PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION RESEARCH (NAMAH-I HIKMAT)
Year:2019 | Volume:16 | Issue:2 (پیاپی 32) |Papers Count:13

The problem of divine speech, especially its nature, is one of the most challenging theological topics in the field of divine essence and attributes. Although the differences between philosophers and theologians are related to the temporal origination or the eternity of divine speech, it is the interpretation of its nature that is in the center of their disputes. Unlike many of the early scholars, Dawā ni considers the divine speech to be the source of word making and different from divine knowledge. Dawā ni’ s view on divine speech has been criticized by the great philosopher of his age, Ghiyā th al-Dī n Dashtakī . Dashtakī ’ s critiques are not restricted to some specific part of Dawā ni’ s view, but he calls into question most of the consequences of Dawā ni’ s view on divine speech such as origin and potentiality, the presence of speech in the faculty of imagination, the irrelevance of the generality of the speech to that of knowledge, etc. In this article, after explaining Dawā ni’ s view in confrontation with the Ash’ arī and Mutazilī idea, I will evaluate Dashtakī ’ s critiques of Dawā ni.

Martin Heidegger in his later writings and lectures shows that how metaphysics as ontotheology with the mere attention to beings and forgetting Being itself, considers beings’ whatness or essence on the one hand and their thatness or positioning in the causal chain and under the supreme being at the other hand. He believes that ontotheoligcal approach leads to the misunderstanding of Being, and as a result, pushing the divinity out of its proper position. In this article, we are going to investigate the meaning of ontotheology in the Heidegger’ s later thinking and in order to do this, we pay special attention to his transition from an optimistic evaluation of fundamental metaphysics into a critical pessimistic one which specifies Heidegger’ s later thinking. In this paper, via describing the ontotheological constitution of metaphysics from Heidegger’ s view, it is shown that how oblivion of Being leads to the formation or born of metaphysical theology.

Schleiermacher's concept of feeling of absolute dependence was the starting point for discussions about religious experience among modern scholars. As the purpose of the religious experience debates in the contemporary, analytic philosophy of religion is to provide an empirical argument for the existence of God, many scholars have expected the feeling of absolute dependence in Schleiermacher’ s Christian Faith had to serve the same metaphysical or onto-theological purpose. Are this expectation and its respective interpretations consistent with what we read in Schleiermacher’ s Christian Faith? To clarify this, we have used a historical and hermeneutical method in this study. The application of our historical method guides us to Kant’ s influence on Schleiermacher, and we will see that most of his concepts are actually Kantian. The application of the hermeneutic method also allows us to consider the feeling of absolute dependence in the light of Schleiermacher's theology as a whole, as well as the concept of religion in the Kant's philosophical system as a whole. Criticizing the dominant understanding of the concept of religious experience in Schleiermacher, this paper will suggest, instead of an ontotheological reading, that the feeling of absolute dependence is only a description of self-consciousness, which does not provide us with any proof for the existence of God.

The nature of salvation, the path leading to it and its different degrees, and determining those who will attain salvation are important issues which scholars and theologians of various traditions, have tried to answer. al-Ġ azā lī bases his view on salvation on a series of Ashʿ arite theological principles, his theory of allegorical interpretation and his mystical thought. According to Ashʿ arite doctrines, the relation between an action and its consequence cannot be considered essential or necessary, and therefore eternal salvation or damnation is not necessarily the result of one’ s actions and thoughts. However, according to al-Ġ azā lī , here lies a hidden cause which can only be elucidated by meditation. He considers the Hereafter as the hidden reality of this world. He attempts to present a mystical explanation for the blessings and punishments of the Hereafter. Also, based on the apparent meaning of traditions, he believes faith to be the necessary condition for salvation, and that all believers will attain salvation in the end. But what increases the number of people attaining salvation is that the way, in which faith is found as a heartfelt belief, is extraneous. Furthermore, determining the domain of faith of different Islamic sects, on base of allegorical interpretation provided for the five levels of the existence, indicates al-Ġ azā lī ’ s attempt to broaden the sphere of salvation; although, he is biased in his introduction of the sect which will attain salvation and the sect which are the pagans of the Islamic nation.

