PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IN ISLAMIC THEOLOGY (KALAM)

Abstract

The present article is devoted to the study of the proofs for the existence of God in the Mu‘tazilite, Ash‘arite and Maturidi schools of Kalam (Islamic rational/philosophical Theology). The arguments for God’s existence have been proposed by the doctors of Kalam are explicated in the context of their substantiation for the Quran’s assertion that God is First principle and the Ultimate cause of all creation. Of the many proofs for God’s existence — the cosmological, the teleological, and the ontological — only the cosmological type of argument was mostly pressed into service by Muslim theologians. The argument from design, though not overlooked completely, was not used as an independent proof for God’s existence. Some of the prominent As’arite thinkers, like al Ghazalī, combined kalam proofs with philosophical arguments for God’s existence have been utilized in the Islamic Peripatetic School. Special attention is given to the proofs for the existence of God proposed by Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (853–944), the founder and eponym of Maturidi Sunni Kalam school named after him. The analysis of his arguments is relevant due to the fact that Maturidi theological doctrine was the dominant source of theology, followed by most Sunni Hanafi Muslims in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, the Volga-Ural region, the European Part and Western Siberia of the former Russian Empire.