Islamic Quarterly, 2009, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 185-202.
Abstract
This article aims to achieve three goals. Firstly, having analyzed Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles (SCG) and Reasons for the Faith against Muslim Objections, and the available Aquinas literature on Islam-Christian relations it argues that his knowledge about Islam is limited and not based upon primary sources. Secondly, it has long been accepted that St. Thomas Aquinas wrote Summa Contra Gentiles against Islam and Muslims and had a missionary purpose. However, it is our contention that Aquinas leveled his criticism against some of the views of the several leading philosophers in the Muslim world and not towards Islamic theology as whole. Finally, as is well known, Aquinas divided theological matters into two categories as those that can be explained with the natural reason such as God’s existence, creation, and etc, and those that exceed the natural reason such as trinity, incarnation, sacrament etc. The matters which fall in the former category do not conflict with Islam, and those that exceed the natural reason, according to Aquinas, can only be explained through the Bible. Because the Bible is not binding in the eyes of the Muslims, Aquinas’ arguments and explanations on these matters seem to fall short in convincing the Muslims.
Key Words: Aquinas, Islam, Christianity, Apology, Apologetics, History of Religions
Introduction
From the apostolic times, the Christians have written many books in order to defend their religion and convert people to Christianity. These books can be divided into two distinct categories based on their ends. One is polemics that aim to confute the views of rival religions and religious movements. The other is apologetics intended to explain and defend Christianity.
One of the leading apologists, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274) studied the arts in the University of Naples, the first secular and independent university in Europe. He discovered Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Rushd as well as Aristotle in Naples, the home of vivid intellectual and cultural milieu in the West by means of translations from Greek and Arabic. Probably in 1242 or 1243, he received the habit of the Order of St. Dominic and this was one of the momentous turning points in his life. When he died after working in various universities in France, Germany and Italy, he left many books behind, the most important ones of which are Summa Contra Gentiles (SCG) and Summa Theologica (ST).
SCG is the most significant work of Aquinas. The very word “summa” in the title of the book meant an extended and comprehensive study of doctrinal issues in medieval times.[1]In some manuscript of SCG, the title of the book appeared as On the Truth of the Catholic Faith against the Errors of the Unbelievers. SCG consists of four books: God, creation, providence and revelation. Aquinas divided his book into two main parts. The first three books, that is, God, creation and providence, can be understood and explained with natural reason. The fourth book named ‘revelation’ or ‘salvation’ contains doctrinal issues such as trinity, incarnation, sacraments, and eschatological matters that exceed the human intellect, and therefore, should only be understood by accepting and believing in what revelation explains.
Another work of St. Thomas Aquinas should be mentioned here. This short tract, Reasons for the Faith against Muslim Objections (and one Objection of the Greeks and Armenians), was written as an answer to a letter of a cantor of Antioch, and contains the same subject matters as Book Four (revelation) of SCG, namely, trinity, incarnation, crucifixion/Eucharist and free will. It seems that the cantor of Antioch asked for help to defend Christianity, complaining that some Muslims criticized and ridiculed the Christians in the above-mentioned matters. In his reply to the cantor, Aquinas expounded that because doctrinal dogmas of the Catholic Faith exceed the human intellect, it would be useless to try to explain and justify the Christian dogmas. Faith, says Aquinas, can not be proved by reason; it can only be defended.[2] The main difference between this tract and SCG is that the former tried to defend the Christian Faith with reason and hardly referred to the Biblical verses. SCG, on the other hand, explained the same matters mostly with referring to the Bible.
