Tusi introduced rationality...

Tusi introduced rationality, knowledge and awareness as the greatest bounty that God had bestowed upon His bondmen, after their existence itself. Being sociable Tusi believed that no one could satisfy his or her needs alone without assistance and cooperation from others.

On the other hand, cooperation of individuals was needed in order to achieve perfection and better enjoyment of different bounties from God Complimentary and evolutionary movement Man’s soul had different potential powers, and in trying to achieve perfection, he should nurture his abilities to reach closer in nearness to God.

Man could make his freewill a function of the Divine freewill, and achieve the position of being contented first and subsequently attain positions of trust, submission and finally that of infinite knowledge and power and being eternal where there would be no veil between God and him. Achieving the Position of nearness to God One of the characteristics of human beings was the fact that they could reach a position of nearness to God.

This position had different ranks and human beings were able to attain this position in various degrees. Therefore, although man had been expelled from Paradise, he could again, through servitude and submission to God, ascend and return to his first and original abode. To achieve this, he had to purify himself in the field of knowledge and action. Tusi maintained that human soul was simply an essence, which could be perceived through intellect and could affect the sensory body.

That essence itself was not the body. It was neither physical, nor sensory for any of the senses. Intellect of the soul remained unaffected even after destruction of one’s body. Death could not destroy the soul, and it could never be destroyed. Man’s body was like an instrument for the soul (Adamson 1998, p. 94-102).

Aristotle Aristotle was convinced that the characteristic, which determined a thing’s nature, was what determined its successful operation, that is, its ability to achieve what was good for itself (as is implicit in his ethical writings). A species became the one it was in its present form through its goals and by being organized in a way so as to achieve them. Some goals were extrinsic; for example, the goal of an axe being to cut wood explained the arrangement of the metal on the axe.

Likewise, the teleological goal of man was to live a life of a given kind (e.g.