(Persian scientist and philosopher, 965-1040)
Scientific authorities in their search for truth are not immune from error
The scientist Ibn al-Haytham was a devout Muslim. He wrote a work on Islamic theology, in which he discussed prophethood and developed a system of philosophical criteria to discern its false claimants in his time. He attributed his experimental scientific method and scientific skepticism to his Islamic faith. The Islamic holy book the Qur'an, for example, placed a strong emphasis on empiricism. He also believed that human beings are inherently flawed and that only God is perfect. He reasoned that to discover the truth about nature, it is necessary to eliminate human opinion and error, and allow the universe to speak for itself.
In his Aporias against Ptolemy, Ibn al-Haytham commented on the difficulty of attaining scientific knowledge:"Truth is sought for itself but the truths, he warns, are immersed in uncertainties and the scientific authorities (such as Ptolemy, whom he greatly respected) are not immune from error...". He held that the criticism of existing theories holds a special place in the growth of scientific knowledge: "Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency."
One should not accept by pure faith Ptolemy's words in everything he says, without relying on a demonstration or calling on a proof. No doubt, experts in the prophetic tradition have the right and duty to have faith in Prophets. But this is not the way that mathematicians have faith in specialists in the demonstrative sciences. Ibn al-Haytham described his search for truth and knowledge as a way of leading him closer to God: "I constantly sought knowledge and truth, and it became my belief that for gaining access to the effulgence and closeness to God, there is no better way than that of searching for truth and knowledge."
See Paul Lagasse (2007), "Ibn al-Haytham", Columbia Encyclopedia (Sixth ed.), Columbia
(Iraqi critic of Islam and religions, 827-911)
The intellect alone, not prophets and miracles, is the judge of truth
According to Ibn al Warandi – who has been called the Voltaire of Islam - God has bestowed upon human beings the gift of intellect, by which they can judge right and wrong, true and false. If what the prophets announce corresponds to what the intellect decrees, then prophets are superfluous. If it contradicts what the intellect decrees, then one should not listen to them.
The sciences are mentioned by Ibn al-Rawandi as proof for the sufficiency of the intellect. According to him, people developed the science of astronomy by watching the skies. They did not need a prophet to teach them how to watch. It is absurd to assume that without prophetic revelation people would not have learned all the skills that they have acquired by the assiduous application of the inborn human intellect and power of observation.
Ibn al-Rawandi ‘s main book, the “Zumurrud”, is a biting criticism of prophecy in general and of the prophecy of Muhammad in particular; he maintains that the religious dogmas of Islam are not acceptable to reason and must, therefore, be rejected; the miracles attributed to the Prophets, persons who may reasonably be compared to sorcerers and magicians, are pure invention, and the greatest of the miracles in the eyes of orthodox Muslims, the Quran, gets a similar treatment: it is neither a revealed book nor even an inimitable literary masterpiece.
* On Ibn al-Rawandi, see the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1971, Volume 3, E J Brill, Leiden,
(Sufi Muslim Philosopher, Spain, 1165-1240)
The monism of the pan-unity of truth
The writings of Ibn Arabi deal with mystical philosophy, the main concern of which is to determine the path that leads to truth. How can man’s divorce from truth be overcome? He gives three answers which appear to be fundamentally different. The three different views of the universe are represented as three successive stages of cognition, three approaches to the search for truth. The first point of view is that the world and Truth or the world and God are absolutely separate. The world is not true and Truth is not the world. In this case the absolute Truth resides outside the world and this means that the existence of the world is absurd. Therefore the being of the world is possible only if God sustains it. The vision of a self-sufficient world, subsisting outside God is not possible. There must be a relation between God and the world, Truth and the world.
A new vision is necessary which asserts that that the world is steeped in Truth. The world is a manifestation of God. Truth is in the world, but as the world is plural one needs to arrive at an understanding of the unity of Truth. It is a differentiated unity of truth. At this stage one can perceive the differentiation of unity but not unity itself. We see Truth in the world but we do not yet see the world in Truth.