Aquinas’ Knowledge of Islam
Aquinas sees Islam as a ‘sect”, and Muhammad as a man misled people with carnal promises. Muhammad, claims Aquinas, did not bring forth any supernatural sings that show his prophethood, and earlier prophets (or books) did not say any divine pronouncement about his forthcoming. Also, he believes that Islam is a teaching that only brutal men believe in and is composed of violence and lust:
He (Mohammad) seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any sings produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Mohammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms –which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning. Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them in fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place any faith in his words believe foolishly. [3]
The information Aquinas gives about Islam in SCG is not more than this biased interpretation. Also, in his Reasons for the Faith against Muslim Objections, he accuses the Muslims of being silly because they ridicule the Christians for believing that Christ is the Son of God as if God had a wife. According to Aquinas, the Muslims are inclined to be carnal, and can think only of what is corporeal in nature. So, it is not possible for them to understand spiritual or incorporeal things such as Christ is the Son of God.[4]
It can be deduced from Aquinas’ evaluation of Islam that he, in fact, did not know Islam, but he accepted the distorted image of Islam created and formed in the medieval West. Indeed, Aquinas confessed that he did not know much about the Gentiles in which he placed the Muslims, too.[5] However, it can sometimes be argued that he knew Islam well. According to the proponents of this idea, although Aquinas did not refer to the Qur’ān and hadith (prophetic tradition), one can conclude from the information he gave about Islam that he knew Islam. To illustrate, depending on the claim of Aquinas, “Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness”, it has been argued that he was aware of Islamic doctrine of prophesying of Muhammad in the previous sacred books. Also, Aquinas is thought to have known Islamic idea of polygamy and corporeal rewards that are to be given to the believers in paradise.[6] On the other hand, he summarizes the letter of the cantor in his short track, Reasons for the Faith against Muslim Objections, saying,
The following are the things you say the Muslims attack and ridicule: They ridicule the fact that we say Christ is the Son of God, when God has no wife; and they think we are insane for professing three persons in God, even though we do not mean by this three gods. They also ridicule our saying Christ the Son of God was crucified for the salvation of the human race, for if almighty God could save the human race without the Son’s suffering, he could also make man so that he could not sin. They also hold against Christians their claim to eat God on the altar, and that if the body of Christ were even as big as a mountain, by not it should have been eaten up… You assert that the Muslims and other nations hold that God’s fore-knowledge or decree imposes necessity on human actions; thus they say that man cannot die or even sin unless God decrees this, and that every person has his destiny written on his forehead.[7]
In view of the last two verses, it has been argued that Aquinas knew Islamic idea of predestination and fate.[8]
It seems that it could be misleading to determine Aquinas’ knowledge of Islam, considering the above-mentioned quotation because he replied to a letter and repeated some information in this letter he received. So, depending on the same quotation, one can convincingly claim that Aquinas did not know two Qur’ānic verses about the prophesying of Muhammad[9] because, although Aquinas gives first the views of his opponents in SCG, the above mentioned paragraph of his do not refer to the Qur’ānic verses nor the views of the Muslims. In addition, even if he had some knowledge of Islamic doctrines on polygamy and paradise, it is not clear whether he attained this information from Islamic sources directly, or from the image of Islam in the Western Europe. Actually, after crusades, many European Christians must have heard of Islamic idea of polygamy and paradise.
Briefly, Aquinas did not quote the Qur’ān, hadith, the history of Islam, Islamic theology or Islamic law. There is no evidence that Aquinas read the translation of the Qur’ān, which was available to him. He saw Islam as a religion, even a “sect”, not worth considering, and showed an attitude of apathy.[10] Clearly, as Norman Daniel rightly puts it,[11] Aquinas’ knowledge of Islam is limited to the prejudice that Islam is composed of only violence and lust. It seems that his knowledge of Islam does not depend on the primary sources, but on the distorted image of Islam prevailed in the medieval West.
The Apologetics of Aquinas and Islam
An old tradition claims that Raymond of Peñafort (d. 1275 CE), who was the General of the Dominican Order and founded institutes at Barcelona and Tunis to convert the Muslims, requested Aquinas to write a book “to equip the missionaries with the necessary intellectual weapons”.[12] It has long been argued on the basis of this tradition that SCG is a book written against Islam and in order to convert the Muslims to Christianity.[13] However, there have been some vivid debates that question the accuracy of this tradition and the aim in which SCG was written. On the one hand, there are some who claim that SCG contains some clues showing that it was written for missionaries who tried to convert the contemporary Gentiles, especially the Muslims.[14] On the other hand, according to some writers like René Antoine Gauthier, SCG is a book of theology, not a missionary book, and Aquinas tried to confute the views of the earlier Gentiles, not of his contemporary ones.[15] Similarly, M. –D. Chenu argues that one can see, even with a general view, SCG is not a handbook for missionaries. Chenu believes that SCG was not written against the Muslims or especially Ibn Rushd. On the contrary, it aimed at anyone whose view is wrong from the Christian point of view, that is, the Jews, the Muslims, the Christian heretics and the pagans. SCG, therefore, must have been written against unbelievers and heretics.[16]
First of all, it should be discerned what the word Gentiles or infidels in the title of the book implies. Although Aquinas saw the Muslims along with the pagans as the Gentiles[17], he did not restrict this term to them. It also covers those who believe that the elements of the world like the sun, the moon, the earth, water etc. and the powers in them are gods.[18]Similarly, those who accepted a multitude of gods are also called the Gentiles.[19] It can, therefore, be affirmed that the Gentiles or infidels in the title of the book implies that this book was not written specially against the Muslims or Islam.
