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DIGITAL THEOLOGY AND A POTENTIAL THEOLOGICAL APPROACH TO A METAPHYSICS OF INFORMATION
By Peter M. Phillips, Durham University
In this article, I offer a background to digital theology and its methodology, exploring especially aspects of transhumanism and metaphysical enquiry. The article moves on to engage with several articles given at the Science and Religion Forum at Birmingham in 2022, especially the Gowland Lecture given by Professor Niels Gregersen and the Peacocke Lecture by Andrew Jackson. Both offer a metaphysical approach to information linked closely to the concept of Logos drawn from the Prologue of John—Jackson focusing on Maximus the Confessor's exploration of phylogenetic logoi; Gregersen on a further development of “Deep Incarnation” through the title “God with Clay” drawn from Bonaventure. The article extends this engagement with John by querying the model of incarnation in “deep incarnation” but building on the Logos/logoi to set out some initial building blocks for an alternative metaphysics of information.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12883
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Tags: #Metaphysics #AI #Technology #Transhumanism #God
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Formalism versus Purposivism in Islamic Jurisprudence: The Case of Islamic Finance Law
By Pejman Abedifar, University of St Andrews
This manuscript critically discusses the current implications of the scriptural injunctions against gharar and maysir. It elaborates how overlooking the features of the contemporary world and adopting a formalistic approach in Islamic jurisprudence have led to absurdity in the implication of the doctrines of gharar and maysir for Muslims’ financial activities. The manuscript also underscores the necessity of adopting the maqāsid approach (purposivism) in Islamic jurisprudence. It propounds that the cogent concern of the injunctions could have been an initiative for Islamic scholars to establish an advanced contract law and to promote transparency in economic activities if a maqāsid approach had been adopted in Islamic jurisprudence.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040465
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Tags: #Islam #Shariah #IslamicLaw
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A Secret Marriage and Denied Rights: A Critique from an Islamic Law Perspective
By Tuba Erkoc Baydar, Ibn Haldun Universty
Today, secret marriages are a known problem among Muslims, but discussions and debates are avoided. People who are unwilling to take on the responsibilities of marriage yet do not want to commit adultery, one of the major sins in Islam, practice secret marriages. However, this leads to the deprivation of rights for parties and children born in these unions. Some claim that the legal justification for secret marriages is provided by the view that the presence of witnesses and the parties to be married is sufficient for a marriage contract. Therefore, this article aims to critically examine the views of the four Sunnī legal schools on testimony (shahada) or proclamation (i’lan) in relation to marriage, and how these conditions align with the requirement for protecting the rights of all parties involved in the marriage. Upon examination, this article also will delve into unregistered marriages and illustrate how both types of marriages do not adequately establish the rights of those involved. In order to accomplish this objective, the article will use a descriptive methodology that directly refers to primary texts and certain fatwa institutions, such as the Diyanet (the Presidency of Religious Affairs in Turkey), to present the jurists’ discourses.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040463
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Tags: #Islam #Shariah #Law #IslamicEthics
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A Critical Review of Hasan Spiker’s “Things as They Are: The Metaphysical Foundations of Objective Truth”
By Abdurrahman Mihirig, Ludwig-Maximilian University
In recent years there has been a welcome increase in the number of Islamic philosophical works produced in Near Western languages. Unlike most of the historically or philologically oriented works produced in Near Western languages such as English, French, or German, these works are produced by thinkers who are normatively committed to the traditions in which they work; rather than giving third person descriptions which often miss the mark, or arguing for historical claims about who said what, or who influenced whom, the new generation of authors are arguing for...
