Examining the Relationship Between Ayatollah Javadi Amoli’s Theory of Revelatory Rationality and the Transcendence of Thought in the Mirror of Sadrian Philosophy

Abstract

The relationship between reason and revelation is one of the central issues in Islamic thought, and in the contemporary era—marked by the confrontation between modern rationality and religious knowledge—its re-examination has become necessary. By proposing the theory of revelatory rationality, Ayatollah Javadi Amoli offers a novel approach to explaining the constructive interaction between reason and revelation, in which reason operates within the orbit of revelation and thereby attains transcendence. Mullā Ṣadrā’s Transcendent Theosophy, with its ontological foundations, provides an appropriate theoretical framework for understanding this type of rationality. Despite the fundamental connections between these two theories, there remains a research gap in clarifying the nature of their relationship. The aim of the present study is to examine the relationship between the theory of revelatory rationality and the transcendence of thought in Sadrian philosophy, and to uncover the shared philosophical foundations of these two theories. This basic research adopts a descriptive–analytical and comparative approach. Data were collected through library research from the works of Ayatollah Javadi Amoli and the texts of Transcendent Theosophy, and were analyzed using content analysis and comparative examination. The findings indicate that Sadrian philosophy, through its ontological foundations—including the monotheistic framework, substantial motion, the unity of the intellect and the intelligible, the correspondence of realms, existential poverty, and gradational existence—provides the philosophical ground for revelatory rationality. The shared foundations of these two theories include the monotheistic framework, the correspondence of realms, existential poverty, and epistemic gradation. The process of the transcendence of thought is explained in three stages—need, argumentation, and discipleship—in which revelation plays a complementary and elevating role for reason. The overall conclusion is that revelatory rationality is rooted in the foundations of Transcendent Theosophy, and that human epistemic transcendence is realized only through the unity of reason and divine law.