فصلنامه قبسات
پیاپی 55 (بهار 1389)

This article tries to prove God’s existence through causality demonstration. The authours believe that the causality demonstration is an established principle and is beyond evidence which not only proves God’s existence directly, rather it is the support and root of all cosmological demonstrations. This demonstration have been repeatedly challenged in the new philosophy of the West. The West theology and Divine philosophy has not been successful in confronting these challenges; but Islamic philosophy has shown a great strength and has answered all the questions. Therefore after presenting the causality demonstration, the most important questions of the West scholars are mentioned and have been answered relying on the bases of Islamic philosophy.

Forjeh demonstration is derived from Imam Sadegh’s speech about proving the Unity of God. In a debate with one of the heretics and answering his question, Imam Sadegh (PBUH) has mentioned some points for proving monotheism and rejecting dualism in the management of the universe; some of which has been narrated by Hesham Ibn Hakam (179 LAH) in traditional sources such as ‘Kafi’ by Koleini (329 LAH) and ‘Al-Tohid’ by Saduq (381 LAH) and has been referenced by theologians and scholars untill today. Similar to the other narrations – which are related to intellectual subjects- using this narrations and its analysis and explanation has a special method as well. Presenting the historical path of this narration, the different demonstrations derived from it and their different accounts will be mentioned and explained in this article.

Understanding and searching for God is put in human’s nature since his creation and even demonstrations such as the Seddiqin demonstration, existential, intuitional and ethical demonstrations all use this nature to prove God. All human beings feel this understanding inside themselves through their conscience but they might have forgotten it’s clarity due to various environmental, social, cultural and different worldly factors. To be aware of this innate knowledge and understanding of God, some sparks and taps are needed which should be done by religious researchers and philosophers to keep it manifested. This is just like when human is surrounded by difficulties in his life and he pays attention to his innate sound which rescues and helps him.Therefore in this article all the important accounts of the demonstration of nature posed in the West and in the world of Islam is collected and investigated; their roots have been studied and their rational, Quranic and narrational roots have been discovered. Analyzing and evaluating the demonstration of nature, it is determined whether it is an acquired rational knowledge or an immediate knowledge or it includes both of them; is this account based on searching for God or understanding God or both. After a research, these accounts will be summarized and concluded and one will be chosen as the author’s view.

The demonstrations which prove God’s existence are divided into four groups: the intermediary of proof and the initial data which makes one affirm God’s existence is either united with God’s existence in its referent or it is different from it; in the case it is different, the different intermediary is either an external object, a notional concept or it is non-existing. The fourth type of demonstration is called non-existential demonstration. In these demonstrations God’s existence is proved by investigating the characteristics of the non-existence and by relying on self-evident rules such as the law of excluded middle and logical rules such as the even conversion rule (conversio simpler) and the conversion by contradiction rule (conversion per contrapositionem) and the problems of conjugate syllogism. Twenty two demonstrations of this kind will be observed in this article.

One of the demonstrations presented to prove God’s existence and rationality of religious beliefs is known as ‘Pascal’s wager’. William James has reviewed this demonstration and has presented a new account of it. According to his opinion we do not always form and accept our beliefs based on mere rational reasons; rather in many cases our will and feelings determine the direction of our beliefs. He believes that religious beliefs are among these cases as well. Criticizing skepticism and suspension of propositions on religious beliefs, James believes although the questions and problems related to accepting or rejecting religious beliefs might be rationally unanswered and without a final response such that we cannot take a definite rational position about them, but in practice and considering our emotional needs and the demands of our willing and emotive nature, they are among genuine and real choices which are living, unavoidable and momentous and we cannot be indifferent to them; rather we should study them considering the needs of our emotive and willing nature, if they are in accordance with our wills and pleasures we should accept them and otherwise we should reject them. James’ view has been criticized. Some of the most important criticisms of William James’ account of ‘Pascal’s wager’ are as follows: having an instrumental look at truth, accepting cognitive volitionaism, contradiction in ethical objectivism, paying attention to the profit of this world and ambiguity of concepts such as emotion and feelings.

This article is devoted to the critical discussion of the ontological proof for proving the existence of God, according to the Descartes. Descartes has presented his narrative from the ontological reason in his short and important treatise “meditations on the primary philosophy” in the third and fifth meditation and repeated short texts of that in his other book “The principles of philosophy “, the principles 14 -16, and in his other treatise “The reasons of proving God and separation between the soul and the body through the Geometrical method”.In the present article, at first, we will speak out the design of the reason from the different writings of Descartes, and after extraction of the common content of them, will report six rejections. Descartes has presented and answered in his books, especially in the Rejections and Answers, and we will tray to have a judgment in every case. At the end of the article we will inter a new rejection on the result of the reason by the initiative of this article.

This essay explains the subjective approach to theology (i.e. the relationship between self knowledge and knowing God) from viewpoint of two famous mystic from the East and the West i.e. Ibn Arabi as a muslim sufi and St. Bonaventura as a Christian mystic.Ibn Arabi in his works especially Fusus al Hikam deals with the subjective approach in two main method including impossibly-based method and possibly-based one(including five sub methods).St. Bonaventura in his main work in this area; The soul's journey into God explains the matter by focusing on two main aspects:Acquiring knowledge. 2- Intuition knowledge. Which including briefly four sub method.This essay finally compares the two view point and infers some distinctions and common points between them.

During history of philosophical thought, one of the most important mental distresses of human has constantly been self-cognition and discovery of proper relation between human and God. In this regard, some western philosophers considered earthy human alongside with the heavenly God with the expense of human’s alienation. Author, in this article is planning to explain this matter in the Islamic instructions and thought with philosophical-mystic approach. The following are the essential topics of this article: 1.Possibility of self-cognition and necessity of self-discovery 2.Concomitance of God-belief and self-discovery3.Human and the suffering of God-seeking4.Existential similarity and congruity of human and God (subsistence of divine attributes into the human’s souls). The author at the end of this writing, regards the mystery of this concomitance and true relation between God-belief and self-discovery in human’s creation according to form and attributes of supreme God. He is identified some aspects of similarity between human soul and God, in the essence, attributes and acts.