The Pagan Greek Philosophers’ View of the Oneness of God in Lordship

Prepared by Professor Saud ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Khalaf, professor at the College of Da‘wah and Fundamentals of Religion at the Islamic University.

This study goes to the heart of the subject that the Center for Studies in the Interpretation of Islam seeks to explain.

Subject of the study

The philosophers’ view of the oneness of God in lordship.

Reason for preparing the study

The philosophers’ doctrine is the basis of all the doctrines of those who deny God’s attributes, including the Jahmiyyah, the Mu‘tazilah and others.

The principal findings of the study

  1. From God, blessed and exalted, and His Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, we have received the truth that brings rest to souls and tranquillity to hearts, makes other sources unnecessary and gives them the sound knowledge and correct worship they need of the true One worshipped by the inhabitants of earth and heaven.
  2. The way to sound knowledge about God is closed except through the route God has established: His prophets, the trustees of His revelation.
  3. Reason is not independently capable of reaching sound knowledge about God.
  4. However mature and powerful reason may be, it is not free of the influence of its surroundings and a person’s upbringing. Its judgements and conceptions therefore bear external influences that impair its purity and soundness and sometimes overturn its standards.
  5. Philosophers are in no way qualified to speak about God, whether in their method, their level of understanding, their objectives or their ends.
  6. The philosophers’ statements about God are contradictory and are among the most corrupt and objectionable kinds of discourse.
  7. Just as philosophers who rely on reason contradict the truth in their statements, they contradict one another. Some deny God’s existence altogether; some claim that He is this entire existence, great and small; and some affirm an absolute existence for Him while separating Him from creation, origination, governance and action. This contradiction is sufficient evidence of the unsoundness of the rational method and its inability to reach sound knowledge in this field.
  8. Just as the philosophers do not affirm a real existence for God, they also do not affirm action, lordship or divinity for Him.
  9. Because the theistic philosophers did not affirm a real existence or action for God, they were compelled to claim that numerous things emanated successively from Him and to attribute creation and governance to those things.
  10. The philosophers cannot produce even a single rational proof for these claims. They are merely fantasies and delusions founded on an illusion peculiar to each philosopher.
  11. God showed mercy to humanity in general by sending messengers and revealing scriptures. Many of Adam’s descendants benefited from them and were kept safe from the philosophers’ superstitions and claims, which gained currency among some people despite lacking proof or evidence.
  12. The pagan philosophers influenced many adherents of the religions: Jews, Christians and Muslims. We shall explain this in some detail in a subsequent study, God willing.