An Analytic Comparison between Mulla Sadra and Allameh Tabatabai on the Problem of Divine Decree

Divine decree, one of the levels of God's knowledge, is examined in this article. Most of the philosophers identify the Divine decree with the knowledge of immaterial intellects to contingent beings and hence the Divine decree is out of the Divine Essence. But it seems that Mulla Sadra has identified the Divine decree with God's essential knowledge. After criticizing these views, Tabatabai comes to this conclusion that there are two kinds of Divine decree: essential and actual; one of them is identical with essential knowledge and the other with actual knowledge. After examining the idea of Tabatabai, we will show that the idea of Mulla Sadra in this regard is the same as other philosophers. Then we criticize and reject the idea of Tabatabai's and offer our chosen view about the Divine decree.