مراتب علم حق تعالي از نظر صدرالمتالهين

Stages of Almightyʹs Knowledge in Mulla Sadra

Godʹs knowledge, in the sense of the Divine essential knowledge, is simply a kind of knowledge and cannot be of different types or stages, since plurality has no way into Necessary Being, and since other than Him has no independent existence of itself. However, considering the fact that the Almighty has numerous manifestations in the outside, one can, in the light of the plurality of the known and at the station of multiplicity, consider certain stages for His Knowledge. Such stages are manifested in Mulla Sadraʹs view and his various books in the forms of free will, knowledge of decree, and knowledge of destiny. As one of the stages of the knowledge of the Almighty, he refers to The Tablet and The Pen and, of course, sometimes calls it the place of decree and ordinance as well. In dividing the stages of the Necessary Beingʹs knowledge, Mulla Sadra has presented maximal and minimal views. So we can see that he has sometimes divided it into five stages and sometimes even into two stages, namely neessary knowledge and contingent knowledge.