Ma`rifat Kalami

The doctrine of “negation of attributes” (nafy al-ṣifāt) is one of the controversial discussions in attributive monotheism (tawḥīd ṣifātī), which emphasizes the negation of any external realization of attributes in the divine essence. In addition to its ontological dimension, it also has epistemological and semantic aspects. Although this doctrine has been accepted by many theologians and some early philosophers, today (due to the predominance of the philosophical theory of identity or ‘aynīyah) it is presented as an aberrant, rejected theory lacking rational support. However, the narrations of the Ahl al-Bayt (upon them be peace), while explicitly affirming the doctrine, provide the basis for various rational arguments for it by stating the impossible consequences of God having attributes, including the argument from the “necessity of limitation” (luzūm al-taḥaddud). Despite its special place in the narrations, this argument has rarely been treated systematically and independently. The main problem of this research is to explain and rationally analyze this entailment, drawing inspiration from the narrations. In this regard, using an analytical-rational method, four epistemological bases are examined and explained: “the inherent limitation of concepts,” “concepts as entailing limit,” “the impossibility of abstracting multiple concepts from an unlimited essence,” and “the impossibility of concepts conveying the unlimited reality.” The research findings show that based on these foundations, the entailment of attribute with the limitation of the divine essence can be rationally explained, thereby clarifying one of the arguments for the doctrine of the negation of attributes.