Read more: https://themaydan.com/2023/03/a-critical-review-of-hasan-spikers-things-as-they-are-the-metaphysical-foundations-of-objective-truth/
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Tags: #Theology #Islam #Kalam #Truth #Metaphysics
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Necessary existent theology
By Rosabel Ansari, Stony Brook University; Billy Dunaway and Jon McGinnis, University of Missouri – St. Louis
A meta-theology makes claims about the structure of theological claims: it identifies a single, fundamental claim about God, and shows how other theological claims are derivable from the fundamental claim. In his book Depicting Deity and other articles, Jon Kvanvig has identified three distinct meta-theologies: Creator Theology, Perfect Being Theology, and Worship-worthiness Theology. In this article, we argue that the medieval Islamic philosopher Avicenna's views about God have the structure of a meta-theology, and that it is distinct from the three projects Kvanvig identifies. This view is Necessary Existent Theology.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412523000239
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Tags: #Islam #Avicenna #Theology #NecessaryExistence #God
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Artificial General Intelligence and Panentheism
By Oliver Li, Uppsala University
In this article, I argue that given the possibility and prospect of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), panentheism, as a form of theism with a stronger emphasis on the immanence of God, parallels the anti-anthropocentrism implied by AGI. I discuss some general issues related to the categorization of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Next, both anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism will be discussed as concepts for how humans may relate to AI. Subsequently, I argue and conclude that there is an analogy between the anti-anthropocentric implications of AGI and the anti-anthropocentric element of panentheism, but that panentheism points to a stronger form of anti-anthropocentrism.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2188373
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Tags: #AI #Anthropomorphism #Anthropocentrism #God
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The Conception of Science in Postclassical Islamic Thought (647–905/1250–1500): A Study of Debates in Commentaries and Glosses on the Prolegomenon of al-Kātibī’s Shamsiyya
By Kenan Tekin, Yalova University
In this paper, I examine several commentaries and glosses on the prolegomenon of Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī’s (d. 675/1276–77) Shamsiyya that relate to debates on the Aristotelian and Ibn Sīnān theory of science in the postclassical period. Chief among the commentaries of the Shamsiyya is Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 766/1365) Taḥrīr al-qawāʿid al-manṭiqiyya. This commentary, rather than the base text of the Shamsiyya, set the stage for later interpretations by Mirak al-Bukhārī (fl. 733/1332), Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Qāshānī (d. 755/1354), Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (d. 792/1390), al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413), Dāwūd al-Khwāfī (fl. 839/1465) and ʿIṣām al-Dīn Isfarāyinī (d. 945/1538). I focus on three issues that were raised in these interpretations of the Shamsiyya’s prolegomenon: (1) the place of the elements of sciences in logical corpus, (2) the notion of the prolegomenon and its content, and (3) the real essence of a science. I attend to the particular debates and contentions on these issues to reveal the general idea of science at that time.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.5840/islamicphil2022136
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Tags: #Islam #Avicenna #Metaphysics #Time
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Invoke Your Lord in Humility and in Secret (Q 7:55): Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī on the Efficacy of Petitionary Prayer
By Safaruk Z. Chowdhury, Ibn Rushd Centre of Excellence for Islamic Research
In this article, I explore the response of the Ashʿarī theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) to what can be called “the problem of the efficacy of petitionary prayers” (PEPP), namely the effectiveness of making supplications to God that involve a request for something. The key text I examine is al-Rāzī’s highly dense philosophical work al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya min al-ʿilm al-ilāhī, in which he outlines his core objections to the efficacy of petitionary prayer and then addresses them directly. In section 1, I include a short historiography of specific English books on the topic of supplications (duʿāʾ) and consider the relevance of al-Rāzī’s response to the issue of their efficacy. In section 2, I outline the preliminaries necessary and relevant for understanding the discussion that follows. In section 3, I survey al-Rāzī’s view on personal prayers. In section 4, I examine in detail al-Rāzī’s formulations of the arguments (from the Maṭālib) that constitute PEPP, with parallel discussions in his huge exegetical work Mafātīḥ al-ghayb. In section 5, I lay out al-Rāzī’s responses to PEPP from the Mafātīḥ in more depth, and draw on theological views from his other works to help support his arguments in the Maṭālib. In the conclusion, I evaluate al-Rāzī’s responses and the wider implications they have on a Muslim’s relation to and understanding of God.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.5840/islamicphil2022134
