مجله الهیات تطبیقی
پیاپی 15 (بهار و تابستان 1395)

Mulla Sadra and Augustine sought to respond to the problem of evil that was one of the most important and controversial issues of philosophy and theology. The philosophers achieved their goal by using a complex method composed of philosophical and theological responses. The paper intends to explain at first the philosophical answers of Mulla Sadra and Augustine to the problem of evil which include temporariness and relativeness of the evil, the excellence of the universe and the necessity of evil for the material world. Then their opinions are compared. In spite of living in different eras, Mulla Sadra and Augustine had very similar views on the problem of evil. Their opinions were very similar because both of them were divine and inspired thinkers, were follower of the opinions of both Plato and Plotinus and brought up the problem of evil and tried to solve it in order to achieve a common purpose, namely to defend God’s perfect traits. Mulla Sadra and Augustine, besides considering the problem of evil as a theological issue, were very attentive to the philosophical dimension of this debate. Mulla Sadra and Augustine gave a similar definition of evil and both contrasted between good and evil as the Queen and lack of the Queen are contrasted. The philosophers like other ones called special attention to the non-existence of evil. They pursued a common goal by regarding the evil as non-existent. They intended not to harm the goodness of all creatures and on the other hand, they sought to preserve unity in creativity. In fact they propose the non-existence of the evil in response to the dualists, with the difference that dualists who were living in contemporary with Augustine were Manichaeism, but in the age of Mulla Sadra, dualism was widespread, particularly among Zoroastrians. The problem of evil is somehow related to the existentialism because the evilness refers to the presence of the evil-doer, or to its nature. Accordingly Mulla Sadra analyzed the problem of evil according to his own principles of existentialism. Augustine, however, did not point out to existentialism in his work because this issue was raised in the West in the thirteenth century by Aquinas, not in Augustine’s time. Therefore, the acceptance of existentialism in his works and ideas shows the fact that Augustine can be recognized as an existential philosopher. Both philosophers accepted the ambiguity of the evil following the ambiguity of the existence. Mulla Sadra knew the first monster as the lowest level of existence, however, he asserted somewhere that the monster is pure evil. But Augustine did not consider the first material to be pure non-existence and evil. Mulla Sadra provided an argument, in addition to concluding the non-existence of the evil through the equivalence of existence and goodness and introducing it as an obvious argument. Augustine, however, just used the equivalence of existence and goodness to come to the conclusion that evil was non-existent and did not provide an argument for his claim. Another common response between Mulla Sadra and Augustine to the problem of evil is that the evil is relative. Mulla Sadra asserted that the evil is necessary for the material world. Augustine also said that sin and evil were found only in the material creatures of the universe. They both believed in the excellence of the universe and provided reasons, some of which were common between them and some were different. They shared the following: 1- Academic argument (ÈÑåÇä áãی): Sadra and Augustine both used this argument to establish a better system. They applied the rules of origin because according to the rule, God is in the highest level of existence and have perfect attributes, then He must create creatures in perfection and beauty. 2- Mulla Sadra and Augustine’ opinion about the excellence of the universe is subject to this requirement that the human must look aesthetically to the universe as a unit and set, otherwise it may happen that affair that are appropriate and homogeneous in the universe be regarded as evil. Mulla Sadra and Augustine believed that the world is more good, rather evil because there is not evil in levels far above the material world and the worlds constitute a substantial portion of the world and since the better system does not just mean a system in which there is no evil, but a system in which evil is rare and goodness is more, such a system may be called a better system, so the existing system is an excellent system.

