Religion, Philosophy and Science

Question:-

Referring to the triad of religion, philosophy and science in history, you speak of Philosophy coming out of Theology. In my philosophy class they teach that ideas progressed from mythology to philosophy to science. So they say man liberated himself from speculative thinking in the olden days (e.g. the ancient Greeks had spectacular myths about their gods and creation with nothing logical in them). So, is religion a form of mythology or are they reducing religion to mythology and deny the spiritual character of it? What is the relation between mythology and religion?

Comment:-

Mythology is allegory or symbolism. It is like the formulae in science, but referring to Psychological and Metaphysical realms, to certain Transcendental processes rather than those accessible to the senses. The stories refer to some Universal process and are meant to connect with deep unconscious patterns that underlie thought, experience and behaviour, sometimes called Archetypes. However, not all things called mythology is real mythology, but simply stories for entertainment made by those who do not understand mythology. Much of Art came out of Mythology.

Theology, which refers to thought and understanding, is an aspect of Religion, and it may also deal with mythology. But Religion is concerned also with experiences, spiritual development, certain practices that lead to experiences, expansion of consciousness, conscience and will and with morality and ethics that deals with motives.

The sequence of development is from Religion that covers the whole of life (thought, motive and action, input, processing and output), to Philosophy which deals only with the thinking and knowing parts, which is only a small part of the total Input. It can, therefore, be regarded as arising out of Theology. Other parts that differentiate out deal with Industry, Organisation and Art. Philosophy deals with Ethics, Politics, Aesthetics, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, Natural Philosophy, and Theology can also be regarded as part of Philosophy. Science comes out of Philosophy, or more strictly out of Natural Philosophy. It deals with only a part of what human beings can think about and usually that which can be applied in technology.

However, science also leads to Philosophical implications. Philosophical development in its turn has Theological implications and leads to consequences for religion. There is a two way traffic between these systems, and each can be regarded as having the others as aspects of itself. Theology in so far as it is applied in practice and studied systematically and experimentally has a Scientific aspect.

Life was originally a unity and as consciousness developed, attempts at conscious adjustment to Reality were also made. This is what Religion essentially is. Genuine religions come through persons who are followed because they are recognised as having a more highly developed consciousness, conscience and will and are, therefore, in closer contact with Reality. We call these people Messengers of Allah. Religion is, therefore, the main civilising factor for mankind. Until recently, the various cultures of the world could be defined by the religion prevalent in the area - e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam.

As human experience, thought and efforts accumulated the totality of culture became too great for individual minds to handle and differentiation into compartments took place and life to some extent disintegrated owing to lack of communication and understanding between the compartments. It became necessary to impose some kind of external unifying factor. This is what organisation is and it requires certain concepts, rules and laws and persons that enforce conformity. It is a machine which has replaced organic and psychological or spiritual unity. It is an involutional downwards, materialising process just as the process of creation is.

Religion exists to try to reverse and counter balance this trend, to dis-entrap, to cause an ascending, spiritualising evolutionary development.

Question:-

I have been reading "Islam and the Perennial Philosophy" by Frithjof Schuon, a Sufi. I understand his perennial philosophy teaches that one can get salvation through all the traditional religions, Islam being the last one. Though He did choose Islam and became a Sufi he also defended other religions. Seyyid Husseyn Nasr an ex-student of Schuon is a Muslim philosopher who defends the Perennial Philosophy too. This is different from your belief. How do you explain this?

Comment:-

You misunderstand. I also defend the "Perennial Philosophy". According to the Quran Allah sent many Messengers and all the religions sent through them are Islam. They all contain the "Perennial Philosophy". But the corruption or misinterpretation of them is not genuine religion or the Perennial Philosophy. We are told:-

“Verily, whether it be of those who believe, or those who are Jews or Christians or Sabaeans, whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and acts aright, they have their reward with their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve.” Quran 2:62

Question:-

Ok, but what I read from Schuon is that he still believes the religions of today, even when corrupted, can lead to salvation. Read what he says about the trinity:-

