I had actually written
this previous post on interfaith dialogue before Pope Benedict XVI gave his lecture at the University of Regensburg. By now, everyone who has access to television and the internet is aware of the reaction around the Muslim world.
(Some blog round-ups:
here and
here. The transcript of the Pope's lecture may be found in a number of places:
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here.)
I don't want to quote the controversial passage out of context, which is part of a much longer argument about the roles of faith and reason and their relationship to one another in Christianity. The Pope's controversial comment occurs in the context of his speaking about the place of theological studies in a university – and a society – dominated by skepticism and atheism:
That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.
I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was probably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than the responses of the learned Persian. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship of the three Laws: the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. In this lecture I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue itself - which, in the context of the issue of faith and reason, I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.
In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις [diálesis] - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: There is no compulsion in religion. It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without decending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω [syn logo]) is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death....
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.
By citing Ibn Hazm [ابن حزم] through Arnaldez through Khoury, the Pope's statement here makes it appear as if the Islamic doctrine that Allah is "not bound even by his own word" were some kind of doctrinal development or innovation on the part of Ibn Hazm. But by Ibn Hazm's time, the exegetical concept of
al-nâsikh wa al-mansûkh [الناسخ و المنسوخ] or "
abrogation", that Allah can annul his revelations or replace them at a later time, had already been established. Support for this belief can be found in the Qur'an (e.g., verses
2:106;
13:39;
16:101;
17:86;
87:6-7). It remains a mainstream Islamic belief today, even if it is debated or
even repudiated among some Muslims.
Similarly, there is nothing surprising from the point of view of Islamic doctrine about the statement that "Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry." The Qur'an asserts in a number of places that it is by Allah's will that unbelievers do not believe (e.g., verses
2:253;
4:88;
7:100-102,
186;
6:25,
110-111;
10:99;
11:34;
17:46,
97).
The Pope continues:
As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: In the beginning was the λόγoς [logos]. This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω [syn logo], with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist.
[...]
Of course, a non-Christian would object at this point that this very
definition of reason, which identifies reason itself with the Christian God, is itself unreasonable. The Pope claims that Christianity is based on reason because the Bible identifies the logos with God, but he has provided no justification for accepting the Bible as an authority on reason in the first place. (Granted, the lecture may have been directed to an implicitly Christian audience.) Furthermore, it's clear that he recognizes that the source of rationalist thought in Catholicism stems not from the Bible, but from Greek philosophy. In that case, why should a rational person base his life on Catholic teachings, rather than directly on Greek rationalist philosophy or indeed on any philosophy that holds reason in high esteem?
The lecture concludes with a criticism of what the Pope perceives to be the exclusion of faith from rational inquiry in the universities. I find the following to be particularly pertinent:
In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures.
I suspect that the far majority of the Muslims who have been calling for the Pope to apologize have not actually read a transcript of his lecture. If would they just do that, they would probably find much to agree with in his criticism of the skeptical and atheistic attitudes found in many universities in the Western world.
I don't believe that universities in the West are unreasonably or deliberately exclusionary towards faith or belief in God. The purpose of a university is the pursuit of truth, but many of the truth-claims of religions can neither be verified nor falsified, and so cannot be investigated scientifically in the same way that one can investigate, for example, hypotheses about physics or biology. Of course, religious truth-claims can and should be taught and discussed within the appropriate contexts, such as in classes on philosophy or religious studies. Also, not all religious claims are equally (in)scrutable by science: one can study
certain limited aspects of religious claims about the
effects of meditation on human consciousness in a rigorously scientific manner, but it's difficult to see how one can do the same with topics which even Catholics have labeled
mysteries.
Furthermore, if scientists and scholars should make discoveries that
contradict Christianity or cast Catholic doctrines into
doubt, would the Pope be willing to give up his beliefs? In other words, is his attitude towards the relationship between faith and reason like that of the Dalai Lama, who wrote the following in "
The Universe in a Single Atom"?
My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation: if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.
Despite disagreeing with the Pope on some of the points he raised in his lecture, I applaud him for his honesty and frankness in stating his beliefs. I don't see anything in his lecture that would warrant an apology. He stated that religious violence is unreasonable, and asserted that Christianity synthesized reason and faith in a way that (Ibn Hazm's) Islam did not, and he also took some jabs at Protestantism and atheism. In other words, the Pope was saying that Catholicism is better than other religions. But
of course the Pope believes that Catholicism is better than other religions — he's
the Pope, for Pete's sake!
