ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Islamic Culture and Religious Studies Book -4 Lesson 3 : Knowing God Before we begin to study the ways in which we can know God, it is necessary that we first look at the various methods we, as human beings, use to gather any kind of information or knowledge. Capturing Knowledge We know that one of man's specialties is that he is always in search of gaining more information about the world he lives in.

He yearns to know about anything that is related to both his internal and external world. Because the knowledge he seeks comes in different forms, he is equipped with different skills to deal with this variety. There are four main skills a human being uses: 1. Senses (Direct Capture) The most ancient and transparent way of gaining knowledge is through use of our five basic senses.

We see the different colours and shapes that fill our world; we listen to birds singing and babies crying; we learn the variety of flavours available through our sense of taste; we smell the aromas that things give off and finally feel textures through touch. The information we get in these ways is direct because the particular sense sends the message straightaway to the brain. 2.

Experiments (Indirect Capture) Despite the fact that many obvious things are learnt through direct capture, there are many aspects of our universe that cannot be discovered by using any of the five senses. For example, we cannot observe the actual flow of electricity in a live wire with any of our sense our senses. We cannot use our senses to discover things such as atoms, electrons and magnetism. Our conclusions on these subjects are a result of indirect methods of discovery.

Instead of seeing the actual object in question, we base our knowledge on the effect it has on other things, e.g. we know that there is a flow of electricity when we see the resulting light. Another clear example is in regards to people's thoughts. We cannot discover what goes on in another's mind with any of our senses, but through that persons speech we are able to judge his thoughts and character.

When talking of indirect methods of gaining knowledge, we can refer to it as an 'intellectually-based' approach because it relies on the brain to process the information and apply it to the knowledge being searched for. Many of the achievements in science are achieved through this system. 3.