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NIODA and the Problem of Evil: God as Ultimate Determiner
By Javier Sánchez-Cañizares, University of Navarra
The problem of evil permeates contemporary theodicy, raising the question of how an omnipotent and benevolent God can allow its existence. Exploring this inquiry is inherently tied to investigating divine action, specifically the interplay between time and eternity within a temporary creation. In recent decades, the Non-Interventionist Objective Divine Action (NIODA) project has endeavored to present a science-backed perspective that acknowledges a respectful divine action harmonizing with the workings of nature. However, this viewpoint has faced criticism from various angles, particularly for its perceived inability to provide a definitive response to the problem of evil. This contribution aims to overcome these criticisms. While not necessarily endorsing the NIODA proposal, it seeks to present a fresh outlook on the question of evil that aligns with NIODA, addressing the dichotomy between the unity and plurality of divine action in the world and offering novel insights for the Christian doctrine of creation.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14081037
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Tags: #God #Evil #PoE #Theodicy
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Vanquishers of the Crusaders: Mujāhidūn Characters in Arabic Folk Epics
By Oleg Sokolov, Saint Petersburg State University
Although the militant jihād remains one of the most popular topics in modern Islamic studies, most of the works focus on ideologies and actions, leaving out the popular perception of this phenomenon. Our study of the storylines about confronting the Franks (ifranj) in the Arabic folk epics, inspired by the Crusades, shows that the protagonists of the epics are presented in the narratives precisely as the holy warriors, i.e., mujāhidūn, whose key attributes are the power of faith, which often goes through tests in the fights against the infidels, as well as the divine support and readiness for martyrdom on the path of jihād. The widespread jihād and anti-Frankish rhetorics in the epics make them a valuable source for the study of the Crusades’ memory in the Medieval Arab culture.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14081042
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Tags: #Islam #History #Culture
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An Islamic Perspective on Infection Treatment and Wound Healing
By Tajwar Ali and Haseena Sultan, Zhengzhou University
Muslims regard Islam as a complete code of conduct because it provides guidance in all aspects of life. Islamic teachings cover nearly all areas of knowledge, including medical sciences. Islam offers a unique perspective on how to treat wounds and illnesses. Islamic wound treatment methods are distinct and recognized by modern science. For Muslims, the only true treatment for illnesses and injuries is that mentioned in the Holy Quran and practiced by the Holy Prophet himself throughout his lifetime. Islamic treatments for various internal and external wounds and illnesses, such as the use of honey, black cumin, Indian incense, cupping, and cauterization, are extremely beneficial in treating both internal and external wounds. Islamic diets are high in beneficial nutrients for the body, such as ginger, figs, dates, and olive oil, and Islamic rituals such as five daily prayers, ablution, and fasting are very effective at keeping the body wound resistant. A healthy body has a strong immune system that can fight off various illnesses and injuries. To reach a definitive conclusion, a thorough examination of Islam’s original and fundamental sources, such as the Holy Quran and the sayings of the Holy Prophet, was carried out. Although modern science has validated the majority of the approaches emphasized by Islamic teachings, much more research is needed to validate Islamic sayings about medical sciences.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14081044
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Tags: #Islam #Science #Quran
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God or Self? The Re-Emergence of God in the Unconscious
By Rico Sneller, Jungian Institute
Toward the end of the Age of Enlightenment, rationalism’s demise gradually entailed the transcendent God’s demise. In this article, I will draw on the resurfacing of God in the ensuing tradition of the unconscious. Whereas philosophers such as Schopenhauer or Eduard von Hartmann, undermining the alleged rational consciousness, assumed the existence of an impersonal, unconscious, yet collective will, others took one step back and maintained a higher yet individual “consciousness” beyond the threshold of sense perception. I am referring to the philosopher–spiritualist Carl du Prel (1833–1899), whose notion of a personal unconscious inaugurated both Freud’s and Jung’s “psychologies” of the unconscious. In many respects, Du Prel’s “personal unconscious” (“transcendental consciousness”) interestingly corresponds to the traditional conception of God; it is morally binding and has a cosmological impact. I will explore to what extent Carl du Prel, in his philosophy of the unconscious, allows for a re-emergence of God in the form of a personal unconscious. I will also try to specify the conditions of possibility for equating these unruly notions (“God” and “unconscious”). My question will be as follows: can we consider the personal unconscious (or transcendental consciousness), as developed in Carl du Prel’s work, as a re-emergence of a more traditional conception of a transcendent God in terms of reason and intelligibility?
