فصلنامه قبسات
پیاپی 79 (بهار 1395)

God appears as a completely different being in Ibn Sina's writings; in his philosophical discussions he presents a picture from the 'necessary being' as God which is not only mere-transcendental in its being and distinct from other beings, the range of this transcendence reaches to human's mind and knowledge as well. On the other hand his discussions about prayer, in his different writings, might show the incompatibility of his pictures of God or at least their multiplicity at first glance, but since Ibn Sina is aware of the problems of praying to a non-person-like God, he clearly states that speaking – in its common sense - with the almighty 'necessary being' is impossible; he thus creates a different meaning for prayer, instead of changing the picture of God, and presents a philosophical definition for it. The reality of prayer, in his view, is not a mere dialogue; rather it is a kind of existential change which is rooted in knowledge and love. He explains this matter by distinguishing between the formal aspect – which he explains with a Divine legislation approach - and the real aspect – which is connected with his philosophical view – and by changing the concept of prayer to love. Ibn Sina's picture of the Divine love is completely compatible with his picture of non-person-like God and also his definition of prayer.

The 'argument of contingency' for proving God's existence is based on the contingency of the universe (except God) and therefore it depends on an eternal origin. In other words the reason why an effect needs a cause is its contingency. But the theosophists believe the reason why an effect needs a cause is the possibility of its essence and Molla-Sadra believes it to be the poorness of its essence. There are two main problems about Molla-Sadra's view of the argument of contingency; the first problem is related to the base of the argument and to the fact that the reason why an effect requires a cause is its contingency and the second problem is related to the form of the argument, which is the fact that world's contingency is an external description and the theologian cannot extend it to the essence of the world. Molla-Sadra tries to extend the world's contingency to its essence through the theory of "trans-substantial motion" and thus corrects the argument. Although this attempt keeps the form of the argument of contingency, but completely changes its content and makes it close to the 'argument of movement'.

The argument of order is the most simple, common and affective argument in theism. Due to its generality, or the wide range of the presenters and the addressees of this argument which almost cover all human beings, it has some inaccuracies in its explanation, understanding , and its main claim; this is to an extent that some improper doubts has been posed about it. Professors Motahhari and Javadi Amoli, as two theologian philosophers and philosopher theologians, have discussed this argument. Professor Motahhari has especially paid attention to the unacceptable doubts of David Hume, the English philosopher, and has answered them. I will first present a general discussion on the 'argument of order' and its background in philosophy and Islamic Kalam, and will then explain and compare the views of the two philosophers about the different aspects of the argument of order. Comparing the views of the two valuable theosophists, I have judged about the discrepancies of the two views. At the end of the article a new view about the result of the argument is presented.

The Salafieh course of thought may be investigated and analyzed from different perspectives and the presuppositions of this analysis affects the final structure of the research. Salafieh is sensual in ontology, traditional and based on the literal meaning in epistemology and methodology, and consider the ancestor's understanding, words and acts as their source on the one hand, and assume reason and its understandings and reflections inefficient on the other hand; which makes them so obsolete that in some cases their statements end up to be in contradiction with the tradition they claimed to be loyal to. Reviewing the basis of the school of Salafieh and investigating its approach in ontology, epistemology and methodology, I have explained the result of this approach – which is an anti-reason and literalistic (those who trust to outward of statement rather inward of it) Islam - and have analyzed and criticized the epistemological value of reason and its function in religious knowledge.

Do all human beings have a common and constant essence or each has a different essence from the beginning or at the rest of their lives? This article searches for the answer of this question in the writings of Molla- Sadra. According to the 'transcendental wisdom' beside their a priori differences, humans will find some main a posteriori differences in the rest of their lives and will find different essences with respect to each other, yet this does not deny their essential commonality, in actuality or in potency. One of the human's essential commonality is their monotheistic nature; all human beings have monotheistic nature despite all their differences which are serious in some cases. Therefore we may have trans-temporal and trans-spatial teachings and advices for human being.

World's contingency has different types as considered in the popular philosophy; they consider the world contingence with different types of contingencies such as "essential contingency", "temporal contingency", "renewable contingency", "contingency through perpetual duration". I will criticize philosopher's perspective on the types of world's contingency and will show that none of these types of contingencies are acceptable in the system of plurality of being and the division of being into pre-eternal and contingent; rather the world's contingency should be posed and proved on the base of the system of plurality of manifestations.

One of the most important matters in mystical knowledge and intuitional awareness is as follows: do revelatory sources (the Quranic revelation and its explanations) have the capacity to produce a heavenly mysticism which is directly and independently deduced and derived from the holy Quran and the tradition? In other words is it possible to infer esoteric knowledge from religious texts to gradually produce the science of revelatory mysticism? This question is more important and necessary to answer when we consider the present idiomatic mysticism which is made up of the intuitions of the mystics at the levels of 'ein-ol-yaqin' and 'hagol-yaqin' and has religious essence and is approved with Quran's verses and traditions and prayers [narrated from the infallible Imams] and has some pros and cons and even deprecators. It should be noticed that revelatory or ahl-ol-beiti mysticism is a mysticism understood or deduced and produced from religious texts, the Holy Quran and tradition, with the logic of Ijtihad (exertion). In other words it has arisen and has been produced from the Mohammadian complete intuition which has many spiritual-cognitive functions in different fields and is one of the sources of formation and perfection of the new Islamic civilization. This article will answer the mentioned question according to the following hypothesis: "the Holy Quran and tradition are two rich and sound sources of mysticism with sound and stable factors".

God has manifested in the Holy Quran, as asserted in tradition. This manifestation may be textual or spiritual. The spiritual manifestation is postponed to other articles with the subject of "impressive miracle" and this article will only deal with textual manifestation. God's manifestation in the text has some signs which may be found through understanding these signs. Some have named this process 'ascription of text to God' shortly called "the theory of ascription". The mentioned theoretician believes the miracle of Quran is related to God's textual signs and explaining and proving his view, poses some criticisms about the common view which relates the miracle of Quran to its superhuman** text in terms of its expression and content; he believes his theory is the only solution. Investigating this theory according to the words of the theoretician, the author of this article has revealed some of its problems and has answered his criticisms. The author has also tried to properly elaborate the form of theory acceptable to himself (the textual manifestation of God in the Holy Quran).