Thread by @Mohammad_Fikri_

Generally speaking, this is a beneficial and much needed discussion, but not without its mistakes. The speaker argues that Ibn Taymiyyah always held that creation ex nihilo is possible, which is not true.
(1/25)

https://twitter.com/MuhibAldyn/status/1653584887494979585

Ibn Taymiyyah originally believed that creation ex nihilo is possible, even clearly articulating this position in Mas’alat Huduth al-‘Alam. However, he later accepted in Kitab al-Nubuwwat that ex nihilo creation is impossible.
(2/25)

According to this later view, whenever God wills to create something, He prepares its prior material conditions beforehand.
(3/25)

In fact, Ibn Taymiyyah consistently held that any substance which we observe to originate from a prior element cannot possibly be created without that specific element. This is even when he held to the view that ex nihilo creation is possible.
(4/25)

For example, he writes in Minhaj al-Sunnah, Vol 1, p. 249:
“The origination of that which is created out of [preceding] matter is impossible before that matter is in existence”.
(5/25)

This brings us to an important question. How could Ibn Taymiyyah have maintained that creation without prior matter is possible given his statement in Minhaj al-Sunnah?
(6/25)

The answer is: Ibn Taymiyyah initially believed that only simple elements are originated ex nihilo, after which they serve as necessary conditions for the origination (not merely "the formation") of the subsequent compound creations. See Bayan al-Talbis, Vol 2, pp. 276.
(7/25)

More clearly, contrary to what I initially thought to be his inexperienced position in Mas’alat Huduth al-‘Alam, Ibn Taymiyyah NEVER believed that materials are superfluous.
(8/25)

Rather, God creates human beings as we know them only after creating the elements of the earth. It is metaphysically impossible for God to create a human being as we know it before preparing that prior element.
(9/25)

Another significant mistake by the speaker is that he conflates between "hikmah" (wise purposes) and "sabab" (secondary cause), collapsing the two into a single type of cause that is required for God’s act of creation.
(10/25)

In actual fact, Ibn Taymiyyah believed that it is impossible for any one of the creative acts of God to take place without two very different types of causes. The first is what is referred to as "hikmah", and the second is what he refers to as the "sabab".
(11/25)

The "hikmah" is God’s wise purpose, and it is a divine attribute that subsists within His essence. On the other hand, the "sabab" is a cause that is external to God’s essence, one by which (or from which) He independently creates the subsequent effect.
(12/25)

Ibn Taymiyyah did not use the terms "hikmah" (i.e. wise purposes) and "sabab" (i.e. secondary causes or material conditions) synonymously, at least not every time they are mentioned in his works.
(13/25)

For example, he states that the "sabab" is external to God’s existence (unlike the divine wisdom). He mentions this explicitly in the text from Kitab al-Nubuwwat, which was translated in the following book "Ibn Taymiyyah on Creation ex Materia".
daral-arqam.co.uk/product/ibn-ta…
(14/25)

Ibn Taymiyyah also makes this important distinction in Majmu’ al-Fatawah, Vol 20, p. 422, among many other places. To suggest otherwise is to distort Ibn Taymiyyah’s words out of their proper contexts.
(15/25)

Another significant mistake is the speaker’s claim that the possibility of the origination of a tree is a form of "imkan dhihni", which is not true.
(16/25)

The fact that the origination of a tree is epistemically possible (i.e. possible in the "dhihn") is not evidence that God has power to create according to Ibn Taymiyyah.
(17/25)

Rather, for the origination of a tree to count as within God’s power, it has to be possible metaphysically and extra-mentally (i.e. in the "kharij"). This is even if the metaphysical possibility is assumed to be conceptual.
(18/25)

That is, there is no reason to believe that the origination of trees is possible if we are merely ignorant of whether or not they are impossible, which is what "al-imkan al-dhihni" really is.
(19/25)

For example, an atheist who says that "it could be the case that God does not exist" is not claiming that it is actually possible for God to not exist. His statement does not imply that it is metaphysically possible for God to not exist or that atheism is true.
(20/25)

Finally, regardless of what is believed to be Ibn Taymiyyah’s later position on the impossibility of creation ex nihilo, the position that creation ex nihilo is metaphysically possible is today indefensible given the experimental evidence from particle physics.
(21/25)

This is because it is today demonstrated empirically that the elementary particles are created out of photons, which are in turn created out of potential and kinetic forms of energy that subsist in the surrounding bodies.
(22/25)

For one to claim that Ibn Taymiyyah consistently held that the simple elements are originated ex nihilo is at best a claim that Ibn Taymiyyah always held to a false view that has been superseded by modern physics.
(23/25)

It is therefore not helpful to promote this view theologically, nor is helpful in formulating a sufficient response to modern atheists who have rightly concluded that there is absolutely no room for creation ex nihilo in the observable world.
(24/25)

And Allah knows best.
(25/25)

NOTE: I have mentioned significant corrections in the following erratum for the first edition of "Ibn Taymiyyah on Creation ex Materia", which is posted after the book description on Dar al-Arqam’s page.
archive.org/details/erratu…