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The Fourth Proof

"Ghazali says:

The fourth proof is that they say everything that becomes is preceded by the matter which is in it, for what becomes cannot be free from matter.’ For this reason matter never becomes; what becomes is only the form, the accidents and the qualities which add themselves to matters The proof is that the existence of each thing that becomes must, before its becoming, either be possible, impossible, or necessary: it cannot be impossible, for the essentially impossible will never exist; it cannot be necessary, for the essentially necessary will never be in a state of non-existence, and therefore it is the essentially possible.’ Therefore, the thing which becomes has before its becoming the possibility of becoming, but the possibility of becoming is an attribute which needs a relation and has no subsistence in itself.’ It needs, therefore, a substratum with which it can be connected, and there is no substratum except matter, and it becomes connected with it in the way in which we say this matter receives warmth and coldness, or black and white, or movement and rest, i.e. it is possible that these qualities and these changes occur in it and therefore possibility is an attribute of matter. Matter does not possess other matter, and cannot become; for, if it did, the possibility of its existence would precede its existence, and possibility would subsist by itself without being related to anything else, whereas it is a relative attribute which cannot be understood as subsisting by itself. And it cannot be said that the meaning of possibility amounts to what can be done and what the Eternal had the power to do, because we know only that a thing can be done, because it is possible, and we say ‘this can be done because it is possible and cannot be done because it is not possible’; and if ‘this is possible’ meant ‘this can be done’, to say ‘this can be done because it is possible’ would mean ‘this is possible because it is possible’, and this is a circular definition; and this shows that ‘this is possible’ is a first judgement in the mind, evident in itself, which makes the second judgement ‘that it can be done’ intelligible. It cannot be said, either, that to be possible refers to the knowledge of the Eternal, for knowledge depends on a thing known, whereas possibility is undoubtedly an object of knowledge, not knowledge; further, it is a relative attribute, and needs something to which it can be related, and this can only be matter, and everything that becomes is preceded by matter.

I say:

The summary of this is that everything that becomes is possible before it becomes, and that possibility needs something for its subsistence, namely, the substratum which receives that which is possible. For it must not be believed that the possibility of the recipient is the same as the possibility of the agent. It is a different thing to say about Zaid, the agent, that he can do something and to say about the patient that it can have something done to it. Thus the possibility of the patient is a necessary condition for the possibility of the agent, for the agent which cannot act is not possible but impossible. Since it is impossible that the possibility prior to the thing’s becoming should be absolutely without substratum, or that the agent should be its substratum or the thing possible-for the thing possible loses its possibility, when it becomes actual-there only remains as a vehicle for possibility the recipient of the possible, i.e. matter. Matter, in so far as it is matter, does not become; for if it did it would need other matter and we should have an infinite regress. Matter only becomes in so far as it is combined with form. Everything that comes into being comes into being from something else, and this must either give rise to an infinite regress and lead directly to infinite matter which is impossible, even if we assume an eternal mover, for there is no actual infinite; or the forms must be interchangeable in the ingenerable and incorruptible substratum, eternally and in rotation.’ There must, therefore, be an eternal movement which produces this interchange in the eternally transitory things. And therefore it is clear that the generation of the one in each pair of generated beings is the corruption of the other; otherwise a thing could come into being from nothing, for the meaning of ‘becoming’ is the alteration of a thing and its change, from what it has potentially, into actuality. It is not possible that the privation itself should change into the existent, and it is not the privation of which it is said that it has become. There exists, therefore, a substratum for the contrary forms, and it is in this substratum that the forms interchange.

"Ghazali says:

The objection is that the possibility of which they speak is a judgement of the intellect, and anything whose existence the intellect supposes, provided no obstacle presents itself to the supposition, we call possible and, if there is such an obstacle, we call it impossible and, if we suppose that it cannot be supposed not to be, we call it necessary. These are rational judgements which need no real existent which they might qualify. There are three proofs of this. The first is: If possibility needed an existent to which it could be related, and of which it could be said that it is its possibility, impossibility also would need an existent of which it might be said that it is its impossibility; but impossibility has no real existence, and there is no matter in which it occurs and to which it could be related.

