God and Physics: From Hawking To Avicenna

Endnotes 1 From hisKitab al-Irshad (Book of Right Guidance ); quoted in L. E. Goodman,Avicenna (London: Routledge, 1992), p. [^49]: An Ash’arite theologian, he taught al-Ghazali at Nishapur.

2 John Gribbin,In the Beginning: The Birth of the Living Universe (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993), p. [^19]:

3 Stephen Hawking,A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), p. [^8]:

4 Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose,The Nature of Space and Time (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. [^71]:

5 The literature on this subject is enormous. Among many authors who offer a survey of these recent variations in Big Bang cosmology and comment on their philosophical and theological implications see: William E. Carroll, “Big Bang Cosmology, Quantum Tunneling from Nothing, and Creation,”Laval théologique et philosophique , 44, no.1 (février 1988), pp. 59-75; Mariano Artigas, “ Física y creación: el origen del universo,”Scripta Theologica , 29, nos. 1 and 2 (1987), pp. 347-373; E. McMullin, “Natural Science and Belief in a Creator: Historical Notes,” W. R. Stoeger, “Contemporary Cosmology and Its Implications for the Science-Religion Dialogue,” T. Peters, “On Creating the Cosmos,” J. Polkinghorne, “The Quantum World,” R. J. Russell, “Quantum Physics in Philosophical and Theological Perspective,” and C. J. Isham, “Creation of the Universe as a Quantum Process,” inPhysics, Philosophy, and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding , edited by Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger, S.J., and George V. Coyne, S.J. (Vatican City: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1988), pp. 49-79, 219- 247, 273-296, 333-342, 343-374, 375-408; William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith,Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); C.J. Isham, “Quantum Theories of the Creation of the Universe” and Robert John Russell, “Finite Creation Without a Beginning: The Doctrine of Creation in Relation to Big Bang and Quantum Cosmologies,” inQuantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature , edited by Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and C.J. Isham (Vatican City: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1993), pp.49- 89, 293-329; Ernan McMullin, “Indifference Principle and Anthropic Principle in Cosmology,”Studies in History and Philosophy of Science , 24, no. 3 (1993), pp. 359-389; Juan José Sanguineti,El Origen del Universo: La cosmología en busca de la filosofía (Buenos Aires: Editorial de la Universidad Catolica Argentina, 1994) and “La creazione nella cosmologia contemporanea,”Acta Philosophica 4, no. 2 (1995), pp. 285-313; Joseph Zycinski, “Metaphysics and Epistemology in Stephen Hawking’s Theory of the Creation of the Universe,”Zygon , vol. 31, no. 2 (June 1996), pp. 269-[^284]:

6   As a historian of science I am not competent to judge the specific scientific claims in these various speculations. I do wish to examine the philosophical and theological claims so frequently associated with these speculations and to show how the history of mediaeval philosophy, theology, and science is especially useful in such an examination.

7   One of the early proponents of this view was Edward Tryon of the City University of New York. He argued that the Big Bang could be understood as “quantum tunneling from nothing.”Nature 246, no. 14 (14 December 1973), p. [^396]:

8  “Birth of Inflationary Universes,” inPhysical Review D , 27:12 (1983), p. [^2851]: Other essays by Vilenkin: “Quantum Cosmology and the Initial State of the Universe, “ inPhysical Review D 37 (1988), pp. 888-897, and “Approaches to Quantum Cosmology,” inPhysical Review D 50 (1994), pp. 2581-2594.

9  Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time (London: Michael Joseph, Ltd., 1985), pp. 349 and [^17]:

10God and the New Physics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. [^215]: When Davies speaks of a “causeless quantum transition,” he is using the term “cause” to refer to a temporal succession of predictable events. There is a great deal of confusion in

the philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics, especially with respect to the meaning of Heisenberg’s “relation of uncertainty.” It is one thing to affirm that we are not able to provide a precise mathematical measure of both the velocity and the position of a sub-atomic particle; it is quite another to deny the objective reality of the particle or to contend that there is a realm of “causeless” effects. We might not be able to predict certain events. This does mean that these events have no cause.

11ibid. , p. viii.

