Introduction

Once the human mind settles upon the necessity of the the Necessary Being — the first cause that stands in need of no cause to sustain it, and that pours existence upon all other contingent things — it finds itself driven by its intellectual curiosity and its logical laws toward a deeper and more vital question: what are the existential and perfect attributes with which this necessary existence must, from a purely logical standpoint, be described?

In the broad philosophical perspective, across the history of human thought — whether in Aristotle (384–322 BCE) and his investigations into the First Mover, or Ibn Sina (370–428 AH / 980–1037 CE) in his treatises on divine transcendence, or René Descartes (1596–1650 CE) and John Locke (1632–1704 CE) in modern Western philosophy — the attributes of the Creator are not unseen claims cut off from proof. They are necessary conclusions imposed by reason with rigorous strictness.

The governing rule here is this: every attribute that points to deficiency, need, or structural limitation must be denied of the Necessary Being, both in doctrine and by reason, while every attribute that points to pure existential perfection must be affirmed of it. If the first cause is absolutely self-sufficient in its essence, then its attributes must reflect that absolute self-sufficiency and that complete efficacy.

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1. The Nature of Oneness and the Denial of Numerical Plurality

When philosophical reason arrives at the conclusion that the Creator is “one,” the first logical duty is to unpack the concept of “one” and purify it of the common sensory understanding familiar in the world of matter, numbers, and applied mathematics. This is a problem around which pivotal stages in the history of metaphysics have turned.

a. Denying Numerical Oneness (Rejected in Doctrine and by Reason)

The oneness that belongs to the the Necessary Being is not a “numerical oneness,” as when we say in our observed world: one sun, one planet, or one book. The numerical one is always a being that falls within a multiplicity and, by its very conceptual nature, admits repetition and addition, such that reason can posit another one beside it to form the number “two.”

Whatever admits repetition, duplication, and plurality — even if it is never actually repeated in external reality — is necessarily a being bounded by limits, structure, and a geometric distinctness that sets it apart from another that could be imagined. And since everything limited is a deficient being in need of that which bounds it and halts its existence at that edge, numerical oneness is not rationally fitting for the absolutely self-sufficient first cause.

b. Affirming True, Singular Oneness (Established Rationally)

Instead of the numerical concept, philosophers and theologians affirm of the Creator what is known as “true singular oneness,” or pure oneness. This is the oneness that denotes the infinite reality for which it is rationally impossible to posit a partner, a rival, or a likeness in its existential rank. It is one not merely because it has no second in reality, but because it does not admit the very formulation of a “second” at the level of rational conception and logical analysis.

To bring this complex concept closer, we may consider the notion of “absolute infinity” in mathematical and philosophical abstraction. It is not rationally possible to posit “two absolute infinities” that are distinct and entirely independent, for one of them would inevitably end at the limits of the other and begin to restrain it, which would automatically render both of them limited and finite. The the Necessary Being is one because it is not bounded by essential or spatial limits, and that which has no limit encompasses the whole of existence without repetition, division, or rivalry.

• The earliest roots (the Eleatic school): The ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides of Elea (c. 515–450 BCE) was the first to formulate the concept of “the absolute One” demonstratively and to deny plurality of it, followed by his student Zeno of Elea (c. 490–430 BCE), who devised his famous mathematical paradoxes to prove that positing a “numerical plurality” at the origin of existence leads to inescapable logical contradictions.
• Neoplatonism: In the third century CE, the philosopher Plotinus (c. 204–270 CE) took this abstraction to its summit in his Enneads, positing the theory of “the pure One” (The One) as the origin of all existents, and stressing its complete transcendence above numerical oneness, since number is multiplicity and division.
• Islamic philosophy: This inquiry passed into Islamic thought and its terminology was crystallized with precision. Al-Kindi (c. 185–256 AH / c. 801–873 CE) was the first, in his First Philosophy, to distinguish between “the true One” and “the metaphorical (numerical) one,” and Ibn Sina deepened it until this concept reached its final logical settlement in a decisive distinction between two modes.

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2. The Simplicity of the Essence and the Denial of Corporeality and Composition

The property of “composition” is among the most distinctive characteristics of matter and the deepest features of originated beings, which leads reason by strict necessity to declare the Creator transcendent above every manifestation of materiality or divisibility.

