Abdullah HosseiniEskandian; gorbanali karimzadeh garamaleki; Abbas Abbaszadeh
Volume 11, Issue 2 , December 2023, , Pages 1-27
Abstract
The historical aspect of the problem of evil and the questions that it creates about the Existence of God and His Absolute Attributes, caused theodices and defenses to be explained in Christian theology in order to defend the doctrine of theism. Such an issue has caused wide-ranging debates about it ...
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The historical aspect of the problem of evil and the questions that it creates about the Existence of God and His Absolute Attributes, caused theodices and defenses to be explained in Christian theology in order to defend the doctrine of theism. Such an issue has caused wide-ranging debates about it from the first centuries of AD to the present day. Saint Augustine (354-430 AD), who is one of the most prominent Christian thinkers and had a great influence on Christian theology, made a tremendous effort in his works to explain the problem of evil and provide solutions to justify it. What is clear from Augustine's thoughts and opinions about evil is that he considers evil in a negative sense, not a positive one, and considers evil to be the misuse of things and objects that are intrinsically good. In this article, an attempt is made to investigate and analyze Augustine's theodicy and finally criticize it based on the principles of Shia theology.MethodologyIn this article, with a descriptive-analytical method and a critical approach, an attempt is made to investigate and analyze Augustine's theodicy and criticize it based on Shia theological principles.FindingsThe problem of evil was an influential and important issue in Augustine's life and was the main cause of some of the evolutions that occurred in his life. Therefore, he has made major and comprehensive discussions about the problem of evil in his works. Augustine's theodicy is influenced by the principles that Augustine believed in and solved the problem of evil based on them. These principles are influenced by Christian beliefs, and Augustine explained and solved the problem of evil based on them. From Augustine's point of view, God did not create and does not create any evil, and it is man who causes evil by misusing and abusing his will. Augustine has stated solutions such as “achieving good through evil”, “few evil and abundance of good”, “necessity of the evil for the system of creation” and “evil is relative” to justify the problem of evil (Copleston, 2009, vol. 2: p.107). The theodicy of Augustine sees God's relationship with creatures and the universe in the form of impersonal relationships (Sefidkhosh and Moradi, 2015: p. 77). Therefore, man was created as a part of a hierarchy of forms of existence that would be incomplete without Him, and man has absolute reliance on the Absolute Goodness of God and His Grace. According to the theodicy of Augustine, it is basically impossible to get rid of evil and obtain good affairs without the help of the Divine Will and the granting of grace from Him. Augustine considers evil to be non-existent and moral evil also comes from human will and action that abuses his will.Discussion and ConclusionThe principle of defending the existence of God and His Absolute Attributes, defending the best system of creation, free will, fall of man, original sin and Divine Grace are among the principles based on which Saint Augustine explained and solved the problem of evil. Augustine believes in his theodicy that everything that is and exists is good and negation is evil because it does not benefit from existence. The theodicy of Augustine sees God's relationship with creatures and the universe in the form of impersonal relationships (Augustine, 2006: p.103). Augustine considers evil to be not essential and inherent, but an accident affair that lacks essence and substance and means the lack of perfection in an object. He believes that the minimal existence of evil is accepted and its negation is expressed by considering its minimal aspect (Augustine, 2012: p. 120). Augustine considers evil to be non-existent, which is why it does not deserve the existence of a cause; because the first and most important condition for the existence of an object is to have a cause (Brown, 2000: p.73). According to Augustine, any object or phenomenon that has stages of perfection and is useful is good, and if an object lacks stages of perfection, it cannot be called good anymore, but it is an evil that has no cause, and since it has no cause, it does not exist, and as a result, it is a non-existent affair. Augustine divides evil into moral and natural evil, and considers moral evil as human sin and natural evil as the punishment that a person must taste natural evil because of committing moral evil (De Paulo, 2006: p.34). Finally, it should be acknowledged that Augustine in his theodicy, despite the many efforts he had in solving the problem of evil, but this theodicy based on the approach of Shia theology faces criticisms such as “the lack of effect of original sin in committing moral evil”, “incorrect explanation of the relationship between evil and the material world”, “incorrect explanation of the agent of the realization of natural evil” and etc., which makes the acceptance and acceptability of his theodicy difficult.