12 William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith,op. cit ., p. [^109]:

13ibid ., p. [^135]: A particularly good example of the persisting confusion about the roles of science, metaphysics, and theology in understanding the universe and its origins is an essay by P.W. Atkins, distinguished physical chemist at Oxford University. Convinced that all human knowledge is reducible to the explanatory categories of the natural sciences, Atkins thinks that the domain of scientific discourse is truly limitless. Accordingly, he says that it is the task of science “to account for the emergence of everything from absolutely nothing. Not almost nothing, not a subatomic dust-like speck, but absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Not even empty space.” P. W. Atkins, “The Limitless Power of Science,” inNature’s Imagination: The Frontiers of Scientific Vision , edited by John Cornwell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 131. For a criticism of this essay, see William E. Carroll, “Reductionism and the Conflict Between Science and Religion,”The Allen Review 15 (Oxford, 1996), pp. 19-22.

14ibid. , p. [^217]: Italics are in the original.

15 For a very good account of Hawking’s analysis, actually the Hartle/Hawking analysis, see Robert John Russell, “ Finite Creation Without a Beginning . .,” inQuantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature ,op. cit., pp. 293-[^329]: J. Hartle, S. Hawking, “Wave Function of the Universe,” inPhysical Review D, 28 (1983), pp. 2960-2975; S. Hawking, “The Boundary Condition of the Universe,” inAstrophysical Cosmology , edited by H.A. Brück, G.V. Coyne, M.S. Longair (Vatican City: Pontifical Academy of Science, 1982), pp. 563-572; S. Hawking, “The Quantum State of the Universe,” inNuclear Physics B 239 (1984), pp. 257-276. See also, Keith Ward’s discussion, “Creation and Modern Cosmology,” inReligion and Creation (Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 287-315.

16 Hawking,A Brief History of Time ,op. cit., p. [^136]: The two “most remarkable features that I have learned in my research on space and time [are]: 1) that gravity curls up spacetime so that it has a beginning and an end; 2) that there is a deep connection between gravity and thermodynamics that arise[s] because gravity itself determines the topology of the manifold on which it acts.” Hawking in Hawking and Penrose (1996),op. cit ., p. 103.

17ibid. , p. [^76]:

18ibid. , p. [^141]: C.J. Isham thinks that the Hartle/Hawking model is philosophically superior to the standard Big Bang model with an initial singularity. “[T]hese [quantum fluctuation] theories are prone to predict, not a single creation/seed-point, but rather an infinite number of them. . .” “There is simply no way of distinguishing any particular instant of time” at which the universe would spontaneously appear. Whereas for Aquinas reason alone is unable to decide whether or not the universe has an absolute temporal beginning; or better, since he believes that there is such a beginning, it is hidden from the view of human reason, in the Hartle/Hawking model an absolute beginning simply does not exist. Willem Drees agrees with Isham and thinks that, since theology is not really wedded to historical origination but only ontological orgination, the Hartle/Hawking model is more compatible with the Christian doctrine of creationex nihilo. Beyond the Big Bang: Quantum Cosmologies and God (LaSalle, IL: Open Court: 1990), especially pp. 70-71.

19ibid. , p. x.

20 John Barrow,The Origin of the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 1994), p. [^113]:

21 In fact, in the 1950s and 1960s Soviet cosmologists were forbidden to teach the theory since it was considered to be theistic science.

22 For a discussion of these reactions, see Carroll, “Big Bang Cosmology, Quantum Tunneling from Nothing, and Creation,”op. cit. , pp. 64-[^67]:

