Essays in Philosophy of Religion (Jostarhaye Falsafeh Din)

Abstract John Hick is renowned celebrated for his endeavors to explain religious plurality and diversity. Up front, He strives to set forth an explanatory hypothesis that can portray the best explanation of this pluralism in the real world, adopting miscellaneous philo-epistemological elements. Hick, although ontologically accepts the ultimate reality independent of mind and language (in a critical realism framework), does not maintain that realism has only ontological aspect but it also has epistemo-semantic dimensions. So there is a far long way for him to traverse. 

Abstract One of the central concerns or problems in epistemology is the methods by which man attains his belief(s), and one of the most important answers to this problem is presented by W.K Clifford. By propounding ‘strong evidentialism’ Clifford plays main role to construct a new foundation to belief acceptance. The view emphasizes on the connection between ethics and epistemology. The connection is so strong, that in his theory the epistemological fault is identical with the ethical fault.   

Abstract William Lane Craig has revived a kind of Cosmological Argument which called Kalam Cosmological Argument. In this argument the origination of the Universe is the sign of contingency and therefore the reason for an un-natural cause. He appeals to two metaphysical arguments and two scientific confirmations to prove his main premise of his argument (i.e. origination of the Universe). 

Abstract There are two theories among dualists who believe that soul is immortal with body: ‘recreation theory’ and ‘new body theory’. According to recreation theory, soul is immortal and the very earthy body will be recreated in the next world. According to the new body theory, humans have a body and a soul. Soul is immaterial, and is our personal identity. Since soul is immortal it is possible that soul continues living with the same earthy body or the other body in the other world. Gazzali and Swinburne both take new body theory but there are some differences. They both believe that soul is immortal, however for Swinburne this immortality isn’t innate and God gives the soul immortality whereas Gazzali asserts that soul is immortal in itself though God can stop its existing. 

Abstract The essentialist approach to religion is an attempt to challenge the divese approaches to religion which, as external observers and through a reductionist view, have attained an incomplete understanding of religion and put the religious studies in a wrong direction. This endeavor is accomplished through the following steps: first, conceptual analyzing the distinction between essence and quiddity and truth; second, evaluating the main claim and reasons of the essentialist approach opponents, which include atheists, religious intellectuals, and sociologists, to show their shortcomings; and finally presenting some reasons regarding requirements of ‘knowledge’, ‘religion’ and ‘understanding of religion’.

Abstract  In his third way, St. Aquinas, argues for the existence of God from necessity and contingency. Some philosophers have given physical-metaphysical interpretations of his argument while some others have given physical ones.
To claime that Aquinas`s argument and Avecenna`s proof are identical can be so problematic. In this article, we first present, in brief, Avecenna’s Seddiqin argument and express different readings of Thomistic necessity and contingency argument, then seek to reveal the differences, particularly their distinctions in their reliance on the principle of impossibility of infinite regress. It seems that we should, through this distinguishing, find out what conception of God the two philosophers have in their views, and what relation to the nature God has; Avecenna, can, by means of essential possibility, falsify the infinite regress in efficient causes, and so prove the existence of God as necessarily-existing being in itself. While, in physical-metaphysical reading of Thomistic necessity and contingency argument, the aim is to prove a necessarily-existing being that has created the nature from nihility. Hence, if such utterances only rely on essential possibility, the reasoning is not strong enough to prove the existence of an eternal creator who created the nature progressed from nihility. Also by refer to the Aquinas’ second way and comparing his argument for impossibility of infinite regress with that of Avecenna, the argument of medial and extreme, it becomes clear that even if the argument of Aquinas was derived from the Avecenna’s argument, the derivation is incomplete