PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION RESEARCH (NAMAH-I HIKMAT)
Year:2010 | Volume:8 | Issue:1 (15)|Papers Count:7

The doctrine of Divine eternity is usually construed in two ways: 1) Temporalism, according to which, God everlastingly exists during the time, and 2) Atemporalism or Eternalism which regards Divine existence as timeless and outside time. In his renowned theory of Divine eternity, William Craig acknowledged that "prior to" or sans ceation God's existence is timeless, but after creation He becomes a temporal being since, in this situation, He must sustain a real relation to the temporal world and also have knowledge of temporal events. Craig's theory rests on certain metaphysical principles such as the relative and tensed theories of time. Though Craig's proposal has apparent merits we may reject it due to some of its unreasonable implications: it entails that God's nature becomes changeable and effective by His creatures. It also implies the ineffectuality of God's emanation or effusion sans creation.

The study and analyzing of the nature of good and evil in human and divine deeds and the role of religion in this connection was one of the important concern of islamic theologians. mutakallems treat of this subject from epistemological and ontological points of view.One important point being highly neglected, is the stance taken by islamic philosophers in this problem. Mulla Sadra as one of the most outstanding philosophers maintaines that religion plays an effective role in man's occupation of perfection and happyness. and in spite of scattered parts which he wrote about theory of good and evil, we ascribe to him a roughly consistent theory about good and evil. In this article, we seek to infere and reconstruct his theory about the role of religion in determining good and evil.

In the years 1270 and 1277, some of the church authorities attributed a theory to Averroists (the Latin followers of Ibn Rushd) which we know as "Double Truth" theory nowadays. Church interpretation of the theory is this: Two contrary truths (one religious another philosophical) can be admitted simultaneously. Studying Averroes and Averroists's teachings, analyzing the very notion of duality of truth, and getting benefit from the works of those who studied the theory, we may distinguish seven meanings for "double truth" which can be categorized in four types: ontological, epistemological, linguistic, and pragmatic duality.

The role played by emotions, feelings, passions and moral sins and vices in human knowledge is a lasting concern of philosophers. Considering the divine knowledge as synonymous with wisdom and taking the self-refinement and self-parification as a necessary background of for divine knowledge, Mulla Sadra holds that the factors preventing the divine knowledge and those preventing the human perfection and wisdom are the same. Accordingly the proximity to sacred world and grasping the divine knowledge depend upon self-disipline and moral purification from guilties and sins like avidity, pride, egoism, back bite, ambition, hostility, drinking wine, lying … and depend upon commitment to sharia (divine law).

Cosmology arguments concerning verifying God's existence include various versions. One of the most valid of which is Contingency and Necessity Argument. Ibn Sina elaborately mentioned this argument and called it Burhan al-Siddiqin (Proof of the Sinceres) in some of his books especially in "AL-Isharat wa AL-Tanbihat". Richard Swinburn, a recent philosopher of religion, also referred to it in his discussion of cosmology arguments. Although these two philosopher's versions of the argument share premises and fundamentals such as acknowledgment of God's existence not as a self-evident issue, the awareness of the possibility to prove it, and the use of one of world features called Contingency, there are basic differences between them. For in stance, Ibn Sina's version of the argument is a kind of deduction which is on the basic of self-evident proofs and hold that God's existence is believably possible to prove, while that of Swinburn is based on an inductive approach and presents a set of arguments rather than one argument, in which God's existence is contingent to prove. Examining and comparing the two versions, the present paper revealed that Ibn Sina's version is preferable to Swinburn's.

This study seeks to explain and critisise religious pluralism in philosophy of rligion of sayyed Hossain Nasr. Accordingly, we first analyze the relation of tradition, religion and perennial philosophy from the Nasr's view point and then make an explanation of the foundations of pluralism in his view. "Holding  a unique sourse for all of the religions", "making distinction  between external and internal aspect of universe and religion", "distinguishing absolute truth from relational one", "inward unity and outward plurality in the universe" and "similar elements in  differen religions" are the foundations and reasons which are cited by Nasr for religious pluralism in his different works. After explanation of his theory, we tried to criticise his views.

Among epistemic justification theories, Pascal believes in fundationalism. In his view, basic beliefs are divided into experimental, mathematical and religious ones. Pascal believes that the experimental beliefs are justified by experiment, while the justification of mathematical and religious beliefs are by another source called "heart". The purpose of this paper is to study the role of "heart" in justification of basic beliefs, especially the religious ones, and to present a clear interpretation of Pascal’s epistemology. The paper is also trying to explain the differences between "heart" and "intellect" in Pascal’s epistemology, and the reason why he employs "heart" in his epistemology instead of "intellect".