A possible defence of determinism as free will proper.

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A possible defence of determinism as free will proper.
OP - August 17, 2013, 07:48 AM

57:3 He is the First and the Last, and the Outward and the Inward; and He is Knower of all things.

This verse always puzzled me when I was a muslim as it seems to affirm that immanence is all that there is (in a Deleuzian sense) thereby counteracting any claims to the transcendent.

The issue I have with the typical transcendent position is that it is no different from immanence insofar as it ascribes properties to an ontologically necessary being which negates transcendence to begin with. If Allah were truly transcendent it would be impossible to speak of him (properties and attributes included).So whilst I can, pursuant to Hume's principles of causation, those being temporal priority, spacial contiguity and law-like conjunction, ontologically derive an antithetical uncaused agent, I can't attribute properties to said agent. Due to this transaction occurring immanently, I must conclude that my deductions are 'the inward', but force me to accept as 'the outward', and necessarily hold to the proposition of 'the first and the last' inasmuch as I exist, and transmute omniscience to allah immanent, as the cojito is 'knower of all things', that is to say, the cojito cannot not know what he does not know.
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A possible defence of determinism as free will proper.
Reply #1 - August 17, 2013, 08:05 AM

'Oh, Abu al-Hasan!' [superego] God had boomed. ‘Do you want me to tell people what I know about your sins, so that they stone you to death?’
'Oh, Lord,' [ego] he had whispered back. ‘Do you want me to tell people what I know about your mercy, so that none will ever feel obliged to bow down to you again?' [jouissance]
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A possible defence of determinism as free will proper.
Reply #2 - August 17, 2013, 08:38 AM

Well, then! I am, no less than Wagner, a child of this time; that is, a decadent: but I comprehended this, I resisted it. The philosopher in me resisted.
Nothing has preoccupied me more profoundly than the problem of decadence—I had reasons. "Good and evil" is merely a variation of that problem. Once one has developed a keen eye for the symptoms of decline, one understands morality, too—one understands what is hiding under its most sacred names and value formulas: impoverished life, the will to the end, the great weariness. Morality negates life.
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A possible defence of determinism as free will proper.
Reply #3 - August 17, 2013, 09:34 AM

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
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Reply #4 - August 17, 2013, 09:46 AM

My first break from Islam was because of a somewhat similar argument. It seems impossible to me for God to be both transcendent and capable of '99 names'.
This is of course an old problem for every religion and god-obsessed philosophy. You may have come across Pseudo-Dionysius? He is as negative a theologian as any (even his principle work is called "Naming the Nameless") so perhaps you may find something there on how to reconcile the idea of transcendence as graspable with the reality of transcendence as transcendence. To my mind, the only defense is one centred around religious experience ie, moving beyond the Logos. Or again, with Plotinus, beyond the Intelligible and into the Simple.

At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings. - Stevens
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A possible defence of determinism as free will proper.
Reply #5 - August 17, 2013, 10:08 AM

Quote from: z10 on August 17, 2013, 09:46 AM
My first break from Islam was because of a somewhat similar argument. It seems impossible to me for God to be both transcendent and capable of '99 names'.
This is of course an old problem for every religion and god-obsessed philosophy. You may have come across Pseudo-Dionysius? He is as negative a theologian as any

Indeed, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Negativa

My problem with negative theology, (or the way I was taught it at aLevel) is that it seeks to propose what God isn't. I think this brings up the same exclusionary contradiction that *positive theology* does.

Quote from: z10 on August 17, 2013, 09:46 AM
(even his principle work is called "Naming the Nameless") so perhaps you may find something there on how to reconcile the idea of transcendence as graspable with the reality of transcendence as transcendence. To my mind, the only defense is one centred around religious experience ie, moving beyond the Logos. Or again, with Plotinus, beyond the Intelligible and into the Simple.

Yeah, I'm not seeking to marry transcendence with the reality of transcendence as transcendence. More pertinently I wonder if the inherent contradictions within islam (and this is being a little hegelian) lead to practical but not theoretical atheism?

Take, for instance, this attribute of Allah: Al-Quddoos — The Holy, The One who is pure from any imperfection and clear from children and adversaries.

Where 'children' are a hindrance to cultivating consciousness (not the herd but those vices/phenomena precluding the ascetic ideal ... these could be part of the herd though, I concede) and adversaries are signifiers of decadent nihilism.

And this would be ontologically immanent perfection free of worldly temperament, no?
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