PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION RESEARCH (NAMAH-I HIKMAT)
Year:2015 | Volume:13 | Issue:1 (25) |Papers Count:8

Tabatabaei's view about the relationship between religion and philosophy can be considered in two stages: formation and understanding. He introduces revelation as an unknown method. Therefore, the methodological relation between religion and philosophy cannot be explained well. To provide its content, scripture uses a common language which is conventional. Besides, religion has reached its summit later than philosophy. The relationship between religion and philosophy in the understanding stage in Tabatabaei's view is based on interpretation of Quran by Quran. This method of interpretation can be used for completion of philosophy that all its theorems are rooted in Monotheism.

In this article, the author deals with the epistemological role of the prophets from al-Ghazali’s view-point by an analytic method. This role includes both educational and training ones. In its educational role, it is both direct as well as indirect; it also includes both factual and moral knowledge. In this role, besides proposing truths beyond discursive reason, prophets give the way of achieving the highest intellectual level of knowledge in order that human beings, themselves, by ascending cognitive levels, would achieve that high level of knowledge. In this regard, the profound unity between reason and the Shari’a (prophetic teachings) in al-Ghazali's view, is also considered and clarifies that al-Ghazali ties the beginning of rational and scientific movement of human being with receiving knowledge by revelation (Shari’a). In his thought, only the prophetic level of knowledge, i.e. unveiling knowledge, is the one that guides human being to achieve certain knowledge, which is the perfection of rational knowledge in the lower level.

James's primary interest in religion was directed to practical consequences of religious belief in believer's real life. His general approach to justify the truth of religious belief is resorting to these same consequences. Due to this background and due to some of James's own statements regarding his theory of truth according to which he identifies the truth of a belief with its practical utility, some interpreters have interpreted him as a philosopher who attempted to present pragmatism as an alternative to realism in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. In this article, relying on the whole James's statements concerning his theory of truth and focusing on his views about religious experience, the incorrectness of that interpretation will be shown and it will be proved that James's theory of truth presupposes mind-independent realities and he doesn' t reduce truth to utility; and his commitment to pragmatism in providing justification for religious belief is not incompatible with his commitment to religious realism, the view that there is some knowable mind-independent object for religious belief.

In this paper, we present four philosophical approaches and their prominent advocates toward the problem of relationship between Darwinian evolution and theistic beliefs: (1) Atheistic Inconsistency: there is a deep conflict between Darwinian evolution and theism; among atheists, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett could be regarded as the best representatives in this branch. (2) Theistic Inconsistency: A deep conflict could also be seen among theists, M.H. Tabataba’ī’s Quranic exegesis is one of the most significant sources in this regard from Islamic side, correspondent to the same in other theistic religions. (3) Theistic Consistency: There is a concord between theism and Darwinian evolution; we have considered Alvin Plantinga and Murtaza Mutaharī in this category. (4) Reductionist Consistency: Theism and Darwinian evolution, or science and religion in general, are two different and noncompeting levels of explanation; John Haught advocates such reductionist consistency between science and religion. Having mentioned the four above classes and a few of many representatives of each category and some important questions toward these approaches, we have attempted to show that the alleged consistency between theistic beliefs and Darwinian evolution by the principle of natural selection fails.

Ibn Sina has had two completely different positions on bodily resurrection. At times, after rational demonstration of spiritual resurrection, he declared that he merely accepts bodily resurrection by trusting the saying of Prophet and sometimes by criticizing those who believe in the resurrection of body and soul, he only accepts the resurrection of souls. The problem here is that he can believe in the corporeality of resurrection in this way only if he regards it possible and already has shown its possibility. But he has not proposed the possibility of bodily resurrection. After Ibn Sina, some theologians and philosophers have shown the possibility of bodily resurrection before asserting revealed arguments for it. Another difficulty of Ibn Sina is that he rejects bodily resurrection whereas it is confirmed by Quranic verses and valid traditions. He believes that the prophet, by taking into account the situation of general audience who do not have the ability of understanding rational concepts and true happiness and wickedness, should encourage them by stating tangible pleasures and punishments and frighten them of disobedience and wrong doing. By proposing the theory of analogy as a particular method for teaching people the religious truth, Ibn Sina has regarded the literal meanings of Quranic verses as signs of higher Quranic concepts to people. So, beyond the literal meanings of these verses, there is some esoteric and rational ones that should be attained by way of esoteric interpretation. Many theologians have not accepted this solution by asserting that the verses are not liable to allegorical interpretation.

In this paper, after a brief description of some common moral arguments for the existence of God, there is suggested a new argument entitled "necessity of the existence of a compensatory world or God for efficacy of morality". It is believed that in some occasions, the efficacy/usefulness of a moral belief or theory depends on the existence of God. By this argument, we attain not only a justification of morality, but also its full or best justification. Our argument does not require the denial of ontological, psychological, linguistic or rational independence of morality from religion or God. This argument is a way for filling the gaps between religious and secular ethics on the one hand and a solution to rescue from the bad outcomes of divine command theory on the other. Another privilege of our argument is its fewer assumptions in comparison with other moral arguments.

Mulla Sadra believes that only possible true and authentic way to know God is presented knowledge. It seems that the human presented knowledge of God is not free from difficulty and ambiguity. According to the other principles of Mulla Sadra's transcendental philosophy, someone can say that the human presented knowledge of God is incoherent with other parts of his philosophy. In this paper, six conflicts, named meditations, are discussed. They are as follows: The problem of the true presented knowledge of God, the ignorance of God, knowing other things except God, unknowing of intermediaries between man and God, the impossibility of knowing anything other than self in presented knowledge and the impossibility of understanding the essence and attributes of God. It seems that Mulla Sadra believes that the solution of this problem is beyond the realm of philosophical thought, such that with his philosophical system, he seeks to make an arrangement for entering that field. Therefore transcendental philosophy is finally a prelude to the rise of this type of human excellence which is not a kind of theoretical and philosophical exploration or activity, but it is quite mystical and requires mystical attempt.

The problem of evil is challenging the belief in the omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly good God. In its logical sense and deductive form, it claims that there are some pointless evils and myriads of lifedisorderliness with the existence of which God’s existence and his positive attributions are inconsistent. Needless to say, the reliability of this argument is based on the trueness or at least probable trueness of the concrete statement. Nevertheless, some philosophers like Swinburne have tried to deny the statement by the answers such as Greater goods theodicy. This article tries to look closely at atheists' logical argument and their alleged concrete statements, and then examine the Swinburne’s defense and its difficulties.