Difference between the Approach of Aristotle and Avicenna in Proof of the Existence of God

• Main Authors: Mohammadsaleh Tayebnia, Reza Akbarian, Mohammad Saeedimehr
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: University of Isfahan 2012-05-01
• Series: Comparative Theology
• Subjects: Aristotle; Avicenna; a Priori; Posteriori; Ontological; Cosmological
• Online Access: http://uijs.ui.ac.ir/coth/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1-34&slc_lang=en&sid=1

  Comparing between approach of Aristotle and Avicenna in proof of the existence of God, is a sign of basic difference between Peripatetic idea of Aristotle and Avicenna, also the different way that has been gone in the Muslim world compared to the west, in proof of the existence of God.   Aristotle in “Philosophies”, has been mentioned to the two arguments: "degrees of perfection argument" and "teleological argument", but his main argument on the existence of God, is “the argument from motion” that has explained details of it in the Lambda Book of Metaphysics and Physics. Each of the three above arguments has a cosmological approach and is categorized as the posteriori arguments.   For Avicenna, acceptance of that Aristotle had wanted to prove the existence of God by natural things, such as world motion, is very hard. According to this thinking, he focused all his efforts on not using the cosmological arguments to prove the existence of God. Avicenna used “the proof of middle and the end” and “the proof from contingency and necessity” in several of his books and his latest exposition of the proof from contingency and necessity has named “proof of the truthful”. His argument is ontological and priori too.