Analysis of the Language of Religion and Its Impact on Debates on Right and Duty in the Views of Contemporary Thinkers

Abstract

In recent decades, one of the issues that has attracted the attention of philosophers and thinkers in the field of religious studies has been the language of religion, its nature, and the way its content is understood. While Muslim thinkers accept the cognitive character of religious propositions, they differ in their views regarding the quality of their content, particularly with respect to the issue of “right and duty.” Contemporary theistic philosophers, such as Martyr Motahhari, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, and Ayatollah Javadi Amoli, explain religious propositions within a traditional-philosophical framework as duty-oriented, while describing the relationship between “right” and “duty” as one of mutual implication. By contrast, religious reformist thinkers, particularly Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush, maintain that the present age is the age of modern humanity, an age that emphasizes individual rights and inherent dignity; therefore, they regard this period as an era of “right-centeredness.” Accordingly, they call for a reinterpretation of the language of religion in line with right-centeredness. Drawing on modern rationality and transformation in the language of religion, Soroush emphasizes the priority of right over duty and argues that, in order to sustain itself, religion must enter into dialogue with human rights and human-centeredness. In contrast, theistic philosophers, by appealing to revealed theology, regard the priority of duty over right as necessary and define the human being in relation to servitude and divine vicegerency. Using a comparative approach, this article analyzes the anthropological, theological, and epistemological foundations of these two perspectives and demonstrates that the fundamental difference between these two approaches in terms of foundation and method has led to different interpretations of religious concepts in the contemporary era.