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Volume 4, Issue 2 (Spring 2024)
Abstract
In this article, I will address the role of the efficient cause in explaining the existence of material beings in the sixth chapter of the Ilāhīyyāt. Avicenna’s expressions regarding the true efficient cause confront us with two ambiguities: first, the distinction between the efficient cause, as one of the causes, and the complete cause, which suffices for the existence of a material object; and second, his description of the efficient cause as the “cause of existence.” I will attempt to clarify the interpretive problems arising from these ambiguities and ultimately respond to them. I will argue that the true efficient cause, which for Avicenna in this context is the “active intellect,” is nothing other than the cause of the form’s emanation in matter; a cause that Avicenna also refers to as the cause of the existence of the material compound.
