One could almost assume that...

One could almost assume that, in relation to logic, analogy and syllogistic proofs, the words of David Hume could be supplanted into the pen of Ibn Taymiyya who resisted all such logical attempts at a definitive metaphysical reconstruction: But can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole? Does not the great disproportion bar all comparison and inference from observing the growth of a hair? Can we learn anything concerning the generation of a man?

Would the manner of a leaf's blowing, even though perfectly known, afford us any instruction concerning the vegetation of a tree? And elsewhere: If we see a house, Cleanthes, we conclude, with the greatest certainty, that it had an architect or builder because this is precisely that species of effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species of cause.

But surely you will not affirm that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house that we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect. The dissimilitude is so striking that the utmost you can here pretend to is. Ibn Taymiyya would undoubtedly agree with much of this, but would reject Hume's skeptical ethos by maintaining revealed Qur'anic foundations.

Indeed, he would take literally Hume's ambiguous statement, "Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible: Let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe". However, it would not be adverse to state that Ibn Taymiyya was also a skeptic, "a sceptic who was saved by religion", but nevertheless a skeptic. Thus his bid to question identity goes only so far. In the face of outright skepticism, then, comes outright faith.

There remained the task of determining the proper limits and applications of syllogism so as to define and categorize the term qiyiis (a method of inference). These discussions were the result of the theologically motivated defense of the concept of divine omnipotence that solely actuated existence, events, miracles and their causal links. It follows, then, that Theologians did not accept the doctrine of natural causation where phenomenal acts proceeded from a thing's quiddity.

In their view Causal efficacy resided solely with God's divine will and contingent atoms and accidents were created ex nihilo.