Archive for the ‘Definitions’ Category

Is Islam a Religion?

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

In a July 26th report on its blog, “Political Broadsheet,” CBS informs us that:

Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, a Republican competing in the GOP gubernatorial primary, said on July 14th that he is unsure if Islam is really a religion, suggesting that it could be a “cult.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20011712-503544.html

I was struck by this report because I have recently come to ask myself if the view of Islam that Ramsey’s comment represents might be emerging into some prominence among conservatives opposed to Islam. It was, for example, quite explicitly raised in Bill Vallicella’s blog, The Maverick Philosopher, in a July 20th post, “A Mosque Grows Near Brooklyn.”

Our maverick philosopher offers us therein “something to think about”:

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion. But to apply the Amendment, one must raise and answer the logically prior question, What is a religion? I rather doubt that the Founders had Islam in mind when they ensured the right to the free exercise of religion. So we need to ask the question whether Islam counts as a religion in a sufficiently robust sense of the term to justify affording it full First Amendment protection. To the extent that Muslims work to infiltrate and overturn our institutions and way of life, to the extent that they violate church-state separation, to the extent that they demand special privileges and refuse to assimilate, to that extent they remove themselves from any right to First Amendment protection.
(http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/)

Now in his “Addendum and Corrigendum” of July 22nd, he quickly acknowledged that his “doubt that the Founders had Islam in mind when they ensured the right to the free exercise of religion” was not well-founded.

I made a mistake in the last paragraph that I will now correct. Although the sentence “I rather doubt that the Founders had Islam in mind when they ensured the right to the free exercise of religion” was true when I wrote it, expressing as it did a fact about my mental state, I now see that it is simply false that the Founders did not have Islam in mind. See “The Founding Fathers and Islam.” I thank Mark Whitten for the correction.
(REH note: see http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0205/tolerance.html)

He continued:

But I do not retract my main point, which is that we ought to give careful thought to the question whether, as I put it above, “Islam counts as a religion in a sufficiently robust sense of the term to justify affording it full First Amendment protection. “ I am raising this as a question. So-called liberals, however, being politically correct and therefore opposed to truly open discussion, will no doubt haul out their list of abusive epithets: racist, xenophobe, Islamophobe . . . .

His question of “whether … Islam counts as a religion in a sufficiently robust sense of the term to justify affording it full First Amendment protection,” is of course an exceedingly important one. It is also one that is very difficult to answer, as is quickly revealed by a perusal of, say:

“In Search of a Legal Definition of Religion: Lessons from
U.S. Federal Jurisprudence”
(http://americanaejournal.hu/vol5no1/blutman)

“The Complexity of Religion and the Definition of “Religion” in International Law,”
(http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss16/gunn.shtml)

It strikes me, on the one hand, that the legal definition of “religion” evident in the following passage would have to include Islam, unless it could be shown that the profession of belief in God by Muslims is not sincere.

To determine whether an action of the federal or state government infringes upon a person’s right to freedom of religion, the court must decide what qualifies as religion or religious activities for purposes of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has interpreted religion to mean a sincere and meaningful belief that occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to the place held by God in the lives of other persons. The religion or religious concept need not include belief in the existence of God or a supreme being to be within the scope of the First Amendment.
(http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Religion)

I feel bound to ask Bill how, if given this understanding, Islam could fail to legally qualify as a religion. Or, if he does not accept this understanding, I have to ask what alternative understanding he would offer in its place that would include Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, “affording” them “full First Amendment protection,” and not similarly include Islam.

As, however, the Maverick’s brother in philosophy (albeit, I fear, in his eyes also a “scumbag of a liberal,” to use the epithet he used in his July 21st post, “Will Liberals Ever Retire the Race Card?”), I am also interested in the philosophical question that he raised earlier, “What is a religion?”

I have to admit that I’m at a bit of a loss to answer the question in such a way as to include all and only religions. I’m fairly sure that an adequate definition would have to point to a set of ultimate beliefs, a set of values more or less in correlation with those beliefs, and a set of guidelines, enjoining some and forbidding other activities, more or less in correlation with those values and those beliefs. Vague enough, huh?