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14081026
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Tags: #God #Consciousness #Humanism
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Design of Islamic Religious Education: Purposes, alignment of curriculum components and contexts
By Suhayib and M. F. Ansyari, University of Sultan Syarif Kasim Riau
This paper presents evidence of the design of Islamic Religious Education (IRE) by evaluating the purpose, the interconnectedness of curricular components and its contextual levels through a conceptual framework for studying the design of IRE. Relying on document analyses, the findings indicate a gap between the intended and teachers’ designs of IRE. The threefold purpose of IRE, ta’leem, ta’deeb and tarbiyah, is rarely integrated into designing IRE outcomes. The ta’leem oriented outcomes are the most frequently included, the so-called ‘cognitification’ of IRE in this study. Furthermore, the components of intended IRE outcomes, formation activities that shape the threefold purpose, and assessment methods are often unaligned with one another, especially in designing IRE related to the domains of ta’deeb and tarbiyah. Finally, IRE is generally designed to help students contribute at the personal, local and national levels although its contribution to the global one is only expected from upper secondary school students. Based on these findings, this study calls for developing a taxonomy of IRE and rethinking the role of IRE in addressing multiple challenges at various levels.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2023.2220940
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Tags: #Islam #Pedagogy #Religion
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A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY OTTOMAN SOLUTION TO THE LIAR PARADOX BY ḪAṬĪBZĀDE MUḤYIDDĪN
By Yusuf Daşdemir, University of Jyväskylä
This paper deals with a solution to the infamous liar paradox, usually known in the Arabic literature as Maġlaṭat al-ǧaḏr al-aṣamm. The solution is raised by a fifteenth-century Ottoman treatise that is attributed, among others, to Ḫaṭībzāde Muḥyiddīn Efendī. The paper also compares it with the solution by the contemporary Persian philosopher, Ǧalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī. The short treatise devoted to the paradox is one of the few works by Ottomans on the subject and it comprehensively addresses the paradox in its two forms. An analysis of the solution offered by the treatise to the paradox, the paper aims to bring Ottoman discussions of the liar to the attention of contemporary scholarship and contribute to filling the obvious gap in the literature on the paradox in Islamic thought.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423923000048
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Tags: #Islam #History #Logic
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AVICENNA ON THE IMPOSSIBILIA THE LETTER ON THE SOUL REVISITED
By Seyed N. Mousavian, Loyola University Chicago
The Letter on the Soul is interesting and significant; it attempts to tackle fundamental problems that fall on the borderlines of psychology, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and logic. The consensus among Avicenna scholars is that The Letter is Avicenna’s. In this paper, I will argue against this consensus. I will examine the philosophical and logical content of The Letter, as well as Avicenna’s view on the impossible forms in his authentic works, and construct a content-based argument against the authenticity of The Letter. This study, I hope, sheds some light on Avicenna’s view on the impossibilia, what they are, and how they can be apprehended.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423923000024
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Tags: #Islam #History #Avicenna
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The Gate of Mercy as a Contested Monument: Jerusalem’s Sealed Gate as a Muslim Site of Memory
By Christiane-Marie Abu Sarah, Erskine College
English-language guides to the city of Jerusalem often describe the Golden Gate or Gate of Mercy (Bāb al-Raḥma) as sealed by the Muslims to prevent the return of the Messiah. This narrative, inherited from British colonial-era sources, has no basis in Islamic history or theology. A review of Umayyad, ʿAbbasid, and Fāṭimid-era traditions instead reveals that the Gate of Mercy was a site where Muslims prayed for repentance, envisioned the gardens of paradise, and imagined a Day of Judgment when the Prophets Muḥammad, Moses, and Jesus would stand side-by-side at the throne of God. These descriptions of the gate shifted during the Crusades: encountering a blocked passage, pilgrims attempted to explain the gate’s closure. However, rather than blame any particular religious community for the closure, medieval Muslim, Jewish, and Christian pilgrims described the gate as sealed by heaven on account of its great sanctity. These remained the predominant narratives about the monument until the Ottoman and British empires renewed the Gate of Mercy (and other sites in the Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount complex) as a battleground for imperial claims-making. