Journal Of Religious Thought
Year:2014 | Volume:14 | Issue:1 (50)|Papers Count:7

Religious language is one of the most important and attractive issues in the philosophy of religion. This subject is very significant to pious people, since it concerns the meanings and semantics of the God’s attributes; and the statements about God are rational, provided that they are meaningful. In general, there are two fundamental questions in this field:A) Are the statements about God meaningful or not? B) In case of being meaningful, is it possible for human being to perceive them or not? This article is focusing on the Qazi Abd-al-jabbar Mu’tazili’s and William P. Alston’s responses to the questions mentioned above. Although they belong to two different schools of thought and era, on the semantics of the attributes of perfection such as knowledge, power, etc. and the attributes of act e.g. perceiving, making and so on, they have the same view which can be called “functionalism”.

Mulla Sadra's fundamentals and arguments have changed and elevated a lot of problems of Islamic Philosophy.One of these fundamentals is the theory of bodily genesis and spiritual continuance of the soul which in true is based on other fundamentals such as fundamentally reality of existence and substantial movement. This theory gives new explanations concerning genesis, life and evolution of human soul. Substantial evolution results in a change in human nature.In this paper we discuss the process of this evolution based on the above mentioned theories. This change in human nature and species has an important role in solving some problems concerning hereafter life.

What is the nature of movement? When a thing changes which one of its aspects does remain and which one does change? In this paper we compare Mulla Sadra's and Leibniz's answers to these questions. We will show that despite their differences in definition and rules of movement, they have similar views in considering the movement of the substance of the world. Leibniz's view on substance and monad results in a theory of movement which is similar to that of Mulla Sadra named “Substantial movement”.

Epistemologists consider knowledge as a justified true belief. There are three main theories concerning truth which are theory of correspondence, theory of coherence, and pragmatic theory. Theories of justification are divided into externalism and internalism. The main theories in the realm of internalism are foundationalism theory and Coherentist theory. In externalism theories such as reliabilism and probabilistic ones, believer is not required to develop reason and the justification has to do with the external factors. Ghazali's wager argument on belief in God and in resurrection can be considered as a pragmatic theory, if truth theories are concerned. But if justification theories are concerned, it can be considered as a fundamental theory, because it is based on certain knowledge. It is also, from another perspective, an externalist theory as it puts emphasis on the factors outside the knower to justify the beliefs such as the process of achieving knowledge, willingness, sentiment-ness, and rational state of belief.

Angelology or knowledge of holy non- material beings is derived from revelational scriptures but faithful philosophers have tried to give a reasonable and justified view concerning existence and nature of the angels.In this paper we try to study how two important philosophical and theological systems, named Thomist and Ishragi systems, verify and explain existence and nature of angels and how they show compatibility of religion and reason in this subject.We will discuss similarities and differences of these two systems in method of verifying and explaining existence and nature of the angels, their relation to human beings, their numbers, how they have been created, their classifications, how they know themselves and others, how they disclose themselves and whether they have the same or different species.

In spite of emphasis of Muslim logicians on the instrumental role of logical principles and regulations in the other acquired sciences as well as the entire spheres of human thinking, there has been no considerable effort to consolidate and actualize them by now. Thus in this paper we intend to analyze the efficiency of that knowledge and skill in the whole process of theorization, from the formation of the theory to its verification as well as inference of new hypothesis taken by the theories in question. Given that there are several methods of theorization in sciences, such as conceptualization, causal explanation, evidential explanation, inductive inference, and deduction, in this article, we try to explain these methods one by one and indicate the role and the efficiency of logical skill. In addition, we try to analyze the relation between two new western programs entitled “critical thinking” and “philosophy for children” as well as their impact on development of logical thinking, theorization and production of science.The necessity of embarking on the theoretical and actual education of the logical skills including formal logic and symbolic logic as well as consolidating the status of critical thinking in the national educational system are among the most important conclusions in this study. It can result in facilitating in the process of theorization and production of science in the various branches of sciences, either humanities or empirical sciences. Although some theorists are gifted an innate logic which regulates their thinking process inherently, they could certainly pave the road more easily by achieving the logical skills.

How did the diversity of this world come to existence from God who is simple? In other words, how is it possible that multiplicity generates from oneness. In this paper we will compare Ibn Sina's and Mulla Sadra's answers to this question. Both of them accept a famous rule called “al-Wahid” which says that: “nothing can be generated from a simple thing but a simple thing”.So the question is that how does this compound world com to existence from the first simple existence which is God. These two philosophers have different approaches to this rule in justifying multiplicity of the world based on oneness and simplicity of God.