The Relation between the Essence and the Attributes of God on the View of Ahl al-Bayt’s Traditions and Imamiyya’s Theology until the Fifth Century

The issue of God’s attributes and the quality of description of God’s Essence to the attributes are the most fundamental theological issues. In this paper, ontology of Divine attributes in the first period (until the end of the fifth century) in the Shiite thought, have been investigated according to two landmark of formation  of Shiite theologians in the late first century and interactions of Mu’tazili and Shiite theology from the fourth century. Although first theory of Objectivity is attributed to Mutazilis, but accepted view of most of them, is the theory of Representation. In the issue of the relationship between nature and attributes although there is evidence in favor of the theory of rejecting attributes and objectivity in traditions, but according to the researches, it became clear that the correct approach is the theory of rejecting attributes. Such a view, in addition to compatibility with some traditions, is consistent with rational rules derived from the traditions. It was so important that in some narrations, perfection of Sincerity, and perfection of Oneness, is known as the absolute negation of the essence. And constructions like “the Knower of Essence”, “the Knowledge of Essence”, “the Destiny of Essence”, “the Living of Essence”, “the Light of Essence” and “the Essence of ever knowing of Hearer and Insightful” that in the first place had indication on objectivity of attributes with essence, was only to renounce the idea of a group (Ahlul Hadits) that somehow believed the particles and instrument for God and considered God to have “hearing” and “seeing”. According to historical evidence, the theologians of School of Kufa and Qom rejected attributes from God in terms of ontological and considered God through only negative literature from the perspective of semantics. Whenever talking about attribute they meant the attribute of action. The theologians of School of Kufa had different explanations for proving this theory. All the Imamiyya theologians in School of Baghdad rejected redundant attributes on Essence and were along with theologians of School of Kufa about this issue. Theologians of School of Baghdad consider attributes by Mu’tazila viewpoint; therefore they turned to the theory of Representation and Conditions. Although Shaykh Mofid opposed Abu Hashem’s theory of Conditions but sayyid Mortiza accepted the theory of Conditions along with the Mutazilis following Abu Hashem like Abd al-Jabbar. sayyid Mortiza didn’t consider the theory of Conditions in serious contradiction to  the theory of Representation and considers it as a completion to the traditional view Mu’tazilism. Other Theologians of School of Baghdad like Shaykh Tusi and Karajaki had a position on this issue with skepticism.