"Divine inspiration originates in a realm beyond time and space. Revelation is not the prisoner of nature or civilization. however, what could religious knowledge , obviously the child of human comprehension, be if not temporal?"

Abdolkarim Soroush, Islamic Revival and Reform

I dont think the aformentioned quote of Soroush is at all radical. To my knowledge almost any Islamic scholar, past or present would agree. Revelation arises from a realm beyond the human intellect and human constraints. Revelation has multiple layers of meaning, and its true meaning is the perogative of Allah and to those whom Allah has taught directly, as the Qur'an mentions, "those firmly rooted in knowledge."

Where Soroush displays his uniqueness is in the particular form of liberal pluralistic conclusions that he draws from notion of the temporality of religious interpretation.

Though the term liberal pluralism seems redundant and burdensome, its useful to describe Soroush, since a morel limited sense of pluralism is widely accepted among Shi'i ulama. For example,a muqallid can follow the ijithad of any marja taqlid, though at times the ijihad of one marja may differ and at times contradict the ijithad of another. Soroush's liberal pluralism differs significantly since scholarly credentials and training are not seen to be essential for the formation of a legitimate religious opinion. Wide differences in interpretation by laymen and scholars alike can be explained away not by the possibility of misinterpreation but by Qabz va Bast, and as a result the agency of Islam itself is weakened. I am unclear whether Soroush even theoretically allows for misinterpretation. That obviously threatens the Shi'i structure of religious authority which I think partially explains why he is the subject of so much controversy.

One may say that in fact Soroush does allow for theoretical misinterpretation, since his link between a temporally limited body of human knowledge from which relgious understanding springs, must itself be limited. So in fact all interpretations are misinterpreations. Well, again i would argue that this is not radical in itself. Muslims acknowledge that our understanding of Islam will inevitably be limited, after all, Allah, to whom we submit and seek to know is beyond comprehension. Effectively, I feel as though Soroush leaves us without any tools with which to judge varying and contradictory religious understandings.

One may argue that the absence of such tools is in fact, a blessing. The constant need to judge can in fact be problematic itself. Much of the New Age fascination with Eastern religion, and modern liberalism apparently attempt to focus on acceptance of contradictory diversity as an inherent part of the human landscape. While I agree, as Muslims we often fall into that trap of overjudgementalism, life requires a balance between acceptance and rejection. Tools for judgement protect Islam from becoming amorphous and without agency.