It is only at the third stage, the third perfect vision of Truth, that one can assert the absolute identity of Truth and the world. The statement “Truth is the world” is transformed into “the world is Truth”. Now we see only Truth: it is no longer a question whether what is before us is Truth or the world. There is only Truth and nothing but it. The world is immersed in Truth. Now we decipher what “to be Truth” signifies. Truth is seen not as the one-all source and basis of plural beings, but as plural pan-unity. “To be oneself” is to be everything simultaneously. The person who sees ‘Truth in the world’ is still deprived from seeing ‘the world in Truth’. But at the third stage there is absolute identity between any part of Truth and all of Truth as a whole. A new understanding of the unity of truth is reached: it posits the all-inclusiveness and pan-unity of all things. The differentiated unity of Truth has vanished.
Though Ibn Arabi uses the terms ‘knowledge’ and ‘cognition’ with regard to Truth, the content of these terms is not totally epistemological. To know Truth at the highest stage means ‘to be Truth’. Man can come to know Truth to the extent that he is Truth. For Ibn Arabi the cognition of Truth is as ontological as it is epistemological. If one desires to know more, one must also ‘be’ more. Ibn Arabi thinks that every human being is endowed with the gift realising Truth in itself behind all the appearances. To participate fully in the Truth, to become a part of it, it is necessary to overcome one’s own limitedness, to step outside it in order to become Truth itself, thereby acquiring the capacity to be any one of its manifestations. The individual must dissolve his own self, ‘expire’ in truth, in order to ‘see Truth in Truth through the eye of Truth’. Such is Ibn Arabi’s monism of the absolute pan-unity of Truth.
* See Andrey Smirnov, Ibn Arabi and Nichlai Berdiaev: The Path of Truth, Russian Studies in Philosophy, Winter 92-93, Vol.31, n.3, Armonk, New York 1993, p. 7-15
(Contemporary French logician and editor of ‘Le Point’)
The only right belief is an unbelief: the conviction that knows only its powerlessness to know the truth with no claims to impose any ‘truth’ on any one. One feels at ease only with agnostics who have the sense of the limits of human knowledge without being discouraged in the face of evil and injustice. However, genuine agnosticism does not militate on the side of ‘free-thinkers’. Preaching atheism is ridiculous and absurd for nothing is more vain than to make a belief out of unbelief. To be reluctant to official dogmas and the intimidation of absolutes gives one the pleasant satisfaction of free–lancers. To live in uncertainty, undisturbed by doubts, has something fertile while living with certitude smells foul….
The desire for absolute certainties – whether in the symbolic truths of religions, the rationalism of the enlightenment or the ways of Oriental wisdom – is morbid and neurotic. Most of the time people ‘believe’ wrongly or too much. They would be wiser to live with doubts rather than false certainties.
We attend today in the West to the collapse of Christianity. It is not a novel phenomenon for it began centuries ago and the full impact of it is not yet being felt by many. We do not yet understand the historical importance of the end of a certain ‘metaphysics’ where the Christian God was giving meaning to individual and collective life. But we should not confuse Christianity with Deism. The decline of the former does not imply the disappearance of the religious phenomenon. Our century is not irreligious, it only replaces one religion by other religious forms.
* Imbert, Claude, Ce Que je Crois, Paris , Bernard Grasset, 1984
(American orator and lawyer, 1833-1899)
For Ingersoll the noblest of occupations is to search for truth. Through countless years human beings have groped and struggled towards the light of truth but they have been hindered and deceived by augurs and prophets, enslaved by chiefs and kings.
Truth is found by investigation, experiment and reason. The truth-searcher must examine all questions presented to his mind without prejudice, desire or fear. He should care nothing for authority, nothing for names, customs or creeds, nothing for anything that his reason does not say is true. Freedom, discussion, honesty are the friends of truth. Truth loves the light and the open field.
All the sciences - except Theology – are eager for facts and hungry for the truth. Theology is the only dishonest science, the only one based on belief and credulity. Several great theologians, such as Luther, have been the enemies of reason. Theologians must defend their creed, their revelation. They cannot afford to be honest. They have not been taught to be honest but only to believe and to defend their beliefs.
The mind of students of the science of theology is poisoned and paralysed. They believe what they hear: no reasons are given, no facts, no evidence is presented, nothing but assertion. If they asked questions, they are silenced by more solemn assertions and warned against any critical approach. In a theological seminary the destruction of the mind is complete. When the student of theology leaves the seminary, he is not seeking the truth. He has it. He has a revelation from God and he has a creed in accordance with the revelation. His business is to stand by that revelation and to defend that creed.
