Abdal Hakim Murad - The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology

204 Ayman Shihadeh
acquire its composition by virtue of a nature that lacks consciousness
and perception’’; rather, one will ascribe this jug to a knowledgeable and
powerful agent who knew that benefit is achievable only when the jug
has this particular composition. Abu Bakral-Razı then explicates the
signs of divine power and wisdom discernible in the human body, before
concluding: ‘‘These marvels and wonders in this body’s composition
cannot be produced except by a powerful and wise [God], who created
this composition with His power and fashioned it in a masterly manner
with His wisdom.’’ 26
In many arguments from design, it is difficult to separate evidence of
providence from evidence of order. Since some theologians conceived
man as the centre and telos of the universe, they tended to interpret the
cosmic order in terms of provisions to man. Yet Fakhr al-Dın al-Razı
provides a different rationale behind the combination of these two trends
in qur’anic arguments from design: he has the reader in mind. Most
evidences (dala’il) provided in the Qur’an, he writes,
are in one respect evidences, and in another respect blessings [ni‘am].
Such subtle evidences are more efficacious in the heart, and more
effective in the soul; for qua evidences they provide knowledge,
whereas qua blessings they lead to surrender to the Benefactor,
thankfulness to Him and submission to His majesty’s might. 27
The combination of these two respects provides a cognitive recognition
of God’s existence and attributes, especially knowledge, power and
unity, as well as soteriological advantages to man – an analysis that
accords perfectly with Razı’s notion that the ‘‘method [t _
arıqa] ofthe
Qur’an’’ is to combine demonstrative and rhetorical modes of discourse
for maximal efficacy in humans. 28 Arguments from design, moreover,
draw much strength from being cumulative (muta‘ad _
ida) and from
involving faculties of sense and imagination alongside reason. 29 For
these reasons, Razı contends in his later works that arguments from
design are superior to all other arguments for the existence of God,
namely the classical arguments of kalam and philosophy (below), which
are subtle and address reason alone. 30 By this, he explains the fact that
although arguments from design are easy to devise and often lack formal
rigour, they are normally the most powerful and widespread.
kalam cosmological arguments
The early mutakallimun developed characteristic doctrines and
methods of argument (some of which we will encounter below), which
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