So I also want to ask Bill what he might offer as a philosophical definition of religion, one that would include, say, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. And then I will want to ask whether that definition does not similarly include Islam.

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The Definition of God: A Reply

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

My friend and colleague Craig Looney has posted a comment (on my August 26th, 2009th post, “On My Motivation in Seeking a Demonstration That There Is or There Is Not a God”) that warrants a response in the form of a post, more visible than a comment on a comment would be. He begins by speaking of “a couple of it issues that fuzzy up the project of finding a proof of the existence or non-existence of ‘God.’” This post is devoted to the first of these issues, which he spells out as:

[1] The term “God” can mean a wide range of things. In order to even ask the question, it is necessary to define the properties (or ranges of properties) of the God that is to be proved or refuted. This may seem obvious, but many people advance a God that is “beyond definition,” or “the thing that is no thing,” etc. These God concepts are likely beyond logical proof/refutation, and are often beyond empirical testing (but see below).

If we define God as someone who can fly, kill people by pointing at them, etc (that is, as something a primitive culture might view as a deity) then God already exists, because we can outfit a person with a jetpack and a machine gun.

On the other hand, if we define God as all powerful and indestructible, then such a God is a logical impossibility, “for if it can destroy itself it is not indestructible, and if it can’t destroy itself then it isn’t all-powerful.

Craig is absolutely right that in saying that “The term ‘God’ can mean a wide range of things” and that “in order to even ask the question, it is necessary to define the properties (or ranges of properties) of the God that is to be proved or refuted.” In this post, therefore, I will begin to deal with the matter of what a god is, if there is one, or would be, if there were one. The raising of this question of the demonstrability of the existence or non-existence of a god has come, however, at an earlier point in the life of this blog than I had foreseen or laid the groundwork for; Nasr does not directly address it in The Garden of Truth. So I am approaching even as basic a matter as the definition of a god with some diffidence and reserving the right to revise later what I have to say now.

That being said, the god the existence of which can be demonstrated must of course be a “logical possibility.” Thus “the thing that is no thing,” taken thus baldly, is clearly not something that can be demonstrated to exist. In fact, contra Craig, its existence can be immediately refuted, for, applying the Principle of Non-Contradiction, no being or existent can be both a thing and not a thing, in any one respect and at any one time. Of course, if by “the thing that is no thing” we actually mean “the being that is no physical thing,” the immediate refutation just given is no longer relevant.

Going with Craig a bit deeper, a god that is “all powerful and indestructible” is indeed “a logical impossibility,” for, as he says, “if it can destroy itself it is not indestructible, and if it can’t destroy itself then it isn’t all-powerful.” But all is not lost here, for that observation does not rule out as logically impossible an indestructible god that is, not simply all-powerful, but, to use a formulation that is perhaps good enough for the time being, capable of doing all that is possible. (I say “perhaps good enough for the time being” because there is much in “capable of doing all that is possible” that begs for further elucidation, e.g., just what does the “doing” or activity of a god consist in.)

Now if it exists, the god of which I have said, in the post immediately previous to this one, that I hope it exists and fear it does not and the existence of which I hope to eventually prove or disprove is an absolutely perfect being, an ens perfectissimum. From this and some allied assumptions it follows that it is a being absolutely perfect in knowledge, in love and will, and in power, and perhaps in yet other things (e.g., aesthetic appreciation of the beautiful). (All this is said in full awareness that there is much that needs to be made explicit in just what a perfect being might be and even more so in just what a being perfect in knowledge, in love and will, and in power might be.)

That’s on the one hand. On another hand, in the immediately previous post I made reference to an argument for the existence of a god, the validity of which is evident, though its soundness is not. That argument is not one that makes use of “perfect being” or “being perfect in knowledge, in love and will, and in power” as the operative definition. A variation of the kind of argument evident in the first two of Thomas Aquinas’s quinque viae, it has as a point of departure a definition of a god looking something like this: “an efficient cause of all other beings and effect of no other,” i.e., an “uncaused cause.” All this needs spelling out and that such a being would in fact be perfect requires further demonstration. So too would the thesis that that god is unique, not just a god, but the god.