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, British travellers wove tales about how Muslims in their ‘childishness’ had sealed the gate to thwart the Messiah, and predicted a Christian conqueror would soon ‘wrest the Holy City from the Moslems’. These Orientalist narratives constructed Jerusalem’s Palestinian community as an impediment to be cleared aside, and silenced shared traditions about the gate. The gate’s history thus reflects how pilgrims, politicians, and other ‘memory activists’ use monuments to manifest preferred pasts and favoured futures. Gates emerge as particularly potent sites where visitors act out personal and political transformations.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etad032
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Tags: #Islam #History #Christianity
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Facing death without religion: how non-religious elders imagine death and how that shapes their lives
By Christel Manning, Sacred Heart University
Religious beliefs in the afterlife are often found to help people cope with death anxiety. This article explores how non-religious elders imagine death and the impact such imaginaries have on their lives. Data come from a qualitative study of non-religious US elders (n = 97). The author finds that non-religious elders imagine death in three main ways (lights out, recycling, mystery). While at least one of these imaginaries allows for a sense of continuity after death, they are distinct from religious beliefs about the afterlife in their affirmation that death marks the end of individual consciousness. That acceptance was seen as an important part of what it means to be non-religious. While some non-religious elders appear to seek symbolic immortality through building a legacy, for others the acceptance that death is end of individual consciousness prompts an effort to focus on the present, on finding joy and connection with people they love.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/15528030.2023.2243855
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Tags: #Religion #Spirituality #Sociology
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God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb
By Stephen Dilley, Discovery Institute
The panda’s thumb argument, championed by the late Stephen Jay Gould, stands as one of the most famous polemics for common ancestry. In this essay, I analyze Gould’s argument in several steps. First, I attempt to reconstruct the argument in both deductive and likelihood formulations. I contend that both versions of the argument rest on a theological claim—namely, that God would not (likely) create or allow a suboptimal panda’s thumb. I then argue that a wide range of people are not rationally obligated to accept this theological claim. Next, I give special attention to the likelihood formulation’s emphasis on a contrastive argument for evolution over special creation. I contend that a great number of people are not rationally obligated to accept this formulation either. I next consider and reply to an objection that Gould never intended the panda argument as an apologetic for evolution (and an attack on special creation) but rather as a critique of adaptationism. Finally, I argue that the panda argument conflicts with Gould’s broader views about the human mind and the relationship between theology and science. I also note along the way that the shortcomings of the panda argument apply to a number of other arguments for evolutionary theory. To be sure, I do not criticize evolution itself or the comprehensive grounds for it. Instead, my primary aims are to analyze the panda argument and suggest that caution is in order about similar arguments as well.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14081006
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Tags: #Design #God #IntelligentDesign #Evolution
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Islamic Classical Theism and the Prospect of Strong Artificial Intelligence
By Enis DOKO, İBN HALDUN ÜNİVERSİTESİ
This article investigates the compatibility of strong artificial intelligence (AI) with classical theism, particularly within the Islamic tradition. By examining the functionalist view of mental states, we argue that a Muslim who accepts classical theism should be open to the possibility of AI that possesses genuine mental states. We present two arguments to support this claim: one that challenges substance dualism and another that assumes dualism. Both arguments demonstrate that mental states can arise in at least two different substances, which implies functionalism. As a result, the development of strong AI would not be surprising from an Islamic perspective, and its creation might even provide corroborative evidence for classical theism. This article thus provides a philosophical foundation for the existence of conscious and intelligent machines and their potential compatibility with Islamic beliefs.
