The Theory of "Conceptual Synonymy" of the Divine Attributes and Its Negligence

The Avicennian idea about the conceptual synonymy of the divine characteristics of the omnipotent God is considered as the rarest viewpoint having something to do with the characteristics attributed to the One God. Naturally, such an incident has been caused both by some epistemic and non-epistemic factors. The present study compiles and elaborates these factors. There are several causes which have resulted in abandonment of Avicennian theory of divine attributes including (1) he absence of deductive reasoning in favor of such a claim in Avicennian popular works, (2) the absence of the theory from Avicenna’s major work, al-Isharat wa al-Tanbihat, (3) negligence of Avicenna’s commentators with respect to the theory, (4) scarcity of reports by the critics of the idea of “synonymy”, (5) theological perceptions of the Avicennian discourse and (6) reducing his theory to an referential unification of the divine characteristics. But, the highly accentuated criticisms by Mulla Sadra of the idea of “synonymy” brought about an appropriate grounding for the late-comers’ awareness of the theory, free from having a clear recognition of the person who proposed it. In between, Ahmad al-Ahsa’ie welcomed the idea of “synonymy” and endeavored to come up with a more precise elucidation of the aforementioned idea as well as the refutation of the criticisms put forth by Mulla Sadra. Also, al-Ahsa’ie made considerable efforts in line with adjusting the idea of “synonymy” with the Shiite teachings, but in virtue of his being refuted by the mainstream Shiite thinkers, the theory made ignored after a short time.