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The doing/allowing distinction in the divine context
By Ryan Kulesa, University of Missouri
The theist needs a conception of the distinction between doing and allowing because much of the literature focused on the problem of evil attempts to justify (via theodicy) or defend (via defence) God's allowing evil to occur. I present a counterfactual account of the doing/allowing distinction in the divine context and argue that, even if there are compelling objections to counterfactual accounts of the distinction in the human context, they do not work against such an account in the divine context. The counterfactual analysis to follow will allow the theist to plausibly claim that God does not ever bring about evil, which is crucial to some defences against the problem of evil. I conclude by defending my account against possible objections.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412523000550
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Tags: #God #Evil #PoE #Theodicy
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Review of Recent Works in Maturidi Theology
Maturidi Theology: A Bilingual Reader (by ejla Demiri, Philip Dorroll, Dale J. Correa, Eds.) and Transcendent God, Rational World: A Maturidi Theology (by Ramon Harvey)
By Martin Nguyen, Fairfield University
Within Islamic studies, the subfield of theology has been one of steady growth over the decades. With respect to the Māturīdī school of theology, indebted to the eponymous Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), a noticeable increase in publications, scholarly monographs, and peer-reviewed journal articles has appeared in recent years. Joining this expanding scholarly effort are the following two works: an Arabic-English reader entitled Māturīdī Theology edited by Lejla Demiri, Philip Dorroll, and Dale Correa and Ramon Harvey’s scholarly monograph Transcendent God, Rational World: A Māturīdī Theology, which is both analytical and constructive in its approach.
Link: https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v40i1-2.3253
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Tags: #Islam #Theology #Review #Maturidism
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The Non-Crucifixion Verse
A Historical, Contextual, and Linguistic Analysis
By Louay Fatoohi, Independent Researcher
Over the centuries, there has been almost a consensus among Muslims and non-Muslims that the crucifixion of Jesus is denied in the Qur’an, mainly because of al-Nisāʾ 4:157. This overwhelmingly accepted interpretation has been challenged in recent times, albeit by a small minority of scholars, by suggesting novel interpretations of 4:157 and seeking support from history and other verses. This study first reviews how, from the early days of Islam, denying the crucifixion of Jesus was always seen by both Muslims and non-Muslims as the established Islamic view. It analyses the theological arguments of the minority view, promoted by some early Ismāʿīlī scholars and modern scholars, that the Qur’an does not deny Jesus’ crucifixion. A new attempt, which has been gathering some support, linking 4:157 to the Talmud is then critiqued. This study shows that the immediate context of 4:157 and the broader Qur’anic narrative also refute the new interpretation. A detailed linguistic analysis of the verse in question further shows that it cannot be reasonably read to mean anything other than rejecting that Jesus was crucified. In summary, history and a detailed study of 4:157 and related verses show that there is hardly any basis to justify challenging the centuries-long semi-consensus that the Qur’an denies the crucifixion of Jesus.
Link: https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v40i1-2.3143
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #Bible #Crucifixion #History
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Time in the Qur’an
An Introductory Overview
By Enes Karic, University of Sarajevo
This essay is written with the aim of presenting, in an informative way, the main words of the Qur’ān relating to time or some aspect of time. The essay begins with a study of Qur’anic vocabulary on time done by Muhammad b. Mūsā Bābāʻammī in his work Mafhūm al-Zamān fī-l-Qurʼān al-Karīm. However, in the essay we have sought to present the semantic richness of the vocabulary of the Qurʼān that relates to time. The essay can serve as a starting point for other philological, theological, and phil-osophical studies of the terminology of Islam relating to time. God created time (al-zamān).
No time existed before that.
And God created place (al-makān).
No place existed before that.
The Absolute (al-Ḥaqq), the Magnificent, He was there although there was no place or time.
He is Supreme, no place reaches Him, Nor is He owned by time!
