Mulla Sadra's Ontological Critic to the Absurdity of Life (Nihilism)

Meaningfulness of life is one of the main topics in contemporary philosophies. Although early philosophers did not address it by this title in their works, they discussed similar concepts. Through a review of the perspective of Mulla Sadra, also known as Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī, we can conclude that he is among those philosophers who argued for supernaturalism when discussing the concept of life meaningfulness and argued against absurdity and meaninglessness of life in their works. From the perspective of ontology, the belief in origin and resurrection and the existing persuasive and reasonable arguments in the two mentioned areas are indicative of the meaningfulness of human life. The question of the existence of God, monotheism, and then resurrection is considered as the main basis of ontology. Adopting a descriptive and analytical approach, the present study focused on Sadra's perspective on the meaningfulness of life in the light of belief in origin and resurrection. The study also included analyzing, reviewing, and even retrieving his arguments against absurdity and meaninglessness of life. The main finding is that Sadra believes that absurdity is nothing but a mental illusion that the Creation is causeless. The main components of absurdity are denial of God, resurrection, life, and human’s existential dimensions, whereas life meaningfulness includes the belief in God, resurrection, death, and human dignity.