In consideration of its content, SCG seems to be written against the Jews, the Christian heretics, the pagans, Greek and Muslim philosophers as well as, if not more than, the Muslims as Gauthier and Chenu argue. This is another evidence to show that Aquinas did not write his book against the Muslims only.
The method Aquinas followed in writing SCG may also confirm the stand of Gauthier and Chenu. Aquinas tries to explain the Christian doctrines with reasonable arguments as far as possible. The subject matters exceeding natural reason, on the other hand, can only be understood with reference to the Bible.[20] While God (His existence, unity, main names), creation and the Providence of God can be explained with reason; trinity, incarnation, sacraments and eschatology exceed the limits of reason. What Aquinas argued in the matters that can be explained with reason is compatible with the teaching of Islam. As we shall presently see, Aquinas tried to confute some Muslim philosophers who assert that God do not know the singulars, and the universe must be eternal. These Muslim philosophers were criticized by Muslim theologians, too. Aquinas and Muslim theologians shared the same view about God’s knowledge of singulars and the eternity of the world. Therefore, the matters explained with reason in SCG might have written against some assertions of some Muslim philosophers, not against the Muslims or Islam. On the matters that exceed reason in SCG (trinity, incarnation, sacraments and eschatology), Aquinas’ audience can not have been the Muslims nor Islam. This is so because, as Aquinas put it out, an apologetics depending on Biblical revelation can not be binding or persuasive for the Muslims who do not accept the authority of the Old and New Testament. In sum, as far as Islam and the Muslims concerned, SCG is an apologetic work that defends Christianity against some Muslim philosophers’ interpretation of Aristotle such as Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Rushd. The content of SCG, therefore, seems to eliminate the possibility that it was written against Islam and the Muslims.
It seems true that SCG tries to confute the views of not only the Muslims, but of the Jews, the pagans, the Christian heretics as well. Considering this, some denied the accuracy of the historical testimony that claimed SCG was written to help missionaries in converting the Muslims. Indeed, the content of SCG and the historical testimony does not seem compatible. However, it might be misleading to set aside at once the historical testimony from consideration. The main fault of those who denied the historical testimony seems that they related the content of SCG to the historical testimony. What should be done, however, is to relate the aim of the author to the historical testimony because there could be sometimes a gap between the aim in the beginning and the result coming out. This is apparently the case in SCG. The question that should be answered here is that although the content of SCG shows that this book was not written against Islam and the Muslims, might the aim of its author have been to write against them? In other words, what was the real aim of Aquinas in writing SCG?
Aquinas explains his aim in the beginning of his book, saying,
I have set myself the task of making known, as far as my limited powers will allow, the truth that the Catholic faith professes, and of setting aside the errors that are opposed to it.
To attain his aim, Aquinas follows a consistent method. The Jews and the Christian heretics may be convinced with, in turn, the Old and New Testament while the Muslims and the pagans with natural reason[21]. Three out of four books of SCG, that is, God, creation and Providence explain the matters with reason. The last book of SCG often refers to the Bible in dealing with matters because they exceed reason. It can be expected and argued that Aquinas would have used reason in explaining matters in the last book of SCG if he had been able to. It seems, therefore, that Aquinas wrote his book against those who can only be convinced with reason, and they are, in his opinion, the Muslims and the pagans, not the Jews or the Christian heretics.
It should be noted that the relationship between philosophy and religion developed differently in the Christian and Muslim thought. In the Christian side, philosophy has always been in the employ of the Church especially at the hands of Augustine and Aquinas, and, therefore, been appreciated. In the Muslim world, on the other hand, philosophy was excluded because of some views of some Muslim philosophers, and these philosophers were charged with disbelief (kufr). From this, it can be concluded that if one confutes the views of Augustine or Aquinas, Christianity may also be confuted. Yet, when the views of Ibn Sīnā or Ibn Rushd are refuted, it does not mean that Islam is also confuted, but that Islamic theology is supported. We can not be sure whether or not Aquinas was aware of this varying method of approach in the Christian and Muslim thought. Aquinas aimed at Islam when writing SCG, and might have thought that it would be sufficient for him to confute the views of Ibn Sīnā or Ibn Rushd.
