The Prophets' Knowledge and Certainty regarding the Authenticity of Revelation

Abstract

One of the important issues related to revelation and sublime divine knowledge is the study of the prophets' knowledge and certainty about the authenticity of revelation. Different analyses have been proposed in this regard. Some explain the prophets' knowledge and certainty as being inspired through divine revelation obtained through immediate knowledge, which is infallible, while others hold that such knowledge and certainty originates from knowledge of the Preserved Divine Tablet and a prophet, through his divine heart, connects to an angel and attains divine knowledge from him; still others hold that the prophets' knowledge of the authenticity of revelation is obtained through divine miracle; another group believes that the certainty of a prophet and a lack of doubt on his part in relation to it is based on a prophet's pure rational incorporeality, the inaccessibility of the internal and external devil to the state of rational incorporeality, and the observance of the authenticity of revelation by a prophet. However, the answer that can be proposed as the ultimate solution is that revelation is a God-given non-acquired phenomenon, and therefore it cannot be obtained through conventional intellectual and intuitive ways. On the other hand, God's aim of revelation and sending prophets is leading humanity toward eternal felicity, salvation, and perfection, which is necessitated by divine wisdom and to this end, the recipients of revelations need to be infallible in receiving it in order to be able to deliver the divine message correctly and perform their very serious missionary duty correctly and without any mistakes or errors after being inspired; otherwise, God's purpose will not be achieved, and the revelation and sending of prophets will be null and meaningless.

Keywords

• knowledge
• prophets
• authenticity
• certainty
• revelation
• nature of revelation