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(Re-)Forging the Science of Bayān
ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī in the Early Twentieth Century
By Mostafa Najafi, University of Lucerne
ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī took center stage in the field of bayān (called as well balāġa) during the first half of the twentieth century thanks, above all, to the efforts of Muḥammad ʿAbduh and Hellmut Ritter. As similar as they are in their approach, ʿAbduh and Ritter came to represent two mutually dismissive scholarly traditions with respect to Ǧurǧānī and the science of bayān. These two apparently divergent traditions, wittingly or unwittingly, contributed to forging one and the same image of Ǧurǧānī and bayān. As I attempt to show in this paper, this image that still prevails in the scholarly discourse was built under the shadow of falsafa.
Link: https://doi.org/10.5617/jais.10416
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Tags: #Islam #Quran #History
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Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s (d. 631/1233) Kashf al-tamwīhāt fī sharḥ al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt: Avicennan Philosophy as Currency in the Struggle for Influence
By Laura Hassan, University of Oxford
Given the proliferation of commentarial works in the post-Ghazālian era of Islamic intellectual history, the close study of individual commentaries has recently become a key scholarly concern. To take us beyond the necessarily generalizing categories presented by Dimitri Gutas when he first charted the territory of this genre, an approach is needed that involves narrow textual analysis without neglecting the broader context in which a work is authored. Among the works that were initially taken by Gutas as evidence of the “mainstream Avicennism” of their authors is Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s (d. 631/1233) Kashf al-tamwīhāt fī sharḥ al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt, in which he sets out to critique Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 610/1210) commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s Pointers and Reminders. In this article, I study the work from three perspectives. Firstly, I consider the contents of the Kashf, in terms of both the scope and the nature of its interaction with al-Rāzī’s first-order commentary on the Ishārāt. Secondly, I calibrate the findings of my textual analysis with materials taken from the accounts of al-Āmidī’s biographers, showing that these sources are mutually interpretive. Thirdly, I analyze the Kashf from within the context of his broader corpus. Together, I argue, these three perspectives contribute to a more nuanced understanding of what it means to describe al-Āmidī’s Kashf as a work of Avicennism.
Link: https://doi.org/10.5840/islamicphil2023143
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Tags: #Islam #Avicenna #IbnArabi #Razi #History
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Ibn ʿArabī’s School of Thought: Philosophical Commentaries on Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, not a Sufi Order
By L. W. Cornelis van Lit, Utrecht University
Followers of Ibn ʿArabī are considered to constitute an “Akbari” school of thought. The use of the term ‘school’ assumes some sort of cohesion, but the nature of this has been little studied. I argue that adherents found a substitute for the in-person study sessions (sing. majlis) that were common among Sufis, by identifying Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam with Ibn ʿArabī. Thus they were able to establish a direct connection with their preferred master by reading and commenting on this book. By placing their own commentary among other commentaries on the Fuṣūṣ, they created a bookish majlis; a dialogue with their master and other students similar to an in-person majlis. Whether conscious or subconscious, this idea became prevalent: no real organization such as a Sufi order came to be, but instead we have dozens and dozens of direct commentaries. Making Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam an icon for Ibn ʿArabī became, at times, so strong as to turn the book into an idol or effigy.
Link: https://doi.org/10.5840/islamicphil2023146
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Tags: #Islam #IbnArabi #History #Sufism
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Observations Concerning the Development of Early Commentaries on the Wisdoms of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Sakandarī (d. 709/1309) – The Emergence of a Tradition
By Florian A. Lützen, Universität Tübingen
This article investigates the emergence of the first commentaries on al-Ḥikam al-ʿAṭāʾiyya (ʿAṭāʾian Wisdoms), written by Ibn ʿAbbād of Ronda (d. 792/1390) and Aḥmad Zarrūq (d. 899/1494), from within their respective contexts. Particular focus is placed on how the tradition of commenting on the text was undertaken against the backdrop of the formation of the Sufi movements and concerns from the scholarly community. The formation of the Shādhiliyya coincides with these first commentaries on the Wisdoms, and hence, it is no coincidence that both scholars intensively discuss different types of Sufism in their works. To date, when scholars discuss Ibn ʿAbbād and Zarrūq, their respective roles in society and the evolving Sufi movements are emphasized, but their commentaries on the Wisdoms are neglected to a certain extent. In addressing this gap, this contribution offers observations concerning the permissibility of reading Sufi books, the commentary culture in Western (maghribī) Sufism, and the development of the Shādhiliyya movement, and provides an outlook on how al-Ḥikam al-ʿAṭāʾiyya later became part of the university curriculum.
