مرتضی فتحی زاده

A religious experience is a mental event that the experiencer occasionally and to some extent consciously experiences after encountering one of the spiritual elements, such as the feeling of the presence or involvement of a sacred and immaterial existence or power, the understanding of the ultimate supernatural reality, the feeling of achieving the highest human good, the feeling of elation, the feeling of liberation and salvation or the feeling of the true self, is experienced. Such an experience has an epistemological value and therefore plays a role in defending the rationality of religious action and religious belief, especially the belief in God. Mystical experience is also a kind of feeling of intuitive understanding of the ultimate and fundamental supernatural reality, a feeling of unity and oneness, a feeling of freedom from the limitations of time and place and individual self, and a feeling of elation and peace. Thus, it is undoubtedly a religious experience by nature. Because this experience occurs at different cognitive, educational, and moral levels of the experiencers and in different situations, conditions, and encounters, it has a remarkable diversity and has become the subject of various religious studies. Philosophers and epistemologists of contemporary religion have discussed the types of religious experience and their categories and characteristics. The present essay seeks to investigate the similarity of religious experience in contemporary philosophy of religion and Islamic mysticism based on the perspective of Caroline Franks Davis, the author of the book The Evidential Force of Religious Experience, and Jalaluddin Mohammad Balkhi known as Rumi, Mawlawi, and Mullahye Rumi. He is an Iranian poet and mystic of the 7th lunar century. In the history of Sufism in Iran and in the history of Persian literature, he is considered unique and rare. His unparalleled skill in various narrative and intellectual sciences and familiarity with the Qur'an and traditions (hadiths) and his high position in mysticism and his poetic taste have made him a unique figure in Persian and mystical literature.  It is obvious that religious experience has occurred in traditions and among different people since long ago, but as one of the issues of the philosophy of religion, it does not have a long history. Therefore, we should not expect that Rumi has expressed this issue in an organized way and with well-established and specialized titles and concepts in today's philosophy of religion, but considering the deep mystical and religious knowledge in his works, we can find some similarities between these two views. For example, he considers religion in principle to be opening a window toward the supernatural. This transition from the world of nature and paying attention to the other world, especially God, is possible through religious experience. He did not use the term religious experience, but spoke of the revelation of the heart, which is the same as a religious experience and flows from God to the heart of a mystic and a believer who has removed the obstacles. He finds it difficult to describe these experiences and inspirations accurately, but never considers them unreal and purely subjective. In his book, Davis places religious experiences in six categories: interpretive experiences, quasi-sensory experiences, revelatory experiences, revitalizing experiences, numinous experiences, and mystical experiences. Mawlawi has also paid attention to this difference in experiences in Masnavi (couplet poems) and his other works. For example, regarding interpretive experiences, he has repeatedly said that he sees God's hand in all apparently non-spiritual events. He considers God to be the real cause of all causes in the world. He sees the world as the manifestation of God. Pseudo-sensory experiences, according to Davis, in which a sensory element is involved, such as spiritual dreams, feeling pain or hearing a special voice when receiving a religious experience, seeing angels or prophets, or experiences such as calls, smells, tastes, the feeling of being touched, warmth and coldness and the feeling of flying are a large part of religious experiences. When these quasi-sensory elements are combined with a non-sensory or more complex religious experience, it is a sign that the experience has a special meaning or originates from a spiritual realm. In Rumi's poems, there are also features that Davis mentions for pseudo-sensory experiences, such as hearing the voice and clearly seeing a sacred and otherworldly being that gives advice to the experience. In some cases, Mawlawi describes his religious experiences as "light of light" or "Sun of Sun". He also tells about the incident that happened in his childhood while playing with other children, when he saw green-clad beings who took him to the throne of the sky and showed him the wonders of the spiritual world. Rumi has clearly said about revelatory experiences that they are the type of revelation of hearts, divine inspirations, and mystical observations. Mawlawi has made many references to the revitalizing features of religious experience. Revitalizing experiences are the most common type for ordinary people, many people have gained their faith from such experiences. These experiences strengthen and revive the faith in the experiences. In this type of experience, a person feels that God has guided him and has received special favor and care. One of the positive results of this experience is that hope, emotion and a sense of security emerge in the person who has the experience. The experiences of new hope, strength, peace, security, and happiness that are obtained during a religious activity such as prayer, or are apparently created by a divine force, or are accompanied by a feeling of divine presence, are considered religious. Regarding the characteristics of the numinous experience, Davis mentions some characteristics, one of which is the experience of the pull and awe of the sublime. This attraction has been described in various ways, and intense enthusiasm and devotion to that "other" is one of them, and it often led to the attraction and experience of a clear mystical union with the numinous. We see these themes in Rumi's poems and sayings. One of the most important types of religious experiences is a mystical experience, which is associated with features such as the feeling of understanding an ultimate (fundamental) reality, the feeling of liberation from the limitations of time and space and the individual self, the feeling of "oneness" (unity) and elation or peace. Mawlawi's works, especially his Masnavi, clearly speak of these characteristics. Rumi writes in Arabic in the introduction of the first book of Masnavi: "This is the book of al-Masnawi, and it is a principle, the principle of religion, in the discovery of the secrets of union and certainty." With this sentence, he wants to say that his book contains fundamental facts and tips about reaching God and the innermost aspects of religious matters that he himself experienced and now wants to tell to the audience. In short, the review of Mawlawi's works shows that he has addressed various dimensions of religious experience, including its diversity, and presented valuable points and truths about it masterfully in literary formats, which are equal to today's readings.

