Motahhari's Conceptualization of Divine Revelation: from Reductionism to Comprehensive Views, and Its Relation with Faith and Fitrah (nature)

This paper has studied Motahari''s point of view on the divine revelation as a methodological problem. In Islamic philosophers'' point of view، divine revelation is result of union of prophet and active intellect. They consider the divine revelation as knowledge and emphasize its cognitive identity. On the other hand، some scholars reduce the divine revelation to tendencies and emphasize its attitude and non-cognitive identity. Both views suffer from reductionism. But for Motahari، divine revelation is considered as both tendency and knowledge. Far away from reductionism، he presents a comprehensive view and explains a complete definition of divine revelation. The relation of divine revelation to faith and fitrah (nature) is another issue discussed here. Motahari''s conceptualization of faith is based upon his view on divine revelation. So faith also is considered as to have both cognitive and non-cognitive identity. This conceptualization of faith and divine revelation is coherent with the way he understands fitrah. Thus، the analysis of faith، fitrah، and divine revelation، as Motahari describe them، are coherent with each other.