The relationship between belief in God and morality: A study in the context of religious education

This study aims to discuss the relationship between belief and morality in line with the Islamic thought along with the manifestation forms of this relationship on today's human in the context of religious education. It is possible to reveal the nature of this relationship in two ways;one as intellectual and the other as practical. The approaches of our ancient tradition establishing a strong link between the belief in God and morality constitute the theoretical framework of this study. Based on this, thisstudy claims that the belief in God has a positive effect on moral actions and those moral actions strengthen the belief in Allah. Thus, it is envisaged that moral education based on the belief in Allah and development of belief based on morality may provide an opportunity to establish the relationship between belief and morality in practice.In this context, a qualitative research was conducted by interviewing 42 young adults who were determined by stratified sampling and snowball sampling methods. The interviewees are women and men aged 25-35 who live in Istanbul, believe in God and have various education levels. The results have been evaluated by using constructive content analysis. Qualitative research findings, which constitute the practical side of the study, indicate that the correlation between belief and morality is not sufficiently established in today's human and that religious education does not have a positive effect on this relationship. In addition to the belief in God, human factors such as conscience, utility, pleasure and reason are also accepted as the source of morality, and therefore a "fragmented understanding of morality" has emerged in the relationship between belief and morality. While, in this approach gaining a new, original and mixed morality form apart from the current moral theories, the absolute relationship between belief and action or between knowledge and action is not fully reflected in personal morality; sometimes the action is conducted by bracketing the belief is, and sometimes morality can be suspended according to the conditions. The facts that belief remains on the level of imitation and that it lacks rational foundations prevent the establishment of a strong bond with the Creator and thus overshadow the positive effect of the belief on morality. In this case, stemming from the failure at establishing the ontological, epistemological and axiological connection with God, morality is mostly based on the principle of reciprocity in God's relationship with human beings. An approach to religious education feeding on Islamic thought tradition buildingone's belief-moral imagination and enablinghim to become competent in accordance with his creation can be regarded as an opportunity to strengthen this bond.