فصلنامه قبسات
پیاپی 60 (تابستان 1390)

Alston, the contemporary American philosopher of religion and epistemologist, has presented a theory of religious experience; in this theory he has validated a specific kind of experiential knowledge of God, called the mystical experience and experience of God in his words, which provides an epistemological base for justification and rationality of faith and believing in God. The experiential knowledge, in his words, means the knowledge created in the mind of the one who experiences knowledge of God without any sensuous intermediate; in other words the knowledge immediately received by feeling God’s presence. Presenting a brief report of his theory in this article, I have investigate the possibility, occurrence and limits of such a knowledge of God based on the discussions posed about the heartfelt vision of God in Islamic studies. Thus a comparative study between the Christian and Islamic theology will be presented. The main question of this article is the relation between experience of God (in Alston’s view) and vision of God (in the Islamic view). One of the results of this comparison is that experience of God, as posed by Alston, is a kind of achieved knowledge while the heartfelt vision of God is, at least in some cases, a direct knowledge of God.

According to a specific expression, the 'general wisdom' means some preferred human wisdom which naturally exists; they are called the 'general soul' as well. The contingent world is as the body of the Divine general soul. Although all prophets are the 'general wisdom' and the 'general soul' in their own status, but the seal of the Prophets (peace be upon him and his progeny) and the twelve Imams (peace be upon them), who inherit from the Prophet Mohammad and are his successors and vasi (the executers of his will), and Fatima al-Zahra (peace be upon her) are the 'collective general wisdom' and the 'collective general soul'; rather they are the 'collection of the collective general wisdom' (jam-ol-jam’i). In other words, they are the 'khatmi general wisdom' and the 'khatmi general soul'. The seal of the Prophets is in fact the teacher of all human and polishes all the souls in all eras; he relates all the worlds of humanity and rather all the beings with God – the origin of all things. Khatmi Imamate is the succession of this superior and all-inclusive status. As a result the real scientific and practical rationality of the partial wisdoms may be actualized by the influence, predominance and effect of the ‘khatmi general wisdom’ and by being connected to it. This conclusion is deduced, in this article, by rational methods and using religious texts.

Religious studies is one of the most important researches in the intellectual and philosophical life of human being; and one of the main tasks in this field is a second research on understanding and religious knowledge, its theoretical bases and foundations and also its results. There are at least two points which lead us to research in this field:1-Recognition and improvement of the foundations of any knowledge is quite effective on its correct and deliberate use and the development and integration of its methodology. Therefore the best religious knowledge is a function of a correct recognition and use of its foundations. 2-A considerable number of questions and doubts, nowadays, are about understanding and religious knowledge. Fighting against religion, the cultural aggression and the culture war have attacked religious knowledge and its foundations. Thus to defend religious knowledge and in fact to defend religion, it is necessary to identify the real foundations of understanding religion and distinguish them from incorrect foundations; and also it is necessary to investigate their real effects and distinguish them from incorrect ideas posed. Therefore this research tries to explain the principles and foundations of understanding religion and clarify its consequences. The mentioned foundations are divided into seven categories and some principles are explained in each category. These principles have some common and uniform results in understanding and religious knowledge. The mentioned foundations are investigated in seven sections as follows: epistemological foundations, theistical foundations, anthropological foundations, foundations related to understanding religion, revelation, Quran and foundations related to understanding guide.

The prevalent discourse between rationalism and scienticism is an opportunity to properly describe the relation between reason, knowledge and religion. According to the Shiite system of thought, reason may be observed from two perspectives – i.e. ontological and functionalist perspectives – and knowledge may be observed from three perspectives – i.e. 1- experimental knowledge, 2- absolute knowledge, 3- revelational and inspirational knowledge. As a result reason and knowledge may be related from two respects: 1- inherence, 2- impressionability. Reason and the third kind of knowledge have the relation of equality; in other words reason and knowledge are inherent and concurrent, i.e. all the learned are reasonable and all reasonable individuals are learned. Also reason and the second and third kind of knowledge have the relation of generality and peculiarity in some respect; this means reason and non-inspirational knowledge are not inherent or concurrent. From the second perspective, i.e. the bilateral function of reason and knowledge, reason needs knowledge to become enriched and knowledge needs reason to develop and flourish. In other words reason and knowledge complete and integrate each other which help to discover the reality. The final point is that not only religion is not an obstacle rather it guides human to a higher degree of knowledge and reason and can create a rational and scientific revolution.

