نشریه جستارهایی در فلسفه و کلام
سال پنجاه و دوم شماره 2 (پیاپی 105، پاییز و زمستان 1399)

New theological schools try to overcome the theological concerns of the postmodern approach by presenting methods that are different from those of former approaches. Some of these theological concerns have arisen under the influence of the challenges of pluralism and profound diversity in theology, as well as the conflicts between science and religion. The present study explains and examines one of the new approaches of religious philosophy to theology and understanding of religion, namely the intra-textual approach. The intra-textual approach, developed in the mid-twentieth century under the influence of late Wittgenstein’s ideas as well as narrative theology, holds that religious knowledge should not rely on external factors and matters outside the religious texts. Rather, the text itself must be understood in terms of language and its internal rules because any intervention of external factors causes deviation from the truth of religion and faith. The intra-textual approach, with a non-realistic attitude, even believes that we should not consider real referents for religion and religious texts and should not understand them in association with external realities. That is, religious faith and understanding are nothing but a direct presence in touch with the text. This approach is not able to solve the conflict between science and religion, and suffers from fundamental challenges due to its fideistic attitude and also its functional and unrealistic attitude towards religion.

Badā’ (alteration in the Divine will) is one of the most practical teachings in various Islamic sciences. Therefore, achieving a comprehensive definition of the doctrine of badā’ is an inevitable necessity, because the study of the works of thinkers in this field suggests that different definitions of this Shīʿī teaching have been presented to date so that some have even taken it as another reading of the doctrine of abrogation (naskh). In order to achieve a correct definition of this doctrine, the present research intends to study the presence and historical evolution of this doctrine in Shia writings by means of the descriptive-analytical method and through the distinction between the idiomatic and literal meaning of badā’. Relying on a new approach in defining this doctrine in the last two centuries, it tries to find the components that are more frequently repeated among the definitions and provide a comprehensive definition of badā’ and also, by removing some of the conditions in the predecessors’ definitions, attempts to improve the definition. In this article, the comprehensive definition of badā’ is presented in two positions (ontic/epistemic), the second of which has two levels (badā’ at the personal level, badā’ at the general level). The distinction between the concept of badā’ and other similar concepts (abrogation, Divine decree and predestination), the inclusion of the condition “opposition of the event to the news of the honest informant”, and the emphasis on the condition “become clear from it” are some of the considerations that eliminate the defects in the predecessors’ definition.

After the end of World War, “modern spiritualism” came to the aid of modern man, tired of materialist scientism, to give him peace and hope in his material life, and to reconnect his hands to transnatural world, by changing his “spiritual life”. Meanwhile, the “New Age” movement from the branches of spiritualism, by presenting the mechanism of “channeling” and taking advantage of the pre-Christian historical background of Europe and North America, claimed to have an esoteric discipline and connection with the transnatural world and the ability to explain it. This article is dedicated to explaining the relationship between “mystical intuition” and “channeling. In fact, the main question is: Is channeling the same as mystical intuition? Is the view that “channeling is an alternative to the intuition of mystics in the modern world” compatible with the principles of Islamic mysticism? After defining, stating the background and types of channeling, we will critically analyze it and compare it with intuition from the perspective of Islamic mysticism. Due to the differences of the notions in teleology, criteriology, and their different epistemological and ontological aspects, the idea that channeling is the same as intuition cannot be evaluated as correct.

In his discussion of God’s oneness, Mullā Ṣadrā, by presenting an argument based on the rule of Simple Truth (baṣīṭ al-ḥaqīqa), attributes the true simplicity to God. This argument seems to be in line with the argument of negating the combination of Essence and besides other arguments for God’s oneness, but in fact its purpose is to present a monotheistic system distinct from all philosophical schools in terms of the relation between the unity and multiplicity at the level of Essence and levels lower than Essence. The purpose of this article is to explain the co-existence of God’s unity with the multiplicity of creatures and to explain how it can be reconciled with His transcendence based on this rule. For this purpose, the position of the argument of Simple Truth in the arguments of God’s unity is explained because it is one of the necessary premises of the explanation of God’s oneness. The study of the simplicity of God or the reconciliation of infinite multiplicity with unity at the level of Essence and also the unity of the Divine attributes in Mullā Ṣadrā's philosophy, which completes the meaning of simplicity, is among the issues discussed in this research. Finally, the special co-existence resulted by the simplicity of God is explained. This co-existence can seemingly lead to multiplicity in Essence as well as the violation of His transcendence. However, the result of the research is that Ṣadrā, on the basis of true simplicity of God or the fact that He is the totality of all things, establishes such a relationship between God and creatures that does entail His transcendence.

