Again, a condensed excerpt from Murtaza Mutahhari’s “Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man, and the universe”. This is taken from the section on science and faith:
“Does our science carry us in one direction and faith in another? Or do science and faith fulfill and complement one another?…. Science shows what is; faith inspires insight into what must be done. Science is the outer revolution; faith is the inner revolution…. Science expands man’s being horizontally; faith conveys him upward. Both science and faith empower man, but science gives a power of discrimination, and faith gives a power of integration…. Both science and faith are beauty, but science is the beauty of reason, and faith is the beauty of the spirit…. Science brings the world into harmony with man, and faith brings man into greater harmony with himself.
Although (science) is a tool in our hands, it cannot transform our essence and identity. Likewise, faith cannot replace science, to enable us to understand nature, discover its laws…. Faith must be known in the light of science; faith must be kept far from superstition…. When science is removed from faith, faith is deformed into petrification,…it turns on its own axis and goes nowhere…. Conversely, science without faith is a sword in the hands of a maniac, or else a lamp at midnight in the hands of a thief, so he can pick out the choicest goods….the power of science is instrumental - that is, dependent upon man’s will and command….But when man puts the instrument to work, he already has an object in view; instruments are employed in pursuit of objects….
(Man’s) human potential must be gradually nurtured in the light of faith, by nature he moves toward his natural, animal, individual, material, self-interested objects and employs his instruments accordingly. Therefore man needs a power not among his own instruments and objects….He needs a power that can detonate him from within and activate his hidden potentialities. He needs a power that can produce a revolution in his heart and give him a new direction. This is not accomplished by science….It is born of the sanctification…of one’s spirit….Science is absolutely necessary but it is never sufficient.”
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Sry if i misunderstand, but the author seems to refer to modern science in the context of the quote right? Contrastingly, traditional science or ilm is sacred science and in this sense is the highest state of human knowledge which is the subservience of the outer “revolution” for the sake of the inner.
I’ve expanded the section quoted from Mutahhari’s book to correct any impression that he gives complete primacy to science. Religion connects us vertically to higher realities, while science provides a horizontal, instrumental understanding and connection with this present world. Mutahhari speaks both of a science that takes its tenor and direction from unified metaphysical principles (the science that should be) and one that has cut its ties with all metaphysics (the lamp in the hands of a thief).
He also has much to say of a religiosity which has devolved away from religion as a sacred science into an absolutism or fanaticism that is a parody of real religion, disconnected from any real comprehension of the metaphysical realities it supposedly follows and adheres to.
I don’t want to hijack this comment thread but some of Mutahhari’s books are here:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Mutahhari%2C%20Murtaza
Good for those of us that don’t speak farsi.
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