Proof of God’s Existence through Islamic Philosopher Avicenna

Proving the existence of God or a supernatural being has been a struggle for many religions. For centuries philosophers have provided their own methodology for explaining the existence of God. During the Islamic Golden Age, Islamic philosopher Avicenna provided an insightful explanation on God’s existence. This idea spread across the world and provided other philosophers to build from the idea and evolve the explanation of God’s existence. Avicenna’s argument of “necessary existence” is the focal point for the existence of God, which he then supports with the attributes of God that is stated in the Quran. However, there are many critiques of Avicenna’s arguments, many state that his arguments are very individual which can cause people to accept parts of his arguments and disagree with others. In this essay I will explain how Avicenna uses the Islamic beliefs to support the existence of God through the argument of “necessary existence”. Then I will analyze major critiques of Avicenna’s arguments by past philosopher-Averroes and then a modern philosopher-Peter Adamson.

Avicenna was a Muslim philosopher who argued for the existence for God. Avicenna believed that things were contingent, each and everything has a purpose or a cause and was created by an external cause. However, there is also a “necessary existence”, an entity that does not have an external creator or cause but exists because it is the ultimate creator.[1] Therefore, the argument is that all things that are contingent and if they are not contingent then it is a necessary existence, God. Everything in the universe was created for a reason and everything has a purpose, there must be something that created each item. This something would be powerful, knowledgeable, intellective, and generous. These are many of the characteristics correlating to the God that is stated in the Quran. It also explains how God could create everything. He is “generous” because he created the universe, he is powerful enough to do it by himself, his knowledge and intellect allow for variations and coexistence between his creations. Furthermore, there can only be one God, because of his uniqueness. If God has similar features as other existing things, then the correlation would contradict the idea that God is not distinct nor unique. This correlates to the Islamic ideal of Tawhid, the “unification or oneness of God”. Muslims direct all their worship to the sole creator of the universe, God.

Although, Avicenna uses Islamic ideals to support his argument of God existence, there are still many critiques. Averroes was another Islamic philosopher that disagreed with Avicenna’s methodology. Averroes argues that God’s existence is based on two arguments, “providence” and “invention”. Providence is that everything in the universe serves the purpose of humanity. In addition, the invention of these services such as animals and plants, have been design and invented for human life, thus there must be a designer, God.[2] Averroes believes that Avicenna’s argument of “necessary existence” is contradicting and lacks physics. Necessary existence cannot be an accident and just appear. There has to be knowledge of the existence before one can argue that it exists.[3] Averroes’ critique is focused on the difference between contingent things and “necessary existence”, he believes that God just exists. If God’s existence was an accident, then there must be something that caused him, which is a part of the infinite regress. However, Avicenna’s predicts this counterargument and states that this is the reason why God is a necessary existent, if God was contingent then he would be a part of everything else, it would not make him unique.  Averroes and Avicenna have similar beliefs in God, but their approach is different with Averroes focusing more on cosmological argument rather than Avicenna’s ontological argument. In addition to Averroes’ critique, modern day philosopher Peter Adamson believes that Avicenna produces strong arguments for the existence of God however Avicenna’s approach is too focused on ‘necessary existent”. Adamson states that the emphasis on necessary existence can be accepted but the belief in God may not be. Avicenna’s focus on necessary existences does not prove that God exists. The universe could just simply exist without and external cause. Avicenna’s explanation for the existence of God solely revolves on the persons acceptance of contingent and non-contingent things.

I believe that Avicenna’s argument is convincing because the idea that everything has a purpose means that there could be an external factor that created these items perfectly for the sustainability of human life. However, I interpret the idea of a necessary existence as an excuse for trying to explain the unknown. There are many things that occur in the universe that are still not answered by science such as cancer. Therefore, are these unanswerable questions equivalent to God? Avicenna places all the responsibility and reasoning for the existence of the universe on one sole entity, God. This emphasizes his argument that there can only be one God because if there were multiple gods then God himself would lose credibility. He would not be unique and would not be powerful enough to create the universe so perfectly. This idea is carried over into other religions, even polytheistic ones. Although, polytheistic worship multiple Gods they do have one God that is more power than the others. However, where did God get the knowledge and power to create the universe? This makes me want to agree more with Averroes in the argument that the universe can exist by itself, it did not need a creator. But, there is a creator for humans and animals because how else would they coexist together? The unity within universe has to be controlled by something. Avicenna’s argument on the existence of God has led the path for many other philosophers to build upon. Many scholars have even used necessary existence as their base for the existence of God. Although, Avicenna produces a strong argument for necessary existence and the existence of God there will always be questions and critiques until there is physical proof of Gods existence.

[1] Proof of the Truthful

[2] Ibn Rushd (Averroes) | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed 5Apr. 2022.

[3] Belo, Catarina. (2009). Essence and Existence in Avicenna and Averroes. Al-Qanṭara. 30. 403-426.