The relationship between God and humans has been one of the important philosophical, theological, and mystical concerns in the Islamic world. Muslim philosophers, theologians, and mystics according to the guidelines of the Qur'an in this field as well as their rational approaches and their influence from Some of the ideas of Greek philosophy have tried to explain this relationship in a different and at the same time conflict-free way. The present study examines the views of two prominent thinkers of the above currents. Avicenna on behalf of the Muslim philosophers explains this relationship with the pattern of love and rational perceptions and believes that man with his intuition, love, and attraction to God reaches a position where he can enjoy the same pleasure as the angels. Ghazali as a Sufi and a mystic explains the relationship between God and humans in the pattern of mystical annihilation and destruction and the context of unity with God. These are dual approaches Philosophical and mystical have ontological, anthropological, epistemological, and theological presuppositions

In the thought of Wolfhart Pannenberg , God is the absolute determinant of reality, and his divinity covers the whole existence and creation, including nature .Hence, Pannenberg thinks that the interaction and dialogue between theology with the center of God and science with the focus of nature is ineludible. From his point of view, to know that how this interaction and dialogue is possible, we must compare this tow realms, more than anything else, based on their specific methodologies . Such a comparison leads to review on the nature and extent of science and theology and to accept the possibility of engagement and dialogue beyond their particular realms, and on the third level, philosophical reflections. pannenberg has not succeeded in explaining the possibility of this dialogue based on his key claims, but has certainly been an influential and inspirational pioneer in this field

The Whitehead's Metaphysical System is based on the unity and harmony of affairs and changing events that in the autonomous eternal universe and in mutual communication with the eternal affairs, represents a process thought and scientific one at the same time. Whitehead believes the scientific and religious explanations of the metaphysical root of the order and harmony of worldly affairs are insufficient, but the sufficient reason for justification of them is God. He is a changeable being, he and regularizes all changes of this world. Nevertheless, He is not the creator of the world and omniscient and omnipotent.
In this article we try to scrutinize the metaphysical foundations of science and religion in Whitehead's process philosophy, and to show that Whitehead's Sufficient reason for the explanation of the changeable world is insufficient and even unnecessary, because God is He who is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and is unstable who can not be sufficient reason for the existence of the world.

Miracle has been known from a long time ago as an independent or cumulative evidence that religions have used for justification of their claims. But its epistemological and historical value and validity for believing in the prophets claims, specially their fundamental claim for the existence of God, has always been the root of dispute between science and religion and believers and non-believers. It is important for us in this article that we try to clarify if science can provide sufficient explanation for miracles that see them as violation of the law of nature? And can we reasonably accept the claim of religions that miracles have come from God and have evidential and epistemological value?
In this article, we want to consider the positive and negative answers to these questions focusing on the comments of Swinburne and Morgan Luck and some of their difficulties. Finally, we will conclude that miracles are cumulative evidence for the rationality of religious beliefs and claims.

Explicating and interpreting natural phenomena is a complex process because many factors including observation، logic، and a variety of methodological، ontological and religious beliefs play a role in it. Using the metaphysical and methodological approaches، scientific naturalism tries to simplify this interpretation by excluding some of the above-mentioned factors. It claims that the methodological naturalism is a necessary part of science and prescribes that in explaining natural phenomena، one should act as if reality consists of nothing but matter. Moreover، it assumes that one can act as if the existence of nonmaterial causes، whether created (mind، spirit) or uncreated (God)، does not make a difference in our understanding of the material world. In this paper، this claim will be reviewed.

