Erdem, H. Sabri

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Scientific Journals of Osh State University

TeoIorI4, $axyısreu4HııH HJII4Mızü xypHaırıOn Some Theological Views Of Abu Mans0r Al-MaturidiOur Mavıe«errııx VHıaoepcrareTı.ıTEo JI o f I,I.g oA Ky JI bTET I4HI4HI4nVMI4r4 XyPHAİbI11- caaı,ı,200795-10]- 66.H, Sabri ERDEM-Abstractal-Maturidi proves the Creator of the world by starting from thetemporal origination of the world out of nothing(huduth),According to him,the temporal origination of the world can be explained in three ways ofacquiring knowledge: 1-Report(khabar) 2-Senses 3-Reasoning(nazar),Thushe proves the existence of God by these three ways,On the otherhand,according to al-Maturidi, proving the attributes is closely related toattaining knowledge about God.Since we cannot acquire knowledge of Godby senses and reports(khabars),knowledge of God can be acquired throughindications in the world for Him; that is, the indication of theknown(shahada) for the unknown(ghayb),The visible (or the known)indicates the unseen İn terms of its attributes not the esence.Thus al-Maturidi proves the attributes to God by this way,Keywords: al-Maturidi, the existence of God, the attributes ofGod,semantics,Ebu Mansur Et-Maturidi'nin Bazı Kelami Görüşleri ÜzerineözetMaturidi, a|emin yaratıcısını alemin hudusundan hareketleispatlar.O'na göre alemin hudusu da bilgi elde etme yollarıyla ortayakonur.Bilgi elde etme yolları üçtür: 1- Haber 2-Duyular 3_ Nazar.DolayısıylaMaturidi Allah'ın varlığını bu üç yolla ispatlamış olmaktadır.Diğer taraftan Maturidi'ye göre Allah'ın sıfatlarını ispat etmek, Allahhakkında bilgi elde etmekle yakından ilgilidir.O'na göre Allah hakkındaduyular ve haber vasıtaları ile bilgi elde edilemeyeceğinden , Allah hakkındabilgi alemin o'na delaletiyle yani şahidin gaibe delaletiyle bilinir,Şahid alemgaib aleme zat itibariyle değil sıfatlar itibariyle delalet eder.DolayısıylaMaturidi, sıfatları bu yolla ispat eder.Anahtar Kelimeler: Maturidi,sıfatları,semantik metod.Allah'ın varlığı, AlIah'ın* Assoc. Professor, Divinity of Faculty of Ankara University,farer@mynet.com.95Department of Theology, e-mailıiıArıiynr rarüı-rrsi iı-ı,4i orncisiIn this article we will consideı. Maturidi's views on proving God'sexistence and His attributes, and criticize his views and make a newsuggestion.l-Proof for God's existence: al-Maturidi sets out to prove theCreator of the world by starting from the tempora| origination of the worldout of nothing (huduth). According to him, the temporal origination of theworld can be explained in three ways of acquiring knowledge: 1- Report(khabar) 2- Senses 3- Reasoning (nazar).Al-MaturTdi uses Qur'anic verses to show the creation of the worldthrough reports, one of the ways to acquire knowledge. For example, theverse 6:1O2: "Such is Allah, your Lord. There is no God save Him, theCreator of all things,so worship Him. And He taketh care of all things".1However, when considered within its context, it becomes clear that theverse describes, and gives information about God. The verse reads: "Suchis Allah, your Lord" and declares that that there is no god except Him.Expressing that God is the Creator of everything, the verse urges people toworship Him and states that He is the One who takes care of everything(wakfl), Consequently, He is the creator of everything is not mentioned inthe verse to imply His creating everything out of nothing, but rather toemphasize that His being the creator of everything should be understood asa result, or as an entailment, of the preceding statement that there is nogod but Him. Likewise, the statement that He is the creator of everythingshould be taken to be the reason for the subsequent statement that urgesworshipping Him, In this case, al-Maturİdi's understanding of the statementthat God is the creator of everything to suggest creation ex nihilo is a mereconjecture.Al-Maturid? also tries to prove the temporal origination of the worlddepending on sense perception, which is another way of acquiringknowledge. Existents perceived by way of senses are the existents in whichdistinct and opposite natures and characters are conjoined. Distinct andopposite characters should by nature be separate and distant frcm eachother. Therefore, someone else must be putting together these differentand opposite natures and characters. If someone else is involved in thisprocess, then it is necessary that these existents be contigent. 