The Divisions of Existence: The Material and the Immaterial

Entrance: The Nature of Existence

After the rational proof settled and led us, by logical necessity, to affirm the first cause and the existence of the Creator, philosophical inquiry requires moving to a complementary essential question: what is this existence that God brought into being, or that the first cause poured forth? Is it only this cosmos we know, with its bodies, planets, galaxies, and atoms? That is: is all existence confined to this tangible, physical material world subject to the laboratory and the senses?

Determining a precise answer to this question is the cornerstone for understanding the nature of realization; for either everything the Creator brought into being is confined to the horizon of matter, or existence has other dimensions and hidden depths that transcend the limits of sensory observation. And so that the inquiry may proceed along a coherent ascending line, the demonstrative method requires that we begin first by examining the rational proofs and conscientious observations that dismantle for us the structure of this existence and its essential divisions.

1. The Rational Proofs for the Division of Existence into Material and Immaterial

The philosophers did not arrive at the existence of the world of abstraction by intuition or conjecture, but through the law of logical contrast and opposition; they found that confining existence to matter casts the mind into logical contradictions that cannot be solved. Here are the rational proofs and conscientious observations that establish this division.

1. The Proof of Universal Concepts and Mathematical Laws

If everything in existence were material, then every existent would have to be subject to dimensions, weight, and change. But when we examine the mathematical and geometric laws, we find that they are absolute, true realities upon which the sciences and technology are built.

If we were to search the entire material cosmos, we would not find “a straight line with no width” that has a tangible physical existence. These are real, fixed existents, but the abode of their existence is the horizon abstracted from matter and its accidents. The same holds for the universal moral concepts such as justice and truth; justice is not a body we see in the laboratory, and yet it is an actual reality we perceive and distinguish from injustice, and the absence of materiality from it does not negate its existence but proves its abstraction. Plato (c. 427–347 BCE) represented this tendency clearly in his discussion of universals and Forms.

2. The Proof of Matter and Universal Form

Aristotle (384–322 BCE) did not demonstrate immaterial existence by complete separation from the world of matter, but through dissecting the material thing itself by way of the theory of “matter and form” (Hylomorphism).

If you look at a wooden chair, it is composed of a matter, which is the wood, and a form, which is the geometric shape of the chair. The wood, as matter, can change, transforming into a table or burning and becoming ash. But the universal form of the chair or the table in the intellect is a fixed, abstract reality that does not burn and does not perish. And were it not for the existence of the fixed abstract form in the intellect, matter would remain vague and undetermined. So every being in the cosmos is composed of a changing matter and a fixed abstract form that gives the thing its identity and its kind.

3. The Proof of the Simplicity of the Perceiving Self

This proof, which in modern philosophy is associated with René Descartes (1596–1650 CE), rests on a logical rule that says: the attributes of what inheres indicate the attributes of that in which it inheres. In the material world, every container that divides, what is in it divides automatically. Matter is extended in space and admits division and fragmentation.

By contrast, when you perceive a universal rational reality, this idea is a simple, unitary reality that is impossible to divide; you cannot logically say: I put half of this piece of information in the right side of my brain and the other half in the left side. And since the idea and consciousness are simple and immaterial and do not admit division, the locus that receives them — namely the soul or spirit — must, by logical necessity, be simple and immaterial like them; because nothing inheres in the material except what divides by its division.

4. The Proof of the Mill and the Impossibility of the Materiality of Thought

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716 CE) formulated this proof to refute the idea that claims matter can produce consciousness or thought through its mechanical composition.

Leibniz asks us to imagine the human brain enlarged geometrically until it becomes the size of a huge mill that we can enter and walk about inside. If we walked inside this enlarged brain, all we would see is the movement of gears, particles colliding with one another, and electrical currents moving from place to place. However much we searched inside this material mechanism, we would find nothing called an idea, a feeling, or a perception; we would find only material movement. And since material movement produces only material movement like itself, while consciousness and perception actually exist, they do not belong to the material machine, but are an immaterial, simple existence entirely different from matter.

5. The Proof of Moral Freedom and the Determinism of Matter

This proof, in Immanuel Kant (1724–1804 CE) and those who follow his path, sets out from human conduct and will to prove the existence of a world that transcends matter.

