The human mind stands before this vast cosmos — subject to the laws of motion, causality, and change — and asks about the point of beginning. Through pure philosophical reflection, the rational methods (such as the Proof of the Truthful or the argument from order and the necessity of existence) have proven that this contingent, changing material world cannot continue in existence without resting upon a first cause, a being necessary in itself. This eternal existence is unlike anything else; for if it were composite it would need its parts, and the needy is not necessary in existence; and if it were changing, nonexistence and origination would come upon it, which contradicts its being the first source of existence.

But if reason has proven the existence of this great Creator and His general attributes, then how do we arrive at His message amid the immense heap of claims and religious systems that fill the earth? To survey thousands of religions and creeds and trace their books and heritage is beyond human capacity. Hence logic imposes the use of a methodology of rigorous filtering: setting down rational criteria drawn directly from the attributes of the Creator, and passing the religious systems through them to see which of them accords with the proofs of reason, arriving at the highest epistemic destination.

1. The Criterion of Oneness and the Denial of Plurality (Monotheistic Philosophy Against Pluralism)

The first rational principle is that the cause of existence must be one, with no partner. Plurality at the rank of the the Necessary Being is logically impossible; for if there were two gods, each would be distinguished from the other by some particular feature, and distinction requires composition (a shared part and a distinguishing part), and composition contradicts eternity and necessity. Moreover, the conflict of wills in a cosmos governed by a unified, harmonious order leads logically to its corruption; for the inability of one of the gods to impose his will is proof of his deficiency, and the deficient is not a god.

When we pass the global religious map through this first filter, a decisive distinction appears:

The excluded systems: immediately excluded are all the pagan and folk religions based on a plurality of gods (such as Hinduism and the religions of the ancient civilizations), the dualist religions (such as Zoroastrianism, which divides the cosmos between a god of light and a god of darkness), as well as the naturalist doctrines and traditional Buddhism, which offer no conception of a creating, personal God of the cosmos.

The systems that pass: through this filter pass the religions that declare oneness in their foundational texts, specifically the family of the “Abrahamic religions” (Judaism, Christianity, Islam).

2. The Criterion of Transcendence and Separation from Matter (Denying Anthropomorphism and Incarnation)

The philosophical principle here decrees that the creator of time, place, and matter cannot be governed by them. The God whose eternity is established cannot possibly be described by the attributes of creatures (such as origination, change, hunger, fatigue, indwelling, and being located in a body). Everything reached by motion, transition, and resemblance to creatures is a contingent and limited being, and the limited is not necessary in existence.

When we apply this transcendence filter to the three monotheistic religions, the essential differences appear:

The Christian thesis and the question of incarnation: mainstream Christianity rests on the doctrine of the Trinity and the incarnation of God in the hypostasis of the Son (Jesus / Isa). Here philosophical reflection sees a logical dilemma: how can the unlimited Absolute be confined within a limited human body? How can the Eternal, self-sufficient of all worlds, be subject to birth, hunger, pain, and death? Joining the attributes of absolute divinity with the attributes of limited humanity in a single being is, for the logicians, a contradiction in predicate and subject.

The Jewish thesis and the problem of textual likening: despite Judaism’s emphasis on oneness and its denial of direct incarnation, a reading of the texts of the Old Testament (the Torah and the Tanakh) dismantles this transcendence; for the texts abound with sharp anthropomorphic attributes (likening God to human beings). God in their heritage regrets, grieves, tires and rests on the seventh day, and wrestles with human beings and is overcome. This conception clothes the Creator in the attributes of affect and deficiency, which the rational proof rejects.

The Islamic thesis and transcendent sublimity: Islam presents the most rigorous and abstract vision of God; the firm verses sum up its philosophy of transcendence:

“There is nothing like unto Him.”

“Say: He is Allah, One. Allah, the Eternal Refuge.”

The God here is declared absolutely transcendent above resembling originated things: He does not dwell in matter, is not governed by the laws of His creation, and is not touched by weariness or fatigue.

Thus the second filter settles upon Islam as the religion that presents the doctrinal concept most consistent with the philosophy of transcendence.

3. The Internal Investigation (Precise Divine Unity and the Adjudication of the Schools)

After the inquiry was logically confined to the Islamic circle, philosophical and theological thought within Islam faced the dilemma of interpreting the outward texts and reconciling them with the judgment of pure reason. Here multiple schools of thought appeared, and we will train three great philosophical problems upon these schools to see how the intellectual positions differed regarding them.

1. The Dilemma of “Corporeality, Direction, and Place” (Anthropomorphism & Spatiality)

The philosophical problem: if the Creator is eternal and place is originated, then He is self-sufficient of place and direction. To say that He has a directional aspect (such as material aboveness) or dimensions and organs means necessarily that He is a body; and a body is composite, and a composite is needy, and the needy is not a creator.

The positions of the Islamic schools:

The school of the People of Hadith (and the Salafi currents): they clung to the pure literal outward meaning, affirming for God dimensions and reported attributes such as the face, the two hands, real descent, and settling upon the Throne. Despite their attempt to rid themselves of the necessary consequences of this view with the phrase “without asking how,” philosophy holds that affirming the very root of these concepts of the Creator is an implicit admission of corporeality, because the linguistic and rational meaning of these words is realized only within the framework of material things.

The Ash’arite and Maturidi school: they followed the path of interpretation (as in their saying that the hand means grace or power) to flee from anthropomorphism, but they fell into confusion when investigating the question of “aboveness and direction,” where they sought to affirm verbal aboveness while denying material direction — a joining of two contradictories.

