The Ontology of Divine Attributes from the Viewpoint of Qazi Sa'id Qomi and Musa bin Meimoon

In their two important works, namely, Sharh-e- Tawhid-e Saduq and DilÁlat al- HÁ’erin, Qazi Sa'id Qomi, a Shiite scholar, and Musa bin Meimoon , a Jewish scholar, emphasize on the enormous difference between the creator and the creature; thus, they regard the Divine Essence devoid of any attribute, and reject the existence of any kind of positive attribute for the Divine Essence. According to them, believing in any attribute for the Divine Essence, whether it is the very essence, or something additive to the essence, leads to what the early philosophers call a kind of anthropomorphism, composition in essence and multiplicity, and may result in heresy and polytheism. The views of both scholars on the ontology of attributes can be considered identical with the theory of deputation and exclusion of the essence from attributes, although there are slight differences between them in arguing for this claim. According to Qazi Sa'id, this theory is required to be taken valid on
the basis of Ahl al-Bayt's guidelines in the knowledge of divine essence, and is also established by rational arguments. From his point of view, having observing the human capacity to understand the issue in question the prophets and infallible Imams have stated some attributes for Allah Almighty in religious texts; and indeed God is devoid of any attribute. It should be noted that the basis for the negation of attributes in the divine essence has caused both thinkers to interpret the attributes introduced in religious texts in a negative way, interpret the positive attributes in the light of negative attributes, and choose the negative divine approach in the semantics of attributes.