(al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʼif al-Ishārāt, 3:145)
Link: https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v39i3-4.3195
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #Time #Metaphysics #Theology
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The Human Being in Eastern Church Father’s and Al-Ghazali’s Philosophical Theology
By Nur Serikovich Kirabaev and Olga Vasilievna Chistyakova, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University)
The authors analyze two historical types of philosophical culture—the classical Eastern Patristics and Arab–Muslim medieval thought. They are united by the religious doctrine of man, which allows considering the intercultural and inter-theological nature of these traditions. In more particular terms, the article examines the understanding of the human being of the thinkers of Nicaea and post-Nicaea periods of Eastern patristics—Athanasius of Alexandria and Maximus the Confessor—and Abu Hamid al-Ghazali as the most profound representative of the Sufi philosophical–theological system of the Middle Ages. The authors highlight the philosophical, intercultural, and interreligious significance of the mentioned anthropological concepts. The article focuses on the comparability and consistency of the ideas of the Church Fathers and al-Ghazali. Particular attention is paid to Islam’s theoretical image of man as a caliph—a successor—of the Creator on the Earth. Comparative studies reveal the patristic vision of man, containing in himself the fullness of Divinity and humanity. The main points of the dyophysite Christian understanding of the God Incarnate in contrast to the monophysite currents of Apollinarianism are revealed. The depth of the Christological views of Athanasius of Alexandria and Maximus the Confessor is presented. Al-Ghazali’s doctrine of man is substantiated as a conceptual understanding of man’s place in the system of the world created by God, which is seen as a holistic and systematized doctrine of humanity in Muslim philosophy. Conclusions are made about the comparability and the presence of intersections between Eastern Christian, Byzantine, and Muslim types of thought.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070854
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Tags: #Islam #Christianity #Sufism #Ghazali #God #History
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On the Relationship between Design and Evolution
By Stephen Dilley, Casey Luskin, Brian Miller and Emily Reeves, Discovery Institute
A longstanding question in science and religion is whether standard evolutionary models are compatible with the claim that the world was designed. In The Compatibility of Evolution and Design, theologian E. V. Rope Kojonen constructs a powerful argument that not only are evolution and design compatible, but that evolutionary processes (and biological data) strongly point to design. Yet Kojonen’s model faces several difficulties, each of which raise hurdles for his understanding of how evolution and design can be harmonized. First, his argument for design (and its compatibility with evolution) relies upon a particular view of nature in which fitness landscapes are “fine-tuned” to allow proteins to evolve from one form to another by mutation and selection. But biological data run contrary to this claim, which poses a problem for Kojonen’s design argument (and, as such, his attempt to harmonize design with evolution). Second, Kojonen appeals to the bacterial flagellum to strengthen his case for design, yet the type of design in the flagellum is incompatible with mainstream evolutionary theory, which (again) damages his reconciliation of design with evolution. Third, Kojonen regards convergent evolution as notable positive evidence in favor of his model (including his version of design), yet convergent evolution actually harms the justification of common ancestry, which Kojonen also accepts. This, too, mars his reconciliation of design and evolution. Finally, Kojonen’s model damages the epistemology that undergirds his own design argument as well as the design intuitions of everyday “theists on the street”, whom he seeks to defend. Thus, despite the remarkable depth, nuance, and erudition of Kojonen’s account, it does not offer a convincing reconciliation of ‘design’ and ‘evolution’.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070850
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Tags: #Evolution #IntelligentDesign #Design #OoL #Creationism
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Monotheism and the Suffering of Animals in Nature
By Christopher Southgate, University of Exeter
This Element concerns itself with a particular aspect of the problem posed to monotheistic religious thought by suffering, namely the suffering of non-human creatures in nature. It makes some comparisons between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and then explores the problem in depth within Christian thought. After clarification of the nature of the problem, the Element considers a range of possible responses, including those based on a fall-event, those based on freedom of process, and those hypothesising a constraint on the possibilities for God as creator. Proposals based on the motif of self-emptying are evaluated. Two other aspects of the question concern God's providential relationship to the evolving creation, and the possibility of resurrection lives for animals. After consideration of the possibility of combining different explanations, the Element ends its discussion by looking at two innovative proposals at the cutting-edge of the debate.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108953092
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Tags: #Monotheism #Chriatianity #Judaism #PoE #Theodicy
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Prophetic Hadith and the Qur’ān-Only Movement: The Response of Muslim Scholars
By Emad Hamdeh, Indiana University Press
This article explores the Qur’ān-only movement, which advocates for the exclusive interpretation of Islam based on the Qur’ān without reference to the Prophetic Hadith. This movement emerged in the nineteenth century and represents a departure from traditional Islamic scholarship. To shed light on the complex intersection between religious tradition and modernity, this essay discusses the influence of modernity and Westernization on the development of Qur’ānist thought. It then provides a succinct overview of two primary contentions maintained by Muslim scholars who oppose the Qur’ānist movement. The first argument concerns the authority of ḥadīth, while the second concerns their authenticity and historical reliability. With regard to the former, traditional Muslim scholars underscore the significance of the Prophet’s life for deriving Islamic belief and practice from the Qur’ān, knowledge which can only be acquired from the Hadith. The second argument examined here involves the ways in which Islamic scholars defend the authenticity of the Prophetic Hadith with probabilistic reasoning, suggesting that rejecting the Hadith solely based on the absence of absolute certainty is not reasonable or consistent with the broader Islamic intellectual tradition. They argue that accepting something that is probable but not certain is common in many fields of study, including ḥadīth scholarship. In the science of ḥadīth (‘ilm al-ḥadīth), scholars have developed what they consider to be sophisticated methods to evaluate the authenticity of ḥadīth reports based on various degrees of probability. Therefore, they advocate for an approach that acknowledges the role of probability in ḥadīth scholarship while upholding the rigorous standards of authenticity and reliability that have been developed over centuries of Islamic scholarship.
