Fahimeh Khoshnevisan
Abstract
The problem of this article is to present a new model of religious rationality based on the foundations of religious knowledge in the two intellectual systems of Mullā Ṣadrā and ...
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The problem of this article is to present a new model of religious rationality based on the foundations of religious knowledge in the two intellectual systems of Mullā Ṣadrā and Plantinga-a comprehensive model that can integrate the ontological and existential elements of the Islamic tradition with the criteria of contemporary analytic epistemology. Mullā Ṣadrā, through an emphasis on presential knowledge (al-ʿilm al-Ḥuḍūrī), the gradation of existence (Tashkīk al-Wujūd), and the unity of the knower and the known (Ittiḥād al-ʿāqil wa al-Maʿqūl), offers a structure of religious knowledge organized on the basis of the existential and intuitive realization of knowledge. In contrast, Plantinga, through his warrant theory and the explanation of the proper functioning of cognitive faculties, presents a functionalist picture of religious rationality. Employing an analytical‑comparative method, the present article seeks to examine a new model of religious rationality through a dialogue between these two philosophical systems. The significance of this research lies not merely in a conceptual comparison between the two traditions, but in its aim to construct a theory by bringing together the fundamental elements of both systems in order to develop an integrated model of religious rationality. The structure of the article consists of three main parts: first, an explanation of the foundations of religious knowledge in Transcendent Theosophy (al-Ḥikmah al-Mutaʿāliyah); second, an analysis of the foundations of religious knowledge based on Plantinga’s warrant theory; and third, the presentation of a proposed model for religious rationality based on the integration of the two traditions. The finding of the article indicates that the combination of the intuitive and presential ontology in Transcendent Theosophy with the functionalist analysis of cognitive faculties in warrant theory can provide a framework in which religious belief can, on the one hand, be rationally explained through presence and existential realization in the human cognitive domain, and on the other hand, through the proper mechanisms of cognition.
