What is Philosophy of Religion and How it is Possible

What is Philosophy of Religion and How it is Possible

Dr. Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahman Ansari

The subject, "What is Philosophy of Religion and how it is Possible", involves two concepts. Philosophy and Religion.

Philosophy is one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted terms, in common, parlance It has been sometimes used as a synonym for daydreaming, pessimism, silence, etc. This is how the layman misunderstands and misinterprets philosophy.

Among the learned, philosophy is defined in so many different ways that we are perplexed to pick out the proper definition for the term. For instance Professor Lipps will tell you that philosophy is the inquiry into the inner experience. He is confining the scope of philosophy to mental sciences alone. According to Doring, philosophy is the investigation of goods and values. For him, therefore, Ethics and Aesthetics constitute philosophy. Another tendency is to consider it the science of knowledge, thereby reducing it to Logic and Epistemology.

These definitions remind us of the blind men who examined different parts of an elephant and formed different notions about it. Paulsen, writing in the middle of the nineteenth century, professes to overcome this fault by calling philosophy the sum-total of scientific knowledge. His view is also misleading, as it deprives philosophy of the necessity of existing apart from the particular sciences.

Now I shall try to put, very briefly, the real implications of philosophy. Philosophy, as the etymology of the term denotes, is love of wisdom. Love is rather a process than a result attained by a process. So, it is more correct to understand by the term "philosophy", the doctrine of wisdom: It includes the knowledge of the real purpose of life and actions directed to the attainment of that purpose. This shall be achieved by understanding the universe, its relation to man, man's ultimate destiny, and the life he should lead in conformity with this understanding.

Philosophy is, therefore, and attempt to understand life. It is a critical enquiry into the meaning of experience. It is an attempt to arrive at a comprehensive and systematic knowledge of the form and connection. The meaning and import, of all things. Ferrier has adequately defined philosophy as the pursuit of absolute truth, that is, of truth as it exists for all intelligences.

The next concept which forms part of my subject is Religion. Religion is one of those varieties, which have passed without being very much questioned. In every age and in every country everyone held some religion or the other.

Religions differ so widely from one another that it is very difficult to deduce unity out of the diversity. All the same we may use the process of abstraction and arrive at the common element in religion. It involves the admission of something supernatural. It is the human attitude towards the supernatural which is for it the ultimate reality.

Man sometimes, nay, often, finds himself confronted with insurmountable difficulties. He has his yearuings after moral perfection, beauty and knowledge. But he Finds the world corrupted and ugly, and its mysteries beyond his comprehension. There must be a Being who has the Power as well as the Will to rescue him in these difficulties. Hence the expression of religious yearning displayed through one religion or the other. It is a real fact.

The age-long permanence and the world-wide acceptance of religion are -testifying to its sanctity and importance, Humanity could never dispense with it in the past. The religious conception of the Ultimate Reality always remained inintact, and the vicissitudes of history and knowledge could not effect any serious disturbances in the religious convictions.

It may be asked whether religion would survive the present-day scientific advancement. As an answer to this question, I need only remind you that man is not mere intellect. He is a willing and feeling being. Feelings of humility and reverence and yearnings after perfection determine his attitude towards reality more immediately and profoundly than the concepts and formulae of science. SO religion is an every-day fact from times immemorial, and for all time to come.

We have seen that philosophy and religion have their goal in ultimate reality. But they are the expressions of different consciousnesses. Necessarily their approach is different. Philosophy begins with intellectual apprehension and its main object is to discover the nature of reality. That primarily includes the enquiry into the nature of human ideals. But the problem of religion is the quest as to how I can realise my ideals. While the one begins from doubt, the other is based on faith.

Now I come to the problem of the Philosophy of Religion. Philosophy and religion are not so different as to exclude all possibility of their meeting together. Religion exists because man is a willing being. Philosophy appeared because he is a knowing being. A philosopher cannot leave any one of the human consciousnesses without thoroughly inquiring into its nature and contents.

"Philosophy", says the renowned philosopher, Professor S. Z. Hasan, "is not a matter of choice. You cannot help reflecting on the nature of the universe and your relation to it. What is it all? What am I? What is my function here? Whence I come and where do I go? A rational being cannot help putting these questions".

Let me tell you that the reason for enquiring into such problems is the simple fact that they are the most vital problems. Would it then be possible for anyone to refrain from enquiring into that which has formed an inseparable part of his deepest self, namely, Religion. So philosophy of religion is not only possible but it is there before we seek it.

Some time it has been seriously questioned as to how religion. Primarily a matter of faith, can be subjected to philosophic inquiry. Which is primarily rationalistic. I find the basis of such a notion in the ignorance of the complete connotation of the terms "philosophy" and "religion".

Philosophy is, following the pre-Kantian method, misunderstood by being conceived as purely rationalistic, that is to say, where everything is examined by reason and its validity affirmed or denied by it. On the side of religion there is the misconception that it is a matter of pure faith, or to be more correct, a matter of blind faith. Neither is philosophy necessarily rationalistic nor is religion a matter of blind faith.

Kant, the greatest philosopher of the modern era, has established beyond the shadow of doubt that reason is not an omnipotent faculty. It has its limits. Hence the correct method of philosophy is not Rationalism but Criticism. This gives greater scope in philosophic investigation. Whatever could not be reduced to the categories of reason had to be rejected as false according to Rationalism. But Criticism enables us to accept those aspects of truth which are found to lie definitely beyond the scope of reason, if they are in perfect harmony with results of other inquiries.

In the realm of religion we find that the growing tendency is to welcome reason within reasonable limits. When we thus understand the complete connotations of philosophy and religion, the one to be more than merely rationalistic and the other to be more than a faith, we will realise that the philosophic inquiry into religion is quite consistent with its spirit.

It is worthwhile at this stage of our discussion to understand the function of the philosophy of religion. Philosophy claims to inquire into the nature of the ultimate reality. It is not the business of philosophy to deny reality itself. It is to discover its nature, and in that attempt follow the inquiry to the ultimate limit.

In philosophy of Religion, too, the same thing is done.

 Religious concepts, I mean, the facts of religious consciousness, form the subject-matter of philosophic investigation. The object is not to deny them because the facts of religious consciousness are, like the facts of knowledge consciousness, real, existing facts. The object of the philosophy of religion is only to explain them.

In philosophy of religion, we deal with the concept of religion and attempt to "how that it is what it really claims to be. Here we study the nature of the human attitude towards God, and its implications in order to find out the ground of the validity of religious faith and the possibility of the ideals of religion. Then we proceed to show that its implications are perfectly in harmony with the knowledge arrived at through other inquiries.

It is the duty of the philosophy of religion to remove any conflict, real or apparent, between religious doctrines and other established truths. Religion has its own view of reality quite in consonance with its aspirations. It, as I have pointed out at the very outset, necessarily involves certain fundamental concepts. The question before the philosopher of religion is: What is the ground of their validity? The results of rationalistic inquiry have rather distorted these concepts. Therefore the question arises: Do we really possess any such faculty which is competent to grasp these religious verities?

If the conclusion we arrive at is in the negative, and if we are able to show that faith in these verities alone is in harmony with the yearnings of man as man, the task of the philosophy of religion is accomplished. And the highest philosophical inquiry does really lead to this conclusion. The modern world has not produced a greater philosophical genius than Kant.