Link: https://doi.org/10.12730/is.1283109
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Tags: #Islam #AI #Theism
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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 are interacting with one another in the ongoing creationism-evolutionism debates.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2230430
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Tags: #Creationism #Kalam #Evolution #Asharism
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Muslims, Christians, Scientists, and Extraterrestrial Aliens
By Ted Peters, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
On May 31, 2023, NASA quizzed a panel of scientists regarding UFOs. “Six revelations from NASA’s public panel on UFOs: Strange metallic orbs are being spotted ‘all over the world,’ and an unidentified craft is being detected every Week,” reported the Daily Mail online.
Are today’s scientists are now taking the UFO phenomenon seriously? Yes. But to reduce the giggles at cocktail parties, they’ve changed the name from UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) to UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena).
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2230423
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Tags: #Religion #ExoTheology #Science
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ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb’s Encounter with an Unnamed Monk: From History to Legend
By Ibrahim Zein and Ahmed El-Wakil, Hamad bin Khalifa University
The Ambrosian Library in Milan has preserved thirteen very interesting folios written in an archaic semi-Kūfī Arabic script, describing an encounter between the second caliph of Islam ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and an unnamed monk. We demonstrate how the anonymous author of this manuscript was familiar with the ṣulḥ agreements, the covenants of the Prophet Muḥammad, and historical and anecdotal accounts of encounters between ʿUmar and ecclesiastical authorities. We postulate that our author composed his narrative on the basis of his own historical imagination from sources that probably belonged to monastic archives to which he had access. The author aimed to deliver a subtle political message, highlighting the archetypal relationship between a Muslim ruler and a Christian subject living under Islam. Two adaptations of our text have been found in Islamic sources, the first in al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī’s Al-zuhd wa- al-raqāʾiq, and the second in Ibn ʿAsākir’s Tārīkh madīnat Dimashq, which we argue reflect a later re-working of the original narrative.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2023.2229615
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Tags: #Islam #History #IslamicHistory
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God, Über-God, and Unter-God
By Noah Gordon, University of Southern California
I examine two related arguments for the claim that if God is omnipotent, God cannot lack abilities such as the ability to do evil or to act irrationally. Both arguments concern the idea that omnipotence is inconsistent with being dominated with respect to abilities. I raise new issues in the formulation of such dominance principles about ability, and attempt to solve them. I also discuss and reject existing objections to these arguments. I conclude that these arguments are promising but not conclusive, and that important work remains to be done in formulating the relevant dominance principles.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14080961
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Tags: #God #Omnipotence #Theism
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A New Explanation of Why the Euthyphro Dilemma Is a False Dilemma
By Atle Ottesen Søvik, MF Norwegian School of Theology
The article gives a new explanation for why the Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma and argues that it is a middle position that both the theist and the atheist could accept. The argument is that both the will of God and the preferences of individuals are necessary truthmakers for what the good is. Each of the components is insufficient on its own, but jointly they are sufficient. Individual preferences are necessary to provide the normativity of the good, while God is necessary for the objectivity of the good. It is the combination of individual preferences into a possible world that is valuated the most by the most that gives the normative goal for moral choices. It is the knowledge of God of what would most probably be valuated the most by the most that makes a concrete choice the morally right thing to do in a concrete situation.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14081038
