The Impossibility of the Plurality of Necessary Beings

Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from ‘Abbass ibn ‘Amr al-Faqimi from Hisham ibn al-Hakam in the narration about the atheist who came to (Imam) abu ‘Abd Allah (as), and the Imam had explained to him the following:

“You assume that there are two eternal and powerful powers (who control the universe) or that both are weak or only one of them is weak and the other is powerful. If they both are powerful why then does neither one ever make an effort to remove the other one to have full control of the universe? If you assume that one is powerful and the other is weak then it is proof that there is only one, as we believe; the weakness of the other is so apparent. Besides, if you say that they are two then they either agree with each other in all matters or disagree in the same way” [Al-Kafi,kitab-ul-tawhid,hadith#215]

If a plurality of Necessary Beings [واجب الوجود] is asserted so only one of the following three possibilities will be true, a) One of them is the cause [علت] of the other, b) each one of the two is the cause of the other, c) neither is the cause of the other one; if (a) meaning that one of them is the cause of the other so the one that is caused will be an effect [معلول] of the other, and every effect is necessitated into existence by another [واجب بالغيره], and everything that is necessary through another is essentially-contingent [ممكن بالذات] and therefore cannot simultaneously be Necessary in Itself [واجب بالذات] as that would amount to a conjunction of contraries [اجتماع نقيضين] which is impossible, because had it been necessary in itself so it would never have needed a cause for rendering its existence necessary [واجب]; because according to Avicenna the existence of a thing cannot be realized unless it is first rendered necessary; now this necessity may either arise from the essence of the thing itself, in which case that thing would never fail to exist or it may be derived from some external cause, in which case the essence that derives this necessity from a cause will only be possible in essence or a contingent-being [ممكن الوجود]. Therefore if (a) meaning that one of them is the cause of the other then there will only be One Necessary Being, the other having been proved to being contingent, as is also stated by the Imam (as) “ If you assume that one is powerful [cause] and the other is weak [effect] then it is proof that there is only one [Necessary Being]”.

If (b) such that each one of the two is the cause of the other so each one of them would be the effect of the other, its existence being necessitated through that other, and as has been stated that, that which is necessary through another cannot at the same time be necessary in its own essence but is in fact only possible in its own essence, therefore each one of them would be essentially-contingent and not Necessary in Itself. Moreover if each one of the two is the cause of the other so this would mean that an effect causes the existence of its existential-cause [علت وجود], and this is absurd, since a thing cannot give to another what it does not yet possesses itself and therefore something yet non-existent cannot necessitate the existence or grant existence to another by reason of not having it itself; according to Mullah Sadra an indigent-being [موجود فقير] cannot render another opulent [غنى]. Therefore if (b) such that each one of the two is the cause of the other so neither of them would be a Necessary Being.

If (c) meaning that neither is the cause of the other one, so in accordance with the Avicennan Argument for proving the Unity of the Necessary Existent, if we grant the existence of two Necessary Beings such that both agree or are identical in being necessary in essence, so this would be an aspect of identity or similarity [جهت اشتراك] shared by both, but since they are two and not one therefore there will either be an aspect of difference and distinction [جهت امتياز] between them or not, as is also mentioned by the Imam (as) “if you say that they are two then they either agree with each other in all matters or disagree in the same way”; if there is no aspect of difference and distinction between them then nothing sets them apart from each other and hence there is no sense in considering them two, consequently there will only be One Necessary Being; now assuming that there is an aspect of difference and distinction between the two in addition to there being an aspect of identity in that they are both necessary, so both would become composites of an aspect of difference and an aspect of identity, and that which is a composite cannot be necessary in itself since every composite derives its subsistence [قوام] from it parts [اجزاء] and is rendered necessary through another, and that which is necessary through another is only contingent or possible in its own essence, resulting in both being contingent.