جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « الهیات سلبی » در نشریات گروه « فلسفه و کلام »

Several factors have caused the tendency of religious thinkers in the meaning of God's inherent attributes to negative theology, which can be named as the bases of this theology. The most important factor is monotheism and the oneness of God's essence. Its three interpretations, namely negation of analogy, negation of partner, and negation of combination, are three important bases in the tendency towards negative theology. Tanzīh (purifying God of imperfect attributes) and negation of similitude caused some thinkers to defend negative theology. The second basis is that one should not associate a partner with God's essence, and therefore the Ashʿarī theory of ziyādah al-ṣifāt (the attributes added to the Essence), which is belief in the multiplicity of the eternals, is invalid. Affirmative theology is directly related to this theory and therefore negative theology is a suitable solution to stay away from this problem. The third basis is simplicity and negation of composition. Based on this, thinkers like Ḳāḍī Saʿīd Qomī did not accept the theory of the sameness of Essence and attributes, and by negating attributes, they have tended towards negative theology. The fourth basis is the lack of imagination of God's attributes, which has caused theologians like ʿAllāmeh Madjlisī to believe in negative theology despite basically accepting attributes for God. The fifth basis is that the word wudjūd (lit. existence) is a homonym with different meanings, and this basis has led some theologians to negative theology.

The problem of this research is to examine the semantics of divine attributes from the point of view of Moses Ibn Maimon and Allameh Helli, in order to understand the views of the two main and influential Islamic and Jewish currents regarding the monotheism of attributes, to examine commonalities and differences of their views, to identify their weaknesses and critique them, and to use of them in solving theological problems. This research has been done in a library and descriptive-analytical method with a comparative-critical approach. Based on the findings of the research, both thinkers are among the followers of negative theology and have a similar procedure in terms of the semantics of attributes. Ibn Maimon refers the Divine essential attributes to the negative attributes, rejecting those opposite to them, and those of action and, relying on dissimilarity between God and creatures, does not regard them as being real and objective. Allameh Helli also interprets the Divine essential as viewed by Ibn Maimon and believes that one can reach knowledge of God in this way.

Denying any resemblances between the creator and creatures, Qazi Saeed Qomi sets his ideas apart from the typical cataphatic theology in Islamic discourse as well as the conventional theology of Shi’ism. This paper aims at investigating the relationship or lack of it between Qazi Saeed Qomi’s apophatic theology and the conventional predominant monotheistic perspectives of main schools of theology (i.e., Ash’arism, Mu’tazila, Shi’ism). Qazi Saeed’s theology is very different from the common rational theology of Ash’arites or Shi’ites, both of which emphasize the congruities between the creator and creatures. Although differentiating the aforementioned ideas appears to be difficult, unlike other theologists, Qazi Saeed does not believe in the theory of substituting the essence for attribute. In spite of the fact that at the first sights, Qazi Qomi’s theology brings a resemblance to rational-narrative-apophatic theological thoughts (e.g., al-Shaykh al-Saduq’s narrative-apophatic theology), our argument is that his ideas are reliant on the theoretical mystical thought (although they are still different in some ways). Qazi Qomi’s theology has been influenced by the theoretical mystical thought in terms of the following issues: believing in personal unity of existence, negating congruities between the essence and its manifestations, negating God’s essence from his attributes and believing in confinement of God’s names and attributes. The most considerable difference between them is that mystic theologists believe in being qua being principle, while Qazi Saeed Qomi fails even to accept this principle.

Despite the fact that Ibn Arabi and Eckhart agree and are similar to each other in many principles, they differ in their emphasis on God's "analogy" and "purification". This difference of opinion, which at first seems insignificant compared to many of their common opinions, leads to a deep difference and even conflict between the thoughts of our two thinkers in the issue of "the place of physical world". Therefore, "the physical world" and its place can be considered as a problem that highlights the differences between Ibn Arabi's and Eckhart's views - in spite of all the similarities and consensus. Even common doctrines such as "the unity of existence" and "the creation of man in the image of God" cannot reduce the deep disagreement between Ibn Arabi and Eckhart on the issue of the place of the world. As it will be proven, Ibn Arabi uses these two teachings in order to sanctify the world and multitudes. But Eckhart interprets these two doctrines in a way that leads to disdain the universe and multitudes.

"Negative theology" and "positive theology" are usually introduced as two opposing epistemic and linguistic theories or approaches to God and His attributes in relation to man. Negative theology considers God and His attributes to be unknowable and not expressible in words by man, and positive theology considers God and His attributes to be knowable and expressible in words. According to this article, negative and positive theologies, in addition to epistemic and linguistic dimensions or aspects, also include ontological and pragmatic dimensions and aspects. This article, by using a descriptive and analytical method and by citing some evidences from the views of some prominent philosophers and theologians of the West, first, tries to establish and justify the four dimensions of a negative and positive theology. And then, tries to introduce a multifaceted theology based on the verses of the Holy Quran, with epistemological, linguistic, pragmatic, and ontological aspects. This theology, in all of its aspects, is negative towards the Essence and Essential Attributes of God but positive towards the Names of God. According to the positive multifaceted Qur'anic theological approach adopted in this article, the first step for man's relationship with God is cognitive.

