ENSANPAJOOHI-E DINI (RELIGIOUS ANTHROPOLOGY)
Year:2020 | Volume:17 | Issue:43|Papers Count:12

In the current study, in addition to explaining the soul’ s passion in Aristotle’ s tradition, the soul’ s passions, particularly affection for God and its effect on human prosperity, is investigated in al-Ghazali’ s intellectual system. In old and contemporary literature, passions are viewed as the origin of moral action and virtues of the soul and it is discussed that these virtues maintain a direct relationship with human prosperity. Thus, the current study has explained virtues of soul and, adopting a descriptive-analytical method, has recognized the passions of soul. Showing careful consideration for the soul’ s emotional and volitional dimension, al-Ghazali believes that passion, as the origin of moral action, stand in connection with the cognitive dimension of the soul in a way that knowledge (cognition) and perception are seen as preceding the affection while regarding God as the most high destination for perception that deserves the most supreme levels of affection and love. Thus it can be concluded that the theist nature of Man and the sublime position of affection to God in his view leads him toward attaining the upmost levels of prosperity and pleasure.

The conflict between human’ s right of environment and his right of development has been amongst intricacies in the field of environment because, on one hand, the development is inevitable for human life and on the other, development almost results in the destruction of the environment. Therefore, to solve this problem, the United Nations has underscored the principle of sustainable development in many international treaties including declarations of Rio and Stockholm in which protecting the environment and securing the needs of the coming generations is axiomatic. Studying Quranic verses, tradition and views of scholars, the current study has explained the view of divine law on this conflict and uncovered the inefficiencies of the principle of sustainable development. It is also suggested that the solution to the conflict resides in the Islamic justice-based development. Institutionalization of the holiness of environment, environmental ethics, environmental religious commandments, Islamic environmental law, universal and systematic justice, and intra-generation justice are amongst the principles of Islamic justice-based development.

Adopting new foundations in transcendental wisdom, Mulla Sadra has developed renewed viewpoints toward study of the soul. He has offered new explanations for souls’ life and quality of its creation and laid a proper groundwork for portraying the evolution of soul between death and resurrection by picturing the souls’ life through examples and generalizing the substantial motion to substantiality of the soul. Authors are to answer whether any analysis of evolution and nature of the soul can offer a philosophical explanation for the purgatorial evolution of the soul. It is concluded that although Mulla Sadra has adopted inconsistent positions toward the evolution of soul and refrains from definitive agreement with the obstacles toward any explanation for evolution of soul between death and resurrection, philosophical foundations of his transcendental wisdom enjoy potential capabilities for logical explanation in this regard. In addition, he has implicitly confirmed the purgatorial evolution of soul in his commentaries and his theological and philosophical views.

Unlike peripatetic and Sadraic philosophers who, despite their differences, investigated the soul-related issues through psychology, Tabatabaei was inclined toward investigating these issues through self-knowledge. Though in the mechanical and mathematical structure of modern medicine showing consideration for human soul and psyche and its faculties in treating illnesses seems meaningless, in non-modern medicine it is a standard and inevitable practice. The current research is intended to delve into self-knowledge and its effects on medicine (while emphasizing health). This study is a fundamental and theoretical research which has adopted a descriptive and analytical methodology. Describing and qualitatively analyzing the content of Tabatabaei’ s thoughts and thinking system, the researcher has collected data through library note-taking to describe and analyze the problem. Contemplating and thinking about Quranic verses and tradition, Tabatabaei transits from the distinctions between psychology and self-knowledge to the distinction between subjective knowledge and outer-world knowledge (objective knowledge) which can impose some obligations on the medicine, change it dramatically and lay the groundworks for adopting a new look toward health and illness. In medicine, taking self-knowledge into account, does not mean knowing about self and its characteristics and the way it affects body but it means self-knowledge-based medicine in which the physician leads a different life and develops a different understanding of patient, illness and heath and accordingly treats the illness.

Torment of metamorphism is a reprimand in divine tradition which afflicts a particular individual or a community due to their deviation in morality and belief. This tradition is reported in two major ways in Quranic verses; a) Formal (carnal) metamorphism is particular to Bani Israil by which they were afflicted due to their disobedience in unlawful hunting (fishing) and use of deceit and b) spiritual transformation is a general phenomenon to which all human beings are exposed. The latter is reported through different languages in many Quranic verses. Shiite and Sunni commentators have adopted different views regarding the disfigurement of Bani Israil. This has led to three different positions between them which are grounded in different reasons. Scholars, advocates of Sadraic philosophy in particular, while observing Quranic verses and tradition, employ the theory of heavenly reincarnation and avail themselves of explanations and sub-explanations which include both inward and outward transformation. These views are according to the dependence of body on soul and consideration for intermediary type and hypo-type. This research has employed content analysis to study the quality of torment of transformation in the views of scholars and commentators.

