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

According to ontological naturalism, the existence of an incorporeal cause for the world is in conflict with science, and basically the world does not need such a cause. According to methodological naturalism, too, scientific method is the most successful method for understanding the structure of the world and the causal relationships governing it. Looking at the issue from the perspective of theoretical philosophy, which does not belong to anything other than the outer world, we find that science has a limited share in the explanation of nature in terms of its method, and if the empirical findings arising from it are not in interaction with the metaphysical foundations of science, then it cannot have decisive theories in the explanation of the world and has nothing to say in the ontological issues. It seems that by considering the link between science and metaphysics, one can use philosophical theology in order to defend the belief in God as a complementary element in the explanation of the world of existence, and the use of science in the realm of ontology is considered unscientific and fallacious. Regarding essentialism in science, Ellis believes realistically that instead of lacking properties, creatures have powers and capacities that make up their essence and inherent properties and make their nature active and full of properties. It can be concluded that naturalism is valuable as a way of understanding material nature, without being in conflict with the transcendental and incorporeal cause. Methodological naturalism does not necessarily correlate with ontological naturalism, and what brings these two closer together is the metaphysical foundations of science, which alone is efficient in theology and the ontological explanation of nature. In sum, new essentialism establishes a connection between the inherent properties and the existence of things, and builds an objective and real foundation on the proof of the metaphysical foundations of science, from which theology can open a way to prove the belief in God.

This paper scrutinizes William Lane Craig’s perspective on the relationship between religion and ethics. According to Craig, knowledge of moral values and obligations is not inherently tied to theism, as he posits that God has embedded moral obligations within the human heart. However, in terms of ontology, Craig contends that theism provides the best explanation for moral realism. Atheistic realists, in avoiding the naturalistic fallacy, are urged to conceptualize moral properties as abstract Platonic entities akin to numbers and propositions, a stance unnecessary within the theistic framework where God, a concrete entity, serves as the supreme good and ultimate source of moral goodness. Critically assessing Craig’s viewpoint, the paper contends that 1) real property should not be conflated with an essential constituent. Drawing on Moore’s perspective, moral predicates are construed as second-order philosophical concepts inherently tied to the existence of subjects. 2) By centering on the existence of “moral evil,” Craig’s argument can be inverted, providing grounds for an argument supporting the existence of Satan. 3) The consequence of Craig’s argument is the negation of any moral obligation for atheists. 4) Positing obedience to God’s command solely for its own sake as irrational, Craig’s argument may potentially exhibit circular reasoning.

The problem of evil has always been a challenge against theism and there has been a lot of disputation about it. What can be considered as a newer challenge to theism is the very problem of divine hiddenness. There are multiple similarities between the two arguments which have caused some thinkers to reduce one to another and to count only one of them as original. It is possible that one of the very concepts of evil or hiddenness be reduced to another one, or one of the arguments that is grounded on them, or the reduction occurs in both phases. Regarding the vastitude of the domain of each problem, what we solely aim at is inspecting the reasons of ones who hold that divine hiddenness is nothing but one articulation of the problem of evil and it is not necessary to be regarded as independent. These reasons range from a sort of resemblance of their logical structure, methodology, conclusion, or responses in order to show that either the problem of divine hiddenness is not independent at all or if it is, it makes a much less severe case against theism in comparison to the problem of evil so it’s not worthy of any concern. What will be eventually concluded is that despite having plentiful available similarities, this kind of reduction is not justified and each problem, regardless of their ability to prove what they claim, is independently precious, inspection-worthy, and original.

The issue of this article is to introduce the general field of science and religion and explain its importance. For this purpose, after defining the desired meanings for "science", "religion" and "theology", we address the question "Why does theology relate to science?". After that, we will describe the various stages that non-sensory knowledge will enter into the process of scientific theorizing, and in this section, we will refer to some of the accepted theses of the philosophy of science of the second half of the 20th century. Then, we will define naturalism and show its place as one of the irreplaceable foundations of the modern experimental science, and we will depict the theological consequences of its acceptance. Finally, looking at the contrast of naturalism with theism on the one hand and the falseness of naturalism on the other hand, we will establish the necessity of a monotheistic worldview in the process of understanding nature.

