One should remember that just because the benefit fulfills a...

One should remember that just because the benefit fulfills a task it does not mean that that benefit is the ultimate cause (‘illah ghāi’yyah) for God the Supreme. Rather it is counted as a type of branch or adherent for the purpose. The fundamental final cause for the accomplishment of a job is love towards the essential infinite perfection, which is also subordinately related to the perfections of the creation.

Hence it is from here that it has been said: that the final cause for Divine actions is that very active cause (‘illah fā’iliyyah) and God the Supreme does not have any other extra purpose other than essence. However this subject does not contradict the understanding that the perfection, goodness and benefit of existents are counted as a secondary goal.

For this very reason the divine actions in the Noble Qur’an are considered as the causation of affairs, which returns them all towards perfection and goodness for creation. b. Speech One of the concepts associated with God the Supreme, is the concept of speech.

Discussions with regards to the speech of the Divine existed in the past among the scholars of philosophy and theology and it has even been said that this was the very reason why they named theology as the knowledge of speech (ilm al-kalām). The companions of this knowledge used to debate about whether Divine speech is an attribute of essence as the Asharites (ashā’irah) believed or whether it is related to the attributes of action as believed by the Mutazilites (mu’tazilah).

One of the strongest conflicts between these two schools of thought, was whether the Qur’an, which is the speech of God is created or uncreated. This sometimes led to the two groups damming each other upon this issue. By focusing on the definition given for the attributes of essence and for the attributes of action it becomes clear that speaking is an attribute of action.

In order to abstract this concept, one has to consider a person who is addressed (mukhātab) and who understands the purpose of the speaker through the means of listening to the sound, reading a text, or by understanding a concept in one’s mind. In reality this concept is abstracted from the relationship that exists between God and the addressed, whereby God intends to unveil the truth to the addressed, who realises the truth.

To the contrary, if speaking is taken as the ability or power for speech, then it will become an attribute of essence.