Link: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/896982
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #Hadith #History
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Ibn‘Arabī and the Spiritual Sīrah of Prophet Muḥammad
By Ismail Lala, University for Science & Technology
While most traditional works on the life of Prophet Muḥammad focus on how his ostensible teachings and actions can be used as a template for human conduct, the thirteenth-century Sufi thinker, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240), turns his attention to the spiritual significance and inner reality of Prophet Muḥammad. Ibn ‘Arabī argues that as the seal of the prophets, Muḥammad was not only given the Qur’an, which incorporated elements from previous revelations, nor was he just given a religion that had elements from prior religions; rather, in his very spiritual essence, he combined the essences of previous prophets. It is in this sense that Muḥammad represents the culmination of the prophetic life. In his Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Ibn ‘Arabī reveals the spiritual significance of all the prophets mentioned in the Qur’an, with the exception of Khālid ibn Sinān, whom Ibn ‘Arabī considers to be a prophet and dedicates a chapter to, but who is not mentioned in the Qur’an. The present paper explores how the spiritual essences of previous prophets are manifested in Prophet Muḥammad, and the ways in which this comprehensiveness is exhibited in his life. This ‘spiritual sīrah’ is all the more significant in the modern context, where spirituality is privileged over religiosity. Ibn ‘Arabī demonstrates that the spiritual basis of the life of Prophet Muḥammad cannot be extricated from his external actions. The ‘spiritual sīrah’ thus provides an antidote to the religious associational formalism that is rejected by many modern Muslims.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14060804
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Tags: #Quran #IbnArabi #Islam #ProphetMuhammad #Seerah #Sufism #Mysticism
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Christian Philosophy and the Problem of God
By Charles Taliaferro, St Olaf College
Questions are raised about Christian philosophy and God. Is Christian philosophy truly philosophical? Is it Biblical? Is it capable of addressing God, a profoundly transcendent being? Does appealing to a God's eye point of view make sense? Can Christian philosophy respect religious diversity? While the integrity of Christian philosophy is defended, questions are raised about its relationship to the overall practice of philosophy. Christian philosophers value drawing others to Christian faith. Are Christian apologetics compatible with philosophy? This Element concludes with reflection on when it may be philosophically acceptable to appeal to mystery.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009296045
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Tags: #God #Christianity #PoE #Evil #Islam #Judaism
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Biological Purposes Beyond Natural Selection: Self-Regulation as a Source of Teleology
By Javier González de Prado and Cristian Saborido, UNED
Selected-effects theories provide the most popular account of biological teleology. According to these theories, the purpose of a trait is to do whatever it was selected for. The vast majority of selected-effects theories consider biological teleology to be introduced by natural selection. We want to argue, however, that natural selection is not the only relevant selective process in biology. In particular, our proposal is that biological regulation is a form of biological selection. So, those who accept selected-effects theories should recognize biological regulation as a distinctive source of biological teleology. The purposes derived from biological regulation are of special interest for explaining and predicting the behavior of organisms, given that regulatory mechanisms directly modulate the behavior of the systems they regulate. This explanatory power, added to the fact that regulation is widespread in the biological world, makes the idea that regulation gives rise to its own form of teleology a substantial contribution to the debate on biological teleology.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-023-00695-2
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Tags: #Biology #Science #Teleology #Design