Are the meanings of “chance” and “guidedness” consistent? The goal of this article is toprovide an affirmative answer to this question and thereby defend compatibilism (or accommodationism), which is the position that evolutionary theory and interventionist theism can coexist harmoniously. Compatibilists, such as van Inwagen (2003), Bartholomew (2008), Dowe (2011), Bradley (2012), and Sober (2014) argue that certain components or features of the biosphere exhibit both chancy and divinely guided aspects. What is chance?The concept of chance, in its scientific sense, is closely related to the concept of probability. One can interpret the probabilities used in scientific theories ontologically. If so, by “chance” we mean whatever objective property in the world the term “ontological probability” picks out (Suárez, 2022).[1] The received view suggests that chance and randomness are identical but technically speaking, “chance” describes the process that leads to the production of an outcome, while the term “random” describes the outcome itself.(Von Mises’ definition of randomness): A sequence, such as a sequence of zeroes and ones, is considered random when no successful gambling strategy can be made to predict the next number in the sequence. In other words, a sequence is random if it cannot be exploited by a gambling system for prediction. (Eagle, 2021)Furthermore, “chance” is often used synonymously with “coincidence.” Coincidence refers to the co-occurrence of two independent deterministic chains of events. In this sense, being chancy implies having a cause. Sometimes “chancy” is used synonymously with “accidental.” In this sense, a chance event does not possess a specific purpose. It is important to note that not every coincidence is considered an accident (Dowe, 2011).Genetic mutations serve as quintessential examples of chance events in evolutionary theory, as they do not occur in response to environmental threats or opportunities faced by species. In other words, there is no statistical relationship or correlation between the usefulness to a particular species of a potential mutation and the probability of that mutation occurring.The compatibility of “chance” and “guidedness”The incompatibilist might argue that chance processes cannot be divinely guided because the very meaning of being guided is not compatible with the meaning of being chancy. In response, van Inwagen (2003) points out that 1) the term “chancy” has multiple meanings, such that (2) some of these meanings can coexist with the idea of being guided, and (3) the meaning of “chancy” relevant to evolutionary theory falls within this category. Therefore, the argument just presented is not valid. Van Inwagen believes that the compatibilist perspective favors considering “chance” as coincidence. Being a coincidence requires having a cause, but having a cause does not necessarily imply having a purpose or being divinely guided. The question facing the compatibilist is whether chance is compatible with being divinely guided. Hence, van Inwagen mistakenly conflates having a cause with being guided.However, van Inwagen's approach can be modified. There are meanings of “chance” and “guided” according to which these two concepts can be considered compatible. To illustrate this, let’s consider a chain of events as follows:Mutation 1, the occurrence of feature 1 in species A; mutation 2, the occurrence of feature 2 in species B; mutation 3, the occurrence of feature 3 in species A; mutation 4, the occurrence of feature 4 in species C, and so on.This chain is random in the sense that knowing one part of it does not allow for predictions of the next event with significant probability. Genetic mutations are chance events; there is no statistical correlation between the usefulness of a particular mutation and the probability of its occurrence. If such a correlation existed, probabilistic predictions would be possible. However, it can still be argued that this chain is guided, meaning that its members are deliberately chosen by an intelligent agent. Having a pattern is a property that describes the relationship among the members of the sequence while being deliberately chosen is a property that results from the fact that each member, and consequently the whole sequence, is somehow related to an external entity, say an intelligent agent.Thus, there is no prima facie contradiction in considering a sequence of events to be random and at the same time divinely guided. One might object that although it may not seem contradictory at first, no truly random sequence can be guided. However, it remains unclear what kind of argument could support this claim solely through an analysis of the meanings of “chance” and “guidedness.” One might argue that being random suggests a lack of direction while being guided requires having a specific direction. Alternatively, one might argue that being random implies that attempting to regenerate the same sequence via a chance process would most likely fail, whereas being guided suggests otherwise. While these objections carry weight, they all require an additional premise beyond the mere meanings of “chance” and “guidedness.”One way to understand “chancy” as opposed to “guided” is to define chance within the incompatibilist sense as follows:The incompatibilist meaning of “chancy”: not being intentionally brought about by an intelligent agent, either human or non-human, nor being necessitated by the laws of nature. (van Woudenberg, 2013)In this sense, a chance event cannot be guided. However, it is worth noting that evolutionary theory itself does not make any claims about intentional agency. The defender of the incompatibilist meaning seems to have assumed ontological naturalism, but not methodological naturalism. It is evident that ontological naturalists tend to favor the incompatibilist meaning. Van Inwagen (2013) highlights that methodological naturalism does not necessitate a scientific theory to explicitly deny the existence and effects of supernatural agents. If a methodological naturalist wishes to adopt the incompatibilist meaning, she or he must make an additional argument that goes beyond merely considering the meanings of “chance” and “guidedness”. [1]. For a defense of the existence of chance in the world, see van Inwagen (1995), Sober (2010), Bradley (2012), and Emery (2022).