Qāḍī Sa‘īd Qumī is one of the greatest philosophers and mystics of Iran during the Safavid era. He was competent in peripatetic and Illumination philosophies, and had mystic tendencies. With regard to the divine attributes, he believes in the negative divinity and believes that what we understand from the existence and attributes of the possible beings cannot be attributed to God. The reasons he gives in for this is that God is the pure Being and has no attribute, and the human intellect does not have the capability to understand God and His attributes. With regard to the ontology of attributes, Qāḍī deems detestable the belief in the addition and sameness of attributes with God, and favors the representativeness of attributes for the divine essence. He extensively discusses the divine knowledge attribute and believes that God’s knowledge is not intuitive, acquired, or differentiated (the views commonly hold by philosophers). This study aimed to adopt a critical view to examine Qāḍī’s viewpoint in the divine attributes’ domain – especially the divine knowledge attribute – and to show that despite its congruence with the outer appearance of some narrations, his viewpoint suffers from some internal weaknesses such as adherence to some questionable principles – such as belief in the overall difference between God and possible beings – and disagrees with some intellectual principles and narrations.

The theory of "negative theology" is considered as an important and popular theory in the field of theology, along with views such as "symbolic language theory", "verbal sharing", "spiritual sharing" and "allegorical theology". The ontological field of divine attributes in the thought of Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Husayn ibn Musa ibn Babawiyah Qomi known as "Sheikh Saduq" (301-381 AH) is a famous Imami thinker and Saadia ibn Yusuf Gawon known as "Saadia ibn Yusuf Fayumi" (883-943 AD) . The present study used a descriptive-analytical method to rationally analyze these two perspectives. According to these two personalities, the theory of the multiplicity of attributes on the divine essence is not correct in the light of the simplicity and incompatibility of the divine essence. Sa'diya proposed the theory of negative imagery as evidence of the attributes of life, while Sheikh Saduq proposed this theory with the motive of justifying the theory of the objectivity of attributes with the divine essence. According to the findings of the present study, "neglect of the components of the theory of objectivity", "internal incompatibility of the theory of representation" and "the need for proof versus perfection" are the most important harms of these two views.

According to Sa’id Qumi’s negative theology, God has no attributes, neither essential nor non-essential, and there is no congruity between Him and His creatures. Therefore, the words attributed to the Creator and creatures are affirmative for creatures, but negative for the Creator. As an example, His existence is synonymous with His not being non-existent. Therefore, we do not have any understanding except the negative one. However, the affirmative understanding of the Creator leads to divesting God of His attributes. This article aims to examine Sa’id Qumi’s solutions and to evaluate whether his solution logically eliminate the issue of divesting God of His attributes. Sa’id Qumi has proposed four solutions: (1) Replacement of positive knowledge with the negative one; (2) Propounding God as attribute Endower, not the endowed; (3) God has essential reality which is not the subject to our perceptual powers; (4) The replacement of negative understanding of titles and attributes with positive understanding of the Creator’s essence. Rational evaluation shows no solution can eliminate the issue of divesting God of His attributes in Sa’id Qumi monotheistic thought.

In Derrida's thought, "deconstruction" is not a "method" but an "approach" that questions the whole of metaphysical ideas and the tradition of Western philosophy from Plato to Husserl. The scope of his view also includes religious concepts because of their metaphysical nature. This paper shows the role of the term "deconstruction" and its application and explanation in the field of theology. To this end, while pointing to alternative interpretations that link Derrida’s deconstruction with nihilism and critique of this claim and relying on the deconstructive evidence of his thinking, such as the concept of the gift, the paradox of faith, the promise of faith, and justice, it has been tried to speak of the similarity between deconstruction and the possibility of religious thought. With this statement, the metaphorical reading of some of his commentators becomes irrelevant, and the positive and negative aspects that exist in differentiation and impossibility as deconstructive devices can pave the way for the possibility and understanding of a kind of negative theology in Derrida's philosophical thought and questioning of the sacred in the contemporary era.

 The purpose of this study is to compare, evaluate and evaluate the Kataphatic theology in the epistemological domain of Divine attributes in the monkey mind (born 530 AH / 1135 AD), a prominent Jewish scholar and Ayatollah Dr. Mohammad Sadeghi Tehrani (6-1), contemporary Quran researcher .

The present study used a descriptive-analytical method to rationally analyze these two views.

According to this character, not only the inherent affirmative attributes of God but also "divine existence" expresses the negative meaning and the "resemblance" of their common argument in critique of the theology.

"Confusion between concept and case", "equilibrium of substantive and non-material cognition", "incorrect interpretation of two Quranic teachings of Hamad's accompaniment to glorification and divine essence of impersonal description" and "lack of correct picture of the most important objective theology" are epistemological and ontological aspects of these two perspectives.

