Ibn ‘Adi, Yahya (893–974)

Following in the footsteps of the Greek philosophers, Ibn ‘Adi concerned himself with the ultimate human end, happiness, which he found in knowledge. However, he was primarily occupied with defending the compatibility between the concept of God’s unity and that of the trinity. He reasoned that a thing can be one in one respect and many in another. Therefore, there is no inconsistency in holding that God is both one and three. Ibn ‘Adi can best be described as the Christian philosopher of unity, as he devoted most of his career and used all his logical skills to defend the concept of God’s unity and its consistency with the concept of trinity.