Nothing should be taught that cannot be demonstrated. There is no authority in churches, in numbers or majorities. The only authority is Nature, the facts that we know. Facts are the masters, the enemies of the ignorant, the friends of the intelligent. Intelligence is the only light, the only lever capable of raising mankind. The books filled with the facts of Nature are our sacred scriptures. The force that is in every atom, in everything that lives and grows and thinks, is the only possible god, the truth of the book of Nature.
* Ingersoll, Robert, The Truth (1897), Ingersoll Greatest Lectures, The Works of Robert Ingersoll, Dresden Memorial Edition(IV,71-111)
(Indian Muslim philosopher and lawyer, 1877-1938)
The truth about of man: not self-negation but self-affirmation, for truth is not submission to fate
Instead of negating the self, like most Sufis, the Muslim philosopher Iqbal believed in asserting one's sacred Selfhood, and believed that this Selfhood held unlimited potential. He argued that the ultimate purpose for man is not to have one's ego absorbed by God and negated so that one loses his identity, but instead that man absorbs within his self as many of God's qualities as possible. We are to "capture" the attributes of the angels, of the prophets, of God Himself.
We must not lose our individuality and claim to be helpless. Instead we must assert our individuality and we must use our individual self as the animal with which we will do our work, travel the path and 'change the world'. Iqbal believed every individual had the power to change the world, that we were not helpless puppets on strings, controlled by God, "earning" our actions from the heavens.
Iqbal's "individual self" philosophy runs contrary to the traditional theologian's or devotional Sufi's view. Iqbal's self is like a drop of water, but it would not be a drop drowning in the limitless ocean; rather it would be a drop that remains outside the ocean and yet, claims to be a part of the ocean. Devotional Sufism encourages the drop to lose its individuality, but for Iqbal the ego of the individual drop is something sacred. It retains its independence with respect to the ocean, while confessing its atomistic essence to be the same as that of the ocean.
Sufism says: "if the world does not agree with you or suit you, you should agree with the world". But Iqbal says: "If the world does not agree with you, arise against it!". 'The world' for him means the destiny and life of human beings. Iqbal argues that the genuine Quranic Islam has substituted "heavenly fate" in which the human being is nothing, with "human fate" in which the human being plays an important role. There is no "heavenly fate". There is "human fate", where the divine determination of the universe depends on the deeds of man.
Iqbal is against the prevalent tenet of Islamic 'submission' and is the champion of the Supreme Ego. Iqbal is an exponent of the concept of the Superman (Insan-i-Kamil). This Superman is an effective instrument for the execution of the will of God under total obedience to the ordinances of God. This absolute Ego is the creative infinite Spirit. He believed that the Absolute Ego is both immanent and transcendent in conformity with the philosophy of Tauhid as accepted in the Quran and based on the nature of God.
* Iqbal, Muhhamad. The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Kitab Bhavan, 2000.
(Christian theologian and apologist, 2d century AD)
The truth about the original state of humankind: a process of maturation
Irenaeus comes up with a very different explanation than Augustine and the theory for the enigma of sin in the world. Essentially, his perspective says that the story of Adam and Eve is really an allegory for all humankind rather than a literal history (the Hebrew term "adam" means simply "mankind"). Following from this thought there was no original state of perfection (as Augustine claims), and therefore no "fall from grace," but rather a developing of the human person and the culture over time to reach this perfect state.
Irenaeus gives a different reason for our human tendency toward sin. Since we have been born into a world full of sin, it is only natural that we will sin. Individuals, societies and systems within societies constantly sin. When we, as children, are surrounded by these actions we cannot help but succumb to them ourselves, which further perpetuates the system of sin. This is the "original sin" Irenaeus speaks of.
The human race was not initially born into a state of perfection. Irenaeus saw the first humans as infants, and ever since then the human race has been developing and progressing toward a state of perfection. This is the end to which humanity is hopefully striving. Jesus, both fully human and fully divine, is the fulfillment of this perfection of humanity.
Hence Irenaeus' explanation of the human tendency to sin differs from Augustine's "fall from grace." It changes the view of "original sin" from a tragic condemnation to a hopeful development. For Irenaeus, sin is an important aspect of divine pedagogy - not that God actually instigated sin directly, but he set up the world in such a way that sin was extremely likely to take place, and could be treated as one possible way of making Adam realise his dependence on God.
