Tr.

Dadikhuda

Ibn Rushd, Kashf ‘an manahij al-adilla fi ‘aqa’id al-milla I.1, 111-113:
As for the second path [for establishing God’s existence], it is that which Abu Ma’ali [Juwayni] devised in
his treatise known as the Nizamiyya. He based it on two premises.

[Ibn Rushd’s explanation of the two premises]

The first of the two is that ‘the world, and everything in it, may be opposite from the way it actually is’,
so that it is possible that e.g., it be smaller than it is, or bigger than it is, or be shaped differently from
the way it is [now] shaped, or the number of its bodies may be other than the number they [now] are, or
that the motion of every moveable in it be in a direction contrary to the direction it [now] moves, such
that it is possible that a stone undergo motion upwards, and fire downwards, and the [planetary]
eastern motion be western, and the western be eastern.

The second premise is that ‘what is possible begins to exist (muhdath) and it has a cause’ i.e., an agent
that makes one of the two possible alternatives more worthy for it than the other.

[Ibn Rushd’s critique of premise one]

As for the first premise, it is rhetorical and [only] prima facie the case. With regards to some parts of the
world, its falsity is self-evident – for example, a human existing upon a nature different from this nature
he has. And with regards to other parts [of the world], the matter is doubtful – for example, the eastern
motion’s being western and the western one eastern, since that’s not known per se; for it’s possible that
for [its impossibility] there’s a cause whose existence is not evident in itself, or that [its cause] is among
the causes hidden to human beings.

It seems that what occurs to a human being at first when reflecting on these things is similar to what
occurs to someone who reflects on the parts of artifacts without being from the people of those arts.
That is because for someone in this situation it prematurely occurs to his mind that everything in those
artifacts or most of them can possibly be contrary to the way they [now] are, and that there can come to
exist from this artifact that act itself for the sake of which it wasn’t made i.e., its end. Consequently, in
that artifact, upon this [act], there wouldn’t be a place for wisdom.

As for the designer, and whoever shares with the designer in something of the knowledge pertaining to
the art, he sees that the matter is the contrary of [the prima facie view]. [He sees] that there’s nothing in
the artifact except what is requisite and necessary, or [something] so that by it the artifact is more
perfect and excellent, even if not necessary for it. This is the meaning of art and it is evident that created
things are similar in this meaning to artifacts. So praise be to the Creator the All-knowing!

Thus, this [first] premise, qua being rhetorical, is perhaps suitable for the persuasion of everyone, but
qua being false and invalidating of the wisdom of the Designer, it is not appropriate for them. And it only
becomes annulling of wisdom because wisdom is nothing more than knowledge of the causes of
something. And if something has no necessary causes that require its being in accordance with the
description by which it is an instance of that species, then there’s no knowledge here that the All-wise
Creator made proper to it and not to something else. Just as were there here no necessary causes of the
being of artifacts, there would here be no art at all, nor a wisdom that’s ascribable to the designer as
opposed to one who isn’t a designer. And what wisdom would there be in the human being if all his
activities and operations can possibly arise from whatever organ or from no organ - so that vision, for
 Tr. Dadikhuda

example, comes about by the ear just as it does by the eye, or smelling by the eye just as it is carried out
by the nose? All this is a nullification of wisdom and of the meaning by which He calls Himself wise –
exalted and sanctified be His names above that!