ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Philosophical Instructions Lesson Thirty-Three: The Causal Relation The Reality of the Causal Relation When it is said that “the cause provides the effect with existence,” the mind associates this with someone who gives something to another who receives it. In this process there are three essences and two actions ( fi‘l ).

In other words five existents are assumed: one is the essence of the cause which is the provider of existence, another essence is the effect which is the receiver of the existence, the third is that very existence which is obtained by the effect from the cause, the fourth is the action of giving which is related to the cause, and the fifth is the action of receiving which is ascribed to the effect.

In truth, in the external world there is nothing but the entity of the cause and the entity of the effect. Moreover, to be precise, it cannot be said that the cause provides existence for the whatness, for whatnesses are respectival ( i‘tibārī ) and prior to the occurrence of the effect, its whatness does not have existence even in a figurative or accidental sense.

Likewise the concepts of giving and receiving are nothing more than mental images, and if giving existence, or creating, were a real entified thing, then it would be yet another effect and it would depend on another causal relation between the action and its agent, and another giving [of existence] would be established, and so on infinitely.

Also, in the case of an effect which has not yet occurred, there is no receiver to receive anything, and after its occurrence, its receiving of existence from a cause would also be meaningless. Hence, in the case of the creation of an effect, there is no real entified existence other than the existence of the cause and the existence of the effect. Now, the following question may be posed. What form does the causal relation take between the existence of the cause and the existence of the effect?

After the occurrence of the effect, or simultaneous with it, is there something else by the name of the cause-effect relation? Or does such a thing exist prior to its occurrence? Or is it fundamentally a mere mental concept which never has an instance in the external world? Someone who imagines that the reality of causation consists in the succession or simultaneity of two phenomena will consider causality to be a mental concept.