Everything in the material world is subject to physical determinism based on cause and effect; the rock falls under gravity, compelled, and the water boils under heat, compelled. If the human being were pure matter, then all his thoughts and behaviors would be compelled and subject to the physical-chemical determinism of the brain. But the human being possesses free will and feels moral responsibility; he chooses between honesty and lying, and between justice and injustice. And since freedom and morality are conscientious realities that cannot be denied, and are impossible to occur in the deterministic world of matter, reason judges that the human being has a dimension belonging to what is beyond matter — an immaterial existence not governed by the physical laws of matter.

6. The Proof of the Impossibility of the Large Being Imprinted in the Small

In the material world, for the image of a large thing to be imprinted within a small thing, the image must be physically shrunk or divided, as a huge mountain is imprinted on a small camera chip. But when you close your eyes and imagine the vast cosmos with its immense galaxies, this enormous image is present in your awareness with its gigantic dimensions; you do not see it shrunk like a postage stamp, but see it in its grandeur.

And since the material brain, as a physical organ, does not exceed a few centimeters in size, it is logically impossible for the large to be contained in the small materially. This presence of large things with their dimensions inside your awareness proves that the perceiving faculty is not a narrow physical place, but an immaterial existential horizon not subject to the laws of area and material size.

7. The Proof of Psychic Qualities Versus Material Quantities

Every material phenomenon can be measured quantitatively and expressed in the language of numbers and measures. By contrast, we find that human states and consciousness — such as the feeling of pain, aesthetic taste, free will, and intention — are conscientious qualities (Qualia) and not quantities.

If we brought the most advanced devices to monitor the brain of a person in pain, the device would register only chemical movements and nerve signals, but it would not register the conscientious charge itself; for we cannot say that this person feels five kilograms of pain. This essential contrast proves that the nerve signals are a tool, while the true feeler is an immaterial existence belonging to the world of quality, not to the world of matter and quantity.

2. Defining the Material and the Immaterial and How the Philosophers Framed Them

After the proofs of the division settled, the definitions and essential properties of each division were distinguished in philosophical thought.

1. Material Existence: Its Definition and Properties

Matter is every existent that occupies a portion of space, has mass, and is an object of sensory perception and physical measurement. It is distinguished by three structural properties:

Extension and Dimensions: everything material divides in space and has dimensions — length, width, and depth — which inevitably makes it divisible and partible.
Motion and Continuous Change: matter does not remain in a single state, but is in perpetual becoming and continuous transformation from one form to another, such as growth and decomposition.
Corruption and Dissolution: because of its susceptibility to division and its being affected by time, material compounds inevitably tend toward disintegration and dissolution, and the absence of a lasting compositional identity.

2. Immaterial Existence: Its Definition and Properties

The immaterial (Immaterial / Abstract) is the actual, true existence that is abstracted from matter and its accidents; it does not occupy a spatial location and is not subject to physical measurements, yet it is fixed and realized. It is distinguished by properties opposite to matter:

Simplicity and Indivisibility: the immaterial existent has no dimensions and is not extended in space, and therefore it is impossible to divide or partition it; it is a single, simple unity.
Immutability: the immaterial is outside the frame of physical time and place, so bodily motion does not run upon it and it does not change in itself; rather it preserves its reality and its essence without becoming.

3. How Did the Philosophers Define It?

Pythagoras (c. 570–495 BCE) and the Pythagoreans defined abstraction through their contemplation of numbers; counted material things perish and change, while number and mathematical laws in themselves are absolute, fixed realities that do not perish and are not touched by the hand, so they concluded that the true essence of the cosmos is a world of abstract mathematical realities.

Parmenides (c. 515–450 BCE) logically distinguished between the material world of the senses, which he saw as the world of becoming and change, and the world of the intellect, where true existence is fixed, one, unchanging, and indivisible.

As for Plato (Plato), he formulated his famous proof based on universal essences through the Theory of Forms, and affirmed decisively that the fixed universal concepts in our minds cannot arise from a changing, perishing material world, but exist in an independent, simple, luminous world — the world of Forms — and that the world of matter is nothing but distorted shadows of them.

