Man’s Intellect Not Enough for Answering All Needs
This is according to Hojat-ol-Islam Mustafa Karimi who made the remarks in a seminar held in Qom to discuss the comprehensiveness of the Holy Quran. Here are excerpts from his speech:
According to a viewpoint, revelation and religion have come to provide answers to our exclusive needs. They believe revelation can help us when we are incapable of doing or understanding something. Therefore, if we recognize the realm of rationality we can then identify the realm of revelation.
They believe some 60% of the needs of humans can be answered by ourselves and the rest goes back to the realm of revelation; as a result, they say that science can help us a lot; so we are in no need of religion. Similarly, they say that we do not need religion in governmental issues.
Having a critical view of this belief, we can ask who has said that we should only see the applications and results of religion. References to religious texts are mostly because of searching for truth. The Holy Quran tells people that if you take this path you will enjoy eternal prosperity and if you don’t you will have eternal misery.
It is sometimes claimed that we can know different aspects of humans by relying on today’s sciences but this is not the case as the Quran says: “They question you about the spirit. Say: 'The spirit is from the command of my Lord. Except for a little knowledge you have been given nothing.'” (Surah Al-Isra', verse 85)
Man can elevate from lowest to highest ranks and this cannot be understood by our intellect; so to understand man, we have no other choice but to refer to the revelation, i.e. the Holy Quran. Some of the answers that the intellect gives to human demands are not correct.