I say:

That possibility demands an existing matter is clear, for all true intellectual concepts need a thing outside the soul, for truth, as it has been defined, is the agreement of what is in the soul with what is outside the soul.’ And when we say that something is possible, we cannot but understand that it needs something in which this possibility can be. As regards his proof that the possible is not dependent on an existent, because the impossible is not dependent on an existent, this is sophistical. Indeed the impossible demands a substratum just as much as the possible does, and this is clear from the fact that the impossible is the opposite of the possible and opposite contraries undoubtedly require a substratum. For impossibility is the negation of possibility, and, if possibility needs a substratum, impossibility which is the negation of this possibility requires a substratum too, e.g. we say that the existence of empty space is impossible, because the existence of independent dimensions outside or inside natural bodies is impossible, or that the presence of opposites at the same time in the same substratum is impossible, or that the equivalence of one to two is impossible, i.e. in reality. All this is self-evident, and it is not necessary to consider the errors here committed.

"Ghazali says:

The second proof is that the intellect decides that black and white are possible before they exist.’ If this possibility were related to the body in which they inhere, so that it might be said that the meaning is that this body can be black and white, then white would not be possible by itself and possibility would be related only to the body. But we affirm, as concerns the judgement about black in itself, as to whether it is possible, necessary, or impossible, that we, without doubt, will say that it is possible. And this shows that the intellect in order to decide whether something is possible need not admit an existing thing to which the possibility can be related.

I say

This is a sophism. For the possible is predicated of the recipient and of the inherent quality. In so far as it is predicated of the substratum, its opposite is the impossible, and in so far as it is predicated of the inherent, its opposite is the necessary.’ Thus the possible which is described as being the opposite of the impossible is not that which abandons its possibility so far as it is actualized, when it becomes actual, because this latter loses its possibility in the actualizing process.’ This latter possible is only described by possibility in so far as it is in potency, and the vehicle of this potency is the substratum which changes from existence in potency into existence in actuality.’ This is evident from the definition of the possible that it is the nonexistence which is in readiness to exist or not to exists This possible non-existent is possible neither in so far as it is non-existent nor in so far as it is actually existent. It is only possible in so far as it is in potency, and for this reason the Mu’tazilites affirm that the nonexistent is a kind of entity. For non-existence is the opposite of existence, and each of the two is succeeded by the other, and when the non-existence of a thing disappears it is followed by its existence, and when its existence disappears it is succeeded by its non-existence. As non-existence by itself cannot change into existence, and existence by itself cannot change into non-existence, there must be a third entity which is the recipient for both of them, and that is what is described by ‘possibility’ and ‘becoming’ and ‘change from the quality of non-existence to the quality of existence’. For non-existence itself is not described by ‘becoming’ or ‘change’; nor is the thing that has become actual described in this way, for what becomes loses the quality of becoming, change, and possibility when it has become actual. Therefore there must necessarily be something that can be described by ‘becoming’ and ‘change’ and ‘transition from nonexistence to existence’, as happens in the passage of opposites into opposites; that is to say, there must be a substratum for them in which they can interchange-with this one difference, however, that this substratum exists in the interchange of all the accidents in actuality, whereas in the substance it exists in potency.’

And we cannot think of regarding what is described by ‘possibility’ and ‘change’ as identical with the actual, i.e. which belongs to the becoming in so far as it is actual, for the former again vanishes and the latter must necessarily be a part of the product. Therefore there must necessarily be a substratum which is the recipient for the possibility and which is the vehicle of the change and the becoming, and it is this of which it is said that it becomes, and alters, and changes from non-existence into existence. Nor can we think of making this substratum of the nature of the actualized, for if this were the case the existent would not become, for what becomes comes into being from the non-existent not from the existent.’ Both philosophers and Mu’tazilites agree about the existence of this entity; only the philosophers are of the opinion that it cannot be exempt from a form actually existent, i.e. that it cannot be free from existence, like the transition, for example, from sperma to blood and the transition from blood to the members of the embryo. The reason is that if it were exempt from existence it would have an existence of its own, and if it had an existence of its own, becoming could not come from it. This entity is called by the philosophers ‘lyle’, and it is the cause of generation and corruption. And according to the philosophers an existent which is free from Kyle is neither generable nor corruptible.

