Islam and Sufism

Islam is a monotheistic religion, which believes that God is completely unique, without a partner and incomparable to anything else. The first, and most important, pillar of Islam is called the Shahadah, which declares that "There is no god but Allah and Prophet Muhammad is the messenger of Allah".

The Shahadah affirms the Oneness of Allah and to become a Muslim one must simply recite and understand this declaration, but to become a complete Muslim one must also follow the practices set out by the Prophet Muhammad. 

In Arabic, Allah signifies 'The One Supreme Being worthy of all worship and devotion', which means that not only does Allah alone deserve to be worshiped, but that there is no partner co-equal to Allah who should be worshiped alongside Him. 

"Say, "He is Allah , [who is] One, 

Allah , the Eternal Refuge.

He neither begets nor is born,

Nor is there to Him any equivalent."

- Qur'an Surah 112

This reveals the supreme power and glory of Allah alone, and is similar to the declarations made by other messengers of God (Jesus, Moses, Abraham) that only God deserves to be glorified and exalted because He is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-hearing...

To say that a being other than God has the same divine attributes is the greatest sin of all, because God is unique and of a different nature to all created beings, as He is their source. As God is the eternal, necessary Creator of the universe and all His creatures are contingent on God for existence, we can only know God through his self revelation (found in the Qur'an) and other sources are misleading.

In order to emphasise the ineffable nature of Allah, Muslims use the 99 Most Beautiful Names of Allah to consider the different aspects of Allah. These include, "The Most Compassionate", "The Most Merciful", "The Almighty". Muslims believe that even when taken all together, these names will never be sufficient to truly describe Allah, due to the limited nature of human language. 

Sufism is often referred to as Islamic mysticism because Sufis seek to know Allah through direct mystical experiences. Sufis believe that Allah manifests in His creation and that there is a divine spark in each and every human, which will allow humans to come to know God. The aim of Sufism to become aware of the eternal spark within everyone and recognise the unity of God and all that is created. 

For a Sufi, the ritual, dogma and doctrines of religions should always be secondary to the search for knowledge of the reality of humanity, and the direct relationship with God. 

In the Qur'an 17.36 it is written "Do not follow that of which you have no knowledge of", which suggests that in order to truly know God you must experience Him directly and how you perceive God will be different for each individual because it is your own personal reality and each person is unique. By following scriptures that you do not personally understand blindly, you may not become any closer to rediscovering the ultimate reality within yourself and move away from knowing the wholeness of God. This is because sometimes the more you try to capture something in a description, the further you move away from the source you are trying to define, as our language can never give a whole understanding of a concept alone. For example, trying to define water by its chemical properties and molecular make-up brings you no closer to understanding what it is like to drink water if you have never experienced it for yourself. The same is true for knowing God, who must be perceived through mystical experiences, and not through language. 

The Use of Analogy in Religious Language

Religious language has been rejected by many philosophers as meaningless, due to an emphasis on the importance of language being cognitive, or factually significant, and supported by empirical evidence.
However, theologians have maintained that is possible to communicate meaningfully about God through the use of analogy.

An analogy is a comparison between one thing and another, and is not used in a literal sense, but for explanatory purposes. Thomas Aquinas proposed that it is possible to use an analogy to talk about God, as long as we recognise that the divinity has a distinctive quality of reality to humanity, because humankind was created by God in the imago Dei (i.e. in the image of God). Therefore, although human language and understanding of God is limited due to the epistemic distance between humans and God, we can still draw meaningful connections between creature and Creator. Aquinas had previously rejected other manners of talking about God as they were inadequate.

• First he rejects univocal language, which means that language is used in a spatio-temporal context and does not differ in the case of God at all.
  For example, to say "God is good" in the same way that "John is good".
  This is a fallacy because the language then anthropomorphises God and limits him to human understanding and language, when in fact God is a being transcendent of the realms of human understanding. 
• Secondly he rejects equivocal language, which means that language is used in a completely different sense to talk about God than ordinary objects of the world and that language has different meanings in different contexts.
  For example, "That bird is a crane" uses 'crane' in a different sense to "The crane lifted the skip".
  It is vital that you have the right context in order to understand the meaning of a statement, Ferdinand de Saussure would argue that we need the same sign for an object in order to communicate meaningfully. Therefore, it is not possible to speak of God in these terms because we do not understand God's nature and cannot speak about something beyond our experience.

For Aquinas, the correct way to talk about God is in analogical terms, whilst always remembering that this is a limited way to speak about God. In the Bible, God is often personified and seen to have behaviour like humans. 

