JOSTARHA-YE FALSAFE-YE DIN (PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION STUDIES )
Year:2012 | Volume:1 | Issue:1|Papers Count:7

Use theory of meaning is an important theory in the realm of philosophy of language. According to this theory meaning of an expression is nothing but its use in the language. Meaning is a social fact that appears in a language game. So there is no room for private language. In any forms of life there are unwritten rules that the contributors of that form of life follow them and give the words meaning. Thus one expression may find different meanings in different contexts in a way that these meanings don’t have any essential common core but shaping a meaning spectrum. Use theory of meaning has a huge influence on two subjects which are the argumentation about the religious beliefs and religious pluralism. Using this theory one should accept that God has different meaning for a theist and an atheist. A theist regards this word as a word denoting a unique real being but an atheist regards this word as a universal word which may have real extension or not. So an atheist find himself justified in believing the need of argument for the existence of God. The advocates of religious pluralism like John Hick and Mark Heim by applying use theory of meaning find themselves justified in accepting religious pluralism as a true theory.

The meaningfulness of religion’s language is taking part in a form of life. Without it, words, language and religious beliefs have no meaning at all. Perceiving a religious belief and judge about it only in light of a form of life becomes possible. Form of life as Kai Nielsen in his famous article "Wittgensteinian Fideism" (1967) explains, if viewed as a whole, could not be objected, because each form has its own criteria for reasonability/ irreasonability and understandability/ understandable aversion.In Wittgenstein’s thought "Form of life" theory is intended to restrict faith and connect it to form of life. He believes that form of life constitutes of actions, experiences, cultures and backgrounds. By taking part in a form of life we gradually achieve to "depth of penetration".Now we try to prove that this theory suffers from three problems: 1. being personal and hobby, 2. linguistic meta measurability, 3. Irrationality.

Explain the relationship between reason and faith is one of the main concerns Kierkegaard and Mulla Sadra. The most important feature of faith from the perspective Kierkegaard, is its anti-intellectual or paradoxical nature. In this thinking, person can never be achieved to faith by rational thinking and appealing to historical evidence. Basically life of faith from view Kierkegaard is life within Christianity and very life of christianity is that protects it against all theoretical efforts. Mulla Sadra On the other hand believes that the faith, although it is related to the heart but faith of heart is not limited to knowledge Intuitive. But Knowledge of God with reason and proof, that is to say belief that is obtained through theoretical reason, can be considered the heart of faith. In other words, all his efforts are focused on that reconcile between reason and faith or mysticism and the argument.

The theoretical framework of Kant’s critical philosophy rooted in 18th century events (Enlightenment). The question of validity, scope and foundations of metaphysical knowledge is amongst Kant’s epistemological concerns. When we talk about "the possibility of metaphysics" we think about theoretical foundations of that knowledge. Science and experience for Kant means objective scope of human knowledge reflected in the sensibility and understanding. Here that very question again rise: the possibility of "pure mathematics" and "natural sciences". Kant’s inquiries about this two scopes result in that though the theoretical foundations of knowledge belong to knowing subject, the process of mind’s activity belong to experience, and thereby the problem of the gap between subject and object will be solved. This approach extends to the scope of morality and religion, and provide an answer to the unsolved questions of metaphysics. On Kant’s view there is no conflict between theoretical and practical reason. If science deals with the objects of experience and concrete matters, and the possibility of mathematics and natural sciences is certainly undeniable, morality and religion specially deals with the existence of God and immortality of soul. When Kant think about moral action, its possibility and conditions, sees the correlation between them, and certainly concentrate on un objectivity and nominal aspect of these matters.

A passionate faith is the like for every religious view. In Kierkegaard's view, this passionment depends on paradox and obtained only belief and practice to "absurd". Hence any objective approach decays any passionment and merely can have passionate faith with subjective approach. The one hand, Kierkegaard's basis of Idea is the belief in an incommensurabilism position and the other hand, volitionalism position to knowledge. The critiques included on this Kierkegaard’s view that known "the passion argument", including three critiques of Louis Pojman that based on his theory about religious epistemology. At the begging, this article will look briefly the special Louis Pojman’s view in Kierkegaard’s philosophy. In the next step, I will present the logical exposition of the Pojman’s religious epistemology and will see that rational framework of Pojman’s vision in the relationship between reason and faith is the weak-commensurabilism – against two theory: incommensurabilism and strong-commensurabilism, and so based on the soft-perspectivism – against two position: nonperspectivism and hard-perspectivism. In the final step we see the Pojman’s critique against "The passion argument", and will know that this Kierkegaard’s idea faced serious epistemological criticism.

This paper aims to examine the questionof whether God's subjectivity, as the subject of modern criticism can transform to its essence by proposing the question of "moral contingency of God?" and adhere human desires to him by challenging the "Man of Desires" –Michelle Foucault's definition of modern subject– via spiritual interpretation of Being. In order to illuminate the question, the article has passed four phases in addition to providing a brief discussion over the original point of conflict between philosophies of subject and those of the 20th century. It has primarily paid attention to three radical critics of "the three great masters of suspicion", that is Marx, Freud and Nietzsche, to conclude, in agreement with Ricoeur, that one cannot preserve one's belief in God in modern world without considering these critiques. Then it has paid to Adorno's specific dialectic of enlightenment, that is "anyone who believes in God cannot be considered a believer in God", to show that he uses the specific Jewish concept of God as a philosophical model in which human needs can be met, and thus the being presented with a divine name can also be preserved by anyone who doesn't believe in it. The article has then moved to the philosophy of "otherwise than being" by Levinas to demonstrate though he criticizes the modern concept of subjectivity instead of providing a new concept of it, tries to explain the moral contingency of subject through moral presence of God. His main idea is that we come into existence by reacting and paying attention to the other of being and by absorbing or not denying the inevitable responsibility which is prior to our mind, and this way Levinas names God "otherwise than being". The last part of the article is allocated to Habermas and has demonstrated that there are four main elements in religious trends of Frankfort's first generation: "Restorative-Anamnestic", Utopian, of spiritual contemplation and of emancipation. These aspects also exist in Frankfort's second generation and in Habermas' ideas, of which is the most prominent representative. All discussions in all parts of the article has supported the conclusion that today, after about three centuries of experiencing acquainted subject and calling God in seclusion, and in the words of Heraclitus, neither the subject is the same claimant subject nor the name of God is still a slave to its prisoners, so it would be necessary to pass the unhistorical and mechanical relationship between the name of God and the subject along two terminated forms of traditional and modern in order that the possibility of establishing another theory can be provided.

Hegel's philosophy of religion is the result of his philosophical outlook to i. In his philosophical system, art is the sensuous appearance, religion the representational form, and philosophy is the rational form of Geist. These three categories are in a dialectical relation to each other. Religion is the antithesis of art, and philosophy is the synthesis of them. We owe the appearance of historical outlook to religion to Hegel. He considers religion in the process of evolution of spirit in history, in relation to all categories and other constituent elements of culture. In his lectures, he specially analyses the great historical religions according to his vast major project. Hegel’s point of departure in historical interpretation of religion is Eastern religions as natural religions, and after considering Iran, Middle East, Greek and Jewish religions as spiritual ones come to Christianity that he called absolute and revealed religion.