The Matter of Servitude and Its Rational Challenges

Religious and spiritual intellectuals of the recent decades have stressed on this point: religion does not have a good relationship with rationality and it is necessary, in this conflict, to prefer one to another. They believe servitude is the center and base of religion and it is the opposite point of rationality. They consider the new and modern world as the world of rationality and rational reflection, and believe this rationality does not come along with being religious based on servitude. Therefore, servitude encounters various rational challenges. This article studies six main challenges of religiousness and servitude from the perspective of rationality. The main rational obstacles of religious servitude are: the challenge of alienation, the challenge of lack of rational development, the challenge of non-verifiability, the challenge of non-criticizability, the challenge of not arriving at an agreement about a judge, and finally the challenge of why servitude. Investigating and explaining the essence of servitude and dividing it into mo’allal (based on cause) servitude and modallal (based on reason) servitude, I have answered these challenges and have tried to show that religious servitude, which is a modallal servitude, has been formed in a rational background; and although the modern and critical rationality is not in accordance with it, but a sound, moderate and realistic rationality considers religious servitude rational and ideal.