mulla sadra on god’s pre-knowledge: a critique of allameh tabatabayi’s understanding of mulla sadra

according to mulla sadra in his famous work al asfar god’s pre knowledge is a set of epistemic forms which are (1) inseparable from his essence (2) uncreated (3) beyond the universe (4) devoid of real possibility (5) eternal per se and (6) extant by his extance. tabatabayi in nihayat al hilmah believes that the term “inseparable” in (1) does not mean “out of essence”; otherwise (1) would contradict (2) (6). furthermore if the epistemic forms were out of god’s essence then if they were known by presence the theory of ideas would be true and if they were known by acquisition the theory of “depicted forms” would be true while both of them are rejected by mulla sadra. tabatabayi therefore says that these epistemic forms are identical with god’s essence and that pre knowledge in mulla sadra’s view is the same as god’s essential knowledge of the details of creature. in my opinion but this claim and its arguments both are incorrect because the mentioned epistemic forms in mulla sadra’s philosophy are identical with abstract intellects which have all six properties without any contradiction. again mulla sadra in contrary to tabatabayi’s strange claim believes in the existence of ideas as thesauruses of divine pre knowledge.