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Tags: #Islam #AlRazi #Asharism #IslamicTheology
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How Do Muslims and Jews in Christian Countries See Each Other Today? A Survey Review
By Gunther Jikeli, Indiana University
Muslim–Jewish relations have a long and complex history. However, notions that all Jews and Muslims are eternal enemies are proven wrong both historically and by today’s survey data. A comprehensive review of the available survey data from the last two decades provides a glimpse into the views of Muslims and Jews of each other in countries where both communities are a minority. It is based on surveys from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S., including more than 91,000 respondents, comprising almost 27,000 Muslims and, in additional surveys, more than 52,000 Jewish respondents. Many Muslims and Jews acknowledge that the other community suffers from discrimination, albeit to varying degrees. Jews often see Islam and Muslim extremists as a threat to Jews, but most Jews, more than society in general, seem to distinguish between Muslim extremists and Muslims in general. Antisemitic attitudes are significantly higher among Muslims than among the general population in all surveys, even though the majority of Muslims in most European countries and in the United States do not exhibit antisemitic attitudes. The differences in anti-Jewish attitudes between Muslims and non-Muslims do not disappear when controlling for sociodemographic factors.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030412
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Tags: #Islam #Judaism #Islamophobia #AntiSemitism #InterfaithRelations
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Islam and the Politics of Secularism in Pakistan
By Zahid Shahab Ahmed, Deakin University
In terms of their political and ideological success, Pakistani Islamists have had several ups and downs since Pakistan became the Islamic Republic in 1956. Islamists strive to safeguard the Islamic state’s status quo while simultaneously expanding the reach of Sharia. Despite insignificant electoral victories, Islamists have largely been able to dictate national identity policies to civilian and military governments. A major hurdle to the promotion of pluralism in Pakistan is noticeable through persistent opposition to secularism by major political actors. Despite different political ideologies, major political parties refrain from promoting secularism in Pakistan; however, such views are more rigid in the case of Islamists. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to examine and compare the discourses of Islamists and other political parties in relation to Pakistan’s identity, reforms and anti-Westernism, religious minorities, and secularism. Based on the analysis, this paper argues that the views of Islamists and non-religious political parties are very similar regarding Islam and Pakistan’s identity, secularism, and minority rights in Pakistan.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030416
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Tags: #Islam #Politics #Secularism
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Semantics of divine names: Tabatabai’s principle of ‘focal meaning’ and Burrell’s grammar of God-talk
By Javad Taheri, University of Groningen
In the present paper, I investigate the ways in which the grammar of God-talk in David B. Burrell’s philosophical theology comes to meet Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai’s account of divine names, which has been developed in his theory of religious language. I begin the first part of the paper by introducing Tabatabai’s innovative articulation of the concept of Mental Construct and its relevance to his account of language and meaning. I, then, clarify how he proceeds to elucidate his conception of religious language in terms of what he calls ‘focal meaning’, i.e. his idea of a true sense underlying the application of a word. In the second part of the article, Burrell’s methodology of God-talk is introduced and briefly discussed, before proceeding with interlocutory explanations as well as an examination of Tabatabai’s semantics of divine names. On the basis of Burrellian reading of via analogia, I propose a novel interpretation of the principle of focal meaning. This interpretation is particularly concerned with the most appropriate manner in which we can comprehend the literality of religious language. I conclude by explaining the way in which Burrell’s analysis is useful and elucidating for a contemporary interpretation of Tabatabai’s work.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1080/21692327.2023.2169743
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Tags: #Thomism #Wittgenstein #PhilosophyOfReligion #ComparativePhilosophy
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Entailment, Contradiction, and Christian Theism
By Jc Beall, University of Notre Dame; Michael DeVito, University of Birmingham
Apparent contradiction is common in traditional monotheism, and perhaps especially so in standard Christian theology given central doctrines such as the incarnation and trinity. This Element aims to chart out a very elementary but abstract framework through which such contradictions may be approached. This Element does not attempt to address the many options for thinking about contradictions in the face of logical entailment; it charts only a few salient abstract options.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108995788
