تفاوتِ دیدگاه اسلام و مسیحیّت نسبت به ماهیتِ وحی و پیامبر باعث تمایز آشکاری بین این دو دینِ وحیانی شده است. وحی در منابع اسلامی از مقوله قول و گفتار است و متکلمان مسلمان بر این باوراند که خداوند برای «ارتباط با بشر»، با او سخن می‌‌گوید و خود را به‌ واسطۀ زبانی که برای بشر قابلِ فهم است، آشکار می‌‌سازد، اما مسیحیّتِ رایج «وحی» را از مقولۀ فعل و یک واقعه می‌‌داند و معتقد است که خدا برای «ارتباط با (...) بشر» در قالب یک شخصِ ‌انسانی تجسّد پیدا می‌‌کند. مرکز ثقل نازلۀ الاهی در اسلام، قرآن و در مسیحیّت، شخصِ ‌مسیح است. بر اساس این دو نگاه متفاوت به وحی، اسلام را دین «متن‌‌محور» و مسیحیّت را دین «شخص‌محور» می‌‌نامیم. پرسشی که در این‌جا مطرح می‌شود این است که آیا این دو نگاهِ متفاوت به وحی - به لحاظ قوّت استدلال - در یک سطح هستند؟ برای پاسخ به این پرسش لازم است تا ابتدا ‌‌پیش‌فرض‌های هر دیدگاه ‌‌بررسی شود و ‌‌پس از آن به مقایسه میزانِ استدلال‌‌پذیریِ آن‌ها پرداخت و سپس لازم است لوازم هردو دیدگاه را - در حوزه‌های مختلف مانند کلام، نوع دینداری و علومی که پیرامون هر کدام شکل می‌‌گیرد - ارزیابی کرد. (shrink)

This essay attempts to provide a systematic reconstruction of Nāgārjuna's philosophical thought by understanding it as a critique of the attachment to linguistic expressions and their referents. We first present an outline of Nāgārjuna's philosophy, centering on such notions as 'dependent origination', 'emptiness' and 'self-nature'. Then we discuss Nāgārjuna's dismissal of a metaphysical use of language, particularly his contention that language can function well without assuming the reality of its referents. We also consider his statement that he has no assertion (...) and explain his provisional use of language. Towards the end of the essay, we direct our attention to a paradoxical formula in a Buddhist sutra that should help in evaluating the contemporary significance of Nāgārjuna's linguistic critique. (shrink)

The paper is a critique of recent criticisms of Sigmund Freud’s theory that religion is based on wishful thinking. The criticisms made by authors such as Alvin Plantinga, John Hick, William P. Alston, William Rowe, and Merol Westphal are critically examined. I defend Freud’s critique of religion as a satisfaction of our deepest desires for a heavenly father showing inductively that those desires render religious belief as unlikely to be true.

Let us think of faith theistically, or at any rate Christianly, as an all-embracing personal relationship between a human person and the divine person, God. Such a relationship essentially involves some act ostensibly ‘by’ the human person and directed towards God – for example, an act of believing propositions about God because one believes God because one loves God. Among many puzzles about this conception of faith, there is one which concerns the authorship of faith ; this problem may be (...) initially expressed as a question: Who is the agent-cause or ‘author’ of the essential act of faith? There seem to be religiously compelling reasons for each of two diametrically opposed views. (shrink)

I borrow an idea from the fiction of C. S. Lewis that future outcomes may affect the value of past events, defend this idea via the concept of a 'temporal whole' and show its promise as a part of a theodicy and its resonance with Christian theism.

