Allameh Tabatabai's Critique of the Reductionist Approach of Alhikmat Almotealiah(Transcendental Theosophy) to the Conceptual Analysis of Divine Will

‘Divine will’ is one of the most complicated philosophical and theological issues. Almost all Muslim philosophers and theologians are unanimous in attributing the property of will to God but their views differ on the ontological and conceptual features of this property. Some of them see divine will as an eternal and essential attribute which is ontologically identical to God, while for others it is a contingent attribute which lies somewhere out of God’s essence. According to Mulla Sadra in Alhekmat Almotealiah (transcendental theosophy), God has will both as an essential and as an accidental property. In analyzing this concept, he, however, adopts a reductionist approach in the sense that his interpretation reduces God’s essential will to the level of other essential properties such as His knowledge of the best possible order of the universe or love. Allamah Tabatabai challenges this reductionist view concluding that we are justified in believing in will as just an accidental and not an essential property. In this paper, the philosophical, theological and semantic grounds of Allamah Tabatabai’s challenge are examined. The conclusion is that his view has created a substantial challenge for the reductionist view.