Link: https://doi.org/10.5840/islamicphil2023147
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Tags: #Islam #Sufism #History
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Darwin's doubt or Plantinga's conviction? Some failures in Plantinga's attempt to debunk naturalistic evolution
By L. H. Marques Segundo, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Darwin's Doubt (DD) – a thesis according to which the probability of the human cognitive mechanism's reliability given non-guided evolution is low – is central to Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism and his suggestion that the adoption of guided evolution thesis is preferable from a theory choice point of view. In this article I'll argue that there are three fundamental failures in Plantinga's argument. First, I argue that Plantinga's argument for DD is question-begging. Second, I point out that this very same argument is not in accordance with the way the evolutionary scientists usually reason. And finally I argue that the replacement of non-guided by guided evolution violates some reasonable belief-revision procedures in the history of science.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412523000562
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Tags: #Evolution #Plantinga #Naturalism
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Assalāmu‘alaykum Wa’rahmatullāhi Wa’barakatuh
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Modal Ontological Arguments
By Gregory R. P. Stacey, University of Leeds
Inspired by the third chapter of Anselm's Proslogion, twentieth century philosophers including Charles Hartshorne and Alvin Plantinga developed “modal” ontological arguments for the existence of God. Such arguments use modal logic to infer God's existence from the premises that (i) God's existence is possible and (ii) if God exists, He exists necessarily. Like other ontological arguments, modal arguments have won few converts to theism; many commentators consider them question-begging or liable to parody. This article details how recent attempts to defend these arguments have tried to overcome these difficulties by drawing on modern accounts of the epistemology and metaphysics of modality.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12938
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Tags: #God #MOA #Plantinga #Metaphysics
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What (if Anything) Should Christian Theology Learn from the Cognitive Science of Religion?
By Neil Messer, Baylor University
This article asks what, if anything, Christian theology should learn from the cognitive science of religion (CSR). Two possible answers are explored. The first is that Christian theology has nothing to learn from CSR. This is rejected in favour of the second: theology can learn from CSR by appropriating CSR insights carefully and critically to a theological understanding formed first and foremost by Scripture. Karl Barth’s theological critique of religion and his engagement with Ludwig Feuerbach are used as a model for this approach. The article concludes with specific proposals about how, and how not, to engage theologically with CSR.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2230435
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Tags: #Christianity #CSR #Psychology #Religion
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René Girard’s Mimetic Theory and Its Value in Understanding Sura Maryam: A Mimetic Analysis of Mythical, Biblical, and Apocryphal Transformations
By Hüseyin Çiçek, University of Vienna
This article examines the transformation of mythical, biblical and apocryphal narratives in the Surah Maryam (Surah 19) from the perspective of René Girard’s mimetic theory. It postulates that this theory adds value to the interpretation of the aforementioned surah. From a mimetic perspective, it can be shown that the new, nascent, early Islamic community tried to read the religious narratives structuring its environment in terms of a nonviolent relationship between creator and creature, and thus to distance itself from a sacrificial understanding of God.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070912
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Tags: #Quran #God #Islam #Bible
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Spiritual Growth of Said Nursi and Aleksander Solzhenitsyn in Prison
By Ismail Albayrak, Australian Catholic University
The article explores the approaches of individuals from two different religious traditions regarding prison spirituality: Said Nursi, who received a comprehensive classical education and furthered his knowledge through modern education, and A. Solzhenitsyn, who initially grew up as an atheist but rediscovered his religious upbringing while imprisoned, subsequently strengthening his spirituality over time. The research objectives of this article are to delve into the personal, intellectual, and spiritual transformations of these two influential figures during their time in prison, examining their pursuit of inner peace and the expansion of the heart. Additionally, it analyzes their development in parallel with the works they wrote. The experience of incarceration provided them with an opportunity to reflect on their own lives, independently of each other, and diagnose the societal issues prevalent in their respective times, such as atheism, materialism, hedonism, lack