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Norms and Values in Islamic Legal Reasoning: The Case of Listening to Music (Samāʿ)
By Omar Farahat, McGill University
This essay examines the ways in which pre-modern Muslim jurists adapted their legal methods to accommodate the complexity of the act of listening to music. I classify those methods from the least to the most inclusive of underlying notions of moral value. This study shows that models on opposite ends of the spectrum function in similar ways. Whether, as in Ibn Ḥazm’s work, the scope of legal norms is confined to the immediate textual meaning, or, as in Ibn Taymiyya’s thought, the formulation of norms corresponds to an underlying moral aim, the result is a broad treatment of all phenomena that relate to music (samāʿ). By contrast, Ghazālī’s discussion of samāʿ is guided by the need to attain conviction of the appropriate course of action rather than the pursuit of an objective truth about the legal-moral status of the act of listening to music, resulting in a subtle case-by-case evaluation, rather than an overarching judgment. While this study does not attempt to give a comprehensive historical account of how and why scholars of Islamic law attempted to restrict or permit certain musical experiences, we can ultimately see how the sharīʿa, a legal system that is fundamentally concerned with moral behavior, purported to advance reasonable models for the assessment and regulation of complex social phenomena.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14060780
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Tags: #Islam #Ethics #Morality #IslamicLaw
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The Preacher Yaḥyā ibn Muʻādh al-Rāzī and His Disciples in Rayy
By Fateh Saeidi, University of Göttingen
Yaḥyā ibn Muʻādh al-Rāzī (d. 258/872) is one of the prominent figures of early Sufism in the Jibāl region. According to later Sufi biographies and manuals, he was the primary among Sufis to preach from a pulpit, which that is why he is alluded to as ‘the Preacher’ (al-wāʻiẓ). Yaḥyā has travelled extensively throughout the Islamic world, preaching and earning a living. Some believe that Yaḥyā's followers called themselves Muʻādhiyya and refrained from making a definite statement about the punishment of the Hereafter or the forgiveness of major sins. The aim of this study is to discuss the some of the main elements of the Karrāmiyya attitude, like the issue of God's forgiveness, true trust in God, and the emphasis on hope for God's beneficence, which can be found in the preaching of Yaḥyā ibn Muʻādh. In addition, his ontological and mystical attitude to the Creation will be examined. The article then focuses on two of his famous disciples, Ibrāhīm bin Aḥmad al-Khawwāṣ (d. 291/894) and Yūsuf bin al-Ḥusayn al-Rāzī (d. 304/916-7). Al-Khawwāṣ is the best-known advocate of tawakkul, who carried the idea of self-abandonment and trust in God to the extreme. The Malāmatī orientation of Yūsuf al-Rāzī is one of the most significant points that hagiographers underline about his mystical worldview.
Link: TBD
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Tags: #Islam #Sufism #History #Mysticism
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The End of Jesus’ Life on Earth in the Qur’an
By Louay Fatoohi, Sadis Publishing Ltd.
Muslim scholars have always accepted that Jesus escaped the attempt to crucify him, was raised to heaven, continues to live there, and will return at the end of time. The Qur’an is usually cited as the source of the first two beliefs, whereas the latter two have their main support in Ḥadīth, although both sources are also cited in support of all of these views. This paper focuses on what the Qur’an says about Jesus’ fate after the failed attempt to crucify him. It reviews the majority view before discussing how it started to be questioned in the late-nineteenth century by scholars who offered alternatives. The article then focuses on the terms tawaffī and rafʿ, which the Qur’an uses in describing God’s intervention to save Jesus. Our analysis confirms the centuries-long understanding of the Qur’anic text that Jesus was raised alive to heaven. But it disagrees with the traditional view that he is still alive, finding instead support for the alternative view of the minority of modern scholars that Jesus did not live a supernaturally long life, hence he is dead. The relevant Qur’anic verses indicate that Jesus was raised alive to heaven and died there.
