Document Type : Research
Author
Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Basic and Applied Sciences, Kermanshah University of Technology, Kermanshah, Iran.
Abstract
Mullā Ṣadrā’s Burhān al-Ṣiddīqīn (Proof of the Truthful), as one of the most significant formulations of the proof for God’s existence in Islamic philosophy, is based on the principles of the principality of existence (Aṣālat al-Wujūd), the gradation of existence (Tashkīk al-Wujūd), and an ontological interpretation of causality. In this respect, it differs fundamentally from essence‑based and classical cosmological arguments. In contrast, Antony Flew, as a prominent figure of analytic atheism in the twentieth century, advanced extensive critiques against the proofs for God’s existence, focusing mainly on the Aristotelian‑Thomistic argument from causality, the teleological argument, and explanations based on essentialist and empirically grounded causality. The central question of this research is whether these critiques - given Flew’s epistemological and semantic presuppositions - apply also to the ontological structure and the interpretation of causality in Mullā Ṣadrā’s Burhān al-Ṣiddīqīn. The present study, employing conceptual and comparative analysis and comparing the metaphysical foundations of the two traditions-Transcendent Theosophy (al-Ḥikmah al-Mutaʿāliyah) and analytic philosophy of religion-examines the relationship between Flew’s critiques and the Burhān al-Ṣiddīqīn. The findings indicate that the reason Flew’s critiques do not extend to the Burhān al-Ṣiddīqīn lies in the fundamental difference between the two conceptions of causality and explanation. Flew’s critiques are directed at a model of empirical and essence‑based causality that is meaningful within the framework of classical cosmological arguments, whereas the Burhān al-Ṣiddīqīn is based on an analysis of “existence as such” (al-Wujūd bi mā Huwa Wujūd), the gradational continuum of the degrees of being, and the existential necessity of the Necessary Existent (Wājib al-Wujūd), and is not essentially a kind of event‑based or empirical explanation. Therefore, the Burhān al-Ṣiddīqīn not only falls outside the direct scope of Flew’s critiques but can also, through a conceptual reformulation, provide capacities for dialogue and the reconstruction of proofs for God’s existence in the context of contemporary philosophy of religion.
Keywords
- Burhān al-Ṣiddīqīn (Proof of the Truthful)
- Mullā Ṣadrā
- Antony Flew
- Existential Causality
- Analytic Philosophy of Religion
Main Subjects
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