ANDISHE-E-NOVIN-E-DINI
Year:2015 | Volume:11 | Issue:42|Papers Count:13

Most of the pundits of Islamic thought believe that Islam religion is majority. However, there are significant controversies about the realm of religious issues. The most prevalent viewpoints among the recent scholars is majority of the religion within the range of human happiness but some of them go further and believe that religion is not only in charge of responding the problems related to human happiness in the individual and collective life, but also it is responsible to respond all problems related to individual and social life. In this paper, this approach has been called “absolute majority approach” and one of the most important of these approaches i.e. Ayatollah Javadi Amoli’s has been studied. According to his widespread views in this regard, only a main part of his principles are explained followed by discussing the ambiguities present in this theory.

Swinburne, philosopher of the contemporary religion, has made attempts in his works to propose a new expression of the arguments in proving existence of God. Before dealing with these arguments, he has dealt with explication of the God’s attributes. Eternity, power, knowledge, goodness, distinction power, and free will are among the attributes being analyzed by him and sometimes he has proposed unique explications about them. Dividing the attributes into two main and deductive groups, stipulating that the absolute power of God does not belong to the intrinsic impossibilities, and emphasizing on the absolute causality of God in relation to the world and God’s free will are among the most important points that he has mentioned about God’s attributes. Most of his viewpoints in this regard conform to the viewpoint of Islamic philosophers; however, lack of a detailed account of deductive attributes, his inability to solve the doubt of God’s eternal knowledge to human free will activities and unacceptance of a precise meaning of eternity are among his most important problems about explaining God’s attributes. Reviewing Swinburne’s explanations from these attributes in this study, we will evaluate and criticize them.

Some contemporary scholars have looked upon the Quran unkindly and to them, its teaching applications are exclusive to certain nations, regions and eras. Following such kind of belief, they ignore the comprehensiveness of the Quran. According to Allameh Tabatabaie’s viewpoints from an religion-based perspective and adopting an analytic approach, while this paper investigates the meaning of the verses related to universality and eternality of the Quran, universality and eternality of the prophet’s mission, universality and eternality of the Quran and the prophet’s mission, it explains the concomitant between the two important categories of universality and eternality of the Quran with its comprehensiveness. By proving the referents of the verses related to universality and eternity of the Quran and the Prophet’s mission, their concomitant with the category of comprehensiveness is proved and it is not deniable.

Development of intellect has been the mission of all prophets and saints. People will have the necessary preparation for evolution of intellects based on experience and historical maturity in the era of reappearance and Imam will begin his universal mission by evolution of humans’ intellects. Based on some narrations, intellects will be evolved by the era of reappearance and the means of this collection and perfection of intellects is the powerful hands of Vilayat. Accumulation of intellects means gathering of each individual’s intellect and its result is reaching to unity and consensus. Accumulation of intellects is carried out by gradual propaganda and education of Imam and the effect of Imam’s favor is normal and natural but not miracle. The contemporary knowledge has also figured out that human possesses significant skills and capacities who is able to enjoy them in future. At the end of this study, it is pointed out to the mutual relation between intellect and science; science causes growth of intellect and intellect provides the ground to achieve science.

One of the important rules of Adlieh theology is the rule of grace based on which it is pointed at the necessity of grace of God in various issues. By defining the term grace, its conditions and types as the beginning of the discussion and reviewing the arguments of the pros i.e. the majority of the Imamiyeh and Mu’tazilah theologians, it will be clear that they are incomplete. Also, by evaluating the arguments of the cons like Beshr Ibn Mo’tamer and Shareh Maqased, while some are disputed, some others are confirmed. According to reason, God is wise and the requirement of wisdom is necessary for Him but in terms of major antecedent, grace is not necessary because it includes infinite assumptions not being realized externally but it can be realized. On the other hand, in terms of minor antecedent, the total of advantages and disadvantages of a certain action can be recognized so that in the following it can be decreed whether it is necessary for God or not. For all problems in which Shiite scholars have relied upon this rule (necessity of religious duties, sending prophets, the prophets’ infallibility, necessity of promise, necessity of appointing Imams) there are substitute arguments.