Hafez's lyrics are loaded with concepts against asceticism, an approach which makes this mystical sonneteer distinct from other Muslim poets. It is worth mentioning, however, that having mystical experiences is not possible without ascetical practices such as, prayer, fasting, refraining from evils and joys and austerity. Applying the ascetical approach, the mystic departs himself from the earthly world and gets prepared to enter the spiritual realm. Thus, picturing mysticism without asceticism is exactly what Hafez tries to advocate. According to Hafez the one who claims to have asceticism, but is still in fond of material world and the reluctance toward the transient world has not yet been penetrated in his heart, cannot be described as the one reaching the realm of truth and mysteries. Furthermore, asceticism acts like a tool which has nothing by itself to add to the heart of the mystic, rather, focusing too much on asceticism, certainly can lead to the deprivation of accessing the spiritual realm for the mystic, for all the earthly objects are the manifests of God and the mystic will finally see his beloved's face within the objects which he had left behind. During the time of practicing asceticism and austerity, the mystic controls his five senses in order to harness his greedy willingness, but after that he gets qualified to pay attention to the worldly objects which reflect the face of the beloved. This point which is known as "drunkenness" in mysticism marls the end of asceticism and beginning of mysticism. This position, however, should not be interpreted as the time in which the legal precepts and religious duties are all annulled. In the works of Nietzsche, two different kinds of asceticism; a positive and negative ones can be identified. Each of them can be divided in two other categories. The negative asceticism which has no connection with living and seeks to relieve human suffering, includes the supernatural and clerical asceticism, by supernatural asceticism a kind if philosophy is meant which tries to evade suffering by coining the house of ideas (Platonism), being unified with the light (the concept highlighted in Buddhism) and offering the human stabilized cognition system (Kant's critical philosophy). By clerical asceticism, Nietzsche means, the approach of conflicting with the world and evading the living. The followers of this approach once were among the commanders and fighters and when they reached the old age, by coining the title of clerical class, became members of it. According to Nietzsche, such people, after losing their power and control over the others, they try to attack themselves and gain control over themselves, leading to creating another kind of asceticism. On the other hand, the positive asceticism which can provide a popper situation to train talented people is divided into two sections: the natural and pure philosophical asceticism. By natural asceticism, he means the hard and overwhelming practices which influence both soul and body and cause much suffering. Such asceticism, instead of destroying the instincts, will purge it and willingly accept the religious legal duties. The pure philosophical asceticism, on the other hand, is a philosophical approach in which the person would put the majority aside, providing a private atmosphere for himself observing the power in the history of philosophy and nature. According to Nietzsche the negative asceticism is an approach stemming from slaves morality, while the positive asceticism stems from the masters morality. It primarily seems that the kind of asceticism suggested by Hafez is similar to what Nietzsche calls it as clerical asceticism. Also, Hafez's definition of asceticism can match the one called by Nietzsche as pure philosophical asceticism. However, the asceticism suggested by Hafez must be considered the fifth kind, since, after all, Nietzsche's suggested form of asceticism is quite materialistic while that of Hafez is of spiritual nature.

Investigating the significance and knowledge domain of a holy text is one of the fundamental problems of religious Language. For Sadra the religious language is a cognitive language. He considers the relation between word and meaning in Revelation as a genetic one; he believes that contrary to imagery in literature in revelation there is a univocity between appearance and reality and the descended truths in the existential hierarchies correspond with each other in a vertical relationship. In this domain, Molla Sadra explains philosophically the self-manifestation of the revealed truths in terms of holy text by using the correspondence between the knowledge and language (Kalam) with the being in the arc of descent and in the arc of ascent he provides an understanding process of the holy text whose reconstruction forms his model of ontological hermeneutics. The principal problem of this article is the explanation of the significance of religious language and its cognitive domain in Sadra’s hermeneutic model which results from an investigation of this model and effective factors in the process of the holy text understanding. This research has been conducted based on Mafatih al-ghayb and explanation of its philosophical foundations on the basis of the Transcendent Philosophy and one of its most important findings is displaying the role of triad of individual, text and the author in relation together by Sadra’s hermeneutic model and using this model for explaining the cognitive domain of religious language regarding the text and also from text to extra-text. Contrary to the one-dimensional exoteric conventional or esoteric dogmatic and absolutist models in understanding Quran, Mulla Sadra provides a comprehensive multiple coherent model that is based on singular reality and is rooted in the existence hierarchy, existential layers of human being and the interiors of holy text. Due to move around the gradational singular reality, the process of understanding distinguishes this model from dogmatic absolutism in understanding; this causes to not slip in abyss of relativism and thus it solves the problem of judgment among the multiple interpretations. Therefore, Sadra’s