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Al-Ghazali’s Views on Cause-Effect Relation and Free Will  One reason al-Ghazali is put squarely against rationality is Hoodbhoy’s understanding of the term. Following Nietzshe, Hoodbhoy defines “rationality” as “a matrix of connections which assigns cause to effect”. In this form, the definition can hardly exclude any one from rationality, since almost every human being, from the primitive man living in jungles to the most sophisticated researcher, in some way accepts the validity of cause and effect relationship. Even animals must at some level have a notion of this relationship, for otherwise they could not function as living organisms. The difference lies in the degree to which the relationship is viewed as deterministic or necessary. Hoodbhoy often seems to assume -- and make part of rationality -- a strictly deterministic connection, that is, every event (with the possible exception of the big bang?) can be assigned a set of causes that uniquely determine that event. The problem with this view of rationality is that it has identified rationality with a particular position on the cause-effect relationship. A satisfactory definition of rationality, however, should leave room for questioning all positions including a position on the cause-effect relationship. The irreducible minimum of such a definition should consist only of: a) a belief in the general intelligibility of the universal order, b) some rules of logic, and c) use of observations and experiments in validating all models of the universe. 

If one must connect rationality and the acceptance of a cause and effect relation, the connection should be expressed in probabilistic terms. One could, for example, say: Rationality assigns probabilities to possible effects resulting from a given set of causes, consistent with whatever observations we do possess and whatever analysis of those observations we are able to conduct. We become irrational when we assign probabilities (including 0 and 1) to effects without regard to available observations.  To get back to our author, Hoodbhoy condemns al-Ghazali for denying that the cause-effect relationship is sufficient for explaining events in the universe and for accepting the belief in predestination. What Hoodbhoy fails to realize is that even if these positions are wrong, they are not irrational or against science, since logic and science cannot prove them false. Al-Ghazali said that “the conjunction (al-‘iqtiran) between what is conceived by way of habit (fi al-‘adah) as cause and effect is not necessary (laysa daruriyyan).”  Many centuries later the philosopher David Hume will argue a similar position. This position can also be justifiably derived from modern quantum physics, which admits the possibility that a given state of the universe may lead in any future moment of time one of several possible states. If so, then just as al-Ghazali said, cause-effect relationship is not necessary. 

As for al-Ghazali’s belief in predestination, it can be justified by the assumption, perfectly reasonable, that human thoughts and actions are events in the universe and are subject to laws according to which the universe functions. This leads to two possibilities.  First, we may assume a deterministic universe in the sense that there are laws, discoverable through science, according to which one state of the universe completely determines all future states. In particular, all human activities are completely predetermined by the past states of the universe. There is nothing inherently irrational about such a deterministic view of the universe. Indeed, it is a reasonable deduction from the cause-effect relationship, so important for Hoodbhoy, and has often been assumed by philosophers and scientists, especially in the 18th and 19th century. Buoyed by the initial successes of science to explain the data available at the time, some scientists believed that everything that happens in the universe, including human feelings, thoughts, choices, and actions can be explained, at least in theory, in terms of the motions of various particles in the human body and elsewhere in the universe and therefore can be predicted, at least in theory, using some boundary conditions and the mathematical equations of physics. There is no real difference between this view and the belief in predestination, except that the term “predestination” suggests that human actions are predetermined not by some boundary conditions and mathematical laws but by some intelligent agent or God.