A major controversy in the Islamic philosophy in its early centuries regarded the condition of the universe as either created or eternal. Aristotle had claimed that the universe should be considered as eternal, because for him time and motion are functions of each other, and before the creation of the universe there was motion, because motion needs a universe to occur. Because there is no motion/movement, time does not exists, and thus no time where the universe was created, furthermore, on Neoplatonic progress of such a theory, the course of creation appears eternal itself, since the universe exists due to the continuous discharge from the greatest degrees of reality down to the universe, and does not make any sense for one to ask when the process began. This paper will analyze Al-Ghazali’s argument on the eternity of the world, as found in his first areas of debate with philosophers and evaluated against Ibn Rushd’s answers, as well as present a personal view on the most proficient argument.
Al-Ghazali was the loudest critic of the eternity theory and attacked it from logical basis, and highlighted that for the theory to valid; God actually has an isolated link with the universe. Al-Ghazali considered that philosophers had misinterpreted the link between God and the universe, particularly because the Qur’an is plain regarding divine creation. Maintaining the Asharite focus on divine power, he questioned why the Creator, being the eventual agent, could not just create the universe ex nihilo and later destroy it in some near future (Avicenna, 2005). He also questioned the necessity for some hindrance to elucidate a holdup in God’s creative act. In reaction to this, Al-Ghazali presented several lengthy proofs challenging the cl...
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...Thus, I consider Ibn Rushd views more logical since philosophy could not actually be in any conflict with religion/theology, because both explained similar facts observed in diverse lights, the Islamic exposure being immeasurable enough to permit for various visions of realism that is eventually one. Moreover, Rushd’s defense of eternity of the world against Ghazali’s critique of creationist is more logical as argues that the action of creation of the eternal agent like God can have no start in time, and skillfully deconstructing Al-Ghazali’s Philoponian claim against the likelihood of a real never-ending temporal series. In spite of God’s understanding of temporal facts, Ibn Rushd holds that the conception of God as recognizing either facts or universals in the manner humans understand them is reducing God to derisory, creaturely terms.
In The Other Side of the Sky by Farah Ahmedi, Farah suffers from coping with the Taliban in her daily life. Farah describes the Taliban as “a terrible army of big bearded boys” and “wild alien beings, or beasts from another world.” The group took all of Farah’s family away from her, and the Ahmedi family was just another unfortunate victim of the Taliban’s violence, when the group rose to power.
Depending upon your definition of the present, it is hard to distinguish when the present time really is. Trying to pinpoint the exact time of “now” seems to be impossible because when we actually finish saying “now” it is already in the past. It is believed by many people that when a human dies for example, they cease to exist. In this essay I will be looking at two key concepts that relate to the topic of existence and the present time. These concepts are ‘Presentism’ and ‘Eternalism’. I will begin the essay by outlining what ‘Eternalism’ is and how its followers may see the present in a different way because of it. From here I will propose some of its weaknesses followed by objections to these weaknesses. The second main concept will be ‘Presentism’ which will be the opposing argument that suggests that things only exist in the present time instead of the past, present and future. After giving this argument, I will also be giving objections and counters to it. I, myself believe that there is a present time and existence, as we I find it difficult to believe that something exists in the same way once it has died and decomposed.
The controversial topic involving the existence of God has been the pinnacle of endless discourse surrounding the concept of religion in the field of philosophy. However, two arguments proclaim themselves to be the “better” way of justifying the existence of God: The Cosmological Argument and the Mystical Argument. While both arguments attempt to enforce strict modus operandi of solidified reasoning, neither prove to be a better way of explaining the existence of God. The downfall of both these arguments rests on commitment of fallacies and lack of sufficient evidence, as a result sabotaging their validity in the field of philosophy and faith.
The question of God’s existence has been debated through the history of man, with every philosopher from Socrates to Immanuel Kant weighing in on the debate. So great has this topic become that numerous proofs have been invented and utilized to prove or disprove God’s existence. Yet no answer still has been reached, leaving me to wonder if any answer at all is possible. So I will try in this paper to see if it is possible to philosophically prove God’s existence.
...pher Ibn Rushd to put into practice a theory of religious imagination. Ibn Rushd uses reason and revelation to deal with similar average truths, philosophy is only understandable to the select few, while religion was supposed to have an advantage of stimulating communities of people. George B. Stone, a Professor of Comparative Literature at Louisiana State University looks at Dante’s writing differently. Stone states that Dante uses in his writing an Islamic imagery as a philosopher as rhetorical strategy that could be found in the Andalusian Muslin Philosopher Ibn Rushd.
of Gods existence. The factors that go into their views on reason will be compared and accented within this essay. The order of the universe is knowable to Descartes. He proves these by
In the discussion that follows, I will often talk of what “the Qur’an intends,” or what “the Torah means to say” on a topic. It should be understood that I am not ascribing human attributes to inanimate books, but rather that I am intentionally avoiding the conflict inherent in naming the author of these books. Depending on one’s tastes, one could understand the Qur’an’s intention to be either Muhammad or Allah’s intention. Likewise, “the Torah means to say” could really be understood as what either Moses or G-d means to say. Either way, the important point is that somebody thought through the stories and decided on which words were worthy of being included in the holy texts and which were not. One of the underlying assumptions of this paper is that the stories were written down the way we find them today for a reason, and this paper intends to shed light on some of those reasons.