ontological hermeneutics is situated between two poles of absolutism and relativism. For doing an interpretative movement from the exterior to the interior of the text and understanding the hierarchical truth of that, he provides a special model in which the interaction among individual, text and author causes to understand the hierarchical text. Based on the existential link and unity between individual and text in each stage of existence, a proper stage of understanding results and the highest point of this understanding is a unity with the author as a true and ultimate meaning of the text. Thus Sadra’s model opens a way to the text world the highest point of which is an ontological unity among the triad of individual, text and author. In this way the role and effect of presuppositions in interpretation is clarified by Sadra. Furthermore, with this model he has answered the problem of judgment about the multiple interpretations. However, the domain of Sadra’s cognitive religious language does not content oneself with text, but in his view everything is interpretable, because the world is the same language (Kalam) and also everything is or in the text (compilation book) or in the extra-text (generation book and soul book). Since the text and extra-text have an interior and an exterior and the interpretation reveals the way from the exterior to the interior, so speaking of interpretability of everything is not absurd. Hence in Sadra’s model the interpretation is not limited to find out a common meaning between the descended knowledge and the higher stages of that knowledge, but it includes the finding out of a truth common between the descended existence and the higher stages of that existence, too. Therefore, we must search an approach for analyzing the existential phenomena of the world; Sadra’s hermeneutics provides a way to enter into meaning of the soul book and generation book by using the interpretative model of compilation book. In Sadra’s philosophy we encounter with text as one mode of existence. The relation between the text and the extra-text is an existential one, at least in case of holy text, and the world is the same language. This existential aspect of text and Mulla Sadra’s emphasis on homothety and correspondence among the compilation book, soul book and generation book reinforce this hypothesis that for knowing and understanding the soul book and generation book we can benefit from Sadra’s ontological hermeneutics and its encounter with the text. On this ground, in interpreting the extra-text the triad of individual, text and author is transformed into the triad of individual, extra-text and Creator; that corresponds with this. As in the first triad the understanding of text depends on the unity of individual and text during the trans-substantial motion, in interpreting the extra-text also the understanding of extra-text depends on the unity of individual and the extra-text. Similar to the interpretation and understanding of the world, the human being has been introduced as a homothetic version of the world and the perfect man as a variant of the world. Of course, here also the highest point of meaning is the unity among the triad of individual, extra-text and Creator. Perhaps this approach opens a way to formation of the ontological sciences specially in domain of human sciences and types of religious knowledge. In Sadra’s hermeneutics the interpretation of the world’s existents is God

Atonement teaching is one of the most important and fundamental doctrines of the Christians which has a vital connection with the "original sin" (Romans 5, 12-20) and has been admitted by the main three sects of Christianity. This teaching expresses how to save mankind from the original sin, and is of such importance that without belief in the teaching, other Christianity teachings lose their importance. There are several interpretations of this teaching among which the Anselm's theory is the most famous one. According to this theory, all humans became sinful due to the Adam's sin. From the one hand, God's justice demands the punishment of man for the sin, and on the other hand His absolute mercy requires Him to save man with salvation. Hence, Jesus Christ as a man of God, in order to atone for Adam's sin and salvation, came onto the earth and was crucified. Sacrificing basic components are as follows: 1. The original sin of Adam (AS) 2-belief in Adam's original sin. 3. Man's original sin 4. The outcome of any sin: eternal death 5. Conflict between God’s mercy and justice outcome of any sin 6. Being human and God at the same (incarnation) 7. Sociability of anthropomorphic God with men 8. crucified and accursed God 8. 9-Jesus as an atonement to sins of believers even the whole world. This theory has been met with criticism Muslim and Christian scholars. Rashid Reza and Allameh Tabatabai review on the components of this theory. AL-Mizan draws all components of atonement in to criticism, but the most criticism of AL-menar is about the conflict of mercy and justice of God. This survey has examined the contiguity of AL-Menar and AL-Mizan about atonement theory. Based on the findings of this article, Rashid Reza has confined to rational criticism; while Allameh on the base of verse by verse interpretation of the Quran, with a rational approach, has been challenged “atonement”. Clarifying of AL-Manar and AL-Mizan from atonement concept are the same and adapted with Anselm's Compensation theory. Alalameh in denying that Adam sinned by eating forbidden fruit, brings two Quranic reasons: guidance of prohibition and being innocent of Adam. From the point of AL-Mizan view, the Quranic reason to pass the original sin of Adam is his repentance and the acceptance of it by God.(AL-Baqarah37). In the respestion of Quran, it is not correct to punish all humans due to a person’s sin.(Al-Najm:38-39) All sins are not equal, and every sin does not lead to eternal perdition because there are different views toward sins in the Quran, some are deadly sins and some are minor.(Al-Nesa/31) Some have mercy and forgiveness, but some cannot be forgiven like the polytheism which has not been forgiven without repentance.