But the state of these qualities is not clear to us...

But the state of these qualities is not clear to us, because our thought and wisdom are limited and cannot have access to the true essence of the qualities of God. Indeed, no thought, however, high it might soar, can fly over this tall and boundless summit, and we cannot and are not obliged to appreciate the true nature of God and His qualities.

The only thing we are capable of and obliged to do is to believe in the “existence” of God and His qualities by carefully examining the world and the traces of the divine grandeur. But the true nature of God and His qualities has never been known and will never be!

And we should never imagine that because as our religious leaders have observed, “Anything that we might imagine, that is not God but the figment of our imagination, and it will return to ourselves.” God is All-Hearing and All-Seeing “Sami’ and Basir” are equivalents of capable of hearing and seeing. It means that He is aware of the things that could be seen or heard, just as He is aware of the creatures and all of them are present before Him.

Of course, humans see and hear by means of eyes and ears, but when it is said that God is All-hearing and All-seeing it does not mean that he has eyes and ears. But it means that God, the Exalted, is cognizant of all that could be seen or heard and everything is manifest before Him and it is evident that His awareness of all these does not necessitate eyes or ears.

Regarding this, Imam as-Sadiq (‘a) has said, “When it is said that God is All-hearing and All-seeing, it does not mean that He, like us, has eyes and ears but He can see without eyes and hear without ears.”[^4] Now you might ask, why should God be All-hearing and All-seeing?

The answer to this question is very simple, because as we earlier noted God enjoys limitless knowledge and is aware of “everything.” And this knowledge and awareness presuppose cognizance of anything that could be seen or heard. Therefore, to establish these two qualities (All-hearing and All-seeing) we don’t need two distinct set of reasons.

Furthermore, as was noted earlier, the Creator should possess the great qualities and be free from any shortcoming and seeing and hearing, in the sense that was explained are great qualities whose absence would accordingly constitute an imperfection. [^1]: Surah al-Baqara 2: 231. [^2]: Surah al-Baqarah 2: 148. [^3]: Surah Ghafir 40: 65. [^4]: ‘Usul al-Kafi, vol.1, Akhundi, p.109. Previous…