"Ghazali says:

The third proof is that the souls of men, according to the philosophers, are substances which subsist by themselves’ without being in a body or in matter or impressed on matters they had a beginning in time, according to the theory of Avicenna and the acknowledged philosophers, they had possibility before their beginning, but they have neither essence nor matter’ and their possibility is a relative attribute, dependent neither on God’s power nor on the Agent;’ but on what then is it dependent? The difficulties are therefore turned against them themselves.

I say:

I do not know any philosopher who said that the soul has a beginning in the true sense of the word and is thereafter everlasting except -as Ghazali relates-Avicenna. All other philosophers agree that in their temporal existence they are related to and connected with the bodily possibilities, which receive this connexion like the possibilities which subsist in mirrors for their connexion with the rays of the suns According to the philosophers this possibility is not of the nature of the generable and corruptible forms, but of a kind to which, according to them, demonstrative proof leads, and the vehicle of this possibility is of another nature than the nature of the Kyle. He alone can grasp their theories in these matters who has read their books and fulfilled the conditions there laid down by them, and has besides a sound understanding and a learned master. That Ghazali should touch on such questions in this way is not worthy of such a man, but there are only these alternatives: either he knew these matters in their true nature, and sets them out here wrongly, which is wicked; or he did not understand their real nature and touched on problems he had not grasped, which is the act of an ignoramus. However, he stands too high in our eyes for either of these qualifications. But even the best horse will stumble’ and it was a stumble of Ghazali’s that he brought out this book. But perhaps he was forced to do so by the conditions of his time and his situation.

"Ghazali says, speaking on behalf of the philosophers:

It may be said: To reduce possibility to a judgement of the intellect is absurd, for the meaning of ‘judgement of the intellect’ is nothing but the knowledge of possibility, and possibility is an object of knowledge, not knowledge itself; knowledge, on the contrary, comprises possibility and follows it and depends on it as it is, and if knowledge vanished the object of knowledge would not, but the disappearance of the object of knowledge would imply the disappearance of knowledge. For knowledge and the object-known are two things, the former dependent on the latter, and if we supposed rational beings to turn away from possibility and neglect it, we should say: ‘It is not possibility that is annulled, for the possibilities subsist by themselves, but it is simply that minds neglect them or that minds and rational beings have disappeared; but possibility remains, without any doubt.’ And the three proofs are not valid, for impossibility requires an existent to which it can be related, and impossibility means identifying two opposites, and if the substratum were white it could not become black as long as the white existed, and therefore we need a substratum, qualified by the quality during the inherence of which its opposite is spoken of as impossible in this substratum, and therefore impossibility is a relative attribute subsistent in a substratum and related to it. And where the necessary is concerned it is evident that it is related to necessary existence. <p> As concerns the second proof, that black is in itself possible, this is a mistake, for if it is taken, abstracted from the substratum in which it inheres, it is impossible, not possible; it only becomes possible when it can become a form in a body; the body is then in readiness for the interchange, and the interchange is possible for the body; but in itself black has no individuality, so as to be characterizable by possibility. <p> As concerns the third proof about the soul, it is eternal for one school of philosophers, and is only possible in the attaching of itself to bodies, and therefore against those philosophers the argument does not apply= But for those who admit that the soul comes into existence-and one school of philosophers has believed that it is impressed on matter and follows its temperament, as is indicated by Galen in certain passages-it comes into existence in matter and its possibility is related to its matter.’ And according to the theory of those who admit that it comes into existence, although it is not impressed on matter-which means that it is possible for the rational soul to direct matter-the possibility prior to the becoming is relative to matter , and although the soul is not impressed on matter, it is attached to it, for it is its directing principle and uses it as an instrument, and in this way its possibility is relative to matters.

I say

What he says in this section is true, as will be clear to you from our explanation of the nature of the possible.

"Then Ghazali, objecting to the philosophers, says:

And the answer is: To reduce possibility, necessity, and impossibility to rational concepts is correct, and as for the assertion that the concepts of reason form its knowledge, and knowledge implies a thing known, let them be answered: it cannot be said that receptivity of colour and animality and the other concepts, which are fixed in the mind according to the philosophers-and this is what constitutes the sciences-have no objects ; still these objects have no real existence in the external world, and the philosophers arc certainly right in saying that universals exist only in the mind, not in the external world, and that in the external world there arc only particular individuals, which arc apprehended by the senses, not by reason; and yet these individuals arc the reason why the mind abstracts from them a concept separated from its rational matter; therefore receptivity of colour is a concept, separate in the mind from blackness and whiteness, although in reality a colour which is neither black nor white nor of another colour cannot be imagined,’ and receptivity of colour is fixed in the mind without any specification-now, in the same way, it can be said that possibility is a form which exists in minds, not in the exterior world, and if this is not impossible for other concepts,, there is no impossibility in what we have said.

