The Paradox of Creation. Theology of (De)nature and Physics of Worship in the 3rd/9th Century Kalām and Falsafa

Debates over the existence or not of nature as a principle of movement during the 3rd/9th century can be understood as revolving around the implications of the concept of creation. On the one hand, the denial of nature among theologians was implied by their stressing on the dependency of creatures to their Creator, and resulted in occasionalism. If this history is well-known, the thinking of a denier of nature like Ṣāliḥ Qubba should not only be interpreted as a preliminary step of occasionalism, since his reduction of the properties of created beings is huger than causality. On the other hand, the affirmation of nature in the first falsafa may be understood in light of a second property of the concept of creation: the necessary independence of the created world from his Creator. It results in an original answer to the question: what is the cause of natural changes? According to al-Kindī and Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ , the world is a universal worshiper who prostrates before God willingly. As we see, the affirmation or the denial of nature draw on both sides of the same theological issue

Creatures · Denial · Epistemology · Eschatology · Psychoanalysis · Theology · Worship · History · Islamic Studies and History · Islamic Thought and Society Studies · Mathematics · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy · Psychology

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