Talking to IQNA about Ayatollah Javadi Amoli’s book “Status of Reason in Religious Knowledge”, Hojat-ol-Islam Mohammad Reza Mostafapour, academic member of Tarbiat Moallem University, referred to Allameh’s specific view about reason in the book adding: “He has discussed the multidimensional role of the reason in a number of his books including ‘Religion Reflected in Knowledge, ‘Theology’ and ‘Status of Reason in Religious Knowledge”.
“Reason primarily functions as the key to religion; that is, there are a lot of religious facts which can only be explicated through reason such as how to, relatively speaking, know God or how to realize the importance of Revelation and Resurrection,” he went on to say, noting that only reason can find out the facts about God’s essential existence, His perfect attributes and infinite divinity.
Referring to the second aspect of reason, he said: “Reason itself admits that it is incapable of understanding everything; therefore, man is incomplete and has to turn to Revelation in order to meet his unsatisfied needs.”
“We cannot resort to Revelation unless we realize the importance of Resurrection through our reason, as reason functions as a key letting us enter the sphere of religion. It also has an inspiring role in helping us understand the divine text of the holy Quran and the Infallibles’ (AS) Hadiths.”
Hojat-ol-Islam Mostafapour further referred to another significance of reason as a measure to evaluate various ideas such as differentiating between reliable and fake Hadiths.
“Ayatollah Javadi Amoli maintains that religious knowledge covers a vast area, discussing whether or not religion and reason or religion and science are opposed to each other.”
“In Allameh Javadi Amoli’s view, religion is nothing but the divine will manifested in genesis and Sharia (Islamic canonical law); the former can be seen in the universe and creation including nature; in other words, God’s will has resulted in the creation of the sky, the earth, plants, seas, and mountains, as well as men, animals and tress.”
Quoting Imam Ali (AS) praising God for “revealing Himself through His creation”, he added that creating the whole universe including the stars, planets, the earth and all the earthly and heavenly creatures is a clear manifestation of God’s creative will.
Hojat-ol-Islam Mostafapour also pointed to another aspect of God’s divine will manifested in the act of Revelation according to which all the Heavenly Scriptures can be regarded as a manifestation of His will.
“We have two media to discover the existence of God and understand the universe, namely reason and quotation, both unveiling the divine will in two ways: reason’s first mission is recognizing the nature which results in the emergence of empirical, philosophical or other types of sciences; it also tries to make out the meanings of Quranic verses and Hadiths.”
“Similarly, quotation has a two-fold mission: it elaborates on God’s creative will in creating man, the sky, the earth, the sun, the moon, stars, planets, etc. It also explicates God’s canonical will through determining what to do and what to refrain from,” he went on to say noting that the two aspects can be disclosed through reason as well.
Referring to the four sources used for deducting rules as the Quran, Sunnah, consensus and reason, he said: “The first three are the same as quotation; therefore, reason and quotation are the true discoverers of God’s divine will.”
Hojat-ol-Islam Mostafapour further referred to the implications of the title of the book and remarked: “If we truly understand the universe through reason and quotation, we can acquire the religious knowledge.”
“We can never limit the holy Quran to scientific subjects; we rather consider religion as the divine will that can be discovered through reason and quotation, the former offers a wide understanding of the universe and the latter leads us toward the religious facts,” he further asserted.
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