Muhammad nejadiran; Rozhan Hesam ghazi
Volume 9, Issue 1 , August 2020, , Pages 245-263
Abstract
The Satanic Bible of Anton LaVey is one of the most important and influential books published in the United States among various currents of satanism. This book contains extremist ideas in challenging many of the prevailing moral and religious norms of American society, as well as promoting humanistic ...
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The Satanic Bible of Anton LaVey is one of the most important and influential books published in the United States among various currents of satanism. This book contains extremist ideas in challenging many of the prevailing moral and religious norms of American society, as well as promoting humanistic ideas centered on radical moral and social freedoms to strengthen human desire and instinct and to deny moral domination. Undoubtedly, this book was written under the influence of modern and postmodern intellectual traditions, and the influence of many anti-normative and anti-religious ideas can be seen in this; But the influence of Nietzsche's critical thinking on Christian ethics and European culture, as well as the promotion of the idea of the superhuman as the creator of life values and his praise of Nietzsche's anti-normality and invincibility, can be well seen in Satanic Bible of Anton LaVey. LaVey uses the idea of the death of Nietzsche's god, which heralded the end of Christian morality in Europe, as well as Nietzsche's critique of Christian nihilism, and inspired by Nietzsche's Dionysian view of the concept of Satan as opposed to the concept of God in religious culture as a symbol of libertarianism. Abnormality is used in order to praise the natural and physical desires of human beings and tries to challenge the denial and humiliation of human instincts in Christian morality by praising the value of life.
gorbanali karimzadeh garamaleki; Abdullah HosseiniEskandian
Volume 11, Issue 1 , June 2022, , Pages 101-118
Abstract
Since the day when mankind entered the field of existence, religion and religious beliefs have also been created, and the question of the origin of religion has always been a fundamental question that every human being has faced. In the meantime, some thinkers like Auguste Comte (1798-1857) consider ...
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Since the day when mankind entered the field of existence, religion and religious beliefs have also been created, and the question of the origin of religion has always been a fundamental question that every human being has faced. In the meantime, some thinkers like Auguste Comte (1798-1857) consider the origin of religion to be human ignorance (Comte, 1998: p.231). Marx (1818-1883) considers religion to be a product of the ruling class to dominate the weak class of society (Marx and Engels, 2019: p.36), and Feuerbach (1804-1872) also believes that religion has a human origin (Feuerbach, 1854: p.104). Freud (1856-1939) also considers religion to arise from the repressed human desires and instincts (Freud, 1983: p. 80). Such atheistic approaches to religion are contrary to the view of Divine religions, which consider the origin of religion to be Divine revelation and the teachings of Divine prophets.One of the approaches to consider is the sociological approach of the origin of religion, and Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) is the most prominent sociological theorist and the one who had the greatest impact on the sociology of religion. Emile Durkheim's view about the origin of religion is one of the views that is widely discussed and known today and can be rejected from various aspects. In this research, an attempt is made to analyze and criticize his view from the perspective of Shahid Motahhari (1919-1979) and John Hick (1922-2012).MethodologyThis article analyzes Emile Durkheim's view on the origin of religion and its criticism from the perspective of Shahid Motahhari and John Hick, with a descriptive-analytical method and with a critical approach.FindingsDurkheim believes that to investigate the origin of religion, one should start from primitive religions (Durkheim, 2017: p.89). Durkheim believes that religions have an evolutionary journey that started with totemism and evolved into current religions (Moreno, 2011: p.109). Durkheim emphasized that religion is both a reasonable phenomenon and an eternal and undeniable reality. At the same time, Durkheim believes that the essence of religion is not in believing in a God beyond nature and the world (Durkheim, 1995: p.109). Durkheim considers the simplest existing religion to be "totemism" or the religion of the Australian aboriginal tribes. From Durkheim's view, totemism is important from two aspects; first, totem is the essence of religion, and second, totemism is a factor for solving conflicts between science and religion; because from his view, in today's individualistic and rationalistic societies, science has the supreme moral and intellectual authority. On the other hand, religion also defines certain