitates all things, all things will be such concomitants.2Al-Āmidī and al-Shahrazūrī reject that line of thought.In general, knowledge of an essence does not automatically imply knowledge of the concomitants of that essence.These are a matter for further discovery [T31] and would constitute separate acts of knowledge rather than being subsumed within God's self-knowledge [T46].But if one accepts, against Avicenna, that God does voluntarily form intentions concerning the things He makes, this could give us an immediate argument for God's having knowledge [T2, T18].After all, how can He form an intention to create something if He has no knowledge of it?Al-Abharī brings all this together at [T34], affirming God's knowledgeable and voluntary creation and denying that He exerts causation in a necessary or unknowing way.1 He is called ʿalīm, as at 10:65, 24:59, 76:30, and there are many verses that use the corresponding verb, like 6:3. 2 See further the discussion on whether knowing something involves knowing all its necessary concomitants in the next chapter, on God's Knowledge of Particulars.