In this study, I will examine the famous 'divine command theory' of Mozi. Through the discussion of several important chapters of Mozi, including Fayi (law), Tianzhi (the will of heaven), Minggui (knowing the spirits) and Jianai (universal love), I attempt to clarify the arguments of Mozi offered in support of his distinctive ideas of serving heaven, knowing the spirits and loving all. The analysis shows that there are serious problems with his assumptions, hence they fail to support his conclusions as (...) to the heaven-human relationship, and the man-man relationship. That is to say, at least in the texts covered, Mozi did not justify the moral or social relationship in society by appealing to the religious relationship. (shrink)

Several of Thomas Aquinas's proofs for the existence of God rely on the claim that causal series cannot proceed in infinitum. I argue that Aquinas has good reason to hold this claim given his conception of causation. Because he holds that effects are ontologically dependent on their causes, he holds that the relevant causal series are wholly derivative: the later members of such series serve as causes only insofar as they have been caused by and are effects of the earlier (...) members. Because the intermediate causes in such series possess causal powers only by deriving them from all the preceding causes, they need a first and non-derivative cause to serve as the source of their causal powers. (shrink)

There is a strong claim that the world’s createdness, if true, cannot be known but through revelation. In this paper we try to dismiss this claim by arguing that creation cannot be merely a revealed truth (revelabile tantum), since it is on the contrary the very preamble to any genuine revelation. Ontologically, no revelation can happen in a self-existent world. No creation, no revelation. Epistemically, no revelation is to be admitted but on the assumption that the world depends, for its (...) existence and operation, on a supernatural agent. No admittance of creative power, no justified identification of any revelatory activity. (shrink)

Philosophers of religion have tended to focus on Freud’s dismissal of religion as an illusion, thus characterising his account as primarily hostile. Those who wish to engage with psychoanalytic ideas in order to understand religion in a more positive way have tended to look to later psychoanalysts for more sympathetic sources. This paper suggests that other aspects of Freud’s own writings might, surprisingly, provide such tools. In particular, a more subtle understanding of the relationship between illusion and reality emerges in (...) his theory, that itself offers a useful way of understanding the meaning and significance of religion for the human animal. By exploring these sources a view of religion emerges which connects it closely with the processes of imagination and creativity. Under this view, religion is more than just a set of hypotheses to be proved or disproved. In religion, we have access to the most deeply rooted wishes and anxieties of the human heart, and thus its investigation enables a deeper understanding of what it is to be a human being. (shrink)

Hick’s soul-making theodicy defends the omnipotence, omniscience, and all-goodness of God in the face of evil. It holds that the end of the creation process is the development of human beings into children of God. In order to achieve the end, an evil-dependent soul-making process must be employed. It then concludes that, because the end is so valuable, the omnipotent and omniscient creator’s not having prevented the existence of evil is morally justified and thus not in conflict with her being (...) all-good. In particular, God’s having created a world with evils and evil-dependent values, which may be called “an Irenaean world,” is morally justified. In the Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi holds that the actual world is, in reality, a world without evils and evil-dependent values, but with evil-independent values, which may be called “a Zhuangzian world,” while ordinary people mistakenly take the actual world to be an Irenaean world. In an insightful story in the Chapter “The Great and Venerable Teacher” of the Zhuangzi, he amounts to claiming that a Zhuangzian world is better than an Irenaean world. Without endorsing Zhuangzi’s two positions, I argue against Hick’s soul-making theodicy in this way: It is Hick’s burden to prove either that a Zhuangzian world is metaphysically impossible, or that the actual world, as an Irenaean world, is better than any Zhuangzian world. However, there are not any resources in his soul-making theodicy that can provide any such proofs. Therefore, Hick has not justified, nor rationally established, his soul-making theodicy. (shrink)

Reincarnation has not been entirely neglected in the philosophy of religion but it has not always been taken seriously or carefully discussed in relation to its role in believers’ lives. John Hick is exceptional insofar as he gave sustained attention to the belief, at least as it features in the philosophies of Vedānta and Buddhism. While acknowledging the value of Hick’s recognition of the variety of reincarnation beliefs, this article critically engages with certain aspects of his approach. It argues that (...) Hick’s search for a ‘criterion’ of reincarnation is misguided, and that his distinction between ‘factual’ and ‘mythic’ forms of the doctrine is over-simplifying. (shrink)