On a third hand, if I may, in the immediately previous post I also made reference to an argument for the non-existence of a god, the validity of which argument is evident, though its soundness is not. This argument, known as the argument “from evil,” does make use of a conception of a god as a “being perfect in knowledge, in love and will, and in power.”

Setting my review of The Garden of Truth aside a bit longer, in my next post I will spell out the argument from evil in the way that I think it has to be spelled out.

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Nasr’s Gnosis and “Theomonism”

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

In my June 20th post, I concluded by saying that in my next scheduled on-topic post I would be “pulling out from his text [Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s The Garden of Truth] one of the central metaphysical theses operative in his gnosticism, which I identify as theomonism.” Let me begin today’s post by, first, defining theomonism as the thesis that the divine being is the one and only real being and, second, admitting that I may have been guilty, but just barely, of inaccuracy in claiming that his is a theomonist doctrine.

In the opening paragraph of Part One of The Garden of Truth (p. 4), Nasr raises four questions which he characterizes as “basic questions.”

Wherever we are and in whatever time we happen to live, we cannot avoid asking the basic questions of who we are, where we came from, what we are doing here, and where we are going.

In today’s post we are going to pay attention to the first such basic question, that of who we are, and to the answer that Nasr at least very nearly, if not exactly, gives. In my next scheduled on-topic post, I will turn to the second and fourth questions.

In the second paragraph of Part One (Ibid.) Nasr tells us:

Sufism addresses the few who yearn for an answer on the deepest level to the question of who they are and in a manner that would touch and transform their whole being. The Sufi path is the means within the Islamic tradition of finding the ultimate answer to this basic question and of discovering our real identity. Throughout the ages religions have sought to teach us who we are and through their inner teachings to provide the means of “becoming” our True Self. Islam is certainly no exception. It unveils the complete doctrine of our true nature and also the nature of the levels of reality issuing from the One, who alone is ultimately Real, and provides teaching that, if put into practice, lead us back to the One through a path of spiritual effort combined with joy and felicity.

A number of things are being said in this passage. For one example, the description of “the Sufi path” as “the means within the Islamic tradition of finding the ultimate answer to this basic question” of who we are suggests that there are other paths within other traditions. For another, the reference to the “inner teachings” of religions points to a distinction between the religions’ “inner teachings” and their “outer teachings.”

We will have occasion to dwell upon these matters in the future. Now, however, I am most concerned with underlining the answer that Nasr has at least very nearly, if not exactly, given in holding that “the One … alone is ultimately Real.” That is, if he had simply said that the One, i.e., God, alone is real, then it would have logically followed that if I am real then I am identical with the One. On the other hand, if I am not identical with the One, then, still assuming that the One alone is real, it would have logically followed that I am not real.

Nasr has not demonstrated either that the One alone is real or even that the One exists. Nor has he produced an argument on behalf of either thesis, at least not in The Garden of Truth. Keeping our focus on the former, it may, however, be that he does not in fact hold that the One alone is real, for he did not simply say that the One alone is real; he said that the One alone is “ultimately Real.” There seems to be, in his thinking, a pertinent and significant difference between being real and being Real (as likewise between a True Self and a true self). There may further be a pertinent and significant difference between being Real, though not ultimately, and being ultimately Real. We’ll need to remain alert to what Nasr says about the “real” and the “Real” as we work our way through The Garden of Truth.

To continue: just as Nasr has not demonstrated that the One alone is real nor even produced an argument on behalf of the thesis, at least not in The Garden of Truth, so he has not demonstrated that the One alone is ultimately Real nor even produced an argument on behalf of that thesis, at least not in The Garden of Truth. How, then, we need to ask, do he and his Sufism think that we can gain this or any knowledge of the divine? He provides an answer (Ibid., p. 5):

The Prophet of Islam said, “Whosoever knows his self, knows his Lord”; that is, self-knowledge leads to knowledge of the Divine.

