An intimation on the Necessary Being: is it self-evident or demonstrative?

An Influx (wāridah)

At one time you hear them say: the subsistence of the Necessary (al-wājib) is self-evident and needs no demonstration — and then they dispute with those who deny it, claiming that they are merely calling attention to it. At another time they say that it is a matter for reasoning and requires proof, and they argue for it by demonstrations built upon premises conceded among themselves which sound taste spits out and upright thought recoils from. So hear what will profit you in this.

It is known that the contingent (mumkin) needs a determinant (murajjiḥ) in order to exist, since it has no existence from its own essence, as you heard in the preceding section; and the necessity of its requiring a bringer-into-existence entails the impossibility of its coming to exist out of sheer non-existence.

Demonstration of the entailment. The proceeding of the effect (maʻlūl) from the cause (ʻillah) calls for a special relation between the effect and the cause, so that the effect may soundly proceed from the cause; for if there were no connection and linkage between them — all things standing on a par relative to the cause — then the proceeding of this effect from it rather than the rest of things would be a preponderance without a determinant, which is impossible. And again: if there were no relation between them, they would be disjoined with a complete disjunction; and then, were the effect to exist, it would exist with no link between it and anything else, and so would have existed without a bringer-into-existence — which is absurd. There must, then, be a relation and a special connection between the effect and the cause. And once we say that a relation and a connection are necessary, then — since connection and relation are realised only between two terms — the two terms must exist for the source of the relation to be realised; and so the effect must exist together with the cause in order for the relation upon which causality depends to be realised. In that case the contingent existed prior in rank to the realisation of causality, and so existed before its own existence — which is absurd. In sum, self-evidence decrees that there is no relation between existence and sheer non-existence. — And again: your statement that a thing exists out of non-existence, if it is meant literally, requires that non-existence be a “where” for it, or a “when,” or a substrate substance, or a matter, and so on through the possible existential categories; and then the existence of non-existence and of the non-existent follows — which is absurd.

The coming-to-be of a thing out of sheer non-existence, therefore, is impossible; and this is a self-evident judgement, to which we have now called your attention. Therefore everything of which the concept of the contingent is truly predicated needs a cause, and that cause is not disjoined from it altogether; and that cause terminates in a determinant outside the quiddity of contingency, namely the true Necessary, which is its own existence by its own essence. Every qualified thing needs Him, and He is the terminus of all qualifications and that to which they revert (“to Him the whole affair reverts”). And while the effect is not disjoined from the cause, neither is it identical with it; rather it is one of its phases (aṭwār) and one of its modes (shuʼūn), having no existence but its existence. So it is clear that every contingent is one of the considerations (iʻtibārāt) of its cause, having no existence but its cause's existence. Therefore there is nothing in true, essential existence but one single absolute essence, in which there is no multiplicity except by the multiplicity of its considerations, and in which there is no qualification in any respect whatever; and that is the Necessary of Existence (wājib al-wujūd). Understand. There is nothing possible more ample than this exposition, and to clarify the clear is a difficulty. The truth lies plain before you; so do not occupy your thought with refuting the infinite regress (tasalsul), for that requires imaginings enough to fill the worlds.

An approximation. Do not think it far-fetched that the effect is one of the modes of its cause. For you are not unaware that the house is a mode of its parts and one of their considerations; that the tree is a phase of the seed and one of its modes; that the waves are a phase of the sea and one of its modes; and so with all things. — And how astonishing are the mutakallimūn and the imitative philosophers: unable to climb to the rank of perfection, how they took non-existents (aʻdām) for a ladder from which to peer at the Reality, claiming that this is a way of declaring His presence transcendent! But we say: there is no existence but His existence, and no attribute but His attribute; He is the Existent, and what is other than He is the non-existent. — The first commanders, may God be pleased with them, Abū Bakr and ʻUmar and ʻUthmān and ʻAlī, said: I never saw a thing without seeing God before it, or after it, or in it, or with it — each of these being ascribed to one of them. — And let it not fall into your imagining that this is an affirmation of indwelling (ḥulūl); for indwelling obtains only between two existents, one of which indwells the other, whereas we say: there is no existence but His existence.

An admonition. I think that in these words you have ascertained that this Necessary is one; for if there were two necessary beings, each of them would be distinguished from the other — otherwise it would be identical with it — and its distinction could only be by a qualification not present in the other, so that it would be qualified and therefore contingent, which is absurd. And one may also argue for the impossibility of any multiplicity of existence whatsoever, and that there is nothing but one single existence, thus: if