A new milestone: the war of reason versus submission
The Pope’s speech, and the reaction to it in the Islamic world, are a highly instructive moment in this war or conflict or debate. The Pope, in our view, has redefined the terms of debate: on the one side stand reason, the Enlightenment, freedom, choice and the individual conscience; on the other side stand submission and coercion. The Pope has upped the ante by his speech last week, moving the locus of the issue well beyond Muslims versus Crusaders, all the way to a battle of submission versus reason itself.
We laid out the theological issues rather well yesterday in a piece called The Pope frames the central question in the matter of Christianity and Islam. Today, Melanie McDonagh takes a turn in the Telegraph:
[Pope Benedict XVI] delivered a nuanced address on the subject of faith and reason, snappily titled “Three Stages in the Programme of De-Hellenisation”. The gist, to spare you the trouble of looking it up, is that belief in God is entirely consistent with human reason and the Greek spirit of philosophical inquiry. By using the reason God gave us, we become, in a way, more like him. Fair enough, you might think. No harm in that.
But there was, of course. If the Pope had stuck to quoting Plato (which he did) to illustrate his point, he wouldn’t now be in the position of, as the Muslim News put it, alienating a billion Muslims. His mistake was to cite a series of dialogues between a learned Byzantine emperor and a scholarly Persian Muslim about the truth of their respective religions, which was probably written while Constantinople was being besieged by the Turks. The emperor in question, Manuel II Paleologus, referred during the seventh dialogue to the Koran’s teachings about spreading the faith by the sword. And this, said the emperor, could not come from God because violence was the opposite of reason, and God himself cannot act contrary to reason.
“God himself cannot act contrary to reason.” Just so. That is the Catholic belief. The harmonizing of faith and reason in the Catholic Church dates back to before Augustine (354-430), who said that reason is “that by which the most wholesome faith is begotten…is nourished, defended, and made strong.” The effort reached a certain high point with Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), called by some of his fans the “Christian Aristotle.” The Pope was thus speaking in a long line of Christian thought when he said that that which was the opposite of reason — such as wanton violence, and the spead of religion by the sword — could not possibly be godly or divinely inspired.
If the Pope was merely following in a long Christian tradition, his speech would have been offensive enough to Muslims. After all, if the claims of Christianity are correct, then Mohammed was a false prophet teaching false doctrine. Accordingly, the Koran may be fine Arabic poetry, but as a religious document it would be meaningless or harmful.
But the Pope upped the ante in his speech. By appealing to reason as the arbiter of what is and is not godly, the Pope argued, in effect, that even if the religious claims of Christianity are not true, Islam can still be determined to be preaching evil to the extent that it preaches violent jihad, forced conversions, or similar practices. This is what we mean when we say that the Pope moved the debate well beyond that of Christians versus Muslims, into the realm of reason versus submission. This seems a significant shift to us; we’ll think about its implications in the coming days.
UPDATE
We spoke of Thomas Aquinas earlier. Tigerhawk reminds us that Islam had its own Aquinas, Ibn Rushd Averroes, who translated Aristotle and proposed the compatibility of Aristotelian philosophy with Islam. Averroes sought to demonstrate the compatability of faith and rreason, as did Aquinas. Tigerhawk also reminds us of the very different outcomes of the two men’s efforts: whereas the Church canonized St. Thomas Aquinas, Islamic authorities imprisoned and humiliated Averroes and destroyed his writings. The Pope re-energized this debate with his speech about faith and reason. Would Averroes fare any better today?
September 17th, 2006 at 3:24 am
The Pope said Sunday that he was “deeply sorry” about the angry reaction to his recent remarks about Islam, which he said came from a text that didn’t reflect his personal opinion.
Evidently, Pope Eggs benedict is as spineless as most of our political leaders.
Sadly there are no Orianna Fallacis around to ask Mr Eggs the following question:
Who is an evil character in religion? Judas or Mohammed?
September 17th, 2006 at 8:00 am
I think Benedict XVI just wants a seat for the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church at the table of European reason. And he wants it without having to throw out all those archaic Greek concepts the Church has built into its foundations.
He’s right to ask for this. He’s the Bishop of Rome, this is the gig. He has to uphold Church dogma, and he has to uphold the Church in what used to be called Christendom and is now called Europe, and he’s not supposed to just accept that the Church should now be excluded from the community of reason, from university culture and so on in its historic heartland. (Well, the surviving one of its three historic heartlands, the other two being Northern Africa and the Middle East.)
The boogy-man image of the Church, which he has to get past, is that it’s an agency of cruel intolerance and an enemy of free thought.
So he’s making it as clear as it be can that the Church aspires to be reasonable, and to interpret God as reasonable and as not commanding horrors, and he’s linking the Greek legacy of the Church, which he won’t give away, as tightly as he can to what is clearly desirable.
It’s natural for him to contrast this with what is less desirable, such as ostentatious and proud unreasonableness, ready resort to violence, forced conversions and so on. The implication is, wherever that suff comes from, it’s not from the Greek legacy that sees the divine as linked with and not altogether transcending reason - so there’s no reason to require the Church to let all that old stuff go as the price of taking its seat at the table.
The slight dig at Islam in passing was just part of the pitch: you know, in the intolerance stakes, you could do a lot worse than us. And Islam is such a poster boy for the things that Benedict XVI wants the Church to get credit for not being any more that it would be inhuman to expect him not to invite comparisons.
The Pope, making his pitch: Catholic theology is more reasonable.
Suspicious prospective customer: More reasonable than what?
The Pope, stanking on truth certified by current events: more reasonable than jihad.
Customer: OK, you got me there.
All this is fine it’s in his job description - and it’s very far from declaring war.
Benedict’s real foe in this speech was still a severe form of secularism that thinks the Church should be shunned and excluded. It’s for those adversaries he was arming his listeners with his new party line. (For example, on science assuming but not being able to properly explain a correspondence between minds and physical states.)
Because Benedict XVI is making a play for Europe - which as the Bishop of Rome he should, do not be shocked if on a lot of issues he continues to seem weak or silly. Don’t be surprised if he treats Israel and its wars unfairly, after the speech just as much as before it. Enlightened opinion in Europe requires that sort of stuff now: if you don’t agree, you’re an evil neocon pawn of the Jews or worse, and people won’t listen to you.
Benedict XVI needs people to listen to him. The position of the Church is serious. He knows this.
Deputy Sheriff said to me
Tell me what you come here for, boy.
You better get your bags and flee.
You’re in trouble boy,
And you’re heading into more.
CHORUS
It’s the same old story
Everywhere I go,
I get slandered,
Libeled,
I hear words I never heard
In the Bible
And I’m on step ahead of the shoe shine
Two steps away from the county line
Just trying to keep my customers satisfied,
Satisfied.