I say:

This argument is sophistical because possibility is a universal which has individuals outside the mind like all the other universals, and knowledge is not knowledge of the universal concept, but it is a knowledge of individuals in a universal way which the mind attains in the case of the individuals, when it abstracts from them one common nature which is distributed among the different matters. The nature, therefore, of the universal is not identical with the nature of the things of which it is a universal. Ghazali is here in error, for he assumes that the nature of possibility is the nature of the universal, without there being individuals on which this universal, i.e. the universal concept of possibility, depends. The universal, however, is not the object of knowledge; on the contrary through it the things become known, although it exists potentially in the nature of the things known;’ otherwise its apprehension of the individuals, in so far as they are universals, would be false. This apprehension would indeed be false if the nature of the object known were essentially individual, not accidentally individual, whereas the opposite is the case: it is accidentally individual, essentially universal. Therefore if the mind did not apprehend the individuals in so far as they are universal, it would be in error and make false judgements about them. But if it abstracts those natures which subsist in the individual things from their matter, and makes them universal, then it is possible that it judges them rightly; otherwise it would confuse those natures, of which the possible is one.

The theory of the philosophers that universals exist only in the mind, not in the external world, only means that the universals exist actually only in the mind, and not in the external world, not that they do not exist at all in the external world, for the meaning is that they exist potentially, not actually in the external world; indeed, if they did not exist at all in the outside world they would be false. Since universals exist outside the mind in potency and possibilities exist outside the soul in potency, the nature of universals in regard to this resembles that of possibilities. And for this reason Ghazali tried to deceive people by a sophism, for he compared possibility to the universals because of their both being potentially in reality, and then he assumed that the philosophers assert that universals do not exist at all outside the soul; from which he deduced that possibility does not exist outside the soul. What an ugly and crude sophism!

"Ghazali says:

As regards their assertion that, if it were assumed that rational beings had vanished or had neglected possibility, possibility itself would not have disappeared, we answer: ‘If it were assumed that they had vanished, would not the universal concepts, i.e. the genera and species, have disappeared too?’ and if they agree to this, this can only mean that universals are only concepts in the mind; but this is exactly what we say about possibility, and there is no difference between the two cases; if they, however, affirm that they are permanent in the knowledge of God,’ the same may be said about possibility, and the argument is valid, and our aim of showing the contradiction in this theory has been attained.

I say:

This argument shows his foolishness and proneness to contradiction. The most plausible form in which it might be expressed would be to base it on two premisses: the first, that the evident proposition that possibility is partially individual, namely, outside the soul, partially universal, namely, the universal concept of the individual possibles, is not true; and the second, that it was said that the nature of the individual possibles outside the soul is identical with the nature of the universal of possibility in the mind; and in this case the possible would have neither a universal nor an individual nature, or else the nature of the individual would have to be identical with that of the universal. All this is presumptuous, and how should it be else, for in a way the universal has an existence outside the soul.

"Ghazali says:

And as regards their subterfuge where the impossible is concerned, that it is related to the matter qualified by its opposite, as it cannot take the place of its opposite this cannot be the case with every impossible, for that God should have a rival is impossible, but there is no matter to which this impossibility could be related. If they say the impossibility of God’s having a rival, means that the solitude of God in His essence and His uniqueness are necessary and that this solitude is proper to Him, we answer: This is not necessary, for the world exists with Him, and He is therefore not solitary. And if they say that His solitude so far as a rival is concerned is necessary, and that the opposite of the necessary is the impossible, and that the impossible is related to Him, we answer: In this case the solitude of God in regard to the world is different from His solitude in regard to His equal and in this case His solitude in regard to His rival is necessary, and in regard to the created world not necessary.’

I say:

All this is vain talk, for it cannot be doubted that the judgments of the mind have value only in regard to the nature of things outside the soul. If there were outside the soul nothing possible or impossible, the judgment of the mind that things are possible or impossible would be of as much value as no judgment at all, and there would be no difference between reason and illusion. And that there should be a rival to God is just as impossible in reality as God’s existence is i necessary in reality. But there is no sense in wasting more words on this question.

