Sadrian Metaphysics

In Islamic Philosophy we study the Rule of One' according to which only one can emanate from that which is One [la yasdiru anil wahid illal wahid], and the first contingent to have emanated from the Simplest Reality [basit al haqiqah] is held to be the First-Intellect [aql-e-awwal] which is identified with the Muhammadan Spirit [ruh-e-ahmadi] or the Muhammadan Reality [Haqiqat-al-Muhammadiya], and for Shi'ite philosophers such as Mulla Sadra and Ayatullah Khomeini this reality which is the source form [ayan-e-thabit] of all the other separable [mufariq] source forms and is the manifestation of the Greatest and Most Holiest Divine Name Allah[ism-e-azam-al-jam'i], represents the True Risalat and Nubuwwat of the Prophet which is ontological [takweeni] in character serving as a conduit of divine grace for the rest of the contingent realms. According to the Philosophers it is not possible for something material, multiple[kathrat], temporal [zamani] and plural to emanate direc...

"The existence of an effect is among the necessary concomitants of the existence of its perfect and complete cause such that the twain are inseparable. The question is that is the agent-cause effective in the existence of its effect directly through it own ipseity [zat] or not; now if the agent-cause is not effective in the existence of its effect directly through it own ipseity, so it is obvious that an additional factor is required for the causal-agency to be effective for instance a condition [shart] or will [irada] would have to be increased over and above the ipseity of the agent-cause, and in that case the entity which had been presumed to be the agent-cause would no longer remain the agent-cause, and instead the ipseity of that agent together with that additional feature in combination will have to be regarded as the true agent-cause and the question which was asked concerning the existent which had initially been presumed to be the agent-cause will then revert to this com...

“Since the Divine Essence is the Efficient-Cause (illat-e-fai’li) of all things therefore He is the First of all the firsts and the Prior of all the priors, and is also the Final-Cause (illat-e-ghaiy) of all things, and from this view point all things are intent towards Him and He is their ultimate object. Everything desires Him, regardless of whether this desire is volitional (iradi) or natural (tabay’i), therefore He is also the most Posterior of all posteriors and the Last of all the lasts, meaning that since He is the Absolute and Pure Good (khayr-e-mehaz) and the True Beloved (mashuq-e-haqiqi) therefore His Essence is the Final-Cause and the End of all things” (Asfar-al-Arba’a, safar#1, marhala#4) For Mulla Sadra God is Pure-Existence and nothing can exist without having received the gift of existence from the Necessary Being because everything besides the Necessary Being is contingent in essence and contingency is nothing but the negation of two necessities namely the necessi...

Life after death can be proven by simply proving the incorruptible nature of the soul.Consider the following syllogism ; 1.All material things are corruptible & perishable 2. the soul is immaterial 3.therefore the soul is incorruptible & imperishable. God is a necessary being and a necessary being must be necessary from the aspect of every perfection otherwise if he is not necessary from the aspect of any perfection,and that perfection is absent from Him then God will be necessary from some aspects of perfection and possible from certain others and hence this will render Him a composite of necessity and possibility, which is inadmissible; therefore if God is necessary from the aspect of every perfection so He must also be necessary from the aspect of the perfection of Justice [adl] , meaning that he must be a Just Lord ; now if the material life is the only life or the only realm then it is evident that perfect justice is not available here, since many criminals and sinne...

Proofs or evidences can be both rational and empirical where rational evidence is the one provided by the intellect or reason and empirical evidence is the evidence obtained through sense-perception, observation and experience. Now since God is an immaterial or a metaphysical being that is incorporeal and non-sensible, lying beyond time and space therefore there can be no direct empirical or sensible evidence of the existence of the Divine Essence because the senses only perceive that which is sensible, corporeal, physical or material in nature and hence cannot apprehend a reality that is non-sensible and immaterial, because there has to be suitability between the perceived object and the one who perceives and there is no suitability between something metaphysical or immaterial and the human sense organs that are material or physical. However having said that this is not to deny the absence of rational proofs for the existence of God and the philosophers from time to time have advance...