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Tags: #Christianity #Logic #Trinity
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Al- Azhar and the Salafis in Egypt: Contestation of two traditions
By Raihan Ismail, Australian National University
Al-Azhar's religious authority extends beyond Egypt to many parts of the Sunni world. Its claim to authority is not uncontroversial: at various times it has been the subject of scrutiny for political and non-political movements including the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafi movement in Egypt, and Salafi actors abroad. Egyptian Salafis have long criticised Al-Azhar over various issues, doctrinally and jurisprudentially. Salafi ‘ulamā’ in Egypt dedicate sermons, lectures, religious rulings and publications to undermining Al-Azhar's religious credibility and commitment to what the Salafis consider to be “authentic” Islam. The Salafis might be a marginal influence in Egyptian society and lie on the periphery of Egypt's religious field, but Al-Azhar has actively sought to counter their influence. Al-Azhar's leadership became more concerned with the Salafis during the later years of the presidency of Hosni Mubarak, who allowed Salafis to preach freely to counter the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. The state at the time was concerned with the Muslim Brotherhood's popularity after they performed well in the 2005 Egyptian elections. Although much has been written on Al-Azhar as a religious institution and on the Salafi movement in Egypt, there is limited research on the contestation and interactions between the two.
This article starts by looking at the history of the Salafi movement in Egypt, and its transnational nature. It then, by way of further background, examines Al-Azhar's status and co-optation by the state in Egypt, making the institution a representation of ‘official Islam’ in the country. The article then, relying mostly on primary sources, analyses the theological divide between al-Azhar and the Salafis in Egypt. Finally, the article outlines the socio-political contestations that have shaped the interactions between the Al-Azhar and the Salafi movement in Egypt. This article finds that the Salafi-Azhari contestation revolves around three overlapping issues: Salafi disdain for Sufism, the Ahl al-Ḥadīth-Ash‘arī creedal divide, and socio-political contestation in modern Egypt. Al-Azhar, despite occasional conflict with the state and sustaining frequent attacks from the Salafis, remains the first and foremost religious authority in the country and enjoys the status of the gatekeepers of Islam. The Salafis have largely remained beyond the margins, and were further sidelined by Al-Azhar and the state following the rise of ISIS.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12455
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Tags: #Salafism #Islam #Politics
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Are you praying to a videogame God? Some theological and philosophical implications of the simulation hypothesis
By Sanford L. Drob, C.G. Jung Institute
The hypothesis that we may be living in a digital simulation is utilized as a ‘thought experiment’ to help clarify important questions in theology and philosophy, including the nature of God, the significance and importance of an afterlife, and the ultimate nature of reality. It is argued that a consideration of the simulation hypothesis renders problematic traditional conceptions of a personal, creator, omnipotent deity, makes the theological significance of a purported afterlife far less significant, and paradoxically undermines the very materialistic view of reality that underlies the simulation hypothesis in the first place. It is concluded that the simulation hypothesis renders ‘science’ virtually irrelevant to ultimate questions in philosophy and theology and elevates ethics and axiology to fundamental status for our understanding of reality and any defensible conception of the divine.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1080/21692327.2023.2182822
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Tags: #Science #Theology #Simulation #God
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The English Universal History’s treatment of the Arab world
By Ann Thomson, European University Institute
The Universal History, which had a complicated publishing history from the 1730s to the 1780s, was a commercial undertaking by a group of London booksellers, aimed at satisfying curiosity for reliable information about the rest of the world. It was finally composed of two separate parts, the Ancient and the Modern, which, while eventually published as a single work, were distinct. Its first author was George Sale, the noted translator of the Qur’an, who emphasized the recourse to original Arab manuscripts, although, after his death in 1736, later authors had a different approach. This article looks first at the work’s hostile view of Islam and claim that sympathy to it was a tactic of irreligious thinkers to undermine Christianity. It then analyses the somewhat confused discussion of the Arabs, which varies according to the sources used in the two parts, before highlighting the emphasis on Ottoman despotism. It finally evokes the call in the Modern Part for a European expedition to free North Africa from the Ottomans, destroy piracy in the Mediterranean, and encourage the North Africans to develop agriculture and trade. This call was copied in the best-selling French work, Raynal’s Histoire des Deux Indes.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1080/17496977.2023.2179883
