Examining and Analyzing Allameh Tabatabei’s Account on Faith within the Framework of Howard Snyder’s Non-Doxastic Approach

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD Candidate in Philosophy of Religion, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

2 Professor of Philosophy of Religion Department, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine Allama Tabatabai’s account on faith and analyze it within the framework of Daniel Howard-Snyder’s non-doxastic approach. Faith is one of the key concepts in the epistemology of religion, and recent analytic approaches has increasingly distinguished it from belief. Allama Tabatabai describes faith as being based on two main components: "al- i'tiqad" and "tamakkun fi al-qalb“. This paper employs a comparative method to evaluate Allama’s account, interpreted as a form of doxastic faith, with the core components of Howard-Snyder’s non-doxastic model, in order to address the ambiguities in the concept of faith and the challenges associated with doxastic faith. Based on Howard-Snyder’s non-doxastic analysis of faith, the upshots show that the concept of "al- i'tiqad" in Allama’s account, as a cognitive attitude, is ambiguous and lacks the essential characteristic which is constituent for belief. Additionally, the failure to explicitly define the conative and evaluative components of faith in Allama’s account is another challenge. Drawing on Howard-Snyder’s model, which emphasizes faith amid doubt, this article argues that the non-doxastic framework provides conceptual resources for clarifying these ambiguities and for constructing a meaningful bridge between classical Islamic thought and contemporary discussions in the epistemology of religion.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

Alston, W. (1996). Belief, acceptance, and religious faith. Faith, freedom, and rationality, 3-27.
Audi, R. (2011a). Rationality and religious commitment. OUP Oxford.
Audi, R. (2011b). Faith, faithfulness, and virtue. Faith and Philosophy, 28(3), 294-309.
Azadian, M. (2005). Faith: A comparative study between Islam and Christianity. Maʿrifat, 8(88).
Buchak, L. (2012). Can it be rational to have faith? Probability in the Philosophy of Religion, 225.
Buchak, L. (2018). When is faith rational? Norton Introduction to Philosophy, 2nd edition, New York: WW Norton, 115-129.
Buchak, L., Abraham, W. J., & Aquino, F. D. (2017). Reason and faith. The Oxford handbook of the epistemology of theology, 46-63.
Howard-Snyder, D. (2013a). Schellenberg on propositional faith. Religious Studies, 49(2), 181-194.
Howard-Snyder, D. (2013b). Propositional faith: What it is and what it is not. American Philosophical Quarterly, 50(4), 357-372.
Howard-Snyder, D. (2016). Does faith entail belief? Faith and Philosophy, 33(2), 142-162.
Howard‐Snyder, D. (2019). Three arguments to think that faith does not entail belief. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 100(1), 114-128.
Howard-Snyder, D., & McKaughan, D. J. (2022). Faith and resilience. International journal for philosophy of religion, 91(3), 205-241.
Jackson, E. G. (2020). The relationship between belief and credence. Philosophy Compass, 15(6), e12668.
Jackson, E. (2022). On the independence of belief and credence. Philosophical Issues, 32(1), 9-31.
Jackson, E. (2023a). Faith: Contemporary Perspectives. In J. Fieser & B. Dowden (Eds.), https://iep.utm.edu/faith-contemporary-perspectives
McKaughan, D. J. (2013). Authentic faith and acknowledged risk: dissolving the problem of faith and reason. Religious Studies, 49(1), 101-124.
McKaughan, D. J. (2018). Faith through the dark of night: What perseverance amidst doubt can teach us about the nature and value of religious faith. Faith and Philosophy, 35(2), 195-218.
McKaughan, D. J., & Howard-Snyder, D. (2022). Faith and faithfulness. Faith and Philosophy, 39(1), 1-25.
Nassiri, M. (2017). Faith from the perspective of Allameh Tabatabai. Qabasat Scientific-Research Quarterly, 19(73), 49-78.
Palmqvist, C. J. (2021). Forms of belief-less religion: why non-doxasticism makes fictionalism redundant for the pro-religious agnostic. Religious studies, 57(1), 49-65.
Palmqvist, C. J. (2022). Desiderata for rational, non-doxastic faith. Sophia, 61(3), 499-519.
Pojman, L. (1986). Faith without belief? Faith and Philosophy, 3(2), 157-176.
Pojman, L. (2007). Faith, Hope and Doubt. Wisdom And Philosophy, 3(12), 19-40.
Sadeghzadeh Ghamssari, F. (2015). Faith and rational knowledge from the perspective of Muslim thinkers. Tehran: Imam Sadiq University Press.
Schellenberg, J. L. (2005). Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion. Cornell University Press.
Tabatabai, M. H. (1954). Al-Mizan fi tafseer al-Qur'an (5th ed.). Beirut: Al-‘Alami Foundation for Publications.
Send comment about this article
CAPTCHA Image
Journal of Philosophical Investigations
Volume 20, Issue 54 - Serial Number 54
Articles
Issue 54, Spring 2026
February 2026
Pages 413-426

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics