Augustine's Conception Of A Necessary Being In Hayy Ibn Yaqzan

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Are Augustine’s conception of God in the Confessions and Hayy’s conception of a Necessary Being in Hayy ibn Yaqzan similar?
The “Confessions” by Saint Augustine and “Hayy ibn Yaqzan” by Ibn Tufayl are two significant works in religious and philosophical literature. Protagonists of these stories are similar in the way that they both found God, but each in different way. Augustine leads an unexamined life full of sins, while Hayy reflects on the aspects of life and the divine things. Despite the different religious belongings of two protagonists, Christian God and Islamic Necessary Being have much in common: they both have a neo-platonic conceptions, and they both have their Laws, for violation of which they can punish. The neo-platonic conceptions of God and Necessary Being are in their unity, absence of multiplicity, in their positions, and their power. …show more content…

The first neo-platonic conception is the idea that the God is The One, who is unified, who is constant. By Plotinus, the One, or as it is also called “The Good”, is the origin of all existing things and the limit of all of them. All existing substance emanates from The One to the inferior beings, flows back and merges with God-Absolute. (Moore, n.d.) Augustine shows his believe in One God in lines “Thee, the One Good” (Saint Augustine. Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick. Book 2, p. 13). Here he is trying to ask for forgiveness and addressing his prayers to God. Hayy tries to obtain the intuitive vision in order to get the essence of “the One, the True, the Necessary Being” (p.

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