of spirituality, and excessive consumption. They then attempted to propose and develop solutions to these issues, not only for their immediate circles but also for the wider public. Thus, it is useful to identify these commonalities and differences, and then, discuss them from the comparative theological perspective set up by Francis J. Clooney, S.J. Their profound understanding of this crucial task of improving the lives of others enabled them to endure the hardships of prison and transform its detrimental effects into more fruitful endeavors. While there are similarities in their reflections on faith and the human condition, there are also notable differences in their approaches and perspectives. Nursi’s prison spirituality centered on Islamic teachings and the pursuit of religious knowledge, while Solzhenitsyn’s focused on ethical, moral, and existential evaluations in the context of atheistic and authoritarian regimes.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070902
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Tags: #SaidNursi #Sprituality #Islam #Atheism
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The Queen of Sheba in the Mystical Thought of Ibn ‘Arabī
By Ismail Lala, Gulf University for Science and Technology
The mystical commentary on the story of Bilqīs, the Queen of Sheba, from chapter 27 of the Qur’an carried out by the highly influential Sufi thinker Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240), shows that he differs radically from exoteric Sunni exegetes. The principal reason for this is Ibn ‘Arabī’s complete reliance on spiritual unveiling (kashf) as a hermeneutic tool. In the chapter on Sulaymān of Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Ibn ‘Arabī represents Bilqīs as the most perspicuous instantiation of the divine Name, “the Compassionate” (Al-Raḥmān). It is the divine trait of compassion, says Ibn ‘Arabī, that provides the existentiating impetus required to bring forth the entire cosmos. Due to her personification of this trait, Bilqīs’ ascent to the pinnacle of gnosis and her ontological superiority over her peers is extolled by Ibn ‘Arabī in her Qur’anic story.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070885
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Tags: #IbnArabi #Sufism #Quran
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Cognitive Science of Religion, Reliability, and Perceiving God
By Jeffrey Tolly, Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study
Matthew Braddock’s argument from false god beliefs (AFG) is one of the most significant debunking arguments to emerge from the growing literature on Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). This argument aims to produce a defeater for any basic theistic belief. In this essay, I reply to AFG by defending a counter-example to AFG’s crucial premise. In particular, I argue that the cognitive mechanisms posited by CSR do not “significantly contribute” to perceptually based theistic belief formation in the way that AFG claims. As a result, a large class of basic theistic beliefs remains undefeated in the face of AFG.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2230436
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Tags: #Religion #CSR #Science #God
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The Multidimensional Measurement of Religious/Spiritual Well-Being: Recent Developments in Scale Validation and Clinical Applications
By Human Friedrich Unterrainer, University of Vienna
Religiosity and spirituality (R/S) have been described extensively as being an integral part of subjective well-being and mental health, especially in Anglo-American regions. Accordingly, the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious/Spiritual Well-Being (MI-RSWB) was developed in the European context to be able to contribute to the further development of this research field by means of a validated measure. In this paper, after an introduction to basic considerations about the scale, more recent developments (from 2012 to 2022) regarding the use of the MI-RSWB are presented. Thus, it is intended to focus here on (1) the presentation of standard values for the MI-RSWB for the Austrian general population, (2) several scale translations into different languages, (3) more recent data on the relationship between RSWB, personality, and mental health, and (4) the potential clinical applications of the RSWB dimensions. As a conclusion, further potential applications of the RSWB concept are discussed.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070882
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Tags: #Religion #Spirituality #Sociology
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Happiness and Being Human: The Tension between Immanence and Transcendence in Religion/Spirituality
By Wessel Bentley, University of South Africa (UNISA)
What is the happiness that we strive for and what does it mean for our understanding of being human? As we pursue happiness, we find that happiness is complex, in many ways subjective to the experiences and contexts of individuals or groups. Happiness also can be found in attaining greater self-awareness and a sense of meaning/purpose. This article argues that religion/spirituality has a role to play in facilitating well-being/happiness in terms of the tension held in their understanding of immanence and transcendence. This will be done, using a science and religion discourse.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070877
