Divine Agency & the Creation of the World

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 of agents that exist ; 1) natural-agent [فاعل بالطبيعة] is one the act of which does not emanate [صدور] from it with will [اراده] and consciousness [شعور] albeit it does emanates in a manner consistent with its nature [طبيعة] such as the flow of water from a point of higher altitude to a point of lower altitude. 2) propelled-agent [فاعل بالقصر] is one the act of which does not emanates from it with will and consciousness and is also inconsistent with its nature, such as a stone that is thrown upwards against its natural downward movement.3) coerced-agent [فاعل بالجبر] is one whose status demands that its act emanate from it with its will and ability, but due to its will being usurped by another, its act emanates from it without its will, such as a human-slave or some other person who has been compelled to act contrary to his will.4) intentional-agent [فاعل بالقصد] is one whose act emanates from him with his consciousness, will and intent such as all free human agents ; now it is important to understand that divine agency falls in neither one of the above-mentioned categories because God is not a natural agent due to the fact that his act emanates from Him with His absolute knowledge [علم], consciousness [ادراك] and will [اراده], nor is He a propelled-agent because His acts are not inconsistent with the divine nature; He is not a coerced-agent because His acts emanate from His free-will and there is no one above Him to deprive Him from that free-will ; neither is He an intentional-agent because unlike humans God is not moved from potentiality [قوة] to actuality [فعلية] with respect to a particular act such that His act satisfies some desire or fulfills a lacking in His Essence [ذات], which is exactly what happens in case of human agency because every human act is directed towards satisfying some desire or want indicating thereby the previous imperfection [نقص] or lacking which has now been satisfied as a result of that act. Even the apparently altruistic human acts that may not be aimed at gratifying a worldly or carnal end may still have a spiritual end or motive for performing the noble deed which is external to and other than the essence of the agent from whom the act emanates, and hence is not entirely unselfish.

God or the Necessary Being [واجب الوجود] is an agent by manifestation [فاعل بالتجلى] whose agency is not triggered by any external motive or by any reason other than the manifestation His Essence [ذات] , because if divine agency is said to be motivated by something other than His Essence or by anything external [غير ذات] so the Divine Essence will be rendered dependent [مهتاج] upon that external or other determinant, and thus would no longer remain Necessary from all aspects [واجب من جميع الجهات] . Therefore the final-cause [علت غائ] of all divine agency is the agent Himself meaning His Essence, such that He is not only the Efficient Cause [علت فعلى] of all His acts but also the Final-Cause, and is therefore the First and the Last [اول و اخر] in the true sense; First in the aspect of being the Efficient Cause of the realm of contingency [ عالم امكان] and the Last in the aspect of being the Final-Cause or the Purpose and Aim of all existence. The philosophers liken God to a damsel of utmost and peerless beauty who desires to display the splendor of her perfection; God who is not something that is beautiful but Absolute Beauty [جمال مطلق] Himself desires to manifest His divine beauty through an unveiling known as creation since it is through this act of creation that He manifests His attributes [صفات] . In the words of the Philosophers creation is the mirror of contingency [ائنه صفات] in which the divine sees Himself, meaning His attributes.Therefore the purpose of all divine acts is to manifest His attributes of beauty and majesty [صفات جماليه و كماليه].

Now this desire to manifest His Essence [ذات] through a disclosure of His attributes is not an accidental [ذائد بر ذات] but an essential attribute [عين الذات] of the Necessary Being

[واجب الوجود], meaning it is not something additional over and above His Essence such as human knowledge, wisdom, kindness & generosity which is an attribute [صفت] that is not integral or essential to the human essence [ذات انسانيه] because had it been integral and essential to humanity so every member of the human species would possess this attribute and it would not have been possible to conceive a human as existing without these attributes. Essential attributes such as the three-sidedness of a triangle is integral to the essence of a triangle and therefore a triangle cannot but be three-sided; similarly the wetness of water and the heat of the fire are essential and inseparable features of their external existences [وجود خارج] , such that their can be no water without wetness or fire without heat in the external reality. Similarly the desire to manifest His Essence through creativity is an essential attribute of God also indicated by the fact that "Creator" [خالق] and "The Apparent" [ظاهر] are one of His Names & Attributes [اسماء و صفات الاهيه] . Therefore to ask God to exist without manifesting His attribute and without creating is equivalent to asking Him not to be what He Is, and to be something else,but it is impossible for a thing to be other than what it Is at the same time.

Now if it is asserted that the desire to create and thereby manifest His Essence [ذات] through an unveiling of His attributes [صفات] is an accidental [ذائد بر ذات] and not an essential feature [عين الذات], so such an assertion would lead to the Divine Essence being a composite [مركب] of an Essence & Attribute, and that which is composite is dependent [مهتاج] upon its parts and that which is dependent cannot be Necessary from all aspects [واجب من جميع الجهات] and hence would also become a composite of necessity & possibility [وجوب و امكان], which is inadmissible; in addition to this it would also render God mutable [متغير] because the prior absence of an attribute was followed by its subsequent presence, and everything changeable or moving requires a mover because a moving thing cannot move itself, but this is also impossible because God is the Unmoved Mover.