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 linked to that, we shall notice his recourse to participation.    He begins Chapter 2 by announcing its subject.  

                       

[1.35] On understanding [that] participated existence [is] predicated according to the ways in which what [participates in it] comes under it:  gradated predicates rather than conventional predicates.

 

            Given that essences participate in existence in such a way that existence brings them nearer to the first beings, it is also the case that intelligence mediates between one existent and another by way of relation and similarity, while nothing can mediate between an existent and nothingness.  For if existents were unable to participate in a [single] understanding, in that they would differ in all respects, their situation would be like that of existence with nothingness:  no relation at all between them. …  But we have here before us an infinity of things that can be understood, though one can only consider each one of them singly, asking whether it participates [36] in existence or not;   or else one would not need to inquire into that, were it [clear that] its existence is participated.  Regarding existence being attributed to what is below it in gradated ways--that is, regarding their being unities or one or eternal or perduring--existence in some existing things is determined by their essence, while in others it issues from them by way of nature, while in still others it will be perfected and powerful.  Now the existence which has no cause has primacy over what takes its existence from another, and so is naturally prior to all existing natural things.  Similarly the existence of each one of the active intelligences is prior to that of subsequent ones, as the existence of substance is prior to the existence of accidents. 

 

            The Aristotelian way of speaking of “systematically ambiguous” discourse, which Aquinas will ennoble as ”analogous,” according to prior and is “posterior.”[9]  Mulla Sadra explores this route to help us see how it that terms used equivocally may yet lead to an unambiguous understanding.

 

Indeed, without considering existence, there can be no priority or posteriority, since prior and posterior, perfection or deficiency, strength or weakness are found in existents, which properly give rise to them without [needing] any other thing.  For with regard to things and essences taken in themselves, their existences do not properly belong to them, as you saw again quite clearly in this chapter, following the investigation of ambiguity in this book, where it has already been clarified how existence--in so far as it can be understood--is something common to be predicted of existing things according to differences and not merely conventionally.   

 

Yet the most telling ambiguity in the term ‘existence’ stems from its ordinary use to identify individuals, by contrast with its more “philosophical” use as “common existence,” an ambiguity already present in Aristotle’s Metaphysics.  Mujlla Sadra takes great pains to separate these two meanings in Chapter 3: “That common existence, [known] spontaneously, is equivalent to intellectual existence, and so different from what subsists or is individual.”

 

To prove this assertion:  it is necessary that any trace of comprehension by the mind of the reality of things outside the mind be of their recollected essences, even though that will alter their mode of existence, whose essential reality [haqiqa] is to be individual.  Moreover, everything about the essential reality of the individual militates against its being in the mind, since doing so would require transforming its essential reality from what it is in itself, since existence militates against realizing its essential reality in the realm of mind.  For whatever trace of existence can be found in the soul must be generic and common, yet that is not the essential reality of existence, but only [38] one of the ways of considering it, or signs of it.  For any trace of existence in the soul has nothing in common with existences, but rather shares a common meaning with species, as anything common must necessarily be considered as something [intellectually] derived, like the relation of being to nonbeing, or of a property in relation to essences containing quite different meanings. …  Now regarding what has been said:  that everything coming to a thing by way of difference is accidental to it, so existence (as has been said), in so far as it comes to the individual, is accidental to it;  yet not yet perfected, according to the [consensus] of the classical Shi'a tradition, as it has been revealed to you, God willing.   

 

He continues in Chapter 4: “Concerning how individual essential reality pertains to existence.”  

 

