Divine life, knowledge, power, will, hearing and sight; accidents, persistence, self-subsistence, corporeality and the principles of naming Read the bilingual lesson for Divine Names and Attributes: Affirmation, Transcendence and Naming and test your understanding with a focused quiz.
Lesson
1. The central question about divine names and attributes
بحث الأسماء والصفات
The discussion of divine names and attributes.
After establishing God's existence and unity, the argument turns to divine attributes. It has two connected aims: affirmation of perfections, such as life, knowledge and power, and transcendence from creaturely limitations, need and origination.
These aims are not contradictory. Transcendence does not mean denying the perfections affirmed of God; affirmation does not mean imagining physical organs or processes like those of created beings. Throughout this discussion, the meaning of a perfection must be distinguished from the particular physical way in which creatures exhibit it.
2. The foundational list of perfections
الحي القادر العليم السميع البصير الشائي المريد
The Living, Powerful, Knowing, Hearing, Seeing, Willing and Desiring.
This is more than a list of titles. Life is a perfection appropriate to the possessor of knowledge and power; knowledge concerns what is known; power concerns possible acts; and will specifies an outcome. Hearing and sight concern their respective objects of awareness.
The attributes should not be compressed into one indistinct expression. Having the power to bring about an event differs conceptually from willing that event at one particular time and in one particular manner. Such distinctions matter in later theological reasoning.
3. Reasoning from the order of the world
هذا النمط البديع والنظام المحكم
This remarkable arrangement and carefully ordered system.
The observable order and specificity of the world are used to argue for its Maker's knowledge, power and will. The existence of something is one consideration; its occurrence in a particular proportion and arrangement among alternatives is another. The latter raises the issue of specification and wisdom.
The aim is to reject the notion of a creator who is ignorant, powerless or without will. Yet an argument establishing knowledge and power does not automatically establish every technical detail of hearing and sight. The classical discussion therefore distinguishes what reason supports from what revelation establishes.
4. Life, knowledge and power are distinct concepts
الحياة، والعلم، والقدرة
Life, knowledge and power.
Life is affirmed as a divine perfection, without suggesting nutrition, organs or a finite biological lifespan. Knowledge concerns everything knowable; power concerns possible acts and their realization or non-realization.
For conceptual contrast, a human may know how something is done while being unable to do it. This illustrates a difference between the concepts, not a comparison between divine and human capacities. Power relates to possibilities; a logical contradiction does not constitute an actual possible object awaiting creation.
5. Will and the specification of possibilities
الشائي المريد
The One who wills and intends.
Shāʾī, from the verb *shāʾa*, is explained here as near in meaning to murīd, the one who wills. In theology, will concerns the determination of one outcome among possibilities: an event could occur earlier or later, here or elsewhere, yet it occurs in a definite manner.
This specification is not identical to power. Power concerns the possible act; will concerns its chosen realization. Divine will should not be interpreted through human uncertainty, ignorance, indecision or need-driven desire.
6. Affirming hearing and sight
السميع البصير
The All-Hearing and All-Seeing.
Hearing and sight are affirmed as divine attributes, but their meanings do not require ears, eyes, reflected light or a nervous system. These are the instruments of creaturely perception, not necessary features of every possible kind of hearing or sight.
Reasoning from creation supports a general account of divine perfection and knowledge, while revealed texts are central to the explicit affirmation of hearing and sight. Believing that an attribute is real is therefore not the same as assigning it the bodily mechanism found in human beings.
7. Why the opposites of divine attributes are defects
على أن أضدادها نقائص
Because the opposites of these attributes are deficiencies.
The opposites of knowledge, power and life are ignorance, incapacity and death. To attribute such defects to the independently necessary Creator would undermine the claim of divine perfection. Affirming perfections and denying deficiencies thus belong to one line of argument.
The reasoning must not be transferred mechanically to physical limitations. A person's inability to see may be a deficiency, but God's lack of dependence on a human eye is not a deficiency. We must distinguish the perfection of an attribute from the created organ through which a human experiences something similar.
8. Affirmation is not anthropomorphism
إثبات الصفات مع التنزيه
Affirming the attributes while denying creaturely likeness.
A word may be used of both God and a creature without giving the two the same manner of being. Human knowledge is acquired, revisable and forgettable; divine knowledge is not conceived as dependent on such changes. Creaturely power is similarly limited, instrumental and received.
Using a shared expression does not require transferring every creaturely feature to the Creator. The crucial distinction is between a shared term or intelligible meaning and identity of essence, mode or limitations.
9. The respective roles of reason and revelation
الدليل العقلي والدليل الشرعي
Rational evidence and revealed evidence.
