Imam Abu ‘Abd Allah (as) On the Firstness of God

Abu ‘Abd Allah (as) once said:
”هو لاول قبل كل شئى“
translation: “He is the first, before everything” [Al-Kafi, kitab-ul-tawhid, hadith#309]

God or Pure-Existence [وجود محض] is the First Being [موجود اول] and therefore has no cause [علت], because if Pure-Existence were to have a cause for its existence, then that cause would either exist or not; if it were not to exist, so being non-existent [معدوم] it could not cause Pure-Existence because a thing can only give to another what it itself possesses, and hence cannot bestow something not possessed by itself, therefore a non-existent cause lacking existence itself cannot produce an existent-effect [معلول]; now if the assumed cause were to exist so it would either itself be Pure-Existence or inferior to it, since nothing can be greater than Pure-Existence or exceed it in nobility [شرف]; if it is Pure-Existence then it is identical to its assumed effect and the two are not distinct and separate but one and the same, and a thing cannot be the cause of its own existence [وجود] as that would mean that a thing was both existent and non-existent simultaneously, which leads to a conjunction of contraries [اجتماع نقيضين] and the seeking of that which was already possessed meaning existence. Now as to the cause being inferior to its effect meaning Pure-Existence, so this is also impossible since an effect derives its entire reality [حقيقة], meaning all its existential perfections [كمال], from its existence-granting cause, and therefore cannot be nobler than that cause, because the cause must first possess all those perfections prior to the effect, and has a greater claim over the said perfections since a thing can only give to another what it itself possesses, and hence cannot bestow something not possessed by itself. Moreover an effect simply manifests [ظاهر] the perfections of its cause and so all the perfections found in Pure Existence would only be a manifestation [مظهر] of its cause, therefore the assumed cause cannot be inferior to Pure Existence, and so Pure Existence cannot be something caused, and not being something caused it must itself be the First-Cause [علت اول] of all being, as is stated by the Imam (as) “He is the First, before everything”.