Sadrian Argument on Divine Agency

The nature and character of Divine Agency like so many other issues, has been a matter of some dispute between the rival schools of Muslim Philosophers and Theologians; according to the latter of these schools an agent فاعل of an act فعل can only be justly considered as a free agent فاعل قادر و مختار if it is possible for the Essence of the Agent ذات فاعل to exist without the essence of the act ذات فعل existing with it; but if it is impossible for the Agent's Essence to exist without the essence of its act also existing with it, then such an Agent fails to qualify as a free agent, and must be considered a natural agent فاعل طبیعی such as fire whose act in the form of the heat produced by it, is inseparable from the essence of fire itself, because it is impossible for there to be a fire that is not productive of heat; in the view of the theologians in order for an agent to qualify as a free agent it is necessary for the essence of its act to be temporally posterior متاخر بالزمان to the Essence of the agent, or alternatively speaking the essence of the agent must necessarily be temporally prior مقدم بالزمان to the essence of its act in order for it to merit the appellation of a free agent; to elaborate further, for the theologians the Essence of a free agent is separated from the essence of its act by a duration of time زمان; and in the absence of such a duration, the agent cannot be regarded as being a free agent; the theologians argued that if the essence of a free agent were existentially inseparable from the essence of its act then a free agent would be indistinguishable from a natural one; they further argued that given the inseparability of the essence of the agent from the essence of its act, in case of the Divine Agent, His act by virtue of the same inseparability, will be eternal ازلی through the eternity of the Divine Agent; and for the theologians the acknowledgement of the eternity of an essence other than the Divine was be identical to acknowledging a plurality کثرت of Necessary Beings, and this is impossible; they defined a free agent as one for which both the commission امکان فعل as well as the omission ترک فعل of the act were possible.

Mullah Sadra refutes the arguments of the theologians by stating that a free agent in reality is one who acts when He wills to act and doesn't act when He does not will to act, and is also knowledgeable عالم of Himself and His act;  he stated that that which distinguishes a free agent from a natural one is not the separation of the essence of the agent from the essence of its act but the fact that the act of a free agent is the product of its free will ارادہ and also its knowledge and awareness of its act; whereas the act of a natural agent is not the product of a free will, and a natural agent is not aware or cognisant of it's actions; he further argued against the theologians that by rendering the existence of a duration of time necessary for effecting a separation between a free agent and its act, the theologians were actually rendering all free agents including the Divine, temporal زمانی; Mullah Sadra rejects the definition of a free agent formulated by the theologians as an agent for which both the commission as well as the omission of an act were possible, on the grounds that such a notion introduces possibility امکان  in the Divine Essence ذات حق in addition to rendering it a composite مرکب of necessity وجوب and possibility; in response to the objection raised by the theologians that if the Essence of a free agent were inseparable from the essence of its act, then in case of the Divine Agent, His acts would also become eternal, which is inadmissible since a plurality of eternal beings is equivalent to a multiplicity of necessary beings; in response to this objection Mullah Sadra stated that a plurality of eternals does not lead to a multiplicity of necessary beings because the criterion of being an effect is not temporal origination حدوث زمانی but quidittative contingency امکان ذاتی; therefore despite their derivative eternity the acts of the Divine Agent remain His effects معالیل, by reason of their essential-contingency.