Editing Seyyed Hossein Nasr (section)

===Human nature and its relationship to the divine===
{{See also|Pontifical and Promethean man}}
"The key to the understanding of the ''anthrōpos''", according to Nasr, is situated in "sapential teachings"; it is neither situated in "exoteric religious formulations", which relate essentially to "salvation", nor in what he considers to be "profane" science, generally [[evolution]]ary.{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989|p=145-146, 150}} Beyond his faith in "[[Creatio ex nihilo|creationism ''ex nihilo'']]"{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989|p=201}} Nasr believes that the doctrines "of all traditions" attest that "the genesis of man, occurred in many stages: first, in the Divinity Itself so that there is an uncreated 'aspect' to man", hence the possibility of "supreme union"; then "in the Logos which is in fact the prototype of man and another face of that same reality which the Muslims call the Universal Man and which each tradition identifies with its founder"; after this, "man is created on the cosmic level and what the Bible refers to as the celestial paradise where he is dressed with a luminous body"; "he then descends to the level of the terrestrial paradise and is given yet another body of an ethereal and incorruptible nature"; finally, "he is born into the physical world with a body which perishes"{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989|p=151}}{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989|p=146}} but he principially remains a reflection of "the Absolute not only in his spiritual and mental faculties but even in his body".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989|p=152}}

Thus, Nasr [[Evolution denial|rejects biology's modern evolutionary synthesis]], which he thinks is a "desperate attempt to substitute a set of horizontal, material causes in a unidimensional world to explain effects whose causes belong to other levels of reality".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989|p=151}} For Nasr, in accordance with "the traditional view of the ''anthrōpos''", the human being is a "bridge between Heaven and earth (''pontifex'')".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989|p=144}} Responsible to God for his actions, he is the custodian and protector of the earth, "on the condition that he remain faithful to himself as the central terrestrial figure created in the 'form of God' ... living in this world but created for eternity".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989|p=144-145}} This aspect of humanity, for Nasr,{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989|p=149}} "is reflected in all of his being and his faculties".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989|p=150}}

Among these faculties, Nasr underlines the primacy of intelligence, sentiments, and will: "as a theomorphic being", his intelligence "can know the truth as such", his sentiments "are capable ... of reaching out for the ultimate through love, suffering, sacrifice, and also fear", and his will "is free to choose ... it reflects the Divine Freedom".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=155}} But, "because of man's separation from his original perfection", a consequence "of what Christianity calls the fall", itself followed by further declines, these faculties no longer operate invariably according to their "theomorphic nature".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=155}}{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr |2007 |p=91}} Thus, "intelligence can become reduced to mental play", "sentiments can deteriorate to little more than gravitation around that illusory coagulation which [...] is the ego" and "the will can be debased to nothing other than the urge to do that which removes man from the source of his own being".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=155}}

"All traditional sciences of nature ... are also sciences of the self on the basis of the microcosmic-macrocosmic correspondence",{{sfn|Hahn |2001 |p=732}} therefore by virtue of an "inward link that binds man as the microcosm to the cosmos".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=157}} This ideal man, underlines Nasr, is "primordial man ... perfect ... plenary reflection of all those Divine Qualities",{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=147-148}} who knew everything "in God and through God".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=20}}

====Knowledge and the intellect====
{{See also|Desacralization of knowledge|Resacralization of knowledge}}
According to Nasr, "man contains within himself many levels of existence" that "the Western tradition" synthesises in the ternary "spirit, soul, and body (''pneuma'', ''psychē'', and ''hylē'' or ''spiritus'', ''anima'', and ''corpus''".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=152}}{{sfn|Religion and the Order of Nature|1996 |p=260}} "The human spirit is an extension and reflection of the Divine Spirit",{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=26}} it coincides with the "intellect"{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=74}} and "resides at the center of the spiritual heart" of the human being.{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=81}} Nasr always uses the word "intellect" in "its original sense of ''intellectus'' (''nous'')" and not "of reason (''ratio'')", which is only its "reflection"{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=45}} and which "is identified with the analytical functions of the mind";{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=21}} "the intellect is the light of the sacred shining upon our minds".{{sfn|Jahanbegloo| 2010|p=206}}

The intellect, which "is the root and the center of consciousness"{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=131}} is also "the source of inner illumination and intellection",{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=133}} which Nasr, following Guénon, also calls "intellectual intuition",{{sfn|Hahn|2001 |p=311}} and that implies an "illumination of the heart and the mind of man", making possible a "knowledge of an immediate and direct nature, [...] tasted and experienced", which extends to "certain aspects of reality"{{efn|"The physical world is related to God by levels of reality which transcend the physical world itself and which constitute the various stages of the cosmic hierarchy." Nasr, ''The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr'', 2007, p. 34.}} up to "the Absolute Reality".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=119}} The human intellect is "the subjective pole of the [[Logos (Christianity)|Word]] or of the [[Logos]] – the universal Intellect – by which all things were made and which constitutes the source of objective revelation, that is to say, formal and established religion".<ref>Nasr (2002), "Quelques aspects de l’œuvre" in ''Dossiers H : Frithjof Schuon'', Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, p. 175.</ref> For Nasr, in the vast majority of cases, this "inner revelation", or intellection, cannot become operative except by virtue of an external revelation which provides an objective cadre for it and enables it to be spiritually efficacious",{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science| 1993|p=8}} hence the necessity of faith{{sfn|Hahn|2001 |p=660}} and spiritual practices{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=18}} associated with the realization of the virtues,{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=82-83}} with the aid of the grace issuing from each revelation.{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=5}}

[[Huston Smith]] summarizes, in an analysis of Nasr's works, that Nasr contends it is "God who knows Himself" through man.{{sfn|Hahn|2001 |p=145}} For Nasr, indeed, "discrimination between the Real and the unreal terminates in the awareness of the nondual nature of the Real, the awareness which is the heart of gnosis and which represents not human knowledge but God's knowledge of Himself", consciousness which is at the same time "the goal of the path of knowledge and the essence of ''scientia sacra''".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=122}} Nasr contends that this wisdom, which corresponds – beyond salvation -– to deliverance from the bonds of all limitation,{{sfn|Hahn|2001 |p=662-663}} "is present in the heart of all traditions", whether it be the Hindu [[Vedanta]], [[Buddhism]], the Jewish [[Kabbalah]], the Christian metaphysics of an [[Meister Eckhart|Eckhart]] or an [[Erigena]], or [[Sufism]].{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=7}} It alone "is able to solve certain apparent contradictions and riddles in sacred texts".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=132}}

{{blockquote|Through such sacred knowledge, man ceases to be what he appears to be to become what he really is in the eternal now and what he has never ceased to be.{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=280}}}}