PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION RESEARCH (NAMAH-I HIKMAT)
Year:2018 | Volume:16 | Issue:1 (31) |Papers Count:13

In the classical tradition of arguments for the existence of God, a number of moral arguments have been proposed. Parallel to these arguments, moral arguments against the existence of God emerged. Here a question presents itself: does the existence of moral arguments against God discredit the ones for God and make the belief of theists unjustified? Our claim is that we can propose a new notion of argumentation which shields theistic moral arguments existence against atheistic ones. In this research, we have listed eight atheistic moral arguments and modified them with respect to Mavrodes’ s theory of the nature of arguments; thereby proving that the theist is able to defend his moral arguments and that his belief is still justified. We are of course aware of the fact that this revision of the nature of arguments indicates the justification of atheistic arguments in their own respective viewpoints.

Conciliationists believe that after the emergence of disagreement between epistemic peers, one cannot reasonably be committed to her previous belief or her degree of confidence in that. From this viewpoint, reasonable doxastic attitude in confronting disagreement is suspension of judgment or reducing the degree of confidence in the previous belief. Religious conciliationists believe that religious diversity challenges the justification of religious believes so that the reasonable epistemic response is to suspend the judgment till finding some appropriate evidence that demonstrates the advantage of one position over the other, or to reduce the level of confidence in God’ s existence/ non-existence to the extent that disagreement disappears and the two parties come close together. They hold that the two parties should be in such a position, unless one of them achieve some preferred evidence that raises her level of confidence close to belief. There are three serious objections to conciliationism: easy justification, skepticism, and self-contradictoriness. So, if they have to demonstrate their view, Conciliationists should inevitably answer these objections. In this paper, I will argue that none of their answers is acceptable.

The present paper depicts Moser’ s view on the justification of the belief in God. By debunking the efficiency of mere theoretical reason in proving the existence of God, introducing God as the source of justification, and using a moral perspective, he proposes a kind of voluntary knowledge. He assumes the right path to acquire true knowledge of god to be a direct and purposeful evidence, which is found in accordance to divine attributes. For their own redemption, before the interference of thought and feelings, God wills the voluntary moral revolution of human beings from selfishness to selfless absolute love. In this respect, Moser puts forth a virtue-based evidentialism, on the basis of which people can accept God’ s invitation to friendship with absolute love and therefore experience God’ s blessing in their motivational core. This experience indicates God’ s self-manifestation and offers direct evidence for his existence, which causes the subject, by gaining moral attributes and receiving God’ s absolute love and sharing it with others, to become a personified evidence of God himself. Moreover, according to the inference to the best explanation, Moser justifies the belief in God by this empirical and non-propositional evidence. As a result, Moser’ s existential and moral account, despite being criticized for its being subjective and relative, and the unreliability of religious experiences, has revived a number of forgotten theological concepts.

One of the most important issues in theology and philosophy of religion is the problem of evil and its relation to God and his omnipotence and omnibenevolence. Contemporary theologian and philosopher, David Ray Griffin, regards the efforts to answer the problem of evil as inconclusive. He designates traditional theists, who believe in God’ s supernatural interference in the cause and effect chain of events, Supernaturalists. He believes that they interpret evil as only appearing evil. He tries to identify and refute certain beliefs, in traditional theology, which do not tolerate the co-existence of God and evil. Griffin criticizes traditional worldviews and proves that traditional theology, on one hand, by presuming God’ s omnipotence, faces serious issues in justifying evil; and on the other hand, considering the idea of creatio ex nihilo, it virtually fails to answer the problem of evil. Allover he holds that defense will not suffice in responding to the problem of evil and that the right path for theists is to propose a theodicy which would explain evil better than atheist accounts.

The article grapples with Otto’ s idea of unity and diversity in Mysticism. On the one hand, he believes in the diversity of Mysticisms and, on the other hand, he contends that various forms of Mysticism can be considered as a united body. Various forms of Mysticism, as he asserts, is formed in a realm beyond different cultures, ethnic groups and lands. Otto claims that this can be explained by appealing to a realm beyond the empirical. In this article, I shall explore the roots and consequences of this idea. It will be shown that Otto’ s idea has a Kantian point of departure. Besides, it is a Platonic as well as Lutheran idea. Finally, I will argue that, understood this way, there is room for a comparison between Otto’ s idea and the idea of eternality of the self in Islamic philosophy.

Shopenhauer considers humam life to be meaningless. He denied the existence of God due to the existence of a plenty of pain and suffering in life and believes that people unreasonabley assume It to make their life meaningful. He also contends that creation of such a world is a mistake. The life of human being in this world is a process in which they do not have a clear goal. Thus, it is only an aimless continuation. In his view, since the majority of life is surrounded by pain and suffering, it is worthless. He also emphasized the role of free will in the life of human being, asserting that it make human life an endless process. This is because his demands are unlimitated and this causes pain and suffering and meaninglessness of the life. I think there are some mistakes in his view. He considers pleasure to be the benefit and purpose of life. But this is not the only benefit and purpose of life, and there are other things that are more worthy than mere pleasure. Also, it is not the case that the use of free will is always entails suffering, because moving forward to a goal usually indicates a sense of pleasure, especially if one considers a virtuous goal.

