Rel Vs Phil
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My focus for this paper will be to determine the difference in views on heaven and hell between religious and philosophical teachings, as well as incorporate the use of my own personal ideas on the topic. Since heaven and hell are of the unobservable nature, and since no one has been there and back to prove of these places, how can we say for sure that they exist? I found it difficult to fuse religion and philosophy to this concept, as religion has a set of principles they hold to be an unchangeable fact, and.philosophers “must accept the possibility of truth from any source and follow the argument wherever it leads.” This paper will explore if it is possible for philosophy and religion to complement the other in this belief, or if they hold polar opposite views on heaven and hell.
For the purposes of this paper it will be important to define philosophy and religion more technically, to see where some of their basic differences lie. The general difference between religion and philosophy lies in that religion seeks truth through belief and faith, whereas philosophy bases truth on opinions and conviction, through a persons reasoning and speculation. There have been philosophers who have argued that logic alone cannot determine truth, however they do not focus on faith as a basis for reasoning. When a religious person speaks the words ÐAmen, they are literally reiterating what they believe and are speaking of without further speculation, as Amen literally translates to ÐI believe it.
The subject of philosophy is sure to draw certain general ideas of what philosophy studies, however, there are certain Islamic Philosophical texts that have a specific focus on heaven and hell, which I will analyze. “In the common parlance of European languages, Ðphilosophy evokes the idea of something having to do with general principles, governing reasoning laws, conceptual definitions, the origin, and end of things, and still to some extent wisdom, and one speaks only of pure philosophy but also of the philosophy of art, religion, or science.” In this sense, philosophers do not necessarily use scripture to discover an answer to their question, but instead look to they sky, and through logic try to determine their solution. Falsafah, known as “perfecting of the human soul to the extent of human possibility through knowledge of the essential realities of things as they are in themselves and through judgement concerning their existence established on demonstration and not derived from opinion or through imitation.” Interestingly, I found that this Islamic philosophy attempts to create a harmony between philosophy and the religious teachings of Islam, however some opponents view that there can be no synthesis because the nature of religion is a revealed one.
Philosophers see their study as a greater science than other focused sciences because it concerns itself with the entire whole of things, in which smaller categories are studied. Great philosophers like Plato created the concept of a divide between the real spiritual world of images and the world of matter. He believed that those who see from the eyes are blind, and that any reality is unavailable to those people who use their senses. Philosophers do not use biblical texts as a means to interpret knowledge- but that does not mean that they do not believe in a higher power. Plato also wrote of the sensory world of things is that which we experience are only a shadow of a higher realm, which he called the Ultimate Form, later to be thought by many in reference to God. Another famous philosopher Socrates, Platos teacher, was even thought to have had a prophetic revelation, even though Socrates himself never described it as this.
Another question that interested me was where exactly the concept of heaven and hell had been derived. Religious belief on the topic of creation is that we began to exist when God created the world. This is also known as ÐEx Nihilo, a Latin term meaning Ðout of nothing, or in other words creation out of nothing. Ex Nihilo is an interesting concept because it states that 1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause, 2. The universe began to exist, 3. Therefore, the universe must have a cause. There is also an interesting Summum Philosophy on the topic of creation that states, “before there was anything, there was nothing, and if there was nothing, then it must be possible for nothing to be. If it is possible for nothing to be, then it must be possible for everything to be.” The topic of creation in itself is a subject to which there is much dispute, however for the purposes of this paper I will describe the creation concept from the point of view of religious belief to determine ideas surrounding heaven and hell.
The concept of heaven and hell can be tied to the concept of the “Fall”- Original Sin. God created a man whom he named Adam, and out of his rib he created a woman, whom he named Eve. Both of them lived in Paradise in the Garden of Eden, and were forbidden to eat the fruits from a particular tree, as instructed by God. However, Adam and Eve were not able to resist the temptations from a snake insisting that it would be ok for them to do so, and ended up both eating the fruit from the tree. God knowing that this had happened confronted and banished them to this earthly world as a punishment for their deeds. God knew that these sentient beings would not be able to resist certain temptations as it was an innate characteristic of their humanly nature.
Original Sin has significant implication to “Judgement Day”, which is widely discussed in religious doctrines as the end of time, when the people of this world will be judged on their deeds and actions.