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Religious Inquiries - Volume:8 Issue: 1, Winter and Spring 2019

Religious Inquiries
Volume:8 Issue: 1, Winter and Spring 2019

  • تاریخ انتشار: 1398/01/11
  • تعداد عناوین: 7
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  • Enshaallah Rahmati *, Mahnaz Osooli Pages 5-27
    In the Islamic tradition, Mulla Sadra is foremost among the philosophers who have dealt with the issue of prophecy from all three theological, philosophical, and mystical perspectives. Among Western scholars of religion, Henry Corbin is the most prominent commentator of prophetic wisdom, who has provided a mystical reading of the problem of prophecy drawing on the ideas of Muslim philosophers. Given the wide scope of the works and ideas of Corbin regarding prophecy, this essay examines how much Corbin was influenced by Mulla Sadra’s ideas about the effects of revealed teachings on humankind. The esoteric nature of prophetic wisdom, the role of God’s saints in decoding sacred scriptures, the ontological and epistemological foundations of hermeneutics, and the correspondence between textual hermeneutics and hermeneutics of the soul represent the key constituents of Corbin’s accounts regarding the educational effects of revealed teachings, whereas Mulla Sadra’s doctrines of wilayat, the world of ideas, the active intellect, co-originality of revelation and inspiration, and the unity of the knower and the known have played a vital role in their development.
    This essay has employed a method of phenomenology or uncovering the hidden in the sense that is used by Corbin in his various works. We attempt to show how prophetic religion can, based on such a notion of prophecy, provide an efficient educational program for humankind and therefore stop the secularization of religion.
    Keywords: Henry Corbin, Mulla Sadra, prophecy, World of ideas, revelation, inspiration, unity of the knower, the known, active intellect
  • Jochen Schmidt Pages 29-36
    Climate virtue ethics points to the subjective/personal dimensions of climate ethics, which have been largely neglected by previous research. There is a lot of research from diverse fields that pertains to the cultural and the individual dimensions that come along with climate virtue ethics, but, as of yet, these dimensions have hardly been examined together. Future research on climate virtue ethics should draw from religions, as religious traditions contain “thick” ideas that may inspire our thinking about how we can envision a life of personal moral integrity and what sustainable life styles may look like in the future. In order to unearth the potentials (Habermas) of these “thick” ideas that are contained in religions, we need to perform close readings of our traditions and ask those traditions which visions of human life they may offer in light of current moral challenges. Future climate virtue ethics is an endeavour that asks for the cooperation of theological ethics, comparative theology, moral psychology/behavioural business ethics, environmental psychology, social theory, and so forth.
    Keywords: Virtue Ethics, Climate, Human life, morality
  • Javad Danesh Pages 37-58
    According to a common view among Muslim philosophers, a moral agent has free will if and only if she is able to do an action when she wants to and is able to avoid it when she wants otherwise. Implicit in this view is the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP). On the other hand, according to this view, free will is dependent on requirements such as conception, judgement, tendency, decision, and personal volition. In this paper, I discuss the bilateral defects of this view and present a reformed view on free will and moral responsibility in relation to causal predetermination in an Islamic context.
    Keywords: Free Will, moral responsibility, principle of alternative possibilities, Frankfurtian principle
  • Seyed Ahmad Fazeli Pages 59-80
    In mystical ethics, some virtues have a foundational role in relation to other virtues; that is, other virtues are in some ways dependent on, conditional to, or rooted in them. This is a gradational concept, and therefore one can speak of foundational and more foundational among foundational virtues in mysticism. Honesty is the most foundational virtue in mystical ethics, and other virtues are in some way dependent on it. Studying mystical ethics sources, we find six types or six meanings of foundational, all of which apply to honesty: origin, prerequisite, overlapping, companion, companion of perfection, and standard. This article explains and describes these six meanings and their application to honesty in mystical sources.
    Keywords: mystical ethics, foundational virtue, honesty
  • Franco Manni Pages 81-102
    The English Dominican Herbert McCabe highlighted some ideas of Thomas Aquinas on the knowability of God and on creation, which can usefully challenge some widespread commonplaces. The purposes of this article are two: to present McCabe’s sophisticated doctrine on the knowability of God and on creation in a systematic way, and to put this doctrine into its historical context. In the scattered and meagre scholarship on McCabe, both points are missing. In fact, despite being highly praised by leading intellectuals such as Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair McIntyre, Terry Eagleton, David Burrell, Rowan Williams, Denys Turner, and Eamon Duffy, McCabe has remained widely unknown. According to McCabe, both the American creationists and some atheist scientists believe that God—given that he exists—is a powerful entity within the universe, and thus both the atheist and the creationist expect exactly the same elements in the universe. However, according to McCabe, God does not act like natural causes; he is not an element within the universe and not even the most powerful of all the elements, because he created the universe from nothing and is not part of it.
    Keywords: Herbert McCabe, apophaticism, Aquinas, creatio ex nihilo, Richard Dawkins, creationism
  • Mohsen Marvinam *, Shahaboddin Vahidi Pages 103-122
    Among the topics that can play an important role in interreligious dialogue and the relationship between civilizations and cultures is the topic of human salvation. In this article, we argue that salvation and redemption are not exclusive to the followers of a particular religion; rather, the followers of various religions can gain salvation with some conditions, such as the belief in God and moral integrity. With this approach, we can create a constructive dialogue among the followers of different religions, and prevent “the clash of civilizations.” From an Islamic viewpoint, followers of other religions who seek the truth but have not been able to find it are considered innate Muslims. Comparatively, in Karl Rahner’s thought, the followers of various religions can gain divine grace for their moral acts, faith, hope, love of neighbor, charity, and so forth. Rahner calls such people “anonymous Christians.” According to these two viewpoints, a wide range of the followers of different religions can gain salvation.
    Keywords: Islam, Christianity, salvation, anonymous Christians, innate Muslims, interfaith dialogue
  • Seyede Saeideh Gharavi Pages 123-137
    This article tries to demonstrate that Islam recognizes women’s social presence and endorses their participation in political, economic, and cultural activities in society. The claim is supported by the Quranic reports of women’s social activities in the past nations and by a number of jurisprudential verses (āyāt al-aḥkām) pertaining to social matters. Further evidence for the claim consists in reliable historical reports, as well as hadiths, according to which women were active in the nascent Muslim community and the Prophet (s) expressed no disagreement towards their social activities. This article is written with a descriptive-analytic method, using reliable Shiite and Sunni sources.
    Keywords: social presence of women, women-specific rulings, Islamic viewpoint