Apophatic theology, as an important theory in the field of the language of religion, has many supporters in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theology, and a firm link continue to exist between them in the three areas of ontology, epistemology, and semantics of divine attributes. Based on the findings of this research, Allameh Tabatabai, in some philosophical and mystical treatises, and in some instances in his Tafsir al-Mizan, while passing through positive theology in the field of the ontology of divine attributes and being influenced by some mystics, especially Sayyid Ahmad Krbalaeie, accepted apophatic theology in this area, and believed that great philosophers such as Farabi, Ibn Sina and even Mulla Sadra did not have any idea of this viewpoint. According to Allameh Tabatabai, the infinitude of the divine nature on the one hand, and the limitation of abstract understanding, on the other, justifies the apophatic theology and prevents the acceptance of positive theology while confirming the variety of the concepts of perfection on the divine nature.

Allameh Tabatabaei and Qāḍī Saʿīd Qummī are two important representatives of apophatic and cataphatic theology. With a negative approach, Qāḍī Saʿīd turns to the impossibility of recognizing the Divine Attributes, denying the existence of any attributes as well as those conceivable by human for the Almighty. In contrast, Allameh rejects the negative approach and turns to apophatic theology by emphasizing the cognitive nature of the language of religion and the existence of attributes. However, referring to the inherent imperfection of concepts and the inability of the human mind to purify concepts from defects, he considers the description of the infinite nature of God with these conceivable and comprehensible concepts to be flawed, although he ascribes the root and principle of the attributes to God due to his specific ontological principles. In this paper, by comparatively evaluating the two perspectives in a comparative and analytical manner, we have analyzed the quality and extent of their success in escaping the problems of both tashbīh (assimilating) and taʿṭīl (divesting God of all attributes), and, of course, have emphasized the necessity of avoiding the two extremes.

There are four basic theories on the ontology of the essential attributes of God that consist in: oneness of the Essence and the attributes, addition of the attributes to the Essence, negation of the attributes and deputyship of the Essence for the attributes and the theory of Aḥwāl (moods). Fayyaḍ Lāhīdjī, one of the philosopher-theologians of the Isfahan Thought School, talked about the philosophical theory of oneness from one hand, and the theory of deputyship from the other. This article tries to discover Lāhīdjī’s real view on the basis of his thought basis. It seems that according to the bases of emanation, necessity and compatibility (sinkhiyyah) of causality and meaning commonality of being, Lāhīdjī must accept the theory of oneness in ontology and positive theology in semantics, and his usage of word niyābah (deputyship) is because of confusing between the two theories of oneness and deputyship and not recognizing the differences of the two theories and their bases and various effects.

Before the modern philosophy, the prevailing view in human thought was to attribute human qualities to both God and the world. Accordingly, anthropomorphism about both God and the world can be considered a dominant feature before the modern age. These characteristics mainly included such things as having perception and will.In the modern age and with the intellectual and philosophical developments of modern man, the human characteristic of God and the world was gradually denied and taken away and considered only to man. On the new view, God is primarily the god of negative theology and the universe is subject to mechanical forces and therefore lacks the soul and consequently perception and will. On this basis, it seems permissible to speak of the title of "dehumanization" of God and the world in the mind of the new man. This new view has left important implications for man's understanding of himself, God, and the world, and the relationship between the three.

In contrast to positive theology, negative theology offers a different course in theology. However, in Khorasan theological school, negative theology plays a positive epistemic complement role, which is mentioned as cardinal or innate knowledge. In this approach, humans before arriving to this world, were bearing a cardinal knowledge of God, of which of course they are somehow ignorant, and the philosophy of sending the prophets, is removing the veil of ignorance and remembering this forgotten nature and blessings. But, after proving the origin of the world, the man's wisdom without any analogy can manage to achieve knowledge of God through negative interpretation of divine attributes. The principal reason and basis for denying positive theology in this intellectual school is negation of analogy. Of course, concerning the interpretation of how negative theology is supplemented, there are enormous differences among the scholars of Khorasan school which refer to ontology of the divine attributes and proving and negating the attributes. Among the views raised in Khorasan school we have found the views of Ayatollah Mirza Mahdi Esfahani, the founder of this school, and three of his prominent pupils namely, Ayatollah Mojtaba Ghazvini, Ayatollah Maleki Mianji, and Ayatollah Morvarid.

The issue of knowing the divine attributes and their semantics is one of the most important and controversial issues in the discussion of knowing the Almighty God. Mirza Mahdi Esfahani, by emphasizing verses and hadiths (traditions), seeks to express a special type of negative theology, which is different from other words of those who believe in negative theology, such as Ibn Maimon (Maimonides, Moses ben Maimon) and Qadi Sa’id. In his view, God has attributes, and these attributes are established equivocally (homonymous). The intellect of human beings cannot also know the divine attributes due to the inconsistency between the Creator and the creature, and the description of God to human notions, concepts and knowledge is not correct, but it is God who introduces his attributes to human beings and for this reason, this quotation of this theory does not lead to the cessation of the knowledge of God’s attributes. By explaining and analyzing this theory, it becomes clear that this theory actually leads to the cessation of the intellect in understanding the knowledge of divine attributes.