Hawzah News Agency (Qom, Iran) ­- Attributes of the Divine Essence

Having noted the distinctions, within the realm of divine attributes, between the affirmative and the negative, and between the essential and the active attributes, it is appropriate to elaborate somewhat upon the most important questions relating to these
attributes.
 

Knowledge
The knowledge of God, since it partakes of His very Essence, is eternal and infinite. In addition to possessing absolute knowledge of His own Essence, God is aware of all that is other than Him whether universal or particular realities, before or after creation.
  The Quran lays much stress upon this truth; for example: Verily, God is aware of all things. (Sura al-Ankabut, XXIX:62)
And again:
Should He not know what He created? And He is the Subtle, the Aware. (Sura al-Mulk, LXVII:14) 

In the sayings of the Imams of the ahl al-bayt, there is also great emphasis on the eternity and totality of God’s knowledge. Imam Sadiq says, for example:

‘His knowledge of a place before its creation is like the knowledge of it after its creation; and His knowledge is thus as regards all things.’
 

Power
The power of god, like His Knowledge, is eternal; and insofar as it, too, partakes of His very Essence, it is infinite. The Qur>an emphasizes the comprehensiveness of God’s power thus:
And God is ever able to do all things. (Sura al-Ahzab, XXXIII:27)
And again:
God has power to do all things. (Sura al-Kahf, XVIII:45)
Imam SAdiq stated:

‘All things are equal before Him in respect of [His] knowledge, power, authority, dominion and all-comprehensiveness.’
 

Now, if the engendering of impossible things—those entities which cannot be—fall outside the domain of God’s power and control, this is not due to the inadequacy of divine power; rather, it is due to the inadequacy inherent in the impossible: the impossible lacks receptivity to being, that is, it lacks the capacity to actualize itself. When asked about the engendering of impossible things, Imam AlI replied:

‘God has no connection with incapacity, so that about which you ask cannot be.’
 

Life
A knowing and powerful God is obviously a living God, as the two former qualities are distinctive features of life; they furnish evidence, indeed, for the reality of His life. The divine attribute of Life, as with all the other attributes, is devoid of imperfection, and transcends the particular features of this attribute insofar as it pertains to man and other creatures—features such as being subject to the contingency of death. For, inasmuch as He is living, by His essential nature, death cannot affect Him. In other words, since the Being of God is absolute perfection, death, which is but a form of imperfection, cannot find a way into His Essence. Thus it is said:
And trust in the Living One, Who dieth not ...(Sura al-Furqan, XXV:58)
 

Will
An agent who is conscious of his activities is more complete than one who is not. A free agent, endowed with a will to perform his acts—such that he can choose to accomplish or not accomplish a given act—is more complete than an agent constrained and compelled [by some other agent] to do or not to do something, being helpless, and unable to choose for himself. Taking into account this point, and seeing that God is the most perfect agent in existence, it is altogether natural to assert that the Divine Essence is, by nature, an absolutely free agent, neither constrained from without nor imposed upon by anything other than Himself; and if it is said that God is ‘one who wills’ (muríd), the meaning is that He has perfect liberty to will whatever He desires.
 

Will, in the conventional sense of a human faculty that is originated in time and is actualized gradually thereafter, does not figure in the Divine Essence. Hence we have the sayings from the ahl albayt, intended to prevent error and deviation, to the effect that the will of God [with regard to a given act] is identical to the accomplishment and realization of the act, as it is said:

‘Will, in regard to man, is an inner state, which man strives to realize in outward action, but the will of God itself constitutes the consummation of the action, without this involving temporal origination.’
This explanation makes it clear that will, in the sense of liberty, is one of the attributes of the Essence, while in its aspect of existentiation, it is one of the attributes of Divine Activity.

Reference:

 Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, Doctrines of Shii Islam, A Compendium of Imami Beliefs and Practices, Translated and Edited by Reza Shah-Kazemi, published by I.B.Tauris Publishers, London • New york  2003