A Critique of the Idea of Locating ‘Monotheism of Action’ in the Issues of ‘Theology’

Document Type : The Quarterly Jornal

Author

Assistant professor, College of Theology, University of Yazd

Abstract

The new construction, ‘practical monotheism,’ has led some to think that the division of monotheism into theoretical and practical should be incorporated into kalām (Islamic theology). In this paper, I draw on a descriptive, analytic, and critical method based on library sources to criticize this claim, and through a critique of the evidence of this idea, I have concluded that monotheism of acts cannot be a subject-matter of kalām in any of its three senses: “monotheistic behavior,” “knowledge culminating in monotheistic behavior,” and “imperative statements derived from theoretical monotheism.” I provide a formulation of the second sense which might be incorporated into kalām, but it is not what is meant by the theorist. Given the contemporary use of the term, it is implausible to treat the idea as theological, and the analogy of the bifurcation of theoretical/practical monotheism to similar bifurcations in philosophy, ethics, mysticism, and that of theoretical/practical reason is arguably a false analogy. Finally, I point to the subject-matter and purpose of kalām as well as the criterion of distinction of sciences to argue that practical monotheism—in the sense of ‘any tendency, temperament, and conduct in accordance with theoretical monotheism or monotheistic disposition, character, and act in accordance with the monotheistic outlook’—cannot be incorporated into kalām, just as monotheism in the sense of belief in God’s oneness at all stages and act in terms of the belief cannot be a subject-matter of kalām

Keywords

References

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