نشریه حکمت اسرا
سال چهارم شماره 4 (پیاپی 14، زمستان 1391)

The temporal originatedness and the eternity of the world are two of the most ancient issues addressed in philosophy. Sadr-ol-Mote’alehin, however, has provided a new response to this issue based on the theory of transubstantiation and the constant renovation of the world. Although the statements of the contemporary philosophers of this school of thought are all steps taken in revision and development of Mulla-Sadra’s theory, there are some controversies among such statements too. This study seeks to explain, investigate, and criticize the viewpoints of the learned contemporary philosophers Allameh Tabatabaii, Ayatollah Jawadi Amoli, and Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi in this regard. These views will be subject to investigation and critique on two different fronts: a) the definition of the temporal originatedness and eternity of the world based on each of these philosophers’ viewpoint; and b) the determination of the temporal originatedness of the world or its eternity based on the definition provided by these philosophers. The achievements of this study are to come up with various definitions of the temporal originatedness and eternity of the world, and to choose the best relevant definition to come up with the sententia as to the temporal originatedness or the eternity of the world.

In his renowned book on the philosophy of religion called “Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong”, J.L. Mackie has presented a skeptical stance. Based on this standpoint, since religious rules and propositions are dependent upon the objectivity of the ethical values and truths, and because these have been repudiated for two main reasons of ‘peculiarity of ethical truths’ and ‘relativity of ethical values’, such ethical rules are regarded as untrue. Mackie has called this standpoint of his as put forward in this book ‘The Error Theory’. This research is an attempt to examine and critique this standpoint based on the views of Muslim scholars including Ayatollah Jawadi Amoli. Clearly, for Muslim scholars, ethical truths are realities that are described using abstract concepts of secondary philosophical intelligibles’ kind. From this perspective, the existence of these issues in the world is explicable the way that the existence of realities of abstract nature is explained.

In a part of mystical literature, as well as the words of some individuals affiliated with mysticism, intellect and mysticism have been portrayed as being at odds with each other and they were presented as two totally irreconcilable and adverse paths. These people consider intellect not as a source and a way of acquiring knowledge, thus, they give no credit to the achievements of intellect, and consequently, to the Humanities. Based on these people’s viewpoint, intellect is not only an invalid resource of knowledge but also a barrier to acquiring knowledge and a cause of falling into aberration. Interestingly, some of such individuals have resorted to logical reasoning to discredit intellect. In the present paper, some of the argumentations of these people will be addressed and investigated. It is worth emphasizing, however, that the opposition of some mystics, or so-called mystics, to intellect does not indicate as to the opposition of all mystics to intellect or the irreconcilability and conflict of mysticism and intellect, for such oppositions could simply originate from a lack of proper understanding of mysticism and intellect. We believe that not only are not mysticism and intellect irreconcilable, they are mutually confirming and supporting. The pinnacle of this mutual confirmation and support can be seen in Mulla-Sadra’s Transcendent Theosophy.

Despite their immateriality, temporal beings are not void of material attributes (i.e. quantity, measure, and shape), while such attributes are somehow involved in the individual specification and thus individuation of beings and they lead to the particularization of these forms. Assuming an ‘Imaginable stage’ for the human ego, one is also able to imagine some precedence for humans in this world. In such an imagination, there will be a numerical plurality as many as the corporeal individuals. Based on Mulla-Sadra’s viewpoint, the human ego is of corporeal originatedness and the precedence of such an ego is referred to the existence of an intellectual congregation in the Divine Areal Region or in the world of intellectual transcendents. Through such an interpretation, not only the idea of the originatedness of human ego remains preserved, but the rationally impossible consequences and the invalid succession of the idea of the eternal existence of ego will not find the opportunity to manifest. Therefore, the descending hierarchy, especially the subsequent stages of the fallen existences in the Arc of descent, does not seem reconcilable with the view of corporal originatedness and the background of the intellectual existence of ego, despite Sadr-ol-Mote’alehin’s great emphasis on the imaginable existence of existences, makes it difficult to explicate the manner of their origination from the intellectual stage to the material world. It might be possible to do away with this contradiction by assuming the pre-existence of the material making up the body as a common factor in human form; however, material is of little significance in Mulla-Sadra’s school of philosophy, in addition, it is innovative and cannot be employed in this stage. Based on Mulla-Sadra’s views, the assumption as to the existence of a direct link between the common matter of the form (in the material world) and the imaginable matter is an invalid assumption. However, in some scientific works some statements can be found that indicate a belief in a stage of human imaginable ego in the stages in the Arc of descent and support the view of the eternity of the ego and add to the vagueness of the theory of ‘Corporeal Originatedness’.

The Muslim philosophers have created a capacity for the hermeneutic approach to form by categorizing Humanities under the category of Applied Sciences. Accordingly, the understanding and interpretation of action are ratified based on the cultural norms and instrumental motivation. However, a scholar’s job does not end here and goes beyond the realms of common hermeneutic approaches. Thus, based on Islamic philosophy, the existential consequences of action which are no longer affiliated with the domain of idealities will also be explicated in this regard. Moreover, the objectives of the action as well as the suitability of the idealities will also be examined through non-hermeneutic methods in order to achieve such objectives as well.

The contemporary atheists have maintained the belief in the existence of evil to inflict serious criticism on religious beliefs. They believe a contradiction to exist between the belief in the existence of evil and the belief in the existence of a God with an infinite power and supreme goodness, in that it is not possible to believe both in the existence of God and the existence of evil at the same time. Simply put, the logical problem of evil is as follows: God is omnipotent; God is omnibenevolent; yet evil exists. According to J.L. Mackie, this set of propositions is contradictory, thus, one must not believe in such a God, and this is how he concludes that God does not exist. In response to J.L. Mackie, Alvin Plantinga has put forward the idea of possible worlds. He then argues that God’s infinite power does not include some worlds, and that these are the worlds in which humans choose goodness over evil while having freewill. Through this argument, Plantinga seeks to demonstrate that not only there is no explicit contradiction between a theosopher’s beliefs and the existence of evil, there is also no implicit contradiction between them either.

Islam has claimed a new status in the contemporary world and this has necessitated that, in light of the studies that are based on religious and theistic knowledge, it plays the role of a rich resource in the order of the world’s identity and civilization. Moreover, the reproduction of certain texts with secular and at times even anti-religious and anti-theistic, orientations in Humanities in the Muslim countries has added to the significance of the issue of methodology due to its considerable role in the production of knowledge in Humanities. Therefore, the present paper aims at a critical and scrutinizing review of the common methodologies in Humanities and their related epistemological, ontological, and anthropological issues so as to prove the realist method of Mulla-Sadra to be an efficient method of producing Islamic Humanities.