فصلنامه آینه معرفت
پیاپی 12 (پاییز 1386)

Many philosophers are convinced that the shortest and the strongest way of proving the existence of God is the ontological argument. The specific feature of this kind of argument is the fact that it does not use any mediators such as motion, possibility, occurrence, order, etc. and provide witness to the existence of God from existence itself. This kind of proof has been presented by different philosophers in the west and the east with different words in which all of them have tried to present the most complete forms of expression. Among them, Baroch Spinoza from the Netherlands and Mullasadra from Shiraz (Iran) have provided different expressions of the same argument which in addition to their firmness and consistency, resemble closely in terms of their usefulness in answering adequately to objections, the kind of argument with respect to being a priori or posteriori, the image of God drawn by these arguments and their portrayal of the issue of God’s existence in philosophy. The present paper intends to explain, compare and approximate the ontological argument in the context of these two philosophers’ ideas relying on their resemblances.

Ibn-e-sina uses different words to describe the order or emanation, but he uses the word ‘emanation’ more the other words. His writings about the order of emanation, in terms of generality or the mention of particulars, can be divided into three: (a) detailed presentation; (b) presentation with some detail; (c) brief indirect presentation. His views on the nature of the creation of multitude from unity in the world can be divided into four: (a) the explanation of the order of emanation on the basis of the triple order using reasoning; (b) explanation based on the double order using reasoning; (C) explanation on the basis of the double order using lnowledge; (d) explanation based on both elements, that is, reasoning and knowledge. He has truly and strictly insisted that God’s and man’s knowledge, reasoning and efficiency are different in kind.

This present article is concerned with the different ontological and epistemological meanings of Reason in Proclus’ philosophy. From his viewpoint, reality is a complex system of different orders. Proclus like other Neo-Platonists, unlike Aristotle, believed that truth is real and Reason, in addition to its epistemological position, has an ontological function. The article first reviews the different kinds of reason and their epistemological function and then explains the ontological and epistemological functions of logos as the central type of Reason.

This present article, first, describes in brief the different interpretations of and viewpoints on the nature of revelation; then it defends the traditional theory of predicative revelation and challenges the experiential view of revelation. It is an attempt to criticise the same-supposition of religious experience and revelation and the act of ignoring the major differences which exist between revelation and religious experience and to determine the consequences. The following questions inform the present article:1.What are the different views expressed on the nature of revelation?2.What is the purpose of experientialists when they suppose that religious experience and revelation are the same?3.What is the difference between religious experience in Christianity and mystical revelations in Islam?4.What is the difference between religious experience and revelation?5.What are the consequences of the same-supposition of revelation?6.What are the consequences of supposing revelation as a religious experience?

Mullah Sadra tried to detach, in some way, the problem of mental existence from knowledge and made an effort to determine the domain of each in his books. In Asfar, he set forth the issue of mental existence as a general concept and knowledge in the tenth stage of volume three of Asfar. Mulla Sadra considers mental existence as the shadow of knowledge. He holds that knowledge is an aspect of existence by which mental existence is produced. There is a substantial difference between knowledge and mental existence. Therefore, knowledge existence is essential but mental existence is shadowy. In other words, the existence of the former is independent and that of the latter is dependent, therefore, each of these two has its own place in philosophy. They differ in terms of their existence and not their validity. Knowledge is a level in speculative reasoning and in nature a sort of existence settled in the soul like other spiritual qualities such as piety, courage, etc. which are levels of practical reasoning.

There are phenomena in the world like flood, earthquake, disease, death and so on which are not pleasant to everybody. The issue of evils and their creation has engaged man’s mind since antiquity. Finding a solution to the creation of evils has been more difficult for the believers, as they do not expect these evils to emanate from God who is wise, merciful, and compassionate. That is why, throughout history, some have tried not to attribute evils to God to keep His holiness. They, instead, have assumed a creator for evils other than God, that is, the Satan. This idea is known as duality. In Islam, finding a solution to the issue of evils has also engaged the Islamic scholars’ mind for whom duality is not consistent with monotheism. For them there is also the problem of the inconsistency of this idea with God’s image as being compassionate and merciful. They have argued that these phenomena are not evil in nature, even if they are considered as evil they are not created independently, they are a necessary part of this world in which substances may clash, if it was not for the demands of the materialistic world they would not have been created, and as the general trend of the world is toward the good there should be a logic behind the evils. In the holy Quran, God uses words which indicate that evils do exist and their existence is independent not dependent. The present article tries to provide a detailed account of these Quranic words and the above-mentioned arguments.

The present article is concerned with the explanation of Ghazali’s view on sin. It specifically deals with issues such as the relationship between sin and Ghazali’s view on man’s nature and his ultimate end, the meaning and the origin of sin, the way sin is realized in the existential realms of man, the different kinds of sin and an account of Ghazali’s idea about the relationship between sin and knowledge and will, and also the source of the knowledge of the cases of sin.