Mulla Sadra's Seddiqin Argument For the Existence of God

Part two: The Seddiqin Argument: Its Foundations and Developments

Introduction

It is usual assumed that the arguments for proving the existence of God are just as Kant's classification and they are in Western tradition. The main arguments are ontological, cosmological and design arguments. There are also some more arguments posed after this classification like arguments from religious experience, moral arguments and etc. But all of them are not as important as the first three ones. Every book in philosophy of religion has allocated an important chapter for the arguments for the existence of God. There is also a long adventure for these arguments: some philosophers have developed them and some others have criticized them. All the debates centers on these three as if there is no other attempt in this regards.

The adventure of arguments for proving the existence of God in later development of Islamic philosophy has quite different line from Western philosophy of religion. These philosophical works in this respect are unknown for Western thinkers. The necessitycontingency argument has different path in Islamic philosophy nowadays from cosmological argument especially in Leibnizian reading of this argument that is based on "sufficient reason".

Seddiqin argument is a notable argument for the existence of God that is ignored by Western thinkers and is quite different from all of those arguments in Western philosophy. Mulla Sadra has presented the most important version of this argument. The mystical background of Mulla Sadra prepared some important notions for him that enabled him to mature his philosophical ideas. He studied deeply mysticism, especially Ibn Arabi's teachings, as one of the main sources of his philosophy. He had also a good background in philosophy, theology and Quranic studies. All of these teachings bring about a philosophical thought that he expressed asHikmat (Wisdom). ThereforeHikmat is a combination of all of those schools.

The most important teachings of mysticism in his era were on existence instead of categorical views of philosophy. Mystics have emphasized on intuition rather than understanding concepts philosophically. They also taught that existence in itself, first of all, point to God then other existent beings that have existence figuratively. But these views can be captured only by intuition and it is not demonstrable. It was Mulla Sadra that could bring a coherent philosophy that can have the advantage of mystical thought along with demonstrations that satisfy logically all who think of rational acceptance.

He achieved a changing point in philosophy in the light of importance of existence in mysticism. This changing point was "fundamental reality of existence" or "principality of existence" that refers to the truth of existence not its notion. All philosophers before him had based their ideas on the different conditions of quiddity or thing-ness which means the anticipation of quiddity to the existence that, in their views, is regarded after categorical explanation of all things. If we consider truth of existence in every thing prior to its quiddity (thing-ness) as only fundamental real, then every philosophical explanation will change. He has argued for this important philosophically changing point then he has examined, deeply, all other philosophical subject in the light of this principality of existence. Therefore, all philosophical studies like causality, change and movement, unity and multiplicity and etc. would have new and deeper meaning by acceptance of fundamental reality of existence.

In the light of principality of existence we will have a new philosophical perspective of the world that is deeper and more real. In this light we will have the vision of occupation of real world only of existence and nothing else. All other meanings arise from this vision and they should have their fundamental reality in this light. If we may think in this manner we do not think of meaning of existence (like what happened in ontological argument) but we encounter the truth of existence. This truth is quite different from all starting point in Western philosophy of religion for proving the existence of God. The truth of existence, first of all, refer to its nature that is pure existence, which is not any thing other than richness, then to other limited existent beings, which are not any thing other than poor-ness (not a poor existent being). This is what Seddiqin argument wants to demonstrate.

Therefore, in the light of fundamental reality of existence not only we may obtain a deeper idea of God and his relation to the world and a valuable argument for proving His existence but also we may think of other philosophical subjects in a new and deeper meaning and demonstrations.

Although Mulla Sadra was in 17th century, contemporary philosophical achievements nowadays show his high position in philosophy. Mulla Sadra's philosophy anticipated in different solutions for philosophical problems to other philosophies in the West. The examination of his philosophical ideas in other philosophical subjects must be done in other works. In this book I only focus on his Seddiqin argument for proving the existence of God.

I hope the reader will try to accompany this argument with patience and deep attention to the core of philosophical foundations of this argument. I believe that if we may contemplate on philosophical subject not as only empirical facts of the world but deeper contemplation in reality it will be possible for us to capture this new vision.