فصلنامه قبسات
پیاپی 52 (تابستان 1388)

Religious knowledge is: “the result of a justified attempt to discover religious statements and teachings"; the philosophy of religious knowledge is: "a philosophical knowledge-like discipline (it is close to be a philosophical knowledge) which studies the general commands of the main discussions of religious knowledge through a rational and comprehensive perspective".One of the most important responsibilities of the philosophy of religious knowledge is to explain the process of creation of religious knowledge and its changes and courses. The theory of 'Ibtina' tries to explain the process of creation of religious knowledge and its changes and courses (and determine the bases of designing a comprehensive and new "logic of understanding religion"). The summary of this theory is as follows: "religious knowledge is the result of the effect and cooperation of the five bases of religion - as a Divine message - on each other such that this effect and cooperation is periodic and permanent ". This theory is based on four principles as explained below:First principle: religious knowledge is created through a process and religious knowledge is the result of other factors;Second principle: the factors involved in the process of creation of religious knowledge are two-sided (they may be correct or incorrect) and as a result, religious knowledge may be right or wrong; Third principle: religion has message and contains five bases involved in understanding the message;Fourth principle: discovery of religion and its correct and comprehensive use is based on the discovery of the five bases and their correct and comprehensive use and understanding religion is based on prevention of incorrect and misguiding factors

The discussions regarding evil are generally classified as follows: the logical problem of evil and the evidential problem of evil. William Leonard Row has presented one of the impressive explanations of the evidential problem of evil which is based on the idea of arbitrary evils. He shows that the existence of arbitrary evils demonstrates that believing in the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful God who is the absolute good is not reasonable. Most of his critics have tried to exactly analyse the epistemological bases of his premises and show their weakness. The common point between these critical approaches is that they all try to present some principles to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions of a reasonable way of concluding ‘not being’ from ‘not finding’. The critics believe that various considerations such as the absoluteness of God’s knowledge and the restriction of human’s knowledge, show that bases of Row’s demonstration (especially his first premise) does not satisfy the above conditions. Therefore it can be proved that the demonstration of evidential evil is not reasonable.

In this article we will study one of the important questions of religious-studies which is the consistency of God’s existence and the problem of evil. Although the problem of evil has been discussed by religious scholars in the past, but it has taken a new form today. Some atheists such as Hume believe that the problem of evil denies God’s existence and the two ideas are inconsistent. Hume’s reasoning is criticized in this article and it is proved that if God, who is all-knowing, absolutely powerful and completely well-wisher, has enough moral and logical reasons for occurrence of evil, we may conclude that God’s existence is consistent with the evil. Existence of a small amount of evil is the essential of this material world and the creation of this world without its essential is not possible; and the essentially impossible matters do not take place even by an absolute power. Therefore it is impossible for God to create this world which includes a great amount of goodness without its essential because in that case the world of materials should not be the world of materials anymore! This is the most sufficient moral and logical reason for the occurrence of evil.

The problem of evil has been a prominent challenge to religious beliefs for ever. One of the most important accounts of the problem of evil is the logical problem of evil as an argument against God's existence. Philosophers and theologians have offered different rejoinders to the problem up to now. Amongst the responses, Plantinga's response, so-called free will defense has a great significant. The purpose of this paper is to assess the logical problem of evil and Plantinga's response to it and to explore its criticisms. In this paper, it will be shown that the logical problem of evil and the allegation of contradiction or inconsistency between belief in God and the existence of evil and the criticisms of Plantinga's response are not strong enough. Although Plantinga's free will defense succeeded to show the deficiency of the logical problem of evil, but of course it is not a certain solution to justify God's reasons to permit evil. To know God's reasons to create evil we need a theodicy that is out of the purpose of Plantinga's free will defense.