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Tags: #Arab #Quran #History #Islam
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COVID-19 and Religion
By Donald Heinz, California State University
The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a social drama in which churches, government, and individual actors have played prominent roles. While neo-conservative evangelicals have resisted governmental and scientific overreach in the name of “faith over fear”, liberal religious groups have joined in government and medical efforts for the good of the commons, offered comfort and assurance to those suffering, and called for support of the poor at home and abroad. Religions have turned right and left, from apocalyptic “resets” of global order to new calls for social justice. In this context, the root metaphor of the epidemic has been called up as a historical construct that helps to conceptualize, analyze, and act upon the COVID-19 crisis. Searching the past helps us see that not everything about COVID-19 as a social drama is a new or unheard-of challenge. For example, there are new evocations of the black death of 14th-century Europe that became a crisis in the church, as well as the great Lisbon earthquake in 1755, which upended the confidence of the European Enlightenment. Another way to appraise the dimensions of the COVID-19 outbreak is to call on the varied approaches characteristic of the sociology of religion, that is, to consider how ideology and belief are socially constructed in order to account for new intellectual responses to societal challenges. Does religion always produce the “collective effervescence” Durkheim posited? Does religious change always arrive downstream of cultural change, or can it also become an independent variable? This article attends primarily to the sharp responses of conservative religious expression in the face of attention-getting upheaval, which has readily translated into right-wing political action and electioneering. But the social uplift and altruism of liberal religion is not neglected either. Thus, this article provides an account of how science and governmental action have both been challenged and embraced in response to COVID-19. As such, it is not an empirical study stemming from new Pew-like social polling. Rather, it is a wide overview rooted in sociological methods and theory for tracking religion historically and presently in America in a manner that aims to inform a discussion of how COVID-19 has impacted religion and religious expression, and vice versa.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040478
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Tags: #Religion #SocialJustice #COVID #Sociology #Humanities
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On Changing the Subject: ‘Secularity’, ‘Religion’, and the Idea of the Human
By Carmody Grey, University of Durham; Oliver Dürr, University of Fribourg
The ‘religion/secular’ frame should be retired as a way of characterizing contemporary northern European cultures. The concepts of ‘secularity’ and ‘religion’ are both falsifying and question begging. They invisibly and unhelpfully predetermine the conversation about who and where we are now. Further, they are terms which increasingly lack salience in these cultures. If we seek to locate and articulate, in order to reflectively engage, the horizons within which contemporary northern Europeans generally live, the goods that orient people’s lives, the ideas and values that move and motivate them, we need to talk not about ‘religion’ and the lack of it, but about the idea of the human. Within the concept of the human is nested today the sense of orientation, meaning, goodness and importance that notions of ‘religion’ used to express. This is the conceptual territory on which arguments about ‘what really matters’ are now conducted. If one wishes to have salience in contemporary culture, one needs to speak to this.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040466
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Tags: #Religion #Secularism #Humanism #Culture
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Shīʿī Imāmī Thought on Existence, Life, and Extraterrestrials
By Abdullah Ansar, Carleton College
In this article, we develop the intersection of Shīʿī Islamic philosophy and extraterrestrial life. We explain the view of Ḥukamā (Islamic Philosophers) and what implications it holds for asserting a plurality of worlds and life forms. In addition to this, we bring Shīʿī hadīth sources which also suggest the existence of other life forms outside the earth. Combining the philosophical and textual evidence, we argue that the Shīʿī school not only suggests the existence of extraterrestrial life but also provides a potential framework for possible human-extraterrestrial interactions.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2188372
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Tags: #Shiism #Religion #Mysticism #HumanExtraterrestrialInteraction
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Would integration with religious studies improve analytic theology?
