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Ignorance
Lack of self-knowledge and awareness of one’s spiritual dimensions and existential limitations leads the human being to see himself as no more than an animal whose nature encompasses only animal instincts. Jaundiced by such a misconception of his own nature, the human being has a tendency to view himself as the supreme animal and therefore the center of the universe and as such Justified in manipulating nature and all other beings to gratify his own brute desires. Ignorance concerning oneself and one’s true nature entails an outright denial of God or a polytheistic worldview. Thus, ignorance concerning oneself and God is a central cause resulting in the disorientation of the divine nature in the human being.
Another way in which ignorance impairs the efficacy of the divine nature in man is when one lacks a correct understanding of religion and religious concepts. This in turn begets doubt, and doubt concerning religion precludes one from heeding one’s divine nature. Holding wrong views concerning the place of the human being in the cosmic scheme and the role of God leads to certain misunderstandings, such as the misconception that religious doctrines are contrary to reason, the false impression that the theory of evolution (assuming it is scientifically established) is opposed to a theistic view of the world and the delusion that belief in Divine Decree is incompatible with human free will.
Of course ignorance concerning religion can be traced to a number of factors. One prominent factor concerns the society in which one lives. People who live in societies dominated by false beliefs and are thus subjected to an incessant onslaught of misinformation in line with the policies of the powers controlling these societies are prone to develop wrong beliefs that estrange them from their divine nature. Another major factor responsible for ignorance concerning religion is overindulgence in sensual pleasures.
Indulging the Base Desires
Overindulgence in base desires can blind one from the path of the One True God since a libertine and licentious person may relinquish any claim to dignity, nobility and bravery because he/she is enthralled by lust; therefore, the light of spiritual guidance is diminished. The lofty ideals that form a potent force in one’s fitrah - the innate acquaintance with God and the tendency to worship and love Him - may gradually relinquish themselves to base, and materialistic thoughts, and over time one may adopt the mindset that the world is an arbitrary entity devoid of purpose; that the reckoning in the Hereafter is only a religious superstition; and that our primary concern is to enjoy the present. With this mindset, ideological and moral materialism are correlative and reinforce one another, making it very difficult for one to comprehend and accept spiritual and religious truths.
Conceit and Arrogance
Arrogance and egocentrism have the potential to blot out the divine nature in the human being to such an extent that he would be willing to oppose the truth knowingly and deliberately. We may, for instance, refuse to acknowledge the truth in spite of knowing that it is the truth on account of our arrogance. Or when debating an issue with someone, our egocentrism may lead us to denounce and belittle our opponent and claim our position to be superior knowing that he is voicing the correct position. As such, arrogance and egocentrism are moral vices that can cause one to become oblivious to the light of guidance emanating from our divine nature.
Stressing the importance of following the truth, Imam ´Ali ibn Abi Talib states, “Heed the words you hear rather than the person who utters them.”
(Ghurar al-Hikam wa Durar al-kalim, p. 361)
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Factors Responsible for Estrangement from Fitrah
The idea that the human being partakes of a divine nature that has innate knowledge of God is sometimes criticized on the grounds that if in fact such a nature does exist, why then is human history full of atheists and unbelievers. Our reply to this criticism is that there are numerous factors that may work against and counteract the influence of the fitrah. Indulging the sensual desires and succumbing to evil social conditions are two main factors that can estrange one from one’s divine nature-fitrah -and diminish one’s response to its intuitive directions. Here we will consider four such factors.
The divine nature within the human being remains throughout one’s life as the incorruptible force of truth, never deviating from its sacred function, which is to compel one to strive after truth and perfection. Nevertheless, the human being may choose to neglect and defy the fitrah. Even such an infamous figure as Pharaoh was endowed with this divine nature, but he in virtue of his free will chose to go against the guidance of the fitrah. That Moses was commanded by God to approach Pharaoh to try to convince him to obey God shows that Pharaoh did partake of divine nature, for otherwise this command to Moses would have been pointless.
Flawed Presentation of Religious Concepts
An important factor contributing to the stifling of human fitrah is the unreasonable and insensible picture in which it is sometimes cast. The irrational and anti-science presentation that some religious authorities tend to give of God and His Attributes creates in many people a conflict between their inclination toward religion and the other fitriyyat, on the one hand, and their instincts, on the other. It is as though if they choose religion, they must do so at the expense of many of their natural needs. This inner conflict results from a misrepresentation of religion is the reason why many people chose to subdue their divine nature. When religion is defined as contradicting and conflicting with science, when superstitions are inserted into religion, when deplorable and unethical acts are justified in the name of religion, it is only natural that people would espouse a negative attitude toward it and would lose faith in it, and this in turn would entail their estrangement from their divine nature. Here are some instances of how religion and religious concepts are misrepresented:
1) Some theologians offer a corporeal depiction of God, going so far as to say that the distance between God’s eyes is approximately 21,000 miles.
2) Many religious scholars and thinkers from different religions tend to define the role of God in the world as a mysterious agent that is at work alongside the natural causes and effects, which is incorrect, as God’s agency and activity transcends the natural causes, and it is wrong to reserve it only for those instances where scientists have failed to offer a convincing theory concerning a phenomenon;
3) Some religions and religious tendencies characterize spiritual perfection as the niter renunciation of the pleasures of the flesh, thus denouncing the institution of marriage as an evil necessity and exalting the practice of celibacy and monasticism as most conducive to spiritual realization.
4) It is very common that adults in their innocent attempt to educate their children concerning religious concepts and especially God feed them wrong and warped beliefs, and when children grow up they realize the futility of these concepts, drawing the conclusion that religion must be flawed, whereas what is flawed is the conception of religion they received from their parents, and not religion itself.