First: The Meaning of Simplicity Philosophically

The word “simple” in philosophical and logical usage is the precise opposite of the technical concept “composite,” and it does not in the least carry the everyday sense of naïveté or lack of complexity. The “composite” is everything made up of parts that precede its existence, whether external material parts such as cells, atoms, and protons, or analytical mental parts such as essence and existence, or genus and differentia in Aristotelian logic. The “simple,” by contrast, is the pure, unmixed reality — solid, indivisible, un-partitioned — into whose constitution no plurality whatsoever enters.

Second: The Rational Proof of Simplicity and the Denial of Corporeality

Every body in the material universe is a being necessarily composed of geometric or physical parts, and it automatically requires a space (place) to occupy and a process (time) through which to pass and change its states. Building on the theses of the Peripatetic philosophers and the wisdom of the later thinkers, there is a decisive proof resting on “the necessity of need” that refutes the composition of the Necessary Essence:

Every composite is always in need, in its existence and external realization, of the parts of which it is made. The whole exists only through the part, and the parts are necessarily prior to the composite thing in rank and time (a car needs its parts — engine and wheels — in order to be called a car, and its parts are prior to it in existence). If the parts were to break apart, or if a single part were absent, the existence of the whole would be nullified and the composite would dissolve entirely.

Since the the Necessary Being is absolutely self-sufficient in its essence, and it is not permissible by the judgment of reason for it to be in poverty or in need of anything before it or with it, it is utterly impossible for it to be composed of parts. The inevitable logical result of the proof of simplicity is this: as long as the Creator is simple and has no parts, it is entirely transcendent above “corporeality,” shape, form, place, and time — because all these material accidents are among the necessary attendants of the needy and the limited, and the Necessary Being is transcendent above poverty and limitation.

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3. The Reality of the Attributes and Their Identity with the Essence (the Meaning of “Identical with the Essence”)

If reason affirms of the Creator existential perfections such as absolute knowledge, complete power, and eternal life, then how do these multiple attributes come together in a single simple essence without leading to its partition and the breaking up of its simplicity? Here one of the deepest problems of metaphysics comes to the fore: “the relation of the attributes to the essence.”

First: Denying That the Attributes Are Additional to the Essence

If it were said — as some theological schools such as the Ash’arites held — that “knowledge” or “power” are independent, eternal attributes added to the essence of the Creator and inhering in it (that is, that there is an essence, and there is knowledge attached to it), then the simplicity of the essence would be entirely undone and reason would fall into the pitfall of composition; for God would then, in logical analysis, become composed of (essence + attribute of knowledge + attribute of power). Beyond that, this view leads to the supposition that the essence was, at some rank, devoid of these perfections and then acquired them or had them inhere in it — and this is change, which is impossible for the pure, absolute Necessary Being.

Second: The Identity of the Attributes with the Essence

The brilliant rational solution formulated by the Muslim philosophers (such as Ibn Sina, followed by the Mu’tazilites in theology, and refined into a proof by Mulla Sadra (979–1050 AH / 1571–1640 CE)) is that the essential attributes of the the Necessary Being are “identical with its essence.” The exalted essence of the Creator is itself knowledge, is itself power, and is itself life. There are not, in external reality, multiple distinct entities; rather there is a single, absolute, infinite reality, which the limited human mind — because of the deficiency of its conceptual tools — analyzes into multiple concepts, being unable to encompass the infinite essence in a single human word.

To bring the concept closer in a simplified way: if we contemplate the reality of “fire” or “the glowing mass of the sun,” we find it, at one and the same time, hot, luminous, and burning. Heat and illumination are not two separate material parts fashioned individually and then attached to the body of the fire; rather the reality of the burning substance of the fire is itself the heat and is itself the illumination. This plurality is a plurality of consideration and concept within our conscious minds, whereas in external reality the thing is a single, simple reality. Such are the attributes of the Necessary Being: knowing by its essence, which is knowledge, and powerful by its essence, which is power — it is all knowledge, all power, and all life.

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4. The Logical Distinction Between Attributes of the Essence and Attributes of Act

So that any apparent conflict or contradiction may be removed when the Creator is described by changing, originated, or renewed acts in the world of time and matter (as when we say: He provided so-and-so with food today, or He created such-and-such a being yesterday), philosophers and theologians divided the attributes, procedurally and logically, into two main categories, based on the attribute’s relation to the eternal essence or to the external act:

First: Attributes of the Essence (Eternal, Absolute, Inherent)

These are the lofty existential attributes that are affirmed of the divine essence by the mere supposition of its existence, without need to conceive or posit the existence of any creature, cosmos, or act in the external world — such as the attributes of knowledge, power, and life. Their strict rational feature is that it is rationally impossible to describe the Creator by their opposite under any circumstance (one cannot logically say: He knows at one time and is ignorant at another, or He is able over one thing and incapable of another). These attributes are eternal by the eternity of the exalted essence, and are identical with it, established without any external context.

