PHILOSOPHY OF

RELIGION
Dr. Ismail LALA
 INTRODUCTION
Notes :
• What is philosophy of religion?
31-1-2024
• It critically investigates religious beliefs.
rational analysis of beliefs and doesn’t matter if
• Some philosophers use it to support religion, others to criticise it.
you believe or don’t , what does one group that
• So philosophy of religion does not describe beliefs, but analyzes their meaning.
believes in actually mean, does this religion follow
blindly or uses the brain
 THE NATURE OF GOD
• Definitions
• Atheism: The belief that God does not exist. Opposite of theism
• Agnosticism: saying We do not have enough evidence to decide whether God exists or not. , which isn’t
the same as Atheism: they say I don’t know maybe god exists maybe he doesn’t
• Theism: The belief that God exists. doesn't matter if its one or more gods 2 types of thesim 1- monotheism
(like muslims and yahood, only believe in one god ) 2- polyth ei sm (hundism)
• Monotheism: The belief that one God exists.
• Polytheism: The belief that many gods exist.
• Animism: God inheres in rocks/ trees (in nature) all rocks and trees embody god, and are a manifestation of
god
• Monism: Impersonal God that is constantly emerging in the world he basically says that everything in the
world is god, god is present everywhere (tables chairs buildings nature humans)
 Should we study philosophy?
When talking to someone with different beliefs it helps us convince someone about information(islam)

• Philosophy: The study of nature and meaning of the universe and of human life ,how do we get the data in order to study philosophy 1- your senses, like
eyes hearing and touch , 2-you use your intellect to think about the data that your senses receive
• Theology: The study of God since data set of philosophy is senses and intellect but you cannot use that for theology because the basis for the two are very
different theologoy is based on transmitted text (Quran, bible etc)
• St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274): Philosophy and theology different (most famous theologian , as specialist in kalam mutaklim ) which is why he says you
can use philosophy to support theology, because P uses things that everyone does believe in whilst T is wouldn’t have weigh on non beilevers
• Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328): No contradiction between reason(philosophy ) and revelation (Theology)
• St. Augustine of Hippo (d. 430): Philosophy complemented theology in believers
• Ibn Rushd (d. 1198): Fasl al-maqal(his book is talking if you should study philosophy and says you m us t and it is obligatory )—Study of philosophy
obligatory (fard )

• The universal rule according to razi , if there is a contradiction you believe al aql ,
• Ibn taymiyya responds by saying that there is no contradiction between reason and revelation , he connects it with fu6ra and this futra is the belief
in one god which he then links it to ahd alast, which in English is am I not your god, he gathered all the souls which where god asks am I not your
god to which everyone answers yes we are we testify, which is proof against the non believers, how is this used against us in judg ment day futra.
• Connection to universal rule ibn taymmiya everything in the quran is based on our natural tendency,
• Ibn taymiyya realized there are people think there are contridictions because of 1 – misunderstsanding 2- corruption of fitra
Philosophy for most of 1900s IN THE WEST
• No theology in philosophy of religion
• 1. Philosophers atheists
• 2. Theological language meaningless
• 3. Analytic way of thinking
GOD AND GOODNESS
• Is the right thing to do because God commands it, or does God command it
because it is the right thing to do?
• Divine Command Theory (DCT): “Morally right” means “commanded by God”,
“morally wrong” means “forbidden by God”.
• Advantages of DCT
• 1. Ethics objective
• 2. Reason for doing the right thing
GOD AND GOODNESS
• Problems with DCT outlined in Euthyphro’s dilemma
• 1. Morality arbitrary
• 2. Good because commanded by God becomes meaningless
• 3. Morality independent of God’s will
• Islamic conception
• 1. Ash‘ari/Maturidi/ Athari—main aim: God’s omnipotence preserved
• 2. Mu‘tazili—main aim: has to be rational
• 3. Ibn Taymiyya—middle road, responds to Ash‘ari arguments,
dismisses Mu‘tazili arguments
GOD’S OMNIPOTENCE
• Question: Can god make a stone so heavy the He cannot lift it?
