The Relationship between God's Knowledge and Will in the al-Ghazālian Theology: A Critical Approach

Year 2018, Volume: 2 Issue: 2, 99 - 112, 20.12.2018

Hasan Akkanat

Abstract

The Ghazālian theory of the divine will with ‘optional choice’ does not function without the word “in the past-eternity.” What is problematic here is that you attempt to design the divine attributes and actions according to two-valued logic: God first must know something and then wills it. The fact that God first knows something, and later prefers it among the others in His knowledge, then begins to create it, shows that divine activities occur in a fictional sequence designed by two-valued logic which enables Him not to be in two different states in one moment, or to do three actions in a moment, or to engage in four different jobs at the same time. Avicenna attributes the will to knowledge because he realizes the relational problems between these two attributes, but his approach arises from some other problems. Then, which solution can be proposed for the issue by al-Ghazālī, who claims that knowledge and the will are the mutually compatible and complementary attributes for God’s relationship to the universe? My article discusses whether al-Ghazālī supports his claim with adequate arguments or not.

Keywords

Al-Ghazālī, divine attributes, omniscience, divine will, two-valued logic

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