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 

- Genesis 3:8

This demonstrates the likeness of humans to God because God is pictured as walking through the garden of Eden just as Adam or Eve would have. In addition there are other qualities that humanity shares with God, such as knowledge and kindness: 

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him. 

- James 1:5

There are two ways in which we can use analogy to discuss God and they are analogies of attribution and analogies of proportion. An analogy of attribution is used to attribute qualities that are valued by humans to God. We are able to do this because God is the creator of the universe, and therefore all valuable traits in humanity are connected to the valuable traits of God. For example, we believe that mercy, power and love are admirable, so we say that God is merciful, powerful and loving. However, when using analogies of attribution it is recognised that although these qualities are not a magnified version of those possessed by humanity, but that they are different to the human qualities. Ludwig Feuerbach would argue that humans take all the best qualities of humanity and project them onto an external being who they feel is worthy of their praise and devotion, when in fact the analogy of attribution is really only a reflection of the pleasant side of humanity.

The analogy of proportion differs to attribution, because it recognises the quantitative difference between humans and God. In Aquinas' First Way of the Cosmological argument, he argues that all living things in the world have potential (i.e. they could be the 100% greatest) whereas God is pure actuality and does not have potential (i.e. he is that than which nothing greater can be conceived, he is 100% of everything that it is to be God). Therefore, in an analogy of proportion it is possible to say that whatever God is, for example, loving or powerful, he is infinitely so because he fulfills everything that it is to be God. Aquinas uses the biblical example of God speaking to Moses:

"I am who I am" (Exodus 3:14)

Which he interpreted that God perfectly fulfills his own nature. An issue to be raised here is whether we can really know God's nature in order to discuss him, because God is a transcendent reality beyond the realm of ordinary experience and therefore, we cannot have sufficient knowledge of God to say what he is like. 

The Verification Principle

First, I will discuss a group of philosophers and scientists, known as the Vienna Circle. They met throughout the 1920s and into the '30s to examine subjects including logic, language and meaning.
The thinkers were influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, who believed that we can only use language to explore natural scientific propositions and trying to talk about the metaphysical, or that beyond our world, is impossible. They belonged to a movement called Logical Positivism, which maintains that language and conversation is only meaningful if it can be verified (i.e. proved to be true) empirically. Therefore, all religious language, or "God-talk", is meaningless because it does not relate to a reality that can be verified by a posteriori reasoning.
For a logical positivist, claims such as:

-"God is love"
-"The soul is non-physical" 

are completely meaningless because there is no observation or experience that could demonstrate the sentences are true or false, and whether they are true or not makes no difference to our experience. As these statements are not confined within the limits of human experience, therefore they are nonsense.

The most notable principle that is associated to logical positivism is The Verification Principle, which was famously argued by A.J. Ayer in his book, "Language, Truth and Logic".

All statements can be categorized as either:
1) Analytic (i.e. a statement is true by definition) - it is a tautology and the wording of the statement verifies the truth of it.
2) Synthetic (i.e. a statement can be verified through empirical evidence) - it is meaningful and factually significant because they can hold verifiable truths.

Therefore, the Verification Principle states that if a statement is neither true a priori, nor empirically verifiable, it says nothing about reality and therefore is meaningless. This can be used to identify claims that appear to tell us something about the world we live in, but really if it's truth cannot be known then it is not worth discussing. An example comes from John Hick, "The universe doubled in size last night", which illustrates how a statement can appear to attempt to tell us something about our world at first, but after deeper analysis, it is revealed that a claim like this does not truly say anything about what the world is like.

What are the implications for religion?

As God is a transcendent being, completely beyond human understanding, all conversations about God will fail because humans do not have an adequate understanding of his nature. For Ayer, no matter whether a person has a perspective of theism, atheism or agnosticism, any "God-talk" is meaningless because there is no empirical verification of religious propositions. He would reject religious concepts such as life after death, and the belief in a non-material soul, simply because they are not verifiable. Religious language related claims are subjective (i.e. they are not factually significant) and therefore, they cannot be practically verified (i.e. conclusively verified using empirical evidence), or even verified in principle (i.e. shown to be highly probably by observation). However, the fact that the verification principle allows this loophole for scientific propositions - which often can only show that they are the most probable explanation, rather than conclusively prove they are right - greatly weakens, because many claims could be verifiable 'in principle'.
Hick would argue that all religious propositions will be verified eschatologically, and therefore they can be considered to be factually significant and meaningful. This suggests a distinctly different understanding of 'verification' to Ayer's, and indeed, for Hick something can be verified if it is possible to remove reasonable doubt of the truth of the claim. As it is possible that God exists and there is the possibility of an eternal life in heaven, then all religious claims are potentially verifiable and meaningful. Therefore, for a Christian who believes in an after-life it is possible that all their beliefs will be verified after their death, and therefore conversations about their faith are truly meaningful.