Usually, an explanation regarded as the answer to Why questions and therefore the ultimate explanation is to be the answer to the question of “ why there is anything rather than nothing? ” . In this article after clarifying the notion of explanation and ultimate explanation, first of all, the rational role of seeking for ultimate explanation is confirmed and then argued that an ultimate explanation, by principle, never obtained in the realm of scientific explanations. Scientific explanations, although fruitful and inevitable, deal with contingency and this remains the intelligible question of why there is so. Demanding an ultimate explanation can only be satisfied in the realm of metaphysics, as the ultimate question is also a metaphysical question. The most acceptable kind of such an explanation is to explain contingency with necessity. During the process of this article, the focus is on O'Connor’ s ideas and his thoughts are described and analyzed through the investigation of the problem of ultimate explanation. We found some useful ideas in O’ Connor’ s approach especially his treatment with the problem of ultimate explanation and using it as a proof for God existence regarded as a kind of Leibnizian cosmological argument. But his special notion of agent causation that he uses to conquest the objection of modal collapse doesn't seem to be acceptable.

According To Eriugena, it is not true to attribute a property to God in the sense that one does to the creatures; but they can be used beyond the sense in which they are used for the creatures. Because God, on the one hand, is the ultimate cause of the creatures-the attributes of creatures are ultimately from God-and, on the other hand, transcends them. Since Eriugena simultaneously negates and affirms the attributes about God, his theory can be called an apophatic-cataphatic theory in which, the negation of the attributes is because of God’ s superiority to creatures. Surprisingly, it is also the case for Avicenna. That is, his theory can also be called an apophatic-cataphatic theory. Nevertheless, Avicenna’ s view about the negation and affirmation of attributes is different from that of Eriugena. He contends that “ necessity of existence” can be attributed to God positively while the other attributes are subject to either negation or correlation. According to Avicenna, it is not important for an attribute to be apparently negative/positive, because an apparently negative attribute can be in fact positive and vice versa. In this article, it will be argued that despite Eriugena's idea, Avicenna’ s theory is in contrast with divine ineffability.

The “ other” and the means of communication with it, constitute one of the important philosophical questions of our time. In the present paper, I shall try to revisit this problem according to the views of Johannes Eckhart, the medieval philosopher, and mystic, and in addition to investigating to development of the concept of the “ other” in mystical literature, I will demonstrate the ways in which his views can help to solve a contemporary inquiry. I will elucidate how Eckhart’ s conception of the “ self” , emphasizes the importance of the “ Other” in his thought. Then, after introducing the features and the two types of the “ Other” , namely real and imaginary, the type of communication with each of them will be discussed. What Eckhart is really concerned with is the communication with the “ Real Other” , i. e. the Godhead, which he deems impossible through philosophical knowledge and only achievable through mystical concepts such as love, detachment and becoming a child of God. In the end, we shall see how through identity with the Godhead, one comes to know himself and how the Godhead becomes the governor of his actions and his communication with “ Others” .

The philosophical explanation of bodily resurrection is one of Mullā Ṣ adrā ’ s philosophical innovations. He has illustrated this theory in al-Shawā hid al-Rububiyyah, al-Mabda‘ wa’ l-Ma‘ ad, al-Hikmat al-Muta'ā lyah, Zad al-Musafir, Mafatih al-Ghayb and ‘ Arshiyyah as 6-12 principles. By investigating these principles, we can identify a number of them which include other implicit principles. A precise enumeration will result in over 150 principles, either theological, anthropological, epistemological or ontological. In this paper, Mullā Ṣ adrā ’ s anthropological tenets are extracted and presented as 53 immediate and 35 remote principles. Furthermore, the immediate principles are classified into four categories: (1) the soul-body relation principles, which establish the tautology of the soul and the body; (2) the principles governing the imaginative forms present in the Afterlife, which indicate that the human bodies in the Afterlife are imaginative and not material, (3) the principles concerned with the difference of the human souls present in the Afterlife, which introduce the different types of Afterlife for different souls, (4) the principles concerned with Substantial motion and death (i. e. the bridge between worlds), which demonstrate the nature of moving across worlds and entering the Afterlife

