Scientific Materialism versus Spiritual Realism: A Critical Analysis of Spinoza's Approach to Revelation and Miracle from the Perspective of Allamah Tabatabaʾi's Transcendent Philosophy

Document Type : Scientific-research

Authors

1 PhD in Teaching of Islamic Theoretical Foundations, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of Islamic Theoretical Foundations, Faculty of Islamic Education and Thought, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

The conflict between the scientific-materialist worldview and the human need for transcendent meaning is one of the main challenges of the contemporary world. Baruch Spinoza, as a pioneer in this debate, sought to reconstruct religion on a purely naturalistic foundation by offering one of the earliest and most complex formulations of scientific materialism. This approach leads to the reduction of "revelation" to a product of imagination and "miracle" to human ignorance of natural causes. Employing a critical-analytical method, this article argues that this materialistic and reductionist paradigm is incapable of fully explaining the dimensions of reality. To substantiate this claim, the principles of Allamah Tabatabaʾi's “Spiritual Realism”a worldview that acknowledges the reality of transcendent levels of being are used as a critical framework. The analysis reveals a deep paradigmatic conflict: Spinoza's single-layered and deterministic ontology is contrasted with Allamah's multi-layered and teleological worldview, which explains revelation as a transcendent consciousness and miracles as a rational phenomenon based on the “violation of habit” (kharq al-ʿādat). Ultimately, the conclusion is that Allamah's framework offers a robust philosophical alternative for the modern individual who accepts science but finds a purely materialist worldview existentially and explanatorily deficient, thus providing a direct intervention in the contemporary “science versus religion” debate.

Keywords

References

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