Polemics on Concepts of Evil and Divine Providence in Jewish Medieval Philosophy: Cases of Gersonides and Crescas

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-1) ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
Valeriya Sleptsova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Divine Providence ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Divine Knowledge ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Levi Ben Gershom ◽  
Fourth Book

This paper is devoted to the analysis and to the comparison of concepts on theodicy and on the nature of evil that was developed by two medieval Jewish philosophers. They are Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides or Ralbag, 1288-1344) and Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410/12). The sources of the analysis are the third chapter of the fourth book of the “Wars of the Lord” (1329) by Gersonides and the second chapter of the second book of the “Light of the Lord” (1410) by Crescas. Both philosophers assert that evil essentially cannot come from God. The causes of evil are the sinfulness of human beings, or the celestial bodies, or the breaking of the connection between human and God. The problem of evil and injustice in this world are closely related for Gersonides and Crescas to other problems, such as divine knowledge of future events, free will, reasons for reward and punishment. Gersonides and Crescas differ considerably on these issues. Gersonides demonstrates that God is not an essential source of evil. He proceeded to build on this statement with the fallacy of the opinion that divine providence extends to individuals. After all, said Gersonides, retribution would make God a source of evil. And in this case, righteous men would always be rewarded, and sinners would always be punished for their sins. But obviously this is not the case. Crescas, in contrast to Gersonides, claims that God knows individuals. This does not prevent him from agreeing with Ralbagh that God is not the source of evil. According to Crescas, any punishment or suffering (even for the righteous) always leads to good. It is obvious therefore that Crescas adheres to a more traditional position, trying, inter alia, to bring his thoughts as close as possible to the ideas expressed in the Torah. Gersonides adheres to a position close to the ideas of Maimonides. Gersonides, in the author’s opinion, created a philosophical concept that is more consistent in comparison with Crescas’ conception, however more distant from the Jewish teaching.

Cosmopolitical and Biopolitical Aesthetics as Philosophical Approaches to Art Education

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Modesta Di Paola
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Real Condition ◽  
Social Growth ◽  
Critical History ◽  
Common World

Cosmopolitanism is an ancient idea with a wide theoretical and critical history. Scholars across the humanities and social sciences have been examining the meaning and trajectories of this concept, showing how it spotlights ways in which people can move beyond mutual understanding and cooperation. However, cosmopolitanism does not have to refer to a transcendental ideal but rather to the material and real condition of global interdependencies. Cosmopolitanism has been connected to the philosophical concept of “becoming-world,” which develops this idea in the context of plural and ecological societies. Under this approach, cosmopolitanism turns into cosmo-politics, which fuses notions of educational and cultural creativity. From the philosophy of education and artistic education in particular, cosmopolitics seeks to outline the advances of new creative educational theories, which center on globalization, hospitality ethics, politics of inclusion, and the ecological connection between human beings and ecosystems; overall, this concept reveals the possibilities for moral, political, and social growth in the encounter with the other (human and natural). Cosmopolitics is, therefore, associated with the idea of educating with creativity, even proposing the elaboration of new pedagogical methods. Here, cosmopolitics has arisen as a crucial artistic educational orientation toward reimagining, appreciating, and learning from our common world.

scholarly journals Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus on the Problem of Evil: Insights from their Commentaries on the Book of Job

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-42
Author(s):  
Franklin T. Harkins
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Albert The Great ◽  
The Problem Of Evil

Abstract This article broadly considers the commentaries on Job of Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great as offering a helpful theological alternative to some modern philosophical approaches to the ‘problem of evil’. We seek to show that whereas some modern philosophers understand evil as a problem for the very existence of God, whether and how God can coexist with evil was never a question that evil seriously raised in the minds of Aquinas and Albert. In fact, although the suffering of the just in particular led our medieval Dominicans to wonder about divine providence and our ability to know God in this life, they understood the reality of evil as compelling evidence for the existence of God.

