Imam Reza (as) On Divine Unity

Imam Reza (as) initiated his famous sermon on Divine Unity with the following words :
”أَوَّلُ عِبَادَةِ اللَّهِ مَعْرِفَتُهُ وَأَصْلُ مَعْرِفَةِ اللَّهِ تَوْحِيدُهُ وَنِظَامُ تَوْحِيدِ اللَّهِ نَفْيُ الصِّفَاتِ عَنْهُ لِشَهَادَةِ الْعُقُولِ أَنَّ كُلَّ صِفَةٍ وَمَوْصُوفٍ مَخْلُوقٌ وَشَهَادَةِ كُلِّ مَوْصُوفٍ أَنَّ لَهُ خَالِقاً لَيْسَ بِصِفَةٍ وَلا مَوْصُوفٍ وَشَهَادَةِ كُلِّ صِفَةٍ وَمَوْصُوفٍ بِالاقْتِرَانِ وَشَهَادَةِ الاقْتِرَانِ بِالْحَدَثِ وَشَهَادَةِ الْحَدَثِ بِالامْتِنَاعِ مِنَ الأَزَلِ الْمُمْتَنِعِ مِنَ الْحَدَثِ“
translation : “The first element in the worship of the Sublime God is His recognition. The root of recognition of God is to profess to His Unity. The order for professing the Unity of God is to deny He has any attributes, since the powers of reasoning testify that every attribute and everything which possesses an attribute are created. Everything that is created testifies that it has a Creator which is neither an attribute nor does it possess any attributes. Every attribute and everything possessing an attribute testify to the association between the attribute and that to which it is attributed. Any association testifies to temporality (hadath). And temporality testifies that it accepts not the eternity which accepts not the temporal” [Uyun-al-Akhbar,chapter#11,hadith#51]

By the denial [نفی] of attributes [صفات] the Imam (as) does not mean to assert that the Divine Essence [ذات] has no attributes or qualities, but what he means is that God has no attributes that are existentially distinct and separate from His Essence [زايد بر ذات], such that the attributes are additional to the Essence, because if the attributes of the divine were to be additional to the Essence and distinct or separate from it, then God would become a composite [مرکب] of His Essence and attributes and every composite is subsistent through its parts [قايم بالغير] or necessary through another [واجب بالغير], and that which is necessary through another is essentially-contingent [ممکن بالذات], meaning that in itself it is only possible in essence, and is therefore dependent [محتاج] upon an external preponderant or a cause [علت] for necessitating its existence, and therefore cannot simultaneously be Necessary in Itself [واجب بالذات].

If these attributes are other than the Essence, and God is merciful by virtue of the attribute of mercy [رحمۃ] which is distinct from the Essence and is All-Powerful [قدرۃ] by virtue of His attribute of Power so this renders the Divine dependent upon something other than His Essence, meaning His attributes, for possessing the said perfections [کمال], but that which is dependent cannot be a Necessary Being [واجب الوجود] because a Necessary Being must be necessary from all aspects [واجب من جميع الجہات] but that which is dependent cannot be necessary from the aspect of independence ; now that which is not necessary from any aspect must be either possible [ممکن] or impossible [ممتنع] from that aspect [جھت], and would consequently be a composite of either necessity and possibility or necessity and impossibility thereby giving way to the same objections mentioned above concerning the impossibility of composition in the divine. Thus everything the attributes of which are consequent upon and additional to its essence happens to be a composite and hence contingent in essence.

Neither can any of the parts of a composite be Necessary in Itself because as stated earlier that a necessary being must be necessary from all aspects, but that which is dependent upon another for constituting the composite-whole cannot be necessary from all aspects, and must therefore be only possible in essence as is stated by the Imam (as) “every attribute and everything which possesses an attribute are created”, meaning that every attribute and everything which possesses an attribute existentially distinct and separate from the Essence of the thing, is possible in essence, and that which is possible in essence does not enter into existence [وجود] unless its existence is necessitated by a cause ; but the same question reverts to that cause, and if the cause is also only possible in essence so it would also be in need of a cause for necessitating its existence and so on but since infinite regress [تسلسل] is impossible so this causal chain must necessarily end with an existent that is Necessary in Essence which means that it is an existent that is neither an attribute or something with which attributes are associated, as is stated by the Imam (as) “Everything that is created testifies that it has a Creator which is neither an attribute nor does it possess any attributes”. The coming together of two existentially distinct things for constituting a composite-whole is evidence of their contingency [امکان ذاتی] as is stated by Imam Reza (as) “Any association testifies to temporality (hadath)”.