The Role of Reason in the engineering of Religious Knowledge

Ayman Abdul-Khaliq

Abstract

This article deals with a vital and crucial epistemological issue, about which many theological and polemical debates have been made throughout history, concerning the role of reason in religious knowledge. There are many implications based on this, being on ideological, legislative and moral levels.

From our point of view, the cause of the conflict lies in the human’s approach to the authenticity of reason and its scientific limits, and also the authenticity of religious text and its cognitive areas. In this paper, I have put this topic under the microscope of rational examination and scientific research.

In order to cover the issues of this study, I have relied on the evidentiary rational approach, along with the documented historical transmission from religious knowledge sources. At the end of the article, I have come to demonstrate the ranks of rational judgments, the subjective authenticity of evidentiary reason, and the deviation of detailed legal issues from reason’s evidentiary limits. Furthermore, I have discussed the central role of reason in proving and correcting the religious ideological vision, deducting legal rulings, and confirming the religious ethical system in the pure Islamic thought.

Keywords: reason, the limits of reason, religious knowledge, the ranks of rational judgments, rational goodness and rational badness.

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)