The order of creation provides a rational line of argument for divine knowledge, power and will. The explicit articulation of further attributes and names is also a matter of revelation. Reason can additionally examine whether an alleged impossibility really follows from an affirmed attribute.
For example, an objection to divine hearing that assumes every hearer must have human ears already assumes what needs proof. An instrument of perception is not identical to perception as an attribute. This allows transmitted affirmation to be considered alongside rational transcendence.
10. Distinguishing names, attributes and the divine essence
الذات والصفات والأسماء
Essence, attributes and names.
The essence is the divine reality to which perfections are attributed. Attributes concern those perfections; names are the words by which God is invoked and described. These matters are closely connected but are not interchangeable questions.
A conceptual distinction between knowledge and power does not imply several independently necessary beings. Nor should classical distinctions between an attribute and the essence be forced into the material model of separable physical parts. The metaphysical issue is not solved by importing the anatomy of created things.
11. Many conceptual aspects do not create many gods
تعدد الاعتبارات لا يستلزم كثرة في الذات
A plurality of conceptual considerations does not imply a plurality in the essence.
Different true questions can be asked about one reality: what does it know, what can it do, and what does it will? A distinction among these relations or objects is not evidence for several independent divine beings.
An attribute is not treated as a second self-subsisting deity. Conversely, conceptual distinction should not erase the actual affirmation of the attributes and reduce all descriptions to empty words. Classical theology seeks to maintain both real divine perfections and divine unity.
12. Why the concept of an accident matters
ليس بعرض
God is not an accident.
In the classical terminology, an accident (ʿaraḍ) depends on a subject or locus in order to subsist; color, motion and rest are discussed under this heading. Calling God an accident would make divine existence dependent on an underlying bearer, whereas the Necessary Being cannot depend on another for existence.
The argument is not merely a dispute about vocabulary. It concerns the incompatibility of self-subsistence with dependence on a locus. What explains the being of contingent things cannot itself be made dependent on a creaturely substrate.
13. The starting meaning of persistence
البقاء استمرار الوجود وعدم زواله
Persistence is the continuation of existence without ceasing.
Two different questions arise: Does something exist at a later time as it did before? and Is there, over and above existence, an additional ontological entity called persistence? The first concerns the continued existence of a thing; the second is a metaphysical disagreement.
Some theologians discuss persistence as an additional attribute, while others ask how an additional entity of that sort could subsist. Confusing these questions obscures the difference between divine eternity and the temporary continued existence of created things.
14. The problem with treating persistence as an accident
قيام المعنى بالمعنى
One accidental property subsisting in another.
If the persistence of an accident is itself a second accident, one must explain how the second is borne by the first. In this classical account, an accident does not possess independent spatial location; giving one accident another as its bearer creates a difficult regress or dependence problem.
The objection does not deny the ordinary fact that something may continue to exist. It asks whether being present at successive times requires positing a further independently existing accident called persistence.
15. An accident’s spatial dependence
قيام العرض بالشيء معناه أن تحيزه تابع لتحيزه
An accident's localization follows the localization of the thing in which it subsists.
The color of a body is not assigned a second independent place detached from that body; motion is likewise attributed to what moves. This classical reasoning depends on distinguishing a subject from the property borne by it.
It would be mistaken to apply this spatial model directly to God. Affirming divine attributes does not mean placing God in a physical region like a body into which properties enter as localized objects.
16. Persistence and existence at a later time
حقيقة الوجود من حيث النسبة إلى الزمان الثاني
Existence considered in relation to the second time.
If persistence means continued existence at a later time, no separate entity over and above existence is necessarily required. Saying it existed yesterday and exists today differs from affirming existence and nonexistence at the same time.
A created thing may be absent, come into being, and subsequently remain. Those stages neither make it eternal nor require that every temporal description designate a separate self-subsisting substance. This distinction is central to the reply to a proposed contradiction between origination and persistence.
17. Self-subsistence and the relation of an attribute
القيام هو الاختصاص الناعت
Subsistence here means a distinctive relation of an attribute to what it qualifies.
On this technical account, the subsistence of a quality in the qualified is not always meant as literal spatial insertion. Divine attributes are affirmed in relation to the divine essence, without imagining a second external deity or a place containing God.
Self-subsistence, however, denotes nondependence upon another for existence. Thus “God subsists independently” and “divine attributes subsist with the divine essence” are not the same claim and must not be flattened into a single physical model.
18. Independence of the essence does not erase attributes
قائمة بذات الله تعالى
Subsisting with the divine essence.
One objection says that attributing qualities to God must make God dependent on them. This confuses a creature's need for an external completion with the affirmation of an intrinsic eternal perfection. In the classical theological account, God's attributes are not external additions arriving to remedy a former deficiency.
