Comparative Theology
Year:2014 | Volume:5 | Issue:11 |Papers Count:13

There is no doubt that religious knowledge, as part of human knowledge, could be a subject for epistemological researches and this is why a new discipline appeared called "religious epistemology". This branch of epistemology is in fact the result of application of epistemological approach to religious doctrines. Nowadays these issues are chiefly propounded by the philosophers of religion and often concern rationalism and fideism. Due to its general epistemic nature, religious knowledge is subjected to all general debates of epistemology. The peculiarities of this type of knowledge, nevertheless, have caused some particular issues to be propounded as to it beside the general and common issues and these new issues would have no application in other epistemic domain.

Historical evidences suggest that human beings have been always in search of God in some form. Some believe that man is born with this divine sense. This ubiquitous quality of human beings is called primordial nature (fitrah). Many scholars have tried to demonstrate the existence of God through this shared quality of human individuals. In Islamic thought this latter intellectual effort has been designated as "argument from primordial nature" and in western theological and philosophical thought it is known as "argument from general consensus".

One of the longstanding questions in philosophy and theology is how to understand and analyze the meanings of attributes which are shared by God and human beings; whether these attributes are predicated to God in ordinary human sense or they have an alternative meaning? This question which initially concerned divine attributes but it gradually got expanded and came to be applied to all propositions of religion and thus different theories were developed about the language of religion. These theories are classified under two general categories: 1- meaningfulness of language of religion, 2- meaninglessness of language of religion.

Thinking of death and the meaning of life and their relationship has always been with man throughout the history of human thought. This question which is counted today among the major concerns of contemporary man has been discussed, analyzed and excavated more in the theories and works of western philosophers. Western thinkers' ideas in this regard represent two camps in general: 1- naturalists: these theorists believe that meaning can be meaningful even without the existence of God and soul and that particular types of life could be enough for a meaningfulness in material world; 2- meta-naturalists: this group of thinkers hold that the meaning or purpose and value of life lie in spiritual domain comprising God and soul and the criterion of meaningfulness of someone's life is the quality of his/her relationship with this domain.

Among the methods which have been used by divine scriptures for propagation and cultivation of people is storytelling; those stories which have their origin in historical facts are good warning for future generations. The adventures of Pharaoh and his followers and the challenges with which Moses and other prophets were grappled in dealing with them are among the important issues addressed in Quran and the Old Testament.

The significance of determinism/ free will dilemma is clear by all enlightened mind as our approach in this regard has a straight influence on our theoretical worldview and scientific orientations in individual and social life. Determinism in general is a theory according to which human activities are necessary and so not free. Determinism (or causal determination) is one of the most important type of determinism which challenges human freedom by appealing to causal order of universe: all events in the universe – and among them all human acts- are exposed to causal rules, and also causation requires effects to be necessitated by their preceding conditions. And if this is the case, our freedom and responsibility for all our acts will be nullified; and now the problem is that if we are really free and responsible.

Faith has a central place in Abrahamic religions. Jewish, Christian and Moslem thinkers have conducted several studies of the notion of faith and offered different ideas. Fakhri Razi and Saint Paul, two thinkers from Islamic and Christian religious traditions, have commented on the matter at length and these comments and ideas are studied in this essay.

To evaluate and judge the notion of humanity, one has to use logic and logical criteria, since every notion's delimitation in logic requires an exact definition to be offered. And it is by definition that one can distinguish between one particular notion or extension and other notions and extensions. Different definitions have been suggested of the nature of humanity throughout the history of ideas every one of which casts light on an aspect of human existence. The intricate and deep nature of human being may have been the main obstacle in the way to an exact definition of human being. The past masters have defined man as a rational animal; i.e. man is inside the family of animals but an animal that have the power of thinking. Human rationality is not merely a matter of speaking, but rather it covers his all internal and external aspects. Since man is consisted of mind and body. Contemporary thinkers have left behind the traditional definition of man and approached him from different perspectives. In any case, what is important for us is human being's humanity.

Angels have allocated a considerable part of Bible's discussions to themselves and since one of the dogmatic principles of the revealed religions is the belief in angels, depiction of the place and attributes of angels can be the indicator of the quality of attitude and worldview and the strength of dogmatic principles of Bible's followers and justify their thought and ideas; For this subject is related with the issues such as: transcendent unity of divine acts and essence and attributes and even unity in obedience, how to record the actions and investigate them in Purgatory and Resurrection and believe in the unseen world and how to connect to that world and how to manage the world by God and the definition of the Kingdom of Heaven and how to divide people's sustenance and their reward and punishment which is the indicator and representative of the position of each religion as compared to other religions.

Since the ancient times the belief in the rise of the Reformer has been a fundamental principle. Many of the holy prophets have announced the advent of new prophet. Moreover in the announcements and indications of predecessors there are always allusions to "the Last Promised" and "the Savior of Last Days" under such titles as "Kalki", "Fifth Buddha", "Soshyans", "Messiah", "The Son of Man" and so on and so forth. Of course there are different types of belief in the last reformer in religions. In one place the Savior is merely a social reformer while in another place he is only after the spiritual salvation of people and even sometimes he undertakes both tasks. On the other hand, the Last Promised is once nationalist and once seeks to save the whole world.