Philosophy of Religion

For many religious people there is a problem of doubting various creedal statements contained in their religions. Often propositional beliefs are looked upon as a necessary, though not sufficient, condition, for salvation. This causes great anxiety in doubters and raises the question of the importance of belief in religion and in life in general. It is a question that has been neglected in philosophy of religion and Christian theology. In this paper I shall explore the question of the importance of belief as a religious attitude and suggest that there is at least one other attitude which may be adequate for religious faith even in the absence of belief, that attitude being hope. I shall develop a concept of faith as hope as an alternative to the usual notion that makes propositional belief that God exists a necessary condition for faith, as Plantinga implies in the quotation above. For simplicity’s sake I shall concentrate on the most important proposition in Western religious creeds, that which states that God exists (defined broadly as a benevolent, supreme Being, who is responsible for the creation of the universe), but the analysis could be applied mutatis mutandis to many other important propositions in religion (e.g., the Incarnation and the doctrine of the Trinity). I am not sure how these ideas fit into Islamic thought, but I offer up my paper to stimulate discussion between Christian and Islamic philosophy on the subjects of faith and doubt.

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.

One of the most challenging issues raised in the theology and philosophy of religion is to define the concept of religion and its main components. This study aims to criticize and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a definition of religion presented in "Reason and Religious Belief". The results show that the main strength of this definition is that it considers "beliefs", "actions", and "emotions", which are among the existential needs and abilities of humans. However, some weaknesses of this definition are as follows: 1- Difficulty in achieving common points between religions, 2- Ambiguous explanation of the main elements of the definition, 3- Inclusion beyond the definition, and 4- Inattention to specific and individual features in the definition of religion. It is noteworthy that one of the main challenges in defining the concept of religion is the necessity of a systemic approach. In addition, such an approach should be viewed based on methodological conditions.

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.