Suhrawardi's Self-Awareness Argument: A New Path in Proving the Existence of God

Abstract

Traditionally, proofs of the existence of God are categorized into three types: ontological, cosmological, and teleological proofs. The Iranian-Islamic philosopher, Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi, in his most important work, "The Philosophy of Illumination,"(Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq) presents a proof of God's existence that can be called the self-awareness argument for the existence of God, adding a new category of proofs, known as epistemological proofs, to the aforementioned three categories. While ontological proofs argue for God's existence from the concept of being, cosmological proofs from the contingency and occurrence of the universe, and teleological proofs from the order and purpose of the cosmos, epistemological proofs argue from the existence of consciousness. Suhrawardi's proof outwardly resembles the "necessity and contingency" proof, categorized as a cosmological proof. However, upon careful examination within the context of Suhrawardi's metaphysics of light (ʿlm al-anwār), it is found that the starting point of this proof is not any existing being but rather self-aware being. Moreover, the process of arriving at this proof is not from a third-person perspective but from an inner, first-person perspective. Hence, this proof is found introspectively and expressed in the form of a proposition. Suhrawardi demonstrates how humans, by encountering their own self-awareness, necessarily arrive at the existence of a superior self-awareness that is inconceivable beyond it. Thus, Suhrawardi has found a new avenue of proofs, the statement of which can be summarized as follows: "I am self-aware; therefore, God exists."