Author: Amir SaemiPublisher:
ISBN: 9780197686249
Category : Good and evil
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"If God commanded you to do something contrary to your moral conscience, how would you respond? Many believers of different faiths face a similar challenge today. While they take Scripture to be the word of God, they find Scriptural passages that seem incompatible with their modern moral sensibilities-let's call this the problem of divinely prescribed evil. The first part of the book demonstrates how Islamic thinkers of various historical traditions (including the Asharites, the Mutazilites, and the Greek-influenced Philosophers, falāsifa) adhered to a Scripture-first view: Scripture takes precedence over our independent moral judgments. By appealing to hidden moral facts known only to God or the prophet, a Scripture-first approach views moral reasoning with skepticism, at least when it conflicts with Scripture. An Ethics-first view, however, places our independent moral judgments before Scripture. The second part of the book offers two Ethics-first solutions, with some roots in the Islamic tradition, to the problem of divinely prescribed evil; each argues that our own moral reasoning is reliable in the face of skeptical arguments presented by Scripture-first views and shows how a theist can maintain their belief in Scripture's divinity while relying on their own moral judgments"--
