Abstract

There are two main views about essential attributes of God. Muslim philosophers prior to Mulla Sadra and Imamiyyah theologians believed in the identity of attributes and essence. A group of non-Imamiyyah theologians, including Ash’arites and Karramiyyah, believed in the augmentation of attributes over essence. Refuting the view of non-Imamiyyah theologians, Mulla Sadra accepted the claim of Imamiyyah philosophers and theologians prior to him, who negated the multiplicity of attributes from necessary essence on the basis of simplicity of essence, and proposed the identity of attributes and essence in external actualization. Likening the relationship between attributes and essence to the relationship between philosophical secondary intelligibles and being, and using the conditional mode, Mulla Sadra explained the identity of attributes and essence. In addition to explaining the false consequences of augmentation of attributes over essence and forming them in the form of an exceptional deduction and in order to prove his idea, he put forward other arguments and could prove his claim using his own philosophical principles such as fundamentality and gradation of existence. Because of discussing the attributes of essence, relative and negative attributes are discussed in this paper, which are identical to necessary being, based on Mulla Sadra’s analysis.