Theology and Theologians in Mulla Ṣadra's View

Abstract

Mulla Ṣadra considers theology as a knowledge which discusses divine nature, attributes and actions, the quality of resurrection, prophets and holy books. Its duty is explanation of these phenomena and proving their truth and defending them against the objections. Learning some parts of it, are necessary for everyone and learning other parts are necessary only for specialists. He has replied to the objections concerning inappropriateness of learning theology. In comparing theologians with other groups of theists (ordinary people, philosophers, mystics), he judges to the relative superiority of theologians over some of the foregoing groups and the inferiority of them over other groups of theists. He knows the downside of theologians well and explicitly suggest his view about some theologians and some theological schools such as Ashʽarites, Muʽtazilites and Esotericist. This paper attempts to examine Mulla Ṣadra's view about theology and theologians in the framework of the mentioned discussions