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Tags: #Religion #Spirituality #Science #Sociology
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Shades of Structural Realism in Post-classical Islamic Thought
By Nazir Khan, Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research
What does Islamic theology have to say about the philosophy of science? The writings of post-classical Muslim thinkers offer a wealth of understudied material relevant to conceptualizing the ontological status, scope, and character of scientific inquiry and theorization. The Islamic tradition developed nuanced metaphysical and epistemological insights on unobservables, universals, and causality. Muslim astronomers developed sophisticated responses to perceived deficiencies in the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic model. In the contemporary debate between scientific realism and anti-realism, structural realism is a much-discussed middle ground which suggests a return to many of these insights. This challenges popular discourse on the relation between religion and science.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2230427
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Tags: #Islam #ScientificRealism #PhilosophyOfScience #Occasionalism
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Scientific Realism and Anti-Realism Through the Lens of Sunnī Divine Action Models
By David Solomon Jalajel, King Saud University
Scientific realism and anti-realism, in various forms, frame many philosophical discussions about what constitutes a successful scientific theory. This paper explores this within an Islamic framework by examining the Sunnī theological tradition's various divine action models (DAMs) for their possible impact upon the theological reception of scientific realism and anti-realism, concluding that the tradition would be committed to an agnostic stance on the question. This enables the tradition to remain relevant to a broad spectrum of future scientific developments and changing intellectual currents.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2230426
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Tags: #Islam #ScientificRealism #Theology #Occasionalism
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At the Intersection of uṣūl al-fiqh and kalām: The Commentary Tradition on Ṣadr al-Sharīʿa al-Thānī’s al-Muqaddimāt al-arbaʿ
By Philipp Bruckmayr, University of Vienna
Ṣadr al-Sharīʿa al-Thānī al-Maḥbūbī (d. 747/1346) was the last major Māturīdī theologian of Transoxania. As he left no work of rational theology (kalām) proper, one of the chief sources of his theological thought is his book on legal theory, al-Tawḍīḥ fī ḥall ghawāmiḍ al-Tanqīḥ. Because the work served as a prominent reference for both legal theory and rational theology, an extensive commentary tradition on it emerged as it was transmitted from Transoxania to South Asia, Anatolia, and the Arab world. A distinctive subfield of this commentary tradition consisted of glosses devoted exclusively to one specific section of al-Tawḍīḥ. Revolving around the nature of good and evil, and intimately linked to the question of human free will, this part of Ṣadr al-Sharīʿa’s text came to be treated as a separate work, commonly referred to as al-Muqaddimāt al-arbaʿ (“The four prolegomena”). Due to its role as a highly sophisticated refutation of late Ashʿarī doctrine on human volition, al-Muqaddimāt al-arbaʿ eventually developed into a prime source for later Māturīdī scholars in their discussion of human volition and related topics.
Link: https://doi.org/10.5840/islamicphil2023142
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Tags: #Islam #Kalam #Maturidism #History
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Social Proximity, Moral Obligation, and Intellectual Loyalty: The Commentaries of Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277) and Badr al-Dīn Ibn Jamāʿa (d. 733/1333) on the Muqaddima of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 643/1245)
By Mohammad Gharaibeh, Berlin Institute for Islamic Theology
The Muqaddima of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ on the science of Ḥadīth has attracted a large and complex commentary tradition. Its complexity lies in the fact that certain sorts of commentarial literature, such as abridgments (sg. mukhtaṣar), commentaries (sg. sharḥ), critical commentaries (nukat), and versifications (sg. manẓūma), were produced with a different focus across scholarly networks, locations, and time. Moreover, depending on the orientation of the scholarly networks that a commentator belonged to, the commentaries show different degrees of intellectual loyalty to the base text. Some support the arguments of the base text and follow its structure closely, while others refute ideas and restructure the content. This article centers its analysis on two examples of commentaries on the Muqaddima. Its leading hypothesis is that social proximity or distance to Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ and the network of his close students determines the degree of moral obligation and intellectual loyalty to Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ and the base text. The commentaries of al-Nawawī and Ibn Jamāʿa demonstrate this relation clearly.