Process Theology - My overview and interpretation

This is a very different take on 'The Problem of Evil' to the two main theodicies I have studied previously. Whilst taking two opposing approaches to resolving the issue of the inconsistent triad, neither Augustine nor Ireneaus made the decision to abandon their classical concept of God (i.e. as the omnipotent, omnibenevolent creator of the universe ex nihilo). It seems that a step away from this rigid and abstract concept of God would give theologians more wiggle room when trying to justify Him in the face of apparently pointless suffering, and could possibly be more consistent with the dynamic God depicted in the Bible.

 

Leading thinkers in process theology include Alfred North Whitehead, a British mathematician, and Charles Hartshorne, an American philosopher. 

The first distinction is that the process God is not creator of the universe ex nihilo nor the ultimate source of power in the universe. This immediately contradicts previous academic theological thought, such as that of Aquinas with God as the first unmoved mover and first uncaused cause, and Anselm with God as "That than which nothing greater can be conceived", because there has been a limit set on God as he is not omnipotent. The process God is co-creative (i.e. he was present from the beginning of creation and continues to be involved in the universe, but is not the absolute source of creation). This means that there is no 'bias' towards God in human nature, as suggested by Irenaeus, because it has not been programmed into humans to ultimately reach the perfection of God.

Through their creativity, both God and humankind are linked to a source of power. This is unusual, as traditionally it is believed that God created the potential for creativity in humans and all creation in the universe is ultimately linked back to God, but in process thought humans have a capacity to create independent of God, because the process God is not their ultimate creator. This has implications for the problem of evil, because the evil that comes into the world is not drawn from God, and it is due to the limited, distinct point of power of God that evil cannot be prevented.

The creation account in Genesis 1 suggests that the creation of the universe was not out of nothing:

Now the earth was formless and empty,darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

- Genesis 1:2

This is not inconsistent with the process God, as God is clearly shown to be present at the beginning, but he is not working with a blank canvas. It is possible that God was there for the chaotic creation for the universe and that is why He is now trapped within it, and subject to all the natural laws of the universe. 

So far, process theologians have parted with the idea that God is the ultimate source of creation and that He is truly unlimited in power, but there's more... 

I will now discuss another limitation of the process God contrary to the traditional philosophical concept of God: knowledge. Whilst the process God is omniscient (i.e. all-knowing), he is not omniprescient (i.e. knows the future before it happens in reality). This means that God does not have a divine 'all-seeing' mind that knows in advance what will happen, which is comforting for those who dislike the idea that everything has been set and determined by God and that whatever happens is inevitable because God chose it to be that way (!). Humans have genuine freedom to behave as autonomous agents and live alongside the process God who is too confined to the natural limitations of time and space, and therefore cannot change our lives before we have lived them. 

As the process God is subject to time, he is not a constant, immutable being (as implied in Malcolm's Ontological argument) but has a dipolar nature: an element of God is unchanging, known as the "consequent nature"; however, there is also a dynamic and changing element, known as the "primordial nature". This means that as the universe changes and adapts, God can also adapt to the new conditions, and there is an idea that everyone grows together with new experiences of the world.

I think this view of God is important because he can interact with the world and humankind, which supports the Christian belief in a loving God, with whom they can have a personal relationship. Relationships are two-sided; so it is necessary that the other half, even if they are divine, can change and be vulnerable in order to have a strong and meaningful relationship.

To conclude - how does this concept of God resolve the problem of evil, and is it truly successful?

The consequence of the inconsistent triad and problem of evil is a question of the nature of God, can we believe God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent when suffering exists. Process theology attempts to prove that these attributes do not belong to God, and that he is in fact as intertwined in our universe as we are. God cannot be culpable for the evil present in the universe, and not trying to prevent it, simply because it is not within his power to do so. 

I think that many may find this image of God uncomfortable because it is not generally characteristic of God to be limited by anything, and He is thought to be boundless, separate, other. If we accept that God is not omnipotent, it appears to anthropomorphise God because he is subject to all the same limitations of the universe that every finite being is. I think that whilst this is an interesting concept, to say that God is limited is too great a sacrifice, because for me that is not a being worthy of worship and love.

Alvin Platinga's Ontological Argument

Platinga criticized Malcolm's argument because although it showed the necessary existence of the greatest possible being in some possible words, it did not successfully demonstrate that the greatest possible being exists in this actual world.