23 See Herbert A. Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).

24 In the Latin Middle Ages almost all of the works of Aristotle were translated into Latin, either from the Arabic or the Greek, and eventually were the subject of study. The exceptions were theEudemian Ethics , which was never translated, and thePoetics , which although translated by William of Moerbeke, remained virtually unknown. Most of the works of Aristotle were translated from the Greek; our knowledge of them comes from a corpus of 2000 manuscripts (dating from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries) in various European libraries. Some of the works were mistakenly attributed to Aristotle. Our knowledge of these translations owes its origin to the initial work of Amable Jourdain who in 1819 publishedRecherches critiques sur l’âge et l’origine des traductions latines d’Aristote. By the middle of the present century the catalogue of these manuscripts appeared and now there is an extensive collection, in the seriesAristoteles latinus , of critical editions of these translations. See Charles H. Lohr, “Aristotele latinus,” inThe Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy , edited by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg (Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 45-[^46]: Lohr provides a useful table of all the translations, pp. 74-79. Many of these works were translated more than once. Already in the sixth century Boethius had begun his project of translating all of Plato and Aristotle into Latin, but the only works of Aristotle which we have evidence that he translated are theCategories, De interpretatione ,Prior Analytics ,Topics , andSophistici elenchi : that is, all of what has been called Aristotle’s “Organon” with the exception of thePosterior Analytics. Lohr,op. cit. , p. 53.

For more than five hundred years the knowledge of Greek science in the Latin West depended upon Boethius’ translations of Aristotle’s logical treatises, his summary of Euclid’s Elements, his own treatises on arithmetic and music, as well as a partial translation of Plato’s Timaeus and commentaries by Chalcidius and Cicero. Schools established at cathedrals and monasteries, as well as at secular courts, were more concerned with studying grammar, logic, and theology. especially biblical exegesis, than with scientific questions. James A. Weisheipl, OP, The Development of Physical Theory in the Middle Ages (Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arbor Paperbacks, 1971), pp. 18-19.

25 David Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450 (University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 190-[^197]: William of Conches (d. after 1154) is a good example of the increasing tendency to affirm the importance of the study of nature. In his Philosophy of the World, William attacks those who too readily appeal to direct divine intervention in the world: “Because they are themselves ignorant of nature’s forces and wish to have all men as companions in their ignorance, they are unwilling to investigate them, but prefer that we believe like peasants and not inquire into the [natural] causes [of things]. However, we say that the cause of everything is to be sought. . But these people. . if they know of anybody so investigating, proclaim him a heretic.” Andrew of St. Victor, discussing the interpretation of biblical events, cautioned that “in expounding Scripture, when the event described admits of no natural explanation, then and then only should we have recourse to miracles.” Quoted in Lindberg, p. 200.

26 Lindberg,op. cit. , p. 203

27 Gerard translated Avicenna’sCanons of Medicine and many works by Galen and Hippocrates. He translated Ptolemy’sAlmagest with Arabic commentaries. He translated Euclid’sElements from the Arabic as well as Aristotle’sPhysics ,On the Heavens ,On Generation and Corruption , and thePosterior Analytics. Weisheipl,op. cit. , p. [^21]: Gerard had come from northern Italy to Spain in the late 1130s or early 1140s in search of a copy of Ptolemy’sAlmagest . He found a copy in Toledo and remained there

where he learned Arabic, and found a treasure trove of other texts to translate. Lindberg,op. cit. , pp. 204-5.

28 Grosseteste was first chancellor of Oxford University and bishop of Lincoln from 1235 until his death in [^1253]: In addition to his role as translator of Aristotle, he was a major political, ecclesiastical, scientific, and philosophical figure in his own right. Charles H. Lohr, “Aristotele latinus,” inThe Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy , edited by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg (Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 61. Lohr provides a useful table of all the translations, pp. 74-79.

29 Moerbeke, a Dominican and friend of Thomas Aquinas, was born in Belgium around [^1215]: He traveled extensively in Greece and “was presumably a member of the Dominican convent established at Thebes at least since 1253..” He served in the papal court at Viterbo, and in 1278 he was named Archbishop of Corinth in Greece, where he died in 1286. See Lohr,op. cit. , pp. 62-3.

30 Oliver Leaman, An Introduction to Medieval Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1985); Herbert A. Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Fadlou Shehadi, Metaphysics in Islamic Philosophy (Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books, 1982); F.E. Peters, Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in Islam (New York University Press, 1968).

31 In 762, al’Mansur (754-775) built the new capital. The Persian influence was evident in the powerful royal advisors from the Barmak family, formerly from the province of Bactria, and recent converts to Islam. Nestorian Christian physicians also served at the court. See David Lindberg,The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. [^1450]: (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 168.