Link: https://doi.org/10.5840/islamicphil2023149
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Tags: #Islam #Hadith #History
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Murphy's Anselmian theism and the problem of evil
By Luke Wilson, Illinois Wesleyan University
Mark Murphy has recently defended a novel account of divine agency on which God would have very minimal requiring reasons and a wide range of merely justified reasons. This account grounds his response to the problem of evil. If God would not have requiring reasons to promote the well-being of creatures, Murphy argues, then the evil we observe would not count as evidence against theism. I argue that Murphy's conclusion, if successful in undermining the problem of evil, also undermines probabilistic arguments for theism. However, there is good reason to resist his conclusion. Even if God does not have requiring reasons, but merely has justifying reasons, to promote creaturely well-being, God may nevertheless have most motivating reason to do so, and this would be enough to predict divine action, at least given Murphy's further assumption that God is perfectly free. It does not follow from the rational permissibility of God's Φ-ing that it is possible for God to Φ.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412523000604
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Tags: #God #PoE #Metaphysics #Anselm
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The functions of natural theology in Thomas Aquinas: A presumption of atheism
By Clemente Huneeus, Universidad de los Andes
Antony Flew argued for a ‘presumption of atheism’ that intended to put the philosophical debate about God under a light which demands setting the meaningfulness and logical coherence of the theistic notion of ‘God’ before any arguments for His existence are suggested. This way of proceeding, discussing divine attributes before considering the arguments for the existence of God, became dominant in analytic philosophy of religion. Flew also stated that Aquinas presented his five ways as an attempt to defeat such a presumption of atheism. However, Aquinas proceeds in the reverse order, beginning with God's existence before discussing the divine attributes. He does so because he believes that natural knowledge of God must be drawn from creatures. Accordingly, from the Thomist perspective, natural theology is necessary not because it provides rational justification for religious belief in God's existence, but rather as a means to fix the referent for the word ‘God’ (semantic function) and provide an intelligible account of the divine nature (hermeneutic function). We should also acknowledge a correlative hermeneutic function of religious faith. Therefore, natural theology should not begin from a presumption of atheism nor proceed in the way suggested by Flew, because its main intention is not strictly apologetical.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412523000616
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Tags: #God #Aquinas #Metaphysics #NaturalTheology
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God and gratuitous evil: Between the rock and the hard place
By Luis R. G. Oliveira, University of Houston
To most of us – believers and non-believers alike – the possibility of a perfect God co-existing with the kinds of evil that we see calls out for explanation. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the belief that God must have justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see has been a perennial feature of theistic thought. Recently, however, a growing number of authors have argued that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with the existence of gratuitous evil. Given powerful, millenia-long sensibilities about power and love and justice, it isn’t hard to find that suggestion simply incredible. Nonetheless, in this paper I will argue that the most prominent theistic alternatives to what has seemed incredible to most of us throughout most of history are themselves patently unacceptable for the theist as well. On any of the most widely accepted accounts of how God could have justifying reasons for permitting some evils, God’s existence means that we have justifying reasons for perpetrating and allowing every evil that we see. That’s hard to swallow too. If I’m right about all of this, then two competing outcomes seem to present themselves as a possible result. On the one hand, for the theist, the apparently outrageous suggestion that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with gratuitous evil no longer looks like it faces a formidable, hard-to-resist alternative. On the other hand, some like me might think that my arguments go no distance at all towards dispelling the incredibility of the gratuitous evil nouvelle vague. On this line, theism may seem now to be between the rock and the hard place: it seems hard to make sense of the existence of a perfect God whether or not He has justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-023-09883-0
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Tags: #God #PoE #Metaphysics
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Christianity Cultivated Science with and without Methodological Naturalism
By Michael N. Keas, Biola University
Many people assume ceaseless conflict between natural science and Christianity, but the real conflict has been between scientism and Christianity. Scientism is the view that only the sciences (especially not theology) generate knowledge or rational belief. I show how Christianity generated rational beliefs that contributed to the rise of science. This science-fostering rational belief included rationales for when to practice methodological naturalism, and when to study nature without that restriction. Both practices cultivated science, though in different ways. This historical difference is of enduring value for recent debates about metaphysical naturalism (atheism), creationism, theistic evolution, and intelligent design.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070927
