The Universality of Divine Knowledge and Power: Classical Objections

1. The scope of knowledge and power

وَلَا يَخْرُجُ عَنْ عِلْمِهِ وَقُدْرَتِهِ شَيْءٌ
Nothing lies outside God's knowledge and power.

Here knowledge signifies comprehensive awareness of realities, while power concerns what can possibly be brought about. Their joint mention rejects both ignorance of anything and impotence regarding possible actions.

Knowing an occurrence and having power to bring it about are different attributes. The objections in this unit must therefore be assessed separately for knowledge and power.

2. Why ignorance and incapacity signify deficiency

لِأَنَّ الْجَهْلَ بِالْبَعْضِ وَالْعَجْزَ عَنِ الْبَعْضِ، نَقْصٌ وَافْتِقَارٌ إِلَى مُخَصِّصٍ
Ignorance of some things and inability concerning some things entail deficiency and dependence on a determiner.

A human knows some events and not others, and can lift some weights but not heavier ones. Such limits indicate a constrained capacity. A Necessary Existent, by contrast, cannot depend on an external specification.

The reasoning does not measure divine knowledge in human quantities; it denies creaturely limitations of knowing and acting.

3. The different objects of knowing and power

فَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ، وَعَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ
He knows everything and has power over everything.

Knowledge encompasses what exists, what does not exist, and the status of necessary, possible and impossible propositions. Power relates to intrinsically possible realities—not to self-contradictions.

A thing's existence or nonexistence may be possible. But its existing and not existing at once in precisely the same respect is contradictory. Failure to actualize a contradiction is not incapacity.

4. Particular events: the first disputed position

لَا كَمَا يَزْعُمُ الْفَلَاسِفَةُ مِنْ أَنَّهُ لَا يَعْلَمُ الْجُزْئِيَّاتِ
Contrary to the claim attributed to philosophers that God does not know particulars.

A particular is an individually determined fact—such as a named person's being in a room at a definite time. A universal is a general law or category, such as the species human.

Certain classical philosophical accounts were interpreted as restricting divine knowledge to universals. The reply is that knowledge of the general order does not justify ignorance of determinate occurrences; such ignorance is inconsistent with perfect knowledge.

5. A concrete example of changing particulars

Suppose Zayd is indoors at nine in the morning and has left by one in the afternoon. Both time-indexed propositions may be true:
9 a.m.: Zayd is inside.
1 p.m.: Zayd is outside.

The two conditions can be known with their times without positing a new intrinsic perfection in the knower.

The historical objection claimed that a change in what is known must entail a change in knowledge or in God's essence. Distinguishing the two time-indexed facts is the first step toward the reply.

6. Change in the object versus change in knowledge

A change in an external event need not constitute an intrinsic change in knowledge. If the different temporal states are already known as such, the later state's occurring does not make the knower newly informed after ignorance.

Change of object: Zayd moves.
Change of relation: what is true of the object at a given time differs.
Change in knowledge itself: an intrinsic alteration in the attribute—something not entailed by the first two.

This distinction reconciles comprehensive knowledge of particulars with divine immutability in the classical account.

7. Knowledge is not merely a matching mental image

لَيْسَ الْعِلْمُ عِبَارَةً عَنْ حُصُولِ صُورَةٍ مُسَاوِيَةٍ لِلْمَعْلُومِ
Knowledge is not simply the occurrence of an image identical with the known object.

If knowing always meant receiving a matching internal picture, every external change would appear to require a new picture in the knower. Even human knowledge is wider than visual imagery: relations, judgments and abstract matters are known.

The central mistake in the objection is to model divine knowledge on created mental representations.

8. A changing relation need not change the essence

A relation (taʿalluq) specifies how knowledge is connected with its object. Speaking of this relation is distinct from speaking of an alteration in the underlying attribute.

Zayd's location at one time differs from his location at another. But that difference does not prove that God first lacked knowledge and then acquired it.

The reply does not claim that eternal knowledge functions like human memory. It simply denies the inference from changing external states to intrinsic change in God.

