Four kinds of cause: Every Mumkin being needs a cause — and there are four kinds of cause. Material cause: what a thing is made of.
Formal and efficient causes: Formal cause: the form or structure that makes it what it is. Efficient cause: the maker or agent that brings it into being.
Final cause — the chair: Final cause: the purpose or end for which it exists. The example used across the course is a chair: wood (material), the design of a chair (formal), the carpenter (efficient), and sitting (final).
Tasalsul is Mumtani': All four are needed to explain a thing completely. The slide also states that Tasalsul — an infinite regress of causes — is Mumtani' (impossible).
The hinge of the Cosmological Burhan: If every cause were itself Mumkin and dependent, the chain could never stand on its own; it must terminate in a cause that needs no cause — a Wajib. This point is the hinge of the Cosmological Burhan in Topic 11.5.
Example
Ask 'what caused that?' again: Ask "what caused that?" again and again. Either the chain stops at a First Cause that needs no cause, or it goes back forever — and "forever" never actually explains anything.
An infinite chain is still dependent: An infinite chain of dependent things is still dependent.
Key Terms
- 'Illa (العلة) — cause
- Ma'lul (المعلول) — effect
- four causes: Material (المادیة), Formal (الصوریة), Efficient (الفاعلیة), Final (الغائیة)
- Tasalsul (التسلسل) — infinite regress
Quran or Hadith
None known from the slide title.
Fresh diagram to be drawn: The chair example with four labelled arrows (material/formal/efficient/final), plus a chain diagram showing the infinite regress cut off by the First Cause. To be drawn in Project Desk colours.
Note: Slide 70 was not read; based on the filename and standard Mantiq. Verify the examples against the slide before publication.
- Every Mumkin being needs a cause — and there are four kinds of cause.
- Ask "what caused that?" again and again. Either the chain stops at a First Cause that needs no cause, or it goes back forever — and "forever" never actually explains anything.