Allamah Tabatabaee on Divine Attributes of Acts

Abstract

In Allamah Tabatabaee’s works there are found at least three apparently different views about the relation of Divine essence and His attributes of act: 1. the unity of God’s essence and His attributes of act; 2. the ontological distinction between His essence and His attributes of act and 3. the impossibility of attribution of such properties to God’s essence. In this paper we try to establish that these three views are essentially consistent. Our analysis shows that each one of the above-mentioned positions can be considered from a special aspect. The first view is based on considering the mere reality (Haqiqah) of such attributes while in the second view we are just concerned to the appearance (Raqiqah) of them. The third view, however, is a result of a pluralistic analysis of the attributes of act.

Keywords

• divine attributes
• attributes of act
• god’s essence
• allamah tabatabaee