Abstract
AbstractIn recent years, there has been notable interest in Islamic philosophy and theology from an analytic and not merely historical perspective. One important area of research that has garnered a great deal of research is the arguments for the existence of God. Recent work by Hannah Erlwein seeks to argue that this research has been in vain, for there are no arguments for the existence of God in classical Islamic thought. This paper analyzes Erlwein’s strategies in justifying this position, revealing that her research ignores an enormous amount of evidence that runs contrary to her thesis, in addition to demonstrating many of the errors and shortcomings in her work. Most disturbingly, the book seeks to present the Islamic philosophical tradition as fideistic and unintellectual based on a series of contrived interpretations of rather clear texts. In response, this paper demonstrates the importance of independent inquiry in the Islamic tradition by looking at a wide range of different relevant texts.
Highlights
In recent years, there has been notable interest in Islamic philosophy and theology from an analytic and not merely historical perspective
Recent work by Hannah Erlwein seeks to argue that this research has been in vain, for there are no arguments for the existence of God in classical Islamic thought
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī In Arguments for God’s Existence in Classical Islamic Thought: A Reappraisal of the Discourse, Hannah Erlwein presents a revisionist reading of Islamic intellectual history attempting to show that arguments for the existence of God are absent in the medieval Islamic philosophical and theological traditions (Erlwein, 4)
Summary
One stark example of the kind of obfuscation in this book is Erlwein’s interpretation of al-Bāqillānī’s statement that “To believe in His unity is: to accept that He is real (thābit) and existent (mawjūd), and that He is the One, Unique God, like whom there is nothing,” Erlwein suggests the following interpretation:. If “God is existent” does not mean that He is real, it is unclear to me what kind of expression would satisfy Erlwein’s requirements Another illustrative example is when Erlwein interprets Asharī’s argument for the existence of God as an argument for the “principle of causation,” which is a rather impressive acrobatic maneuvre: Be this as it may, al-Asharī’s proof that creation has a creator has, in the first place, the objective of affirming the “principle of causation.”. This means that he seeks to establish, first, that effects have causes and, second, that these causes are external to them. The book is replete with these fanciful interpretations, more of which I will refer to below
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