Reading group: Iqbal’s Reconstruction, Lecture II, where the classical proofs of God are put on trial
Its coordinates: 1.8 Natural Theology
A few months ago a group here read the first of Iqbal's lectures, on knowledge and religious experience. I'd like to continue with the second, "The Philosophical Test of the Revelations of Religious Experience", which fits today's question of the day almost too well.
Iqbal opens Lecture II by examining the three classical arguments for God, the cosmological, the teleological and the ontological, and finds all three wanting. On his account the cosmological argument tries to reach the infinite by negating the finite, and arrives only at a false infinite, one that stands opposite the finite instead of including it. The design argument gives at most a contriver working on material he did not make. The ontological argument cannot pass from the idea of God to his existence. Having cleared the ground, he turns to matter, life and consciousness, with Bergson and the new physics of his day close at hand, and tries to build from experience instead.
Plan, over three weeks:
- Week 1. The three arguments and Iqbal's objections.
- Week 2. Matter and life.
- Week 3. Consciousness and time.
Our page for the book: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam.
A question to bring: Iqbal rejects the proofs but not God. Is his alternative, an argument from the nature of experience, a better proof, or a way of no longer needing one?