JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Year:2016 | Volume:17 | Issue:4 (68)|Papers Count:9

Each traditional perceptions of the great pyramid of being has been in some way disappeared and waned during modern period of western thought, especially after 18th century, which caused this ontological foundation of pre-modern thought to be forgotten, neglected or denied. Among the refutations and denials related to the great pyramid of being, Martin Heidegger's fundamental critique of this kind of perception of being and its stages has a great difference with other critics' approach. Contrary to most critics of the great pyramid of being, who principally regarded its traditional expositions as unacceptable on the basis of a topical critique, Heidegger generally regarded this kind of perception of being as incorrect and incomplete because it provided the ground for forgetting the question of meaning and reality of being. According to Heidegger, considering being as a foundation, which is one of most basic theoretical foundations of many scholastic expositions of great pyramid of being, negates confronting with reality of being as unhidden essence. In these expositions, the first origin replaces the question of meaning and reality of being in the position of a reality in which being and essence overlap. In addition, neglecting ontological distinction in philosophical expositions of great pyramid of being, theological nature of these expositions, basing most of them on the system of Aristotelian categories and representational epistemology, and providing an incomplete and unauthentic profile of man in most of these expositions are among the Heidegger's most important critiques of traditional and modern perceptions of great pyramid of being.

Canadian Philosopher, John L. Schellenberg, formally proposed and formulated "Divine Hiddenness Argument" in 1993 for the first time. In this atheistic argument, he states that God does not provide sufficient evidence for His existence at least to some people for some times, thus He is hidden. According to his argument which is based on God’s perfect love, Schellenberg believes that if God perfectly loves people as his creatures, He will provide sufficient evidence for his existence to them and therefore He is not hidden. But God does not provide sufficient evidence to them, therefore He is not perfect lover and disbelieving in His existence is rational and inculpable. Schellenberg believes that "Divine hiddenness Argument" justifies atheism and accordingly refutes the existence of God. Paul K. Moser, contemporary American philosopher, rejects Schellenberg’s view in his new approach to epistemology of religion. Rejecting the evidence for Divine hiddenness, Moser believes that there is sufficient evidence for the existence of God. According to Moser, however, this evidence greatly differs with what the people naturally expect. Based on volitional knowledge, he believes that it is the God, not man, who determines the genuine authority and resource for kinds of evidence and its evaluation. So, Moser does not consider divine hiddenness argument, which is formulated on the basis of human authority, successful in justification of divine hiddenness and in refutation of God’s existence.

The question about "the origin of causality conception" is on the most important questions about causality. Various theories have been and are being proposed to answer the question. After the advent of modern sensationalism especially in the light of Hume's critiques, scholars and in particular Muslim philosophers refocused on the question. The present paper discusses four theories about the explanation and justification of the origin of causality conception. The first theory is proposed by Hume who denies causality. He proposed the theory of succession to explain and justify what common people and philosophers regard as causality. However, such philosophers as Allamah Tabatabaii and Motahhari tried to justify the origin of causality conception, and criticize and deny the theory of succession by relying on immediate knowledge. Ahmad Ahmadi has also tried to propose a new answer to the question by relying on the principle of unity of sensitive and sensible. The present paper, however, holds that Hume's critiques cannot be resolved by relying on immediate knowledge or the principle of unity of sensitive and sensible. A part of Hume's critiques and justification of the principle of causality should be found in the theories proposed by such scholars as Muhammad Baqir Sadr and Allamah Jawadi Amoli who believed in the self-evidence of the principle of causality. As it will be discussed in the paper, self-evidence is the best theory to explain and justify the principle of causality and origin of its conception, but it is not sufficient to answer the question because the theory of self-evidence and even the theories of immediate knowledge and unity of sensitive and sensible can at most explain and justify the totality of the principle of causality not its instances. It is while the main question of causality is that "how can we understand that A is the cause of B not C... ". Finally, the paper seeks to provide an acceptable answer to the question by combining rationalism and sensationalism and using the method of trial and error.