By Andrew C. Dole, Amherst College
William Wood argues that analytic theology can be included as a part of the academic study of religion. He describes two types of benefits to this inclusion: benefits accruing to the study of religion on the one hand, and benefits accruing to analytic theology on the other. I find the first type of benefit that he describes to be real, but think that within the overall compass of the interests of the academic study of religion in Christian traditions it is quite small in scope, even in a context in which doctrines are a topic of particular interest. The second type of benefit, that accruing to analytic theology, is more of a puzzle. On the one hand, I find that one species of benefit that Wood describes with some clarity is unpromising, as it seems to amount to an opportunity for yet more defensive apologetics. But on the other hand, some of what Wood says is compatible with the idea that analytic theology stands to be improved in ways that are not yet clear by engagement with the academic study of religion. I conclude with a critical glance at Wood's attempt to defend analytic theology as a method of inquiry from the charge of historical shallowness.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412523000197
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Tags: #AnalyticalTheology #Religion #Theology
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The World of Islam: ‘good’ religion, perennialism, and public culture in the 1970s
By Kathleen M. Foody, North Carolina State University
This article draws on conversations about liberal religion to explore how international events attempt to stage ‘good Islam’ for non-Muslim publics. It does this by focusing on an understudied event from post-empire Britain: the 1976 World of Islam Festival. Here, I focus on how Muslim and non-Muslim actors, ideas about universalism, perennialism and religion, and international politics organised the presentation of ‘good’ Islam in the 1970s. I attend to how liberal renderings of ‘good religion’ operate in a feedback loop with racist, xenophobic and specifically anti-Muslim sentiments in the years just before Muslim politics would take centre-stage in global imaginaries.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2023.2185648
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Tags: #Islam #Liberalism #Islamophobia #Perennialism
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The Modal (Realist) Ontological Argument
By Joshua Sijuwade, London School of Theology
This article aims to provide a new ontological argument for the existence of God. A specific ‘modal’ version of the ontological argument—termed the Modal Realist Ontological Argument—is formulated within the modal realist metaphysical framework of David K. Lewis, Kris McDaniel and Philip Bricker. Formulating this argument within this specific framework will enable the plausibility of its central premise (i.e., the ‘Possibility Premise’) to be established, and allow one to affirm the soundness of the argument—whilst warding off two oft-raised objections against this type of natural theological argument.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.5840/philtheol2023321155
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Tags: #OntologicalArgument #Theology #God
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Ibn Sīnā on Nature as Matter and Form: An Exposition of the Physics of the Healing I, 6 and I, 9
By Catherine Peters, Loyola Marymount University
The concept of nature (Gr. phúsis; Ar. ṭabīʿa) lies at the heart of classical physics. Seemingly small differences about nature can blossom into significant disagreements. The present study offers an exposition of certain neglected passages concerning ṭabīʿa in Ibn Sīnā’s al-Samaʿ al-tabiʿi(The Physics of the Healing). The predominant view of ṭabīʿa is that it as an active principle, a conception of nature that radically departs from Aristotle’s account of phúsis in Physics I-II. I dispute this interpretation by investigating two neglected texts in the Physics of the Healing. First, these texts indicate that nature should be associated with matter and form (I, 6) and, second, they argue that failing to account for matter and form makes knowledge of nature incomplete (I, 9).
