ANDISHE-E-NOVIN-E-DINI
Year:2009 | Volume:5 | Issue:16|Papers Count:8

In Islam, faith is regarded to be a positive response to divine revelation, it is essential for it, therefore, to be studied semantically. This paper has studied Motahari's view point in the field critically. For him, faith is considered as both tendency and knowledge. In this regard, standing in distance from reductionism, he has presented a complete definition of faith. As he has known revelation to be an object for faith, his conceptualization of faith is based upon his view on Divine revelation. For Motahari, Divine revelation includes theoretical and practical knowledge addressing human reason as well as a kind of relation to his hearth. Such a definition given by Motahari is due to his belief on analogical nature of faith. He believes in faith as something of analogcity. In his definition of the faith, just like the majority of Shiite public theologians, he believes in a kind of semantic relation between faith and action and never dose he deny their existing relations in the external world.

Essentiality of existence, established on stable demonstrations in Sdra's transcendent philosophy, led to a deep transformation in theology and philosophy. This paper, having explained the problem of essentiality of existence, has sought to prove its relationship to the unity of existence. The main question, therefore, poses itself as: does the proved relationship lead to the unity of Necessary Being? The author has concluded that after proving the essentiality and unity of existence, one can prove the unity of the Necessary Being.

For Imamiye Shiism, those of authority, ululamr, are limited to infallible Imams from the Household of the Prophet (a.s.). On the view, legality and absoluteness of their authority lie respectively in Divine appointment and infallibility. The Sunni Muslims but Fakhr-e-Razi, However, have intended authority in a common meaning including different cases and considered him as lacking of sin to be legally obeyed. This paper has presented some objections against the view. Razi, having regarded the council of the elite to be of authority, emphasizes its absolute authority. He has taken the absoluteness to be lying in the elite's infallibility. Though Razi agrees with Shiite view on infallibility of those of authority, he has opposed the Shiite with some objections; while none of his objections can be accepted.

Human essence, one of the most important issues in philosophy, has been argued against by most of existentialists; Sartre, relying the following arguments has denied human essence: 1) The disagreement found between the theory of absolute freedom or free will and the theory of human's essence: or concomitance of the universal essence and determinism. 2) The human's permanent becoming leads to denial of the essence. 3) Absence of God in such a theory. In this paper the arguments have been critically studied at first and then, regardless of such arguments, some effects caused by the theory have been referred to. In the end, it has been made clear that Sartre's opinion neither is interconnected nor corresponding to reality.

In Islamic teachings, the knowledge of human soul is regarded of the same position as that of God because of its high place in the wonderful order of the world. Appearance of man, the relationship of the soul to the body and corruption of the body and persistence of the soul have always been focused on by both theist and atheist philosophers; though believing in Resurrection has led theists' to attempt more in the field. This paper, putting Avicenna and Molla Sadra's views forward, has sought to study two opposite views critically. While the two philosophers are in agreement on many of the problems such as immateriality and eternity of the soul, there can be found many differences in the field that originate from their philosophical principles. Definition of the soul, justification of its appearance in Avicenna and Sadra's, the fifth reasons of the former along with the critiques of the latter are studied here.

Kant, one of the most important western philosophers, in his famous works Critique of Pure Reason, has well shown the limitations of human faculty of reason, systematic function of reason and the weakness of dogmatism. He has distinguished opinion, belief and knowledge and viewed knowledge as a product of relating mental categories to phenomenon. The systematic state of human reason leads Kant to limit the field in which reason can be applied. It, therefore, cannot be applied in such fields as the problem of God. It causes him to rely on practical reason when proving the existence of God. In this paper, Kant's claim on disability of pure reason has been critically reconsidered and it has been showed that, contrary to his view, he himself would be obliged to agree with Transcendental God.

Regardless of existence, one can never attain a rational and arguable theory on human life's state of being meaningful. As we know, Sadra in Islamic world and Heidegger in the West focused on existence in their philosophy. The hypothesis of this paper has been studied based upon their existential considerations. Moreover, the theory of individualism in the realm of meaningfulness has been current in the most part of twenty century. Furthermore, today all men of meaningfulness theory in the West are also objectivist. In this paper, these two prevailing theories have been brought into eye to show the ill consequences of lacking attention in relation to existence in the field in more than one century experience. Therefore, the importance of caring existence has been also emphasized by experiences; it is the very fact that paves the way for thinking on Sadra's transcendental philosophy and Heidegger's thought. The points intended in the paper include exactly those neglected by naturalistic theories as: giving full consideration to existence, the relation between human and existence, the existential possibilities of man caused by giving consideration to existence, and the relation of actualizing such possibilities to the meaningfulness of life.