Theological Instructions

LESSON TWELVE: ANALYSING THE REASONS FOR DEVIATION

Introduction

As indicated in the first lesson, the worldviews can be divided into two groups; the divine worldview and the materialistic worldview. The major difference between the two is that the divine worldview accepts a wise creator as the fundamental principle, whereas this is rejected by the materialistic worldview.

In the previous lessons we have provided appropriate discourses for proving God’s existence, established the most important positive and negative attributes and given discussions pertaining to the attributes of essence and action.

In order to acknowledge belief with the fundamental principle we will give a brief criticism of the materialistic worldview by establishing the divine worldview, which will unveil the former as being baseless and impotent.

In order to realise this, we will be initiating the following discussion by providing the reasons for the departure from the divine view towards heresy, followed by an explanation of the weak elements in the materialistic worldview.

Reasons of deviation

Heresy, atheism, and materialism have a long past in human history. However there have always been traces in human societies of there being a belief in a creator.

Nevertheless the ubiquity of being irreligious started in Europe during the eighteenth century and gradually expanded to other regions of the world.

Although the advent of this irreligiousness was a response towards the system of the church and aimed at opposing Christianity, its waves nevertheless swept the other religions away with it. This anti-religious inclination, along with industry, art and Western technology was exported to other parts of the world. Furthermore in the more recent centuries this transformation and diffusion was with sociological and economical; Marxist thought, which was applied in many countries, the outcome of which was the fall of humanity.

The reasons and factors that necessitated the appearance and development of this distorted thought are numerous, an investigation into which would require a separate book. However they can be generalised into three groups:

a. Psychological reasons for deviation

Qualities such as irresponsibility, carelessness and desire towards pleasure seeking are all tendencies, which may delude an individual towards atheism.

For such an individual, from one side it means the pain of research and investigation is necessary, this is especially so when those issues, which provide no bodily or material pleasure, are concerned. So for those who are

lazy such an effort becomes a big obstacle in their way. From another angle man’s inclination towards animalistic freedom, carelessness, freedom from limitations and discipline will only act to distance him further from the divine worldview.

Acceptance of a divine worldview based upon belief in a wise creator, establishes a series of beliefs, which obligates responsibility upon man in all voluntary actions.

This responsibility requires sacrifice and discipline in many areas; the acceptance of discipline with carelessness is in itself contradictory. Hence the tendency towards the love of animalistic freedom, even though the individual may be unaware of it, becomes the very reason by which the roots of responsibility are cut, which leads more fundamentally to the denial in the existence of God.

There are other elements, that also incline man away from his religiosity, and these become more apparent once the other tendencies have been exposed.

b. Sociological reasons for deviation

When a deformity appears within a society, partially due to the custodians of the religion, then this occurrence can be classified as a sociological reason. The deformation of a society could force men to blame the caretakers of religion, resulting in the society becoming dissatisfied with the religion and doctrine itself. The reason behind this is that most men are intellectually weak, and are unable to analyse, interpret and realise the true reasons behind the corrupt events. They think that these confusions and chaos are because of the involvement of religious authorities and as a result of religion, they thereby form the assumption that religious beliefs are the reason for this deformity and distortion. They subsequently become dissatisfied with the religion and doctrine itself.

Obvious illustrations of the mentioned elements can be seen in the social order of Europe during the Renaissance. The inappropriate response of the church in the field of religion, politics, and law (civil rights) was one of the major reasons by which the people became tired and disinterested in Christianity, and more generally in religion as a whole.

Focusing upon this element of deviation indicates that it is necessary for all of the religious authorities and institutions to understand the sensibility of time and importance of responsibility, as their mistakes will result in the misfortune and deviation of the society.

c. Intellectual factors for deviation

Intellectual deviations can occur through the doubts and confusions that appear in one’s mind, or through things that one hears. As a man’s intellectual and rational capability may be weak, he may not be able to respond to these doubts, and thus he becomes influenced by them. This obstacle then becomes a hurdle in his way to achieving tranquillity and certainty.

However there are other factors, which can be divided into different branches such as:

doubts based upon sense perception, doubts emerging from legends and myths, doubts evolving from false explanations, doubts based upon weak arguments, doubts related to unexpected incidents and events, that are claimed as being against the wisdom (hikmah) and justice (‘adl) of God, doubts arising from scientific hypotheses which oppose religious belief, doubts associated with the practical laws, especially in the field of politics, jurisprudence and law (huqūq).

Occasionally two or more factors can together become the reason for confusion, doubt, disagreement and atheism. Distinctive psychological disorder can also sometimes create the grounds for doubts and confusion.

Campaign against the elements of deviation

With the understanding of the different reasons and elements of deviation, it becomes clear that campaigning and dealing with each one requires special conditions with a unique procedure. For example, psychological and ethical deviations must be cured by means of the correct training and also by focusing upon the disadvantages delivered through it, as was mentioned in lesson two and three, where the need for investigating religion was discussed. Likewise, in order to protect oneself from the effects of social disorder (sociological deviation) one must differentiate between a religion and its caretakers. However at least an individual is unaware of the influences of psychological and sociological deviations but for the intellectual influences one has to choose a special method. Such a method for instance could be by discerning between the differences of distorted beliefs and true beliefs, and by never proving the religious beliefs through illogical or weak arguments.

Questions:

1- What is the benefit of analysing and criticising the materialistic worldview?

2- What is the reason for the expansion of atheism in the recent centuries?

3- Explain the reasons behind psychological deviation.

4- Explain in detail the sociological reasons for deviation?

5- Explain the intellectual reasons and its branches for deviation?

6- How would legends and myths negatively affect faith?

7- How can one combat the elements of deviation?