tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post2241018845092052032..comments2024-03-28T19:56:32.848-05:00Comments on Anecdotal Evidence: `Action Informed by Knowledge'Patrick Kurphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436175583386298032noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-46978482530467938692018-08-08T17:15:46.343-05:002018-08-08T17:15:46.343-05:00I've read that Ghazali's insistence on div...I've read that Ghazali's insistence on divine immanence was to blame for the withering of the scientific spirit in the Islamic world after the Middle Ages. <br /><br /><i>...our opponent claims that the agent of the burning is the fire exclusively; this is a natural, not a voluntary agent, and cannot abstain from what is in its nature when it is brought into contact with a receptive substratum. This we deny, saying: The agent of the burning is God, through His creating the black in the cotton and the disconnexion of its parts, and it is God who made the cotton burn and made it ashes either through the intermediation of angels or without intermediation. For fire is a dead body which has no action, and what is the proof that it is the agent? Indeed, the philosophers have no other proof than the observation of the occurrence of the burning, when there is contact with fire, but observation proves only a simultaneity, not a causation, and, in reality, there is no other cause but God.</i><br /><br />With such an attitude as that, there was no point in searching out the laws of the natural world.The Sanity Inspectorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04808433661634318393noreply@blogger.com