The thought of seeing God is very bold in Ibn Tamiyyah’s teachings who is considered an apprentice of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal’s School. His citation to superficialism about God’s stative traits has led him to believe in corporeality and spatiality of God. Although Ibn Taymiyyah sees himself from the followers of Self, he believes that nothing is mentioned about corporeality or lack of corporeality of God while by citing Imam Ali’s words in Sunni’s initial texts who is considered to be among the Self of the Prophet Mohammad’s Ummah and te fact that Ibn Taymiyyah sees himself obliged to follow them, the issue of seeing, corporeality and spatiality of God are totally rejected.

Free will of human actions on the one hand and on the other hand, the divine necessities originated form God’s power and knowledge have been two sides of a conflict among the theologians that based on the type of asserting the relation among them, three theological approaches have been emerged among the Muslims. In comparison to Asharites and Mu’tazilah, Imamiyeh has adopted an intermediate approach in which in addition to maintaining the free will aspects of actions, the ordered system derived from the power of God has not been ignored. Briefly evaluating the historical and social conditions of these theories in this paper, features of sociological understanding about position of “free will” and its limits are analyzed. Modern conditions and sociological understanding directed to it have put forward a new formulation from the status of free will. Under such conditions, social compulsion is the result of many individuals’ free will which are directed toward each other and to realize maximization, this phenomenon captures an independent and compulsory trait. The cultural binding rules will result in realization of free will. Although such sociological knowledge does not have the capacity to bring up a discussion about theological goals essential to human realm, while maintaining the feature of free will of human activity, to illustrate the quality of realization of social order in the contemporary conditions, this sociological formation will help the theologians to have a better statement of the issue. Also, in comparison to the approaches of Asharites and Mu’tazilah, it will explicate the merits of Imamiyeh approach about the intermediary situation of free will and fatalism.

One of the important issues in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and even physics is existence of deterministic, fatalistic, or freewill-oriented viewpoints in relation to human actions. Determinists believe that human actions and natural events, under the influence of a powerful compulsory force, are guided by God. The other group are fatalists believing that all events have been determined beforehand and human freewill has no function regarding the occurred events; however, a group having freewill-oriented view believe that in addition to God’s knowledge about all events and fate of creatures, human chooses his path by his own freewill and he has function in determining his fate parallel to all external factors. By usage of physics rules within the framework of Einstein’s special relativity theory and by usage of light cone and relativity of simultaneity, the paper firstly proves the whyness of clearness of human fate within the God’s knowledge followed by proving that there is compatibility between human freewill and God’s knowledge on his fate and finally it is shown that human freewill is along with the almighty God’s will.

Islamic thinkers have accepted the principle of the God’s knowledge; however, its philosophical analysis and expressing how it is realized in God’s knowledge in details demands more reflection so that different strategies are proposed in this regard. Mohaqqeq Davani has also had a special interest in this subject and dealt with it in details. Evaluating the philosophers and theologians’ viewpoints, he dealt with proving the knowledge of God particularly the detailed knowledge of God about objects. Regarding explanation of the philosophers’ ideas, he believes that for them, the knowledge of God is in a rational manner not a visionary one. Davani criticizes Khawjeh Nasir’s explanation and also for him, the knowledge of Avicenna is separate representational science. To prove the Knowledge of God for creatures, he enjoys the reasons of non-temporality and ultra-temporality of the divine nature and the causative relation between God and creatures and also he proposes an analysis based on divinity taste whose consequence will be trivial knowledge -being creator of detailed ideas in the outer world.

Abol’ala’ Ma’ari has innovative and unique styles regarding pessimism philosophy, nihilistic lifestyle, and ascetic ethics. He has believed in absolute fatalism in the universe and to him, human has been considered as an ill-natured creature innately, astonished rationally, and incarcerated spiritually whose life is combined with misery and suffering and an unclear and dark future is waiting for him. Abol’ala’ suggests that human should be surrender against divine fatalism and be waiting for natural death by expanding self-suffering. Although this approach will clarify the negative aspect of secularism and materialistic hedonism, it is addressed by serious criticisms form the viewpoint of positive-directed philosophical schools and the holistic religion of Islam because it has neglected the perfectionism and hereafter world, denies human free will and counts the evil system prevalent. As a result, duty acceptance, the punishment and reward system, sending messengers and revelation of books are canceled and the divine wisdom and justice will be questioned and also the purpose of creation will be denied. In this paper, we have dealt with finding the origin of the philosophical and ethical principles of Sheikh Ma’areh’s pessimism to propose strategies to be released from this kind of thought.