Death as an Ontological Affair and Good in Mullā Ṣadrā’s Philosophy
Subject Areas : Studies on Mulla Sadra and the Transcendent Philosophy
Seyyed Mostafa Shahraieni
1
,
Nahid Najafpoor
2
1 - Professor at the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran
2 - PhD candidate of Kalam, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
Keywords: Death, voluntary death, natural death, untimely death, noblest order, good, divine wisdom,
Abstract :
Death as one of the most important problems of human beings has always attracted the attention of thinkers. Mullā Ṣadrā has dealt with this problem in most of his works. He divides death into two voluntary and involuntary types. The experience of voluntary death is possible for some divine saints who attain a station whereby, through the purification of the soul, they develop the ability to part from their bodies and travel to the higher worlds. The second type is the same natural death. Mull Sadra views death as an ontological affair, and since being good is essential to each and every ontological affair, he maintains that any kind of death, whether natural or untimely, is a natural and good event. Given the fact that untimely or sudden death occurs because of disease or accidents and apparently seems bad, how could one explain the goodness of death in its general sense? Another question is: What is the role of purgatorial development in this process? This paper is intended to respond to these questions based on Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophical thoughts.