2Al-MaturidT, finally, attemps to prove the createdness of the worldthrough reasoning , which is yet another way to acquire knowiedge. A body(jism) is not free (hali) from motion (harakah) or rest (sukun), twocharacters that cannot be conjoined. When you consider the body'slifespan, half of the motion and half of the rest will be eliminated. Anythingthat posesses something in a paıtial way (e.g. one half) must have an end.Here the body's having an end amounts to the fact that it is contigent,Furthermore, since motion and rest cannot co-exist in eternity {qıdam), one1 Abu Mansur al-Maturidi, Kitab al-Tawhid, ed, Bekir Topaloğlu-Muhammed Aruçi (Ankara,2OO3), p,25.' ibid, p. 26,96TeoJIoıI4ıI tParyııreruHuH uIıkIMıaü NypHaısıof them must be contigent. That one of them being created in eternity isabsurd will hold also true of the other, Thus, that which cannot beseperated from the thing created wiil also be created, and this is body(jism},3 Al-Maturidi thus appears to establish for himself the created natureof the body through its accidents of motion and rest.Al-Maturidi tries to show that the world was created after it had beennon-existent by explaining its contingency based on the abovementionedthree ways of acquiring knowledge. However, the idea that the world wascreated after its non-existence is criticized on the ground that such a notionis inconcievable to man, Al-Maturİdi's response to this criticism is that thosewho object to this idea are the ones who regard the existing things throughtheir senses. But knowledge is outside senses.a However, such a response isnot satisfactory. For there is a difference between the knowledge acquiredby senses and the knowledge of that which is created out of nothing. Forexample, although knowledge that a thing cannot be in two different placesat the same time is different from the knowledge acquired by senses, thisrational knowledge is in turn different from the knowledge that the worldwas brought about after its non-existence, Al-Maturidi also responds to theabove-mentioned objection by saying that there are things like mind andsoul in human beings and human beings do not know what they are madeof,5 However, this response does not appear to be satisfactory either. For athing that it is not known what it is made of is not necessarily a thingcreated out of nothing.Al-Maturidi, after indicate the createdness of the world and respondingto the objection to the creation out of nothing, proceeds to prove theexistence of the creator of the wor|d. According to him, the evidence of theexistence of the creator of the world is the createdness of the world,Moreover, that things in the world do not come together or separate fromeach other by themselves indicates that the conjunction and separation ofthings are performed by something else, And this proves the world to becreated and hence that it needs a creator.6 But such a proof is notsatisfying. For here it is assumed that the argument from the creatednessof a thing in the world and proving its Creator based on this must also bevaiid in the case cıf the world and its Creator, However, the case of a thingin the world cannot be expected to be true of the world as a whole or of athing outside the wor|d. For these two situations are different. For in thecase of the thing existing in the world and inferring from this the existenceof its Creator, it is possible that some existent beings other than the saidthing may exist; but when it comes the createdness of the world (as awhole) and inferring from this the existence of the creator of the world, it isnot the case that anything other than the world should exist. That is, in the' ibid p.2ı,o ibid p.3ı.5 ibid, p.31,6 ibid, p.34.97iüniynr narüırrsi irıvt orneisilatter case/ one can speak of an absolute nothingness, Therefore,inferencefrom the first case to prove the second is not valid.2-Proof for the attributes of God: accoı,ding to al-MaturidT, provingthe attributes is closely related to attaining know|edge about God,According to him, since we cannot acquire knowledge of God by senses andreports (khabar), knowledge of God can be acquired through indications inthe world for Him; that is, the indication of the known (shahada) for theunknown (ghayb), The visible (or the known) indicates the unseen in termsof its attributes not the essence, For example, the facts that the visibleworld has different states and that the oppositesare combined in a beingare evidence for God's omnipotence. That is to söy, existence is anindication in terms of the attributes, e.g. divine power, not the essence,There is nothing in the visible world (al-alam al-shahada) that points to theessence. It will not be possible to prove the essence if we negate theattribute from it.7 In this view, al-Maturidi shows that there is a closerelationship between the essence and the attribute (dhat and s?fah) ratherthan a separation between them.Consequently, al-Maturidi has in mind the indication of the visible forthe invisible through comparison of this indication with the opposite of whatis in the visible, rather than with something similar or identical with what isin the visible. Then, in cases other than these, the visible