PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION RESEARCH (NAMAH-I HIKMAT)
Year:2007 | Volume:5 | Issue:1 (9)|Papers Count:8

The purpose of this article is to analyze properly the meaning of "the meaning of life" and to explain different approaches to it on the base of different grounds and presuppositions. By "life" we mean a conscious process ended by death. We consider life as a whole whose parts are coherently related to each other. In considering "life", we can't merely concentrate on its surface layers. Seeking for its meaning is going beyond these layers. The word "meaning" in the expression "the meaning of life" has two interpretations: one, the "purpose" of the life, and the other, the "value" of the life. We hold that if the purpose of the life is an appropriate goal and has sufficient intrinsic value, it gives meaning to all the issues related it. The main points of this article are: separation of the theological considerations on the question of meaning of life from the philosophical ones, religious theories from non- religious ones, analysis and separation of objective views from subjective ones, and finally, the relation of the meaning of life to matters such as God, the immortality of the soul, the ethical nature of the world, and so on.

The concept of temporality requires that science be divided into two categories: Natural and human. Unlike natural sciences, human sciences are temporal or historical one s, i.e. there is a necessary link between their historical happening and the time of their occurrence. Temporality in modern time has its origin in Descartes philosophy. However, it developed through German philosophy from Leibniz's to Heidegger's. This perspective follows that every cultural event is confined to its specific time. Temporality is among the features of modern thought. So there is no trace of this phenomenon, in Greek philosophy the principal sources of which are plato's and Aristotle's works, since time, according to plato, is just a shadow or an image of eternity and according to Aristole it is one of the accidental categories. In contrast, the concept of temporality involves the principality or essentiality of time. In modern era, Descartes - whose philosophy has Christian leanings- declared that each moment or instant has its own principal reality and enistentially each moment is independent from another. Immanuel kant also declared that time had a direct and efficient role in perception and concept in the fields of sensibility and understanding. In the contemporary age, temporality has a firm link with historicity. This link is one of the features of the monadology of Leibniz, since the monads of Leibniz turn from potential characteristics into actual ones in an unending process throughout the time. Hegel's philosophy added the concept 'dialectic necessity'. Hegel declared that historical events could not have occurred at any time and in any mood other than the time and mood in which they already happened. This temporal and historical addition of German philosophy was handed down to Dithery. Benefiting from this tradition, he combined the two concepts of historicity and the critique of historical reason. Finally, Heidegger in his book "Being and Time" declared the mood of being as essentially temporal, and temporality as the substance of being.

Seyyed Heidar Amoli with developing of Ibn-Arabi theoretical mysticism proposed a kind of ontology can be named pure ontology. Pure ontology is not a mere approach beside the others. It is a truth that goes beyond any concept extension attitude about being. Being is objective but not that of which is against subjective. It goes beyond the object subject opposition. This can be a solve for the paradox of objectivity-subjectivity of the Being. Subject is against object, but it is itself an object, so it means it is an object and it is not.Solving this paradox with paying attention to Amoli ontology, perfects with encompassing of contrary distinction theory of Ibn-Turkeh Isfahani.

There has been a very strong trend among various religious thinkers in different part of the world which is known as negative theology. These thinkers believe that we can grasp no affirmative knowledge of God and therefore He should not be described positively. He should be described only through negation, and the negative attributes as regard the essence of god tell us what He is, except it is indirectly. So every positive attribute of Him must be understood negatively. This paper deals with this attitude, its reasons and the difficulties that it is confronted with. To have a correct assessment of negative theology we will try to determine the exact place of this attitude among other different attitudes.

In this paper the most important thought elements of Kierkegaard on faith discussion have been surveyed. According to Kierkegaard, the actual faith is subjective which is not comparable with any of experimental and intellectual categories. In Abrahamsen religions, instead of analyses based on the scientific scrutiny, the emphasis is on the subjective facts that cause the bloom of inner side of human. Although faith seems to be a paradox, it doesn't in fact rationalize the logic paradox, But it saves the exalted characteristic of religion to' avoid from making the faith completely understandable. The faith is together with the human's liberty on the one side and the divine endowment on the other side.Love is the peak or the fruit of the faith.

Ibn- Roshd was finding fault with Avesina about proving Necessarily Existent and dividing the necessity to self necessity and unself- necessity. He continued criticizing of Avesina in other three theological subjects, divine knowledge and miracle of prophets and incorporeality of God. Briefly we can say his critique of Avesina includes two points. First, the attitude of Avesina about these five subjects is growing on his creativity and his views don't take' root from Aristotle's books. Second, Avesina met with contradiction in his views. We have to consider that the theology of Islam and Moslem philosophers is different from Aristotle. So Avesina and his followers in Islamic philosophy create new attitude in theology and the critique of Ibn- Roshd about his theology help us to find important differences between Islamic theology and Aristotelian theology.

All of the general studies related to the Quran which clarifies an aspect of the Quran's doctrines as or reply to a question about Quran were known as "The Quran's Sciences". The method of these sciences must be organized, thus we can distinguish between inter and e.utra religious method in studying quran? Accordingly study of methodology in Quran sciences have important role in development of the sciences. It should also be known that all Quran sciences have single method or they have different method according to the kind of the subject matter. Writer in this essay tries to say that Quran sciences are not mono methodic sciences and different Quran's sciences based on their natures, follow different traditional, logical, linguistic analysis and historical methods; and mathematical, practical, historical, theological, and Aesthetic sciences can play a role in understanding of Quran then or the best method is synthetic one.