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Tags: #God #Morality #Ethics
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The Blessed Tree in the works of Ibn Barrajān of Seville (d. 536/1141)
By Sam Jaffe and Yousef Casewit, University of Chicago
In his commentary on the Light Verse (Q. 24:35), the Andalusian mystic and Qurʾān exegete Abū al-Ḥakam Ibn Barrajān (d. 1141) presents the blessed tree (al-shajara al-mubāraka) not simply as a terrestrial olive tree in Syria or even as a mystical allegory, but as the ultimate locus of divine disclosure and the highest metaphysical entity in the cosmos that subsumes the world of creation. This article assesses the originality of Ibn Barrajān’s contribution to the heavenly tree motif by examining his unique mystical and exegetical theories informing his ontological reading of the blessed tree, including the concept of the ‘reality upon which creation is created’ and the ‘universal servant’. In addition to analysing the internal logic of Ibn Barrajān’s discourse, this article explores the larger interpretive themes recurrent across exoteric, Sufi, and philosophical interpretations of the Light Verse up to the twelfth century that the author may have had access to in al-Andalus, including the treatises of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-ṣafā) and Biblical sources. Finally, this article highlights how Ibn Barrajān weaves the Qurʾānic good tree (al-shajara al-ṭayyiba) and the lote tree of the furthest boundary (sidrat al-muntahā) into his overarching understanding of the blessed tree. It also considers how his reading may have contributed to later readings by Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240) and some of his intellectual heirs.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etad015
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Tags: #Islam #Exegesis #Quran #IbnArabi #Sufism
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Orientalism’s Hinduism, Orientalism’s Islam, and the Twilight of the Subcontinental Imagination
By Anustup Basu, University of Illinois
Using the figure of the ethnic Pathan/Pashtun as a trope in South Asian culture, this essay provides a genealogical account of the modern emergence of Hindu–Muslim “religious” conflicts played along the lines of nation-thinking in the Indian subcontinent. This modern phenomenon begins in the late 18th century, with the orientalist transcriptions of a vast conglomerate of diverse Indic faiths into a Brahminical–Sanskritic Hinduism and a similar telescoping of complex Islamic intellectual traditions into what we can call a “Mohammedanism” overdetermined by Islamic law. As such, both these transcriptions had to fulfill certain Christological expectations of western anthropology in order to emerge as “religions” and “world religions”, that is, when, as Talal Asad has shown, “religion” was constructed as an anthropological category within the parameters of European secular introspection and the modern expansion of empire. Both Hinduism and Islam therefore had to have a book, a prophetic figure, a doctrinal core, and a singular compendium of laws. Upper caste Sanskritic traditions therefore dominated Hinduism, and a legal supremacist position dominated the modern reckoning of Islam at the expense of philosophy, metaphysics, poesis, and varieties of artistic self-making. Together, the two phenomena also created the historical illusion (now industrialized) that Brahminism always defined Hindu societies and the Sharia was always a total fact of Islam.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14081034
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Tags: #Islam #Hinduism #Politics #Orientalism
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Might Beauty Bolster the Moral Argument for God
By David Baggett, Houston Christian University
John Hare argues that Kant, in his Third Critique, offers an aesthetic argument for God’s existence that shares premises with his famous moral argument. Karl Ameriks demurs, expressing skepticism that this is so. In this paper, I stake out an intermediate position, arguing that the resources of Kant provide ingredients for an aesthetic argument, but one distinctly less than a transcendental argument for God or an entailment relation. Whether the argument is best thought of as abductive in nature, a C-inductive argument, or a Pascalian natural sign, prospects for its formulation are strong. And such an argument, for its resonances with the moral argument(s), can work well in tandem with it (them), a fact not surprising at all if Kant was right that beauty—in accordance with an ancient Greek tradition—exists in close organic relation to the good. More generally, along the way, I argue that the sea change in Kant’s studies over the last decade or so should help us see that Kant is an ally, rather than foe, to aesthetic theodicists.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14081029