Irenaeus repeatedly insists that God began the world and has been overseeing it ever since this creative act; everything that has happened is part of his plan for humanity. The essence of this plan is a process of maturation: Irenaeus believes that humanity was created immature, and God intended his creatures to take a long time to grow into or assume the divine likeness. Thus, Adam and Eve were created as children. Their Fall was thus not a full-blown rebellion but rather a childish spat, a desire to grow up before their time and have everything with immediacy.
Everything that has happened since, has therefore been planned by God to help humanity overcome this initial mishap and achieve spiritual maturity. The world has been intentionally designed by God as a difficult place, where human beings are forced to make moral decisions, as only in this way can they mature as moral agents.
Irenaeus is of the view that Adam and Eve were children in the garden, not adults. They were not made fully fledged perfect human beings in a static sense. Creatures only learn things over time and so in the Garden they were effectively small children (and maybe even physically so). Hence their disobedience was not calculating adult rebellion. It was the weakness and ineptitude of the young. It was tragic, but just a little bit less culpable. For Irenaeus 'perfection' can only exist in God. God doesn't become more loving, or wise, or good, or just. But creatures exist in time. They change, that's what it means for them to be creatures. So, for Irenaeus, we can't really be made fully. Simply by virtue of being creatures we must start out as all humans do, needing to grow in wisdom, stature, and be made perfect (or complete) through the process of living life.
Thus, for Irenaeus, Adam is set up with a pristine beginning point to undertake the task that God set before him. This task involved growing into maturity by experiencing temptation and overcoming it. He doesn’t start with everything, but he starts with everything he needs to embark upon the task of growing into the image of God.
*See Grant, Robert M, "Irenaeus of Lyons,". Routledge 1997.
(Belgian born philosopher, b.1930)
“Truth” exists in the interaction between the two free subjects, female and male. It cannot come from one of them alone.
Irigaray demonstrates how philosophy, since ancient times, has articulated fundamental epistemological, ontological, and metaphysical truths from a male perspective that excludes women. Irigaray criticises the favouring of unitary truth within patriarchal society. One of her key thoughts is ‘the logic of the same’ or phallogocentrism, a concept expressing how society’s two gender categories, man and woman, are in fact just one, man, as he is made the universal referent.
According to Irigaray there is no doubt that the most appropriate content for the universal is sexual difference. The whole of human kind is made up of men and women and nothing else. The problem of race is in fact a secondary problem, and the same goes for other cultural diversities – religious, economic and political ones. Sexual difference probably represents the most universal question we can address. Our era is faced with dealing with this issue because across the whole world there are only men and women.
She deplores that ours is a civilization without any female philosophy or linguistics, any female religion or politics. All of these disciplines have been set up in accordance with a male subject. The assumption is that a human being is only a man, or that men and women are identical in every way.
She writes : “Man dreams of being the whole. He dreams that he alone is nature and that it is up to him to undertake the spiritual takes of differentiating himself from his nature and from himself.”
Human Nature is Two: male and female. Unless you believe that men and women are identical in every way – including physically – you have to accept that the universality of “the human being” does not exist. No one nature can claim to correspond to the whole of the natural person.
Man sets himself up as the ‘divine’, and woman is the ‘animal’ nature. It is almost as if in the absence of God, man has placed himself in that place. It would seem then, that human kind has not reached the age of reason. It is still suspended between divinity and animality.
If there is any “truth”, it exists in the interaction between the two free subjects, female and male. It cannot come from one of them alone. Neither woman nor man can manifest or experience a totality. Each gender possesses or represents only one part of it.
The division of male and female is not secondary or unique to human kind. It cuts across all realms of the living, without which we would not exist. Without sexual difference there would be no life on earth. It is the manifestation of and the condition for the production and reproduction of life…. Not taking it into account would be a deadly business.
* Irigaray, Luce. An Ethics of Sexual Difference. Trans. Carolyn Burke and Gillian C. Gill. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.