can only be anindication for the opposite of a thing in the visible. For instance, for aperson who witnesses a thing in the world, that thing çan only be anindication in terms of its either eternity or contingency of that thing.And theeternity or contingency of a thing is something other than the thing itself,8)Therefore, one can only speak of an indication for the opposite in terms ofattributes, not an indication for a similar or identical entity in terms ofessence.Since when the visible is an indication for the invisible (unknown), itindicates not the counterpart of something in the invisible but the oppositeof it and since this means that this indication can only be in terms of theattributes rather than the essence/ all this amounts to the fact that theworld has different aspects and hence the indication of the world tosomething invisible (unknown) must be in different respects. For example,the world's |ack of knowledge of its beginning and its being unable tocorrect a defect in itself show that the worid did not come into existence byitself. Again, the conjunction of the existents and the order in which theyexist indicate that the Creator and the governor (mudabbir) of the world isone.g Thus al-MaturidT points out the facts that the indication of the visible(shahfd) can only be to the opposite of a thing in the unsees (ghafb} anCthat the shahid can only indicate the ghaib in terms of attributes, and fromthese, paves a way for proving the attributes of God.7 İbid pp.47-48.8 ibıd. p,+s.9 ibid, p"50.9BTeoJlo.ufi Sarcyınrervlnvlr unklııIııü NyprraııiAi-Maturidi thinks it necessary, by both report and reason, to describeGod as Knower (Alim}, Almighty (Qadir) and so on, and name Him withthese words.10 Consequently, according to him, describing God and namingHim denote to the same thing. Like the reported (traditional) proof (al-dalilal-naqli) / reason also requires desöription of God and attribution of anumber of names to Him. As a matter of fact, the fact that God has createdbeings that are distinct from each other in terms of essence and accidentsis evidence for the fact that God's creative act is a voluntary one ratherthan natural. If God's act is voluntary, then it is necessary that He have willand power over creatures, For that which is brought about by somethingwhich posesses no power will be corruptible (t6sid) and that something willnot possess anything or its opposite. A thing or an act that is brought aboutby that actor must be brought about through power and volition. Thus Godcreated the world in such a way to indicate that it was created, that it had acreator, and that its creator is one. If God had not known the creatures, itwould not have been possible for creatures to indicate the things mentionedabove.ll Likewise the succession of God's acts concerning beings in theworld in a manner of precision and orderliness shows that His acts arebased on knowledge.12It is in this way that a|-MaturTdi wants to prove thatGod is to be predicated of power/ vol|tion, and knowledge.Maturidi thinks that there is an intimate relationship between theattributes and the names. The names are derived from the attributes.13 Ifthe attributes are not proved then the names will be just appellations (a/-asma'al-alqab), Since one cannot speak of appellations for God in eternity,calling Him with some names wiil be meaningless. Thus al-Maturidi holdsthat it is the attributes that are meant by names. But there is a problemhere, For it is difficult for the same word to mean both the name and theattribute, because they are two different things. For instance, from al-Maturidi's point of view, while an attribute can possibly be said to be of akind of existence, the same thing does not hold for name,As a matter of fact, the argument which al-Maturİdİ advances againstthose who negate the attributes (the Mu'tazi|ah) indicates that he considersattributes to have a kind of existence, He says, against the negators ofGod's attributes, that if in fact an attribute were the quality of that whichdescribes, it would be absurd to use such properties as conjunction,detachment, and rest, from which things themselves are not free, inproving the existents of the outside world. For the existents of the outsideworld are free from the quality of that which describes them in this way,iaConsequently, attributes are not only the word of that which describes, butalso necessary for things of the outside world, Thus al-Maturidi, byexpressing against the Mu'tazilah that the attributes are not the quality of'o ibid, p.70.1'ibid, p.70.12 ibid, p,72.13 İbid. p.101.14 İbid, p.7B.99ilnııiynr rnxüı-rrsi iı-ı,ıİ orneisithat which describes, admits that the attributes have a kind of existence.For attributes being the quality of that which describes means that they arenot in existence. And