The Cosmos or the creation would have been a necessary consequence or effect of the Divine Essence if God would have been a fail-e-mawajib like fire or light for instance, this needs to be examined in detail, Fire is the cause of Heat but such that it has no control over the causation or non-causation of Heat. because Heat is a necessary concomitant or effect of the existence of Fire and one that is inseparable from the essence of its cause, meaning that it is not possible for Fire to exist without Heat,similarly Light is the cause of illumination that emanates from it but such that it has no control over its illumination, it is not possible for the essence of Light to exist without its illumination. I agree that the Divine Essence cannot be such a cause,because in that case we would have to accept the eternity of creation as well, if creation is held to be a necessary concomitant or effect of the Divine Essence, but that is not possible,alternatively in order to maintain the created and hence non-eternal nature of the Cosmos while at the same time maintaining the doctrine of the inseparability of the effect from its cause, we would have to regard God also as non-eternal, which again is inadmissible. In Shiite Theology God is held to be a willful and Omnipotent agent fail-e-qadir-o-mukhtar, very action of such an agent is accompanied by knowledge, intention and will (qasd/ilm /irada), meaning that such an agent has absolute control over his actions which are not an integral and inseparable effect of his being or existence, meaning that it is possible for God to exist without his creation because his action or creation is separable from His essence.This notion does not in any way negates the philosophical concept of a perfect or complete cause, due to the fact that a perfect or complete cause is defined as one that possesses all the attributes, features or parts necessary for it to produce its effect such that as soon as a perfect/complete cause exists its consequent effect would also come into being simultaneously or immediately, the perfection of the cause implies the presence of will/irada and ability/irada to perform the act, therefore if an agent lacks the will to perform a certain act despite possessing the ability to bring into existence the said act, it would be regarded as an incomplete or imperfect cause in the philosophical sense.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 08:00:56 +0000
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