Michael E. Marmura, an outstanding Avicenna scholar, has presented a special interpretation of Avicenna’ s view concerning God’ s knowledge of particulars. In this paper, which consists of two parts, we will examine his interpretation of Avicenna. In the first part, we briefly present Marmura’ s reading of Avicenna’ s theory of God’ s knowledge of particulars. According to Marmura’ s interpretation of Avicenna, God only knows, individually, particular entities which are the only member of their species. Also, He knows, individually, particular events which are attributed to such particular entities. Arguing that Avicenna’ s theory is not able to explain God’ s knowledge of ‘ all’ particulars, Marmura concludes that Avicenna ‘ believed’ that God does not know all particulars individually. In the second part, we will object his interpretation. The most important criticisms are as follows: he has not determined what problems Avicenna’ s theory aims to solve; he has not touched two important elements of Avicenna’ s theory, i. e., God’ s knowledge of particulars by means of their forms, and God’ s knowledge of particulars by means of His causal relation with them; and he presents an erroneous interpretation of Avicenna’ s use of the eclipse example.

Newton’ s world consists of atoms, which cause natural phenomena with their movement through vacuum. Force is another important element of Newton’ s world. Newton denies the idea that gravity is an essential property of matter. This indicates his adherence to the traditional conception of substance. Moreover, it provides a reason for him to believe in divine omnipresence. Other components of Newton’ s ontology are space and time. He believes in absolute space and time and that it is God who sustains space and time, with his omnipresence. Every being, including God, exists in space and time. And since absolute space and time are God’ s frame of action, contemplating about nature is a way to know God. Newton believes that his philosophy rejects material philosophy and proves an intelligent Creator and his continual action in the world. The aim of this article is to present a comprehensive image of Newton’ s ontology, based on an investigation into his ideas about the material world, space, time and God.

In Mystical Ethics, honesty at a superficial level refers to the conformation of speech and actions with intention and purpose. This application of honesty has been analyzed in depth in Mystical Ethics and this analysis has resulted in honesty being considered as the foundation and basis of other virtues in five cases from which it can be understood that many of the virtues are not virtues without honesty. In fact, these five cases provide important and various meanings of the foundational virtue in mystical works. Considering these explanations, one can find different levels and types of the virtue of honesty in mysticism and assess the important conflicts and challenges it gives rise to. This specific approach to honesty will help in carrying out an in-depth analysis of dishonesty as well as recognizing self-deception in honesty.

Plato, when dealing with the problem of evil, more than anything, tries to keep the good and the ideas transcendent and uninvolved in evil. Therefore, apart from the fact that he recognizes humans as the cause of some evil, he talks of a concept called necessity which exists alongside rationality, and plays a vital role in the mechanism of the universe and its regulation. The existence of necessity, as an obstacle in the way of reason, provides an explanation for the systematic emergence of evil in the universe. In fact, Plato, in his attempt to find a solution, once again, resorts to duality. According to this attitude, the good wishes to form a world as perfect as possible, and as far as the reason is concerned, all the affairs will be in accordance with the good but necessity intervenes and interrupts this process. By analyzing necessity and the roles it plays in Plato’ s school of thought, and explaining different types of evil in his thought, and concepts such as the idea of good and demiurge and their relation to necessity, this paper tries to show that Plato, despite his serious attempts, was not able to solve the issue of duality which is evident in his philosophy.

One of the controversial topics in philosophy of religion is the Wittgensteinian theological models based on his notions of language game and lifestyle. Ostensibly, all these models result from the thoughts of the same person and have been at times subject to the same criticisms. However, some of the models have been more capable of offering convincing responses to those criticisms. The current study aims to investigate two popular models based on Wittgensteinian ideas. The first one is George Lindbeck’ s cultural-linguistic approach in the field of religion and theology and the second is D. Z. Phillips’ s model based on the philosophy of later Wittgenstein. They both have sought to provide appropriate responses to the criticisms which are based on the universality of rationality. It will be shown, however, that the approach adopted by Lindbeck has been of more success, because it has managed to compensate for the flaws found in the model Phillips has come up with.

Brian Davies is one of the contemporary philosophers of religion who has given serious critiques of the dominant approach in contemporary philosophy of religion. Based on the traditional theology of Aquinas, he has tried to offer a different answer to the problem of evil. By criticism of the notion of God as personal God in modern philosophy, he first examines some theodicies and defenses, and therefore, he calls into question both the design of the problem of evil and the provided answers for it in the contemporary philosophy of religion. Secondly, he attempts to analyze the concepts of “ being” , “ Creator” , and “ creation" in Aquinas's theological approach to the problem of evil which provides him with a basis for a different answer to the problem. Accordingly, he basically does not consider the problem of evil as a problem for theism, but also he knows it epistemological doubt that its answer will come in the traditional theology. In this article, we have tried to investigate how Davies uses the theological approach of Aquinas to cope with the contemporary formulation the problem of evil and if his attempt is successful.