The Essential Need to God and Its Relation with Educating the Soul from Mulla Sadra’s Viewpoint

Document Type : Scientific-research

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty Member, Maragheh University, Maragheh, Iran (Responsible Author)

2 Instructor of the Department of Theology, Payam Noor University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

This paper tries to show descriptively and analytically that, in Mulla Sadra’s view, a human being’s understanding of the Essential Need to God and his existential dependence on Him can be effective in educating the soul; because, for Mulla Sadra, the Contingent being subsists in the Necessary Being, the soul subsists in the Intellect, and the Intellect subsists in God. According to Mulla Sadra, Existence is concomitant with Goodness and Eudaimonia. However, the existents differ from each other in perfection and imperfection. Hence, the more perfect an existent, the greater its eudaimonia. Mulla Sadra believes that the existence of everything is pleasant for it, and if it know its Existentiating Cause, its existence will be more pleasant for it, since its existentiating cause is its existential perfection. Therefore, if a human being can see him as existentially dependent on God and understand his Essential Need to God, he will achieve his existential perfection, which is the purpose of educating the soul. Furthermore, by understanding his Existentiating Cause, i.e. God, and his dependence on Him, a human being understands his existence and his existential relation with his Existentiating Cause, and sees him present with his Existentiating Cause (because the Immaterial Effect is always present with its Immaterial Existentiating Cause). This shows that attending to a human being’s Existentiating Cause, i.e. God, and His presence will have educational effects for him.

Keywords

References

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