Mutahhari and St. Paul on Faith and Reason

The issue of faith and reason has had a very long history both in Islam and Christianity. Since the very beginning of Christian centuries up to now, Christian theologians were engaged in the issue because many Christian doctrines such as Incarnation, Trinity, Jesus’ death as ransom and so on go contrary to the intellect, thus many intellectuals failed to believe in them. In the meantime, St. Paul appeared as “the second founder of Christianity” claiming that faith and reason are by no means reconcilable, i.e. there is but hostility and mutual denial between the two. In the world of Islam, many great figures have various statements so as to invite Muslims to practice reason and intellect in all issues including matters of faith. Mention can be made to Shahid Mutahhari who firmly believes in profound transactions between faith and reason, considering them in the same line. It is not the case that man is either to have faith without sharing his intellect or suffices with his intellect denying faith as something useless. He holds that without intellectualcontemplations faith will not be viable, for faith is conditioned to knowing God which is one matter of faith and thus faith can be confirmed by the intellect.