In this article we will first briefly explain the concept of evil and differentiate between the philosophical view and the custom view of evil and it will be explained that the relevant questions are related to both views. According to some answers, the origin of evil is human’s will. This theory is generally acceptable in ethical evils and partially acceptable in natural evils. But another question is raised: was it possible for God to create free human somehow that he would not do any evil while he was still free? Some religious philosophers have claimed this kind of creation is impossible and have tried to prevent questioning God’s creation. But it is explained in this article that this kind of creation is possible but in this case human will have little potentiality for spiritual progress. In other words, human’s will is very important for his growth only if the opposite motives of this world and the hereafter correspond with each other. But of course if we do not define will as ‘impossible to predict’, it is possible to have free human without any evil; because in this case we cannot speak of the possibility of creating free human without any evil. Therefore quoting some definitions of will, two possibilities are suggested for this concept. According to the first meaning, human’s will has some specific rules and his actions can be completely predicted; and according to the other meaning, ‘will’ means ‘impossible to predict’. The first meaning is preferred in this article and the essentials of both views in the discussion of “will and evil” are investigated.

One of the main parts of the discussion of evil is the scientific and philosophical answers to its challenges which occupy the minds of all intellectuals. It is mentioned in the Bible’s commentaries that Satan had a debate with the angels and pointed out some questions which they could not answer. After paying a little attention, the relation between these questions and the problem of evil becomes clear. These questions are so severe that Fakhr Razi says: “if all the first and last creatures get together and help each other to answer these questions, and also accept the possibility of understanding goodness and badness of everything by reason they will not be able to answer”. The great Shi’ite philosopher and interpreter, Allameh Tabataba’i, has presented exact philosophical answers to some of the problems of evil and questions of Satan. His answers are presented in this article along with their analysis for the academics and especially for the young researchers.

One of the most important questions posed since the beginning of human’s life on earth is about the existence of difficulties, flaws and evil in the world. This point is therefore posed in all religions and philosophical schools and each have tried to answer it in their own special world-view.Theosophist, from Greek theosophists to Muslim theosophists, have all noticed and analyzed this topic with their own special view, each presenting a new perspective. The important point in this topic is its enrichment after Islam. Islamic theosophists especially Ibn-Sina, Sohrevardi and Mirdamad have had a great role in this philosophical development and dynamism.Mentioning some passages from each of the theosophists, their innovations in answering this question and their picture of the reality of existence is presented in this article. The important parts of this article are as follows: Ibn-Sina’s innovations in his rational analysis of good and evil and also his explanation of the rule of conflict in the Divine wisdom; Sheikhe Ishraq’s description of the philosophy of creating the world of nature; and Mirdamad’s exact analysis of how evils interfere in the Divine decree and will.

There are different kinds of evils: ethical, natural, social, metaphysical and emotional evil. Augustine believes the origin of ethical evil is sin and the origin of natural evil is the punishment of sin. He has explained the problem of evil by analogy and induction. Some of these problems put human’s will in contradiction with the Divine knowledge, some others put evil in contradiction with God’s power and justice or restrict His power and pretend human’s power is out of God’s control and depend on natural rules and logical necessities; some others question God’s goodness and finally pretend that evil is a reason for rejecting God's existence.As mentioned in one of the problems, he believes sin and Satan are good reasons for existence of evil and limitation of God’s power. Answering his question, Shwan differentiates between the Divine will of essence and the Divine will of existence and says that the ethical evils are related to the Divine will of existence and the Divine law and ethics are related to the Divine will of existence (not the Divine will of essence). Completing this answer, Ibn Arabi explains that the Divine will is related to action not the agent. He answers the question of God’s knowledge and says that God’s will for managing the world of possible beings – which includes human’s deeds - is to apply the principle of causality and to approve human’s will as one of the causes of actualizing His actions. Various answers are mentioned for evil which are generally as follows:1.Evil is non-existential;2.Evil is particular;3.Evil is relative.

One of the main questions which should be answered in the field of distribution in economy is as follows: what is the purpose of a just distribution in economy? Is the main purpose removing poverty or is it reducing class gaps?As explained in this article, the answer to this question is rooted in the theoretical bases and philosophical presuppositions of a scholar or an intellectual-political system. Therefore the first point to be discussed is the philosophical analysis of the concept of justice. Then the effect of this analysis on the perspective of a school regarding God and human is investigated. The above system of thought affects our judgment of the main purpose of economical justice. The following hypothesis is proved in this article: justice means balance and the other definitions stated for this term return to this main meaning by an ontological analysis. Presenting its inferences of the Divine God, human moderation and social-political justice, Quran’s literature tries to shape human’s mind in the three fields of understanding God, anthropology and society.