Rationality of faith

Rationality of disbeliefs with Alvin Plantinga Author: Ridha Zidan Number of pages: 152 pages Size: 14 by 21 cm Download the overview from here Overview: In the twenties of the twentieth century, the "logical positivism" was founded by a group of scientifically oriented individuals who opposed many issues discussed in philosophy. They are positivists because they are content with sensory reality only, and logical because they analyze every statement logically. Thus, the issues that have meaning to them are logical or mathematical issues, and synthetic (empirical) issues. Accordingly, any issue that does not fall under these two categories is considered nonsense in their eyes. For example, the statement "God exists" cannot be verified through experience (verification criterion), so it is considered a meaningless statement according to the logical positivists. Strong responses to logical positivism appeared from philosophers of science and others, such as Karl Popper in many of his books. But when Alvin Plantinga entered the world of academic philosophy for the first time, he distinguished himself with his unique analytical style in defending religious beliefs, especially the belief in divinity (the belief in God's existence), and its relation to innate knowledge, as well as what he formulated as "Reformist Epistemology," which we will review along with similarities or differences between it and the epistemology of Islamic tradition, whether in Kalam or Taqi al-Din (referring to Ibn Taimiya). We will also review Plantinga's responses to the problem of evil and his demonstration of the contradiction between the theory of evolution and naturalistic materialism.