Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan: “There is no Reform in Religion, but there is Renaissance”

With the support of Üsküdar University's Health, Culture and Sports Department, the Conscience of the Age Club continues its 'Psychological Conversations from Existence to the Search for Meaning' with Üsküdar University Founding Rector Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan. Tarhan, emphasizing the need to provide new answers to old questions, said: “New information needs to be reinterpreted. Its equivalent in social psychology is: Renaissance. There is no Reform in religion, but there is Renaissance. Here, the essence is preserved, but renewal is made. It presents it with a new envelope by adding new information.”

“We need to give new answers to old questions”

Üsküdar University Founding Rector Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan emphasized the need to correctly define the concept of God in the ‘Psychology Conversations from Existence to the Search for Meaning’ program held every Monday. Tarhan said: “Let's think of Satan as the symbol of evil and an angel as the symbol of good. To understand the creation of Satan, as we emphasized before, we need to correctly define the concept of God in our minds. The concept of the Creator, the creative power, must be correctly defined. What is the wisdom behind the existence and creation of Satan? What is the purpose of the creation and invention of devils? It is truly a question as if it was asked today, not exactly 100 years ago, but we need to give new answers to old questions, not old answers to old questions. Bediüzzaman gave new answers to the old question. This answer is different from the answers in other tafsir books. Other answers say; ‘Allah created it, and deemed it appropriate. It is a divine preference.’ That is, from Allah's perspective, such a preference appears, but what is its wisdom for humans? There is no such clear expression regarding it in other tafsir, we need to know that.” he stated. 

“There is no Reform in Religion, but there is Renaissance”

Tarhan stated that the current level of knowledge is not satisfied with the answers given by people at the old level of knowledge: “The questions actually appear to be classic questions, but since the current era's inventions are different, answers are provided in a new style, with a new approach, and by adding new information, in line with the inventions of this time. In the past, people's level of knowledge was different; now, people's is different. If you read the same answer given by people at the old level of knowledge, people at the current level of knowledge are not satisfied. Things from the old times cannot provide new information. The scholars of that time were the stars, the sun of their era; they enlightened their time, answered its questions, and met its needs, but in this age, it is necessary to give new answers to old questions with new information. New information also needs to be reinterpreted. Therefore, this is making it new. Its equivalent in social psychology is: Renaissance. There is no Reform in religion, but there is Renaissance. Renaissance means renewal; it is the English equivalent of 'tecdit' (renewal). Here, it preserves the essence but makes a renewal. It changes the shell, the core is the same. It changes the envelope, the content is the same. It presents it with a new envelope by adding new information. That is, it presents it with new packaging, a new format, a new mold, but the essence is the same.” he said.

“The error of doing nothing is a greater error than making few mistakes”

Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan drew attention to the fact that when a person considers the outcome, they come to terms with it even if fearfully, and that reason overcomes fears: “When Allah created the world, if we do not know the wisdom of creation, we cannot understand this. Here, He created the universe according to chaos theory. Hot-cold, light-dark, good-bad, ugly-beautiful exist in a certain balance. Here, it is essential to increase the good, the beautiful, the ugly, and the light. When you increase them, cold, darkness decrease, evil decreases, ugliness decreases. Therefore, if we do nothing while sitting when we do not increase the good and the beautiful, for example, if a traffic police officer sat on the side while cars came; if he said ‘I did nothing,’ people crashed into each other because you didn't do your duty. The error of doing nothing is a greater error than making a small mistake. When we say the error of doing nothing is a greater error, we are consciously working towards an outcome. We work so that you consider the outcome of your actions. When a person considers the outcome, it makes sense to them, even if fearfully, and their reason overcomes their fears. Fears govern humanity.” he stated.

“Evil is the dialectic of our being in an examination/test” 

Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan underlined that matter emerged after information/knowledge. Tarhan said: “According to the previous law of entropy, evil and good exist in a dynamic balance of opposites. Creation has created it this way. It also created this with the law of entropy. Good-bad, hot-cold, light-dark exist together. Indeed, this likely exists in Buddhist religions, with their first leaders. They call it Ying Yang, the black and white balance. There are two intertwined circles called Ying Yang. Good and evil exist in Zoroastrianism. They believe in two gods: a god of good and a god of evil. Both are necessary because there must be a certain balance. They have to accept one evil god and one good god. In that case, there would be a constant war of gods. It was the same in ancient times. Zeus, the children of gods fight with each other. The gods of the Ancient Age emerge. Their religions emerge. In the monotheistic belief (Tawhid), there is no war of gods. There is Allah's test/trial. Because there is the reality of death. The existence of the reality of death indicates that there must be a second life after death. Evils, therefore, are the reality of death; things that appear evil should actually be approached with the dialectic of examination/test. What is in the dialectic of examination? There is the reasoning of the examination. What did materialistic dialectic say? They say, ‘First there is matter, and meaning emerged as a result of it. First there is the concrete, then the abstract emerged.’ But it is now understood that first there is abstract information, first there is universal education. There is information, and then matter emerges. There is no such thing as matter. What we call matter are energy strings, according to this string theory. Therefore, it means that first there is information, and this information dialectically led to matter. Therefore, first there is good, but dialectically there is evil. When good decreases, evil increases. When evil decreases, good increases. There is such a balance; this is the dialectic of the examination. There is a cause-and-effect relationship; there is a cause-and-effect relationship between evil and the examination. Therefore, we can say that evil is the dialectic of our being in an examination/test.” he concluded.