One of the most important and fundamental philosophical issues with important consequences and implications is the individual unity of existence; Through it, philosophy enters the horizon of mysticism and thus all philosophical issues and discussions find a new taste.  In this article, based on the view of Ayatollah Javadi Amoli (fully qualified in philosophy, mysticism and exegesis), we prove the individual unity of existence and also criticize a conception of infinite truth (which is consistent with gradation of existence) by referring to the infinity of the Almighty. Then we will discuss the consequences and implications of this understanding of the infinity of God, some of which are: “transformation of gradation of existence into gradation of manifestations of existence”, “transformation of causality into manifestation of existence”, “the doctrine that things are signs of God”, “alteration in “rule of one” (qāʿida al-wāḥid)”, “increase in the types of predication”, “alteration in the rule that states: the Simple Reality is everything”, “impossibility of witnessing the essence and essential attributes of God”, “God’s equal relation to everything”, “impossibility of  God’s incarnation in and unity with the existents”, “alteration in the division of existence into independent and sheer dependent”, “impossibility of change in God”, “the fact that the illuminative relation is a kind of manifestation”, “transformation of temporality and eternity into appearance and hiddenness”, etc. Hence, this work can be considered as a strategic source for explaining important philosophical and mystical issues, as well as refining the border between the two and turning the former into the latter.

A small treatise on “the rule of one” (qāʿida al-wāḥid)- which denotes that from one, only one thing can emerge- and its various accompaniments was written in the eleventh century AH. It is questioned in various aspects such as its exact title and the name of its author. This treatise was corrected and published in 1386 SH. However, by examining the manuscripts and through content analysis of its text and its comparison with another work of the author, it can be conclusively claimed that the author is a physician at the court of Shah Abbas II, Muḥammad Saʿīd Ṭabīb, son of Muḥammad Bāqir known as Ḥakīm Kūchak. The author has works in medicine, poetry, and philosophy, but unfortunately some of his works have been published in the name of others, like Dīvān-e sheʿr and Kelīd-e behesht which are attributed to Qāḍī Saʿīd Qumī and al-Aṣl al-aṣīl which is attributed to Mullā Rajab Alī Tabrīzī. The only published work in his name is Mathnawī Khorshīd wa Mahpāreh. So far, three of his medical treatises on diarrhea, dissection of the bones of the head and jaw, and fever have been identified. Some of his views are as follows: homonymity of existence, apophatic theology, impossibility of knowing God’s Essence, refuting motion in substance, suddenness of motion, negating purpose from Divine acts, refuting mental existence, the ontological priority of essence, negating physical origination of the soul, and refuting renewal of archetypes.

One of the challenging instances of the confrontation between tradition and modernity is Darwin’s theory of evolution. Traditional critics of the theory of evolution generally point to Lamarck and Darwin’s drawbacks from the perspective of biologists and conclude that the theory of evolution is wrong. In the philosophical-theological circles of Iran, Neo-Darwinism has been neglected. Criticism of the theory of evolution by deliberately neglecting Neo-Darwinism deceives the researcher into the fallacy of attacking the straw man. This article is written to eliminate this shortcoming. To narrow the scope of the research topic, Neo-Darwinism has been compared with Mullā Ṣadrā’s views. In this article, after a brief historical account of the evolutional approaches to human creation, Ṣadrā’s view on the human generation is presented and the two opinions are compared in different parts of the article. By explaining the criteria of Mullā Ṣadrā and Neo-Darwinists about the origin of man, the present study came to this main conclusion that these two ideas are compatible in material (natural) aspects but are different in trans-material aspects. This difference, however, does not lead to the contradiction between the two views. The paper uses the descriptive-analytical library research method.

In this paper, through discussing and understanding the modernism and subjectivism of Kant (as a representative of modernity) in epistemology and its transition to postmodernism on one hand, and the perspectivism of Nietzsche (as one of the founders of postmodernism) on the other, we try to call attention to this important point that both views are on the same path in terms of using the role of the cognitive subject in the practice of knowing and receiving the truth. Although the practice of cognitive subject in Kant’s rationalist idealism (which is based on the Aristotelian view that all people can enjoy the same reason) leads to the theory of absolute cognition in both the critique of theoretical reason and the critique of practical reason, in Nietzsche, however, we arrive at relativism and pluralism. and pluralism from the heart of the same cognitive agent with a landscape perspective. It means that in Nietzsche’s philosophy, the perspective and origin of thought in every subject constitutes multiple cognitions of them and the most important constituent material of these perspectives is the will to power, which is the natural and existential law of every being, including the human cognitive subject.

