Rémi Brague on Medieval Philosophy's Broad Influence

Rémi Brague Explains

(Image from Universidad de Navarra)

As some will recall, I recently re-read Rémi Brague's masterful Eccentric Culture, which motivated me to blog about it again. In doing so, I discovered a couple of interviews that Brague gave, and I blogged on a question raised in my mind by a passage in the longer interview, the one on The Legend of the Middle Ages.

I went so far as to email Professor Brague and inquire:

Pardon me for contacting you, for you do not know me, but I have a query -- I think a simple one.

I am currently re-reading your book Eccentric Culture and have blogged on it recently (as well as earlier), and I happened to read -- and then blog about -- the interview conducted by Christophe Cervellon and Kristell Trego for the collection of articles in The Legend of the Middle Ages.

In that interview, an editor (I suppose) has introduced the heading "Cosmology as a Postulate." Following this heading is a passage that suggests to me that the editor has misunderstood your point, for you seem to me to be saying that for premodern man, cosmic order was not a postulate but a given.

Have I read you correctly?

Of course, you may have no time for this query, and I will understand and accept if I do not hear from you.

But I did hear from him:

This was a real joy to receive your message. I must be brief: I am in a small community in la France profonde, i.e. in the sticks. Internet is available only in the town-house.

Thank you for your close reading of my stuff. I will have to postpone a real answer till September: I haven't my own books there, let alone their English translations.

Have a nice summer.

From the evidence provided by this email, I'd say that he must be a really nice man, and I now have something to look forward to. But I won't leave you with the merely autobiographical blog entry today (after all, this isn't really my vacation), for I want to share another passage from the longer interview on The Legend of the Middle Ages that left a vivid impression on me because of its implications as to why the West developed as it did:

In medieval Europe, philosophy became a university course of studies and a pursuit that could provide a living. It also supported a mass of untenured, garden-variety "philosophy profs," few of whom have left their names in the manuals, even though we can exhume their courses, which we discover to be full of surprises. But these were the men who made it possible for philosophy to make a profound impact on the minds of the jurists, physicians, and others they taught, hence for it to become a factor in society.

This is significant because philosophy's emphasis upon reason surely played some role in preparing the rational European mind for the scientific revolution but also because it held theologians to rational standard. Christian theology had always required philosophical grounding, but the middle ages institutionalized philosophical study and therefore, as Brague remarks, ensured that philosophy might have a broader influence on society, something that did not occur in Islamic civilization because philosophy was never institutionalized there.

Brague goes on to make the point that "'theology' as a rational exploration of the divine . . . exists only in Christianity," which stands as a considerably strong claim to make, but I'll leave you to read the interview if you want to know precisely why he holds this view. I will add that his point is similar to the point made by Pope Benedict XVI in his Regensburg lecture, namely, that the central significance of the "Logos" in Christianity was crucial to Christian theology's openness to reason.

I agree with the Pope and Brague on their point about the significance of the "Logos," but I also think that the Christian doctrine of the incarnation raised profound philosophical questions -- concerning, e.g., matter and spirit, temporality and nontemporality, spatiality and nonspatiality, etc. -- that needed to receive answers if Christians were to respond to questions posed by the non-Christian culture in which Christianity grew, especially since Christianity did not begin as a successful political and military power, could not force non-Christians to submit, and thus had to rely solely on persuasion.

Until Constantine, anyway.

Mankind made in the image of Allah?

Islamic Adam and Eve

Not exactly your garden variety . . .

Manafi al-Hayawan (منافع الحيوان: Usefulness of Animals)

From Maragheh in Mongol Iran, 1294-99

(Image from Wikipedia)

Adam and Eve in this Muslim painting look rather different from the Adam and Eve usually seen in Western paintings. Eve in particular calls to mind images of the Buddha from Central Asia, which undoubtedly shows the influence of some tradition of painting from outside Islam itself.

Despite differences from the Western depictions of Adam and Eve, and despite what I've long heard and even accepted about Allah having no image and Islam rejecting the Jewish and Christian view of human beings being made in God's image, I have just learned that Islam does have traditions about man being made in the image of Allah.

I sometimes do wild Google searches, and yesterday, I was thinking about an article that I read over ten years ago about an aboriginal tribe of northern Australia that had some contact with traders from Indonesia prior to British colonization. This tribe had apparently learned something of the the traders' religion, and in the tribe's own tradition drew an image of Allah, perhaps the only one ever made (or so the article speculated). I was interested in finding that article and so performed the search that led to today's post.

