Abstract
Notwithstanding the difference in historical periods of creativity, in the treatises of some of the most famous thinkers both in Islamic culture and in the Christian world, ideas and understandings of the image are found as a notion that does not exhaust the perception of God, but is relevant to the pursuit of God's knowledge. The brief historical distance between the emergence of the Pseudo-Dionysian treatises and those of Islamic philosophy allows us to make a comparison between the two religious worldviews. The two monotheistic concepts of the manifestations of God in the visible world have common foundations in the Geek philosophy and the views of the Neoplatonists. The rich and tangled language in the Pseudo-Dionysian treatises reveals the two-sided process of the interrelation between the divine and human realities. In the texts of the Muslim thinker Muhammad al- Ghazālī, the image of the contemplative man's ascension to the Almighty and indescribable God is also revealed. This article attempts to compare the patterns of thought through which these two philosophers, with different religious beliefs, express their understanding of the image of God and the path of contemplative rising to Him. The image of the One, from where the entire immanent world originates, occupies the first place for both wise men. But while for the Muslim philosopher the manifestations of God in the world are a direct realization of His gentle mind, the Christian thinker focuses on the image of the incarnation of God in the person of Christ.
Highlights
Both Islamic and Christian cultures draw their inspiration and interpret in their own way the ancient philosophy and, in particular, the ideas of Neo-Platonism
In Neo-Platonic thought, the image and, in particular, the human image is perceived as an expression of the created essences that are the result of the Emanations of the One in the visible world it would be appropriate to look at the concept of Unity in Procle's teachings, in the teachings of Pseudo-Dionysus, and in philosophy of the Islamic thinker al-Gāzālῑ
In the context of spiritual development and unity with Divine nature, knowledge is a mystical experience acquired through the Sufi practice of seclusion, prayer and contemplation, which begins from the things in the visible world – images of the manifestation of God's nature in order to rise to the phenomena of states of ecstasy where the intelligible itself can be overcome
Summary
Both Islamic and Christian cultures draw their inspiration and interpret in their own way the ancient philosophy and, in particular, the ideas of Neo-Platonism. We have to say that in the Neo-Platonic teachings the Unity is considered in two basic aspects: as a source of the divine energies that act in the immanent world and secondly and as the object of unification to which all creatures of this immanent world aspire This Unity is identified as God, as an Absolute and Supreme Personality. Based on the triadic hierarchical structure borrowed from Plato's teachings, Areopagite puts the image in a metaphysical environment where he can transcend or merge with an image adjacent to it, which predetermines the mental union with God. Since, in Neo-Platonic thought, the image and, in particular, the human image is perceived as an expression of the created essences that are the result of the Emanations of the One in the visible world it would be appropriate to look at the concept of Unity in Procle's teachings, in the teachings of Pseudo-Dionysus, and in philosophy of the Islamic thinker al-Gāzālῑ
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