Teolojik-etik ve epistemoloji: Euthyphron Dilemasi ve al-Māturīdī'nin Metaetiği

The Euthyprho Dilemma highlights the perplexing situation that confronts theists who believe in a God in possession of moral significance, as it asks where the origin of this significance lies. Plato's eponymous dialogue discusses apparent problems with the theocentric claim that God is the source of morality and seems to present a search for a rationally integral definition of piety. However, the dialogue is generally acknowledged to neither successfully establish the grounds for such a definition nor conclusively refute the theocentric claim. In the ensuing debate between ratiocentric and theocentric positions, there appears to be an assumption of radically different epistemologies that are determinant of the respective positions, which hence assume what they set out to prove. As a result, the need for positive support from outside the confines of the dilemma appears to be required in order to decide the debate. The ratiocentric-theocentric dichotomy is paralleled in the Islamic tradition of theological ethics (theological-ethics), with the respective stances held by the Mu'tazilī and Ash‛arī schools of kalām. Each school utilizes a different epistemology, in part due to their professional concerns. Al-Māturīdī represents a sophisticated middle position that combines aspects of both the theocentric and ratiocentric stances. His theological-ethics presents God as the ultimate source of morality, but refers to reason as the basis upon which creation as a whole is ordered and as the ultimate means by which human beings come to comprehend moral values. I find that the epistemological work of Jacques Derrida offers positive support for al-Māturīdī's juxtaposition of empirical and rational elements in the creation of a sophisticated metaethics. It helps explain how creation acquires objective moral significance independently of revelation, while remaining indicative of God's total sovereignty.