The Christian doctrines, as is already stated, are divided by Aquinas into two categories, that is, those can be explained with reason, and those can not. This division enabled him to write against the Muslims (and the pagans) who do not accept the authority of the Old and the New Testament. Mohammedans and the pagans, he says,
do not agree with us in accepting the authority of any Scripture, by which they may be convinced of their error… The Mohammedans and the pagans accept neither the Old nor the New Testament. We must, therefore, have recourse to the natural reason, to which all men are forced to give their assent.[22]
Aquinas tried to explain the Christian doctrines, as far as possible, with demonstrative and probable arguments, and he succeeded in this task except several things. At this point, a question is raised as far as Islam and the Muslims concerned: Can SCG be used as a model of apologetics against Islam? In other words, can the ideas claimed by Aquinas in SCG and the method he followed in it be convenient and sufficient for an apologetic work that tries to defend Christianity and to show its superiority over Islam?
First of all, the matters Aquinas tried to explain with reason should be discussed. The existence and unity of God, His knowledge of singulars, His creation of the world from nothing and His providence are the subjects explained with reason, and they covers four out of five volumes of SCG. Here we will give two examples in which we will try to illustrate the approaches of Aquinas as well as Muslim thinkers such as Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Rushd and al-Ghazālī. This would enable us to make a comparison and to come to a conclusion.
The first matter is God’s knowledge of singulars. Ibn Sīnā argues that God do not know singulars. To state that God knows singulars, says Ibn Sīnā, means God changes. Change is a movement. Yet, God is perfect. His perfection depends on His immobility; His immobility depends on the fact that God do not know singulars. It does not necessarily mean that God do not singulars at all. He knows them because they are parts of universals.[23]
Al-Ghazālī criticizes this view of Ibn Sīnā, and argues that knowledge of singulars does not imply a change in God. God, claims al-Ghazālī, knows in advance everything perfectly. Not accepting the assertion of philosophers that “knowledge causes change in the knower”, al-Ghazālī believes that it is not the knower but the known that is changes in process of attaining knowledge.[24]
Like al-Ghazālī, Aquinas criticizes Ibn Sīnā and tries to prove that God knows singulars. According to Aquinas, God has all perfections because He is cause of being. It is not possible to say that God does not know singulars because this would follow the difficulty that God is not perfect.[25] Aquinas claims that God knows singulars because He is the cause of being, saying,
An effect can be preknown in its cause even before it exists. Thus, an astronomer preknowns a future eclipse from a consideration of the order of the heavenly motions. But God knows all things through a cause; for, by knowing Himself, Who is the cause of other things. He knows other things as His effects… Nothing, therefore, prevents God from knowing even the things that are not.[26]
Aquinas reaches the same conclusion as al-Ghazālī, and both criticize Ibn Sīnā. It can, therefore, be argued that the views of Aquinas are compatible with Islamic theology. And this compatibility is not limited to the matter of God’s knowledge of singulars. In the second example we want to give, one can find some similarities between Aquinas and Islamic theology. This is the question of the eternity of the world, one of the breaking points in the relation between philosophy and religion. Aquinas, on the one hand, maintains that the world was created from nothing; on the other hand, he tries to find a ground of reconciliation between philosophy and religion. Both of the claims “the world is eternal”, says Aquinas, and “the world is not eternal” can not be proved. He criticizes these two claims, and argues that the world may have been created eternally.[27] One can find the effect of Ibn Rushd on Aquinas in terms of eternal creation.[28] Briefly, except his deliberate approach to the eternal creation, the views of Aquinas on the creation do not constitute a problem from the Islamic point of view.