(Ibid/41) Adam’s disagreement with the forbidden fruit is not like infidelity and polytheism which has perpetual suffering and destruction. God's justice does not contradict his amnesty, but forgiveness is the greatest virtue. As God is free to punish the guilty, he can forgive him. Rashid Reza about the component of conflict between mercy and justice of God believes that sacrifice/atonement teaching requires the acceptance of ignorance of God. This means that when he created Adam(AS) he did not know Adam could commit a sin, and when Adam commit the sin, God did not know the requirements of justice and mercy. Until thousands of years after the creation of Adam with the incarnation of Jesus came to the conclusion how justice and mercy gather. Not only is God powerless to collect his mercy and justice, but with Christ's crucifixion these two attributes of God have been deprived. AL- Mizan in criticism embodiment says the incarnation of God is impossible. Due to this idea, creator of this world has to deliver by a woman! And has to change to a human; so all traits of a man, happen to him. Then his enemies captivate him angrily and robbers take him to cling on. God is innocent of these things. It is impossible God has children (Al-Baqarah, 117). Jesus is not the Son of God, he is a man like other men. (Al-maeedeh, 75). He was worshiping God (Al-Nissa, 172) and calling people to worship God (Al-Maeedeh, 72). Allameh in criticism of the components that Jesus is the sins of believers portrays that the necessity of being sacrifice, is futility of laws and canons and unreal divine punishment. If the only way to salvation is to sacrifice of Jesus Christ canonization laws before, during and after Christ will be in vain and there will not be legislation aimed correctly. Also, based on the guidelines of the Quran, one by following or not following the laws instructions, provides esoteric truths of the attributes of a virtuous or vicious evil in his soul, and these facts underline the blessing or penalty of hereafter, showed in the heaven and hell. And the reality of heaven and hell is proximity and distance from God. So good deeds and sins rely on true affairs that have real system not credit one. Rashid Reza considers intercession as a sacrifice and denies it; but, Allameh, meanwhile explaining the essential difference between sacrifice and intercession, calls Jesus as an intercessor not sacrifice through the Quran.

Numerous studies that have recently been done about the important issue of life indicates that this problem is including various dimensions, in a way that it has been studied in both philosophy of religion which concerns the purposeful dimension of life and ethical themes which discusses about volubility of life also it evaluates the performance and advantage of life, the aspect which concerns the purposefulness if life is the most important one. In the present research and in discussing about the creation or the discovering of the meaning we are mostly confronted with the aim and purpose in the discussion about meaning, sometimes aim is attributed to a creature that has knowledge and freedom and sometimes it is related to a creature that has none of these factors. A creature that has knowledge and freedom in all of itsactsis considered a destination that is called purpose or aim. If the aim is concealed in itself and in the free-willed creature, it is called self- structured aim but if it is out of the creature and is related to other creatures is external aim and it is not self-structured.By comparing human and the world, we can find that life in its nature has not self- structured aim because the aim must be seek in a factor out of that is owner of knowledge and freedom. But this is not correct about human because human has knowledge and freedom, so it has self- structured aim. Answer to these questions is related to view of accosted person in a way that a secular person cannot realize the perpetual creator and his responses are physical. Also divine person responded in another way and by considering a hypothesis that has a good life. Only difference between a divine and a physical person is that final factor to physical person is nature, but divine person considered nature as a part of a larger factor as supra nature. Regarding to these backgrounds, a question is indicated that: is life meaning discoverable or fake able? Answer to this question in view of aim or value is reason of this factor that life has a specific meaning. It means that that meaning that is concealed in life is the one that we discovered it, but some others believed that it is impossible because human create his life by his deeds. Some deeds such as create a good work, experiencing a special condition or war against life problems and accepting difficulties and pains. As we saw in Kierkegaard philosophy, he supported the Christ religion and he was believed that to have a meaningful life, we must have attempts such as Jesus to do God recommendations in an appropriate way. So meaning for philosopher and his recommendations is a discoverable and objective factor. But in contrast, there are some people that ignore contemporary human and consider his life as an absurd factor that is following with a force. Main index of meaningfulness to these people is freedom and knowledge of human that is accessible by helping awareness. These people believe that human is responsible to meaning source that has emphasized on his subjective life to access to a meaningful life so they considered meaning as a subjective and fake able factor. The French existentialist philosopher, Sartre, is one of these thinkers, while he is follower of Kierkegaard but these two philosophers have basic disagreements in philosophy and metaphysics fields and specially in discovering meaning or fakeness. So we attempt to investigate disagreement points and agreement points of Kierkegaard and Sartre about problem of fakeness or discover life meaning. In other word, innovation of discussion in philosophical discussions and specially in religion philosophy create some interests in above discussion that is useful to reader and it is hope to success in this discussion.