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura W. Ekstrom
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Skeptical Theism ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Moral Goodness ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Argument From Evil ◽  
Close Investigation ◽  
Traditional Doctrine

This book focuses on arguments from suffering against the existence of God and on a variety of issues concerning agency and value that they bring out. The central aim is to show the extent and power of arguments from evil. The book provides a close investigation of an under-defended claim at the heart of the major free-will-based responses to such arguments, namely that free will is sufficiently valuable to serve as the good, or to serve prominently among the goods, that provides a God-justifying reason for permitting evil in our world. Offering a fresh examination of traditional theodicies, it also develops an alternative line the author calls a divine intimacy theodicy. It makes an extended case for rejection of the position of skeptical theism. The book expands upon an argument from evil concerning a traditional doctrine of hell, which reveals a number of interesting issues concerning fault, agency, and blameworthiness. In response to recent work contending that the problem of evil is defanged since God’s baseline attitude toward human beings is indifference, the book defends the essential perfect moral goodness of God. Finally it takes up the question of whether or not it makes sense to live a religious life as an agnostic or as an atheist.

National calendar, some historical days, our traditions and spiritual values

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (01) ◽  
pp. 37-42
Author(s):  
Ali Umud Ali Umud Aliyev
Keyword(s):  
Living History ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Experimental Knowledge ◽  
Lunar Calendar ◽  
The People ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
Connection With Nature ◽  
The Universe

It is the people who make the history live, the people is the living history. The ancient inhabitants of the universe, our ancestors, our great ancestors created separate calendars on the basis of their experimental knowledge about the change of the year, month and day. The folk calendar, the lunar calendar, the solar calendar, and the lunar-solar calendar are the meanings that human beings have discovered by studying the mysteries of nature. As a result of man's connection with nature in every field, his observation and comparison, a folk calendar was formed. According to the folk calendar, our ancient ancestors, depending on the movement of celestial bodies, falling leaves from above or below in autumn, the position of clouds in the sky, the redness of the horizon in the morning or evening, the behavior of animals, birds flying close to the ground, weather, rain or snow predicted hurricanes and storms, earthquakes, hot and dry summers, and harsh winters.

A Constructive Approach to the Evolution of the Planning Ability

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 22-35
Author(s):  
Kenichi Minoya ◽  
Tatsuo Unemi ◽  
Reiji Suzuki ◽  
Takaya Arita
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Flexibility ◽  
General Tendency ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Symbolic Communication ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Planning Ability ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Planning Parameter ◽  
Account Planning ◽  
Share Information

Human beings have behavioral flexibility based on a general faculty of planning for future events. This paper describes the first stage of a study on the evolution of planning abilities. A blocks world problem is used as a task to be solved by the agents, and encode an inherent planning parameter into the genome. The result of computer simulation shows a general tendency that planning ability emerges when the problem is difficult to solve. When taking social relationships, especially in the collective situation, into account, planning ability is difficult to evolve in the case that the problem is complex because there is a conflict between personal and collective interests. Also, the simulation results indicate that sharing information facilitates evolution of the planning ability although the free rider problem tends to be more serious than the situation where agents do not share information. It implies that there is a strong connection between evolution of the planning ability and symbolic communication.

scholarly journals The sky as a social field

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (S278) ◽  
pp. 30-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanisław Iwaniszewski
Keyword(s):  
Human Populations ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Field ◽  
Surrounding World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Celestial Bodies

AbstractLike other features of the surrounding world, objects and events perceived in the sky were used to mediate between humans and specific meanings acquired in relation to them. Celestial bodies were often believed to act like human agents. In this way the skies became part of the social field of human beings—a heterogeneous space in which all important types of relationships could happen. For this reason, the study of the role celestial lore and skywatching played in human populations is a task appropriate to cultural astronomers rather than to astrophysicists or historians of science.

scholarly journals ONTOLOGI FILSAFAT DALAM ILMU FALAK DAN IMPLEMENTASINYA BAGI PRAKTEK IBADAH UMAT MUSLIM

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
M. Anzaikhan
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Rotation Of The Earth ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
The Right ◽  
Basic Content ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Complex Manner

