The Designed Limitation of Human Epistemology and the Necessity of Faith
An Islamic Perspective
Abstract
This article argues that the attacks of atheists or philosophers against the Islamic conception of God (i.e., Allah) are constructed on the misunderstood notion of Islamic theology. Because God is already at a station where the standards of reason alone are frivolous if His existence is understood vis-à-vis the claimed teleological essence of His message (Islam). The fundamental approach here is to highlight the doctrinally necessary transcendence of God vis-à-vis human epistemological tools in Islam in the light of its objective (i.e., a test of faith). This article demonstrates the normatively affirmed limitations of reason in logically necessitating the being of Allah under the faith-test dynamic of Islam, which is a necessary component of the purpose of human existence according to the Qur’ān. The article aims to establish the necessity of faith vis-à-vis a designed limitation of the capabilities of the logical arguments for God’s existence through three major claims: faith in the unseen, Allah’s signs in creation, and the trial of faith, all three being rooted in the Qur’ān. The article also explains the nature of imān in the system of Islamic epistemology, referring to the works of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and Ibn Taymiyyah and highlighting the incoherent, unreasonable scepticism of atheists in attacking Islamic theism through the principles of reason.
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