God is a necessary being and a necessary being must be necessary from the aspect of every perfection otherwise if he is not necessary from the aspect of any perfection,and that perfection is absent from Him then God will be necessary from some aspects of perfection and possible from certain others and hence this will render Him a composite of necessity and possibility, which is inadmissible; therefore if God is necessary from the aspect of every perfection so He must also be necessary from the aspect of the perfection of Justice [adl] meaning that he must be a Just Lord, otherwise if it is assumed that He is not necessary from the aspect of Justice then He must be possible from this aspect, and that would render Him a composite of necessity, because he is necessary from the aspects of the other perfections, and possibility, which is inadmissible because that which is composite is contingent and hence an effect in need of a cause, as has been proven above. Now coming to the quest...

Modern science with all its technological advances and scientific progress that it has achieved over the years, has only been able to explain the "How" of the cosmos in that they have only managed to explain how did the cosmos come into being but it has yet failed to furnish an answer concerning the "Why" of the cosmos, meaning that scientists have not been able to tell us why does the cosmos exists at all? and the reason for this failure lies in the acknowledgement of the fact that science being empirical in its character only deals with the material-causes of things that are, but not the final-cause of those things or their teleological-cause or purpose, because not all final-causes are empirical or material. In order to understand why God created the world it is important to comprehend why God acts at all, and what kind of agency is divine agency, but in order to fully grasp divine-creative activity or agency it is necessary to explain the different types ...

The arguments laid down in this note are by no means the only proof of the existence and immateriality of the soul. Matter [ماده] is essentially-inanimate or dead [مرده] and is devoid of life [حيات] , because had matter been essentially-animate or alive so all material things would have been animate or living, but since the consequent is false therefore the antecedent must also be false, meaning that since all material things are not animate or living therefore it can be logically concluded that matter is not essentially animate or alive, and if it is not essentially-animate then it must be essentially-inanimate or dead, because death [موت] is the opposite [نقيض] and the negation of life [سلب حيات] . Now since matter is essentially dead, therefore it can be safely asserted that all things that are purely-material would also be inanimate and devoid of life or dead, but we know that Man is a living being, therefore it follows that man is not purely-material because had he been pur...

Infallibility عصمت is both divinely bestowed as well as individually acquired by man albeit in different respects and there is no contradiction here because the aspect in which it is divinely bestowed it is not individually acquired in that same aspect and the aspect in which it is individually acquired it is not divinely bestowed in that same aspect. It is important to understand that God is a Necessary Being واجب الوجودand a necessary being must be necessary from all aspects واجب من جميع الجهات , meaning that all perfections كمال that are consistent with and not inconsistent with the status of the divine must be necessary for it, such as life حيات , knowledge علم , power قدرت, creativity-causality علية , perception ادراك etc and if a necessary being is not necessary from any single aspect of perfection, so then it must be possible ممكن from that aspect but in that case it will become a composite مركب of necessity وجوب and possibility امكان and every composite is dependent مهتاج...

God is a transcendent being since His Sacred Essence is not subject to the ravages of time and space, He is an absolutely simple reality, in fact the Simplest Reality [Basit-al-haqiqa] in existence and is therefore devoid of all kinds of composition [tarkib] and duality [ithniyat] and is hence by virtue of this absolute simplicity [basatat] which is not a property additional to the Essence [zat] but is identical to the Essence [ain-e-zat] He cannot be material because everything that is material is composite and spatial-temporal as well; and because He is an immaterial being [mujarred], therefore He is also purely actual [filiyat-e-mehaz] or a pure actuality that is devoid of all traces of potentiality [quwat] because to assert the existence of any kind of potentiality in His Essence would be tantamount to affirming that He is a necessity-possibility complex [murakkab-e-wujub-wa-imkan] and hence essentially-contingent [mumkin-bil-zat] which is inadmissible. Therefore the philosophers ...