Philosophy, which is considered to be the first driving force for the birth of various scientific studies, is also in the development of the Science Falak. The Science of Falak Studies examines the basic concepts of the creation of the universe in various scientific theories. In philosophical studies, the creation of the universe was also discussed by natural philosophers even several centuries ago before the term Falak Science was invented. Likewise, when discussing the movement of celestial bodies, the rotation of the earth, the Islamic calendar, determining the direction of the Qibla, and the entry of prayer times. If it is related to the study of philosophy, long before the year Christ was discovered, the content of astronomy has been widely discussed even though it is still limited to authentic thinking and its philosophical foundation. So it is very relevant if studying Falak science is synergized with philosophical thinking so that the basic content of Falak science can be digested in a complex manner. Furthermore, if the philosophical concept related to the systematics of Falak Science can be accepted, it will be transformed in determining the right policies for the socio-religious life of society, especially the private practice of Muslims. By constructing the substance of philosophy and Science of Falak will give birth to an effective formula for a more moderate and contextual concept of religion.

Essays in Analytic Theology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Rea
Keyword(s):  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Hiddenness ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Face ◽  
Part Deal ◽  
The Human Condition

This book is the second of two volumes collecting together the most substantial work in analytic theology that I have done between 2003 and 2018. The first volume contains essays focused, broadly speaking, on the nature of God; this second volume contains essays focused more on doctrines about humanity, the human condition, and how human beings relate to God. The essays in the first part deal with the doctrines of the incarnation, original sin, and atonement; the essays in the second part discuss the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness, and a theological problem that arises in connection with the idea God not only tolerates but validates a response of angry protest in the face of these problems.

The Role of Past in the Simulation of Autobiographical Future Episodes

2010 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 419-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Gamboz ◽  
Maria A. Brandimonte ◽  
Stefania De Vito
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Delayed Recognition

Human beings’ ability to envisage the future has been recently assumed to rely on the reconstructive nature of episodic memory ( Schacter & Addis, 2007 ). In the present research, young adults mentally reexperienced and preexperienced temporally close and distant autobiographical episodes, and rated their phenomenal characteristics as well as their novelty. Additionally, they performed a delayed recognition task including remember-know judgments on new, old-remember, and old-imagine words. Results showed that past and future temporally close episodes included more phenomenal details than distant episodes, in line with earlier studies. However, future events were occasionally rated as already occurred in the past. Furthermore, in the recognition task, participants falsely attributed old-imagine words to remembered episodes. While partially in line with previous results, these findings call for a more subtle analysis in order to discriminate representations of past episodes from true future events simulations.

The dispute about the nature of divine attributes in Jewish medieval philosophy

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-101
Author(s):  
Andrija Soc
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ecclesiastical Authority ◽  
The Status ◽  
Religious Dogma ◽  
Alternative Solutions

In this paper I discuss a dispute between Jewish medieval philosophers about the status of divine attributes. The paper consists of three parts. In the first part, I outline Philo?s and Saadia?s reasons as to why God must be thought as perfect and simple. Using the aristotelian distinction ?substance/accidence?, I explain why it is problematic to ascribe to God, as seen within Judaic tradition, properties such as omniscience, power, goodness, and others. In the second part, I examine Maimonides? negative theology. Maimonides holds that one must not predicate anything to God. Because God and human beings are incommensurable, any such ascription would be equivocal. Under the influence of Saadia, Maimonides maintains that one cannot say anything about God except that He exists. To prove his thesis, Maimonides was prepared to interpret the content of Jewish Holy writs as being highly metaphorical and it?s most profound meaning as beyond the grasp of the majority of those practicing the principles of Judaism. Even though Maimonides? influence was felt on many subsequent Jewish thinkers, many of them didn?t always agree with him. In the third part of the paper, I sketch Gersonides?, Crescas? and Albo?s alternative solutions to the problem of ascribing attributes to God. Aside from discussing a question of the status of Divine attributes, in this paper I also try to put forward a thesis that goes beyond the framework of the mentioned dispute. Namely, Jewish philosophers, Maimonides being the paradigmatic example, didn?t simply adopt the official interpretations of religious dogma, nor did they compromise with it when it comes to proving their theses. In that regard, they came very close to early modern philosophers, who discussed philosophical and theological problems in light of principles of rational examination, rather than accepting the claims of ecclesiastical authority.

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