A number of recent discussions of atheism allude to cosmological arguments in support of theism. The five ways of Aquinas are classic instances, offered as rational justification for theistic belief. However, the five ways receive short shrift. They are curtly dismissed as vacuous, arbitrary, and even insulting to reason. I contend that the atheistic critique of the Thomistic five ways, and similarly formulated cosmological arguments, argues at cross purposes because it misrepresents them. I first lay out the context, intent and (...) structure of Aquinas’ arguments, then show in what way recent discussions misrepresent them, and finally conclude with a comment on metaphysical orientation, which I take to be central, not only to a proper understanding of the Thomistic five ways but generally to the debate between atheism and theism on the existence of God. (shrink)

Interpersonal disagreement happens all the time. How to properly characterize interpersonal disagreement and how to respond to it are important problems, but the existence of such disagreements at least is obvious. The existence of intrapersonal disagreement, however, is another matter. On the one hand, we do change our minds sometimes, especially when new evidence comes in, and so there is a clear enough sense in which we can be characterized as having disagreements with our past selves. But what about synchronic (...) disagreements with ourselves? Are such cases possible, or is there something about the nature of belief that rules out the possibility of knowingly holding beliefs which cannot be rationally held at the same time? In this paper, I argue that there can be cases of intrapersonal synchronic disagreement, and that such disagreements can be deep, in the same way that interpersonal disagreements can be deep. For intrapersonal disagreements, just like interpersonal disagreements, can be grounded in conflicting frameworks for interpreting and reasoning about the world. I also argue that synchronic intrapersonal disagreements are peer disagreements. The paper ends with a discussion of four possible responses to interpersonal deep disagreements, concluding that if those responses are sometimes rational responses in the interpersonal case, then they are also sometimes rational responses in the intrapersonal case. (shrink)

This paper explores Gandhi’s attitude towards diversity of religions and examines as to how he attempted to bring inter-faith harmony. Religious diversity has been a topic of serious debate in the contemporary philosophical discourse on understanding religion. Religious pluralism is one of the approaches that deal with issues concerning the diversity of religions. It is believed that no single religion can make absolute claims about the nature of divine reality, its relation to man and the world. It stands in direct (...) opposition to exclusivism, inclusivism and also to fundamentalism by denying that any one religion is the sole possession of the whole truth. Different religions seem to put forward different and incompatible interpretations about the nature of ultimate reality, about the modes of divine activity, the nature and destiny of the human race. (shrink)

El esfuerzo humano por la búsqueda del sentido de la existencia se inscribe en la práctica discursiva que las religiones exhiben no sólo de la situación existencial del hombre sino también de la experiencia de este con lo trascendente. De hecho, un lenguaje que expresa lo trascendente es básicamente intuitivo, sin embargo, la idea de carencia de significado para los contenidos de fe aconteció por boca de filósofos analíticos. De ahí que el presente artículo intente reproducir algunas consideraciones pro et (...) contra de los contenidos de fe por parte de pensadores adscritos a la escuela analítica para luego enfatizar en una necesaria contribución de la filosofía en el tratamiento del lenguaje religioso. (shrink)

In the past few decades, the school in the historic city of Qom has played an important role in directing strategic scientific and cultural developments in Iran and the Islamic world. Scientific and research work in this school has been going on for more than a millennium and has been continuously developed in the light of a close cooperation of representatives of this school and similar, old, schools established in the renowned Islamic learning centres in the city of Medina and (...) in several cities in present-day Iraq, Lebanon and Iran. The famous schools of Islamic philosophy, jurisprudence, and exegesis were founded in Qom, and philosophical disciplines were often given great importance. One of the most influential representatives of the Qom School of Philosophy today is Ayatollah Javadi Amoli. Analysing the content of his books, we will be introduced to the basic guidelines of the philosophical methodology of the Qom school in the case of critique of religious pluralism. Ayatollah Javadi fiercely criticizes the idea of religious pluralism because it has been widely popularized by modern Western thinkers and theologians, though they have never made it sufficiently clear that it is based solely on Kant's, that is, NEO-Kantian, relativism of knowledge. He explains that relativism of knowledge does not mean that there are numerous paths that lead to truth, so that we can say that all people will finally be saved regardless of which path they were on and which religion they belonged to. According to his analysis, relativism of knowledge means that no one can reach the truth and that the truth is not revealed in any religion. Ayatollah Javadi warns that religious pluralism solves the problems of salvation and tolerance in a destructive way, because we will be forced to accept philosophical principles that completely discredit the essence of religious knowledge. To prove it thoroughly, he analyses various meanings of relativity and relativism. His conclusion is that some of these meanings of relativity are accepted and used in the religious cognitive stage, but that relativism of knowledge is in obvious epistemological contradiction to all religions. (shrink)