Whatever pertains to the essential reality of a thing is proper to the existence which is asserted of it.  For existence primarily [39] pertains to that thing, indeed to each thing, in so far as existence is its own essential reality, much as whiteness itself, in being white, is whiter than what does not belong to white but to which whiteness is accidental.  Now existence is existent in itself, while all things other than existence are not existent in themselves but their existences are accidental to them.  What really exists is existence, just as the thing appended is the appendix, rather than [simply] something accidental with regard to substance, quantity, quality, or the rest;  much like such things as father, equal or similar.  … in reality, existence is in individual things and nowhere else;  indeed, how could this reality not be in individuals?  (Inquiry and deliverance)  Regarding what the Sheikh of the East [Ibn al-Arabi] holds concerning this, in denying that existence is ever realized:  consider that existence, [40] were it to be realized in individuals, would be existent, for realization is existence. Moreover, existence belongs to every existent, for existence, as it pertains to a thing's existence, is unlimited.  Now consider what is said when they deny it:  that existence does not pertain to existents, since it does not describe a thing in itself, much like knowing is not said of knowledge, nor can white [be said to] be white. Indeed, at its limit, existence does not properly belong to existence, much as white does not belong to white.  But in this sense, there would be nothing at all;  indeed, it is not necessary to describe a thing by what opposes it when there is something appropriate to it, since the opposite of existence is nothingness and nonexistence.

 

Or they may say:  existence is existent, and its being existence is itself being existent, so it is that which existentializes a thing in its individuality.  Not that there is yet another existence in it, but rather that it is existent in so far as it is existent, and in so far as there may be something in it which pertains to something else, that [simply reflects that the thing] is described as an existent.  [That is, descriptions are normally taken to imply properties added.]  But it is that in itself and it is itself in itself, much as though priority and posteriority are [understood] to be between things temporally by way of time, or to be between their parts essentially, without needing yet another time [to explain that fact].   

 

Now it is said [by Ibn Sina] that all existence is necessary, yet that would leave no meaning to 'necessary' except 'what is realized in itself'’ (al-Shifa 1.6).  So we say:  the meaning of 'existence necessary in itself' is that it is determined in its essence with no need for an agent or a contrary, while the meaning of a 'realization of existence in itself' respects its being attained either in itself as in necessary [existence], or by an agent who realizes it without needing yet another existence by which [that agent] subsists.  [All this can be] contrasted to another [form of] existence which is realized after [receiving] the influence [41] of an agent for its existence, so that it can be described by 'existence'.  Yet it happens that existence is by its very nature an individual thing, even though the best way we have of expressing it in language is patterned on that [of predicates].  So it would be more determinate if they said, "such an existent," without intending that abstract form of existence where existence is something added to the thing;  but rather what already is or is not, much as necessary existence is utterly distinct from essence, since that existent either is its very essence or has no essence, while elucidation and proof can show how what is not per se can also be existent.  Yet on their account, we can understand what exists as a participation in [necessary being] according to both ways [of accounting for necessary being:  as being its own essence or having no essence.]  … Now one may not predicate existence or non-existence of something according to a single meaning, as though existence were understood to be in things in such a way that existence is a thing, or [understood] to be existence itself, in that it is existence.  Yet normally we do employ the term with a single meaning:  that what receives the being of existence becomes an existent, so that existence will be like a thing like other things.  Yet if that be the case, existence will in turn require existence, in such a way that it will endlessly be repeated again and again. 

 

So we [must] say:  this distinction between things and existence is not part of our comprehension of existing things, but involves attempting to grasp them together in general terms, which is like melding two dialects.  For the being of an existent may or may not involve things other than existence, but its existence will shine forth in the measure that what is fitting to it emerges from the properties of a thing rather than from an attempt to comprehend existence itself.  What Ibn Sina says in his metaphysics (al-Shifa) clarifies this:  "necessary existence is already understood by the very [expression] 'necessary existence', just as unity is already understood by the very [expression] 'one'" (al-Shifa 1.6).  Now one can understand by this either that the essence of necessary existence is like that of humanity, or that it is an essence quite different from other essences like humanity;  it simply is what it is:  necessary existence.  Recall what we understood about unity:  whatever anything is--something or its very self or humanity, it remains one.  So let it be said:  we must distinguish unity or existent, as essences attributed to something, from unity and existent in so far as a thing is one and existent. 

 

           This last animadversion should remind us of Plotinus’ insistence that we cannot even say that the One is one!  So existing, as what links the One with the many, will share in that same ineffability.  Yet now, it appears, Mulla Sadra is ready to say what can be said. 

