Ali Akbar Rashad
Preface
My inferiority is admitted by myself. Although, as I hold, the philosophy of religion is applied to “intellectual, out of text (meta-textual) investigation of religion and its propositions and fundamental doctrines” or “philosophical inquiry into religion and about religion, but condescendingly, I believe that great part of discussions in the philosophy of religion can be obtained from religious texts, especially Islamic texts. Moreover, one of the best ways to assess the truth of main claims of philosophy of religion is examining and comparing them with their correlatives and counterparts in religious knowledge and basics, then summoning witnesses (Istishhad) and even relying on transmitted doctrine, cannot defect the identity of “the philosophy of religion” and related debates. As you see in due course, in some articles, I didn’t avoid summoning witnesses from absolutely clear text. Moreover imposing restriction on the philosophy of religion and its debates to the eight major articles seems unjustifiable, so I have collected an index of debates pertain to this knowledge, in the first article of this book. Diversity of suggested debates in this view is more and more comprehensive than classic woks.
In the following pages you will immediately face with eight articles;
The first article is mainly about the science of philosophy of religion, some a priori and enclosed questions about nature of the philosophy of religion.
Second article, which is the abstract and conclusion of my struggles in last few years, tries to suggest a new methodological construction for understanding of religion and gaining religious knowledge.
In the present era, theology and related investigations include three main and crucial questions; “is it possible to understand the religion?” if the answer is yes, so “whether or not, is the understanding of religion methodical or systematic?” if yes, “what is the logic of understanding of religion?”
Current sciences of study of religion, including methodology of driving law from Islamic source despite its peerless and privileged characteristics, do not possess sufficiency or properness .when they have to reply new kinds of questions this problem would be so clear (Especially in case of facing with innovative schools and current needs).