Link: TBD
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Tags: #Islam #Christianity #Jesus #Quran
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Pantheism, Omnisubjectivity, and the Feeling of Temporal Passage
By Andrei A. Buckareff, Marist College
By “pantheism” I mean to pick out a model of God on which God is identical with the totality of existents constitutive of the universe. I assume that, on pantheism, God is an omnispatiotemporal mind who is identical with the universe. I assume that, given divine omnispatiotemporality, God knows everything that can be known in the universe. This includes having knowledge de se of the minds of every conscious creature. Hence, if God has knowledge de se of the minds of every conscious creature, then divine omniscience implies omnisubjectivity. Assuming that eternalism is true, robust temporal passage is an illusion. But, conscious creatures, such as human persons, experience robust temporal passage. If God has the attribute of omnisubjectivity, then God experiences temporal passage. However, God also has a unified experience of the entire spatiotemporal continuum. God’s having these two perspectives creates a tension for pantheism given that God would seem to experience both temporal passage and an absence of temporal passage. I compare non-personal pantheism and personal pantheism and consider which one has better resources to answer the foregoing puzzle. I argue that personal pantheism is better equipped to address this problem than non-personal pantheism.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14060758
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Tags: #God #Omniscience #Pantheism #Time
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Modal-epistemic arguments for the existence of God based on the possibility of the omniscience and/or refutation of the strong agnosticism
By Fábio Maia Bertato, University of Campinas
In this article I present some modal-epistemic arguments for the existence of God, based on the possibility of omniscience. For this, I provide modal formal systems that allow obtaining the existence of God as a theorem. Moreover, based on what I assume as reasonable premises, they show that the strong agnostic position is contradictory, since it allows the conclusion both that God exists and that God does not exist.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412523000537
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Tags: #God #Logic #Omniscience
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Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s Jurisprudence of Priorities
A Critical Assessment
By Murie Hassan, University of Melbourne
According to Yusuf al-Qaradawi – a prominent Muslim jurist of the contemporary period, the jurisprudence of priorities is intended to mitigate excess and negligence in legal reasoning. This article examines the fundamental principles of the jurisprudence of priorities as propounded by Yusuf al-Qaradawi in relation to the foundational sources of Islamic law. The purpose of this article is to dissect the constituent legal principles of the jurisprudence of priorities and critically evaluate their validity and coherence against the textual and rational evidences of Islamic law. This article argues that the fundamental principles of the jurisprudence of priorities are validated in the sources of Islamic law, and do facilitate the mitigation of excess and negligence in legal reasoning.
Link: https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v40i1-2.3190
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Tags: #Fiqh #Islam #Shariah #IslamicLaw
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Cosmographical Readings of the Qurʾan
By Adrien Chauvet, The University of Sheffield
The Qurʾan is the primary source of inspiration for Muslims across the ages. As Muslims, the task is to make the Qurʾan relevant to our own context. That task is however challenged every time the conception of the world changes. The change from a medieval Aristotelian to a modern heliocentric view of the world represented just such a challenge. But regardless of the differing worldviews, the Qurʾan’s descriptions of natural phenomena remained relevant. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to demonstrate the correspondence between the Qurʾanic description of natural phenomena and various scientific paradigms. It claims that the Qurʾan is relevant to both past and present scientific paradigms, even if these paradigms conflict with one another. This claim is illustrated through the example of cosmographies. It shows that the Qurʾan’s cosmographical verses can be read considering both ancient and modern paradigms. This multiplicity of correspondences is achieved: (1) by means of subjective descriptions, which are open to interpretation, (2) by means of negative affirmations, which allude to certain paradigms without fully endorsing them, and (3) through a silence about key elements that would unambiguously validate or refute a specific scientific paradigm. The Qurʾan’s interpretatively open cosmographical verses also include particularly apt word choices and morphology when it comes to considering them in the light of modern scientific paradigms. The philosophical and theological consequences of this multiplicity of correspondence are also discussed.
