فصلنامه نقد و نظر
سال پانزدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 60، زمستان 1389)

In this paper I will show that Avicenna considers the bodily resurrection as a non-reasonable doctrine, which cannot be proved and can only be accepted through religious narrations which are eventually proved by reason. Avicenna, of course, maintains that the spiritual resurrection can be proved by reason. He takes the essence of the soul to be the intellect as an immaterial entity. Since the intellectual faculty is immaterial and survives the death of the body, there might be a philosophical account for its pleasures and pains. Thus the spiritual resurrection consists in the pleasures and pains of the intellect, which arise from the person's virtues and vices. But given that the vegetative and animative faculties are inside the body, they are destroyed after the separation of the soul from the body, and so its pleasures and pains cannot be philosophically accounted for. Thus it is impossible to prove the bodily resurrection by reason. It seems to me that this intellectual modesty is much better than attempts to prove the bodily resurrection through reason.

Allameh Mohammad Taqi Ja’fari as a thinker who has especially concerned himself with anthropological issues, has dealt with many important topics regarding the soul in different respects. Distinguishing between different terms predicated of the soul, he has presented many issues about the unknowability of the soul and its reasons, the meaning of immateriality, soul-body distinction, the generation of the soul and the arguments for its immateriality and many other issues. In his view, it is of great significance to know the properties of the soul or “I”, since it shows the distinction of human beings from the other creatures of the world. The interpretation of two contiguous levels of the nature and the super-nature of the soul which was first presented by Avicenna, is one of his painstaking discussions. In his view, in the examination of the soul, we should focus on the functions of the brain and its interaction with the soul too. In this paper I will deal with Allameh Ja’fari’s view on the soul and its dimensions and stages.

Farabi has discussed the human happiness in many of his works. Humans are composite of souls and bodies, and souls can become immaterial beings, though they are primarily material or hylic. The rational soul can reach to the stages of actual reason and mustafad reason through cognizance of the intelligible (maqulat), and become immaterial beings that can survive without material bodies. The human happiness is his abstraction from matter (immateriality) and conjunction with the immaterial intellects. Since most people cannot grasp this mode of existence and do not know how to achieve it, they should be guided by people who have grasped them, and they are the prophets. The prophet has an intellectual cognizance of happiness and most people have an imaginary cognizance of it. In this paper, I will discuss Farabi's view about the role of the religious instructions of the prophets in human's happiness.

Mulla Shamsa Gilani takes the soul to be spiritual in origin and spiritual in survival, and rejects the theory of the material origin of the soul as incompatible with religious evidence. Mulla 9adra's primary answer to this objection is based on the distinction between the soul (nafs) and spirit (ru=); thus ru= in religious texts does not mean the soul; souls are material in origin, though spirits are immaterial in their origins. However, Mulla 9adra is not always committed to this distinction. His main answer to this objection is that the soul's existence before this world is to mean that they exist in their causes, not that they exist as souls. Mulla Mu=ammad Sadiq Ardistani also defends the theory of the spiritual origin of the soul. In his opinion, to say that the soul has an origin is to contradict both the immateriality of the soul and its survival. In this paper, I will defend the 9adraean view and its compatibility with the religious doctrines.

The theory of "bodily origination and spiritual survival of the soul" not only points out to the circumstances of the emergence of the human soul but also indicates the essence of the soul. Through his novel principls and especially by substantial motion, Mulla Sadra arrives at the theory in which human nature at the moment of its emergence is a bodily entity. This bodily soul passes the first rank of existence by substantial motion to the extent that reaches the highest rank of existence which is spiritual. Besides that, this theory uses the common principles of transcendent theosophy; it also has its own principles, that knowing them can make this theory more understandable.

In this paper, I will talk about Mirza Mahdi E;fahani's views about the soul and spirit. He takes the terms "nafs" (soul) and "ruh" (spirit) to refer to the dark part of the humans which is devoid of consciousness. He takes the soul to be a material entity with three dimensions and space-time. In his view, ruh is essentially dark and nonconscious, but through divine will, it comes to possess the light, knowledge and volition. I will proceed to compare Mirza Mahdi E;fahani's view with some narrations (hadiths). Then I will talk about ways of knowing the spirit; Mirza Mahdi E;fahani maintains that the only way to know the spirit for people in generall is deep sleep, the various types of which will be examined here. Next I will talk about the types of soul in Quran in his view and the mutual needs of the spirit and body. The next section is dedicated to the arguments for the materiality of the soul and in the final sections, issues about how the body and the soul are combined in different worlds will be examined.

In this paper I will talk about whether or not the words ru= (spirit) and nafs (soul) refer to one and the same thing. An examination of Quranic verses and Hadith shows that they have one and the same meaning and I have classified 5 categories of arguments for this view. However there is a slight difference between the two: ru= refers to the immaterial aspect of human person and nafs includes the man's material aspects as well.

One of the stages of the human life is the material, worldly one. In this stage humans undergo essential changes on the basis of the substantial motion (=arikat jawhari) andgradually change to become actualized. According to religious doctrines, humans move to the world of barzakh after death, and enjoy an intermediate-state life between their death and the general resurrection. Religious doctrines show that the human perfection does not stop by their death, and they will continue to change even in the world of barzakh. This doctrine can be accounted for in terms of the substantial motion and the principle of the renewal of the similar (tajadud amthal).

A comprehensive account of some religious doctrines depends on our views about the humans and their characteristics. Different anthropological theories yield various accounts of religious doctrines. The main anthropological problem is that of the ultimate nature of humans. In this paper, I will talk about the soul-body problem in the view of one of the main Shiite theologians, Sayyid Murta>a, and some challenges that his view might face in accounting for some of the religious doctrines. He takes the nature of the human being to be the very visible body, to whom the religious demands are addressed. Thus he thinks that this body is punished or rewarded in the hereafter.