Self-love is a normative theory which tries to present quite general ethical principles which are in fact the ethical base of all human's attitudes. According to Islam's teachings and the Islamic scholar's statements, all human beings have the nature of self-love and their personal attitudes are based on this instinct. Since human's essence is pure, has rational potentialities and ideals, and is based on the Divine nature and moves towards the real felicity, therefore acting according to self-love is desirable and should be performed and acting against it is undesirable and should not be performed. Although the theory of self-love appears to be similar with "ethical egoism", but it has radical differences in its ontological, anthropological and epistemological bases; therefore the criticisms made to the theory of "ethical egoism" such as: incompatibility with humanitarian deeds, self-sacrifice, mother's affection, mystical prayer and … can be replied in this theory.

Enjoyment is one of the main motivations of human in his deeds; on the other hand, felicity is the goal of morality. The relation between 'enjoyment' and 'felicity' is one of the decisive discussions of the philosophy of ethics. This article will present a comparative study between the theories of two scholars with different inclinations (the hedonist Epicuruse and Mulla-Sadra as the representative of Islamic philosophy) in this subject. Epicuruse believes felicity is identical with enjoyment; but 'enjoyment' for him is not just sensual enjoyments or dissipation rather it is 'lack of misery'; and he believes the path to felicity is moderating the tendencies and avoiding unnecessary enjoyments such as luxury and domineering because these tendencies and likes are more the origin of misery rather than happiness. According to the ethical theory of Mulla-Sadra – which is a religious-philosophical theory – the real felicity may be achieved through getting close to God's essence. Unlike Epicuruse, he does not see human one-dimensional rather he believes human has a soul in addition to his body; this soul has its corresponding enjoyments as well and the highest and deepest enjoyments of human's soul may be achieved through getting close to God. The path to this felicity has two steps: first purification and refinement of the carnal soul from vices and second trying to achieve knowledge of God. The result of this research is two points: first the normal potentiality and knowledge of human is not enough for recognition of the real felicity and second the real felicity is together with experiencing the maximum enjoyment which is due to getting close to God.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the last official and great and philosopher of the modernity period, has divided art into three historical eras: symbolic, classic, and romantic ages. This division is based on his dialectical logic on the one hand, and is inspired from the three essences of Christianity on the other hand; and it is mostly based on dualism, categoricism and historicism of the period of modernity. The symbolic era is the age of insignificance of soul compared with material, classic is the age of equality of the both, and romantic is the age of superiority of soul and breakup of material. The allusive aspect of the symbolic art is due to soul's abstraction and absoluteness and indeterminacy of its essence and non-materialization of the concrete identity. Hegel considers inexplicability and appearance and allusion and symbol as the main characteristics of symbolic art; but the traditionalists have a completely different approach and consider unity of the absolute matter and the visible world as the main characteristics of symbolic art, and makes the allusive and symbolic language as the formal language of tradition and religion and art. There is a complete correspondence and conformity between the world inside and the world outside; and the symbolic aspect of art is due to the manifestation of the absolute and infinite being in a conditional and finite form. In the nominal language, allusion does not identify a sign or an agreement rather the reality of allusion, according to the genetic rule, is the real connection of different worlds and the different degrees of being; and form in the order of sensuous is equivalent with reality in the order of rationality.

Methodology is unavoidable in Islamic sciences including Islamic art; it is only after this methodology that judging about the essence of Islamic art and the theoretical questions in this regard becomes possible. Scholars have chosen different methods in this regard and each use their own specific method which results in different outcomes. Some of the conflicts and differences in the judgment about the essence of Islamic art are based on this important point. Phenomenology and historicism are two methods used by scholars in Islamic art. One of the noticeable methods used by the Orientalist researchers of religion and virtuosi in understanding Islamic art in the recent centuries is phenomenology which is a methodology affected by the philosophy of Husserl. This method and historicism are affected by two philosophical currents: phenomenology of Husserl and the philosophy of history of Hegel. Each method has noticed a specific dimension of the essence of Islamic art; they have weaknesses and strengths compared with each other. After investigating the possibility of understanding Islamic art from these two perspectives, the importance, application and primacy of phenomenology over historicism will be explained.