Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen

Divine freedom is reviewed with respect to three important themes: fate, revisions in divine decisions, and divine obligations. A study of the first theme yields the conclusion that God is free because He has absolute power and authority. In addition, God is free in relation to human beings in the sense that He can do what they do not expect. This theme is found under the heading of decree and measure, qaḍāʾ and qadar. Theologians have also grappled with the problem that the divine decrees appear to change, and on the tablet containing the divine decrees, there can be changes and erasures. This leads to the second topic, badāʾ, the apparent revision of divine decisions, which the theologians treat as abrogations of commands. God can be understood to foster a relationship with us in which He will appear to us as free to respond to our changing conditions, especially prayer and repentance. Finally, the obligations God sets for Himself and reveals to us through scripture are considered. This indicates a kind of divine freedom that only has meaning in the loving relationship between God and His servants that is cultivated through divine revelation. It is then suggested that these various dimensions of divine freedom can best be understood through complementing philosophical and scriptural approaches to the issues and that the understanding of this kind of synthetic hermeneutics can be deepened through comparative theology.

The place of philosophy in Iranian society is prominent. Philosophy is discussed in popular media as well as specialized journals, and in seminaries, research centers, and universities. Philosophy in Iran is often divided into Western and Islamic. Sometimes these are taken to be rivals. The methods of instruction differ to some extent, as well as the languages needed for advanced study. The question of the nature of Islamic philosophy is itself a controversial topic in Iran, and positions on this issue are often driven by ideological trends. The study of philosophy in the Islamic seminaries has its own history. Today Islamic philosophy may be considered a philosophical tradition that is being carried on with increasing interaction with the study of Western philosophy in Iran.

Call a belief ‘non-negotiable’ if one cannot abandon the belief without the abandonment of one’s religious perspective. Although non-negotiable beliefs can logically exclude other perspectives, a non-reductive approach to religious pluralism can help to create a space within which the non- negotiable beliefs of others that contradict one’s own non-negotiable beliefs can be appreciated and understood as playing a justificatory role for the other. The appreciation of these beliefs through cognitive resonance plays a crucial role to enable the understanding of those who hold other perspectives. epistemological and spiritual consequences of this claim are explored.

While the ontological arguments of Anselm and Descartes continue to be the source of controversy among philosophers and theologians in the West, scant attention has been paid to the ontological argument first formulated by Ibn Sina (370/980 - 429/1037), and thereafter reformulated by various Muslim philosophers throughout the centuries up to the present day. Here several versions of the argument will be presented in historical sequence, and some of the most important recent discussions of the argument by contemporary Muslim philosophers will be mentioned. Some reflections on the argument and the discussions of it will then be presented along with comments of a comparative nature regarding contemporary Islamic philosophy and Western philosophy of religion.

Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen* Received: 20/02/2019 | Accepted: 15/04/2019 Much recent discussion of the epistemology of religious belief has focused on justification of belief in the existence of God. Religious belief, however, includes much more than belief in God. In this paper, it is argued that the justification of belief in God is best seen in the context of other interrelated religious beliefs and practices. Philosophers of religion argue about whether religious belief requires evidence and on the sorts of arguments that have been presented. In this paper, a dialectical approach to the justification of religious belief is suggested that draws upon Hegel, Peirce, and W. E. Hocking. Rational reflection on the nature of experience that provides the solution to the problems of skepticism and solipsism in the Hegelian tradition, a tradition self-consciously developed by both Peirce and Hocking. If reason itself is only manifest in social exchanges, then the rationality of religious belief cannot be a private affair restricted to the subject of experience; rather it is the process of communicative interactions in accord with the overlapping norms of those who participate in them. Finally, some implications of this approach for the problem of religious diversity are sketched. * Professor of Philosophy, The Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute, Qom, Iran ׀ [email protected] ???? Legenhausen, M. (2019). Religious Epistemology and Dialectic. The Journal of Philosophical-Theological Research, 21(81), 43-58. doi: 10.22091/PFK.2019.4085.2065.

Since the time of Plato, relativism has been attacked as a self-refuting theory. Today, there are two basic kinds of argument that are used to show that global relativism is logically incoherent: first, a direct descendent of the argument Plato uses against Protagoras, called the peritrope; and, second, a more recent argument that relativism leads to an infinite regress. Although some relativist theories may be formulated in such a way as to be susceptible to these arguments, there are other versions of relativism that are impervious to these charges of incoherence. First the arguments against relativism will be stated. Next, a radical form of global relativism with assessment sensitivity is introduced, RR. Finally, it is shown how RR can be defended against the challenges of the peritrope and the regress. No attempt is made to defend RR as a plausible theory; however, the usual attempts to show the logical incoherence of radical forms of global relativism fail.