 

Moreover, the following corollaries must be noted as well:  should I be asked whether existence is existent or not, the answer should be that it is existent in the sense that the true reality of existence is existent in that existence is what existentalizes.  This can be confirmed by what is found among renowned strangers [to our culture], namely that understanding a thing can be a matter of conscious consideration only to the extent that it is a common accident internal to a specific treatment;  and were one subsequently to consider what is appropriate to the thing [itself], matter would necessarily be turned into a proper potency. [42] Hence that thing to which laughter belongs is human, which necessarily affirms the thing as what it is;  for to speak of the thing in interpreting what follows upon [such considerations] can show clearly why the mind which speaks of it returns to it, which seems to be the way some recent thinkers consider the union of accidents with accidentality, but that cannot be verified. [43] Yet those allusions regarding the soul and the separate substances above it as unadulterated individuals and pure existences, presented by the divine sheikh [Ibn al-Arabi], might lead in that direction.  But I cannot understand how this can be heard as denying that existence is something happening to individuals, or whether this is only a contradiction in words.

 

           In other words, Ibn al-Arabi cannot elide the central insight of Ibn Sina regarding the crucial distinction of creator from creatures, as between that which exists “by right,” and that to which existing is granted.  Mulla Sadra attempts to express this existing yet more intimately: 

 

So we [must] say:  if there were not an individual true reality [haqiqa] to existence, beyond the properties [a thing has], how could essences differing in themselves ever be described?  Or different levels [of things]?  Yet they are described in this way.  Now necessary existence has no need of a cause to be what it is, while the existence of possible [beings] differs from it essentially.  Nor can there be any doubt of the difference between need and lack of need regarding the necessity of essences or levels of essence, by way of negation or privation.  Therefore there can be no doubt that there is in every existent something beyond its properties:  namely, understanding it to exist.  Otherwise, how could existences differ essentially, as even those who go astray suggest; or [how could there be] different levels, as yet other sects have noticed?  Yet sheer generality, by analogy with properties, yields species without any differences.  …  To realize this, [know that] existence itself establishes the essence, for a thing is not established in its essence unless there be a way of extending the establishment of the essence. 

 

(Chapter 5.  Properties of existence in itself)  It should be known that the particularization of each existence is either to be a true reality in itself, or according to an order of before or [45] after, strong or weak;  or to be its own subject, either [as a] particularization of existence as a true reality in itself, perfect and necessary,  or according to an order of before or after, strong or weak, rich or poor.  For in so far as it is a particularization, that belongs to it with respect to its nature as an ipseity [thatiyyah], in accordance with the simplicity of its own true reality … .

 

As the sheikh [Ibn Sina] said in his inquiries:  … existence which has emanated from another has its being dependent on that other, and subsists in it as if bestowed from another which subsists according to an existence necessary in itself (al-Shifa 1.6).  Now the subsistence proper to a thing cannot be separated from it since it is proper to it.  And he says in another place concerning this:  either existence requires another and so is in need of another to subsist, or  it is so well endowed with it that its subsistence is proper to it, so it would not be true that existence exists requiring another,  depending as though it were not true that existence exists well-endowed and dependent, without subsisting from another but was rather an unlimited true reality.  I say that a sensible intelligent person, exercising the power of intuition, understands from this discussion why we [47] resist proposing a demonstration of all this:  respecting the appropriate time when all possible existents and ordered individuals depend on necessary existence for their consideration and their nature, along with the diffusion and blockage of light which does not subsist independently with respect to its very essence [huwiyya].  Now it is not possible to perceive [a thing’s] proper individual essence separate [from this dependence, any more than we can perceive] individual existents independently, since what is natural is also dependent upon another.    

 

            While there can be no demonstration of these matters, primarily since existing defies definition, we are nonetheless led to realize that we cannot understand created things properly without a sustained attempt to grasp the internal link they have with the creator in their very existing.  Yet while this mode of inquiry exceeds the bounds of philosophical inquiry as normally practiced by Islamic philosophers like Ibn Sina, it is arguable that they too realized that an authentically philosophical search must move into these more esoteric arenas.[10]  Yet Mulla Sadra’s inspiration is clearly Ibn al-Arabi.  It is that connection which needs to be more thoroughly explored, as we continue this “work in progress.”

 

                          

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