A Study on the Relation between Faith and Philosophical Knowledge

The relation between Faith and knowledge has been an old challenge among the religious thinkers. It has been sometime entitled the relation between Faith and reason, and sometimes the relation between religion and wisdom. Among Christian theologians three approaches can be recognized in this relation: maximum rationalism, fideism, and critical rationalism. Muslim scholars have had approaches which are some how similar to that of Christians. In this paper we will discuss the relation between Faith and philosophical knowledge from the viewpoint of Muslim scholars and we will defend the primordial knowledge theory in defining the nature of knowledge related to religious faith. So we will first divide knowledge with two kinds: philosophical and primordial. Secondly we will discuss critically the theory of philosophical knowledge in relation to faith and finally we will justify the theory of primordial knowledge based on the Quran and the tradition.