Moral reductionism attempts to simplify some moral concepts and beliefs into someconcrete concepts and beliefs to provide a more clear and verifiable explanations.Reductionism takes place sometimes in the same field and among compatible conceptsand beliefs; as in the field of empirical psychology which is under the empirical sciences.In this field, certain psychological findings are simplified into some neurological andbiochemical concepts. But sometimes it may be applied to two non-compatible realms,one of which is normative and the other one descriptive. Moral concepts, beliefs, andtruths are among the most important normative affairs. Epistemology and semantics areamong the normative sciences as well. Contrary to them, naturalistic cognitions are a setof descriptive, non-normative concepts and propositions that their truth may be verifiedby referring to the objective world providing a causal explanation. Now an importantquestion here is that whether the normativity of normative sciences, especially ethics, is apart of their essence and structure or they are like the other sciences, especially empiricalones, which are non-normative in nature or they could be non-normative. Put differently,is it possible for us to reduce their normative content to a set of non-normative truths?Ethical naturalism as a kind of moral reductionism has asserted that it is possible. In thispaper we examine this claim and its efforts and policies for reducing moral facts intonon-normative facts.

Popper's falsificationism is a theory on scientific methodology and a criterion to separate scientific propositions from unscientific ones. Contrary to inductive method, it does not seek to prove the conclusive truth or even inconclusive and probable truth of scientific theories based on psychological self-evidence of observable and so-called basic propositions. Therefore, theories always remain at the level of conjecture and guessing. However, they can be approximately true guessing, although they are not absolutely or probably true conjectures. The concept of "approximate truth" or "more approximation to truth" is closely related to the reinforcement of propositions, degree of reality-showing or truthshowing, and scientific progress. Such an idea at least necessitates accepting the doctrine of correspondence between truth and realism about the existence of universe and scientific identities independent from men's minds. However, critics claim that Popperian falsificationism and scientific realism are incompatible and one is actually given up at the expense the other. Some scholars believe that realism is at most more compatible with positivism and others hold that falsificationism necessitates the rejection of essentialism and as a result necessitates unrealistic instrumentalism. The present paper tries to elaborate on these claims.

Ian Barbour, American physicist and theologian, undoubtedly is a prominent and effective figure in new debates about the relation between science and religion. Some of his works count as a turning point and the beginning of recent discussions about science and religion. He divides views or suggested models about relation between them in four groups: conflict, independence, dialogue, and integrity. His personal analysis tends to dialogue with an apparent tendency towards integrity and unity that is consistent with his process thought and critical realism.

Scientific realism is the view that our best scientific theories give approximately truedescriptions of both observable and unobservable aspects of a mind-independentworld. Debates on this view between realists and their critics are at the very heart ofthe philosophy of science. In this essay, we examine the core principles of the realistposition, and indicate some reasons in the conflict with its rivals.

Scientific rationality is in a close relation to scientific methodology. Theories concerning scientific methodology are divided into monist and pluralist ones. Methodologists and empiricist philosophers of science advocate monist theories. On the other hand some modern philosophers of science support scientific pluralist and un-realist methodology. This diversity of views to the nature of methodology and realist or un-realist goal of the science has resonated current debates concerning scientific rationality. Howard Sankey tries to find an inclusive theory concerning scientific rationality through combining some components of traditional and modern views to the nature of methodology. The present essay introduces and analyzes this theory.

Larry Lauden's normative naturalism is a meta-epistemological synthesis concerning the place of epistemology and is directed to justify it. This meta-epistemology is, on the one hand, naturalistic, for like all naturalist epistemologies, it accepts naturalist and empiric methodology and deems it as the only methodology which is suitable for evaluation and justification of epistemic claims (whether scientific, or philosophical, or conventional). Thus, it is descriptive and non-prescriptive. Lauedn's metaepistemology is, on the other hand, a normative and prescriptive synthesis; for, it considers description of epistemological rules and norms, "ought"'s and "ought not"s to acquire and evaluate our beliefs concerning the world as "the traditional and old role of the theory of knowledge. Thus, it is prescriptive and non-descriptive. Lauden thought that both descriptive and prescriptive properties of epistemology are necessary and irremovable. And taking into account, descriptive and empiric character of the naturalistic methodology of science as well as normative character of the traditional epistemology, he tries to reduce one to the other and shows that epistemology is able to play its traditional role and accept empirical evidence, and be evaluated in the same way that other scientific and claims are, at the same time. The present essay aims to study and examine such an attempt.

Foundationalism in one of the epistemological views on the nature of the knowledge and justification. This view considers the knowledge and justification as having two levels. In one level we have some basic believes that are justified without derivation from other believes. In the other level we have some derivative knowledge which is justified by the derivation of other believes. Most of the famous philosophers such as Aristotle, Aquinas and Descartes, hold this view. We will study critically the different versions of foundationalism.