Philosophical Foundations of the Divine Essence and Attributes in Mulla Sadra’s Thought

Abstract

Regarding the divine essence and essential attributes of God, two major perspectives have been proposed. Islamic philosophers prior to Mulla Sadra and Imami theologians maintained the doctrine of the identity of the divine attributes with the divine essence, whereas certain non-Imami theological schools, such as the Ash'arites and the Karramites, upheld the doctrine of the addition of attributes to the essence. By critically examining the views of non-Imami theologians, Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi affirmed the position of earlier Islamic philosophers and Imami theologians, who had rejected multiplicity within the Necessary Being primarily on the basis of the principle of the simplicity of the divine essence. He systematically formulated the theory of the identity of attributes and essence in external reality. Mulla Sadra explained this identity by comparing the relationship between the divine attributes and the divine essence to the relationship between secondary philosophical intelligibles and existence, and by employing the concept of restrictive qualification (ḥaythiyyah taqyīdiyyah). In demonstrating his position, he not only clarified the theoretical difficulties inherent in the doctrine of the addition of attributes to the essence and reformulated them through a disjunctive syllogistic argument, but also advanced additional proofs. Drawing upon his distinctive philosophical principles, particularly the doctrines of the primacy of existence (aṣālat al-wujūd) and the gradation of existence (tashkīk al-wujūd), he succeeded in establishing the identity of the divine attributes and essence. In connection with the discussion of essential attributes, relational and negative attributes are also examined; according to Mulla Sadra’s analysis, these attributes are likewise identical with the essence of the Necessary Exalted Being.