Fârâbî’nin Felsefe Sisteminde Tanrı’nın Varlığını Bilmenin İki Yolu
Authors: Özelçi Haticetül Kübra 
Published: January 2025

Al-Fārābī’s philosophical system calims that God’s existence can be known with certainty. Accordingly, God’s existence is a demonstrative (burhān) knowledge. Al-Fārābī describes God as the First Cause and the First Principle. In our study, we are interested in the question of how al-Fārābī explains and grounds God’s existence at the level of knowledge (epistemologically). In his book, Virtious City, al-Fārābī mentions God as a basic prenciple. In his book Abbreviation of Sciences, he states that one can attain the knowledge of God’s existence only after knowing other beings in a causal order. In this case it is seen that al-Fārābī both accepts the concept of God as a basic prenciple and grounds it. How should this situation be understood? If God is a basic principle as the First Cause, then why is it necessary to justify this principle? Is the existence of God a basic belief? If so, should not this belief not depend on other beliefs. We think that these questions can be answered by staying within al-Fārābī’s system of thought. In this study, we have searched the ways of accessing the knowledge of God’s existence in al-Fārābī’s philosophical system. Therefore, we put forward a holistic perspective on the place of God’s existence in al-Fārābī’s philosophical system. The statement that this perspective is holistic means that in our research on God’s existence, we have considered al-Fārābī’s philosophical system as a whole. In our research, we aimed to explain al-Fārābī’s view that God’s existence is certain knowledge in his philosophical system. We used qualitative research method in our research. We collected, interpreted, and concluded data by analysing texts. We used analytical and hermeneutic methods together while analysing the texts. We found that al-Fārābī’s philosophical system mentions two ways of accesing the knowledge of God’s existence. In one of them, the First Cause, which is apriori knowledge, is introduced as one of the first ‘maqūlāt’. In the other, the knowledge of the First Cause is accessed after knowing the other causes of existence. We have concluded that this can be explained by the fact that these first principles (maqūlāt) are not equivalent in terms of knowability. As a matter of fact, al-Fārābī states that some of the first principles are easily known by everyone, while others are known after a certain effort and reflection. As a result, we have found that although God as a first principle is present in the human mind from the very beginning in al-Fārābī’s philosophy, this principle is not very clear. The comprehension of this principle requires effort and reflection. More over this approach of ours can answer the question of why not everyone beliefs in God despite the fact that God is present in the human mind as a first principle within al-Fārābī’s philosophical system.
* This study is extracted from my doctorate seminar entitled “A Research on Knowledge of God in Al-Farabi’s Metaphysic”, supervised by Prof. Dr. Bayram DALKILIÇ (Ph.D. seminar, Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Türkiye, 2020).