An Analysis of Avicenna's View on the Attributes of God: Investigating the Logical Problem of Evil

Abstract

The problem of evil has been a challenging issue throughout the history of religious and philosophical thought. In the past, thinkers would rely on evil to undermine divine omnipotence, wisdom, and justice. Nowadays, however, this problem has become a shelter for atheism. The problem of evil is of two types: logical and evidential. In the logical problem of evil, the claim is that the existence of evil is not consistent with the existence of Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnibenevolent God, whereas, in the latter, evils are considered as evidence for undermining theism. This article, using analytical methods, studies the first problem from Avicenna's viewpoint. Since this account of the problem is rather new in Islamic culture, Avicenna did not address it explicitly. Still, perhaps one can derive his opinion from the content of his views on the attributes of God. In Avicenna's philosophy, God is a pure actuality who has the necessary causal relationship with the world and is purified from the human and bodily characteristics. According to Avicenna, God's power and will are not only concretely, but also conceptually, the same as God's knowledge. Moreover, all three of them are limited to the present world. Therefore, God’s Omniscience and Omnipotence encompass only the beings of this world, not the many possible worlds we can imagine. Also, Omnibenevolence puts its actions beyond moral judgments. Accordingly, there remains no room for the logical problem of evil in Avicenna’s system of thought.

Keywords

• god’s omniscience
• god’s omnipotence
• god’s will
• god’s bliss
• god’s generosity and omnibenevolence