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Tags: #God #Morality #Ethics
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The Problem of Early Islamic Diversity in Anatolia: Rethinking Dervish Piety Through Pantheistic Ideas
By Resul Ay, Hacettepe University
The Islamic diversity that developed parallel to the Islamization of Anatolia from roughly the 12th century onwards and was called dervish religiosity, is often defined by its inattentive and indifferent attitude toward Shari‘a, although some of its other features are mentioned more or less. However, in this dervish-based religiosity, it draws attention that both the perception of Shari‘a and some other religiosity practices are more related to the tawhid beliefs in pantheistic sense. This paper aims to analyze how both dervish religiosity and folk religiosity, which developed largely under its influence, are shaped through some mystical thoughts and spiritual experiences such as ‘identification with God’, ‘immanence of God in man’ and ‘the human divinity’. The folk piety, which appears to be shaped within the framework of faith in saints, including high respect and various types of veneration that neglect the norms of Islamic worship, will be seen in relation to the pantheistic thoughts, as reflected in the understanding of seeing man as the qibla.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12472
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Tags: #Islam #History #Shariah
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CROSS-REFERENCE BETWEEN LOGIC AND PSYCHOLOGY IN IBN SĪNĀ’S THEORY OF EXPERIENCE (TAǦRIBA)
By Yu Hoki, Kyoto University
This article demonstrates that Ibn Sīnā’s theory of experience (taǧriba) requires a cross-reference between logic and psychology. Following the Basran linguistic tradition, he paraphrases derived names (ism muštaqq) into the li-x y formula: for example, ʿālim (“knowing”) is paraphrased into lahu ʿilm (“an act of knowing belongs to him”). His theory of experience employs this formula for arranging observed phenomena into a certain form of a syllogism and describing functions of the brain’s inner senses. Ibn Sīnā arranges observed phenomenon into the li-x y formula or the proposition of which a predicate is a derived name of y. Meanwhile, he holds that the sense of recollection is involved in the process of experience. Recollection is an inner sense of the brain, which preserves maʿnā perceived by the sense of estimation. Estimation means to perceive maʿnā (y) that inheres in a subject (x), and to make a judgment about x based on y. Thus, in this process, the analysis of derived names arranges observed phenomena into a rational order, and the inner sense establishes the causation between apprehension and logical assertion. The article concludes by discussing the relation of this philosophy to medicine.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423923000036
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Tags: #Islam #History #Avicenna #Logic
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“SUBJECT GENERALITY” AND DISTRIBUTION IN MEDIEVAL ARABIC SYLLOGISTIC
By Khaled El-Rouayheb, Harvard University
A relatively well-known medieval Latin innovation is the doctrine of distributive supposition. This notion came to be used in syllogistic theory in the late medieval and early modern periods, as Latin logicians sought to establish general rules for syllogistic productivity across the various figures. It is much less well-known that some logicians in the medieval Arabic tradition also attempted to establish general rules for the syllogism, appealing to what they called “subject generality.” In the present article, I introduce this use of “subject generality” in some influential Arabic works on logic from the thirteenth century to the sixteenth, specifically Al-ǧumal by Afḍal al-Dīn al-Ḫūnaǧī (d. 1248) and Tahḏīb al- manṭiq by Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (d. 1390) and some of their commentators. I also compare this concept of “subject generality” to the Latin concept of “distribution.”