Aristotle (Aristotle) proved abstraction from within things themselves through the theory of matter and form; beings are composed of a prime matter susceptible to change, and a universal Form that is an abstract, fixed rational reality giving matter its reality and its kind.

René Descartes (René Descartes) founded a sharp dualism (Cartesian Dualism) in which he proved that the essential feature of everything material is extension, whereas the essential feature of the soul is thinking and consciousness. And since they are two contradictory attributes, the thinking self is, in its essential existence, self-sufficient of matter.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz) offered the proof of the mill, and proved that consciousness belongs to a simple, undivided substance abstracted from matter and its physical accidents, and he called them “Monads,” that is, the abstract single substances.

As for Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677 CE), he proved that existence manifests to us through two distinct attributes: the attribute of extension, which is physical matter, and the attribute of thinking, which is consciousness and the abstract intellect — meaning that the intellectual act is not a form of material extension.

Immanuel Kant (Immanuel Kant) distinguished between the material world of phenomena (Phenomena), subject to the senses and the deterministic laws of physics, and the abstract world of the thing-in-itself (Noumena), in which the soul and moral freedom are realized, demonstrating that if the human being were pure matter subject to physical determinism, he would not possess free will.

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (544–606 AH / 1150–1210 CE) framed rational proofs for the soul’s self-sufficiency of location and place, among them the proof of being oblivious to the body; he clarifies that a person may be absorbed in deep rational thought that makes him entirely oblivious to his limbs and body, and yet his awareness of himself and his sense of his existence remain at the peak of alertness, which proves that the aware self is other than the material body.

Edmund Husserl (1859–1938 CE) restored esteem to abstraction through the principle of intentionality in consciousness; consciousness is distinguished by transcending the material brain to connect with matters outside time and place, such as thinking about the concept of absolute justice. And if consciousness were a mere chemical interaction confined within the skull, it would not be able to go out and transcend its physical limits.

3. Other Material Beings in the Balance of Abstraction

The philosophers did not confine their abstractive view to the Creator and the human being alone, but subjected the inanimate material beings — such as atoms, planets, and galaxies — and the living existents such as plants, to a clarification of their reality: are they mere solid matter, or do they have a share of the horizon of abstraction? Their views varied according to the great schools.

1. The Structural Analysis in the Peripatetic School

Aristotle and his school, and with them Ibn Sina (370–428 AH / 980–1037 CE) in the extension of Islamic Peripatetic philosophy, hold that every witnessed material being in the cosmos cannot be realized externally except through the substantial composition of matter and form.

Prime matter (hyle) is the purely physical side in the planet or the inanimate thing, a blind matter devoid of any features or shape and susceptible to perpetual change. The universal Form, by contrast, is the abstract, fixed side; the planet is not a heap of random particles, but an abstract planetary form was cast into its matter that grants it the astronomical laws, the order, and the fixed identity. Likewise the plant is governed by an abstract vegetal form that manages its functions of growth and nutrition.

The result is that the planets and inanimate things are material beings in their bodies and their astronomical structures, but are governed and constituted by abstract forms and laws. And were it not for this abstract origin, matter would not be differentiated nor ordered by fixed physical laws.

2. The Platonic School and the Theory of Forms

Plato (Plato) went in a more radical direction; he held that the planets, stars, inanimate things, and animals we see with our eyes do not possess an original reality in this physical world.

Every astronomical body or inanimate being that the senses fall upon is a mere changing material shadow of a fixed, universal, luminous original that resides in an independent world — the world of Forms (Theory of Forms). The witnessed planets are fleeting shadows of the idea of the perfect, abstract planet fixed in that luminous horizon.

3. The Existential School and Substantial Motion

Mulla Sadra (979–1050 AH / 1571–1640 CE) rejected the idea of the stillness of matter in the bodies and atoms, and framed for it an intensifying dimension that links it to abstraction.

For him, existence is a single flow, and matter in the planet or the inanimate thing is not dormant, but in a state of perpetual motion and intensification in its very self and substance. The inanimate beings inwardly enfold a lower, simple rank of existential behavior, and they move upward in their stages, inclining of themselves toward gradual liberation from the constraints of pure matter and approaching higher ranks in the horizon of realization and abstraction.