The originality of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt (AS) in divine unity: this school framed an absolute transcendence that rejects corporeality and direction with a decisive denial, representing the origin and the pure source of the creed; for place and direction are among the necessary attendants of the created, and the Creator is exalted above the regions. Imam Ali (AS) (23 BH–40 AH / 599–661 CE) (AS) says in Nahj al-Balagha, describing the Creator:

“Whoever assigns Him a mode has embodied Him; whoever points to Him has limited Him; whoever limits Him has counted Him; whoever says ‘in what’ has contained Him; and whoever says ‘upon what’ has emptied a place of Him.”

This abstraction eliminates any taint of verbal anthropomorphism and preserves pure rational transcendence. The summary of the difference between the three schools on this dilemma: the People of Hadith affirm the reported outward meaning with the saying “without asking how”; the Ash’arites waver between interpretation and affirming verbal aboveness, as a result of departing from the origin; while the the Prophet's household (AS) deny corporeality and direction absolutely, in a complete rational transcendence.

2. The Dilemma of “The Plurality of Eternals and Composition in the Essence” (Divine Simplicity)

The philosophical problem: the divine essence must be “simple,” not composite. If the attributes of God (such as knowledge, power, and life) were eternal beings added to the essence and other than it, this would lead to the existence of multiple entities sharing with the Creator in His eternity and pre-existence. The plurality of eternals nullifies the very core of philosophical divine unity.

The positions of the Islamic schools:

The Ash’arite school: they went to affirm eternal meaning-attributes “additional to the essence.” They said that God is knowing by an eternal knowledge that is other than His essence, and powerful by a power that is other than His essence. This statement cast them into the philosophical problem (the dilemma of the plurality of eternals), for they affirmed eternal meanings subsisting in the essence and other than it.

The Mu’tazilite school: they were alert to this philosophical problem, but they went to the other extreme and said the essence acts “in place of the attributes” (that is, a complete denial of the meaning-attributes), which made the concept of the attributes appear disabled and stripped of real efficacy.

The originality of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt (AS) in the attributes: this school offered the most precise philosophical solution — “the identity of the attributes with the essence” — as the origin and the pure source. God, glorified is He, is knowing by His essence, not by an added knowledge, and powerful by His essence, not by an appended power. The essence and the attributes are a single, simple reality without any multiplicity or composition; His power is His knowledge, and His knowledge is His life, and the plurality of words returns to the plurality of effects and concepts, not to a plurality of eternal realities. Imam Ali (AS) (AS) sums up this philosophical principle with his saying:

“The perfection of sincerity toward Him is the denial of attributes of Him, because of the testimony of every attribute that it is other than the one described, and the testimony of every described thing that it is other than the attribute.”

3. The Dilemma of “The Possibility of Visual Sight” (The Visibility Paradox)

The philosophical problem: seeing with the physical eye (direct beholding) is conditioned, logically and physically, upon the existence of a distance, a facing direction, and the reflection of light rays from the seen body to the seeing eye. Since the Creator is transcendent above corporeality, place, and direction, permitting His being seen by the eye is a logical contradiction, because it entails affirming the material properties of the One transcendent above matter.

The positions of the Islamic schools:

The juristic and theological majority (the Ash’arites, the Maturidis, and the People of Hadith): they went to affirm the seeing of God with the physical eye in the hereafter for the believers, relying on the outward sense of some texts. And when they faced the rational impossibility, they said:

“He is seen, not in a direction, not facing, and not by the connection of a ray.”

This the logicians and the debaters see as a joining of two contradictories, for they affirm visual sight and deny its existential conditions at one and the same time.

The alternative thesis of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt (AS): in harmony with the decisive judgment of reason and with the firm Quranic verse:

“Vision does not perceive Him, but He perceives all vision.”

this school declared the absolute impossibility of visual sight in this world and the hereafter alike, in order to safeguard the greatness of the divine essence from the necessary attendants of matter. When Dhi’lib al-Yamani asked Imam Ali (AS) (AS):

“Have you seen your Lord, O Commander of the Faithful?”

the deep philosophical answer that dismantles the dilemma came:

“Would I worship what I do not see? The eyes do not perceive Him by the beholding of sight, but the hearts perceive Him by the realities of faith.”

Extraction and the Demonstrative Result

The descending intellectual path we have followed was not built upon an emotional inclination or sectarian imitation, but was an application of “the scalpel of reason and logic” in dissecting ideas:

• Globally: the polytheistic and dualist theses collapsed before the criterion of the oneness of the philosophical cause.
• In terms of religions: the theses of incarnation and human framing were excluded before the criterion of the Creator’s self-sufficiency and His separation from matter.
• Within the Islamic arena: the views were submitted to the most precise criteria of transcendence (the denial of direction, the denial of the composition of the essence by additional attributes, and the denial of material visual sight). It became clear that some schools of thought offered logical concessions to reconcile the outward sense of the transmitted texts with the judgments of reason, so their formulations came tainted with certain philosophical contradictions.

The overall logical result: the free philosophical and logical reading settles upon the school of the the Prophet's household (AS) as the origin-school that offered the most abstract, transcendent, and coherent doctrinal thesis, while the other schools deviated from their path and the result was a disorder in their divine unity. This school succeeded in framing the concept of pure divine oneness that corresponds entirely with the proofs of free reason, without falling into the trap of likening (anthropomorphism) or the trap of emptying (denying the attributes) — so that their school is the purest epistemic destination for one who seeks the truth with the eye of pure logic.