Link:
https://doi.org/10.5840/islamicphil2022135
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Tags: #Islam #Avicenna #Metaphysics
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A Comparative Study of Three Contemporary Iranian Muslim Thinkers in Science and Religion, with an Emphasis on Ted Peters’ Views
By Maryam Shamsaei, Shiraz University
The present article focuses on the explanation and theoretical exploration of the foundations and reasoning of three Muslim thinkers in contemporary Iran (Seyyed Hossain Nasr, Morteza Motahhari, and Mehdi Bazargan), according to the Ten Models of Ted Peters, regarding the relationship between religion and science. The study results indicate that there are commonalities among Christian and Islamic thinkers. While their approaches are slightly different in some respects, the views of the Iranian religious thinkers can be placed in certain patterns intended by Peters.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2188376
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Tags: #Islam #Science #Religion
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Theological Utilitarianism, Supervenience, and Intrinsic Value
By Matthew Alexander Flannagan, St Peters College
Erik Wielenberg has argued that robust realism can account for the “common-sense moral belief” that “some things distinct from God are intrinsically good”. By contrast, theological stateism cannot account for this belief. Hence, robust realism has a theoretical advantage over all forms of theological stateism. This article criticizes Wielenberg’s argument. Wielenberg distinguishes between R and D-supervenience. The coherence of Wielenberg’s robust realism depends upon this distinction. I argue that this distinction undermines his critique of theological stateism. I will make three points. First, once you utilize the distinction between R and D-supervenience, his argument for the incompatibility of theological stateism and intrinsic value fails. Second, theological stateism is compatible with intrinsic value. The historical example of theological utilitarianism, expounded by thinkers George Berkeley and William Paley, shows someone can accept that moral properties simultaneously R supervene upon God’s will and D supervene upon the natural properties of actions. Third, robust realism and theological stateism are in the same boat regarding intrinsic value once we distinguish between R and D-supervenience.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030413
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Tags: #Realism #TheologicalVoluntarism #God #Morality #Utilitarianism
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In defense of teleological intuitions
By Gergely Kertész, Values and Science ‘Lendület’ Research Group; Daniel Kodaj, Institute of Philosophy
According to recent work in experimental philosophy, folk intuitions concerning various metaphysical issues are heavily teleological. The experiments in question, which belong to a broader research program in psychology about ‘promiscuous teleology’, have featured prominently in debates about the methodology of metaphysics, with some authors claiming that the folk’s teleological bias debunks everyday intuitions concerning composition, persistence, and organisms. The present paper argues for a possibility that is very rarely discussed in that debate, namely the idea that the folk’s intuitions could be veridical. Our argument is based on an emerging naturalistic theory of biological functions called “the organismic view”. The gist of the organismic view is that biological systems are characterized by a special circular causal regime where each part of the system contributes to the boundary conditions of some other parts, as well as of the whole. We argue that teleological folk intuitions are veridical in the biological domain under such a view, and they are veridical in the social and artefactual domains under coherent extensions of the organismic view.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-023-01937-3
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Tags: #Intuition #Biology #Teleology #Mereology
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Trauma and the Emergence of Spiritual Potentiality in Ibn ’Arabī’s Metaphysics
By Ismail Lala, Gulf University for Science & Technology
Spirituality has been proven in recent studies to be a key contributor in posttraumatic growth. One of the most well-known mystical thinkers in Islam, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ’Arabī (d. 634/1240), nevertheless, believes that trauma does not facilitate spiritual growth, but rather has the capacity to reveal the spiritual potentiality that was latent within a person. This paper begins by exploring the concept of trauma in the Qur’an and how it may actualise the potentiality of humans. It then scrutinises Ibn ’Arabī’s understanding of human potentiality or ‘preparedness’ (isti‘dād) and how its actualisation leads to the rank of the Perfect Man (al-Insān al-kāmil). Finally, it adduces two examples (Mūsā and Yūnus) in whom traumatic experiences result in posttraumatic growth and the actualisation of their spiritual potentialities. In the case of the former, it is posttraumatic growth through preservation of the self; for the latter, it is posttraumatic growth through preservation of others.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030407