The controversial statement was a quote from a Byzantine Emperor whose lands were under attack by Ottoman Turks, and whose view the Pope has said he does not endorse. But
even if the Pope personally believes and had asserted in his speech that the Prophet of Islam had brought nothing new to the world except for "things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached", does he
owe Muslims an apology? I don't think so, unless Muslims are willing to apologize for any beliefs they have which may be
offensive to anyone else. The Islamic doctrine that the Jews and Christians had corrupted their holy books is offensive to the believers of those religions, and the Qur'anic verses pertaining to unbelievers [کفّار] are offensive to atheists, polytheists, Buddhists, and just about everyone else. If people were obligated to apologize for holding beliefs that offend others, humans would have to do nothing but apologize all day.
Muslim leaders worldwide routinely insult other religions and deliberately incite their followers to hurt the feelings of other people. (Most Americans don't exactly appreciate people chanting "Death to America!" [مرگ بر آمریکا] at rallies, having their country referred to as "The Great Satan" [شیطان بزرگ], or having their flag burned and stepped on.) For these same Muslim leaders to be demanding an apology from the Pope for a perceived insult is just hypocritical. If they think the idea that "Muhammad brought nothing new except things evil and inhuman" is wrong and offensive, the proper response is not to throw a temper tantrum, but to produce examples of things introduced by Muhammad that are not evil and inhuman, or show why the evil and inhuman things attributed to Muhammad (e.g., by the Byzantine Emperor) did not originate with him or were a distortion of his teachings.
Rioting,
making threats, and
killing Christians simply reinforces the perception that Muslims are violent.
But I suspect that is precisely what these provocateur Muslim clerics want. The problem with the Islamic world is that, while the rest of the world modernized and secularized, institutional religion in the Islamic world has basically remained mentally stuck in the Middle Ages. It would be virtually impossible in a Western country for a religious leader to gather up a mob or to incite a riot. Any Christian (or Buddhist, etc.) religious leader who behaved the way that Muslim leaders do throughout the Islamic world would likely be ignored or ridiculed, and probably reported to the police and arrested. In much of the Islamic world, however, the common person hasn't yet learned to be skeptical of religious authority. The political clout and personal prestige of many Muslim clerics depend precisely on maintaining the ignorance of their followers and limiting their followers' exposure to ways of thought not sanctioned by them. If the common Muslims could examine their situation dispassionately, they would realize that they are being manipulated into acting in a way that is beneficial to their leaders but harmful to themselves. Thus the Muslim clerics use every opportunity and find any excuse that they can to
inflame the masses.
It is very clear that the protests against the Pope, as well as earlier protests against Danish cartoons and anything else that offends Islamic sensibilities (which seems to be pretty much everything), are staged. The theatrics are carefully managed to create the impression that the clerics are more powerful and influential than they really are. (I have friends from the Middle East who have marched in demonstrations the purpose of which they knew nothing about, because they were pressured or told to do so by their governments or their neighbours.) In reality, a small number of what are essentially thugs
control the impression of the Islamic world presented to the West, as well as the impression of the West presented to the Islamic world. Their dedicated followers form only a fraction of their societies, but a fanatical and violent minority can dictate the direction of an entire society. What these Muslim leaders want is not genuine dialogue, which would make them appear weak and expose their followers to doubt, but
submission. For example,
this story is most telling:
In Iran about 500 theological school students protested in the holy city of Qom on Sunday and influential cleric Ahmad Khatami warned that if the Pope did not apologise, "Muslims' outcry will continue until he fully regrets his remarks".
"The Pope should fall on his knees in front of a senior Muslim cleric and try to understand Islam," said Khatami.
The strategy of these Muslim clerics is to create a no-win situation for the non-Muslim who is interested in reaching out to the common Muslim in dialogue. The clerics tells their followers that non-Muslims are prejudiced against Islam and desire to persecute Muslims, and whenever a non-Muslim expresses a view on religion (and Islam in particular) that is not in keeping with theirs, they scream persecution and insult. Naturally, this silences many a non-Muslim who is interested in dialogue with Muslims, as he refrains from speaking his opinion out of politeness and the desire to avoid unintentional offense. (I've had the same experience at interfaith dialogue meetings, as I wrote in my
previous post.) I think that the Pope has very cleverly exposed the insincerity of many Muslim leaders who
claim to want a dialogue between cultures and religions, but are in fact interested only in asserting and expanding their power and influence by bullying their counterparts and critics in dialogue. By citing a quote that directly links Islam with violence, in a lecture about the unreasonableness of religious violence, the Pope has put these Muslim clerics in the position of having to demonstrate by their reaction whether or not they are reasonable. And they have demonstrated to the world through their actions, better than anyone else's words, that they are not.
Update: The final
official Vatican translation clarifies the context of the controversial passage:
Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness which leaves us astounded, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable.
南無阿彌陀佛