This Article is about the concept of human in Karl Barth viewpoint and theological concerns discussed in the Liberal theology of nineteenth century. The importance of these concerns is because of the position of Karl Barth, since he was not only an academic lecturer but also a priest who was in a close touch with the people when he was living in safenwil, so he could feel the church and the liberal theology problems for leading people .According to Barth the disability of liberal theology and the church was because of their misunderstanding of the concept of human. Finding a way to know human and God and also a way to comprehend the proper relationship between God and human was the main concerns of Karl Barth in his all entire scientific life. Therefore his viewpoints regarding the concept of human and the reasons for his special approach to it will be discussed in this article.

In this article, we will analyze the viewpoints of Aquinas and Ibn Sina about the knowledge of angels, then will show their similarities and differences regarding this topic. Although both Aquinas and Ibn Sina are affected by Aristotelian tradition but due to their different cosmology their views about this concept is different in some aspects, therefore they draw different conclusions about the place of angel’s knowledge. Aquinas and Ibn Sina both believe that angels are intellectual entities and their major characteristic is cognition, but Ibn Sina believes that the angel’s knowledge is the cause of inferior beings but Aquinas maintains that angels haven’t a causal role in universe and the knowledge of superior angel in relation to inferior angel is explainable by simplicity of its essence. On the other hand, Ibn Sina believes that angels know the particular thing through universal concept (that is, constant and unchangeable affairs), but Aquinas says that the angel know particular qua particular.

Religious experience is an approach to which Western thinkers are considered pioneers among whom Schleiermacher is the most prominent. "The essentialism of religious experience" is one of the several approaches that have been adopted in the case of religious experience. Accordingly, the religion that has sides and various dimensions has been reduced to a religious experience and the religious experience is introduced as the essence of religion. What is presented in this article is a comparative study of the essence of religious experience from the perspective of William James and Ghazzāli. Although mystical experience has a different structure form the religious experience and Ghazali as well as other Muslim philosophers and mystics paid more attention to the way of mystical experience, in the works of Ghazali there are also a traces of religious experience and hence, they are adaptable to some aspects of religious experience offered by William James. William James defines the religion “as the feelings, acts, and experiences that can occur for every individual in their solitudes and he believes that feeling is the essential pillar of religion and inherently reinforces it”. Religious experience is the essence of religion and it means that-the truth of the faith is the same as feelings and emotions that emerge from rational reflections on concrete reality as such, and other spiritual, transcendental, mystical and psychological actions are the consequences of these experiences. On the other hand, in the Muslim world, Al-Ghazzali believes that: The ultimate and holy aim of religion is the perception and experience of ultimate truth that can be achieved through good deeds, worship, asceticism and piety. This article tries to find similarities and differences in essence of religious experience of the two thinkers, because it is only in the theory of the essentialism of religious experience that the similarities and differences of religious experience and mystical experience can be identified. The article begins with an introduction to the nature of religious experience, perspective and context of the rise of religious experience and goes on to describe the religious experience from the perspectives of Ghazali and William James and will deal with the differences between religious and mystical experiences. The comparative study of the similarities and differences between the views constitutes the last part of this study. This comparative study can be examined from several perspectives: 1. Concurrence of the two thinkers in the fact that religious experience is indefinable: William James and Ghazali both believe that religious experience are neither falsifiable nor unfalsifiable. No adequate conception of mystical experience can be expressed in words. Mystical experience is immediate and direct and cannot be transferred to others. 2. The differences in the origin of mystical experiences: William James believes in the effectiveness of alcoholic drinks in the creation of gnostic status. Then mystical manners can be achieved through this way as well. Unlike al-Ghazali, who believes the apocalyptical condition is only dependent on the grace of God and human attempt plays no role in its occurrence. 3. The vicious circle in the theory of James: The criterion by which William James would test the truth of a Religious Experience is the vision and experience, while the truth of religious propositions depends on and metaphysical and rational statements and not empirical proofs. Therefor their truth must be proven elsewhere. As a result, the only way to prove is the self-dependent criterion which will lead to a vicious circle. 