Mullā Ṣadrā on the Effective Prayer and God’s Mutability and Passibility

This article tries to bring Mullā Ṣadrā into a current debate in the philosophy of religion regarding effective petitionary prayer. Here the question relates to the efficacy of petitionary prayer and the two divine attributes of immutability and impassibility. On the one hand, according to some religious texts and also the common sense of supplicants, one is inclined to think that petitionary prayer is efficient in the sense that it can influence God’s will and action, and on the other hand, traditional theism insists that God is Immutable and Impassible, neither changing nor influenced by His creature. Drawing on Mullā Ṣadrā’s ideas and works against the background of his transcendent metaphysical framework, we try to present a new model of answering prayers named the “answering-by- disclosure” model (ADM). In ADM, one can truly ascribe mutability and passibility to God without damaging His transcendence and glory. By accepting the transcendent mutability and possibility of God, we can think of His mutual interaction with the world, openly and transcendently hearing and answering the prayers of His servants. The prayer is a key to disclosing what is hidden on both sides: the poverty and neediness of petitioners and the perfections (mercy, power, etc.) of the petitioned.