A Reanalysis of Mirdamad's Theory of Coming into Being through Perpetual Duration or Eternal Creation

The theory of coming into being through perpetual duration (eternal creation) was provided by Mirdamad about the issue of temporality and eternity of the universe. He believed that the attribute of "eternality" is specific to eternal existence of the most High God, and the existence of every creature (whether immaterial or material) is precedented by non-existence through perpetual duration and qualified by coming into being through perpetual duration. Subsequent philosophers like Mulla Hadi Sabzevari understood and interpreted coming into being through perpetual duration on the basis of causal relationship between degrees of being, in which the non-caused precedes the existence of the caused in the level of existence of cause, and admitted that attributing such a coming into being to the caused does not contradict with eternity of the non-caused. On the other hand, some statements made by Mirdamad to explain and clarify his theory indicate that such interpretations do not refer to what he meant by coming into being through perpetual duration; rather, he meant actual preceding non-existence which precedes the existence of the universe without being qualified by any real or imaginary quantity and causes separable posteriority for the existence of every creature from the existence of creator, not temporal preceding non-existence because non-existence through perpetual duration contradicts with the existence of consequent and is generally removed and negated by generating the existence from generator. The present paper rereads and reanalyzes the theory of coming into being through perpetual duration in order to elucidate it and prove the contradiction between Mulla Hadi Sabzevari's interpretation of coming into being through perpetual duration and what Mirdamad really meant by it.