It is also possible to reconcile Islamic theology with the other matters that Aquinas tries to explain with reason such as divine names, the denial of the unity of the intellect, the immortality and the eternity of the soul, the providence of God, fate, the kinds of sins etc. with the exception of the eternal creation and unconditional predetermination of divine election of some individuals.[29]
The second category of SCG consists of the Christian doctrines that can not be explained with reason such as trinity, incarnation, sacraments and eschatological matters. Aquinas had to explain them with reference to the Bible. Since the Muslims do not accept the authority of the Bible, the last book of SCG can not be convincing and compelling for them. One can conclude that SCG is far from a model for the Christian apologetics against the Muslims because it contains either the divine matters that have already been accepted by Islamic theology or the very peculiar Christian dogmas that can only be understood with the reference to the Bible such as trinity, incarnation and sacraments. The latter obviously contradicts the very monotheistic teaching of the Qur’ān, and so seems destined to fail in converting the Muslims.
The same is true of Reasons for Faith against Muslim Objections. In this treatise, Aquinas deals with the matters that are explained with the reference to the Biblical verses in the last book of SCG, and tries to show that these matters are not contrary to reason. In other words, Aquinas defends the most important dogmas of Christianity, that is, trinity, incarnation and salvation, with reason although he confesses that these matters can not be proved by reason.[30] This short tract, therefore, can not be a model of apologetics written against the Muslims because it is not possible to reconcile such matters as trinity, incarnation and crucifixion with the teaching of the Qur’ān. However successful Aquinas was in showing these matters are not contrary to reason, his attempt do not produce any effect on the Muslims because they will not prefer the views of Aquinas to the Qur’ān.
Conclusion
Aquinas divided divine matters, as stated above, into two categories. While reason is able to explain some matters, it failed to explain some others. Islamic theology, as well as the Christian one, shares and accepts the matters that can be explained with reason in SCG. The first three books of SCG, therefore, can not be said to have been written in order to defend Christianity against or show superiority of Christianity over Islam or Judaism. Similarly, the matters that exceed reason and can only be understood with divine revelation are main and peculiar dogmas of Christianity, that is, trinity, incarnation, sacraments and eschatology. Considering that Aquinas consistently referred to the Bible in order to explain these matters, one can argue that the last book of SCG has nothing to do with Islam and the Muslims, who do not accept the authority of the Bible. On the contrary, because of arguing that the most distinctive beliefs of Christianity can not be explained with reason, SCG can be claimed to create a negative image of Christianity in the minds of the Muslims.
Aquinas admitted that he hardly knew Islam. He, however, knew the views of Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Rushd and al-Ghazālī. Therefore, although he may not have intended it, SCG became a book written against some views of above-mentioned Muslim thinkers as well as many others, but not against Islam and the Muslims. SCG may be considered to have failed in fulfilling its aim, that is, to convert the Muslims because most of the matters dealt with in SCG had already been accepted by Islamic theology. Also, the lack of his knowledge of Islam played a negative role in this.[31] As Gabriel Reynolds rightly puts it, “the task that lay before Saint Thomas…, to present the saving and personal Christian God as perfectly one and transcendent, was perhaps greater than he ever realized.”[32]
Grounding his arguments in inaccurate image of Islam, Aquinas, like many other writers of apologetic and polemical works in the medieval times, did not have influence over the Muslims. Those apologies and polemical works, as Norman Daniel proclaims, may have been useful in silencing the Muslims in the controversies, but were not succeeded in entering the hearths of the Muslims and converting them to Christianity.[33]
The fact that Aquinas hardly knew Islam, and SCG is far from a book written against Islam and the Muslims, however, does not overshadow his attempt to explain the Christian dogmas. SCG is one of the most systematic and comprehensive books in the history of apologetics. Indeed, Pope Innocent VI (d. 1362 CE) declared his place and importance in the Christian theology, saying that the works of St. Thomas surpass all others in "accuracy of expression and truth of statement".[34]
It would be interesting to note that, because of his critiques of Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Rushd, and because of his important role in the Christian theology, Aquinas should be compared with al-Ghazālī, not with Ibn Sīnā or Ibn Rushd. As a matter of fact, both Aquinas and al-Ghazālī have similar views and approaches in the breaking points of the relationship between philosophy and religion such as God’s knowledge of singulars and the creation of universe.
* Muhammet Tarakçı, Ph.D., Faculty of Theology, Uludağ University, Bursa, Turkey, mtarakci@uludag.edu.tr
** Ahmet Güç, Ph.D., Professor of History of Religions, Faculty of Theology, Uludağ University, Bursa, Turkey, aguc@uludag.edu.tr.
