Comparative Theology
Year:2019 | Volume:10 | Issue:21|Papers Count:15

Anthropology and the discussion of human being is one of the subjects that always had been in the center of debate. Who is human being? What is his essence? What is his purpose of life? A look at Hadith and Qur’ an shows that the human being has the capacity of resemblance to God. It has been realized in the perfect man who is the manifestation of God’ s names and attributes. Although Allame Jafari focuses on mystical aspect of human being, because of various reasons and causes, including being familiar to the Western thinkers, he expand the region of anthropology outside of the mystical boundaries, e. g. psychological and sociological aspects. This paper aimed at showing similarities as well as differences between these two thinkers. Furthermore, we will determine why Erich Fromm was so interesting to Allame Jafari?...

The discussion of "God" and "being, " in Scholastic philosophy are tied. In metaphysics of Suarez, “ being” has different meanings and divisions. And the study of the status of "being" in the theology of Suarez requires an examination of the meanings of being as a subject of metaphysics and the divisions of being in theology. Our question is being that is a subject of metaphysics of Suarez, what has relation to being of his Theology? Is there a relation between being in metaphysics (first volume of Disputations) with God (volume II)? For Suarez the adequate object of metaphysics is being insofar as it is real being; " it deals with not only God and Aristotelian "Separate Substances") which are of themselves immaterial but also with everything else inasmuch as it falls under concepts like being, unity, truth, and goodness, but are common to these and to other things as well...

In the theological discussions of Christianity, which is not alien to the theological issues of Islam, there are three broad views on the soul’ s origin: traducianism, creationism and preexistence view. But today, in philosophy of religion and literature of mind, William Hasker posits an alternative view of origins called emergent substance dualism. Tertullian believed in traducianism that means “ souls following the creation of the first pair (i. e. Adam and Eve) successively generate additional souls (i. e. diachronically not synchronically) where souls are parturient or fissile” . “ According to traducianism, God creates at least one soul directly and immediately” . Soul is produced by physical parents and with physical body. Some verses of the holy book support this but it is not clear how immaterial soul can be generated through a completely physical process...

Early Islamic centuries (1st to 3rd A. H) are significant in every scholarly study of different periods in Iranian history due to their intense transformation and profound developments within the Iranian society and also the encounter of Zoroastrian and Islamic worldviews and different methods of resistance against Arab domination. Zoroastrianism, as a religion, lost its dominant position and was gradually replaced by Islam. Thus, maintaining the integrity of Zoroastrian society became the main concern of the Zoroastrian priests, which can evidently be witnessed in apocalyptic texts of Zoroastrian faith. Accordingly, resistance against Arab invaders lost its initial violence and political fervor and took in a new momentum in the form of maintaining the integrity of Zoroastrian religion and society and concentration on the doomsday and spiritual salvation...

The Arabic term of "Mathal" used in this study is one of the divisions of Parable. It includes everything by which a similarity between a non-sensible and a sensible meaning is created and consequently a far concept from mind becomes tangible and understandable for man, and thus a way of perceiving is opened by which the understanding of many religious and rational concepts become easy. In fact, it is like a kind of argument to serve the proof of a subject that is generally mental and rational. This research, while using the librarian-documentary method, based on the qualitative method of content-inferential analysis, has managed to take some steps towards establishing a dialogue for religions. In the form of this research, a comparative study, as in the two great books of the Holy Quran and the Gospel of Sharif. In the first place, the topics of the Holy Qur'an and the New Testament are examined...

In this research, we attempt to inquiry Death and the meaning of life in transcendental wisdom. Transcendental wisdom considers as the end of the existence and the essential motion of the beings toward the god. Therefore, the human movement from the material levels of the soul is considerably liable to the life of the beings and the man. Meanwhile, the place of death and the extraction of thinking about death in transcendental wisdom is an existential existence Introduced and able to emerge in the meaning of life. The importance and necessity of this research is due to the crisis of identity and meaninglessness of life in the contemporary world and the applied values of the transcendental divine wisdom regarding the spiritual and physical dimensions of man. The main issue of the research is that the perfectionism that brings about the meaning of life and attention in transcendentalism can be realized in this world or it is only possible in another world and whether it is possible for everyone or only a few can be To the fullest which means the same meaning of life...

Semantics deals with the scientific study of meaning, and meaning is awareness of the cultural context as well as the relation of a word to another vocabulary in a text. The present research aims to explain and define the semantic components of the two words "oppression (Ẓ alū m)" and "ignorance (Jahū l)" from different views of Shiite and Sunni commentators, based on the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, in order to draw a clear picture of the oppression and ignorance of human being. A comparative study of the views of the commentators from the both religious traditions, conducted in a descriptive analytical method, showed that most Sunni scholars believe that the attributes of oppression and ignorance are in the nature and temper of all human beings, and no human being is outside from the circle of oppression and ignorance. On the opposite side, most Shiite scholars believe that oppression and ignorance are not inherent in the human’ s attributes, but are particular in those who have deviated from the path of divine guidance and have not been cultivated.