frameworks for people, and science, by discovering the deep reality of all religions, does not create another religion, but creates the confidence that society has the power to create the gods it needs in every era (Ritzer, 2012: p.23).Discussion and ConclusionAccording to Durkheim, the origin of all religions is totem, and totem is also derived from society's propositions (Durkheim, 2012: p.67). Durkheim does not consider religion useful except for social benefits, and beyond that religion is useless, but this view has been criticized and is in conflict with rational principles. Shahid Motahhari has criticized Durkheim's view based on Islamic principles. From his view, as Durkheim thought, society is not the main factor in the birth of religion, culture, art, etc., and society should not be considered the real and effective factor in the birth of such important affairs in human life (Motahhari, 2003: p.76). He also has stated consequences such as monopolizing the function of religion in individual life and alienation for Durkheim's theory, and that such a view of religion, although it may be true for other religions, is not true for Islam (Motahhari, 2009: p.90). Shahid Motahhari also considers the belief in totemism, which is one of the principles of Durkheim's theory, to be illusory and unacceptable (Motahhari, 2010: p. 102). John Hick has also tried to challenge Durkheim's sociological view of the origin of religion (Hick, 1993: p.78). Hick considers Durkheim's statement that "society is the origin of religion" to be unproven and unjustifiable, which will never be able to explain the origin of religion well. From Hick's point of view, Durkheim's view can ultimately explain one of the effective factors in religious life, not the origin of religion. According to the criticisms expressed by Shahid Motahhari and John Hick on Durkheim's sociological theory about the origin of religion, it can be acknowledged that Durkheim's theory has no rational basis and proven argument.
Gholam Hossein Khedri; Hossein Sokhanvar
Volume 10, Issue 1 , December 2021, , Pages 27-47
Abstract
researchers turn to biology and neuroscience to explore factors such as religious tendencies, including VMAT2, known as the "God gene" in order to explore the cause of religious tendencies. . The focus of this group is to provide a complete map of religious beliefs on the mechanisms of the brain and ...
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researchers turn to biology and neuroscience to explore factors such as religious tendencies, including VMAT2, known as the "God gene" in order to explore the cause of religious tendencies. . The focus of this group is to provide a complete map of religious beliefs on the mechanisms of the brain and its nervous system, and basically provide the genetic basis for those brain mechanisms. According to this approach, they introduce genetic markers and spiritual intelligence (SQ) along with other human intelligence and believe that spiritual transcendental neural bases are also built solely from these foundations.The aim of this article is to introduce and review the three main and common approaches of religious physiology, namely biological psychology, Cognitive science of religion (CSR) and biology. Then the threats and opportunities of these approaches will be explored for traditional theology (in the Abraham religions). It is a common assumption that this type of study is completely anti-religious, or at least they are faced to reduction due to its empirical and evolutionary approaches. However, the purpose of this article is to show that adherence to religious physiology and brain evolution can also provide responding to positivist criticisms of religions
Hedayat Alavitabaar
Volume 3, Issue 2 , April 2015, , Pages 1-23
Abstract
‘God’ and the correlating ideas are of great importance in Nietzsche’s philosophy. However, his way of considering these concepts is completely different from other thinkers. He, unlike others, does not employ traditional philosophical argumentations to approve his claim; instead appealing ...
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‘God’ and the correlating ideas are of great importance in Nietzsche’s philosophy. However, his way of considering these concepts is completely different from other thinkers. He, unlike others, does not employ traditional philosophical argumentations to approve his claim; instead appealing to abstract argumentations irrelevant to the reality, he uses the methods which is resulted from his concrete look to the era he lives in. His conflicting exposition in this context, ‘the death of God’, leads to many different and sometimes contradictory interpretations. ‘The death of God’ is the subject and also the basis of his ideas, so that his other ideas such as ‘Nihilism’ and ‘Superhuman’ are shaped quite in relation to it. In this paper, we attempt to explain Nietzsche’s position on the idea of “God” and outline his concerns after the phenomenon “the death of God”, as he calls.
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