"At the highest plane of understanding the Trinity is multiplicity in divinis -multiplicity that is not other than the Absolute unity from which nothing is absent. The Absolute transcends the distinction between simplex and complex; it is neither and both. The doctrine of the Trinity is esoteric and metaphysical: Any normal man can conceive of the divine Unity to some extent…[but] the Trinity can be understood only by those who…are able…to move…in the metaphysical dimension.… (from "The Particular Nature and Universality of the Christian Tradition", p. 13)

Schuon approaches the issue of the Trinity from several perspectives, but even this does not exhaust this mystery, as he remarks, "We are here at the limit of what can be expressed; it is no one's fault if…there remain questions without an answer, and perhaps without any possible answer, at least at the dialectical level.…The science of the heart is not subject to discussion. (from "Appendix: A Sampling of Letters and Other Unpublished Materials", p. 176)

Comment:-

It all depends on how corrupt and what salvation.

If someone thinks that he will be saved without making any efforts and is saved by simply believing that the crucifixion of Jesus has saved him then certainly I cannot agree. That is not what Jesus taught. People will be rewarded or punished by their deeds based on correct faith, i.e. that is based on correct understanding of doctrines.

You can be saved from Hell, i.e. suffering and destruction, but there are many degrees of Hell and Paradise. Which degree is a person aiming for?

The ordinary Christian does not understand Trinity in the way Schuon explains it. They think that Jesus is God, son of God and separate from the Holy Spirit which is also God. But I do not deny that others may understand it differently. The Quran does tell us that they are not all the same, some are righteous (3:113-114, 5:82). The same, of course, applies to Muslims.

I accept that Allah is Transcendent, Imminent and Personal. This can be regarded as a Trinity. Ultimately Allah is the observer, the observation and the object of observation. This can be regarded as a Trinity. We can compare the Trinity to the Sun in the sky, the rays that come down and the image of the sun in a mirror or in things into which it is absorbed. These three are continuous and are one. This is a Trinity. But the rays and image are not separately gods. The Messengers and Allah are one as the Quran says (4:150), but this is because they are in surrender to Allah and Allah works through them, and through the Spirit that informs them as well as those who follow him. The Quran says: "Say not Three. Desist! it is better for you. Allah is only one Allah." 4:171. It does not condemn Trinity as such. The Quran tells us that Allah is ONE. Multiplicity is shirk.

What Schuon is saying is that Allah is Absolute and not Relative, and, therefore, beyond knowledge and thought. But it should be obvious that Trinity refers to Relativity because it speaks of three. It refers to the created world and the world as thought about, not the Creator. So Islam rejects the notion of Trinity when applied to Allah.

Question:-

The Quran says:

"The seven heavens and the earth and all who are therein revere His Incomparability. There is no thing but what reveres His Incomparability by praising Him, however you do not discern their reverence. Truly He has ever been Forbearing and Forgiving." Quran17:44

This glorification applies to all things and goes on constantly, as a reality beyond our sense and comprehension. It extends from the highest of the high to the lowest of the low. How are we to understand this?

Comment:-

Reverence and other states can be expressed through behaviour and interaction and not necessarily in any human speech, which is after all, also a type of behaviour.

People make unnecessary absolute distinctions between conscious human beings, living things and dead matter, and mislead or confuse themselves when, in fact, they are all creations and phenomena of different degrees.

Assertion:-

I have some sympathy with critics of Hadith. We inform them that the Quran stands above the Ahadith and/or that a Hadith has always the built-in problem that it can be unauthentic. The problem arises when we consider all possible scenarios, all of which are perturbing:-

(a) The original Hadith-narrator (person 1 in the chain) lied (meaning that the prophet never said it).

(b) The original Hadith-narrator (person 1 in the chain) was wrongly understood or quoted by his audience.

(c) One person in the chain willingly manipulated something from the text.

(d) Parts of the chain were invented (somebody claimed to refer to alleged pre-narrators)

(e) The entire chain (isnad) and its text (matn) are 100 % true and authentic.

I repeat my often said criticism of the Ahadith as a whole: In general they are not helpful, they lead to confusion with regard to Quranic content, leave much more room for anti-Islamic criticism, contain material that is indefensible, and are hardly ever really authentic beyond doubt.