this is tantamount to the denial of the attributes.According to al-Maturidi, in order to distinguish God from otherexistents, we must say God to be creator through His essense.'s In otherwords, since God's being a Creator through an attribute outside His essencewould be likening Him to other existing beings, that God is creator throughHis essence must be emphasized, Nevertheless, it is not because heembraces the Mu'tazilah view that he says that God is creator through Hisessence. The Mu'tazilah negates divine attributes when they state that Godknows through His essence, but al-Maturidi distinguishes God from otherexistents by the same statement; Because, after all, he affirms divineattri b utes.Al-Maturidi is in a slightly different position than the other Sunnitheologians on the issue of the essence-attribute (dhöt-sıfah) relationship.He thinks, the essence and the attributes are more intimately related toeach other than the other sunni teologians think they are. As we have seen,when al-Maturidi claims that the indication the world has for the unseen canonly be in terms of attributes rather than the essence and when he assertsthat the essence cannot be spoken of as denuded from attributes, he refersto the fact that the essence and the attributes cannot be separated fromeachother, as is the case with the other Sunni scholars. In fact, Abu al-Mu'in al-Nasaff says that the followers of al-Maturidi shun using the Ashaı-itestatement that "God is a knower with a knowledge", lest it should beunderstood to be a means and prefer saying "God is a knower and He has aknowledge," 16 thereby restating al-MaturidT's view that the essence and theattributes are not separable from each other or that they are closelyconnected to each other.On the other hand, according to al-Nasafi, there is no differencebetween al-Jubbai's statement that "God is a knower for Himself" and al-Ka'bi's statement that "God is a knower through Himself," because both ofthe statements, in the final analysis, mean that God is not a knower merelybecause of a quality that is knowledge.17 In this view, al-Nasafr comes toadmit that God is a knower due to a quality, viz., due to a knowledge, andhence differs from al-Maturidi, For al-MaturidT holds the view that God has aknowledge or that God is predicated of knowledge, rather than the viewthat God is a knower due to a knowledge. In other words, al-Maturidİ findsit may appropriate to say that "God has the attribute of knowledge" than tosay that "God is a knower with the attribute of knowledge." As a result, heviews a closer reiationship between the essence and the attributes tharı dothe other Sunni theologians. Thus al-Maturfdi neither denies God's attribute15 ibid, p,90.16 ibid, p.90,17 al-Nasafi, Tabsirah al-Adillah, ed. Claude Salam6, v:1,( Dimashq, 1990), p,25B.100TeönorI4.,I (PaxyıırternHl,IH LIJILıMııü Nypııaıııof knowledge as the Mutazilah does, nor says that God is a knower becauseof His attribute of knowledge/ as in the case of the other Sunni theologians.This attribute can be affirmed either by saying that the attributemakes the essence a knower or by stating that God is a knower and He hasknowledge. Considering that there is no other way to affirm the attributeand that al-Maturldi does not use the statement that "God is a knower inHis essence" in order not to |iken God to creatures, we can say that theMutazilah's statement that "God is a knower through His essence" inevitablyamounts to the denial of the attribute. Thus it wi|l not be wrong to concludethat whereas al-Matur?di and the other Sunni theologians affirm theattributes even if in different ways, the Mutazilah negates them.As we have seen, there are some difficulties in al-Maturidi's argumentfor God's existence and the attributes. However, these kinds of difficultieswill not arise if knowledge of God is acquired from the context of theQur'anic text from semantics point of vier,ıı, For, in contrast to proving God'sexistence and His attributes in a kind of rational way, since knowledgeabout God is attained by way of linguistic expressions from semantics pointof view, those difficulties will not emerge with regard to semantics. For insemantics used as a method, linguistic expression will be used instead of acertain rational method, and the meanings of these linguistic expressionswill be determined according to semantic criteria. Thus, knowledge of Godwill be obtained through semantics.Referencesal-Maturidi, Abu Mansur, Kitab al-Tawhid, ed. Bekir Topaloğlu- MuhammedAruçi, Ankara, 2003.al- Nasafi, Abu Muin, Tabsirah al-Adillah, ed, Claude Salam6, Dimashq,1990.101

On Some Theological Views Of Abu Mans0r Al-Maturidi

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On Some Theological Views Of Abu Mans0r Al-Maturidi

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