Human knowledge is acquired and human strength may increase or diminish; there is a before and an after. That example should not be projected onto eternal divine attributes, which do not arise through learning, bodily change or outside assistance.
19. The limits of analogy from created qualities
أمارة الحدوث
A sign of origination.
Change of color, place and motion supplies classical examples of created accidents. Theologians use such changes in arguments that bodily things are originated. But the rules governing bodily accidents cannot simply be applied to every kind of attribute without qualification.
That a body changes from red to yellow shows change among its contingent physical states. It does not entail that the divine perfections of knowledge or power must pass through the same bodily sequence of place, time and renewal. The conclusion of a proof must not exceed its premises.
20. Persistence of bodies and accidents in classical debate
بقاء الأجسام وبقاء الأعراض
Persistence of bodies and persistence of accidents.
Classical theologians did not always treat the continued existence of a body and of an accident as identical questions. Many accepted that bodies persist while disputing whether individual accidents persist or are renewed. These positions affect the structure of the argument from origination.
These are historical metaphysical models, not claims to have established the laws of modern physics. The useful distinction is that “the object remains” and “each of its particular features remains numerically unchanged” are different propositions.
21. Speed and slowness do not create new substances
إذ الأنواع الحقيقية لا تختلف بالإضافات
For genuine kinds do not differ merely through relational descriptions.
Describing movement as fast or slow can reflect comparison with another movement. One traveler is fast relative to a second but slow relative to a third. These descriptions do not establish three fundamentally different substances.
The example helps answer the objection that multiplying comparative descriptions must multiply independent accidents and subjects at every level. A relative characterization should not be confused with a separate self-subsisting reality.
22. Why the term body is rejected for God
ولا جسم؛ لأنه مركب ومتحيز
Nor a body, because a body is composite and spatially located.
In the classical technical sense, a body has dimensions, parts and spatial delimitation. Applying the term to God would imply composition and boundedness, both incompatible with the self-sufficiency and transcendence of the Necessary Being.
Denying corporeality is not equivalent to denying real existence. Non-bodily does not mean nonexistent. The claim that everything real must occupy physical dimensions would itself require proof.
23. The competing senses of substance
ولا جوهر
Nor a substance (*jawhar*) in the relevant technical sense.
For many theologians, jawhar denotes a spatially located indivisible constituent discussed in relation to bodies. Certain philosophical usages instead define substance by not being in a subject, or by a particular metaphysical classification. Confusing these senses makes verbal and substantive disagreements look identical.
If jawhar denotes a material constituent, its application to God is rejected. If a speaker merely means that the Necessary Being is not an accident, that still does not settle the separate question of whether such a term should be used as a divine name.
24. How a technically true meaning can have a misleading name
وإذا ورد الشرع بإطلاق اسم بلغة
And when revealed law uses a name in a particular language.
A term's customary associations may mislead even when one can construct a narrower technical definition that avoids the error. Body and substance provide examples: common usage evokes extension, parts and spatial location, even if a philosopher intends a more abstract meaning.
Two scholars may appear to disagree while using a term differently. Accordingly, the truth of an intended proposition and the propriety of applying a particular word are separate judgments. Refuting a false meaning is not identical to declaring every possible use of its word equally false.
25. Tawqīf in divine naming and the concluding distinction
أسماء الله تعالى توقيفية
The principle that divine names require warrant from revelation.
Expressing a sound rational description is not identical to instituting a new proper divine name. Under the tawqīf approach, revealed usage governs divine naming, especially where a word risks implying bodily composition or creaturely likeness. The commentary also considers objections and alternative analyses of this issue; linguistic possibility alone does not settle every naming question.
Conclusion: affirming life, knowledge, power, will, hearing and sight; denying ignorance, impotence and other deficiencies; rejecting dependence as an accident, body or material substance; and exercising care over divine names form a coherent theological account.
Practice questions
Question 1
What balance guides the discussion of divine names and attributes?
- Affirming perfections while denying creaturely limitations
- Defining transcendence as denying all attributes
- Affirming attributes while treating every human limitation as applicable
- Denying bodily analogies while also rejecting the attributes themselves
Question 2
Which pair is explicitly included in the opening attributes?
- Size and weight
- Knowledge and power
- Place and direction
- Physical length and breadth
Question 3
Which perfections are especially inferred from the ordered world?
- Hunger, dependence and sleep
- Parts and spatial occupancy
- Knowledge, power and will
- Impotence and ignorance
Question 4
How do power and will differ conceptually?
- Power is merely another name for knowledge
- Divine will is caused by ignorance
- Will is only physical movement
- Power relates to possible action; will specifies an outcome
Question 5
Which inference does NOT follow from affirming divine hearing and sight?
