Ma`rifat Falsafi

The present article investigates about different rational approaches to God’s relationship with the universe. The agentive-causal relationship is among the most common relations delineated by philosophers. Besides, maximal and minimal approaches to God’s relationship with the universe are also assessable. In the present article, through scrutinizing some of the rationalist scholars of the ancient Greece and the Middle Ages, as well as the mechanical view of the universe and the views of Muslim philosophers, the maximal emphasis on God’s agentive-causal relationship with the universe has been delineated. Then in a second step, we have assessed and investigated the capacity and success of the explanation presented; and finally, we have passed through exclusivism about God’s relationship with the universe, criticizing it to achieve a comprehensive and far-reaching analysis of relationship with elements such as efficiency. In this model, the relationship is not merely agentive-causal; rather, it includes other relations such as governing, subsisting, all-sustaining, witnessing, and knowing relationships.