Fakhr al-Din al-Razi on the Role of Satan in Occurrence of Moral Evil
Subject Areas : Islamic theology
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Abstract :
According to al-Razi, Satan contributes to the occurrence of moral evil by appealing to temptation (which is reified as void promises, magic, embellishment, etc.). He contends that at times, Satan represents himself as a human being, and at others communicates directly with intrinsic forces (especially estimation and imagination) and inspires satanic thoughts to individuals by temptation. Satanic thoughts result in individuals' heedlessness and by causing epistemic inversion, deviates the will from the right path. He believes that acquiescence in the Satanic thoughts results from damage to reason, poorness of memory, the appeal to lust and wrath forces, etc. and the appeal to God, wisdom, worship, angels’ help, etc. prevents people from acquiescence in such thoughts. In this article, we aim at finding a new solution to the contemporary problem of evil through the works of al-Razi. We have used the hermeneutical method for extraction of al-Razi’s ideas and the analytical method for the reconstruction of his solution to the problem of evil.