9. Universal and particular knowledge together

Knowing a universal rule does not automatically entail knowing the application of that rule to every particular event. The universal fact and each contingent detail are distinguishable objects of knowledge.

For example, “All humans are mortal” is universal; “Zayd is in a particular city today” is particular. The first does not by itself inform a human knower of the second.

The affirmation of divine omniscience includes both. Human examples illustrate the distinction of propositions, not the mode of divine knowing.

10. The claim that only one proceeds from one

وَلَا يَقْدِرُ عَلَى أَكْثَرَ مِنْ وَاحِدٍ
Nor, on that view, can He produce more than one.

This is connected with the classical philosophical maxim الواحد لا يصدر عنه إلا الواحد—from one, only one directly proceeds. Applied without qualification to God, it appears to restrict the multiplicity of His effects.

The reply asks whether unity of essence means absence of every attribute or relation, and whether a rule for an impersonal cause can be established for a freely acting creator.

11. One divine essence, many possible effects

Unity of essence and multiplicity of possible effects are different claims. Multiple creatures do not require multiple independent deities. A single willing and powerful creator can bring about diverse contingent effects.

Rain, vegetation and human beings are distinct created realities; their variety does not entail parts in the creator's essence.

The key response distinguishes the necessary operation of an impersonal physical cause from the power of a voluntary agent. Numerical oneness of an agent does not logically limit it to one possible act.

12. The objection attributed to the Dahriyya

وَالدَّهْرِيَّةُ: أَنَّهُ لَا يَعْلَمُ ذَاتَهُ
The Dahriyya are reported to deny that God knows Himself.

A reasoning attributed to this position treats knowledge as a relation that must connect two distinct subjects. If knower and known are one, it says, no such relation obtains.

This turns a frequent feature of ordinary relational language into a universal definition of knowledge. Yet even human self-knowledge shows that knower and known need not be two independent beings.

13. Why knowledge is more than a relation

The reply treats knowledge as an attribute of perfection, not merely an external relation between two independently existing subjects. The structure of one proposed relation cannot be made the essence of knowing.

Knowing one's own reality is distinct from requiring an external mental picture of another object. The second is not a condition for the first.

To affirm ignorance of one's own essence would entail deficiency, contradicting the prior affirmation of complete and nondependent divine knowledge.

14. Al-Naẓẓām on creating ignorance and ugliness

وَالنَّظَّامُ: أَنَّهُ لَا يَقْدِرُ عَلَى خَلْقِ الْجَهْلِ وَالْقَبِيحِ
Al-Naẓẓām is reported to say that God cannot create ignorance or morally ugly acts.

Ignorance here concerns a creature's lack of knowledge; ugliness concerns an act judged blameworthy. An underlying concern is that creating such a state might make the creator ignorant or blameworthy.

The reply first separates two relations: producing a quality in a creature and personally possessing that quality.

15. Causing a quality versus possessing it

Creating ignorance is not identical to being ignorant. A creature's state of not knowing does not imply ignorance in the one who brought that creature and its states into existence.

The attributes of a created object need not transfer to its creator. Creating fire, for example, does not imply bodily heat in the creator; similarly, a creature's ignorance does not imply divine ignorance.

The argument distinguishes the cause of a state from the subject in which the state inheres.

16. An immoral act, its creation and divine approval

Bringing an act into existence, approving of it, and a human agent's choosing it involve different relations. Creation concerns existence, approval moral favor, and acquisition or choice the creature's involvement.

Oppression occurs, but its occurrence does not make it good or permissible. The human agent's responsibility remains conceptually distinct from comprehensive divine power.

Without this distinction, one may wrongly infer from “God created its existence” to “God approves of the act.”

17. Does creation entail the creator bears the created quality?

Consider an invalid inference:
1. Ignorance or moral ugliness occurs in some created state.
2. God has power over its occurrence.
3. Therefore, God Himself possesses ignorance or moral ugliness.

The conclusion does not follow. The subject of the quality is the creature or its action; the agent exercising power is considered under a different relation.