Comparative philosophy of religion can be considered as a new approach for philosophical studies of religion. In this approach, rational assessing of religious beliefs is done through different perspectives. In fact, comparative philosophy of religion provides this possibility to see our religious beliefs from other people’ s view, and see their beliefs from our view. The result of welcoming this approach is reforming, falsifying or demonstrating the truth of our or others’ religious beliefs. This result can be pleasant or unpleasant for believers, that is, if the result of welcoming comparative philosophical studies concerning religious beliefs lead to rejecting or reforming our religious beliefs, we should accept the conclusion and reform our beliefs or put them away. In fact, as philosophy of religion tries to rationally assess religious judgments, welcoming comparative philosophy may challenge our rational tendency to religion and religious tradition, and it may falsify some parts of our religious beliefs. In this paper, I argue that if we welcome comparative philosophy of religion, how much its consequences are acceptable and which parts of religious beliefs or the totality of religion can be changed or reformed.

William Hasker is one of the most important figures of open theism. The main characteristic of open theism is the denial of the divine foreknowledge to free actions in the future. Hasker has a specific analysis of the libertarian free will and, in defense of this concept, modifies the concept of divine omniscience, thereby transforming the theological fatalism argument into an argument in favor of the incompatibility of free will and foreknowledge. By presenting his own analysis of the distinction between hard/soft facts, the defense of power entailment principles and the rejection of the generalized power, he explains that divine foreknowledge implies that humans cannot refrain from the actions of which God has foreknowledge. That is, one of the main requirements for libertarian free will, the principle of alternative possibilities (PAPs), will not be realized, and this contradicts free will. However, we will show that Harry Frankfurt's counterexample falsifies Hasker's version of PAP, and for this reason, his open approach is problematic.

One of the most important features of modern science is its quantitative and mathematical method. It is commonly held that this method was developed along with modern science, during the 16th century, but a close historical investigation would suggest that this method was in fact developed during the theological debates of the late medieval era rather than during the Scientific Revolution. This is particularly important for elucidating the historical relationship between science and religion in the west. Evidence suggests that it was the Christian theologians, who in spite of their theological concerns, encouraged Empiricism. In the present paper, I shall investigate the motivating factors for developing a quantitative method in late medieval theology. I will prove these three elements to have played an important role in this: the study of Optics with theological interests, Platonism in theology, and having theological intentions in pursuing mathematics. Thus, the relation between Empiricism and late medieval theology will be demonstrated.

Overlapping (tadā khul) between God and His creatures is a novel theory which aims to explain the relationship between God and His creatures. But, it seems that this theory is controversial. Does accepting that God is infinite either entail that God is, in some sense, identical with His creatures – common view for explaining the individual unity of existence – or that God overlaps, in some sense, with His creatures – the view accepted by Gholamreza Fayyazi – or there is a third way? In this paper, we will reveal the weaknesses of Gholamreza Fayyazi’ s theory and then we will present a new theory to explain the relationship between God and His creatures, which, in our point of view, is inspired by rational teachings of revelation. According to this third view, it is accepted that God is infinite and does not have any quantity while rejecting that God is identical and that God overlaps with His creatures. Indeed, since God does not have any finitude and does not consist of any quantity, He does not occupy (even infinitely) any place, which entails that God does not overlap with His creatures. Therefore, based on this view, the existence of finite beings and God’ s infinite being are consistent.