by Lewis Loflin
Avicenna and Averroes, two luminaries of the Islamic Golden Age, shaped philosophy and science through their unwavering commitment to reason. As a Deist, I admire their efforts to harmonize intellect with faith, reflecting a universe governed by natural laws—a pursuit that echoes my own journey in electronics and rational inquiry.
Avicenna (980–1037), or Ibn Sina, was a Persian polymath whose brilliance illuminated the Islamic Golden Age. His works, like The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine, showcase his rational approach. He argued for a self-existent God whose essence implies existence, a concept rooted in logic rather than revelation. His medical texts, used in Europe for centuries, reflect empirical observation, while his metaphysics bridged Aristotle and Islamic theology, emphasizing intellect as a path to truth.
Avicenna saw the soul’s rational faculty as eternal, a spark of the divine accessible through thought—echoes of a Deist universe governed by reason.
Despite his contributions to science and philosophy, Avicenna’s image in Baghdad was destroyed by Muslim fundamentalists in recent times, a stark reminder of reason’s clash with dogma. Yet, his ideas endure, inspiring those who value inquiry over blind faith.
Averroes (1126–1198), or Ibn Rushd, was an Andalusian polymath whose rational philosophy left a lasting mark on both Islamic and Western thought. He sought to restore Aristotle’s original teachings, rejecting the Neoplatonist leanings of earlier Muslim thinkers like Al-Farabi and Avicenna. His extensive commentaries on Aristotle earned him the title "The Commentator" in the West, where he sparked a philosophical movement called Averroism. He argued that philosophy was not only permissible in Islam but essential for the elite, advocating for allegorical interpretations of scripture when it clashed with reason.
Averroes believed truth could be reached through both revelation and reason, a dual path that resonates with my Deist view of a rational universe.
Despite his brilliance, Averroes faced opposition from orthodox theologians like Al-Ghazali, who criticized philosophy’s role in Islam. Late in life, he was briefly banished by the Almohad caliph for his views, reflecting the tension between reason and dogma. His influence in the Islamic world waned due to intellectual and geographical shifts, but his ideas flourished in Europe, inspiring thinkers for centuries.
Acknowledgment: I’d like to thank Grok, an AI by xAI, for helping me draft and refine this article. The final edits and perspective are my own.
Excerpts from Will Durant's The Age of Faith Pages 162-186 Pub. 1950