• Response of St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274)
• Intrinsically impossible (mutahil dhati) things are self-contradictory i.e. square
circle
• Difference between square circle and heavy stone
• Response of Decartes
• Harry Frankfurt: “The logic of omnipotence”
• God makes contradictions possible
• Muslim response: Most go with Aquinas
• Connection with Euthyphro’s dilemma
 GOD’S FOREKNOWLEDGE VS. FREE
WILL
• If God knows what you will do, how can you be held responsible?
• Determinism: everything is already determined, we do not have free will
• Libertarianism: we have free will to make choices
• Compabitiblism: free will and determinism are compatible
• Jabriyya—hard determinists
• Qadiriyya—libertarian
• Ash’ari and Mu’tazila in between
 GOD’S FOREKNOWLEDGE VS. FREE
WILL
• Response of St Augustine (d. 430), first great Christian philosopher: God knows
the choices, but doesn’t make you choose
• Response of Boethius (Roman philosopher): God lives in the eternal present,
outside time
• Response of Maimonides (Medieval Jewish philosopher): No comparison between
our knowledge and God’s knowledge
• Response of Aristotle: future is unknowable. Problem of future contingents
• Ibn Sina’s answer: similar to Aristotle and principle of Gersonides
• Augustine’s view similar to Mu’tazila: Secondary causation
• Ash’ari response: concept of acquisition (iktisab)
DOES GOD CHANGE?
• If god is timeless how can He know what is happening on earth and how
can He respond to us when we pray to Him?
• Philosophers: Temporal change characteristic of contingent things
• Plato’s response: Change would be for better or worse
• Problem with Plato’s response: false dichotomy
• Aristotle’s response: God is self-thinking intellect therefore not thinking
about lesser things
• Islamic response: Ghazali—God’s knowledge does not change when the
object of that knowledge changes
• Problem of why God created the world when He did
• Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd: world is eternal because God does not change
• Ghazali: Time for creation determined in God’s foreknowledge
WHAT KIND OF LANGUAGE SHOULD WE USE
WHEN WE TALK ABOUT GOD?
• David Hume (d. 1776): Can we use ordinary language to describe God?
• Religion based on faith, not reason
• Maimonides (d. 1204): Can only describe God with negative attributes
• Gersonides: We can use positive attributes to describe God but they are
different for 2 reasons
• God is the source and is unlimited
• Aquinas: Rejects univocal predication and equivocal predication
• Univocal predication—they have the same meaning
• Equivocal predication—they have different meanings
WHAT KIND OF LANGUAGE SHOULD WE USE
WHEN WE TALK ABOUT GOD?
• We have to use analogy—2 types: Analogy of proportionality and analogy
of attribution
• Analogy of proportionality: Good qualities belong infinitely to God and to
humans in proportion
• Analogy of attribution: God is the cause of all good things in humans
• Ash‘ari: Separate from God’s essence
• All of the most beautiful Names are real entities in addition to the essence
of God
• Mu‘tazila: All of the most beautiful Names are part of the essence of God
and identical with it
• Ghazali: There can be analogy of the unseen from the seen
 BELIEF IN GOD
• Is it logical or rational to believe in God?
• Blaise Pascal (d. 1662) was a French philosopher who came up with a famous
“wager”
• Pascal’s Wager: Rational to believe in God
• Problems with Pascal’s wager
• 1. Hume: assumes choice between belief and unbelief
• 2. You lose nothing?
• 3. Is this belief?
• 4. Is this a proof for the existence of God? (Also, can be used for anything)
• 5. Do we really know reward for belief?
SHOULD WE BELIEVE IN GOD BASED
ON WEAK EVIDENCE?