Shi’a collections of hadith include narrations according to which there are two types of tinat (nature or inborn disposition) called "'elliyyin (the most exalted)" and "sijjin (the lowest depth)" or "jannat (paradise)" and "nar (hellfire)." Believers in God and the followers of the Holy Prophet's household have been created from the former while disbelievers and the enemies of the Holy Prophet's household have been created from the latter. Thus, the first group will finally go to paradise because of that good Tinat while the second group will end up in hellfire as a result of their wicked Tinat. Such numerous narrations have caused some doubts including their contradiction with free will, Divine justice and grace. Shi’a scholars of hadith and theology have proposed different views to resolve this contradiction. Citing some of these narrations, the present paper briefly refers to the views of early Shi’a scholars. Then among contemporary scholars, it explains, reviews and criticizes Imam Khomeini's view in detail.

There are two main views about essential attributes of God. Muslim philosophers prior to Mulla Sadra and Imamiyyah theologians believed in the identity of attributes and essence. A group of non-Imamiyyah theologians, including Ash'arites and Karramiyyah, believed in the augmentation of attributes over essence. Refuting the view of non-Imamiyyah theologians, Mulla Sadra accepted the claim of Imamiyyah philosophers and theologians prior to him, who negated the multiplicity of attributes from necessary essence on the basis of simplicity of essence, and proposed the identity of attributes and essence in external actualization. Likening the relationship between attributes and essence to the relationship between philosophical secondary intelligibles and being, and using the conditional mode, Mulla Sadra explained the identity of attributes and essence. In addition to explaining the false consequences of augmentation of attributes over essence and forming them in the form of an exceptional deduction and in order to prove his idea, he put forward other arguments and could prove his claim using his own philosophical principles such as fundamentality and gradation of existence. Because of discussing the attributes of essence, relative and negative attributes are discussed in this paper, which are identical to necessary being, based on Mulla Sadra's analysis.

Man's life begins with nutrition as a process in which an inanimate being or part of it turns into an animate and dynamic being. Reflection on such a process is in the domain of philosophy. The reflections of some philosophers on the issue have shown that in this process a body which is the source of nutrition changes in terms of substance and property and resembles the nourishing body to lead to the formation of life and body. Philosophers believe that vegetable soul is influential agent by nature in this process. Their explanation, however, causes some problems: 1. this act does not have the conditions of a natural act; 2. vegetable soul is physical and molded in material, and, according to their view, body and physical has no independent effect on another thing; 3. philosophers' view about vegetable soul is ambiguous; and 4. vegetable soul is not actualized at the start of a person's life to be influential in this process. Since philosophers have not provided clear answers to these problems, the present paper have found answers to some of these problems by analyzing the implicit requirements of their theory. The solutions provided by prior philosophers lead to the ineffectiveness of the powers of intellective soul or entrusting the natural act. However, using Mulla Sadra's theory of substantial motion to reform Nasir al-din Tusi can help us to explain the governance of body at the start of life; or using the theory of archetypes can help us to solve both the aforementioned problem and the problem of physicality of vegetable soul. Finally, the paper theorizes that nutrition is not a natural act and that combining Tusi's theory with Mulla Sadra's theory of compulsive act provides another solution which does not lead to the problem of entrusting.

One of the main questions about infallible Imams' knowledge of the unseen is "whether this knowledge is absolute and limited or not? " The important point is that Quranic verses and hadiths apparently offer different interpretations. The present paper discusses the issue according to denotation of Quranic verses and hadiths and from the theological viewpoint of Allamah Tabatabaii and his disciples. The unseen has stages and degrees such as hidden from senses like past and future, knowledge of the Book, God-given knowledge, knowledge of the Tablet of obliteration and effacement, guarded Tablet, sciences particular to God such as the time of resurrection, and knowledge of essence about essence. There are two types of reason for the knowledge of the unseen: Rational and philosophical reasons which are based on the perfection and power of the soul to attach to the supreme origin and transmitted reasons some of which generally prove the knowledge of the unseen only for God and others prove it for prophets and friends of God under certain conditions. Some solutions have been proposed to sum up these two views, including division of knowledge into independent and dependent knowledge, guarded Tablet and Tablet of obliteration and effacement, differentiating the meanings of the unseen and so forth.

Bringing up epistemological reliabilism theory based on virtue, Linda Zagzebski tries to solve the conflict between internalist and externalist epistemological theories. She has used the main components of Aristotle's virtue-oriented moral theory such as moral and intellectual virtues and vices, conscience and affection to solve the conflict. Virtue-based reliabilism theory resembles internalist theories in terms of obtaining the components of the task orientation, determination orientation and awareness of subject in knowledge. Its common feature with externalist theories is its attention to causal effect of factors out of belief on the formation of the belief. It has been successful to solve the conflict to some extent.