A doctor can understand and deal with disease without thereby being diseased. This limited analogy illustrates the logical distinction.

18. Al-Balkhī and an act like a servant’s act

وَالْبَلْخِيُّ: أَنَّهُ لَا يَقْدِرُ عَلَى مِثْلِ مَقْدُورِ الْعَبْدِ
Al-Balkhī is reported to deny God's power over the like of what is within a servant's power.

A maqdūr is an object of power. “An act like the servant’s act” can refer to a possible act of the same kind, rather than necessarily the identical individual occurrence.

The debate concerns whether an act's being within creaturely ability excludes that kind of act from divine power. The reply distinguishes possibility of the act from the particular manner of its attribution.

19. Eternal and originated power

Eternal power denotes the divine attribute of power, which is not originated; originated power denotes a creature's limited ability. The shared word “power” does not make their realities equal.

A human may voluntarily act and acquire an act, yet the human and the capacity to act remain dependent on God. Human ability is therefore not a negation of divine power.

A person chooses to write and moves the hand. The existence of the act is considered under creation, while responsibility is attributed to the human voluntary agent.

20. One event, two distinct attributions

Two questions may be asked of the same event:
Who brings the event into existence? — the question of creation.
To whom is voluntary action and responsibility attributed? — the question of acquisition.

These are different questions. They should not be recast as requiring two independent creators of one event. Responsibility attaches to the human's particular relation to a voluntary act, not to an independent power of creation rivaling God.

The immediate purpose is to clarify the issue raised by Al-Balkhī and other Muʿtazilīs, not to exhaust every theory of kasb.

21. The Muʿtazilī objection concerning the same object

وَعَامَّةُ الْمُعْتَزِلَةِ: أَنَّهُ لَا يَقْدِرُ عَلَى نَفْسِ مَقْدُورِ الْعَبْدِ
The general Muʿtazilī position is reported to deny divine power over the very object of the servant’s power.

This differs from the prior claim. The like of an act may mean another act of that type; the very act points to the individual occurrence itself.

The debate asks whether the same event can stand in relation to two powers. The reply does not treat divine creative power and human voluntary acquisition as two equivalent, independent causal agencies.

22. When do two relations of power conflict?

If both powers are said to exert the same kind of independent creative efficacy, an objection about two creators of one event arises. But divine creation and human voluntary acquisition describe different attributions.

The claim that “one act cannot be under two powers” is therefore ambiguous unless “under” is explained. Under one respect the act is created; under another it is voluntarily acquired by a human.

Distinguishing creation from acquisition clarifies how comprehensive divine power is discussed alongside human responsibility.

23. Four separate questions about one act

Four different questions arise about a human wrongful action:
1. Possibility: Could the event occur?
2. Creation: To what is its existence ultimately attributed?
3. Moral ruling: Is it permitted or approved?
4. Acquisition: On what basis is the person responsible?

An answer to one question cannot simply be transferred to another. Possibility does not entail moral permission; creation does not entail approval; and human choice does not entail independent power to create.

These four respects organize the controversies covered in this unit.

24. Comparing the reported positions

Philosophical position as reported: Restrictions concerning particulars or multiple effects.
Dahriyya as reported: A challenge to divine self-knowledge.
Al-Naẓẓām: Exclusion of creating ignorance or ugly acts from power.
Al-Balkhī: Restriction concerning an act like the servant's possible act.
General Muʿtazilī position as reported: Restriction concerning the very individual act under human power.

These are not interchangeable views. Each targets a particular aspect of knowledge or power and must be met on its own premises.

25. The resulting theological thesis

Divine knowledge encompasses universals and particulars, stable and changing events, and hidden as well as apparent realities; change in the known does not entail origination in divine knowledge. Divine power concerns all intrinsic possibilities; multiplicity of effects does not demand multiple independent creators.

Creation is not the same as possessing a creature's blameworthy attribute or morally approving its act. Nor need human acquisition mean independent creation.

The thread of the argument is preserved by separating knowledge, power, will, moral evaluation and creaturely agency. The next unit turns to the eternity and subsistence of divine attributes.