• WK Clifford, English Philosopher: Believing on weak grounds harms society and is a form of
dishonesty
• Shipowner analogy
• Problems with shipowner analogy
• 1. Shipowner has means to allay doubts
• 2. Assumes relationship between belief, action, and harm
• Clifford: Belief based on weak grounds makes mankind credulous
• Problems with assertion: Are religious beliefs tested?
• Does religion advocate blind faith?
SHOULD WE BELIEVE IN GOD BASED
ON WEAK EVIDENCE?
• William James: when you have the choice between two options and cannot
wait for further evidence, you are justified in believing and acting as your
passion decides.
• Alvin Platinga: Belief in the existence of God is a natural human tendency
that doesn’t need evidence to support it. He bases his view on John Calvin.
• Calvin: Everyone has nisus implanted in them
• Similar to Islamic idea of natural disposition (fitra)
• Ibn Taymiyya: Fitra is special rationality
• Can there be a contradiction between reason and revelation?
• Al-Razi: The universal rule (al-qanun al-kulli)
• Ibn Taymiyya’s response
• Why do people find contradictions?
• Difference between Maturidis and Ash‘aris when it comes to effects of
fitra
 Faith and reason
• Many scientific proofs in the Qur’an
• Should we believe in Islam and the Quran and God on the basis of such rational
arguments?
• David Hume: “Our most holy religion is founded on FAITH, not reason.”
• Muhyi al-Din ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240): “Whoever builds his faith exclusively on
demonstrative proofs and deductive arguments, builds a faith on which it is
impossible to rely. For he is affected by the negativities of constant objections.
Certainty(al-yaqin) does not derive from the evidences of the mind but pours out
from the depths of the heart.”
• Hume: “Mere reason insufficient to convince us of its veracity.”
• Belief is a miracle/ instinct
• The view of Michael Scriven
• Al-Razi’s universal rule and Ibn Taymiyya’s response
• The view of Taqi al-Din al-Subki
THEISM AND MODERN SCIENCE
• Question 1: If humanity is purpose for existence of world, why do they appear so
late?
• Question 2: If the earth is main place where everything happens, why is it just a
tiny planet in a vast solar system that doesn’t seem to have any superiority over
anything?
• Stephen Hawking in his book, Brief Answers to Big Questions, writes: “I think
the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of
science. If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn't
take long to ask: What role is there for God?”
• Theistic responses:
• Why does God do anything?
• God and time (Boethius)
• Qur’an uses Hawking’s arguments as proofs for God
Theology and falsification
• Central assertion: It is commonly accepted that for any belief to be meaningful, it
has to be verifiable/ falsifiable
• Verification principle: only statements that are either analytic or empirically
verifiable are meaningful
• Logical positivists held this belief
• Analytic verification: a triangle has 3 sides
• Synthetic verification: “it is raining outside”
• What about verifiable things that are not verified?
• Problem with verification principle: Wittgenstein language games
• Language different in different circumstances
Theology and falsification
• Parable of 2 explorers
• Counter-parable: Killer professors
• Hume: Our interaction with the world depends on our perception, our point of view
• Russell’s teapot: cannot prove a negative
• Response to Russell
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
• Immanuel Kant (d. 1804): Proof for God’s existence are basically divided into 3 categories
• 1. Ontological Argument (a priori)
• 2. Cosmological Argument (first cause)
• 3. Teleological Argument (design)
• Most famous ontological argument proposed by St Anselm (d. 1109) in 11 th century: God is “a
being greater than which none can be conceived.”