Comment:-

There are other points:-

(f) That the Hadith is correct but the context has been ignored or misunderstood because only part of a conversation has been overheard.. For instance, many hostiles take the sentence to "kill them wherever you find them" Quran 2:191 out of context to reach a wrong conclusion.

(g) It may refer to particular circumstances or persons. The over-optimistic person, for instance, needs to be told something which is the direct opposite of what the over-pessimistic person has to be told. What is medicine for one person with a particular malady may be poison for another person with a different malady.

(h) It is necessary to know in what mood something was said. Was it humorous, sarcastic, ironic, questioning, suggestive, assertive, instructive, experimental, provoking and so on?.

(i) What is said could be allegorical, symbolic or metaphorical.

There is a whole science of Hadith, but there are few scholars of it and many speculators. One does not go by the opinions of the ignorant. In what way are the Hadith less useful than other kinds of books that deal in facts? There are most certainly a great number of Hadith that are enlightening.

We are required to go by as much as we understand and see as the best. It is only necessary to ignore what one does not understand or sees as contradicting the Quran or simply to suspend judgement pending more knowledge, research and enlightenment. Some things apply to conditions that no longer exist and can be ignored, others can be adapted to changing conditions and others might become applicable when the relevant conditions return. It is a question of using intelligence rather than imitation or blind traditionalism.

The idea that the whole body of Hadith should be rejected because there are things in it which someone does not understand or approve of seems highly arrogant and unjustifiable to me.

Question:-

You say that there is no absolute distinction between spirit, mind and matter in Islam, but that these are different aspects of phenomena. You also criticise those who say things like: "It is only in your mind.", as if these were unreal. How are we to understand things like thought, belief and feelings? Do they have a material aspect? If these are just aspects of our physiology how do we know what is true or false.

Answer:-

From an Islamic point of view, all things are formed from the Word of God which is Spirit and refers to Truth or Order where parts affect each other and involve cognition. But there are stages and levels, a progressive coagulation. We can distinguish between the maximum refinement and the maximum coarseness, and stages in between. Matter refers to inertia or resistance to change and mind is an aspect of life that refers to behaviour. So we can speak of spirit as distinct from mind or matter only relatively. That is Spirit is more Spirit than matter and matter is more matter than spirit. From a scientific point of view matter can be regarded as trapped energy, and energy can be understood as patterns in space-time. There is, therefore, no essential difference between the Islamic and Scientific point of view.

Different thoughts, beliefs or feelings etc. are certainly distinguishable from each other owing to their pattern, but they also manifest as behaviour and have physiological aspects in the brain and other parts of the body. There are genetic and physiological mechanisms that make mental phenomena possible. And mental phenomena can have indirect as well as direct affects on the environment, i.e. through behaviour or electrical means.

But a mental phenomenon is not the same thing as a material phenomena in the environment though they may be connected. That is, the thought or image of a chair is not the same thing as a chair. Nor is "chairness" as a pattern or blue print that fits within a larger context the same as the other two.

The brain is a flexible instrument where new connections are constantly being made according to experiences, but also according to how they affect inherent motives and with respect to an over all self-consistency. It also directs behaviour to acquire certain types of experiences and determines how these are interpreted and organised. Malfunctions occur when contradictions between different parts arise. It is not just the neural pathways that determine behaviour but the cells probably also affect each other directly and produce an overall field that affects each part. Functioning is also affected by the blood circulation, the oxygen, nutrients and the hormones it delivers. These in turn are affected by the functioning of the brain. Owing to these reciprocal interactions it is not possible to distinguish between the two causal directions:- the physical brain causing the psychological experience or the psychological experience causing the physical changes in the brain. The two are aspects of the same thing.

We communicate and interact with each other and with the environment in three ways - physically, mentally and spiritually. But because societies have developed language in which we encode our experiences, we tend to be aware of mostly verbal communication. But words can have direct affects, thereby acting like any other physical stimulus. Or they can convey meaning by pointing to something. Or they can convey values. For instance, "Chair" may not refer to an object of a certain shape or material, but to something that one sits on, to a relationship between the thing and the person.

