G20 Interfaith Forum 2019 KYOTO

language switch to Japanese
JUNE 11 & 12

JUNE 11 & 12

English / 日本語

Moderator and Panelist

Hiroaki Kawanishi

Hiroaki Kawanishi

川西 宏明 氏

Session 5
"Life Science and Religion"

Panelist

Curriculum Vitae

Hiroaki Kawanishi, born in 1993 in Kagawa, Japan. He completed a bachelor’s degree in Theology at Doshisha University in Kyoto. He finished a masters’ degree in Civilization Studies with a focus on Islamic Studies at Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul. From 2013 to 2018, he was enrolled at the Istanbul Foundation for Research and Education and intensively studied Islamic sciences. Since October 2018, he has been a Ph.D. candidate at the Center for Islamic Theology at the University of Tübingen in Germany. His current academic interests are theology (kalām), Islamic law (fiqh), and Ottoman intellectual history.

Abstract

Religion and science cannot be separated as intellectual history makes it clear. Invariably, scientific outcomes of the universal wonders have over centuries provided sound evidence for the existence of Creator. Both Muslim and Christian theological traditions have developed the theological methodology based on the scientific investigation of the entire created, some might call one of them as nature, as early Muslim and Medieval Christian theologians strikingly claimed natural theology and apophatic theology (the via negativa). The presentation sheds light on how Muslim theologians have discussed and demonstrated the existence of God. This presentation aims to challenge the perennial estrangement between religion and science by presenting the new discourse that science is the means which constructs the upright creed of belief. Notedly, religion does not make our life more abundant in a material perspective, however, by collaborating with scientific wisdom, it will undoubtedly help us find ourselves; who we are and why we are created on this universe.