GOD'S KNOWLEDGE OF PARTICULARS: AVICENNA, KALAM, AND THE POST-AVICENNIAN SYNTHESIS

Benevich, Fedor (2019): GOD'S KNOWLEDGE OF PARTICULARS: AVICENNA, KALAM, AND THE POST-AVICENNIAN SYNTHESIS. In: Recherches De Theologie et Philosophie Medievales, Vol. 86, No. 1: pp. 1-47

Abstract

The question whether God knows particular individuals has traditionally attracted the attention of Islamic scholars: Does the perishability of worldly individuals entail problems about the perishability of God's corresponding knowledge? Can one eternally know that Zayd will arrive tomorrow to the city? In this paper, I systemically and historically analyze (1) how post-Avicennian philosophers distinguished between two pre-Avicennian kalam views on whether such knowledge is eternal or perishable;(2) how they regarded Avicenna's famous theory that God knows particulars qua universals as connected to the pre-Avicennian kalam debate;(3) and how the authors such as Fahr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1210) and Sihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (d. 1191) attempted to synthesize Avicenna and kalam epistemology in their account of God's knowledge as relation or as presence.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and Religious Science
• Subjects: 100 Philosophy and Psychology > 100 Philosophy
• ISSN: 1370-7493
• Language: English