Abstract:
In this dissertation we propose to undertake a comparative analysis of the cosmological
doctrines of Eriugena and Ibn ‘Arabi> in order to show that in spite of belonging to
different religious, historical and geographical contexts, their views show remarkable
similarities on the concept of God, nature and man and their correlation. Their
conceptions of totality and its division are similar, while Ibn ‘Arabi>’s picture is more
comprehensive in view of his accommodating absolute not-being. Both connect
ontology with intelligibility and present perspectival ontologies. Eriugena and Ibn
‘Arabi> alike extend the term “God” to include “theophanies.” They are agreed on Divine
unknowability, self-creation and they both synthesize negative and affirmative
theologies. However, in view of their different conceptions of “knowledge” they
disagree on the possibility of Divine Self-knowledge. Eriugena's “primordial causes”
which mediate God and creation, are shown to be functionally similar to Ibn ‘Arabi>’s
“fixed entities” and the ontological status of both is similar. However, the former are
contained within the Logos while the latter are not contained within the Perfect Man.
We argue that the way Eriugena and Ibn ‘Arabi> relate the world to God is similar by
showing resonance between Eriugena’s notion of “participation” and the doctrine of
“Divine roots” we reconstruct from scattered passages of Ibn ‘Arabi>’s magnum opus .
We also show that Eriugena’s understanding of “theophany” is completely in line with
Ibn ‘Arabi>’s view of the nature of al-tajalli> . Our exposition of the Divine roots theory
also includes a discussion of Ibn ‘Arabi>’s views on the relationship between God and ten
categories which he, unlike, Eriugena, connects ontologically to the Divine nature.
Finally, we show how, on the one hand, Eriugena and Ibn ‘Arabi> alike relate man to Godix
via the notion of imago dei , on the other, they relate man to the created nature by
viewing nature to be contained by man. It is shown that Eriugena and Ibn ‘Arabi> agree
not only on broader outlines but in certain important details as well, for instance, the
way they understand the meaning of human deiformity is same. On the methodological
side, the most prominent feature that is shared by these two philosophers is their
keenness to relate philosophical doctrines and notions to their respective Scriptures. We
observe, however, that whereas Eriugena’s interpretation of the Bible seems in most of
the cases to be allegorical and arbitrary, when Ibn ‘Arabi> interprets the Qur’a>n he is
extremely careful regarding its letter and offers his creative interpretation more often
than not within the interpretational space allowed by the text itself. Another
methodological insight that is common to both is that instead of aligning themselves
with extreme positions on most of the important questions, they usually prefer midway
house standpoints which enable us to see the pros and cons of all options. We conclude
by making a case for the importance and practical relevance of the results of our
comparative analysis. We argue that by considering the world to be a theophany and
contained within man who is created upon Divine image Eriugena and Ibn ‘Arabi> give
us the conceptual keys to reconstruct a worldview that is based on perfect harmony
between God, man and created nature and it is this view that is really needed to come to
terms with the environmental crisis our world is facing. Moreover, their tendency to
take middle positions and indeed the way they situate the world between absolute
goodness and absolute evil offers us a cosmology of tolerance. This cosmology requires
that instead of having recourse to “either/or” logic of the sword we see everything as
consisting of elements of goodness and imperfection.