Several arguments have been adduced on demonstrating the individual unity of being. Most of these arguments, which have been presented by such gnostics as Dāvood Qayṣarī, Ḥamzah Fanārī, and Ibn Turkah, suffer from some defects in terms of a confusion of concept and refe
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Several arguments have been adduced on demonstrating the individual unity of being. Most of these arguments, which have been presented by such gnostics as Dāvood Qayṣarī, Ḥamzah Fanārī, and Ibn Turkah, suffer from some defects in terms of a confusion of concept and referent. In his glosses on Tamhīd al-qawā’id (the section on the arguments on the demonstration of the individual unity of existence), Ḥakīm Moḥammad Rezā Ghomsheī has presented an argument which demonstrates the pre-eternal necessity of God. However, three criticisms have been advanced against it. The first concerns the meaning of the absolute nature of being, which has been stated ambiguously. The second criticism questions the confusion of concept and referent. The first part of the third criticism targets the whole argument, based on the presupposition of the realization of the essence of nature, and its second part objects to the consistency of the realization of the essence of the nature of existence with limited existences, as acknowledged in Ghomsheī’s argument. Finally, the fourth focuses on the absence of any kind of innovation in this argument. Following an analytic-comparative method, this paper examines all these criticisms and responds to the first three of them. Accordingly, the authors acknowledge the truth of Ḥakīm Ghomsheī’s argument by presenting a detailed discussion in this paper.
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