In literal sense, the world of "metaphysics" means the world "beyond-physics".
I'll start from agnostic viewpoint and then slowly move towards religious viewpoint of this world.
Plato is the first known philosopher to lay the ground work for such world. In contrast to the empirical world that we sense through our 5 senses, the meta physical world remains outside the scope of our sensual paradigm. It has also no physical constraints including that of time and space. This doesn't mean that metaphysics is not real. In fact, according to Plato's theory of forms an "idea" residing in metaphysical space is the most real entity. How? Consider the following scenario....... O but wait....... before coming to that scenario, lets discuss how an "idea" qualifies as an object from "metaphysical" world.......
- An idea cannot be sensed empirically (you can't see or touch an idea, can you!)
- An idea does not follow space-time constraint. Two persons sitting on different parts of earth can come up with exactly the same idea at exactly the same time instant (no time constraint). Also an idea has no predefined shape, there's no spatial reference of an idea. You can't ask someone to look for an idea at a specific location on earth (no space constraint).
Coming back to that scenario which explains how knowledge flows from metaphysical to physical world......
Imagine you're a carpenter and you come up with an idea of making a "chair" from woods, i.e. a wooden place for a person to sit upon. Now another carpenter can also come with the same idea and in this case, it is more than possible that both chairs can end up having different physical shapes etc. While the more appropriate physical representation of a chair can be argued upon, what cannot be argued is the certainty or reality of that idea that provides the basic concept. Perhaps that is why Plato maintains a difference between existence and reality of an object. For him, existence is something physical and binary, either an object exists in the physical world or it doesn't, while the reality of an object is something meta physical....... in percentages, where ideas occupy the top spot.
Plato believed that substances are forms inhering in matter, while one of his students, Aristotle believed otherwise. Aristotle held that Form and Matter are inseparable, and that matter and form do not exist apart from each other, but only together. Stuff without structure was mere chaos, while structure without stuff was no more than the ghost of being.....
Since the inception of metaphysics, there has been an enormous attempt to incorporate the religious concepts within this space. In Catholicism, this was done by Thomas Aquinas while in Islamic tradition the likes of Al-Farabi, Ibn-e-Sina, Al-Ghazali etc are attributed for this.
From an Aristotelian view point, there's no such idea that has no physical manifestation. From a platonic view point, it is possible but then how to validate such an idea? How do I know that this idea is simply not the "ghost of being"? Since this can only be done in meta physical space, in Islamic theology this is possible using scripture (Quran), given the source of scripture is divine, which is assumed to be the most accurate representation of metaphysics.
From an Islamic view point, an idea is not the "only" meta physical entity. It is merely that object from meta physics that is feasible to realize by a human mind. God, angels, souls, heaven, hell, all such objects are not merely an "idea", they are the most real objects of meta physical space, the only problem is that the properties of those objects are not known as we know the properties of matter.
Quran uses a concept of "tashbeehaat" or "allegory" to correlate the properties of a meta physical object with that of a physical object. While giving a tashbeeh, an object is taken from meta physics and its properties are illustrated using a somewhat "similar" or "mushaabeh" object from the physical world. For instance in verse 35:1, Quran describes angels having "two ,three or four pairs of wings". The objective here is not to illustrate the properties of matter or materialistic properties of angels, the goal is rather to convey this message that angels live outside the scope of time, meaning they can travel so fast as can birds with wings. Similarly this statement from verse 57:3 that "Allah is the First, the Last, the Apparent one and the Hidden One" states that Allah exalts the limits of "time" (being the First and Last one) and "space" (being the Apparent One and the Hidden One simultaneously, its only possible for an object to be apparent and hidden simultaneously if it has no shape). Infact, this also validates the hallmark statement of Thomas Aquinus that "God is infinite in time and space". But for me, this is true for all objects of metaphysics including angels. The infinity of something in time and space is NOT the argument of Godliness. In fact heaven and hell as mentioned in Quran are also limitless atleast in time, since it is mentioned in numerous locations in Quran that whoever enters heaven or hell will remain there "forever". Now, if you're interested in knowing that what is the argument of Godliness excluding "infinity in time and space", please refer to "waḥdat al-wujūd" and "waḥdat ash-shuhūd"...... although you must be careful since both of these concepts are terribly abused in Islamic literature.....
PS: One paragraph has been quoted directly from www.philosophybasics.com
Since the inception of metaphysics, there has been an enormous attempt to incorporate the religious concepts within this space. In Catholicism, this was done by Thomas Aquinas while in Islamic tradition the likes of Al-Farabi, Ibn-e-Sina, Al-Ghazali etc are attributed for this.
From an Aristotelian view point, there's no such idea that has no physical manifestation. From a platonic view point, it is possible but then how to validate such an idea? How do I know that this idea is simply not the "ghost of being"? Since this can only be done in meta physical space, in Islamic theology this is possible using scripture (Quran), given the source of scripture is divine, which is assumed to be the most accurate representation of metaphysics.
From an Islamic view point, an idea is not the "only" meta physical entity. It is merely that object from meta physics that is feasible to realize by a human mind. God, angels, souls, heaven, hell, all such objects are not merely an "idea", they are the most real objects of meta physical space, the only problem is that the properties of those objects are not known as we know the properties of matter.
Quran uses a concept of "tashbeehaat" or "allegory" to correlate the properties of a meta physical object with that of a physical object. While giving a tashbeeh, an object is taken from meta physics and its properties are illustrated using a somewhat "similar" or "mushaabeh" object from the physical world. For instance in verse 35:1, Quran describes angels having "two ,three or four pairs of wings". The objective here is not to illustrate the properties of matter or materialistic properties of angels, the goal is rather to convey this message that angels live outside the scope of time, meaning they can travel so fast as can birds with wings. Similarly this statement from verse 57:3 that "Allah is the First, the Last, the Apparent one and the Hidden One" states that Allah exalts the limits of "time" (being the First and Last one) and "space" (being the Apparent One and the Hidden One simultaneously, its only possible for an object to be apparent and hidden simultaneously if it has no shape). Infact, this also validates the hallmark statement of Thomas Aquinus that "God is infinite in time and space". But for me, this is true for all objects of metaphysics including angels. The infinity of something in time and space is NOT the argument of Godliness. In fact heaven and hell as mentioned in Quran are also limitless atleast in time, since it is mentioned in numerous locations in Quran that whoever enters heaven or hell will remain there "forever". Now, if you're interested in knowing that what is the argument of Godliness excluding "infinity in time and space", please refer to "waḥdat al-wujūd" and "waḥdat ash-shuhūd"...... although you must be careful since both of these concepts are terribly abused in Islamic literature.....
PS: One paragraph has been quoted directly from www.philosophybasics.com
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