Link: https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v39i3-4.3195
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #Cosmology #Science #Metaphysics #Theology
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Islamic Caricature Controversy from Jyllands-Posten to Charlie Hebdo from the Perspective of Arab Opinion Leaders
By Lana Kazkaz and Míriam Díez Bosch, Ramon Llull University
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 editorial cartoons in September 2005. Cultural and political relations between the West and the Arabic and Islamic worlds have witnessed multiple events that revealed the nature and understanding of historical relations between the worlds, and the role of contemporary media in formulating them. After this incident, the phenomenon of Western media handling of Islamic religious symbols began to arouse interest, where they faced angry responses in the Arabic and Islamic worlds, which denounced Denmark, while Denmark, as a country, refused to apologize to Muslims for what they considered a major abuse, which led some Arab countries to suspend relations with the latter. Additionally, in January 2015, the French magazine Charlie Hebdo was targeted in a deadly attack on its headquarters in Paris, killing 12 people for its “red-line cartoons” on Islam. This study seeks to understand the positions of a group of opinion leaders comprised of intellectuals and influencers who represent cultural and political currents in a number of Arab countries from the phenomenon of cartoons in Western media. This study aimed to evaluate them on the intense reactions of rage witnessed in multiple Islamic countries that occurred after the release of these drawings, and ask them basic questions: Did the Arab media, opinion leaders, and intellectuals have an inciting role that provoked the Western media’s handling of Islamic religious symbols or did this practice coincide with the Arab-Islamic cultural context and its limits? Answering the above questions helped to reveal the features of continuity and change in the perception of opinion leaders in the Arab world on the role of Western media in the dialogue and cultural conflict between the Arab-Islamic and Western worlds.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070864
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Tags: #Islam #Islamophobia #Religion #Culture
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The Qurʾān and the Bible: Abrogation (naskh) or Confirmation (taṣdīq)?
By Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour, University of Bristol/Al-Azhar University
Two Qurʾānic concepts have largely defined how the Qurʾān related to previous revelations. Those two concepts are taḥrīf (alteration) and naskh (abrogation). Appealing to those two concepts, the mainstream understating of the Qurʾān was that it superseded pre-Islamic scriptures and that, after its revelation, such scriptures had limited epistemic value. With this in mind, this article aims to achieve descriptive and prescriptive goals. With the descriptive goal, it problematizes the theories of taḥrīf and naskh, with a view to showing how such concepts influenced Muslim understanding of the Straight Path (al-Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm). With the prescriptive goal, it proposes the concept of taṣdīq (confirmation) as an alternative. In doing so, this article demonstrates how, despite the fact that the Qurʾān never shied away from critiquing what it believes to be forms of deviation in the Bible, it never introduced itself as an “abrogator” (nāsikh) to it but rather as a “confirmer” (muṣaddiq) in no less than 12 occurrences in the Qurʾān, but the concept of taṣdīq was largely overshadowed by the overemphasis on taḥrīf and naskh.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070856
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Tags: #Quran #Hermeneutics #Bible
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Did Mīrdāmād believe in the primacy of quiddity?
By Hamid Reza Khademi, The Institute for Research and Development in the Humanities; Reza Hesari, Bagher-al-Oloum University
Some scholars showed that Mīrdāmād believed in the ‘primacy of quiddity’ by adducing his theory of ‘the simple act of creation’ in which an entity’s quiddity is the ‘object‘ of the act of creation, and by adducing his belief that ‘existence‘ is constructed. Some other passages in Mīrdāmād’s work reinforce such attribution, made by his prominent student, Mullā Ṣadrā and his followers. This article offers a careful account of Mīrdāmād’s theory of ‘simple act of creation’ to assess the accuracy or inaccuracy of this attribution, and to provide a precise picture of quiddity in his philosophical system. The authors concluded that Mīrdāmād’s idea about ‘quiddity’ as the ‘object’ of creation by no means implies the primacy of quiddity as understood by Mullā Ṣadrā.By explicating his theory of ‘the simple act of creation’, they showed that it does’ imply the primacy of quiddity.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/09552367.2023.2225962
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Tags: #Islam #Quiddity #MullaSadra #Metaphysics
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Phenomenology of Quranic Corporeality and Affect: A Concrete Sense of Being Muslim in the World
By Valerie Gonzalez, Independent Researcher