We have arisen by the materials, processes, forces and laws that form the Universe, which is a self-consistent harmonious system (13:8, 15:19, 25:2, 54:49-50, 55:7-8, 65:3, 67:3-4) and by a process of adjustment to it. We know that something is true when it fits in a harmonious manner into the system of outer and inner experiences and facilitates adjustment to Reality. It is not something merely intellectual as is supposed in some quarters, but an inner state of certainty that is connected with thought, feeling and action. It is, therefore, referred to in Islam as knowledge of the heart. A distinction should, therefore, be made between information, understanding and awareness. Strictly speaking Knowledge should refer to awareness of Truth and Truth should mean the order contained in things. A verbal statement must refer to an experience which must refer to that state of self-consistency.

There are three things to consider:-

(1) In general when speaking of the Truth of a verbal statement, it is necessary to be aware of the level to which the words apply. They could refer to (a) the objects that the words refer to (b) the experiences of the objects rather than the objects. (c) the significance of the statement in the greater order of life. The Quran is constantly telling us to ponder on the Quran, specially the similitudes it coins to facilitate understanding and awareness, as well as on Nature (39:27, 2:73, 6:65, 17:89, 24:61, 30:58 etc). The final aim is to awaken, to make conscious (34:46)

(2) The brain has two sides, the left and right hemispheres of the cerebrum, and the rest of the brain can be regarded as a third mediating factor. The left side tends to be concerned with language, reason and critical thinking and stability, while the right side tends to be concerned with imagination, lateral and creative thinking and change. In general proper belief requires a balance between these. (The Quran does not mention the two sides of the brain in particular but does speak of the pair of complementary factors in general and the need for balance – 36:35, 43:12, 51:49-50, 2:142, 15:19, 17:35, 55:7-8, 26:182, 42:17). We not only need data through the senses but we must also process this and make connections, order and find similarities and differences and what is constant or changing. When the emphasis shifts to the function of the left side we get excessive scepticism and conservatism and when it is shifted to the left we have greater risk taking, innovation and also gullibility. This imbalance can be regarded as a malfunction or disease which happens owing to accidental or non-attentive living.

(3) The mind can also be divided into the conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious parts. We are affected by the environment and each other at all these levels. We are normally wholly unconscious of the chemical, electrical and electronic processes going on in our bodies and the interaction of these with the environment. But some of the effects can enter into the subconscious. We are also mostly unaware of the things that affect us at the subconscious level and how we affect others. We call these subliminal effects. But some of the effects can enter into consciousness. The amount of data that is stored and sophistication and speed of the data processing that takes place at the unconscious and sub-conscious levels far exceeds that which we can do at the conscious level. This can be seen, for instance, when a person shoots at a moving target or catches a thrown ball. When we speak of Paranormal phenomena, or Psychic phenomena such as telepathy or even Miracles these could well refer to sub-conscious or unconscious events.

But human beings differ from each other as to how much they are conscious of or sub-conscious of. These abilities can atrophy through non-use, conditioning and automatisms due to habit formation, but they can also be enhanced through appropriate training and disciplines. It is possible to increase consciousness by deliberate directing and concentrating attention. It is also possible to expand it to allow more data to be seen at the same time so that one discovers patterns and underlying unities. The stability of consciousness is also important because accurate judgement through comparison depends on a constant framework. The mind is usually disintegrated owing to the existence of several different mutually exclusive or overlapping “complexes” (see Quran 39:29, 16:75 and 11:24). This is because the data of experience has not been fully processed and integrated and “fixations” have been formed due to strong fears, desires or emotions, (types of hypnosis) that can be regarded as forms of idolatry. The result is the narrowing down of consciousness and inner contradictions, conflicts and compulsions. These complexes can be regarded as cases of “possession”. To counter this tendency methods of integration are required. Religions provide techniques that deal with all these conditions, but are seldom understood and used.

The world we see depends on consciousness. The Real world is, therefore, a much greater world than we are conscious of. Human behaviour, their motives, values and actions, the life they lead, the condition of their environment and how it is managed, the technologies, sciences, and organisations created and employed, all these also depends on their perception.

----------<O>----------

Contents