Atheism is considered a legacy of the new age. Hume is considered the beginning of this legacy. Despite fifty years of atheism tendency, Antony Flew has thrown tremors into the structure of this heritage by raising questions about the suffering of this approach and has spoken about the possibility of God’s being. His questions about doubting the claims of atheism cannot be considered only as violations or fault and the possibility of refutation. The impulse that he proposed by asking about the possibility of God's being based on the foundations of science in the future produced three results. First, creating a fundamental hole in Hume's claims and atheism, secondly, the possibility of re-examining the claims of atheism and re-reading the arguments of atheists and criticizing it and the possibility of unproven of violations and objections, and thirdly, returning to the correct and accurate re-reading of the arguments of the theists in proving the being of an intelligent principle in the creation of the world.The main idea this article is that first the approach and period of Flow’s first intellectual period regarding the impossibility of positive proof of theism is analyzed, then are explained the triple achievements on the theoretical impulses of the heritage of atheism and at the end his main thought in the second intellectual period is analyzed.

According to Hartle and Hawking’s ‘no-boundary proposal,’ at the beginning of the universe, the time dimension behaves like the spatial dimensions. This removes the initial singularity of the universe. Hawking argues that this model has important implications against theism, because in this model, (1) the universe did not have an initial creation point, (2) the appearance of the universe from ‘nothing’ is explained naturally, and (3) there is no need to appeal to God to set the initial conditions of the universe. Hence, the ‘no-boundary’ universe does not need a creator. In this paper, firstly, we review four classes of fundamental objections against the scientific reliability of the model and Hawking’s interpretation of it: (a) It is based on quantum gravity, for which there is no reliable theory yet. (b) There are several empirical and theoretical challenges against this proposal. (c) Considering the imaginary time and the Euclidean universe as objective facts about the universe (and not just mathematical tools) is not scientifically justified. And (d) theologically, the dependency of the universe on its creator is not confined to its initial instant, so removing it does not remove the need for the creator. Then, we show that even if ignore these sorts of objections and go along with Hawking on these issues, the model has no implications supporting his claims against the theism. Because (1) in this model, the universe still has a beginning; (2) this model does not describe the ‘appearance from absolute nothing’ in its precise meaning; and (3) the model itself is just a contingent proposal about the initial conditions of the universe and allows a variety of different possibilities about the energy-momentum contents of the universe. So, the model seems to have no important theological implications at all.

Talking about the belief in God and its opposite point, atheism, is one of the essential topics in theology and philosophy. Rejection of monotheistic worldview, negation of faith and surrender to any supernatural object or person, disbelief in the existence of a personal God who plays a role in human existence and life, denial of fixed beliefs and laws and monotheistic dogma or rites and rituals, negation of immortality and utopianism of monotheistic religions and so on, are the common characteristics of atheists. But the question is whether atheists really are honest in their claim of independence and distance from theism in their worldview, beliefs, and actions. With a descriptive-analytical method and by presenting numerous pieces of evidence, this article has challenged the claim that atheism is a totally independent and contradictory idea and is opposed to theism and considered it false. The result of this evidence and reasons is that atheism is a crude, immature, and indefensible idea and, at best, a clumsy, unjustified, and impractical copycat of theism.

Can atheistic explanations scientifically explain the world and humans? Can theistic deductive arguments provide a rational explanation of the world? Many philosophers of contemporary religion believe that deductive arguments for the existence of God are invalid because they are either deductively invalid or based on one or more false or uncertain premises. Hence, they turned to non-analogical arguments about the existence of God. The purpose of this paper is to examine and evaluate one of these interesting new arguments, the Swinburne inductive argument. This research paper is a library-based theoretical analysis that is done through the concepts, propositions, and arguments. Swinburne claims that humanistic and materialistic explanations cannot explain the world and humans. In contrast, he has three arguments for the existence of the universe, the existence of scientific laws, and the laws of the process of evolution; He uses the existence of God as three affirmative inductive arguments and concludes the accumulation of theism as the best explanation. The result of such arguments is that theism can be the ultimate explanation of the world. It will also be shown that such arguments are less challenging and can greatly increase the likelihood of God's existence.