According to the divine religions, prophets as the obvious manifestations of perfect human, are able to perform miracles and use it to submit proofs on their prophecy. In the west, however, Hume has casted serious doubts on the validity of miracles. Stating that the miracles are reported by some unknowing nations in a particular context, Hume believed that the reported miracles cannot reject the validity of our constantly proven experiences. He adds that the evidences admitted for the miracles are contradictory and therefore we cannot rely on the validity of miracles. Fakhr Razi had also thrown miracles into doubts with minor differences and greater details centuries ago. Yet, although Hume concludes that miracles are invalid, Fakhr Razi tries to employs his own foundations to resolve these doubts and uphold the validity of the miracles. The present study investigates the views of both scholars comparatively and delves into the Fakhr Razi’ s answers to these doubts while analyzing the Hume’ s viewpoints and criticizes them.

The current research delves into the quality of rule-formation and model development from the behavior of characters in Quranic stories and analyses the prerequisites of this mental process. Generalization from a detailed sample to a prevailing rule requires the fulfilment of the following steps; assuring the occurrence of a particular behavior in the story, acquiring the qualification and acceptability of the behavior, obtaining the intention of the story-teller for modeling the behavior, fulfilling the conditions for generalization of the behavior. In the process of acquiring general behavioral models from Quranic stories, knowing and presuppositions play an inevitable role. Thus, the audience of the story can already distinguish a desirable behavior from an undesirable behavior and develops the earlier into a model while ignoring the later. Besides, the ambiguity in and doubt toward the intention of the story-teller for rule-formation allows for the effect of the pre-suppositions held by the audiences.

Belief in intensified substantial motion in material world is one of the most fundamental bases of Sadra’ s philosophical thinking according to which all creatures of the material world including human soul are in a state of motion in their essence and nature and this motion is the quality of the existence of the entity in motion and an inseparable. Due to his belief in “ the power of will” in human soul and the possibility of human ability for practical reason-based actions and motions, Sadra has explained the quality of human soul’ s intensified motion at the stage of humanity. Stating that human’ s optional actions are targeted, Sadra adds that the actual objectives of soul’ s intensification and evolution is union with active intellect. In his view, although some human beings deviate from and fail to fulfill this objective due to their bad will, the intensification of soul occurs in them through which they strengthen one of their faculties.

Sacred Grace which is expanded in the curves of ascent and descent starts from intellect and, in the turning point of the curves, arrives at the Hyles. Then the curve of ascent starts and arrives at intellectual. Human is the axis of this expansion. Man is primarily intellect and ultimately intellectual and intellect and intellectual are identical in one aspect and different from the other. This means that intellect is only one level of perfect human but intellectual is the perfect human itself and the manifestation of Allah which existentially surrounds the curves of ascent and descent. Mulla Sadra has explained the quality of grace expansion. The current research is an attempt to delve into the details of Mulla Sadra’ s position on this issue.

Akhwan al-Sifa` that are amongst the thinkers of the fourth century have discussed “ love” in their literary works. In their writings “ love” possesses two different function; love in a general sense (feeling affection) and love in a particular sense (human love). In their views, enthusiasm for union is the best definition of love. The union resulted from love primarily emerges in the steamy soul and consequently in the body parts of the lover and beloved. Plant soul, animal soul, rational soul, cause and effect nature and nature of some of the animals are the primordium of different kinds of love. Love to commence stands in the need of conscious attention and the variability of people in love is due to their difference in nature or celestial status in the time of their genesis. According to them, will has a viable role in love. Love has a primary intention (e. g. satisfaction of a need) and a supreme intention which is attentiveness to God, divinity and feeling affection for them. Love is a virtue and is therefore plausible but in some cases it becomes a vice and implausible.

The diversity and quality of satanic actions on human existence (soul) can be arrived at through the titles presented in Quran and religious texts. Accordingly, Man becomes afflicted by satanic temptation and error through illusion, imagination and sense in the forms of deception, deceit, delude, disappointment and delay. Human heart is the focal point for satanic insinuation and influence which becomes afflicted through organs, sensory faculties and naughtiness of illusion. Arriving at a monotheistic knowledge through internal and external reasons which is known as the ultimate goal of creation and management and control of the power of reason over the functions of perceptual faculties are the counter measures against the satanic influence. Mosavi Khomeini has also underscored the necessity of control and supervision over the faculty of imagination and strengthening the rule of reason over illusion.

Man’ s dignity is of two kinds; innate dignity, i. e. God has created Man in a way which distinct from and superior to other creatures, and acquired dignity, i. e. Man can attain moral and value-based dignity through pious acts. Man’ s dignity has been a standard in all original Holy Scriptures in a way that violation of this standard is an indication of the distortion in the holy texts. The current study has concluded that Quranic verses have underscored the acquired and innate dignity of man while the bible has offered a humanist description for dignity and, in return for submitting proofs for human dignity, has either denied it or substantiated ethnic superiority of man.