The existence of such a science and the value of the ways of...

The existence of such a science and the value of the ways of solving problems presented in it depend upon the proof of the existence of the reason and the value of rational knowledge. Therefore, another science is needed to investigate the sorts of knowledge and to evaluate them until it becomes known what intellectual perceptions are, and what value they may have, and what problems they can solve. This is also another philosophical science called epistemology.

Regarding the practical sciences, such as morals and politics, there are also basic and important problems which the empirical sciences cannot solve, including the recognition of the truth of moral good and evil, virtue and vice, and the standards for determining and distinguishing praiseworthy and blameworthy deeds. Inquiry into this sort of question needs a specific philosophical science or sciences, which in turn are in need of epistemology.

With more careful attention it becomes clear that these problems are interrelated, and as a whole are related to the problems of theology, the study of the God Who has created the body and spirit of man and all existents of the world; the God Who manages the cosmos with a special order; the God Who causes people to die and again will raise them to life to be rewarded or punished for their good and bad deeds, good and bad deeds which are performed with volition and free will, etc..

Knowledge of God the Almighty and His attributes and deeds form a series of problems which will be investigated in the science of theology (divinity in the specific sense). All of these problems are based on a series of more general and more universal problems, whose scope also embraces sensory and material affairs, such as the following.

Existents are in need of one another for their generation and persistence, and among them there are passive and active relations, actions and reactions, and causes and effects. All existents which are within the range of man’s sense and experience are perishable, but there must be another existent which is imperishable, and rather for which nothingness and imperfection are barred.

The arena of being is not restricted to material and sensible existents, nor is it restricted to changing, altering and moving existents, rather there are other kinds of existents which do not have these characteristics and are not in need of time and place.