• Objection of Gaunilo (French monk)
• Anselm’s response
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
• Decartes (d. 1650) in Meditations on First Philosophy: Essence of triangle is that it has 3 sides,
God’s essence contains God’s existence—ontological argument
• Influenced by Anselm and Ibn Sina
• Existence is perfection—Anselm
• Essence and existence different—Ibn Sina
• Main critic: Kant. Ontological argument fails because it treats predicate as part of the description
rather than an indication that the thing is found in the world
• Kant’s issue with existence being described as perfection
• Responses to Kant
The existence of god: Aquinas’ five ways
• Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) in Summa Theologiae: 5 ways to prove the
existence of God. All are a posteriori, relying on empirical evidence
• 1. Motion: everything in motion so there must be a Mover
• 2. First Cause (Hume’s objection: whole does not always follow rules of part)
• 3. Necessary existence vs. contingent existence
• 4. Gradation argument: everything is more or less good so there must be the
greatest good
• 5. Argument by design: everything works together to achieve a good end
 the existence of god:
PALEY’S WATCH
• William Paley d. 1805, English theologian and moral philosopher
• Famous teleological argument
• The precision of a watch
• Possible objections against argument (Hume)
The problem of evil
• Theodicy—Why does a good, almighty God, allow evil?
• Hume: 1. Is god willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is
impotent
2. Is He able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
3. Is he both able and willing? Whence there is evil?
• Leibniz’s response: best of all possible worlds
• Muslim response: Leibniz agrees with Ghazali
The problem of evil
• Christian theodicy
• 2 types:
• 1. Augustinian—evil because of the fall of man—all wrongs because of original
sin
• 2. Irenaen (St. Ireaneus): Evil exists because it serves an evolutionary function
(Richard Swinburne agrees)—moral and intellectual growth
• John Hick: Moral evil (caused by humans) vs. Physical/ natural evil (caused by
nature)
• Physical/natural evil for “soul-making”
• Requires belief in hereafter to justify it
• Swinburne: high possibility for harm=high potential for good
• Schlesinger’s example: happy child with low intelligence
• Desirability= potential + happiness
The problem of evil
• AI example
• Aquinas: evil is the absence of good
• Natural evil contributes to goodness of creation
• For humans: 2 types of evil
• 1. evil of pain/ punishment
• 2. evil of guilt/ fault
• Objections: Pain not just absence of pleasure
• But what about the innocent?
• Aquinas: original sin causes evil of pain
• Why does God allow sin to exist?
• Aquinas: God beyond human understanding but 1. higher good, 2. to manifest
His greatness
The problem of evil
• Al-Biqa’i reverses Ghazali’s statement: There is in possibility more wonderful
than what is
• Al-Biqa’i’s two arguments against Ghazali
• 1. Things can be improved
• 2. We see improvements
• Al-Biqai’s answer: It is not for the human to question the divine
• Ibn Sina: evil is the result of combination with matter
• Difference between qada (predestination) and qadar (destiny)
• Mu’tazila: evil because of human actions, natural evil because of test (emphasis
of divine justice)
• Ash‘aris: God can create evil without being evil (emphasis on divine
omnipotence)
• Shahrastani: Desert island example
The early MU‘TAZILA
• Al-Qasim b. Ibrahim (d. 225/860), Mu’tazili
• He influenced later Mu‘tazili thought
• Work: Kitab al-Dalil al-Kabir
• Lists arguments from design
• Most numerous in the Qur’an
• Difference between humans being creators and God, the Creator
• Al-Qasim gives example of things only God does
• ‘Abd al-Jabbar gives the example of earthquakes
• God has full creative power, human creative power is derived from God
• Al-Qasim has 2 aims:
• 1. Prove world is created because well-ordered
• 2. Creator is only God
The early MU‘TAZILA
• Al-Qasim: if more than one creator, the creators are deficient
• Hisham al-Fuwati: argument by composition (variant of teleological
argument)
• The bodies (ajram) and accidents (a‘rad) always have consistent
combination
• Ibrahim al-Nazzam: composition argument
• Opposing accidents do not exist in one body due to themselves so
need someone to combine them and subjugate them
 Al-Kindi
• Al-Kindi (d. 256/873) was part of the so-called translation movement which took
place in the early 3rd/9th century under the patronage of the ʿAbbasid caliphs al-
Maʾmun (813-833) and al-Muʾtaṣim (833-842)
• First philosophy or metaphysics for Al-Kindi: Study of God, not being as Aristotle
understood it
• Al-Kindi: Impossible for any body to be eternal, anything that has a genus is not
eternal (Chapter 2)
• “The thing cannot be the cause of the being of its essence (ʿilla kawn dhatihi)”
(Chapter 3)
• Everything has unity and multiplicity, God has only unity
• The Unity of creation is accidental, not essential
 AL-MATURIDI
• Abu Manṣur al-Maturidi (d. 333/944): The middle path between traditionalists
and rationalists
• Work: Kitab al-Tawhid
• Cosmological and teleological arguments
• Proof of God through atoms
• Truth of religion can be known through Revelation (al-samʿ) and reason (al-ʿaql).