Platinga's response is in the form of a modal argument - modality refers to the necessity or contingency and possibility or impossibility of a statement. This can be analyzed in terms of possible worlds, which does not refer to another world  but a complete description of how things could be. For example, a necessary truth is one that is true in every possible world and an impossible truth is one that is false in every possible world.

His argument distinguishes between excellence (i.e. dependent on properties that are true in some possible worlds) and greatness (i.e. dependent on properties that are true in every possible world).

Platinga's Ontological Argument can be summarized as:
1 - There is possible world W which contains a being of maximal greatness.
2 - A being of maximal greatness would have maximal excellence in all possible worlds.
3 - A being is only of maximal excellence if it is omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect.
4 - [According to Premise 3] An omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect being exists in W.
5 - [According to Premise 4] In W the statement "There is no omniscient omnipotent and morally perfect being" is impossible.
6 - An impossible truth is one that is false in every possible world.
7 - Therefore, the statement "There is no omniscient omnipotent and morally perfect being" is impossible in every possible world, including the actual world.
8 - Therefore, it is necessarily true (true in every possible world) that an omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect being exists.

The main criticism of this argument is that it is reversible, which means that the same logic can be used to demonstrate rationally that a being of 'no maximality' rather than 'maximal greatness' exists. This suggests the argument is not valid because the opposite conclusion can be reached using the same sound argument.
Additionally, there is the question of whether the Judeo-Christian God is truly demonstrated.

Norman Malcolm - A modern revival of The Ontological Argument

Malcolm's argument revived Anselm's 2nd Ontological Argument found in Proslogion 3, which posits that God exists necessarily. He believed that only a necessary being is worthy of religious devotion because a being that is limited in any way would not be consistent with the theistic idea of an omnipotent God or That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived (TTWNGCBC).

He outlines four possibilities concerning the statement "God exists":
1) It is necessarily false (i.e. God cannot exist).
2) It is contingently false (i.e. God could exist but doesn't).
3) It is contingently true (i.e. God could exist and does).
4) It is necessarily true (i.e. God has to exist).

However, Malcolm implicitly defines God as immutable (i.e. he is unchangeable; he cannot and will not change), which means that God cannot come into existence nor cease to exist. As God is not limited or dependent on anything, he cannot change from the state of non-existence to existence or vice versa, and so his existence is either necessarily false or necessarily true. This translates that if God does not exist, his existence is impossible and if He does exist, his existence is necessary.

For Malcolm, regardless of how God is defined, the statement "God exists" cannot be impossible because it is not self-contradictory. A self-contradictory statement is not logically coherent, for example 'The square is round'. However, this does not apply in the same way to God because it is possible to imagine that God exists.

'The square is round' is a necessarily false statement because it is self-contradictory of the definition of a square.

Therefore, God's existence is not impossible and God necessarily exists.

Augustine, evil and eternal damnation (oh so cheery)

First, I want to discuss Manichaeism, the dualistic theology that maintains that there are two opposing forces in the world of good and evil, with two ultimate creators. All that is good is created by God which manifests in the human spirit, while all that is evil is created by the Devil and gives the human body. Throughout life, there is a constant struggle between these forces, however ultimately the good is triumphant because the human body is finite and inferior to the spirit. As evil is the creation of the devil and not the product of free will, humans are not responsible for any evil they commit.

St Augustine was a believer in Manchaeism but rejected the religion after converting to Christianity and creating his Doctrine of Original Sin. He believed that God's creation was perfect and the existence of evil is as a result of the fall of Adam. For Augustine, evil is not an entity in of itself, but a privation, or lack, of the good (e.g. sight is good, therefore blindness/lack of sight is a privation of the good). When man was created they were given free will and it is the abuse of this free will that caused all of humanity to be enslaved by sin. 

According to Genesis, all moral evil is punishment for the disobedience of Adam and Eve:

To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;

with painful labor you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband,

and he will rule over you.”

-Genesis 3:16

This reveals the introduction of pain and suffering to a previously untarnished paradise that will be passed down to the whole of humankind. The rest of humanity is said to be deserving of this punishment because we were seminally present in Adam, therefore we inherit his sin and are born even as children as wicked. 

This punishment for sin is never-ending because only a select few receive the virtue of the undeserved Grace of God and enter the kingdom of Heaven. The inescapable fate of eternal damnation is not constructive for theologians who wish to resolve the problem of evil, as Hell is eternally filled with evil and becomes in built into the structure of the Universe. God is seen to arbitrarily give Grace and allows the majority of humanity to suffer. It seems that an omniscient God who created the world with absolute power would have foreseen the Fall and prevented the introduction of suffering into the world. In addition, an omnibenevolent God should be understanding of the human condition (i.e. finitely imperfect) and forgive our sins.