Avicenna and the logic of religious understanding

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Mohammad Nasr Esfahani ¹
• Jafar Shanazari ²
• Seyed Mehdi Emam Jomeh ³

¹ Assistant professor, Department of Islamic Teachings, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

² Associate professor, Department of Philosophy and Theology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Isfahan, Isfahan,Iran

³ Associate professor, Department of Philosophy and Theology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

Highlights

Avicenna
and the Logic of Understanding Religion

Mohammad Nasr Esfahani*   ׀  Jafar Shanazari**  ׀ Seyed Mehdi Emam Jomeh***

Received: 11/03/2019       |       Accepted: 31/05/2019

Abstract

The logic of understanding religion is a set of methodical rules which if adhered to can protect the mind of a religious exegete from errors in understanding. The necessity of such logic is clear to the intellectuals. Avicenna is one such intellectual in this regard. The concern of this study is “Avicenna and the logic of understanding religion”. This study is foundational, historical, analytical and concern-centered and has been conducted using a library method and authentic sources. The findings of this study are that Avicenna’s philosophical-scientific perceptions are not consistent with religious texts and this has resulted in him determining that there is a disharmony between rational premises and religious, revelation premises. The Prophet was a unique being and exalted in estimation, imagination and intellect. A large part of his perceptions of realities was not consistent with the general level of understanding. Presenting the bare findings has not been possible or useful. Accordingly, he presented it to people in the form of coded language, metaphors and parables so that they become familiar with the minimum of intellectual and human happiness. According to Avicenna, understanding the real meaning of texts is only possible through ontology. Ontology enables the exegete to become familiar with the writer of the text and his intent from the text and allows him to decode the text. He himself has done this and this is what has caused serious criticisms to be raised against him.

Keywords: Avicenna, logic of understanding, religious texts, hermeneutics, ontology.

Keywords

Avicenna, logic of understanding, religious texts, hermeneutics, ontology.

Summary

If we consider Islam to be premises from the Koran and narrations, it is clear that the understanding of these premises is clear and manifest to the one who spoke of them more than anyone else. It is natural that he states his words in such a way that is understandable for his addressees. The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him and his household) who is the immediate addressee of revelation, understands, recounts and explains the true intent of these words. Understanding of religion was better possible for the special companions and those who lived in his time too due to the element of training, closeness in time and space and familiarity with the environment in which God’s words were revealed and the words and actions of His prophet. Understanding and explaining the text, has faced more problems and differences in opinions the more time and socio-culture distance there is from the age and environment of revelation, such that after 200 years, tens of creeds and schools have emerged in understanding and explaining religious texts, all of whom consider themselves the saved creed and introduce themselves as being more expert in understanding religion and even consider other groups to be so distant form the understanding of religion as to excommunicate them. Differences in opinion and sometimes contradictions in their perceptions of the Koran and narrations can also be seen in the narrative exegeses.

The question that usually comes to the mind of those who are slightly familiar with religious and historical texts is: what is the reason or cause for differences in opinion and the understanding of believers of “religious concepts” and “religious premises”? Why should there be such different positions regarding religion so that one explanation or view is unacceptable for some and the same is a certainty for others? What is the root of the difference in their understanding?

The present study is conducted using a concern-centered method in order to solve this epistemological problem in the thoughts of Avicenna as an intellectual who faced a hermeneutical problem and has a particular logic in the understanding and exegesis of religious concepts and premises.

1. The epistemological formation and personality of Avicenna resulted in him having a different understanding of “religious texts” and their “author” and delves into religious texts with a different expectation and follows a particular logic in understanding them which has essential differences with the common position held by others. His Avicenna’s personality was formed in two types of schools, cultures and thoughts: one was Islamic training with a Shi’a-Ismaili tendency which is the most interpretative Islamic theological creed. The other was Aristotelian-philosophical training; Avicenna sought certain knowledge and the only knowledge he considered as providing certainty was acquired intellectual knowledge based on argument; an argument that has certain propositions or concludes in primary axioms and cannot be acquired. This belief was the reason why Avicenna accepts the content of religious texts, which are a heritage from our forefathers, only if it is consistent with the intellect and intellectual argument.

2. Avicenna’s view towards “text” is an ontological confrontation. The result of this is the occurrence of three happenings: a. some religious text premises are provable through the logic of understanding realities (ontology) by the intellect and argument; b. some are not provable through the logic understanding realities; c. the silence of religious premises in response to some essential questions regarding origin and resurrection.

3. Avicenna has specified the “author of the text”, i.e. God, in view of the apparent aspect of the Koran and therefore must clarify the task of falsifiable premises in religious texts.

He believes that the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him and his household), through the strong sense of estimation that he possesses, receives the intellectual knowledge and with the help of the faculty of imagination, translates and “transforms” them into tangible and concrete realities to the extent that the people can understand them. Avicenna believed that the Prophet transformed the realities into “code”, “metaphor” and “parable”.

Avicenna’s important assumption is that the sage and the prophet both receive sustenance from the same source with the difference that one does so with speed and easily, while the other attains it gradually and with difficulty. Therefore, discovering the reality of the Koran in the time of absence of the prophets and chosen servants of God is the task of the philosophers who explain reality through reality. Exegesis of reality with non-reality is known as “personal interpretation” and is forbidden.

According to Gazali, the most important critic of Avicenna, if words go beyond their apparent meaning without any religious reason and intellectual reason or necessity, religious words will lose their credence and the words of God and the prophet lose their usefulness. Gazali himself, at least for non-verbal and inner exegesis accepts it if that exegesis is consistent with: a. religious reason; b. intellectual necessity; c. intellectual reason. He considers interpretations to be falsifiable and has considered four approaches for its critique or nullification: a. contrary recurrence; b. contrary sense; c. dominant supposition on the contrary; d. union of contradictions.

The following are the findings of this study:

1. Understanding is a process which is a consequence of interaction between the ideas of the “exegete”, “text” and the “author of the text” which is imprinted in the mind of the exegete and his thoughts are based on his intellectual system and structure which itself is influenced by training and education and the time in which the exegete has been brought up.

2. Avicenna felt a deep divide between the world in which the external text manifested and the world in which he himself lived and sought to bring these two closer. According to him, the understanding of the ancestors regarding the origin, resurrection, man, religious rituals and practices was very simple-minded and childish.

3. Avicenna considers certain understanding to be an understanding that must be self-evident or consistent with findings that conclude in axioms and therefore, the premises of religious texts are acceptable if they are consistent with reasoning and rational argument that concludes in intellectual axioms.

4. The method of understanding and the logic of perceiving the realities of the Koran and narrations is based on ontology.

5. The inconsistence of religious premises with ontology is because the prophets presented intellectual realities through code language, metaphors and parables.

6. The logic of understanding religious realities is the decoding and “interpretation” of realities transformed to tangibles. Interpretation is the opposite of transformation, i.e. the exegete must restore the text from tangible to intellectual.

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Keywords

• Avicenna
• logic of understanding
• religious texts
• hermeneutics
• ontology

Main Subjects

• philosophy of Religion