14.02.2021 Views

Tahafut_al-Tahafut-transl-Engl-van-den-Bergh

a book on philosophy

a book on philosophy

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

I say:

meaning, why should its relation to His power not be

reasonable?

All this is sophistical and wrong. The philosophers do not deny that a

thing becomes non-existent when a destroying agent destroys it; they only

say that the destroying act does not attach itself to it, in so far as the thing

becomes non-existent, but in so far as it changes from actual being to

potential being, and non-existence results from this change, and it is in

this way that non-existence is related to the agent. But it does not follow

from the fact that its non-existence occurs after the act of the agent that

the agent performs it primarily and essentially. For when it was conceded

to Ghazali during the discussion of this problem that the non-existence of

the corrupting thing will necessarily occur after the act of the corrupting

agent, he drew the conclusion that its non-existence would follow

essentially and primarily from the act, but this is impossible. For the

agent’s act does not attach itself to its non-existence in so far as it is nonexistent,

i.e. primarily and essentially. And therefore , if the perceptible

existences were simple, they could neither be generated nor destroyed

except through the act of the agent being attached to their nonexistence

essentially and primarily. But the act of the agent is only attached to nonexistence

accidentally and secondarily through its changing the object

from actual existence into another form of existence in an act followed by

non-existence, as from the change of a fire into air there follows the nonexistence

of the fire. This is the philosophical theory of existence and nonexistence.

Ghazali says:

And what is the difference between you and the man who

denies absolutely that non-existence can occur to accidents

and forms, and who says that non-existence is nothing at all

and asks how then it could occur and be called an

occurrence and a new event? But no doubt non-existence

can be represented as occurring to the accidents, and to

speak of it as occurring has a sense whether you call it

something real or not. And the relation of this occurrence,

132

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!