4. Believing in the essentiality of religious experience: In this approach, sides and dimensions of religion are reduced to just one dimension and that is the essentiality of religious experience. From the perspective of William James, religious experience is the essence of religion in the sense that the truth of religion limited to personal emotions in the face of ultimate reality. Actions, beliefs and religious practices of the religion are all outside the truth of religion and enjoy a secondary role. The emotions play the key role, and thus the religious experience is the central. But does al-Ghazali in the same sense consider the religious experience as the essence of religion? To answer this question another reading of the essentialism has been offered. According to this version, the religious experience has again the key role but Ghazali considers Sharia as an integral part of religion. Sharia is the path that leads the seeker to the destination, and seeking also takes place within the confines of the law. The reality of religion and the essence of religion are manifested through actions, customs and religious practices. In fact, al-Ghazali regards them the vehicles by which the seeker travels to the truth and does not merely give them secondary instrumental roles. This sense of the essentialism of religious experience is according to Ghazali's view and Islamic paradigm.

Some of the Quranic verses such as 7:143 and 70:23 confirm the possibility of seeing God while some others like 7:103 deny it. The 'Asharites, relying on the first group of verses, believe in the possibility of sighting God, while the Mutazilites and Imammiyehs, referring to the second group, decline it. The comparison between the views of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, the great Asharite theologian and the author of Mafatih al-Ghayb commentary with those of Allamah Tabatabaie, the prominent Shia philosopher and the writer of al-Mizan commentary regarding the notion of seeing God can lead us to a more profound understanding of the Quranic verses alluding to the subject. Furthermore, the notion of seeing and Ibsar has great function in epistemology and can take us to a true cognition of God. Sighting God based on Fakhr Al-din Al-Razi's view. He believes that God can be seen but this does not entail believing in the bodily existence of God and assuming location for Him. Also believing that God can be seen does not mean he is visible, like when someone says he sees the picture of the moon in water, it does not mean that the moon is visible, since it is visible only when it is before one's eyes. He considers the seeing of God neither as speculative nor essential knowledge nor as observing the worldly objects. Referring to traditions and Quranic verses, he states that the visual conception of God is possible while its quality is not well-known. In other words, his view about seeing God is mostly negative rather than affirmative. Seeing God from the perspective of Allamah Tabatabaie He believes that the notion of seeing God according to the general conception of the word "see" surely refers to the physical observing occurring by the eyes, which is a physical and sensational process. It is because such sighting needs the visual organs. Such sighting cannot be used for describing the conceiving of God since it is impossible based on the logical demonstrations. Also, based on the holy Quran, God lacks body and bodily features. Thus, our eyes are capable of seeing material and bodily objects and are beyond seeing the immaterial or metaphysical fats. Eventually, for this reason the word seeing is not normally used for God since generally it is understood as observing something with bodily eyes and may lead to a wrong interpretation. But he considers a second meaning for the word "see" the one which he thinks can be applied for God and thus, wherever is used in the Quran or trasitions, this meaning has been meant. He thinks, by "see" the reality of essential knowledge has been meant. Whenever God speaks of being seen with the mentioned features He surely means the essential knowledge which is present within everyone and can be seen by everybody. Conclusion 1-Based on the superficial meanings of some verses and traditions, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi considers the seeing of God possible and regards it as an optical vision in a way that does not entail God's bodily existence and His requirement to location. Allamah Tabatabaie, although regards the traditions and verses as the proofs for the sighting of God, he thinks this seeing is seeing through the heart and is described as presential knowledge. 2- Fakhr al-Din al-Razi interprets the verses such as 7:103 which seems to deny the possibility of seeing God as a non-appeared meaning, while Allamah Tabatabaie interprets them based on apparent meaning. 3-The disputes among different theological sects about the seeing of God such as Asharits, Mutazelites and Imamiyeh have caused some theologians like Fakhr al-Din al-Razi to fail to handle the notion properly. Meanwhile, Allamah Tabatabaie, being away from such disputes and for the sake of discovering the truth has profoundly reviewed the traditions and verses and made a conclusion disregard of which theological sects may benefit. Therefore, he sometimes speaks of the possibility of seeing God and sometimes denies it. It is because he considers two different meanings of optical and mental vision for the word seeing and says some of the Quranic verses refer to the fist and some refer to the second.