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423923000012
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Tags: #Islam #History #Logic
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Necessary Existence and Necessary Mercy: Ibn ‘Arabī’s Reformulation of Ibn Sīnā’s Ontological Proof
By Ismail Lala, Gulf University for Science & Technology; Reham Alwazzan, University of Manchester
Abū ‘Alī ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1027) is regarded as the most influential philosopher in Islamic intellectual history. Of his numerous contributions, none has garnered more attention than his ontological proof for the existence of God, known as ‘the Demonstration of the Truthful’ (Burhān al-ṣiddiqīn). In this proof, Ibn Sīnā argues that only one being can be ‘necessarily existent’ (wājib al-wujūd). He goes on to say that all the attributes of God mentioned in the Qur’an are derived from this primary attribute of necessity. The influential mystic, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240), is clearly influenced by this proof, but he reformulates it to suggest that the primary attribute of God is mercy rather than existence. However, this is not the type of mercy that entails forgiveness or the bestowal of favors; rather, it is a necessary mercy that brings everything into existence. All of God’s other attributes flow from this primary one of necessary mercy in the same way as all of God’s attributes flow from His necessary existence for Ibn Sīnā.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14081016
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Tags: #IbnArabi #Avicenna #God
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Have the Inhabitants of France, Great Britain, Spain, and the US Been Secularized? An Analysis Comparing the Religious Data in These Countries
By Vidal Díaz de Rada and Javier Gil-Gimeno, Public University of Navarra
This paper carries out a comparative analysis of the religious beliefs and practices of residents in France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, using two waves of the World Values Survey. The main objective is to investigate the impact that secularization has had on the religious experience in these countries. More specifically, the prospection is carried out around the Christian creed in its Protestant and Catholic manifestations, understood as the majority beliefs in these countries. To carry out this task, we compiled a series of data distributed around the following categories: Contextualization: The importance of religion within different aspects of life; level of religiosity and membership in religious denominations; the sphere of beliefs: Belief in God, belief in life after death, belief in hell, and belief in heaven; scope of practices; and the nones. Subsequently, we carry out an explanatory-interpretative analysis articulated around four questions or challenges faced by these religious forms in the context of secularization: 1. The crisis of Christianity; 2. the thesis of European exceptionalism; and 3. the rise of the nones. In conclusion, the data analyzed allow us to affirm—with nuances—the following: 1. The existence of a process of dechurching in the heart of Christianity; 2. the confirmation that the European case is exceptional if we compare it with other trends or other cultural programs of secularization; 3. that the area of greatest dechurching is linked to community practice, something that allows this research to adhere to Davie’s thesis, which defines the current religious situation as believing without belonging; and 4. as a consequence of the process of dechurching, there is a rise of a social group without religious adscription: The nones.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14081005
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Tags: #Religion #Secularism #Sociology
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Normative appraisals of faith in God
By Daniel J. McKaughan, Boston College; Daniel Howard-Snyder, Western Washington University
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412523000367
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Tags: #God #Faith #Metaphysics
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The Black Mirror of the Pupil of the Eye: Around the Eye that Sees and Is Seen: Ibn al-ʿArabī, Bill Viola
By Antoni Gonzalo Carbó, University of Barcelona
The present article traces the symbols of the eye (Greek: κόρη [maiden, concubine, pupil of the eye]; Latin: pūpilla; Hebrew: īshōn bath ʿāyin (‘apple of the eye’ or the ‘pupil of the eye’ [lit. ‘daughter of an eye’], i.e., the feminine divine Presence [Shĕkhīnāh]); Arabic: ʿayn; Persian: chashm) and the black pupil of the eye (Arabic: insān al-ʿayn; Persian: mardum-i chashm) in Sufism, both—in the context of Andalusian Sufism, specifically in Ibn al-ʿArabī’s poem entitled ‘I saw a Girl…’, in whose dark pupil or abyssal blackness (Arabic: ḥawar; Hebrew: īshōn), pleasure of the gaze (naẓar) and repository of the secret (sirr), resides the Beloved—as in the medieval Persian gnosis of the followers of al-Sahykh al-Akbar—Fakhr al-Dīn ʿIrāqī and Maḥmūd Shabistarī—, and the mystical poet Ḥāfiẓ Shīrāzī. Ibn al-ʿArabī and Shabistarī have had an explicit influence on the work of the reputed American video artist Bill Viola (Queens, New York, 1951), specifically in his two video/sound installations—He Weeps for You (1976) and I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like (1986), in which the common image of the mirror pupil of the eye summarizes the entire ancient Neoplatonic conception of the θεωρία (contemplatio, speculatio).
