The Nature of Faith from the Perspective of Ibne Arabi and Kierkegaard

Faith and its nature have attracted the attention of scholars in different fields who have expressed views which in some cases seem incompatible. Comparing and contrasting these views and their examination can shed light on the issue of faith. In this article, the nature of faith from the point of view of Ibne Arabi, the father of theoretical Gnosticism, from the Islamic tradition and Kierkegaard from the Christian tradition are compared and contrasted. With respect to faith, the perspectives of ‘faith as confirmation’, ‘faith as act’, and so on are expressed by Islamic scholars and the ‘propositional’ and ‘phenomenological’ perspectives by western scholars. Ibne Arabi with his realistic views considers faith as knowledge and confirmation. For him, true faith is the one which comes before and after intuition. Kierkegaard, having bases in philosophical skepticism and considering the associations of faith as unreal, has an anti-epistemological and voluntary perspective to faith and maintains that volition, taking risks and enduring hardships are elements of faith.