In the majority of his works, Tabatabaie takes the side of cataphaticism about divine attributes. But the theory is presented in his different works in different ways. There are at list 3 ways in which he has presented the theory including (1) verticality of meaning regardless of instances, (2) verticality of meaning with respect to expression of instances, and (3) ungradedness of meaning with respect to the goal and the common function. In this article, we shall try to explain and analyze the three models, and give examples of each one from his works. Notwithstanding that cataphaticism have advantages and transcends the finitude-oriented natural language and makes use of it with regard to God, it suffers from noteworthy shortcomings.

When speaking of God, man uses the words referring to His attributes. To perceive the statements containing Divine attributes well, some analytical study should be performed. Divine names and attributes are to be known as signs for calling Him by His servants, however, with different meanings than their meanings when used in the level of human states and life. When using these names and attributes, man does not intend to qualify God by them but to keep Him pure from them. Since, all names and attributes have been created by God and differ from His Essence. He, therefore, has introduced His names and attributes in many verses of the holy Quran to make us aware of Him to the degrees possible.

In this paper the question of the semantics of God's attributes is examined from the viewpoint of Mulla Sadra. The great Muslim phisosopher relying on ontology and its relevant principles deals with the God's attributes. Invoking principles of homonymy (Eshterake maanavi) and the gradation of being (tashkik wujud) equivocation of the existence, he shows the ideas of anthropomorphism and absolute purity are wrong and explains that existence is applied to the creator and creature in a gradation manner. He also interprets the attributes of beauty in the light of the nature of the existence and the identity of its qualities with its essence and they are like the existence, common and equivocal and understandable by human reason.

One of the major issues in the names and attributes of God, is the semantic interpretation of how to interpret and apply the concepts and predicates that talk about God. A historical survey proves that Imamitheologians’ theological views are derived from the Qur' an and hadith. The Quran ascribed some attributes to God that prompted scholars to discuss and analyze the applicability of these concepts to God; accordingly, different views emerged Including Allameh Hilli’s apophaticism which is similar to the apophatic–cataphatic way of Thomas Aquinas. We' ll explain how three meanings of the apophatic-cataphatic. Erigena stated one of the meanings and Thomas Aquinas and Allameh Hilli stated another one which seems similar to each other. While Hilli’s negates the anti-attributes, Thomas negates the attributes which are specified to creatures. Then we explain the meaning of the attributes regarding creatures and God, and then, will discuss the “gradation theory” of Allame Hilli and “Analogy theory” of Thomas Aquinas.

Understanding the divine attributes and clarifying their meaning accurately has always been one of the challenges of Islamic thinkers. Through distinguishing between concept and instance, Mulla Sadra tried to devise a method through which he could foreground the cognitivity of divine attributes without making them equal to creatures’ attributes. From Mulla Sadra’s point of view, God’s attributes like knowledge, power, eternal-living and agency are similar to existence as a universal fact which applies to all beings. In some passages, Mulla Sadra denies the conceptual synonymy of the divine attributes, and in some others, he accepts it. This difference can be attributed to the oneness and unity of God, the Almighty. According to Mulla Sadra in relation to God’s predicative attributes, one should pay attention to the essence of meaning. This method, which is the method of science advocates, does not lead to meaning interpretation of the verses of the Qur'an and does not contradict the form of the verses. It, in fact, complements the literal meaning.

Since early centuries AH in the Islamic world, various interpretations were proposed for certain Quranic verses and the Prophet’s hadiths—attributes in these texts were later dubbed as “transmitted attributes” (al-ṣifāt al-khabariyya): attributes ascribed to God in religious texts, although it rationally seems impossible to ascribe them to Him in their literal meanings. Various accounts have been proposed of how they should be ascribed to God: anthropomorphism, interpretivism, and relegationism. In their analysis of such attributes, Salafis have adopted relegationism: ascription of the attributes to God, without interpreting them away. They do ascribe transmitted attributes to God in their literal meanings, although they acknowledge their failure to understand their quality. The Salafi semantics of transmitted attributes implies divesting God of His attributes, the denial of linguistic miracles of the Qur’an, and the impossibility of self-knowledge. This paper adopts an analytic-critical approach to consider the Salafi semantics of transmitted attributes. Their account contradicts the connotations and even apparent denotations of verses in which people are commanded to reflect and reason. Furthermore, the denial of the linguistic miracle of the Qur’an is not compatible with its eloquence.

When studying Divine attributes and names, Salafiyya knows rational method of no validity and, therefore, bases religious studies on narration. In narrative method also it centers on the formal meaning of Quran and tradition. It, therefore fails to present a clear description of Divine attributes, in particular of those attributing corporeality to God. In this way, it has proved some attribute additional to Divine essence. As is obvious, this idea opposes the unity of Divine attributes, and thereof opposes the uniqueness of God. In this paper, Salafiyya`s view in the field has been studied critically.

This article does not attempt to answer all questions against the semantics of the attributes of God, Even not going to answer that, ”what is the meaning of Omniscient/ Omnipotent/Perfectly Good? ”Rather, we want to provide with a way which shows how the properties mentioned above can be defined or judged. We assert that for the semantics of the properties of God, one has to consider the theists’ Understanding of God. On the traditional understanding of monotheistic religions, especially Islam, we can define God as the Absolute Being. The conceptual analysis of this notion leads us to the notion of God as extremely Perfect Being. By this notion, we will try to analyze properties of God. According to this notion, when a theist claims that God is Omniscient, Omnipotent and Perfectly Good, he means that God has knowledge, power and goodness in their most perfect sense. This implies that He is a Perfect Being, and His perfection can be explained only when He has this properties necessarily or simply and Immutably. To reach these results, first we will provide with an explanation of the properties ”Omniscient”, “Omnipotent” and” Perfectly Good”.According to this explanation, the main focus must be on the concept of ' absolute'. As a result, we need to know how this concept should be applied. Then, concentrating on the concept of God as the absolute and its interpretation as extremely perfect being will provide us with an analysis of this concept based on which a methodology of semantic analysis of the aforementioned properties will be determined.

Religious language is one of the most important and attractive issues in the philosophy of religion. This subject is very significant to pious people, since it concerns the meanings and semantics of the God’s attributes; and the statements about God are rational, provided that they are meaningful. In general, there are two fundamental questions in this field:A) Are the statements about God meaningful or not? B) In case of being meaningful, is it possible for human being to perceive them or not? This article is focusing on the Qazi Abd-al-jabbar Mu’tazili’s and William P. Alston’s responses to the questions mentioned above. Although they belong to two different schools of thought and era, on the semantics of the attributes of perfection such as knowledge, power, etc. and the attributes of act e.g. perceiving, making and so on, they have the same view which can be called “functionalism”.