32 The principal translator was an Arab, Hunayn ibn Ishaq (808-873), who came from a family which had converted to Nestorian Christianity before the advent of Islam. He was fluent in Arabic, Syriac, and Greek..

33 Lindberg, p. [^170]:

34 Pierre Duhem, “Physics, History of” inThe Catholic Encyclopedia (1911) 11:[^48]:

35 A.I. Sabra provides a very good sketch of these contributions in “Science, Islamic” inDictionary of the Middle Ages 11:81-[^88]: “Islamic astronomy is a good illustration of the relationship between Islamic and Greek science. Muslim astronomers produced a great deal of very sophisticated astronomical work. The work was carried out largely within the Ptolemaic framework (though we must acknowledge early Hindu influences on Islamic astronomy, largely displaced by subsequent access to Ptolemy’sAlmagest and other Greek astronomical works). Muslim astronomers sought to articulate and correct the Ptolemaic system, improve the measurement of Ptolemaic constants, compile planetary tables based on Ptolemaic models, and devise instruments that could be used for the extension and improvement of Ptolemaic astronomy in general.” Lindberg,op. cit. , p. 177.

36 The specific debate concerned whether Aristotelian logic transcended the Greek language and was, thus, appropriate to use by those who spoke and wrote in Arabic. See Shehadi,op. cit. , pp. 23-[^4]:

37 On al-Farabi, see Ian R. Netton,Al-Farabi and His School (London and New York: Routledge, 1992). An excellent survey of Avicenna can be found in theEncyclopedia Iranica (Routledge, 1989), Vol. 3, pp. 66-[^110]: Also L. E. Goodman,Avicenna (Routledge, 1992).

38al-Shifa’: al-Ilahiyyat , VIII.3, translated in Georges Anawati,La Métaphysique du Shifa’ (Paris, 1978), Vol. II, pp. 83-[^84]: “C’est ce qui veut dire que la chose est créé, i.e., recevant l’existence d’un autre. . Par conséquent le tout par rapport à la Cause première est créé. . Donc toute chose, sauf l’Un premier, existe après n’avoir par existé eu égard à elle- même [bistihqaq nafsihi ].” “When some thing through its

own essence is continuously a cause for the existence of some other thing, it is a cause for it continuously as long as its essence continues existing. If it [the cause] exists continuously, then that which is caused exists continuously. Thus, what is like this [cause] is among the highest causes, for it prevents the non- existence of something, and is that which gives perfect existence to something. This is the meaning of that which is called ‘creation’ [ibda ’] by the philosophers, namely, the bringing into existence of something after absolute non-existence. For it belongs to that which is caused, in itself, that it does not exist [laysa ], while it belongs to it from its cause that it does exist [aysa ]. That which belongs to something in itself is prior, according to the mind, in essence, not in time to that which comes from another. Thus, everything which is caused is existing after non-existing by a posteriority in terms of essence. . If [an effect’s] existence comes after absolute non- existence, its emanation from the cause in this way is calledibda’ (“absolute origination”). This is the most excellent form of the bestowal of existence, for (in this case) non-existence has simply been prevented and existence has been given the swayab initio .”al-Shifa’: al-Ilahiyyat , II.266, quoted in Barry Kogan,Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation (Binghamton, NY: State University of New York Press, 1985), p. 276, n. 58. See also F. Rahman, “Ibn Sina’s Theory of the God-World Relationship,” inGod and Creation , edited by David Burrell and Bernard McGinn (University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), pp. 38-56.

39al-Shifa’: al-Ilahiyyat , VI. 1, quoted in A. Hyman and J. Walsh (eds.),Philosophy in the Middle Ages , second edition (Hackett, 1983), p. [^248]:

40 “Il n’y a donc pas d’autre quiddité (mahiyya ) pour le nécessairement existant que le fait qu’il est nécessairement existant. Et c’est cel l’être (al-anniya ).”al-Shifa’: al-Ilahiyyat , VIII. 4, tranlsated by Georges Anawati,op. cit., Vol. II, p. [^87]: The classic work on Avicenna’s analysis of essence and existence is Amelie-Marie Goichon,La distinction de l’essence et l’existence d’après Ibn Sina (Paris, 1937).