It is a matter to ponder that, among the three Abrahamic monotheisms, Islam places the greatest ontotheological distance between the human and the divine. While God is the ground of being Muslim, Islam excludes theophany and prohibits any tangible association between the divine and anything in the material world. God’s mode of manifesting Himself to His creatures has consisted of the most fleeting and discorporate of all means of communication, namely, sound. His words gathered in the Qur’an thus form a non-solid verbal bridge crossing over that unfathomable distance. One could then think that the relationship between the unique Creator and His creatures relies only on the strength of a blind faith founded on a dry, discursive pact. Arguing his “idea of an anthropology of Islam”, Talal Asad did posit that this religion and its culture form “a discursive tradition”. Exclusively focused on the mental modes of knowledge acquisition, this cognitivist verbalist characterization has become a certitude in Islamic studies at large. Yet, it is only a half-truth, for it overlooks the emphatic involvement, in the definition of this tradition of Islam, of the non-linguistic phenomenality of experience that implicates the pre-logical non-cognitive double agency of affect and sensation in the pursuit of divine knowledge. This article expounds this phenomenology of the Qur’an in using an innovative combination of philosophical and literary conceptualities, and in addressing some hermeneutical problems posed by the established Quranic studies.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070827
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #Hermeneutics #Phenomenology
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God in the Face of Natural and Moral Evils: A Thomistic Approach
By Juan José Sanguineti, Austral University
The existence of evil in a world created by God raises very difficult questions to answer. Under the inspiration of Thomistic philosophy, in this article we face this problem first of all “from below”, trying to understand the meaning of physical evils in living nature, especially in animals (pain, aggressive interactions). Secondly, in thinking of the enormous amount of moral evil in the human world, we consider the biblical faith in original sin as illuminating. We examine some points of Thomas Aquinas in this regard, especially his thesis that the physical cosmos is not affected by original sin and that the loss of man’s primitive happy situation involves a contradiction between his spiritual aspirations and his mortal nature subject to limits and suffering. This situation is remedied by the help God gives man through his ordinary Providence, which includes a personal struggle against evil, and above all through his salvific plan which we know thanks to the biblical faith.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070816
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Tags: #Thomism #PoE #Evil #Theodicy #Aquinas
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Responding to a Potpourri of Objections To the Modal Argument
By J P Moreland, Biola University
I present and clarify one form of the modal argument for substance dualism, and go on to state and provide defeaters for five of the major arguments raised against the modal argument as a whole. I do not provide an unabridged defence of the modal argument. Instead, I focus on a range of defeaters scattered throughout the literature that are raised against the modal argument. In my view, these have not been gathered in one place and freshly evaluated. Accordingly, my limited purpose is to fill this lacuna. Thus, I present a representative version of the modal argument to set the context for what follows. Next, I clarify and critique the five major objections directed at the modal argument in general.
Link: https://doi.org/10.53765/20512201.30.5.057
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Tags: #God #ModalArgument #Metaphysics #Dualism
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The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement
By El-Hussein A Y Aly, Indiana University
To encompass the history of Arabic practice of translation, this Element re-defines translation as combination, a process of meaning-remaking that synthesizes multi reality. The Arabic translators of the Middle Ages did not simply find an equivalent to the source text but combined its meaning with their own knowledge and experience. Thus, part of translating a text was to add new thought to it. It implies a complex process that Homi Bhabha calls “cultural hybridity,” in which the target text combines knowledge of the source text with knowledge from the target culture, and the source text is different from the target text “without assumed or imposed hierarchy.” Arabic translations were a cultural hybridity because the translators added new thought to their target texts, and because saw their language as equal to the Greek.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009385626
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Tags: #Arabic #Language #History
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Classifying Muslims: Contextualizing Religion and Race in the United Kingdom and Germany
By Elisabeth Becker, University of Heidelberg; Rachel Rinado, University of Colorado Boulder; Jeffrey Guhin, University of California Los Angeles
Since the late 20th century, public discourse in Muslim-minority countries has centered around the question of how to classify Muslims. In this paper, we compare the state, academic, and self-classification of Muslims in two countries: the United Kingdom and Germany. We propose that the historical experience of anti-Semitism makes religion a more salient master category to understand Muslims in Germany, while the history of both anti-Semitism and anti-Black racism largely resulting from colonial domination means that religion together with race are master categories used to understand Muslims in the United Kingdom. Through this multilayered ethnographic and historical analysis, we challenge taken-for-granted assumptions in both the political and academic milieu about what it means to be Muslim, emphasizing the importance of the interplay between sociopolitical categories and self-identifications.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12865
