Coherence of the Incoherence: Between Al-Ghazali and Ibn Rushd on Nature and the Cosmos

Coherence of the Incoherence: Between Al-Ghazali and Ibn Rushd on Nature and the Cosmos is the first of a two-part critical examination of the seminal debate carried out in the pages of Ghazali’s Incoherence of the Philosophers and Ibn Rushd’s Incoherence of the Incoherence. While an upcoming second volume focuses on the elements in that debate related to the God and the soul, this volume focuses on questions related to nature and the cosmos, including the controversies over the eternity of the universe and necessity of natural causation. The debate, I argue, is not simply a polemic between ‘faith and reason,’ but a penetrating philosophical discussion with enduring potential to inform work in philosophy and analytic theology. To that end, I analyze and evaluate the arguments made by both sides, explaining the philosophical concepts involved in their historical context and the core questions on which their differences turn. In the process, I draw some illuminating connections between points of the debate and modern and contemporary philosophy and advance some original arguments aimed at reactivating the discussion and contributing to the developing field of contemporary Islamic philosophy and analytic theology.