• Revelation: Qur’an—God created world from nothing (creation ex nihilo)
• Reason: originatedness and dependence go together
• Particularisation (ikhtisas) argument
• Argument from contrary natures
• Argument from change: we observe that the world is changing so the world is
finite. God is perfect and so does not change.
• Argument from analogy: ‘The realm of the observable (al-shahid) serves as the
basis for knowledge of the realm of the unobservable (al-ghaʾib)’
• Argument from evil: God exists because evil exists
 al-Ashʿari
• Abu’l-Hasan al-Ashʿari (d. 324/936)
• Defence of theology (kalam): logical extrapolation from Qur’an
• Kitab al-Luma‘: World is not self-caused but depends on something outside
itself for its existence. Cosmological argument.
• Al-Ash‘ari’s teleological argument from embryos. Mentions things humans
cannot do
• Analogical proofs: The seen and unseen world. Every effect needs a cause.
• Al-Ash‘ari and acquisition (iktisab)
• Mu‘tazila objection to acquisition
• Violation of analogy of the unseen from the seen
• All bodies made up of atoms so divisible. God is not divisible in terms of
His essence or attributes
 AL-BAQILLANI
• Abu Bakr al-Baqillani (d. 403/1013)
• Systemized the theological thought he inherited from his Ashʿarite
predecessors.
• Work: Kitab al-Tamhid
• Atomism: world is made of indivisible atoms
• Occasionalism: everything created every moment
• Denial of causality
• Accidents occur in time so the body in which they exist occurs in time
 AL-BAQILLANI
• Why not say God and human make something happen?
• No need for God anymore
• Overdetermination: one effect and two causes
• Al-Baqillani has 3 main arguments for existence of God:
• 1. Analogy—no book without writer
• 2. Temporal progression—somethings happen before/ after other things,
and this cannot be because of the thing itself
• 3. Structure (tarkib) argument—everything could have another structure,
structure cannot be because of the thing itself
• Last two arguments: God is an agent possessed of will
• The world not eternal because God’s will to create it but the execution
of will was delayed
• Chicken and egg argument to prove the world is not eternal
 IBN SINA
• Ibn Sina (d. 427/1037)
• What science does study of God belong to?
• Can God be called a “thing?”
• Burhan al-siddiqin
• According to Ibn Sina: 2 ways of proving the existence of God: 1.
