ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Discursive Theology Volume 1 Lesson 2: The Ways of Knowing God Before embarking on the discussion about the proofs of the existence of God and an examination of the Divine Attributes, it is necessary to answer this important and key question: can the human being know God or not? And in case he can, what is the way of doing so?

This is because if the answer to this question is negative, any sort of discussion and discourse about theology is vain and useless. Here, two general outlooks have been put forth, i.e. those of the affirmatives and the negatives. The rationalists and intuitionists regard God as knowable and the way of knowing Him as open to mankind. The sensationalists and literalists give a negative reply, however, to the above question and consider mankind incapable of knowing God.

Now, we shall examine and elucidate these outlooks. The Rationalists The rationalists refer to the group of thinkers who have accepted the authority and credibility of reason or intellect ( ‘aql ) in knowledge [or the process of knowing], regarding the rational principles and fundamentals as the foundations of knowledge.

They are of the opinion that without formally acknowledging the intellect and rational principles, no knowledge can be attained about the human being and even sensory and external pieces of knowledge are based on rational foundations, let alone empirical scientific pieces of knowledge and those pieces of information which are substantiated by the text and outward meanings of the revelation ( wahy ).

Aristotle[^1] and his followers in Ancient Greece, Descartes[^2] and his followers in the West, Fārābī,[^3] Ibn Sīnā,[^4] and all Imāmiyyah and Mu‘tazilite theologians ( mutakallimīn ) have been proponents of this outlook. Reason also occupies a high position in Māturīdiyyah theology.

For the Ash‘arites,[^5] however, reason ( ‘aql ) is theoretically valid to some extent but not so in practice.[^6] At any rate, the philosophers and theologians in the Muslim world believe that God can be known through rational thinking, although there is a difference of opinions on the limit of the intellect’s capability. For example, the proofs presented to prove the existence of God and the methods adopted to discuss the Attributes of God are not the same.