Christianity

This paper explores the method Allāmeh Muhammad Husayn Kāshif al-Ghiṭā, a famous Muslim theorist of the 18-19 th centuries, employed in his critique of Christianity. Although, his method for looking into the Bible is similar to that of Christian and Jewish scholars, his assumptions and results are different. Based on his viewpoints on the Bible, he believes in impeccable revelations. He examined superstructure, namely accuracy of attribution of books and pamphlets to their authors as well as personality and credibility of Jesus Christ’s disciples and apostles. Lack of credibility of the twelve original disciples of Jesus Christ and unreliability of the Gospels are proved. Moreover, he has carefully examined the content as infrastructure of the New Testament. As such, incongruities can be observed between the New Testament and the Old Testament. There are contradictions in the Bible itself. He prefers to apply argumentative tactic for general readers. In addition, his application of comparative step in his critique is considerable. This paper studies Kāshif al-Ghiṭā's approach to review the Bible in order to figure out Muslim scholars' viewpoints on the Christianity.

Somewhat surprisingly, a number of scholars have recently claimed to find an implied theology in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. This surprising because the author does not state anywhere in the body of his work that he seeks to align his philosophy with a theology, in fact he states just the opposite, as we shall see. While it is true that Merleau-Ponty does dialogue with certain views of Christianity, and while it is true that he does argue for a religion that treats the divine as “horizontal” rather than “vertical,” that is, as part of human life rather than beyond it, the sympathetic goal of his reflection here is to suggest a Christianity that is more humane and less dogmatically hierarchical, that is more centered in human experience rather than an absolute other. His goal here is certainly not to claim this theology as an essential part of his philosophy. As he says, the role of the philosopher should not be to prove or disprove the existence of God but to consider what God means to human beings in the movement of history. A number of Merleau-Ponty’s own texts will be consider here in some detail along with a variety of texts that claim that his works harbor a hidden theology.

If we want to talk about the philosophy of religion with an Islamic approach, we must clarify what are its differences and similarities with the conventional philosophy of religion in the West. For this purpose, in this paper, the meaning of comparative philosophy and its obstacles, possibilities, necessities, and benefits will first be investigated. After that, it will be shown what considerations should be taken into account in order to have a comparative philosophy. Then, we will show how to have a philosophy of religion with an Islamic approach and what differences and similarities this type of philosophy of religion has with the Western philosophy of religion. Following that, some hermeneutic considerations for this philosophical comparison will be mentioned, and afterward, it will be shown how the Christian background of Western philosophy of religion has affected it. Finally, we will review some of the main subjects of the philosophy of religion if it is to be rationally evaluated with the foundations of Islamic thought to show what differences it has with the conventional Western philosophy of religion.

This paper explores early and Reformation-era Christian attempts to render the idea of an afterlife coherent. The specific focus is on early Reformed Christians’ unequivocal belief in a bodily criterion of personal identity and a physical afterlife. This article shows how Jewish divisions are partially responsible for the differences from this endeavor. Lending focus and structure to this broadly reconstructive project is a sustained critique of Princeton philosopher Mark Johnston’s recent agenda-setting series of lectures published as Surviving Death. My general conclusion is that Christian resurrectionism—or at least, the most persuasive forms of it as presented by some of the more astute Reformed Christian thinkers—is at least a coherent idea regardless of whether or not it is true. 

In his attempt, to make plausible the Christian doctrine of Atonement, Richard Swinburne faces many objections. One objection has been that no sense can be made of the belief that life is a gift. This is because humans have no responsibility to God and no subsequent need to atone to God for wrongdoing. One way out of this objection requires belief in a soul. This paper, based on descriptive analytics, outline Swinburne’s Atonement theory to give a flavor of what depends on the belief that life is a gift from God. Then categorize and present the objections Swinburne faces. As for the objection it will focus on, and also provide its remedy and suggest that the remedy is quite digestible from an Islamic perspective.

Among ethical-centered religions, the two popular faiths of Islam and Christianity focus on important ethical propositions to nurture and morally educate the adherents of their respective religions. In this context, a significant ethical teaching such as forbearance plays a crucial role in impacting the personal lives of the believers of both religions as well as their social relationships. The present study, which is developed through exploring and extracting all relevant keywords and propositions related to the teaching of forbearance from the esteemed texts of Islam and Christianity, namely the Holy Quran, the impeccable Imams narrations (Thaqalayn), and the Bible, aims to extract, categorize, and ultimately evaluate a precise representation of the conceptualization, significance and value, types, effective factors, effects, and appropriate and inappropriate etiquettes related to the teaching of forbearance based on the information included in these texts. The most significant conclusion is that multiple quantitative and qualitative similarities and differences can be derived from examining this teaching in the reputable texts of Christianity and Islam. 

In the text of the Holy Quran and the Bible, it is emphasized that God is invisible and cannot be seen by the eyes. There is a distinction in that while the Old Testament does not regard God as merely a mental entity, it acknowledges a direct presence of God in speaking to humans through specific verses and signs. The vision represented in the Quran is used to explain the perception of events and the manifestation of human actions on the Day of Judgment, whereas the vision in bodily form regarding seeing God exists in the Two Testaments. The language of the Holy Quran cannot be influenced by the language of the Bible, although there are similarities in some instances. Ultimately, despite the claims of the Bible regarding the invisibility of God, their descriptions often suggest a corporeal image. However, the Quran explicitly denies the embodiment and vision of God Almighty, and instances discussing sight are often interpreted as a denial of sight.