These are only a few examples of how people are discouraged from religion and thereby alienated from their divine nature.
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Conative Fitriyyat
Conative fitriyyat include the following instances:
· Inclination towards immortality
· Inclination to seek the truth
· Inclination towards virtue and righteous deeds
· Inclination towards perfection and the perfect being
· Inclination towards felicity
· Inclination towards beauty, whether it is manifested in such physical phenomena as flowers and mountains or in aesthetic, ethical, and spiritual truths:
· Inclination towards creativity
· Inclination towards adoration of the sublime
What Scholars Have to Say Concerning Fitrah
It would be absurd to expect psychologists to fully endorse the concept of fitrah. For, on the one hand, psychological studies and experiments arc generally focused on empirical and sensory data, whereas filrah is an entirely spiritual and immaterial reality. And, on the other hand, many of the fitriyyat. as has already been pointed out, remain dormant and in a stale of potentiality until the appropriate circumstances for their emergence present themselves. As such, it is difficult for psychologists to delect the physical and behavioral effects of these dormant inclinations and intuitions. Nevertheless, one can occasionally find intimations of the concept of fitrah in the works of psychologists.
Paul Edwards (1923-2004), the renowned moral philosopher, describes what prominent psychologists and philosophers think in relation to God being essential to human nature, as follows:
There are philosophers and psychologists of influence who either do not believe in God at all or who, all any rate, do not favor the enterprise of buttressing belief in God by means of proofs but are nevertheless concerned to maintain that human beings arc by nature religious-that they are, in Max Scheler’s phrase. “God-seekers.” They would point out that it is this question of “philosophical anthropology,” and not any question about the validity of the Common Consent Argument, which is of real interest and human importance.
Though perhaps invalid as a proof of the existence of God. the Common Consent Argument does embody an important insight about the nature of man.
These writers arc a great deal more sophisticated than most of the traditional defenders of the argument, whose views we considered in preceding sections. They do not at all deny that, in the most obvious sense, the world is full of unbelievers, but they would add that a great many of these unbelievers feel a strong urge to worship something or somebody and therefore invent all kinds of surrogate deities. Man's “gods and demons.” writes Car! Jung, “have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names.” Those, in the words of Miguel de Unamuno, “who do not believe in God or who believe that they do not believe in Him, believe nevertheless in some little pocket god or even devil of their own.” Max Scheler writes, “Religious agnosticism is not a psychological fact, but a self-deception ... it is an essential law ... that every finite spirit believes either in God or in an idol. These idols may vary greatly. So-called unbelievers may treat the state or a woman or art or knowledge or any number of other things as if they were God.” Scheler adds that what needs explanation is not belief in God, which is original and natural, but unbelief or, rather, belief in an idol. The situation is not infrequently compared with the sexual instinct and what we know about the consequences of its suppression. If the sexual instinct does not find natural gratification, it does not cease to be operative but becomes diverted into other and less wholesome channels. The worship of institutions and human deities is said to be a similarly pathological phenomenon. (Common Consent Arguments for the Existence of God, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 1)
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Classifications of Divine Inclinations and Intuitions (Fitriyyat)
Fitriyyat may be classified in various ways. An important classification is that which distinguishes between inclinations (conative fitriyyat) and intuitions (cognitive fitriyyat). Innate intuitions furnish knowledge and understanding, whereas innate inclinations propel the human being to action. One innate intuition is the intuition of God, the innate knowledge of God that human beings possess in their very nature. An innate inclination is the inclination to seek God.
The innate inclinations the human being is possessed of may be divided into two categories: animal inclinations and human inclinations. Animal inclinations are those which human beings and animals share in common. They are commonly referred to as instincts (qara’iz). Two prominent examples are (1) self-preservation, which disposes animals to act in ways that ensure their survival (the drives to seek food and to repel enemies stem from this inclination) and (2) sexual desire.
Human inclinations are those which are specific to human nature and are not found in animals. They may be distinguished by the fact that they do not usually correspond to a body part. Examples of this category are the inclinations toward truth, virtue, beauty, creativity, immortality, and perfection.
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Innate and Intuitive Knowledge of God
By virtue of their souls, human beings possess innate and intuitive knowledge of God, But as this statement seems contrary to common sense, it is necessary to offer a brief explanation to clarify it There are two ways to acquire knowledge of objective reality: 1) Through the five external senses and 2) By directly and intuitively embracing the object of knowledge. Our comprehension of such feelings as love, hale, and fear is a clear instance of the type of knowledge that is direct and intuitive. The question that we should consider here is how we apprehend these feelings? How do we know that love, haired, and fear exist within us? Do we need to formulate rational arguments to prove the existence of these feelings within us? Or is it that we merely intuit these feelings immediately? A newborn infant who suckles at his mother's breast knows that he is hungry and that his food is lo be sought at his mother's breast. How does a newborn infant possess this knowledge? Has anyone taught the infant or has he engaged in a conscious process of rational reasoning that has led him to suckling?
The infant like any other human being intuitively senses the feeling of hunger inspite of lacking any menial conception of it. Rational reasoning is useless in proving this feeling. The same truth holds in regard to other feelings such as love, hale and fear.
As explained in the above passage, all human beings have a similar intuitive sense of God: we all feel the innate gravitation toward Absolute Perfection and we are all inclined to seek It. This is what we intend when we say that knowledge of God is innate and intuitive. Within every human being there is an innate. albeit subconscious, feeling of dependence on a supreme being who is capable of fulfilling his needs. Although this feeling may be insufficient in enabling us to identify this being, the sensation of dependence is present within us. As such, saying that knowledge of God is intuitive means that we immediately sense a feeling of dependence on a supreme and absolute reality that transcends us.