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Tags: #IbnArabi #Spirituality #Sufism #Quran
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Turning Religious Experience into Reality: The Spiritual Power of Himma
By Ismail Lala, Gulf University for Science and Technology
The extremely influential mystic, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 634/1240), believes that the most advanced gnostics are imbued with a special power that turns their religious experience into reality. This is the power of himma—the power of existentiation that elite gnostics derive from God’s absolute power of existentiation. Ibn ‘Arabī and his followers assert that this power, which is exercised by the gnostics through an intense and unremitting concentration, actually shapes and forms external phenomenal reality as long as the concentration of the gnostic persists. This paper explores the different types of himmas that can exist, what kind of reality they allow the gnostics to perceive, and what relationship the objects created by himma have with the gnostic who exercised this power.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030385
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Tags: #IbnArabi #Spirituality #Mysticism #Sufism
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Beyond Fixed Political Models of Religion–State Relations
By Azim Zahir, University of Western Australia
Some of the dominant academic approaches to Muslim politics continue to assume the centrality of Islam on the question religion’s relationship to the state and the possibility of successful democracy in Muslim-majority states. On the one hand, based on findings from large N-surveys, some scholars have argued that most Muslims in many Muslim-majority states desire a political ‘third model’ that is neither secular nor theocratic. Instead, they want democracy and a public role for shari’a and Islam. However, this literature does not fully explain what such a third model would mean for certain individual rights in practice. It also assumes a normative position that tends to favour one or another version of ‘Islamic’ democracy. On the other hand, some other scholars have argued that one or another form of a secular Muslim democracy is possible. Both views assume that the reinterpretation of religious resources is crucial to achieve the desired ends. This ‘reformist Islam approach’ to Muslim politics does not seriously consider the implications of servicing Islam, even in its more reformist forms, for political ends. Through a combination of theoretical and normative arguments and in-depth interviews conducted in the Maldives, this article argues that the plurality of viewpoints and underlying reasonings for those viewpoints among ordinary people suggest the necessity to move ‘beyond Islam’. As such, an alternative discursive democratisation approach that considers this plurality and takes discourses more neutrally without privileging religious discourses can be more capacious. Instead of fixating on a particular model of the religion–state relationship and a particular type of discourse (e.g., reformist Islamic), a discursive democratisation approach points to democratic possibilities and how the religion–politics and religion–state nexuses may be shaped and reshaped through discourse contestations within public spheres in Muslim-majority states such as the Maldives.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030384
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Tags: #Secularism #Islam #Politics #IslamicReformism
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Science-Engaged Theology
By John Perry and Joanna Leidenhag, University of St Andrews
This Element presents science-engaged theology as a reminder to theologians to use the local tools and products of the sciences as sources for theological reflection. Using critiques of modernity and secularism, the Element questions the idea that Science and Religion were ever transhistorical categories. The Element also encourages theologians to collaborate with colleagues in other disciplines in a highly localised manner that enables theologians to make concrete claims with accountability and show how theological realities are entangled with the empirical world. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009091350
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Tags: #Science #Theology #NaturalTheology
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Teaching & Learning Guide for: Cosmic Fine-tuning, the Multiverse Hypothesis, and the Inverse Gambler's Fallacy
By Neil A. Manson, The University of Mississippi
The multiverse hypothesis is one of the leading proposed explanations of cosmic fine-tuning for life. One common objection to the multiverse hypothesis is that, even if it were true, it would not explain why this universe, our universe, is fine-tuned for life. To think it would so explain is allegedly to commit "the inverse gambler's fallacy." This paper presents what the inverse gambler's fallacy is supposed to be, then surveys the discussion of it in the philosophical literature of the last 35 years.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12873
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Tags: #God #Multiverse #FTA #God #Pedagogy