[1] Brian Davies, the Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 6.
[2] Thomas Aquinas, “Reasons for the Faith against Muslim Objections (and One Objection of the Greeks and Armenians) to the Cantor of Antioch”, (trans. Joseph Kenny), Islamochristiana, 22 (1996), 33.
[3] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, (trans. by A. C. Pegis, J. F. Anderson, V. J. Bourke, C. J. O’neil), (London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), I/6:4.
[4] Aquinas, Reasons, 33.
[5] SCG, I/1:2.
[6] See SCG, IV/83:14.
[7] Aquinas, Reasons, 2.
[8] For more information, see James Waltz, “Muhammad and the Muslims in St. Thomas Aquinas”, The Muslim World, 66/2 (1976), 88-92.
[9] The Qur’ān, 7/157; 61/6.
[10] Norman Daniel, the Arabs and Mediaeval Europe (London: Longman, 1986), 283.
[11] Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, the Making of an Image (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1993), 169. Also see John V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval Imagination (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 243.
[12] M. –D. Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, (trans. A. –M. Landry and D. Hughes), (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1964), 247-248.
[13] John Y. Hood, The Essential Aquinas, Writings on Philosophy, Religion, and Society (London: Praeger Publishers, 2002), XII; Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas (Volume: 1 The Person and His Work), (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 105; Dulles, 87.
[14] Bkz. Simon Tugwell, Albert and Thomas (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1988), 252 ff. For more information, see Torrell, 104-107.
[15] René-Antione Gauthier, “Introduction” to Saint Thomas d’Aquin, Somme contre les gentils, ed. by Henri Hude, (Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1993), 142.
[16] M.-D. Chenu, Aquinas and His Role in Theology (Minnesota: Michael Glazier Books, 2002), 66.
[17] See SCG, I/2:3.
[18] SCG, I/20:35; 27:9.
[19] SCG, I/42:22.
[20] SCG, I/3, 9.
[21] SCG, I/2:2-3.
[22] SCG, I/2:3.
[23] See Hayrani Altıntaş, İbn Sina Metafiziği (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Yayınları, 1985), 68-69; İlhan Kutluer, İbn Sînâ Ontolojisinde Zorunlu Varlık (İstanbul: İz Yayıncılık, 2002), 150-164.
[24] Al-Ghazālī, Tahāfut al-Falāsifa, (ed. by Suleiman Dunyā), (Cairo: Dār al-Maāref, 1972), 213; for English translation, see al-Ghazali’s Tehafut al-Falasifah (Incoherence of the Philosophers), (trans. by Sabih Ahmad Kamali), (Lahore: Pakistan Philosophical Congress Publications, 1963), 158.
[25] SCG, I/65:5.
[26] SCG, I/66:6.
[27] See SCG, II/31-39; ST, I/46:1-2; Aquinas, On the Eternity of the world (in On the Eternity of the Wold), (trans. by Cyrill Vollert et al), (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1964), 18-22.
[28] For more information on the eternal creation that Muslim philosophers asserted, Atay, Hüseyin, Farabi ve İbn Sina’ya Göre Yaratma (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Yayınları, 1974), 141-145; Hüseyin Sarıoğlu, İbn Rüşd Felsefesi (İstanbul: Klasik Yayınları, 2003), 183-198.
[29] Joseph Kenny illustrates, in detail, the common grounds of the first three books of SCG and Islamic theology. See Joseph Kenny, Christian-Islamic Preambles of Faith: An Exercise in Philosophy of Religion or Kalâm for Our Day: Modeled after Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Books I-III, (Washington, D.C.: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1999) (http://www.crvp.org/book/Series02/IIA-10/contents.htm). Alfred Gullaume points out the common points between St. Thomas Aquinas and Muhammad Abdulkarim al-Shahrastānī. See Alfred Gullaume, “Christian and Muslim Theology as Represented by al-Shahrastānī and St. Thomas Aquinas”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 13/3 (1950), 551-580.
[30] Aquinas, Reasons, 33.
[31] See Gullaume, 551-552, 579-580.
[32] Reynolds, 180.
[33] Daniel (1986), 249-250.
[34] Kennedy, D.J., “Thomas Aquinas, St.”, Catholic Encyclopedia, (Online Edition), http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14663b.htm.
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