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Tags: #Christianity #Evolution #Naturalism #IntelligentDesign
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The Use of Philosophy of Science in the Creationism-Evolution Debate: An Ashʿarī Perspective
By Shoaib Ahmed Malik, Zayed University
This article critically reviews how creationists or antievolutionists are using discussions in philosophy of science to undermine the efficacy of evolution to defuse the tension between evolution and religion. They include (1) the scientific realism debate, (2) the distinction between historical and experimental sciences, (3) the problem of induction, and (4) the definitional problem of species. It then discusses how using these specific arguments to undermine evolution is misplaced when looked at from an Ashʿarī perspective, a Sunnī school of theology. In doing so, it reveals the multiple ways that theology and philosophy of science interacting with one another in the ongoing creationism-evolutionism debates.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2230430
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Tags: #Asharism #ScientificRealism #Islam #Creationism #Evolution
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Philosophy and Religion in the Political Thought of Alfarabi
By Ishraq Ali, Zhejiang University
Philosophy and religion were the two important sources of knowledge for medieval Arab Muslim polymaths. Owing to the difference between the nature of philosophy and religion, the interplay between philosophy and religion often takes the form of conflict in medieval Muslim thought as exemplified by the Al-Ghazali versus Averroes (Ibn Rusd) polemic. Unlike the Al-Ghazali versus Averroes (Ibn Rushd) polemic, the interplay between philosophy and religion in the political philosophy of Abu Nasr Alfarabi takes the form of harmonious co-existence. Although, for Alfarabi, religion is an inferior form of knowledge as compared to philosophy, the present article will show that philosophy and religion play equally significant roles in Alfarabi’s virtuous city and that in the absence of either philosophy or religion, the political system proposed by Alfarabi cannot exist.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070908
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Tags: #Kalam #AlFarabi #Islam #Politics #Theology
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The Science of Letters and Alchemy in Ibn ʿArabī’s Jesus
By Jaime Flaquer, Universidad Loyola
This article briefly presents what the science of letters and alchemy meant for Ibn ʿArabī and explains why this Sufi mystic attributes the highest degree of these sciences to Jesus. We will see how the science of letters is a knowledge of God’s creation, which He creates with His Word, where the existentiation verb, Kun (Be!), plays a fundamental role. This imperative pronounced by God when He wants something to exist appears in the Qurʾān in reference to Jesus. This prophet, being a word and a breath that have their origin in God, receives the knowledge of every word, which is formed by letters. Through this knowledge, Jesus can participate in God’s creative power with His permission, and with the knowledge of alchemy, he will have transformative and healing powers. As this is a science of healthy proportions, Ibn ʿArabī credits Jesus with the knowledge of alchemy due to the impeccable balance he maintained between his human and spiritual natures. This article results from reading his immense work, approached from both theological and religious science methodologies.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070897
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Tags: #IbnArabi #Sufism #Quran #Jesus
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Divine Character: Iqbal's Conception of Divine Action and Armstrong's Laws of Nature
By Logan David Siler, New Horizon School
This paper will look at David Malet Armstrong's conception of the Laws of Nature in light of Iqbal's conception of nature and divine action. For the sake of pragmatic austerity Armstrong rooted his theory in naturalism, physicalism, and an understanding of the world as a “state of affairs.” In contrast to Humean empiricists, nominalists, and transcendent realists, Armstrong affirmed the reality of both universals and particulars, which relate to each other in what Mumford calls a form of immanent and a posterior realism. It is out of this formulation that he developed his Laws of Nature as relations between universals. Due to the theoretical problems that typically arise from interactionist views (such as some forms of theism), Armstrong operates from a viewpoint that would question the conceivability of anything acting upon nature from beyond the spatio-temporal realm. However, the conception of God offered by Iqbal, the Ultimate Reality existing as “pure-duration”–holding together “the multiplicity of objects and events,” offers a view of nature not as “a mass of pure materiality occupying a void,” but as a “structure of events, a systematic mode of behavior” that is “organic” to the Ultimate Self. Nature is an expression of God's character, His habit. And, “nature”, or “laws of nature,” is our interpretation of the “creative activity” of the Creator. This essay will thus elaborate on the details of Iqbal's conception of God and divine action and the benefits it offers to one seeking to operate within the pragmatic benefits of Armstrong's system while maintaining a decidedly theistic worldview.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2230428
