Existence deriving from “the existent”:  Mulla Sadra’s dialectic with Ibn Sina and Ibn al-Arabi

By : David B. Burrell, C.S.C.

 

            What follows is a “work in progress,” an attempt to translate the reflections of Mulla Sadra Shirazi (980/1572-1050/1640) on existence into English, and do so in an idiom which will help our contemporaries to grasp the intentions of his inquiry:  maqasid al-falsifa al-Mulla Sadra, if you will.  Taken from volume one of his magnum opus, al-Asfr al-arba’in, these passages reflect the goal of that work itself:  wisdom.[1]  So we are catapulted, if you will, into a world of philosophical inquiry to which Pierre Hadot has recently introduced many of us.[2]  This world contrasts starkly with modes of philosophy current in the west, though it is telling that that world is busy discovering Hadot’s work.[3]  I had attempted a comparative study of Mulla Sadra and Thomas Aquinas (for the conference in 1999), based on Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi’s summary text, Kitâb al-Mashâ'ir, so translating these passages from his major work seemed the appropriate next step.[4]   Let us first attend to his introductory remarks, as they locate this inquiry in a wisdom-tradition which sees our life and inquiry as a journey with significant stages.[5]

 

The First journey:  from creation to the One who [alone] is real and true [al-Haqq], by way of investigating the nature of existence [wujûd] and its essential attributes, in distinct stages.  The First Stage:  the knowledge which human beings require for this task, from among all the [modes of] knowing, with an introduction and six stations.

 

Introduction.  Concerning our knowledge of philosophy with its primary divisions, its goals and its dignity. 

 

Know that philosophy is able to perfect the human soul by bringing it to know the reality of existents according to their proper essences, as well as accurately assessing their existence by way of proofs grasped by the mind, or else accepted by tradition, as befits the majority of human beings.  Now if you wanted, you could say that the order of the universe is intelligible by human power, which can attain to a certain qualified resemblance [tashbih] of the Creator most High, since human beings came to be as something kneaded from dough--that is, [by way of] intelligible form together with created sensible matter.  Yet there is also a dimension of the soul which remains independent and separate, capable of being attracted to wisdom, as is the case with the party of the zealous and whoever is endowed with power to continue inquiry into things free of matter, and such intellectual endeavors.

 

For inquiry with these aspirations [has the effect of] drawing out  the soul, along the lines of the form of existence, to [perceive] its order, its expression, and its perfection, after which it can become knowing and rational and conformed to knowledge of things seen not in matter but in their forms, thereby adorning, [21] shaping and embellishing the soul.  Indeed, this sort of wisdom is that to which the chief Messenger--praise and blessing to him-- aspires as he asks in his invocation to his Lord, saying:  "Lord, show us things as they really are" (..:..).  And also to the friend of God [Abraham]--may he be praised and blessed, when he asked:  "Lord, grant me wisdom" (..,..).  Now the wisdom in question must be right judgment regarding existence, attending to those things also needed to conceive things properly.

 

Now regarding this work, its fruition will be in the practice of a work of excellence, leading to a desire which can elevate the soul above the body, one by which the soul can rule over and vanquish the body, in a manner to which the saying of the Most High points:  "they are created by the creation of God" (..:..).  So the friend of God [Abraham] pleaded:  "my truth comes by way of those who are just," gesturing towards the kind of wisdom shared among them, and now disseminated in the pages of the divine book:  "for man is indeed created in the beauty of creation" (95:4).  That is, according to His form which is the pattern for the practical knowing which orders, so we can turn to the lowest of the low.  That is, to His matter, which belongs to dark and dense bodies, without their being able to offer sure signs to the goal of transparent wisdom.  Indeed, any just work is a sign of bringing intellectual wisdom to perfection, as poems allow us to consider the perfection of intellectual power.  This is the right order of living and the freedom of returning, deriving from clear knowledge according to the states of origination and returning [exitus/redditus], as well as discrimination regarding what lies between them of truth and lucidity and rational consideration .  As the leader of the faithful said:  "the mercy of God is something which prepares his soul and [22] addresses his grave:  'from hence, and in which place, and to which place'."  For your instruction the divine philosophers have signaled this in two ways:  when by way of consoling them, the prophets said to philosophy that [human beings] are in the form of God, as it is put in the hadith of the Prophet: "they are created by the creation of God" (..:..).  that is, through comprehension of things understood as well as purification from materialistic views.

 

Moreover, the eminence of wisdom should be clear from various perspectives, among which is the fact that it effectively causes the existence of things as they tend towards their completion.  Yet [it is difficult to speak of] the cause of existence, since we cannot know what properly specifies existence, so it cannot be possible to bring it about or to beget it.  Indeed, existence is "pure good,” with its eminence consisting uniquely in its existential goodness.[6]  Indeed, this meaning is suggested when the Most High says:  "whoever is endowed with wisdom has already been endowed with many goods" (2:269).  It is along these lines that the Most High Himself denominates many different subjects as "wise" in his glorious book, coming down from one praiseworthy and wise, which properly attributes wisdom  to his prophets and initial [followers], naming them as "lordly" and wise by the truth proper to each individual person [huwîât].  So He says: "when God takes the covenant of the prophets to give it to them in a book along with wisdom" (3:81), as He said especially of things [destined for] those who are worthy:  "And we have given wisdom to the worthy" (..,..).   All of this is in the context of a good life and evidence of a life of faith;  indeed, "one who is wise" can only mean one to whom the wisdom of which we have spoken can be attributed.  While that wisdom is impossible to define, it can be made manifest by unveiling, just as there is no existing [creature] more eminent than the one who exemplifies servanthood, His messenger who offers guidance to a clear path.  Indeed, all of those to whom the Most High attributes wisdom are a distinguished progeny, eminent and praiseworthy, yet they need a teacher [to lead them] into the heights and the depths of wisdom, with a guidance suffused with wisdom.  Suitable wherever it reaches, it undertakes the preparations needed to take wisdom by storm, including its laws and a summary of its directives and demonstrations, to the extent that would  be favorable to us and to all the various divisions [within Islam]. Indeed, such has been our wish from the beginning, needing only the keys to grace according to the hand of God as it bestows favor to whomever He wills.  