4. Is God Material or Immaterial?

Based on the preceding logical distinction between the material and the immaterial, rational inquiry turns toward the first cause to know the reality of this existence. Reason judges decisively that God, glorified and exalted, is a complete immaterial existence, absolutely transcendent above materiality.

1. The Proof of the Necessity of Existence and the Denial of Division

The philosophers, among them Ibn Sina (Avicenna) in building his proof of the , proved that the first cause must be necessary in existence in itself; that is, self-sufficient of everything and in need of no bringer-into-being.

If God were material, He would be extended and have dimensions, and everything extended is composed of parts and admits division. The composite thing needs its parts for its realization, so the whole is in need of the part, and need contradicts entirely the rank of the absolutely self-sufficient Necessary Being. Therefore reason requires that God be simple and non-composite, and this is the very meaning of immaterial existence.

2. The Proof of the Denial of Change and Becoming

The essential attribute of matter is motion, change, and transformation from one state to another — that is, the passage from potentiality to actuality.

Change means that the essence lacks some perfection and then strives toward it, or is subject to the accidents of time and place, such as growth or transition. But the must be an absolute, fixed perfection touched by no deficiency or becoming, because motion requires the existence of a prior mover. And since God is transcendent above material motion and change, He is necessarily an immaterial existence outside the limits of time and place.

5. Application to the Human Being

If existence divides into material and immaterial, and the Creator is completely immaterial, and the cosmic existents are governed by their forms, then the human being represents the meeting point between these two worlds; he is not a mere perishing biological machine, but a being composed of a material body and an immaterial soul or spirit.

1. The Proof of the Fixity of the “I”

The material cells of the human body change and are replaced over the years, and its physical dimensions change from childhood to old age. If the human being were pure matter, it would follow that his identity would change with the change of his matter and cells.

But conscientious reality proves that the human being feels the fixity of his identity and the unity of his self, saying: I am the one who did such-and-such twenty years ago. This fixity and continuity in the awareness of the “I,” despite the change of the bodily matter, demonstrates the existence of a fixed immaterial substance behind the material body, which is the spirit.

2. The Proof of the Flying Man in Ibn Sina

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) framed this pure rational proof to transcend the senses.

Ibn Sina supposes that if a human being were created suddenly with his full awareness and intellect, and placed suspended in an abstract air such that his five senses were entirely veiled from him — so that he feels none of his organs, his hands touch nothing of his body, and he neither sees nor hears anything — Ibn Sina asks: does this human being affirm the existence of his self? The answer: yes, he will certainly remain aware of the existence of his self and that he exists, despite the absence of any perception of his material body. This direct perception of the “I” together with complete obliviousness to the body proves rationally that the aware self — the spirit — is an immaterial reality other than the material body and not one of its accidents.

3. The Theory of Substantial Motion in Mulla Sadra

Mulla Sadra (Mulla Sadra) developed a deep philosophical vision that explains the perfective link between the human being’s materiality and his immaterial spirit through the theory of substantial motion.

He holds that the human spirit is not thrust into the body from outside by a sudden thrusting; rather human matter, from the drop of fluid to the embryo, in the midst of its motion and its essential, substantial intensification, is perfected and ascends until it bears fruit and gives birth to an immaterial existence. For him the spirit is material in its origination — that is, it arises at first depending on the material body — but immaterial in its subsistence; meaning that the more it grows and is perfected by the sciences and knowledge, the more it becomes independent of the material laws, until, when death comes, it separates from the body and continues in its own existence, because it has actually reached the rank of abstraction that is not reached by physical corruption and dissolution.

The Methodical Result

Based on this sequential rational rooting, we arrive at a coherent logical vision that affirms that existence is broader than solid physical matter; it has become clear to us through the proofs presented that the first cause, or the Creator, is a complete immaterial existence, and that everything material in this cosmos — from planets and atoms to the human being — is an existent that joins a material side and an immaterial side.

And from this demonstrated point, the door opens automatically to understanding the subsequent inquiries about the perfection of this spirit, the need for legislation and acts of worship, and the necessity of the resurrection and divine justice.