On the Continuity of Divine Grace: An Empirical Argument and a Philosophical Analysis

Document Type : Original Research

Authors
Javad Darvish Aghajani 1
MirSaeid Mousavi Karimi 2
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
10.30497/prr.2017.1962
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.
Keywords
Temporal Origination
divine grace
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
Heat death
Physical World
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