One of the important issues in the field of new theology is philosophical hermeneutics and its impact on the interpretation of sacred texts. The real question is whether we can interpret the Quran according to this theory or not? In the past, hermeneutics was known as the science of interpretation especially the interpretation of sacred texts. In the twentieth century, having the philosophical approach to hermeneutics changed it as an effective knowledge in the field of human knowledge. Philosophical hermeneutics is based on ontological understanding and explaining the conditions and factors affecting the understanding. Philosophical hermeneutics is based on principles including: (1) understanding is a production not a reproduction i.e. the interpreter creates meaning to the text in the process of understanding and text meaning is not in relation to the author. According to his knowledge, conditions, and preferences, the reader creates meaning for the text. (2) human understanding is an accident and incident so understanding process has no authority to select criteria and logic for that method; as a result understanding is a non-systematic and uncontrollable matter. (3) understanding is a practical matter i.e. understanding a work or text is done based on the position of interpreter, his interests, conditions, and current expectations. (4) understanding is created based on the conversation between the interpreter and text. Understanding is obtained based on their effort and struggle. Therefore, understanding is the result of combining semantic horizon of interpreter with semantic horizon of work. (5) understanding is the result of the tradition and prejudices of the interpreter. Since the prejudices of the people are different, there is no common understanding among the people. (6) the historicity of understanding. Others’ understanding of text makes text history and this history is effective in its subsequent understanding and this process is endless and undetermined. As a result, there is no constant and final understanding. Also understanding the Quran includes special meanings that considering them is an essential matter to achieve a true understanding of this book. The most important foundations include the basics of ontology: having a realistic understanding to the world, accepting the world beyond the material world, having faith in the unseen things, God-centered and having a monotheistic look to the world. - Epistemological foundations: Quran, with an emphasis on reason and intuition, does not limit knowledge to empirical sciences and according to the Quran just recognition based on science is valid and it prohibits human to follow fantasy, doubt, and guess. -Foundations of textology: Quran is the word of God and it has the dignity of guiding and knowledge. Therefore, its audience is looking for God’s intention. - Linguistic foundations: Quran is seeking the rational discourses and it follows rational manner in coordination with each other. Philosophical hermeneutic principles are in conflict with the principles of understanding the Quran because the necessity of philosophical hermeneutics is the denial of certainty and constant understanding while Quran is based on a determinant belief and certainty. According to the philosophical hermeneutics, the author and his will have no role in the process of understanding but the audience of Quran is trying to achieve God’s purposes. Knowing understanding, relying on the assumptions, the historicity of understanding and ignoring the author’s will cause to have no criteria to judge between different interpretations of text; unfortunately all perceptions (though inconsistent) should be justified that it leads to accepting relativity in understanding and noetic pluralism while each interpretation of the Quran is not correct and eisegesis is rejected in understanding the Quran. So there is a contradiction between the principles of philosophical hermeneutics and foundations of understanding Quran and consultation between them is not available and the necessity to accept philosophical hermeneutic foundations is to deny or to interpret the principles of Quran.