The Prophet’s statement that to know one’s self is to know his or her Lord is certainly consistent with the theses that the One alone is real and thus that the one knowing his or her self is identical with the One. It is true that Nasr’s gloss, “self-knowledge leads to knowledge of the Divine,” steps back from any necessary identification of self and One, as does the immediate continuation of his text:

Sufism takes this saying (hadith) very seriously and also puts it into practice. It provides, within the spiritual universe of the Islamic tradition, the light necessary to illuminate the dark corners of our soul and the key to open the doors to the hidden recesses of our being so that we can journey within and know ourselves, this knowledge leading ultimately to the knowledge of God, who resides in our heart/center.

I need to grant that to hold that God “resides in our heart/center” is not at all to hold that we are identical with God. But the paragraph immediately preceding the one just quoted comes closer to such an identification, identifying the Center, if not with us, at least with our center. He first identifies the discovery of the ultimate nature of who we are as the carrying of self-knowledge to its end.

It is no accident that the Sacred Law of Islam is called the Sharī‘ah, which means road. It is a road that all Muslims are obliged to travel if they are to die in a blessed state. For most, however, the journey on this road is limited to the plane of action, the performance of good acts, and faith in the reality of God. Few wish to take a step further to discover the ultimate nature of who they are and carry self-knowledge to its end.

He goes on to give two important characterizations of Sufism.

Sufism, which is the inner or esoteric dimension of Islam, while beginning with the Sharī‘ah as the basis of the religious life, seeks to take a further step toward that Truth (Haqīqah), which is also the source of the Sharī‘ah. Sufism, which is also called the Tarīqah, or the spiritual path, is the divinely ordained means of providing an answer to that ultimate question and leading us to the Truth or Haqīqah contained within that answer.

He next goes on to appeal to the geometrical analogy or metaphor of a circle and its center, or “Center.”

The Sharī‘ah is the circumference of a circle whose radii are the Turuq (plural of Tarīqah) and whose Center is the Haqīqah or Truth, that is, the Source of both the Law and Way as well as the Center for one who begins on the circumference, journeys along the one of the radii, and finally reaches the Center, which is also his or her own center. To reach the Center means not only being in a blessed state but also reaching the state to which to which the various mysticisms refer as union with God.

Given that in Islam “the Truth” is God under another name and that, as we have just been told, the Center of our analogy or metaphor is the Truth, it follows that one who “finally reaches the Center” has reached God. But here Nasr has explicitly identified the Center, with the center of the person who has reached the end of the journey of self-knowledge.

The answer, then, to the first of Nasr’s “basic questions,” that of who we are, is, or very nearly is, that, at least in our center, we are God.

For the time being I’ll be leaving this matter in somewhat of a state of ambiguity. But there will be ample occasion to return to it in the future.

***

If you wish, you an easily purchase The Garden of Truth through Amazon.com by clicking on:

The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam’s Mystical Tradition

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Announcing “Gnosis and Noesis”

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

I have decided to once again set hand to keyboard and renew the blog, “Islam and Intellect,” which some second thoughts and the press of life’s circumstances led me to suspend some time ago. Part of that renewal, however, is the assigning of a new name to the blog, “Gnosis and Noesis,” the new name reflecting a partial but significant change in focus. The focus of “Islam and Intellect” was on Islamic philosophy, theology, and mysticism and more specifically on the thought of the noted Iranian-American Muslim thinker Seyyed Hossein Nasr. While “Gnosis and Noesis” will in the relatively near future be focused on Nasr’s thought, over the long term a shift in focus will become evident, from one aiming at a critical understanding of Islamic philosophy, theology, and mysticism to one aiming at a critical understanding of philosophy, theology, and mysticism tout court.

The initial focus will be on the “gnosticism” of Nasr. To provide context, however, we’ll begin with some definitions that “gnosticism” can support. Setting aside the non-essential elements of the widely varying and often fantastical forms that gnosticism has assumed in the course of its history, we can distinguish three definitions of the term relevant both to the meaning, “knowledge,” of the Greek term “gnosis” and to the philosophical perspective motivating this blog. First, however, provision of a logically prior definition will be useful, that of epistemology: epistemology, from the Greek “episteme,” or “knowledge,” is the philosophical theory or science of knowledge, i.e., the discipline that investigates the existence, the nature, and the principles and properties of knowledge precisely as knowledge.

