Tom Facchine – Minute with a Muslim #154 – The Purpose of Reason

			But
		

			when I last found out I was talking about the purpose for which he sent the profits in one
particular eye and sort of Bukhara he ends up with where you're only makan malam, Toyota and Amazon,
right and he teaches you things that you otherwise would not have known or that you didn't know
before. And this is a really succinct and eloquent Aya when it comes to elucidating the relationship
between faith and reason, right? Because in Islam we have we embrace reason. But we also put it
		

			within its proper scope, we neither go too far to one extreme and say that well, reason has no role
at all on you just kind of have to, you know, believe and that's it, don't ask questions, don't
think about it. But we also don't go to the extreme to say that reason is able to identify and
discover every single thing to the point where basically revelation is obsolete or revelation is
redundant, right? That we can figure out everything on our own just thinking about it. That's not
		

			true, either. Right? So what's the purpose of reason Allah subhanaw taala gave us you know, amazing
minds the ability to think the ability to put things together and see patterns. And so the role of
reason is to get us to the point of submission, right? The role of reason is to get us to the point
of submission, which is why when Allah subhanaw taala is trying to convince someone with no faith or
who hasn't yet submitted, he's using reason he says, Look at the creation, Look at the birds look at
		

			the trees, look at everything that you know, doesn't it make sense that there should be a creator?
Doesn't it make sense that you should have to submit to something outside of yourself? Doesn't it
make sense that you should have to be grateful for everything that you have? Right? This is an
appeal to reason, however, after that reason, has brought us to the door of faith and we conclude
that it is a reasonable thing and a rational thing to submit, then after that, that's when obedience
		

			starts. And that's when reason takes on a secondary role. Right, then it's okay. Well, I have
already submitted and affirmed that this is a communication coming from my Creator. Now, I don't
need to think about it twice. If I really believe in my Creator, if I really trust my Creator, and
trust that this is a revelation of communication from my Creator. Now the relationship dictates that
I submit that I obey. And that's not to say that there isn't still a role for reason there is
		

			there's a role for reason when it comes to increasing our certainty, right? If there's a doubt or
pondering upon the wisdom, well, why did Allah spawn to say this? Or why did he command that? Or why
did he prohibit that we can use our reason to reflect upon the wisdom and that can actually increase
us in certainty, that this is something worth submitting to, and that this is from the creator and
that the Creator is perfect. And then also reason is able to help us interpret things, right,
		

			because the last one is audit, you know, uses language to communicate with us. And language is very,
very tied up in, you know, our ability to reason and put things together. And so sometimes we need
our reason to help interpret exactly what we should be doing. Or even more common is how a different
sort of competing imperatives fit together. Okay, well, we know we're supposed to do X, but we also
know that we're supposed to do Y, for example, we know we're supposed to listen to our parents,
		

			right? But we also know that we're not supposed to disobey Allah. So what happens if these two
things come into conflict, then we need to look through the revelation and also use our reason to be
able to identify which are which situations apply to this thing that Allah said over here and which
things apply to this situation over here? And how do we extend sort of the dataset, if you will, of
the revelation that we have to cover every single situation that we might come across, right, but
		

			that being said, reason does have that role to play, but by the time that you've gotten convinced by
the time that you've been sort of persuaded and you've taken the commitment at that point, the
primary relationship to Allah's revelation is one of submission