اندیشه دینی
سال:1380 | دوره:3 | شماره:4-3 |تعداد مقالات:14

In the great monotheistic religions of the world the existence of God is first and foremost a fact to be accepted in faith or a reality to surrender to. Faith in God and surrender to Him are considered to be so basic and fundamental that attempts to go further and to make God and His existence the object of speculation of a highly philosophical nature are sometimes either outright rejected or at least viewed with suspicion. In both Islam and Christianity examples of this tendency can be detected. In the former e.g. in most Protestant Churches with their emphasis on faith alone, and in the latter in the Ashcarite theological school in Sunni Islam. And yet, in both these religions we find also very clear examples of a kind of philosophical speculation that does not stop short at God and His existence. On the contrary, this speculation sometimes takes even the form of drawing up rational arguments or proofs for His existence. As far as Islam is concerned both Ebn Sina and Molla Sadra are important, or perhaps even the most important representatives of this tendency. In Christianity the attempt to proof the existence of God is inextricably bound up with the name of Saint Anselm of Canterbury, the "Father of Scholasticism", as he is often called (1, p: 291). Scholasticism is that kind of philosophical and theological speculation that in the Middle Ages in Christian Europe was practised in the schools attached to cathedrals and monasteries, and later in the universities. Scholasticism rests on two pillars, auctoritas (authority) and ratio (reason). The authority is provided by the indisputable truths of the Christian faith, deriving from the Bible and handed down through the Church Fathers. The reason is the instrument used to analyse these truths and to bring them together into a coherent and comprehensive system (4, pp: 396-9). What I would like to do in this article, is to raise the question what kind of argument or arguments Anselm of Canterbury and Molla Sadra have used to prove God"s existence and to compare these arguments in order to find out if a certain resemblance or analogy is to be detected. After all, these two men, each in his own right, have been very influential and they are still influential. But before going into this matter, let me first give a very short biography of Anselm of Canterbury. I take it for granted that in view of the readership of this magazine, I am not expected to draw even a rudimentary sketch of Molla Sadra"s life.

The Three Abrahamic faiths have had a rather uneasy relationship in the past centuries. Even today, many of the major conflicts in the four quarters of the globe have their origins in the conflicting views of the followers of these three major faiths. Against such a background, I shall be arguing that the ground for a peaceful coexistence, both at a theoretical level and at the practical level of living together in the same society, is reasonably within the reach of the adherents of these faiths. My argument will be concentrated on both the possibility of an honorable and peaceful coexistence and the desirability of genuine efforts to achieve it.

In Sufism, Allah is the "Absolute Being", and by "Absolute" it is meant that there is no restriction for His Existence. In this article some of arguments regarding the affirmation of the "Absolute Being" have been analyzed, and it has been demonstrated that there has been a confusion between notion and applicability, primary prediction and common technical prediction, absoluteness of notion and absoluteness of being, and essential possibility and poverty possibility regarding this issue. The argument proposed in this article to affirm the Sufi"s claim is complete only when the existence of the necessary Being is affirmed by a proof which is not based on the multiplicity of the reality of being or the graded unity of being. It is, then, compatible with the Sufi"s belief of individual unity of being. And the only proof, which benefits from such a characteristic is the argumentation of Seddighin by Allama Tabatabaie which is not based on any philosophical issue. However, even this argumentation is not without faults because the reality, which is a criterion for the truthfulness of the proposition "Reality is annihilated", is the same as pure non - existence, and non- existence has no origin outside.

The issue of correlation between intellect and religion has been one of the fundamental issues in Islamic theology and philosophy. Islamic thinkers have gone through many difficulties and have tried their own specific methods in a affirming this correlation. However, in transcendental philosophy, specially from Sadr al Mota"ellehin"s point of view, this issue takes on a new dimension. The affirmation of the corporeal resurrection, based on both philosophical principles and Divine laws, is a clear and interesting evidence in affirming the correlation between intellect and religion in his philosophy. This article deals with the analysis of Muslim theologians" and philosophers" opinions about this issue from Sadr al - Mota"ellehin"s point of view and the explication of his relevant theories.

The Theory of the unity of Being has often been considered :a paradoxical and contradictory issue. However, the Sufis proclaim that they have experienced this paradoxical issue. But have they been able to illustrate this issue for others as well? This article points out to the fact that the theory of the unity of Being cannot be intellectually or philosophically explained, and the Sufis have to resort to allegory. This article first studies the relationship between the experience and the explanation of the Unity of Being, and then deals with the reasons for the inexpressibility of the mystical experience. The appropriateness of mystical experience with the imaginal world is, then, examined, and finally, some well- known allegories used by Sufis to refer to the Unity of Being have been analyzed.

In the past the Majority of philosophers believed that in the process of perception one is aware of some thing, called sense- datum, which is other than the physical object itself. But today, the majority of philosophers, specially the analytic philosophers deny that one needs to postulate such entities and affirm that we are normally: and directly aware of the external world. In this research, using an argument called "argument from illusion", it is argued that sense- datum theory is correct and that we are not directly aware of the external world.