Divine Conceptualism is a solution to the problem that Platonism poses for theism. This view is put forward by Alvin Plantinga and Greg Welty, two contemporary American philosophers, argues for a Platonic realism about propositions, possible worlds, and mathematical abstract objects; That is, although it considers these abstract objects to exist, it considers them to be concrete and not abstract, and in order to reconcile with theism, it considers these objects as the thoughts of God. Craig, a contemporary American theist philosopher, argues that this view can not be considered a sutible solution; Because it is not acceptable to consider abstracts as mathematical objects as concrete; In addition, conceptualism has difficulty in justifying false propositions. Conceptualism also requires God's attribution to malicious thoughts, and in Welty's interpretation of conceptualism, the challenge of Platonism remains. Examining what has been done, it seems that some of Craig's objections to Welty and Plantinga's view of conceptualism are true. More serious objections of conceptualism can also be introduced into Welty and Plantinga's views. Plantinga and Welty have neglected intuitive(direct) Knowledge and reduced God's knowledge to acquired(indirect) knowledge; For if the knowledge of God is to be regarded intuitively, while at the same time realizing the realities of mathematics, propositions, and possible worlds, these objects are simply present in the existence of God; Not in the sense of separate concepts.

Spirituality and meaningfulness of life is an issue that has pitted two traditional religious thoughts and the modern secular world against each other. The basic question is, "Is spirituality achieved only through religion, or is it possible to live a meaningful life in a secular society?" Religious spirituality relies on the immaterial world and spiritual affairs and can include moral values, religion, sacred or occult matters, mysticism, etc. or any kind of spiritual and spiritual state in life. Secular meaningfulness is focused on the point that meaningful life is the result of rationality, which is achieved as a result of free, conscious, voluntary and purposeful human action, and its fruit should be the improvement of human's worldly life conditions. With this understanding, it becomes clear that there is a fundamental difference between the two categories of religiosity and spirituality, as if spirituality can be separated from religiosity. The difference between religiosity and spirituality is that if religiosity is not out of servitude, it is not religiosity; But if spirituality comes from servitude, it is not spirituality. What secularism claims to try to realize is purifying human thoughts from superstitions and deviations.

Graham Oppy, a contemporary Australian philosopher, is a naturalistic atheist who denies any supernatural causes. The problem of research is that; What are Oppy's principles in replacing naturalism instead of theism? The findings of the research, which were obtained with the analytical method of evidence, show that Oppy's epistemological, methodological and ontological foundations, based on which he considers naturalism more believable than theism, are not realistic and have fundamental challenges and slippages. In epistemology, his view of a successful argument faces many challenges; in methodology, he relies on the principle of simplicity, but by claiming the simplicity of naturalism against theism, he does not provide adequate answers to the many questions that are raised and does not resolve the theological philosophical problems about it. Ontologically, naturalism is not a substitute for God's supremacy, and the possibility of replacing naturalism with theism is very weak. Also, Oppy does not have a correct explanation of causality and has confused causality with the principle of determinism.

Experimental philosophy is a new approach in analytic philosophy emerging in the last decade. Experimental philosophy emphasizes the intuitions of ordinary people and compares them with philosophers' intuitions to understand and analyze philosophical problems. One important philosophical and theological issue that can be addressed with such an approach is the problem of evil. Since in the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is raised in two logical and evidential forms, the research questionnaires were designed to cover both accounts, although more emphasis was placed on the evidential problem of evil. The statistical population of this research was 100 people from different social groups who did not have special studies in philosophical and theological fields. The findings of this research show that the public's sympathy with the logical account of the problem of evil is more than their sympathy with the evidential one. However, the ratio between the answers and all the questions indicates a significant inconsistency in the folks' understanding of the problem of evil and its relationship with theism.

A leading figure of "new atheism", Sam Harris, maintains that religion and morality are in conflict. He, despite what religious believers generally think, does not take religion to be a basis for morality, instead, he believes that religion devastates morality and the moral system. In order to substantiate this claim, Harris takes two ways. First, based on some surveys, he argues that religious countries witness a moral decline, while atheist countries are morally in an acceptable situation. Accordingly, he seeks to induce by field studies that atheist countries are in a much better position than the theist countries in the moral indicators such as material well-being, respect for women's rights, human rights, etc.. As a result, it is atheism that has made society more moral. Second, by inspecting some religious doctrines, he decides that they are sources of violence and clashes among human beings and, consequently, lead societies toward moral decline. In this article, we examine Harris' claims concerning the relationship between religion and morality, concluding that they suffer from following flaws: not accurately determining the meaning of theism and atheism, misunderstanding about moarality and values, not paying attention to various indicators in human moral life, taking a weak scientific approach in evaluating the moral indicators of theist and atheist countries, not paying attention to the crimes of atheists throughout history, and having a superficial and false understanding of religious teachings.