Philosophy of religion
Year:2011 | Volume:7 | Issue:8|Papers Count:7

Philosophers From one hand take the "al-vahed" axiom for granted, and on the other hand, they assume that the Almighty to be of absolute power. Now the question is whether: this is at odds with the "al- vahed" axiom? How can we accept at the same time the absolute power of the Almighty and the "al-vahed" axiom?We should say here:Majority of philosophers, mystics and Kalam specialists have claimed that this axiom is essentially baseless.The "al-vahed" axiom is supported by cognation between cause and effect.According to the cognation rule, it is not reasonable that from a cause that possess only one perfection, several effects come to existence; but there would be no contradiction if it has several perfections.The above-mentioned rule cannot be granted as true about God; because He is simple reality and simple reality is whole the thing. So the emanation of many from One, does not abolish the "al-vahed" axiom.As a result, the above-mentioned rule is not in opposition to the absolute power of God.

As we know, at the course of history of thought the definition of religion has been always a significant dilemma and each thinker or philosopher of religion had inclination to present an accurate definition of religion. In spite of these attempts, there has been no consentaneous definition of religion up to now.Difficulty of the definition of religion has several reasons that in this article some of them are mentioned. In addition, in spite of improbability of definition of Religion, in this paper we will present a definition which presumably there would be a common agreement on it.Among these common approaches to the definition of Religion, the theory of family resemblance, which belongs to Wittgenstein, and Alston’s approach are notable. These approaches although are not perfect formulas; but in comparison with other approaches can be more plausible.

In modern world, there is a strong need and necessity for defending of religion in different ways. One of the defenses that Nowadays is accepted by some people is pragmatic defense which is going to show the positive effects of religion in people's life. The present study is a pragmatic defense of religion which relies essentially on psychological function of religion.For this reason at the beginning we investigated five significant psychological needs, i.e. the need for solving solitude feeling, controlling of the fear of death, finding a meaning for life, living in justice and peacefully, and finally attaining the hope for enduring the sufferings of life.This study with investigating of the Qur'anic verses about these essential needs and evaluating of its commentaries according to a psychological approach and in a-posteriori manner will show that religion can suply much of human physical and spiritual needs.

The effective and efficient understanding of the past, which is useful for present time, will transform the history into a dynamic science when it becomes an essential concern for historians.History, as a science, is the result of historian’s insights and perceptions; and philosophical hermeneutics with emphasizing on ontology of understanding and especially on importance of interpretation, has coordination with subjective approach in history.So in the light of certain theories of scientist that accepted this hermeneutical method, one can improve cognitive aspects of history and make use of it in epistemological interpretation and historical methodology. For this reason, Philosophical hermeneutics can as certain knowledge of history, improves the cognitive aspects of history.In this way, present research with considering the process of philosophical hermeneutics changes will clarify the rate of effectiveness of this approach.

The issue of "Raj'at" (the return) is one of the important prophecies about the end of time that exist both in Islamic and Judaic - Christian prophecies. According to the predictions of these religions, "Raj'at" at the time of the advent of "the promised person" (Al-Mahdi in Islam and Jesus Christ in Christianity and Messiah in Judaism) will occur.This research is going to discuss these predictions about "Raj'at" in Torah and the other books of the Old Testament and in Gospels and the other books and Epistles of the New Testament and in Quran. In addition, we will try to show the similarities and differences between the three religions. This research shows that "Raj'at" is not only belong to Islamic sources, especially shi’ite; but also it is mentioned in Jewish and Christian sources. So "Raj'at" is one of the important prophecies of the divine religions.

Awareness of the concept of God is very important for human beings especially when he is only a child. Because this notion can change his attitude toward God when he is younger and leads him to a kind of religiosity. If his concept of God in earlier ages were a positive attitude and take him as a beneficent, omnipotent and almighty, the conclusion would be essentially different.This article is a comparative study about concept of God in Iranian and American children’s literature from theological, Philosophical and psychological point of view. Due to the fact that children cannot understand abstract ideas, in both literatures we attempted to demonstrate God in concrete phenomena such as nature. This paper will answers to three basic questions:1-         Where is God from children’s point of view?2-         From children’s point of view how is the essence of God?3-         With which attributions children know Him?

For analyzing the issue of coincidence of immanence with transcendence in    Whitehead’s process philosophy, the present paper attempts at the beginning to show that in this process system, especially in the framework of inclusive and comprehensive categories, entities should be interweave and have organic interrelation; because all the actual entities have reaction against each other. So the prerequisite of permanent reactional relation of the world and its transformation into a web is a mutual interaction between God and world.According to mutual interaction of God and world, in second step we try to extract the metaphysical basics of compatibility between immanence and transcendence in process philosophy. In the third step we deal with quality and circumstances of coincidence of immanence and transcendence in God and world; i.e. how God and world, from one hand, are caused transcendence and, from the other hand, immanent in each other. Then the effects of this view on Christology will discuss.Moreover, we show that this approach will finally lead to criticisms like removing the bound between physics and metaphysics, considering the relationship between God and world in a same level, and difficulty in acceptance of such a God by followers of revealed religions.