1. David S. Oderberg, "Traversal of the Infinite, the “Big Bang” and the Kalam Cosmological Argument", Philosophia Christi 4 (2002): 305-36
Have you ever wonder how the universe was created? Some people believe in the Earth creation by the Supreme Being, some believe in the scientific explanation of Big Bang explosion theory. Every civilization in the world has its own story of how things are created. Each story reflects how people see and think the world at their time. In this essay, I am going to compare two myths of how man was created – the creation tale of Mohawk Tribe and the Hebrew Bible creation story. There are a lot of similarities as well as differences between these legends. While some differences between the two tales are the development of the stories and the meaning behind the stories, the similarities between them is the concept of creationism.
Anum Munaf Dr. Caryn Voskuil PHIL-1301-83456 23 April 2017 Response Paper: Chapter 2 In Chapter two “God and the Origin of the Universe” of the book “Problems from Philosophy”, written by James Rachels and Stuart Rachels, a very interesting and contentious topic has been discussed. It is about the belief that God exists in this universe or not and this universe is created by God or it has been developed by chance. Rachels with the help of distinct types of arguments tried to prove that God exists in this world and the universe is created by some intelligent designer. At the beginning, he gave the results of recent Gallop poll and Pew Research Center polls to explain that how many people are religious and how many are non-religious.
In the construction of the Large Hardon Collider, physicists seek and hope to unlock the mysteries of the universe by analyzing the attributes of the most miniscule particles known to man. In the same way, theologians have argued back and forth over the course of human history with regards to the divine attributes of God, seeking and hoping to unlock the mysteries of the metaphysical universe. Although these many attributes, for example omnipresence, could be debated and dissected ad nauseum, it is within the scope of this research paper to focus but on one of them. Of these many divine attributes of God, nothing strikes me as more intriguing than that of God’s omnipotence. It is intriguing to me because the exploration of this subject not only promises an exhilarating exercise in the human faculties of logic, it also offers an explanation into the practical, such as that of the existence of evil, which we live amidst every day. So with both of these elements in hand, I am going to take on the task of digging deeper into the divine attribute of omnipotence in hopes of revealing more of the glory of God, and simultaneously bringing greater humility to the human thinker. In order to gain a better understanding on the subject of divine omnipotence, I am going to analyze four aspects of it. First, I am going to build a working definition of what we mean when we say that God is omnipotent. Second, I am going to discuss the relationship between divine omnipotence and logic. Third, I am going to discuss the relationship between God’s omnipotence and God’s timelessness. Last, I am going to analyze God’s omnipotence in relation to the existence of evil in the world. Through the analysis of these four topics in relation to om...
...nd reason. Ibn Rushd first used this logic in order to determine the existence of God. According to Chad Hillier, “The simple fact is that reason affirms divine unity, which, by definition, is a confession of God’s existence and the denial of any other deity.” (Chad Hillier) Based on this quote, one can infer that reason plays large role in one’s faith; Ibn Rushd made this clear by proving God’s existence via rational thought and scientific explanation. He then used it to establish certain attributes and characteristics of God and also focused on the origin of the world. Later in his life, the events that Ibn Rushd was essentially involved in all led to a dramatic shift in the world of religion and theology. He had an overall positive impact on many world religions and showed how religions could eventually evolve and transform into what they are known to be today.
Highlighting the main beliefs of Islam as well as criticising these philosophies, Al Ghazali’s main contribution to Islamic theology was showing the relationship between God’s power and human acts.
Abu Al-Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd, known in Latin as Averroes, was one of the most influential Islamic philosophers and scientist. He lived in a time where Philosophy was not celebrated in the Islamic world, and philosophers were regarded as unbelievers. He, however, revived the Aristotelian philosophy stressing that it has no conflict with the belief in God, and that was the theme he used throughout his writings. He integrated religion and philosophy challenging the anti-philosophical view of the Muslim scholars at that point. That influenced a group of western scholars who used the same examination and identified themselves as the “Averroists.”
This paper's purpose is to prove the existence of God. There are ten main reasons that are presented in this paper that show the actuality of God. It also shows counter-arguments to the competing positions (the presence of evil). It also gives anticipatory responses to possible objections to the thesis.