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One of the most important consequences of the Trans-substantial motion in Mulla Sadra's philosophy is the demonstration of the temporal creation of the material world. According to this principle, all existents in the world of nature are essentially transformable, and changeable, and all their parts are continually in the process of creation and extinction. So the whole world, which is the sum total of its parts in a sense, with all that exists in it, is created in time and has a temporal contingent entity. That is to say there is no ipseity amongst the personal ipseities except that its non-existence temporally precedes its existence. On the whole, there is no body and material body, be it celestial or elemental, or be it spiritual or physical, except that it is renewal entity renovates and its existence and individuation remains constant.This principle should actually be deemed as one of the distinctive and prominent characteristics of Mulla Sadra's theorization. It is the key for the solution of many problems, including that of the creation of the world debated for eight centuries before him by the Islamic philosophers and theologians. Mulla Sadra disagrees with theologians who believe the world to have been brought into being in time from utter nothingness. He also rejects the view of al-Farabi and Ibn Sina who only admits the essential origination of the universe and not its temporal origination and the view of Mir Damad about the theory of meta-temporal origination. Mir Damad came up with this idea of (al-huduth al-dahri), which means origination of the world not in time (zaman) nor in eternity (sarmad), but in (dahr) or aeon, and he became celebrated for the exposition of this doctrine. Mulla Sadra rejected this dichotomy of views altogether by pointing to the doctrine of trans-substantial motion

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-6160-8_3

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