Cosmological and teleological way. 2. Ontological way
• 3 types of existence: necessary, impossible, contingent
• Necessary: essence guarantees existence
• Impossible: essence rules out existence
• Contingent: in between, preponderated (tarjih) to exist
• 2 types of impossible existence: impossible due to essence, impossible due
to another
 IBN SINA
• Contingent needs necessary to bring it into existence otherwise infinite
regress
• But Ibn Sina says the world is eternal so infinite regress is no problem
• If more than one necessarily existent being then absurd consquences
• All the attributes are known in terms of God’s essence being existence
• Ash’aris make mistakes: plurality in divine essence, belief world has a
beginning
• Everything necessary about God, including emanation of world from
Him
• Ibn Sina’s conception of the divine attributes much closer to that of the
Muʿtazilite theologians
 al-Ghazali
• Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111)
• Work: Tahafut al-falasifa, a refutation of Aristotle’s philosophy as presented
in the works and commentaries of Al-Farabi (d. 339/950) and Ibn Sina
• Eternality of universe incompatible with existence of God
• Philosophers incoherent in terms of terminology and assertion
• Terminology
• The world is God’s act and His creation
• An agent is willing, choosing, knowing
• God is not just final cause as Aristotle says
• Aristotle: efficient cause, material cause, formal cause, final cause
• Act is an expression for origination
 al-Ghazali
• Assertions
• Ghazali: 2 logical propositions
• 1. Things exist because of a cause
• 2. Something does not need a cause and so has always existed
Ghazali: Philosophers come up with 3rd illogical proposition
Cosmological argument as a syllogism:
1. Every originated thing has a cause
2. The world is originated
3. The world has a cause
Cause is a preponderator (murajjih)—particularization argument
 al-Ghazali
• Al-Nasafi uses particularization argument against anthropomorphists (mujassima)
• Anthropomorphists: God has a body
• Al-Nasafi: this leads to 2 ridiculous conclusions:
• 1. The world is eternal
• 2. The creator is originated
• Anthropomorphist argument: God is hearing seeing so has a body AND if He does
not have a body, how is He seen in the hereafter?
• Al-Nasafi’s response—particluarization
• Al-Ghazali’s response: “How” demands comparison
 al-Ghazali
• Al-Ghazali against Batiniyya
• Batiniyya: Shi‘a group that emphasize the esoteric aspect of the Qur’an
• Batiniyya: God COMPLETELY beyond understanding so cannot say He exists
• So God non-existent but created the world
• Batiniyya: Ash‘aris say God is unlike anything else but exists like we exist
• Ash‘aris: He exists but unlike we exist
 Ibn Rushd
• Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198)
• Work: Kashf ʿan manahij al-adilla
• Critique of the Ashʿaris: bad influence on people
• Qur’an makes it seem like creation ex nihilo to simplify for people
• Ibn Rushd: World eternal because part of God’s perfection that He is
always creating (not emanation as Ibn Sina believes)
 Ibn Rushd
• Traditionalists: Revelation and not reason is the way to know God
• Ibn Sina: This group does not understand the intention of Scripture
• Ibn Rushd singles out two methods to prove existence of God
• Proof of providence (dalil al-’inana), 2 premises:
• 1. All things benefit humans
• 2. These come from an agent
• Proof of invention (dalil al-ikhtira’) , 2 premises:
• 1. All things created#
• 2. All created things have a creator
 Ibn Rushd
• Ibn Rushd attacks the Ashʿarite notion of occasionalism
• This is denial of causality in the seen world so there can be no causality in the
unseen world
• Ibn Rushd’s attack on Ash‘arite argument of particularization
• This means God is not wise
• Ibn Rushd attacks the Hashwiyya (Arch-Traditionalists) who say reason
cannot be basis of belief
• God’s attributes of being one and eternal are ESSENTIAL attributes (sifat
nafsiyya)
• God’s attributes of knowledge, power, will, life, speech, hearing and sight are
HYPOSTATIC attributes (sifat ma‘nawiyya)
 Ibn Rushd
• Ibn Rushd: these are part of God’s essence NOT in addition to essence
• Should not discuss these things
• Essence and existence are the same, but also true for God’s other essential attributes
• Ibn Rushd criticises Ibn Sina for saying essence and existence separate
• Ibn Rushd criticises Al-Ghazali for saying that for the philosophers, God acts out of necessity
• Ibn Rushd: God unlike agents in the seen world.
• Ibn Rushd: Al-Ghazali maintains that only agent is a voluntary agent
• But there are no true agents in the seen world according to Ash‘aris
• Ibn Rushd: An act can be eternal