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Tags: #Islam #Theology #naturalism #nominalism
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How Does Religious Faith Impact Positive Youth Outcomes
By Michael A. Goodman and W. Justin Dyer, Brigham Young University
This study investigates the protective aspects of religiosity in young adolescents and explores the potential processes involved. Specifically, we examine the influence of three measures of religiosity—religious salience, intrinsic religiosity, and daily religious experiences—on delinquency and anxiety. The study sample consists of 636 families located in the state of Utah. Additionally, we explore how positive youth development (PYD) constructs may mediate the relationship between religiosity and adolescent outcomes. The findings indicate that religious salience and daily religious experiences are directly and indirectly associated with lower levels of delinquency and anxiety. Furthermore, two PYD constructs—character and connectivity—serve as mediators between religious salience, daily religious experiences, and these outcomes. These findings are discussed within the framework of Bronfenbrenner’s PPCT model of bioecological theory.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070881
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Tags: #Religion #Psychology #Sociology
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Tafsīr or Taʾwīl? The Shaykhī Contribution to the Qurʾānīc Tradition of Nineteenth Century Iran
By Leila Chamankhah, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology
The study of Qurʾānīc exegesis in the Shaykhī school has been widely, albeit surprisingly, neglected in modern scholarship. It is surprising because there is hardly any aspect of Shaykhīsm that has remained intact after scholars have touched upon different dimensions of the school. Considering the Qurʾān, its centrality in Islamic tradition and the different methods of reading it, what is commonly understood and accepted by the mainstream as exegesis (tafsīr) might not necessarily be a suitable label for what the Shaykhī leaders did in their very ‘distinguished’ reading and interpretation of the Book. I call it ‘distinguished’, because Shaykhī elitism remains far from any compromising effort that might reduce the complexity and convolution of an all-celestial text into a literal interpretation. From a Shaykhī perspective, any such simplified challenge would not do justice to the deep and multiple levels (buṭūn) of meaning in the Qurʾān, which need an esoteric, and at times lettrist methodology to unveil divine revelation (tanzīl). Furthermore, every word needs to be understood in consideration of the akhbār of the imāms as well. Given this, the present paper will examine a number of key writings, delving into how the Shaykhī ʿulemā have interpreted the Qurʾān from an esoteric perspective, and by so doing have left a legacy which has culminated in what I call ‘the exegetical school of Kerman’. Pertinent to this is the language of the school.1 As the paper argues, the choice of Arabic as the language of tafsīr in a Persophone context was deliberate, and in fact should be understood in the light of the Shaykhī approach that assigns understanding the Qurʾān to only a skilled few.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12468
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Tags: #Quran #Exegesis #Islam
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Malebranche on Space, Time, and Divine Simplicity
By Torrance Fung, The College of Idaho
Not much attention has been paid to Malebranche’s philosophy of time. Scholars who have written on it have typically written about it only in passing, and by and large discuss it only in relation to his philosophy of religion. This is appropriate insofar as Malebranche doesn’t discuss his views of time in isolation from his religious metaphysics. I argue that Malebranche’s conception of how created beings have their properties commits him to saying that God is omnitemporal rather than atemporal. For just as bodies get their spatiality by participating in God’s omnipresence, so all creatures get their temporality by participating in God’s omnitemporality. Moreover, Malebranche is a substantivalist about space and time: infinite space and time are one and the same divinely simple substance, God (partially considered), who contains the world. My exploration of Malebranche’s metaphysics sheds light on his views of eminent containment, participation, and causation.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-023-09880-3
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Tags: #God #Time #DivineSimplicity #Metaphysics
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Islamic Theology and the Crisis of Contemporary Science: Naquib al-Attas’ “Metaphysical Critique” and a Husserlian Alternative
By Ramon Harvey, Cambridge Muslim College
This article evaluates the “metaphysical critique” of contemporary science by the Islamic philosophical theologian Naquib al-Attas in his Prolegomena to a Metaphysics of Islām. I argue that al-Attas' critique is dialectically inappropriate because it relies on specific, and non-publicly verifiable, interpretations of revelation and spiritual intuition. I contrast this with the work of Edmund Husserl, especially in his The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, which I show can sustain a viable critique of science through the phenomenological grounding of public reason. I also assess the prospect for Islamic engagement with Husserl on this topic.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2230429
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Tags: #Islam #Metaphysics #Science