(7 th c. theologian, born in Qatar)
The path to truth is not natural knowledge but knowledge born of faith
According to the teaching of St. Isaac the Syrian, for human knowledge the most vital problem is that of truth. Knowledge bears within itself an irresistible pull towards the infinite mystery, and this hunger for truth that is instinctive to human knowledge is never satisfied until eternal and absolute Truth itself becomes the substance of human knowledge until knowledge, in its own self-perception, acquires the perception of God, and in its own self knowledge comes to the knowledge of God. But this is given to man only by Christ, the God-Man, he who is the only incarnation and personification of eternal truth in the world of human realities.
There are two sorts of knowledge: that which precedes faith and that which is born of faith. The former is natural knowledge and involves the discernment of good and evil. The latter is spiritual knowledge and is "the perception of the mysteries,'' "the perception of what is hidden," "the contemplation of the invisible."
There are also two sorts of faith: the first comes through hearing and is confirmed and proven by the second, "the faith of contemplation," "the faith that is based on what has been seen." In order to acquire spiritual knowledge, a man must first be freed from natural knowledge. This is the work of faith. It is by the ascesis of faith that there comes to man that "unknown power" that makes him capable of spiritual knowledge. If a man allows himself to be caught in the web of natural knowledge, it is more difficult for him to free himself from it than to cast off iron bonds, and his life is lived "against the edge of a sword."
When a man begins to follow the path of faith, he must lay aside once and for all his old methods of knowing, for faith has its own methods. Then natural knowledge ceases and spiritual knowledge takes its place. Natural knowledge is contrary to faith, for faith, and all that comes from faith, is ‘the destruction of the laws of knowledge'--though not of spiritual, but of natural knowledge.
The chief characteristic of natural knowledge is its approach by examination and experimentation. This is in itself "a sign of uncertainty about the truth." Faith, on the contrary, follows a pure and simple way of thought that is far removed from all guile and methodical examination. These two paths lead in opposite directions. The house of faith is "childlike thoughts and simplicity of heart," for it is said, "Glorify God in simplicity of heart" (Col. 3:22), and: “Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). Natural knowledge stands opposed both to simplicity of heart and simplicity of thought. This knowledge only works within the limits of nature, "but faith has its own path beyond nature."
Faith can "bring forth all things out of nothing," while knowledge can do nothing "without the help of matter." Knowledge has no power over nature, but faith has such power. Armed with faith, men have entered into the fire and quenched the flames, being untouched by them. Others have walked on the waters as on dry land. All these things are "beyond nature"; they go against the modes of natural knowledge and reveal the vanity of such modes. Faith "moves about above nature."
*See Catholic Encyclopedia: "Isaac of Nineveh"
(Greek rhetorician , 436-338 B.C.)
Truth is consensual, created by rhetoric, the art of persuasion
For Isocrates, the test of all virtue or truth lies in that which wins men 's approval. He argues that it is through rhetoric that we can approximate truth, at least a consensual truth. A man who is trained in rhetoric is trained in truth, and in the creation of that truth through oratory. In Antidosis he writes, “Thanks to speech, we educate the fools and put the wise to the test; for we consider the fact of speaking rightly as the greatest sign of correct thinking”. For Isocrates, there is no absolute truth only consensual truth created by rhetoric.
Philosophically, Isocrates made a distinction between the philosophy of theoretical knowledge and that of correct opinion. He proposed that the philosophy of opinion was truer and consequently more valuable because it aided in human action, while theoretical knowledge was a mere mental exercise valuable only as a preparation for true philosophy. Rhetorical training was the best way to teach virtue, since it helped men live and act rightly.
Plato’s view was that Truth is pre-existing and reachable: it precedes representation in language; thus rhetoric has to be subordinated to philosophy. Truth is to be “found” and not “composed,” so language and representation are secondary issues rather than primary issues. For him, rhetoric and oratory are always suspect because their end is persuasion rather than truth. But the Sophists, and Isocrates, took a different view. Although Isocrates criticized the Sophists for their amoral approach to rhetoric, he denigrated the philosopher tradition’s endless pursuit of truth as useless speculation. Instead, he argued that the orator was the true philosopher seeing as the proof of philosophy is the ability “to speak well and think right”.
*See :Isocrates. The Rhetorical Tradition. Second Edition. Ed. Patricia BiBedfzzell and Bruce Herzberg. ord/St. Martin's, Boston, 2001.