The examination of Fayyaḍ Lāhīdjī View on the Ontology of the Divine Essential Attributes and its Coherence with his Philosophical Bases

There are four basic theories on the ontology of the essential attributes of God that consist in: oneness of the Essence and the attributes, addition of the attributes to the Essence, negation of the attributes and deputyship of the Essence for the attributes and the theory of Aḥwāl (moods). Fayyaḍ Lāhīdjī, one of the philosopher-theologians of the Isfahan Thought School, talked about the philosophical theory of oneness from one hand, and the theory of deputyship from the other. This article tries to discover Lāhīdjī’s real view on the basis of his thought basis. It seems that according to the bases of emanation, necessity and compatibility (sinkhiyyah) of causality and meaning commonality of being, Lāhīdjī must accept the theory of oneness in ontology and positive theology in semantics, and his usage of word niyābah (deputyship) is because of confusing between the two theories of oneness and deputyship and not recognizing the differences of the two theories and their bases and various effects.