Ninth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

This paper is an endeavour to investigate the relationship between psychological experience and rational arguments in knowing God based on eleventh century Muslim rationalist theologian al-Qadi cAbd al-Jabbar’s (d. 1025 A.D). He believes that the motivation for rational obligation for every compos mentis person can be established through a psychological experience of human beings. In this case he argues that fear, one of human psychological experiences plays an important role to motivate human beings to know God. The aim of this paper is to examine cAbd al-Jabbar’s arguments in order to identify the nature of fear and its role in knowing God. To achieve this objective, I will examine, firstly, cAbd al-Jabbar’s ground to establish the reason why we need to know God. Then I will examine the cause(s) of fear that lead human beings to reflect in order to know God.