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14080994
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Tags: #IbnArabi #Sufism #History
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God's creativity and religious diversity: a theistic argument for a transformative pluralism
By Marciano Adilio Spica, Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste
In this article, my objective is to argue for the compatibility between religious diversity and Christian theism by invoking the concept of divine creativity. I propose that, if God is a being of infinite powers and infinite creativity, He is such that it is possible for Him to create different and varied realities in a continuous process of creation. More than that, given His infinite creativity, God can reveal Himself in the most creative and diverse ways possible. There is no need for Him to reveal Himself as one and in a unique way, as some scholars of Christian theism argue. Basing my discussion on these ideas, I suggest that from the infinite creativity of God, it is possible to develop an argument in favour of a transformative pluralist view in face of religious diversity.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412523000653
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Tags: #Religion #Theism #God
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Political Islam as an Incomplete and Contested Category: A Post-Foundationalist Revision
By Abbas Jong and Rami Ali, Humboldt University of Berlin
The exploration of the quiddity of political Islam and the diverse range of categories and terms associated with it has emerged as a prominent research agenda within the social and political sciences. The application of these terms to a wide array of heterogeneous phenomena and currents among Muslim populations worldwide, coupled with the utilization of multiple theoretical approaches to define and formulate them within the realm of social studies, has posed significant challenges to their usage. The inherent ambiguity and lack of determinacy surrounding the dominant categories and definitions prevalent in the study of political Islam have led to a decline in their explanatory capacity, giving rise to a host of theoretical, methodological, normative, and political dilemmas and predicaments. This problematic state, compounded by the extensive body of research in the field of political Islam, necessitates an epistemological interrogation into the prevailing categories and definitions within this scholarly domain. Through a critical examination of prevailing definitions within the field, particularly in relation to the idea of foundation, the present article draws on the post-foundationalist approach to propose a distinctive conceptual apparatus for understanding and interpreting the phenomena categorized under political Islam. By juxtaposing the notions of discursive tradition and social configuration, the article endeavors to construct a nuanced understanding of political Islam that not only incorporates and comprehends the singular characteristics of the objects of inquiry but also encompasses varying levels of universality in elucidating the social phenomena observed among Muslims and in the Islamic world.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14080980
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Tags: #Islam #Politics #Islamism
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The Secular Moral Project and the Moral Argument for God: A Brief Synopsis History
By Dale Eugene Kratt, Liberty University
This article provides an overview of the history of what is termed the secular moral project by providing a synopsis of the history of the moral argument for God’s existence and the various historical processes that have contributed to the secularization of ethics. I argue that three key thinkers propel the secular moral project forward from the middle of the 19th century into the 20th century: John Stuart Mill, whose ethical thinking in Utilitarianism serves as the background to all late 19th century secular ethical thinking, Henry Sidgwick, who, in the Methods, indisputably establishes the secular autonomy of ethics as a distinctive discipline (metaethics), and finally, G.E. Moore, whose work, the Principia Ethica, stands at the forefront of virtually all secular metaethical debates concerning naturalism and non-naturalism in the first half of the 20th century. Although secular metaethics continues to be the dominant ethical view of the academy, it is shown that theistic metaethics is a strong reemerging position in the early 21st century.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14080982
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Tags: #God #Secularism #Metaethics
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The Necessity of an Incarnate Prophet
By Joshua R. Sijuwade, London School of Theology
This article aims to provide an a priori argument—termed the Flourishment Argument, for the veracity of the Christian conception of the Abrahamic religion that centres on God’s action of sending a divine and atoning prophet into the world. This specific informal argument will be presented through the formulation of a set of a priori reasons for why God would seek to interact with the world—developed in light of the work of Richard Swinburne, John Finnis, Linda Zagzebski and Alexander Pruss—which, in combination, will provide individuals with grounds for believing in the veracity of these important Christian teachings.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14080961
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Tags: #Christianity #Metaphysics #Theology #Prophet