This definition in hand, “gnosticism,” in the broadest sense of the term, can designate the epistemological thesis that a genuine knowledge of the real is possible; “epistemism” would be an equally apt term for this thesis. Gnosticism in this sense stands opposed to skepticism, the epistemological thesis that a genuine knowledge of the real is not possible.

Before proceeding further, provision of another fundamental definition is called for, that of ontology: ontology, from the Greek “ontos,” or “being,” is the philosophical theory or science of being, i.e., the discipline that investigates the existence, the nature, and the principles and properties of being precisely as being. This latter definition in hand, we can note that the gnosticism defined above obviously presupposes the truth of the ontological thesis that there is at least one real being; if there were no real being, there would be no real being to be known.

More narrowly, “gnosticism” can designate the thesis that a genuine knowledge of the divine is possible. Gnosticism in this second sense of the word obviously presupposes the truth of gnosticism in the previous sense of the word and therefore also the truth of the presuppositions of that epistemological theory. It further and equally obviously presupposes the truth of the generically ontological and specifically theological thesis that there is a divine to be known; if there is, or were, no divine, there is, or would be, no divine to be known. This second gnosticism stands opposed to “agnosticism,” the thesis that a genuine knowledge of the divine is not possible.

More narrowly yet, “gnosticism” can designate the thesis that an immediate knowledge, i.e., a “vision,” of the divine is possible. This is in contrast with what a non-immediate knowledge, i.e., a mediated knowledge, of the divine would be. By rough analogy: seeing a person in the next room would be an immediate knowledge of that person; hearing the opening and closing of desk drawers on the other side of a closed door, and then inferring that there is someone there, would be a mediated knowledge of the person.

A mediated knowledge of the divine, if there is such, is then one in which the divine is known but only as an inferred cause, the cause which we infer that the existents which we do know immediately must have; the celebrated “Five Ways” with which Thomas Aquinas attempted to demonstrate the existence of God all represent attempts at such a mediated knowledge of the divine.

Gnosticism in this third sense of the word obviously presupposes the truth of gnosticism in both of the two previous senses of the word and therefore also the truth of their presuppositions. Gnosticism in this sense stands in opposition to the view, for which I know of no one-word designator, that an immediate knowledge of the divine is not possible.

It is gnosticism in the third sense of the term that is to be the object of our focus for the foreseeable future. The history of thought provides multiple illustrations of several competing theses related to gnosticism in this third sense . One view is evident in classical Catholic Christianity’s understanding of the “beatific vision,” the vision of God that, it is held, brings absolute happiness. As I understand it, it is the view of classical Catholic Christianity that an immediate knowledge of the divine is possible, not, however, in this life, but only in an after-life. This view clearly presupposes the truth of the thesis that there is an after-life, which thesis itself depends upon some controversial premises.

A glimpse of an at least near approximation to an alternative view of gnosticism can be seen in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” (Republic, Book VII, 514a-520a), with its understanding that the philosopher-king needs to and, presumably, can attain a vision of the ideal or perfect Good. On the assumption that the ideal or perfect Good is in fact the divine, this understanding holds that an immediate knowledge of the divine is possible, even in this life and not only in an after-life.

Bringing in the difference between naturalism and supernaturalism gives rise to other pertinent possibilities. One view, also evident in classical Catholic Christianity’s view of the “beatific vision,” holds that an immediate knowledge of the divine is possible, but only if humans are provided, through divine grace, with supernatural means of knowing. The opposed, naturalistic, understanding holds that an immediate knowledge of the divine is possible by human means alone; still holding to the assumptions at work in the immediately preceding paragraph, it seems that this was Plato’s understanding of the matter.