"Ghazali says:

The subterfuge concerning the becoming of the souls is worthless too, for they have individual essences and a possibility prior to their becoming, and at that time there is nothing with which they could be brought into relation. Their argument contends that it is possible for matter that the souls direct it is a remote relation and, if this satisfies you, you might as well say that the possibility of the souls becoming lies in the power of Him who can on His own authority produce them, for the souls are then related to the Agent-although they are not impressed on Him-in the same way as to the body, on which they are not impressed either. And since the imprint is made neither on the one substrate nor on the other, there is no difference between the relation to the agent and that to the patient.

I say:

He wants to force those who assume the possibility of the soul’s becoming without there being an imprint in matter to concede that the possibility in the recipient is like the possibility in the agent, because the act proceeds from the agent and therefore these two possibilities are similar. But this is a shocking supposition, for, according to it, the soul would come to the body as if it directed it from the outside, as the artisan directs his product, and the soul would not be a form in the body, just as the artisan is not a form in his product. The answer is that it is not impossible that there should be amongst i the entelechies which conduct themselves like formsb something that is separate from its substratum as the steersman is from his ships and the artisan from his tool, and if the body is like the instrument of the soul, the soul is a separate form, and then the possibility which is in the instrument is not like the possibility which is in the agent; no, the instrument is in both conditions, the possibility which is in the patient and the possibility which is in the agent, and therefore the instruments are the mover and the moved, and in so far as they are the mover, there is in them the possibility which is in the agent, and in so far as they are moved, the possibility which is in the recipient.’ But the supposition that the soul is a separate entity does not force them into the admission that the possibility which is in the recipient is identical= with the possibility which is in the agent. Besides, the possibility which according to the philosophers is in the agent is not only a rational judgement, but refers to something outside the soul. Therefore his argument does not gain by assimilating one of these two possibilities to the other. And since Ghazali knew that all these arguments have no other effect than to bring doubts and perplexity to those who cannot solve them-which is an act of wicked sophists, he says:

And if it is said you have taken good care in all your objections to oppose the difficulties by other difficulties, but nothing of what you yourself have adduced is free from difficulty, we answer: the objections do show the falsity of an argument, no doubt, and certain aspects of the problem are solved in stating the opposite view and its foundation. We have not committed ourselves to anything more than to upsetting their theories, and to showing the faults in the consequence of their proofs so as to demonstrate their incoherence. We do not seek to attack from any definite point of view, and we shall not transgress the aim of this book, nor give full proofs for the temporal production of the world, for our intention is merely to refute their alleged knowledge of its eternity. But after finishing this book we shall, if it pleases God, devote a work to establishing the doctrine of truth, and we call it ‘The Golden Mean in Dogmatic Beliefs’,’ in which we shall be engaged in building up, as in this book we have been in destroying.

I say:

To oppose difficulty with difficulty does not bring about destruction, but only perplexity and doubts in him who acts in this way, for why should he think one of the two conflicting theories reasonable and the opposite one vain? Most of the arguments with which this man Ghazali opposes the philosophers are doubts which arise when certain parts of the doctrine of the philosophers come into conflict with others, and when those differences are compared with each other; but this is an imperfect refutation. A perfect refutation would be one that succeeded in showing the futility of their system according to the facts themselves, not such a one as, for instance, his assumption that it is permissible for the opponents of the philosophers to claim that possibility is a mental concept in the same way as the philosophers claim this for the universal. For if the truth of this comparison between the two were conceded, it would not follow that it was untrue that possibility was a concept dependent on reality, but only either that the universal existed in the mind only was not true, or that possibility existed in the mind only was not true. Indeed, it would have been necessary for him to begin by establishing the truth, before starting to perplex and confuse his readers, for they might die before they could get hold of that book, or he might have died himself before writing it. But this book has not yet come into my hands’ and perhaps he never composed it, and he only says that he does not base this present book on any doctrine, in order that it should not be thought that he based it on that of the Ash’arites. It appears from the books ascribed to him that in metaphysics he recurs to the philosophers. And of all his books this is most clearly shown and most truly proved in his book called The Niche for Lights.