Ayeneh Ma‘refat
Year:2018 | Volume:18 | Issue:54 |Papers Count:7

Among the positive attributes of God, the attribute of will is of particular importance. While most philosophers and theologians are in agreement with regard to God's possessing will, there has been a great deal of difference about its real meaning among philosophers and different theological schools throughout history. Adopting a descriptive-analytical method, the present article is an attempt to discuss comparatively the attribute of will and its related issues referring to the works of Avicenna and Spinoza. From the frequent emphases of Avicenna on the unity of all divine attributes, especially the two attributes of will and knowledge, it can be inferred that, like Spinoza, he does not intend to embrace the ordinary conventional meaning of will which is used in relation to Human beings when the reference is to God.

The identification of what and why of the combined three cognitive sources including intellect, intuition and revelation in Ibn Abi Jumhur’ s system of thought makes the analysis of the cognitive achievements of this system of thought more effective. Ibn Abi Jumhur, as a figure who has an important position in the integration of various theoretical branches in the light of the teachings of Imams, establishes his theory of cognition on a philosophical religious and mystical basis. This work was later completed by Mula Sadra Shirazi and was presented in the form of “ cognitive unity of the of Quran content, Mysticism and logic” theory. In Ahsai’ s thought system, there is a profound relevance and connection between intellect, heart and revelation. He believes that it is necessary to move from essential logical theorems to inherited divine perceptions. In that case, it is very likely to perceive secrets of sharia and understand the meanings of Sufism and truth. Intellect finds its way to heart through passing perfection. In fact, heart is another name for perfected intellect. Furthermore, about the relationship between sharia and intellect, he believes that religious law is external intellect and intellect is internal religious law. Therefore, they are not only associated with each other but they are also united.

The present paper is a comparative study of death and its relationship with sin from St. Augustine’ s and Mulla Sadra’ s perspectives. Scrutiny of these two perspectives indicates that St. Augustine, in accordance with the Christianity faith and especially Paul’ s teachings, justifies death in terms of the original sin and even considers sin as the cause of death. He believes that God created man in such a way that, if he did not commit sins, He would have enjoyed eternal life without death as the intermediary. Following Plato, he even believes that corporeal death is the separation of soul from the body. He further contends that this state is rather imposed by the original sin than by natural death. Although Mulla Sadra agrees with Augustine on this point that human voluntary sins can cause death of the soul and eternal death of man, he does not accept the effect of the original sin. Mulla Sadra agrees with Augustine on the fall of Adam on earth but he believes the reason for this fall was the divine will to make Man His caliph on earth. In addition, Mulla Sadra considers natural death a stage in human perfection which has already been initiated by substantial motion.

In their theological arguments, Imamiyyah Shi’ ites put emphasis on five verses including al-Tat-hir (Q: 33/33), al-Welaya (Q: 5/55), al-Mawadda (Q: 42/23), al-Mubahila (Q: 3/61) and al-Ulil-Amr (Q: 4/59). The article is an attempt to identify the similarities and differences between the Imamiyyah and Zaidiyyah interpretations of the above-mentioned verses within a period ending with Buyid dynasty (447AH/1055 AD). The study is limited to the following Quranic interpretations: Abu-l Jaroud, Muqatil ibn Sulaiman, al-Qummi, al-Hibari, Furat al-Kufi and Shaykh al-Tusi. At the initial stages of the study, it became clear that the interpretation of Muqatil ibn Sulaiman had very low similarity with the other Zaidiyyah and Imamiyyah interpretations and therefore it was excluded from the final analysis. The analysis showed that the majority of these interpretations could be classified as traditional and transmitted interpretations. From a quantitative point of view, the highest number of transmitted traditions were identified in Zaidiyyah interpretations of Furat al-Kufi and al-Hibari. All of the above-mentioned interpretations have the common features of trying to prove that the five verses have been revealed about the Five Holy Persons of the Cloak and their paying almost no attention to theological implications of these verses. In spite of this similarity between Zaidiyyah and Imamiyyah interpretations, it was Sheykh al-Tusi who presented a rational interpretation of Imamiyya theology. He is the only interpreter who did not limit himself to transmitting traditions; as a theologian, he tried to interpret the theological implications of al-Isma, immediate succession of Ali ibn Abi-talib and the superiority of al-Hasan and al-Hussein after Ali ibn Abi-talib.

The concept of God and His relationship with the world and human beings, together with ontology, has been one of the main preoccupations of philosophy and theology. In other words, the question of God and His relationship with the world has always occupied the mind and thought of man. Everyone answers this question according to his own beliefs. From the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, these answers were transformed in Kantian philosophy; he claimed that pure reason is not the originator of the conceptions of God. He considers the fundamental questions of metaphysics, namely, the soul, God and the world, not justifiable from the point of view of pure reason. Of course, Kant did not dismiss these concepts. With the critique of pure reason, he proved that the moral life necessitates the existence of God as an axiom. The reason is that moral action is the source of felicity. Man is incapable of living without morality, and godless morality leads to doing business. So morality necessarily leads man to God and religion. Kant used the term "authority" of Man which means free will. Free will is the basis of morality, i. e. doing the good action (virtue) and abstaining from the evil action (vice). Since the rewards of virtue and punishments for vice are not obtainable in this world, the soul must remain after death to receive reward or punishment and there must be an entity (God) to reward for virtue and punish for vice. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and evaluate the ontology and position of God in Kantian philosophy.

In his book Religion and Science, Ian Barbour discusses the relationship between science and religion. In order to come up with a systematic view, he has surveyed the method of science and methods of religion and has explained this relationship in terms of four models: conflict, independence, dialogue and integration. It seems that he has introduced the models other than conflict to solve and remove the problems of the conflict model. He ultimately selects dialogue as the sole model which can solve the problems of the conflict model. Nowadays, the focus of a large number of scholars working on conflict between science and religion is on the solution proposed by Barbour and its extension. It is widely hoped that these models can successfully meet and explain every challenge of the era. We put serious doubt on this idea drawing on the challenges that Carroll’ s views set against Barbour’ s models. While Barbour wishes to remove the conflicts between science and religion by proposing a priori models, Carroll points to some a posteriori conflicts that cannot be removed by Barbour’ s models. To provide solutions to the conflicts suggested by Carroll, we need new models that can explain the relation between science and religion. Although these solutions have not been discussed in detail in the present article, the conclusion is that the solutions should be a posteriori including studies dealing with history and content of science.

The Muslim Brotherhood movement with the backing of Islamic awakening originated from the thoughts of Jamaluddin Asad Abadi and Mohammed Abduh has tried to provide a moderate demonstration of theological beliefs in agreement with the life history of the pious ancestors. With the accusations made by contemporary traditional Salafism against this movement on this basis that they are short of providing a methodological demonstration of beliefs and their being lenient in disseminating pure monotheism highlights the need for a comparative study of the thoughts of the two movements. By propounding some thoughts of the Muslim Brotherhood, such as divine attributes, asking for help from the righteous, resorting to the righteous, visitation of tombs, attention to approximation of different theological schools, religious interaction with Christians and Jews, and legitimizing Sufism, the traditional Salafists emphasize religious dissonance of Muslim Brotherhood. Finally, it should be emphasized that the dogmatic approach of Salafists in their interaction with the opposite belief systems has placed the moderate movement of Muslim Brotherhood among the movements hostile to the demonstration of pious ancestors.