 

            So it is clear that such an inquiry will entail a spiritual journey, as intimated in the very title of the work itself, and clarified in these introductory remarks.  As we shall see, it is the very existence of things links each thing with its creator, so the link itself will share in the inexpressibility of God.  In this way, a philosophical inquiry into existence cannot be a merely conceptual (or “abstract”) endeavor.  So it should be fascinating to note how carefully Mulla Sadra proceeds, altering ways of inquiry already standard to “philosophers,” notably Ibn Sina, to meet his stringent demands for articulating existence as the link of creatures to their creator.   

 

So your spirit will be expanded by undertaking our way of carrying out an investigation of existence which will constitute the heart of the secret path to divine science:  that the essences derived from the first essential attributes germane to reality pertain to existence.  These are attributes like one and many, and other such matters germane to our grasp of those attributes essential to understanding existents in so far as they are existents;  whereas establishing the being of subjects belongs to the other modes of knowing accidents proper to first philosophy.  In sum, this mode of knowing precedes what may be above it or below it, concerning itself with the state of existents in so far as they are existents, and their primary divisions.  So it is necessary that there be a pure existent, self-explanatory,  established by knowledge and assertion;  not available as a subject of common knowledge, but able to be known either by way of definition or some way of pointing, although these two modes fail to touch existent things [qua existent].  With regard to the first, definition can only be by way of genus or kind, whereas existence would have to be the most general thing, without genus or kind or definition. And regarding the second, pointing of that sort would have to be by way of knowledge, but those most knowledgeable regarding existence [26] demand that the existence of things be explained in such a way that nothing could be more evident. 

 

So it seems that the best way one can proceed here is by an interior path, since there can be no definition of existence, and so no demonstration regarding it.  For definition and demonstration can only proceed when the definitions concern those things between which we can distinguish [by weighing them] on proper scales.  But what if one must believe what one cannot perceive, without perceiving anything else preceding it?  So, for example, when we wish do know whether intelligence exists, we must first have arrived at yet other beliefs, yet will certainly come in the end to a belief without any other belief preceding it [27], indeed one necessarily [imbedded] in the soul, offering a primary elucidation from the intelligence itself--like saying that something is a thing.[7]  For a thing has nothing contrary to it;  while two contraries cannot come together, nor can one be elevated above the other in position or according to position, for were one to reason that way, one would be entering the realm of conceptions.[8]  Yet here there is no need to begin conceiving prior conceptions, as one must in any [sequence of] conceptions, for [any such sequence] will certainly be able to be traced back to an initial conception--like necessity, possibility or existence--not dependent upon a preceding conception.  Now these conceptions, and those similar to them, provide trustworthy meanings at the very center of the intellect, inscribed in [our] intelligence by the inscription of the first intelligence [fitr].  So when one intends to clarify these meanings by way of kalâm, that can act as a stimulus to the mind, [turning them into] objects of attention by focusing on them as significant signs among the other items at the center of the intelligence.  Indeed, these [conceptions] are better known than others, since they do not come to the mind from things.         

 

 

           

So existence will partake of the primary notions available quite naturally to intellect, yet there will be further peculiarities with this “notion” which must be more than a notion, since what it expresses cannot properly be expressed in a predicate form.   

 

Now it would seem superfluous to assert that the objects of such knowledge—that is, of existents in so far as they are existents—exist, except that their existence is not assured by their essence.  Indeed, it is not possible to assert the thing itself when the assertion intends the essence of the thing, even when that thing is what we wish to assert.  For asserting the existent [itself], or other items similarly intended, will inevitably fail to assert existence of it, since what is added to the essence can only metaphorically be an addition to something—even though what existence makes exist be something else:  its essence and the very thing itself.  For a thing itself simply is what it is, without denying that it can be divided in two;  nor is any proof of this required nor need any distinction be made, for if whatever occurs persists in being, what persists will simply be the being of the thing or else being itself is nugatory.  Here proof and sensation will come together as two distinct things, where the second is like existence which has no [other] cause, while the first is like that existence which depends on other things;  but existence which does not depend on something else is the very existent itself, whereas accidental existence is the existentiality of something else.

 

            So Ibn Sina’s strategy of articulating existence as something which “comes to” [arada, accidit] the essence will not do, for existing must be more inherent to existing things than a feature of them could ever be.  One way to see this is to remark on the inherently ambiguous character of the term ‘exists’ as we apply it.  And closely link