The Relation between Religious Belief and Value of life: A look over the value of life from Allameh Tabatabaee’s perspective in al-Mizan

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Masoud Mirzaei Firouzi
Mitra (Zahra) Poursina
Department of Islamic Studies Teaching, Tehran University
10.30470/phm.2018.32202
Abstract
This paper discusses the issue of the value of life, which is one of the spiritual crises of modern man. Along with examining the ideas of naturalists about the matter, by reviewing Allameh Tabatabaee’s al-Mizan entirely, the author has tried to extract his viewpoint, which is a supernaturalist and God-centered viewpoint. According to him, our life in this world will be null and absurd if we do not believe in God and in the life after death; however, it is possible to reach divine meeting (Liqa’allah) and the status of being God’s vicegerent (Khalifat Allah) through faith and good deeds. Considering the various degrees of value that can be assigned to people’s lives, this article claims that although according to Allame’s view the value of life is almost nothing when its liver does not believe in God, it is not so subjectively from that liver’s perspective . At the same time, integrating the supernatural viewpoint of Allameh and naturalist views leads us to the conclusion that even objectively, each of these two viewpoints seeks to propose the prerequisites for achieving a specific level of value of life.
Keywords
value of life
belief in God
Allame Tabatabaee
naturalism
various degrees of value
supernaturalism
Subjects