And through those mental quiddities...

And through those mental quiddities, they also become knowledgeable of the actual existence of the things.[^3] And since God is immune from corporeality in terms of both Essence and Action, acquired knowledge has no place in him. God’s knowledge of His Essence or His Actions is an intuitive knowledge. 2.4.

Ṣadr al-Muta’allihīn’s View God’s prior knowledge of the creatures is an intuitive knowledge and as to whether it is general or detailed, it is general as well as detailed, because in Essence, God is straightforwardly entitled to the existential perfections of all the creatures. Since existence is a single reality and has different levels, the highest level of existence is no other than God’s Being.

It is evident that every perfect [being] has deficient existential levels in addition to a level of perfection which has no deficiency. Due to the fact, therefore, that God is not devoid of any of the levels of existential perfection, He automatically and solely possesses all the existential perfections which diversely and pluralistically exist in the creatures.

From this perspective, therefore, God’s Essential knowledge of the creatures is a general ( ijmālī ) knowledge ( ijmāl in the sense of simplicity and oneness in contrast to tafṣīl in the sense of multiplicity and plurality). Meanwhile, after the coming into existence of the things, nothing shall be added to the knowledge of God, because no change takes place in the Divine Essence. From this perspective, God’s eternal knowledge of the creatures is general as well as detailed.

If we assume that a person is knowledgeable of all the issues within a field of science in the sense that he has mastery of that field in that he has prior knowledge and answer to any question within that field and that the answers he gives do not add anything to his knowledge, in this case the existence of multiplicity with respect to the answers he gives does not cause any change in his knowledge. He has knowledge of all the issues before and after giving his answers.

That which changes is the existence of answers which have general existence (simple and identical) in the essence of the knower, while having detailed existence (multiple and diverse) in his action. Yet, no change has found its way in the essence of the knower and his knowledge. Once it occurs that such an assumption is possible in the case of the human being, why is it not acceptable with respect to God who is the Necessary Being in essence?