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Tags: #Religion #Race #Islam #Sociology
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Divine Providence through Predictable Chance Events: A Problem for Non-Competitive Accounts of Divine Action
By Josh Reeves, Samford University
This article addresses the question, ‘How can divine providence be reconciled with statistically random events?’ To limit the scope of the article, I focus on one popular version of meticulous providence that relies upon the primary/secondary causation distinction, influentially defended by Kathryn Tanner and her book God and Creation in Christian Theology. I argue that modern conceptions of chance and probability have made it more difficult to interpret chance events as part of God's meticulous providence since divine intentions in nature are expressed in ways that remove evidence of their purpose. The difficulty for meticulous providence is not that some events seem too random to be reconciled to God's providence, but rather the opposite: chance events do not have specific purpose behind them because they are predictable. I conclude that any satisfactory theological response to the problem of randomness necessitates a robust account of general providence that cannot be reduced to special providence.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12660
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Tags: #God #DivineProvidence #Theology #Metaphysics
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Different Approaches to Sunni-Shi‘I Exegetical Differences
By Izza Rohman, Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University
Exploring how Qur’ān exegetes deal with differences helps reveal different ways Muslims approach their internal diversity. This study examines the approaches of three modern exegetes incorporating both Sunni and Shi‘i literature in their works, i.e. al-Ṭabāṭabā’ī (1904-1981), Hamka (1908-1981), and Quraish Shihab (1944-), to addressing exegetical differences around Ahl al-Bayt mentioned in sūrat al-Aḥzab verse 33. Taking the inspiration of conflict resolution strategies to notice the three scholars’ concern for Sunnism and Shi’ism, this study finds that they demonstrate different levels of concern: al-Ṭabāṭabā’ī is ‘fully competing’, Hamka is ‘partially avoiding’, and Shihab is ‘partially compromising’. Their different interpretive strategies can explain this difference: al-Ṭabāṭabā’ī employs an objectivist approach of ‘interpretation of the Qur’ān in light of the Qur’ān itself’, Hamka focuses on a lucid style of Qur’ān interpretation accessible to a broader audience, and Shihab prefers a multi-subjective approach. This study implies that there is still a lack of tafsīr having equally serious concern for both Sunni and Shi‘a.
Link: TBD
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Tags: #Islam #Shiasm #Exegesis #History
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An inexplicably good argument for causal finitism
By Ibrahim Dagher, University of California
Causal finitism, the view that the causal history of any event must be finite, has garnered much philosophical interest recently—especially because of its applicability to the Kalām cosmological argument. The most prominent argument for causal finitism is the Grim Reaper argument, which attempts to show that, if infinite causal histories are possible, then other paradoxical states of affairs must also be possible. However, this style of argument has been criticized on the grounds of (i) relying on controversial modal principles, and (ii) providing a false diagnosis of the paradoxes involved. In this paper, I develop a new kind of Grim Reaper argument immune to these criticisms. I show that, by using insights from the literature on time travel, causal finitists should instead argue that infinite causal histories are problematically inexplicable, as they entail the possibility of unexplained foiling mechanisms. The fruits of this paper are that (i) a novel supporting argument for the Kalām is developed, and (ii) along the way of building this argument, it is shown that the literatures on time travel and causal finitism are deeply and intimately connected.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-023-09876-z
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Tags: #God #Kalam #Time #KCA
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The influence of spirituality and religion on health and well-being for older Pacific People
By Stephen Neville, Te Pūkenga; Sara Napier, Auckland University of Technology
The influence of spirituality and religion on the health and well-being of older adults has gained considerable attention as older adults worldwide continue to live long, active lives. This study explores the influence of spirituality and religion on the health and well-being of older Pacific people living in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Using the principles of a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach and talanoa with 39 Tongan, 42 Cook Island Māori and 23 Samoan elders revealed spirituality is essential to Pacific elders’ health and well-being. Participants faith in an omnipotent Christian God and the subsequent influence on their relationships with family and community significantly impacted their experiences of health and well-being. Strong relationships with God, extended family and community enabled Pacific elders to live a harmonious life. Religion and spirituality should be embraced as an integral component of health and social care plans.
Link:
https://doi.org/10.1080/15528030.2023.2221872
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Tags: #Religion #Religiosity #Spirituality #Sociology