Second: Attributes of Act (Abstracted from the External Effect)

These are the attributes that reason cannot conceive, or logically formulate, except after positing the issuance of an act or effect from the essence toward the external world and the contingents — such as the attributes of creating, providing, giving life, giving death, and forgiving. Their rational feature is that it is valid, in the logic of language and reality, to describe the Creator by them and by their opposite, according to the instance and the creature (so we say: He created this material thing and has not yet created that; He provides for the human being today and does not provide for him tomorrow, in accordance with His established ways).

The precise philosophical link here is that the origination and change of these attributes does not in the least mean the change of the divine essence or its being affected by process and time; the essence is transcendent above transformation and time. The actual change occurs only in the “creature, the object of the act, and the effect” — the external thing bounded by time and place. When the effect and the provision come to exist in the material world, the human mind abstracts from this scene the attribute of “Provider” or “Creator.” So the plurality and renewal lie in the external relations and acts, not in the reality of the singular essence.

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5. Sustaining Encompassment and Rational Witnessing

The rigorous metaphysical analysis concludes with defining the nature and form of the existential relation between the first cause, the Necessary Being, and the created contingent world, and how the human being perceives and grasps this divine reality.

First: Sustaining Encompassment (the Equation of Denying Both Mingling and Separation)

Ancient and modern philosophies fell into two impasses when formulating this relation. If it were said that the Creator dwells within creatures and mixes with their material particles (the doctrine of indwelling and union), then God would fall into the trap of change, materiality, and divisibility. Conversely, if it were said that He is separated from them by a geographical, spatial separation, isolated in some region of the cosmos (the doctrine of spatial separation, or the old Western deism that sees the Creator as a watchmaker who made the watch and then left it to run on its own), then the Creator would become bounded by a direction and in need of something to contain Him.

The deep philosophical solution formulated by the schools of Islamic wisdom is that the relation rests upon “encompassment and sustaining.” The Creator is present in every corner of existence because He is the cause of its continuous subsistence and grants it life moment by moment. To bring this closer rationally: we find the relation exactly like the relation between the human soul and the mental images it invents within the mind. The mental image subsists through the soul and needs it every second in order to remain in existence, and at the same time it is not spatially separated from it, nor is it a material part mixing with the cells of the brain. The Creator is with things through the outpouring of existence and knowing encompassment, yet He is transcendent above any material mixing with them.

Second: Denying Visual Perception and Affirming the Vision of the Heart and Intellect

Since seeing with the physical eye is a mechanical, physical process that logically requires the existence of distance, direction, the reflection of light rays, and geometric limits for the object seen, seeing the the Necessary Being with the eye is absolutely impossible by reason, under any circumstance, because affirming it would mean affirming corporeality, place, and limits.

The balanced philosophical and rational alternative is “epistemic witnessing,” or what is called in the literature of philosophical mysticism “the vision of the heart.” What is meant by it is the complete, certain unveiling of the existential reality before the inner human awareness and the pure intellect, by way of proofs and the truths of faith. It is a witnessing perception that surpasses in its certitude the outward material senses, which have so often been subject to error, illusion, and deceptive reflections.

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Conclusion

The human mind pauses here at this limit of far-reaching philosophical abstraction, to find that it has drawn a complete and precise framework of transcendence for the attributes of the great Creator: a God who is one, but not by mathematical number; simple, with no part and no composition; whose perfect attributes are identical with His essence; present in the cosmos by His encompassment and existential sustaining, not by material mixing; and perceived by aware hearts and free intellects, not by limited eyes and sight.

But if this dry logical abstraction and philosophical analysis is all that the human mind has reached through its standard tools and abstracted concepts… does the epistemic exposition stop at this limit of rigidity?

From here the essential question and the great transition in the history of thought comes to the fore: how did this great God define Himself to the human being through the treasure of revelation? How did these deep rational attributes appear and become formulated in the eloquent Quranic exposition? And how did the school of the the Prophet's household (AS) — through the sermons of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS) (23 BH–40 AH / 599–661 CE), in Nahj al-Balagha and the guidance of the Imams of the Prophet’s family — explain these complex philosophical truths in a tongue that joins the precision of the rational thinker with the depth of the transmitted religious text, transforming dry abstraction into a creed pulsing with life?