Anthropology is one of the most important topics in theology, which has always been considered by the mystics and theologians. In Islamic mysticism, on one hand, human being is considered as the type, the most important creation and its purpose. On the other hand, as a person and entitled "complete man". Considering the importance of the subject of humanity in Islamic mysticism, the present study addresses the mystical philosophy in the opinions of two great mystics of the history of mysticism and Sufism of Iran, namely Najm al-Din Rā ḍ ī (573-654) and Aziz Nesafī (596-671 AH. ), it has been discussed a descriptive-comparative approach to analyzing the similarities and differences between the two mystics' thoughts about three important issues in the mystical humanistic domain, namely, the place Man, human beings and man. The reason why these two mystics are chosen is to address them in human and humanitarian discussions in their works. In addition, both mystics have come into existence in one century and have been attributed to the Kubraviah...

Traditional scholars on one hand did not want to reject this religious belief that Moses was the writer of Pentateuch and on the other hand they could not conceal the existing problems in that book. Accordingly, they claimed that they could answer these problems with interpretive approaches. In their view, these contradictions and inconsistencies are in appearance and not only haven’ t something to do impede the coherence and harmony of the text, but they can provide compelling answers by adopting appropriate interpretive tools. Baruch Spinoza rejected this traditional method because he believed that the choice of the virtual meaning would be depend on the interpreter's desires, and where two or more virtual meanings can be obtained, there is no standard for preference. In his opinion, Bible must be read like any other book, with a free mind and without prejudice. By adopting a critical historical method, Richard Simon tried to answer Spinoza and some other Protestants. However, Simon’ s idea that the biblical "scribes" compiled their narratives from the original sources provided an introduction to the formation of hypotheses about the sources /documents of Pentateuch...

With the affirmation of the words of Ibn Arabi and Mulla Sadra, which either arise from their common benefit in verses and traditions as a common source or based on Mulla Sadra's belief in the originality of existence, which is equal to the unity of Ibn Arabi's existence, that Mulla Sadra believes this idea is based on the theory of Gradation, substantial movement and Ibn Arabi believes this idea is based on perpetual creation theory, the manifestation of the shadowy existence and the ultra-rationality of some perceptions of presence in the discussion of the universe of imagination. We must say that both are present in the universe of imagination, its characteristics, its types and levels, the effect and significance of this universe in two arcs of descent and ascension, its role in epistemology, ontology...

In the first half of the nineteenth century the dispute over the compatibility of the Christian faith with the new scientific discoveries was one of the hottest debates in the Western theologians' thoughts, especially in Germany. Most of the Protestant theologians, who were known as "liberal", believed that in the light of the new scientific discoveries, the Christian faith and theology alike needed reconstruction. These theologians came to this conclusion that religion and culture were, in practice, one and the same. Tillich's work, in between, was a continuation of such a view about religion and culture. One can say that, indeed, all his endeavors are to show a kind of coherent and logical compatibility between Christianity and the new culture. He does this in his most important book Systematic Theology. In this article, along presenting and analyzing his work in this book, his success in this regard is evaluated. He believes the relation between theology and situation, which is the relation between religion and culture, is in fact the relation between "asking" and "answering". Religion and culture always constitute a unified whole, the form of which is culture and the content and essence of which is religion...

The Holy Quran emphasizes the Islamic Ummah approximation. But a group among Shi'a and Sunni for various reasons disagreed with it. This article is about an anti-approximation group within Sunni. After dividing them into different groups, it explains and criticizes the causes of their opposition according to the induction in their original books. The output of the paper is that their opposition to the Islamic approximation process is unjustified and often stems from their mistaken approach and analysis of the subject of approximation. The word “ تقریب ” approximation derived from the root “ ق ر ب ” , means closeness and connectivity, technically is a serious effort to strengthen the relations between the followers of the two main religions of Islam by understanding the differences between them and eliminating the negative consequences of these differences. In other words, approximation means the approaching and closing of the followers of the Islamic faiths in order to become acquainted with each other through the realization of empathy and religious brotherhood on the basis of common Islamic principles, or to cooperate in promoting and preserving religious unity and disregarding each other in cases of conflict. In fact, the outcome of approximation is the movement towards the unity of Islamic Ummah. So clearly, the movement of approximation does not take into account the elimination of particular religious groups and their integration into one another...