41 David Burrell, “Aquinas and Islamic and Jewish Thinkers,” inThe Cambridge Companion to Aquinas , edited by Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump (Cambidge University Press, 1993), p. [^69]: Georges Anawati, in his introduction to theShifa’, puts it this way: “C’est en partant de l’essence qu’Avicenne aboutit forcément à considérer l’esse qui l’affecte comme un accident. S. Thomas par contre part de l’être existant et il fait de l’esse ce qu’il y a de plus intime et de plus profond dans cet être.” Georges Anawati,op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 78. For an extensive discussion of the “accidentality of existence” in Avicenna, see Shehadi,op. cit. , pp. 93-114.

42 Charles Kahn, “Why Existence Does Not Emerge as a Distinct Concept in Greek Philosophy,” inPhilosophies of Existence: Ancient and Medieval , ed. by P. Morewedge (NY: Fordham, 1982), p. [^8]: “The key to Ibn Sina’s synthesis of the metaphysics of contingency with the metaphysics of necessity lies in the simple phrase:considered in itself . Considered in itself, each effect is radically contingent. It does not contain the conditions of its own existence; and, considered in itself, it need not exist. Its causes give it being. It is by abstracting from its causes that we can regard even the world as a whole as radically contingent. But considered in relation to its causes, not as something that in the abstract might not have existed, but as something concretely given before us, with a determinate character, the same conditionedness that required us to admit its contingency requires us to admit its necessity. Considered in relation to its causes, this object must exist, in the very Aristotelian sense that it does exist, and must have the nature that it has in that its causes gave it that nature. A thing mighthave been other than as it is, it might yet be other than it is, but it cannotnow be other than it is.” Goodman,Avicenna , pp. 66-7.

43 “In one fell swoop, Aquinas has succeeded in restoring the primacy Aristotle intended for individual existing things, by linking them directly to their creator and by granting Avicenna’s ‘distinction’ an unequivocal ontological status. Yet as should be clear, this is more than a development of Avicenna; it is a fresh start requiring a conception of

existing that could no longer be confused with anaccident , and which has the capacity to link each creature to the gratuitous activity of a free creator. Only in such a way can the radicalnewness of the created universe find coherent expression, for theexisting ‘received from God’ will be the source of all perfections and need not presume anything at all -- be it matter or ‘possibles.’“ David Burrell, “Aquinas and Islamic and Jewish Thinkers,”op. cit ., pp. 69-70.

44 Avicenna, in his philosophic argumentation, “fused the Aristotelian metaphysics of self- sufficiency with the monotheistic metaphysics of contingency. . .” Goodman,Avicenna ,op. cit. , p. [^63]:

45 See Emil l. Fackenheim, “The Possibility of the Universe in Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Maimonides,” inProceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research , Vol. xvi (1947), pp. 39-70; George F. Hourani, “Ibn Sina on Necessary and Possible Existence,” inPhilosophical Forum , 4 (1972), pp. 74-86

46 “It was at this juncture between the Aristotelian givenness and the Scriptural gift of being that Ibn Sina created a third major option in metaphysics, subsuming the creationist contingency of thekalam and the essentialist eternalism of Aristotle. Ibn Sina’s cosmos, in contrast with Aristotle’s, was contingent. But, by contrast with the cosmos of thekalam , its contingency did not negate natural necessity, or the efficacy of natural causes and potentialities, including human actions and dispositions. . Finite things were contingent in themselves but necessary with reference to their causes and ultimately to God, who is the Cause of causes. Thus the natural order retains its integrity and the continuity of its categories -- time, space, causality, the wholeness of human intelligence, and moral sense.” Goodman,Avicenna, p. [^74]:

47 al-Ghazali,Munqidh , quoted in L.E. Goodman,An Introduction to Medieval Islamic Philosophy , pp. 20-[^21]:

48Tahafut al-Falasifah , discussions 1-[^4]: Goodman summarizes al-Ghazali’s central point: “The philosophers [like Avicenna] wanted to show the world’s timeless dependence upon God, but the idea of timelessness demands that of self-sufficiency, and Ibn Sina’s conception of creation as contingent in itself and necessary with reference to its cause only papers over a contradiction.” Goodman,op. cit. , p. 83.