- Affirming divine hearing
- God must possess human ears and eyes
- Affirming divine sight
- Learning of the attributes through revealed texts
Question 6
Why are the opposites of divine perfections considered defects?
- They necessarily occur in every person
- They are merely verbal differences
- They are incompatible with a perfect, self-sufficient Creator
- They establish that God is a body
Question 7
From which verb is shāʾī formed?
Question 8
Which account of rational and transmitted evidence is correct?
- Rational reasoning and specific revealed affirmations can complement one another
- Revealed attributes always imply bodies
- Reason establishes every divine name without distinction
- Revelation makes all logical consistency irrelevant
Question 9
What does a conceptual distinction among attributes NOT entail?
- Different concepts of knowledge and power
- Different objects of an attribute
- A plurality of independent gods
- Affirming distinct attributes of one essence
Question 10
What characterizes an accident in classical kalām?
- Necessary existence
- Independent self-subsistence
- Being eternal in every case
- Dependence upon a subject or locus
Question 11
What is the central problem with calling God an accident?
- It makes divine existence dependent upon a locus
- It affirms knowledge and power
- The term accident already entails independent self-subsistence
- It only requires choosing a different name without revising the metaphysics
Question 12
What does persistence mean at the initial level?
- A creature becoming necessary in itself
- Continued existence without cessation
- The continued existence of a body regardless of its changing qualities
- An attribute existing without any bearer
Question 13
What problem arises if persistence is always posited as another accident?
- The continued existence of the bearer must then cease
- The extra accident could be identical to the underlying body
- All bodies become necessary beings
- In what subject would that additional accident subsist?
Question 14
What is meant by an accident’s localization following its subject?
- A color or motion is not allotted an independent place separate from its body
- The accident has a location independent of its bearer
- The locus takes its location from the accident
- Divine attributes enter a physical region
Question 15
Why is “It existed yesterday and exists today” not a contradiction?
- Any difference of time makes the object a new self-subsisting essence
- Existence and nonexistence are not predicated at the same time
- Persistence entails lack of a temporal beginning
- Existence and nonexistence always coexist
Question 16
What is the right meaning of divine self-subsistence?
- Being enclosed in a particular body
- Constantly moving
- Not depending on another being or locus for existence
- Its existence consisting of separable independent components
Question 17
How should an attribute’s relation to the qualified be understood here?
- It is not necessarily literal spatial insertion
- It requires a second spatial entity for every attribute
- It removes any intelligible distinction among the attributes
- It requires denying the attributes
Question 18
How does an eternal divine attribute differ from a creature acquiring a quality?
- It must be physical change
- It requires a teacher
- It is not an acquired quality remedying an earlier deficiency
- It lasts for a finite period only
Question 19
What directly follows from bodies changing color?
- Exactly the same change in divine attributes
- Change among created color states
- Every quality being necessary in itself
- That the body is eternal
Question 20
Why separate persistence of bodies from persistence of accidents?
- The expressions are always synonyms
- No body ever persists
- Every accident creates its own body
- A bearer may continue without each individual property remaining unchanged
Question 21
How should fast and slow movement be analyzed?
- They must be two separate substances rather than comparative descriptions
- They are independent substances within each body
- They can be relational descriptions compared with other motions
- They negate motion at that same time
Question 22
Which two implications chiefly motivate the rejection of corporeality?
- Composition and spatial delimitation
- Knowledge and power
- Will and life
- Unity and transcendence
Question 23
What does non-corporeal correctly mean in this discussion?
- Being absolutely nonexistent
- Always being perceptible
- Necessarily being composite
- Physical extension is not a necessary condition of existence
Question 24
What caution is needed with the word jawhar?
- Assuming it always means a material body
- Distinguishing theological and philosophical technical usages
- Treating every usage as a divine name
- Deciding without examining the intended meaning
Question 25
What is the key distinction between a divine name and a descriptive statement?
- A valid description does not automatically establish every synonym as a formal name
- A synonym may be used as a name whenever its lexical sense is sound
- Every true description is anthropomorphism
- Meaning is irrelevant to a name
Question 26
What does tawqīf of divine names mean?
- Requiring every grammatically possible name
- Denying all perfections
- Using reason alone to institute any technically correct synonym
- Requiring warrant from revelation in divine naming
Question 27
Distinguishing knowledge from power necessarily implies two independent necessary beings.
Question 28
The use of physical organs in creaturely perception does not prove God needs those organs.
Question 29
Continued existence and an additional independent accident of persistence are the same thesis.
Question 30
A term having an intelligible technical sense is not by itself sufficient to establish it as a formal divine name.
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