A truth-table can set forth all of the most pertinent logical possibilities. If we let “I” abbreviate “An immediate knowledge of the divine is possible,” “E” abbreviate “The immediate knowledge of the divine is possible in this (embodied) life,” “N” abbreviate “The immediate knowledge of the divine is possible through natural means,” and, of course, “T” abbreviate “True” and “F” abbreviate “False,” we have the following truth-table:

I E N
T T T
T T F
T F T
T F F
F T T
F T F
F F T
F F F

The first row (TTT) represents the thesis that an immediate knowledge of the divine is possible, in this life and by human means alone. The aim of engaging in a thorough philosophical exploration of this thesis, the thesis that I think Plato at least nearly arrived at, is a primary one with which I begin this blog.

The second row (TTF) represents the thesis that an immediate knowledge of the divine is possible, in this life, but not by human means alone; supernatural grace is needed in addition. This view, as we will see in the coming posts, is central to the Sufi gnosticism spelled out by Nasr in his The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam’s Mystical Tradition (Reprint edition; New York: HarperOne, 2008 [2007]). Yet, as I think I can show, there are some things in Nasr’s gnosticism that could imply that humans are at least in principle capable of attaining the immediate knowledge of the divine by the purely human means available to philosophy.

The third row (TFT) represents the thesis that an immediate knowledge of the divine is possible, though not in this life, but by human means alone. I assume, though I don’t know, that there are those who adhere to this thesis, and were I to encounter someone who did, I would observe that it presupposes that there is a pertinent difference between the human person in this life and the human person in the presumed next or after-life, such that the latter, but not the former, is capable of an immediate knowledge of the divine. Conceding that there are dramatic differences between life in this life and a life in a next life, I would then ask what the pertinent difference is.

The fourth row (TFF) represents the thesis that an immediate knowledge of the divine is possible, but not in this life and not by human means alone. This, I understand, represents the view of Thomas Aquinas and much if not virtually all of classical theism, Muslim as well as Christian. The adherents to this view have to hold that there is a pertinent difference between the supernatural grace that they believe is bestowed upon at least some humans in this life and the supernatural grace that they believe is bestowed upon at least some humans in the presumed next or after-life, such that some in the latter, but none in the former, are capable of attaining an immediate knowledge of the divine. I ask both what that difference is and why that difference is.

As the Fs in the column under the “I” in the fifth through eighth rows tell us, the remaining logical possibilities all assume that an immediate knowledge of the divine is not possible. The fifth, sixth, and seventh possibilities are therefore, clearly, self-contradictory. The eighth is perfectly self-consistent and, for all I know at this point, may well be the one that is true.

In the coming weeks, months, and years I intend to engage in a sustained philosophical exploration of the options just sketched out and their many and varying presuppositions. I am doing so quite simply because I wish to know whether or not it is in principle possible for us to enjoy a beatific vision, whether in this life or in another. I am making this blog an important component of the exploration at hand because through it I hope to find others who are or who are willing to become similarly engaged.

I use the expression “philosophical exploration” quite deliberately. First, my efforts will be philosophical in nature; I do not have a religious perspective as my point of departure and this, as will become clear as things proceed, has some important implications. Again, my efforts will be genuinely exploratory in their nature in this at least: using the expression “sound argument” in the logician’s technical sense of “a valid argument of which the premises are all true (and so therefore also the conclusion), I at this point know of no sound argument demonstrating the truth of any of the above gnostic theses and I know of no sound argument demonstrating their falsehood. I moreover know of no sound argument demonstrating that there can be no such sound arguments. Nothing, as I see it, has been definitively settled and I wish to do whatever I can to settle, perhaps even definitively settle, at least some things.

I will begin the blog’s deliberations with a slow and reflective reading of Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam’s Mystical Tradition, more or less systematically working my way through the book. I say, “more or less systematically,” for two reasons. First, I will reflect and comment on only the book’s most salient passages. Second, I anticipate often finding it necessary to follow some thread of presupposition or implication beyond the boundaries of that one work to other works.

In my next scheduled on-topic post (there may well be an occasional unscheduled or off-topic post) I will spell out some reasons why I begin with Nasr and his The Garden of Truth.

*****

If you wish, you an easily purchase The Garden of Truth through Amazon.com by clicking on:

The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam’s Mystical Tradition

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