The Contingency and the Realization of Using Postmodern Methodologies in Theological Studies

This Paper tries to prove that it is possible to use postmodern methodologies in Islamic theological studies. Accordingly, the three main steps in this paper are taken to defend this thesis. The first step explains that the Iranian philosophical mentality disregards any use of postmodernism in Islamic studies. The paper points out that the problem with this mentality is that this mentality usually sees a fundamental contradiction between materialism and relativism in postmodernism and Islamic understanding of theology. In the second step, the paper shows that, contrary to this understanding of the relation between postmodernism and Islamic theology, the use of postmodernism as a methodology in theological studies opens up new horizons of critical thinking in Islamic studies. In this regard the paper explains how the process of applying postmodern methodologies to theological studies can be justified if we rely on an epistemological feature of postmodernism: Postmodern methodologies defend the preference of epistemology over ontology. In the third step, in order to explain the realization of this thesis in the real world, it shows how Christian theology could well use postmodern methodology and create a valuable postmodern theological literature. This comparison is based on the assumption that theology, Christian and Islamic, have the same ontological similarity in defending the theological metaphisics and in rejecting the modern ontological cognitive.