Academic study of religion, embracing what at the University of Dhaka is called World Religions and Culture, is a relatively new eld of scholarship in the world. It is only beginning to emerge in Bangladesh and other South asian countries. as distinguished om the theological study of reli‐ gion, which favours one’s own faith tradition, academic study of religion uses the same descriptive, analytic and critical academic criteria and methods to study any form of religious life, including one’s own. In (...) this paper, there has been an e ort to discuss the basic di erences between these two sorts of study. The paper then explores the brief history of academic study of religion in the modern world and how it came into being at Dhaka University (DU) as the Department of World Religions & Culture (WRC) under the faculty of arts. Finally, the crucial role of late Professor Dr. Joseph T. O’Connell (1940–2012) in forming the Department and its a liated Centre for Inter‐religious & Intercultural Dialogue (CIID) as an academic place for the study, teaching and doing research on the di erent religious issues for the promotion of multi‐religious and multi‐ cultural peace and harmony in Bangladesh is discussed. The paper has been written on the bases of the o cial documents of Dhaka University as for the existence of WRC and CIID, academic activities and works of faculty members of WRC, especially of Professor Dr. Joseph T. O’Connell, along with other primary and secondary literary sources relevant to the academic study of religion. (shrink)

This paper—written for nonspecialist readers—asks whether life after death is in any sense possible given the apparent fact that after we die our remains decay to the point where only randomly scattered atoms remain. The paper argues that this is possible only if our remains are not in fact dispersed in this way, and discusses how that might be the case. -/- 1. Life After Death -- 2. Total Destruction -- 3. The Soul -- 4. Body-Snatching -- 5. Radical Resurrection (...) -- 6. Irreversibility -- 7. Atomic Reassembly -- 8. The Transporter -- 9. Replicas and Originals -- 10. Survival and Causal Connections. (shrink)

فلسفه تطبیقی دین می‌تواند به عنوان رویکردی جدید در مطالعات فلسفی دین در نظر گرفته شود. در این رویکرد، ارزیابی عقلانی باورهای دینی، نه از یک منظر، بلکه از منظرهای مختلف تطبیقی امکان‌پذیر است. در واقع، فلسفه تطبیقی دین برای ما این امکان را فراهم می‌سازد تا باورهای دینی خود را از نگاه عقلانی دیگران، و اعتقادات دینی دیگران را از نگاه عقلانی خود بنگریم. نتیجه اقبال به چنین رویکردی ممکن است اصلاح، ابطال، تعمیق یا اثبات درستی باورهای دینی ما (...) یا دیگران باشد. این نتیجه ممکن است برای دین‌داران گوارا یا ناگوار باشد، اما فیلسوفان دین باید نتایج و لوازم معرفتی اقبال به فلسفه تطبیقی دین را بپذیرند. یعنی اگر نتیجه اقبال به مطالعه تطبیقی فلسفی در باورهای دینی منجر به ابطال یا اصلاح بنیادی در باورهای دینی ما باشد، ما باید به طریق عقلانی و شجاعانه این نتیجه را بپذیریم و به اصلاح یا کنار گذاشتن باورهای دینی مورد نظر اقدام کنیم. در واقع از آنجا که فلسفه دین در صدد ارزیابی عقلانی گزاره‌های دینی است، اقبال به فلسفه تطبیقی دین ممکن است نگرش عقلانی ما را به دین و سنت دینی خودمان یا دیگران به چالش بکشد و بخشی از باورهای دینی ما یا آنها را از حجیت معرفتی ساقط کند. (shrink)