This study analyzes the mystical attribute of invocation (dhikr) in some of the most important mystical works up to the seventh century AH. The ground of this research is based on the analysis of dhikr from the perspective of steps of mystical journey. This study, written in a descriptive-analytical way, shows that the attribute dhikr in the words of some mystics, in each of the three levels of wayfaring, has been treated with a different approach and has undergone a change in content. In the first stage of the spiritual journey, which is the status of severance, dhikr has a positive and active nature so that in this step, the wayfarer tries to be attributed to dhikr and its implications. In the second step which is the status of annihilation, however, the Divine attraction annihilates the seeker’s virtual existence and all his attributes. Therefore, dhikr in the mystic finds a negative and purifying characteristic, his effort is lost and he is no more attributed to dhikr. But in the third stage, that is, the level of persistence, the mystic becomes the manifestation of the Divine names and attributes, so that dhikr again appears in the mystic in a positive but transformed state. The result of this study shows that although the statements of most mystics about dhikr are consistent with the characteristics of severance step, the words of some of them conform with the characteristics of all the three levels of severance, annihilation, and persistence

Although the “rule of one” (qāʿida al-wāḥid)” has not been denied by most philosophers, it has been studied and carefully considered by the scholars in terms of its arguments, its scope and the answer to the objections made by the opponents. Some have considered this rule self-evident and needless to argue, but at the same time they have put forward arguments to prove it. The proposed arguments can be divided into two categories: the first category are the arguments that try to prove this rule by relying on the invalidity of applying two concepts to the cause and the second category are the arguments that prove it with regard to the necessity of cognation between cause and effect. Opponents, on the other hand, have raised a number of objections to disprove the principle. Therefore, in this article, first, we will explain and analyze the arguments for the rule, and then deal with some of the criticisms and try to answer to them. As a result, this rule can be proved by the argument which is based on the principle of cognation (in the correct interpretation). According to this argument, the one on the side of cause is the “one in its all aspects” including individual and specific one, and the one on the side of effect refers to the existential one, not the “one in its all aspects”. Thanks to these two, namely the cognation and the fact that the one on the side of effect is not the “one in its all aspects”, most criticisms are rejected.

The “unity of Ṣirāṭ (path)”, whether being viewed through an intra-religious approach or an extra-religious one, is one of the requirements for the purity of Islam. Any interpretation or explanation that leads to the multiplicity of paths is logically in conflict with the purity of religion and the possibility of distinguishing right from wrong, and leads to absurdity. The present paper is a study with an affirmative approach to the “unity of the path” from the perspective of Allama Tabataba’i. After stating the problem, first the definition of the ontological, legislative and penal path from Allama’s point of view is presented and then his arguments on the unity of the path are explained. The result is that, with two philosophical reasons and three theological arguments, he has proved the unity of the path in its all three realms of creation, legislation and punishment, and consequently, has rejected the multiplicity of the path from the perspective of reason and religion. Philosophical reasons are: 1. the Simple Reality is everything (theology); 2. unity of efficient causes and final causes; and theological reasons are: 1. conformity of legislation and creation (cosmology); 2. the unity of the specific truth of human being (anthropology); 3. the rational implication between the oneness of the Almighty Lord with the unity of the path.The "unity of sirat", both inter-religious and extra-religious, is one of the purest elements of the Islamic religion. Any interpretation or conception that leads to a plurality of righteousness is logically at odds with the purity of religion and the possibility of distinguishing between right and wrong and leads to Backward argument.The present study is an exploration of the positive approach to the "unity of righteousness" from the view point of Tabatabai.After proposing the subject, first the definition of formative, anatomical and peculiar terms is presented from Allama's view point and then the Allameh's argument on the unity of will is explained. The result is that he has two philosophical reasons: (1) the very existence of the whole being (theology); (2) the unity of the causal and the ultimate causes; and (3) theological reasons (1) the conformity of the anatomy and the (cosmology); 3) Intellectual Implications of the Unity of the Supreme Rabbi with the Unity of the Sacrament The unity of the savior in all three domains of evolution has been proved, explicated, and punished, and consequently, the plurality of the saint has been rejected from the standpoint of reason and religion.

The influence of language and discourse in creating gender inequalities is a significant issue that needs to be considered all the more. Here, the role of thinkers is certainly more influential and perhaps more sensitive. Because in practice, culture, customs and laws are formed, expanded and sustained by inspiring from their ideas. Therefore, it is necessary to refine the ideas by constantly examining them and exposing them to criticism. In this regard, critical discourse analysis methods are effective and practical tools that can help the researcher to obtain a scientific analysis of these texts. By critiquing and analyzing the ideas of Aristotle, Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, and Mullā Ṣadrā about women, this article intends to state that our language and the kind of discourse we use are effective in changing the world and shaping the identity of individuals, a discourse that has emerged in the words of some philosophers and has led to many of the gender inequalities in the world.