Philosophy of Religion Research
On the Continuity of Divine Grace: An Empirical Argument and a Philosophical Analysis
Document Type : Original Research
Authors
1 PhD student in Philosophy of Science and Technology, Philosophy of Science Department, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. (Corresponding Author)
2 Associate Professor, Philosophy Department, Mofid University, Qom, Iran
Abstract
One of the criticisms of the philosophers to the Muslim theologians concerning the debate on the eternity or the creation of the universe is that adopting of the universe temporal origination could lead to detachment of Divine Grace, because Temporal Origination requires specific time on which, despite the presence of God, the universe has not been existed. However, if it can be shown that the physical universe would not have eternal capacity, then Divine Grace would not be damaged. So, in this paper, we have applied two approaches to show that Temporal Origination does not require the rejection of Divine Grace. The first approach is an a posteriori reasoning based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Accordingly, the Physical World's entropy as an isolated system, tends to increase and therefore lead to Heat Death. So it has not capacity to be eternal. And the second one is an a priori reasoning using the concept of the Universe Temporal Origination. The implication of philosophers' definition about Temporal Origination, leads to the assumption of a period in which the physical world did not exist. But this is a subjective and contradictory assumption.
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