PAPER
Are the meanings of “chance” and “guidedness” consistent? The goal of this article is to provide an affirmative answer to this question and thereby defend compatibilism (or accommodationism), which is the position that evolutionary theory and interventionist theism can coexist harmoniously. Compatibilists, such as van Inwagen (2003), Bartholomew (2008), Dowe (2011), Bradley (2012), and Sober (2014) argue that certain components or features of the biosphere exhibit both chancy and divinely guided aspects.
The problem of God’s knowledge of particulars goes back to the beginnings of classical philosophy, and within the context of Islamic philosophy and theology, diverse schools have arisen which respond to this problem in different ways. The scope and depth of God’s knowledge of our world, which also includes knowledge of human will and human action, is the subject of Ibn Sina’s account of God’s knowledge of particulars, which I set out to discuss in this paper followed by Mula Sadra’s main criticisms of his premises and argumentation, finally providing my assessment of these two philosophers’ positions.
The main issue of this article is how to harmonize determinism and moral responsibility (the classic problem of free will) by reconsidering the philosophy of Avicenna. Certainly, Avicenna believes in determinism and in various works has emphasized the necessity of the effect by its sufficient cause. Avicenna, on the other hand, certainly believes in the moral responsibility of autonomous agents, including human beings. We have shown in the first step that he denies free will in the libertarian sense (the ability to do otherwise) for any agents; Because this notion of free will requires objective possibilities and is not compatible with causal determinism. Avicenna has identified a new type of voluntary agent who does not need to have an over-intentional intention to do something. Here, he looks very similar to proponents of agent causation; His idea, however, was not intended to defend a libertarian notion of free will, but to get rid of the challenge of the infinite regress of wills. Hence, Avicenna can be considered one of the few proponents of the “compatibilist agent causation.” In the second step, an overview of Avicenna’s theory of action is drawn. Here, in particular, emphasis is placed on the activity of the soul in the stages of the causal process leading to action, and the quality of these activities is introduced as a criterion for the morality degree of the
agent.
the path of religious pluralism starts with the fact that our world contains a number of religious faiths having different ideas of the nature of divinity as the main and fundamental principle of religions and therefore, different and various dogmas, rites, and rituals. Despite the claim that the idea of religious pluralism is a product of modern philosophical schools, specifically new epistemological principles, I have attempted to demonstrate that what I have called “pluralistic religion,” as a part of a necessary and substantial distinction that has to be drawn between this hypothesis and John Hick’s classic theory of “religious pluralism,” is strongly rooted in the principle of “ultimate truth and uniqueness of religion,” which has one of its valid interpretations in Islamic epistemology.
47. Hosseini, S. H. (2007). Philosophy of Media: Motivations and Necessities. Radio and Television Quarterly, 3, Spring.
48. Hosseini, S. H. (2006). Truth for Truth. Etelaat-E Hikmat Va Ma’refat, 4, 92-94.
Major efforts have been exhausted bringing religion closer to media (rather than bringing media closer to religion), or to break down the traditional boundaries between the “religious” and the “media.” In light of such efforts and various research, some have tried to show the necessity of building new bridges between religion and media. These attempts have even made scholars believe that in the “media age,” the secular is sacred and the sacred is secular. This endeavor was aimed at the unification of the two important elements of contemporary human life, which historically could also be understood in the context of challenging the relationship between science and religion. In this paper, I have tried to classify the various theories and approaches about the essence of the media in three branches: functionalistic, essentialist, and interactive hypotheses. After a short review of the consequences of each theory’s compatibility or incompatibility with media, religion, and religious teachings, I demonstrate that a more fundamental step should be taken to combine religion and media in an era known as the “Global,” “Religious,” or “Media Age.” The other part of the paper is devoted to the necessary distinction between religious media and mediated religion, emphasizing the main characteristics of religious media theory. Although the basic principle of media essentialism has been accepted, religion, which is neither the institutional ministry nor an absolute personal experience, has the potential to be consistent with the exclusive nature of the media. The final part of the article points to the focal axis of the religious media hypothesis within which elements of religion, culture, globalization, and the media are balanced and stabilized. This is religious pluralism.
53. Hosseini, S. H. (2004). Investigating and Explaining the Foundations of Religious Pluralism in the Qur’an with Reference to the Views of Allamah Seyyed Mohammad Hossein Tabatabai. In Hosseini, S. H. (Ed.). The Measure of Wisdom (pp. 111-147). Suroush Publishing.