A Contribution to New Kalām Period: Ömer Nasuhi Bilmen's Critique of Anti-Religious Movements

Abstract

The developments in the field of science and philosophy in the Western world have led to the emergence of anti-religious movements, and since the second half of the 19 th century, it has begun to influence the Islamic world and the Ottoman lands. In this context, the necessity of more up-to-date and effective methods in the fight against anti-religious movements has been expressed, and it has become necessary to learn new science and philosophy and adapt it to the discipline of Kalām in the face of the doubts brought by the age. In this period, which is called the New Science of Kalām, Ömer Nasûhi Bilmen developed a contemporary discourse in the fight against anti-religious movements and adopted a more lively and functional method rather than a stagnant Kalām. As a scholar who has assimilated the traditional culture, it is very important in terms of his contributions to his own period that he gives current answers to the different thought problems of his age with the Kalām method. Bilmen's criticism of materialism based on the unfoundedness of the idea of mechanism, the theory of evolution because it has no scientific basis, and positivism because of people's need for religion shows his original side. In this respect, our study focuses on the criticisms he brought to anti-religious philosophies such as Materialism, Positivism and Darwinism. It is important to reveal the method followed in the struggle with the currents of atheism of the period, in terms of shedding light on the development of new methods in the struggle against secular thought, which is still valid today. While criticizing materialism, Bilmen first stated that it was a metaphysics under the guise of being scientific and stated that it consists of subjective judgments that could not be verified by experiment and observation. The claims of materialists that matter and energy are eternal, and that atoms combine by chance to form matter are metaphysical claims that cannot be tested without a scientific basis. According to Bilmen, since cosmological theories are constantly changing, it does not seem possible to draw general conclusions from these theories in the light of current scientific developments. Considering the ever-changing scientific theories, positivism's reduction of all sciences to physics is inconsistent in terms of scientific method. In this period, new findings obtained with the theory of relativity at the macro level and the quantum theory at the micro level provide very strong evidence for theism. Thus, it is seen that Bilmen criticizes the theories that exclude religious thought on a scientific basis, based on the variability of the data about the universe. One of the issues discussed in the context of the criticism of materialist philosophy is the soul-body relationship. Neuro-physiological studies show that consciousness cannot be separated from the brain, and that biochemical, physiological and neural processes in the brain are related to consciousness. It is seen that Bilmen, like other thinkers of the period, took the view of s...