Critique and Examination of the Viewpoints of Sadr al-Mutallehin and Imam Khomeini in Answering the Confusion of Human Will Regressive Chain

From the viewpoint of those who believe in the confusion of “human will regressive chain”, the criterion to consider an act as volitional is the belonging of free will to that act. This criterion is tabled about the “will” itself. That is, if the will is willed by another will, it would be a regressive chain (tasalsul); and if the cause of the will is out of the human nature, it would lead to determinism. Sadr al-Mutallehin and Imam Khomeini have tried to answer this problem. From the viewpoint of Sadr al-Mutallehin the criterion for an act as being volitional is the belonging of free will to it, not the free will itself as being volitional; but by referring the human will to the divine will, he failed to solve the confusion. Imam Khomeini at first defends the viewpoint of Sadra, but finally tries to answer it with an innovative resolution. By dividing the acts of soul into two kinds of “heart” and “organs” and considering will as the heart act and attributing it to the free nature of the soul, he tries to solve the confusion. This research shows that the answers of Sadra and the philosophers before him are not acceptable, but the Imam Khomeini resolution could be defended.