I should interject that I've long held that the Qur'an's suras telling of Allah commanding the angels to bow down to the newly created Adam (7.11; 15.31-32; 38.74-75) presuppose that Adam was made in Allah's image (else why the command to bow down?). However, since I had been told, and had also read, that Islam rejects the belief that mankind was made in the image of Allah -- for Allah is totally other than anything created -- then I did not expect to find any Muslim acceptance of the so-called Imago Dei. But I found precisely this in a commentary on a hadith stating that "Allah created Adam in His image" -- and I have pasted the entire discussion by someone named Madarijas-Salikeen:

Commentary on the hadeeth, "Allaah created Adam in His image"

Question: When Prophet says "Allah created Adam in his image" what does "his image" refer to and how should we understand it?.

Answer: Praise be to Allaah.

Al-Bukhaari (6227) and Muslim (2841) narrated from Abu Hurayrah that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "Allaah created Adam in His image, and he was sixty cubits tall. When he created him he said, 'Go and greet that group of angels who are sitting and listen to how they greet you, for that will be your greeting and the greeting of your descendents.' So he said, 'Al-salaamu 'alaykum (peace be upon you),' and they said, 'Al-salaamu 'alayka wa rahmat-Allaah (Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allaah).' So they added (the words) 'wa rahmat-Allaah.' Everyone who enters Paradise will be in the form of Adam, but mankind continued to grow shorter until now."

Muslim (2612) narrated that Abu Hurayrah said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "When any one of fights his brother, let him avoid the face, for Allaah created Adam in His image."

Ibn Abi 'Aasim narrated in al-Sunnah (517) that Ibn 'Umar said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Do not say 'May Allaah deform your face' [a form of cursing in Arabic], for the son of Adam was created in the image of the Most Merciful." Shaykh 'Abd-Allaah ibn al-Ghunaymaan (may Allaah preserve him) said: "This hadeeth is saheeh and was classed as such by the imams and by Imam Ahmad and Ishaaq ibn Raahawayh. Those who classed it as da'eef have no evidence, except for the view of Ibn Khuzaymah, but those who classed it as saheeh are more knowledgeable than him.

I should interject here that there exist four categories of hadith based upon the hadith's isnad (chain of narrators): sahih (sound), hasan (good), da'if (weak), and maudu' (fabricated, forged). Apparently, there was a dispute over this hadith about Adam being created in the image of Allah (possibly due to Allah's utter otherness in Islamic theology?). But to return to Madarijas-Salikeen's discussion:

Ibn Abi 'Aasim also narrated (516) that Abu Hurayrah said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "When any one of you fights let him avoid the face, for Allaah created Adam in the image of His Face." Shaykh al-Albaani said: its isnaad is saheeh.

These two hadeeth indicate that the pronoun in the phrase "in His image" refers to Allaah, may He be glorified.

Al-Tirmidhi (3234) narrated from Ibn 'Abbaas that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "My Lord came to me in the most beautiful image and said, 'O Muhammad.' I said, 'Here I am at Your service, my Lord.' He said, 'What are the chiefs (angels) on high disputing about . . .'" Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh al-Tirmidhi.

According to the lengthy hadeeth about intercession, it says, ". . . then the Compeller (al-Jabbaar) will come to then in an image different than the image in which they saw Him the first time . . ." Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 7440; Muslim, 182.

From these ahaadeeth we learn that it is proven that Allaah has an image (soorah in Arabic), in a manner that befits Him, may He be glorified and exalted. His image is one of His attributes which cannot be likened to the attributes of created beings, just as His essence cannot be likened to their essence.

Again, I interject. Here, Madarijas-Salikeen appeals to Islamic orthodoxy in such a way as to interpret "image" in a sense other than its usual meaning, for if Allah's image is one of his 'attributes' and if Allah's attributes cannot be likened to attributes of created beings, then Madarijas-Salikeen is effectively denying that Adam was made in Allah's image, for an image means a likeness. Obviously, the argument in sophisticated Islamic commentary would be rather complex and would explicate the nuances of the Arabic term for "image" . . . but ultimately, the hadith is rendered meaningless if "image" means "not in the likeness of." Madarijas-Salikeen deals with this very issue in a typical way by denying that image implies any sort of likeness. The point seems to be that a likeness would have to be exact, whereas an image is not exact. The problem that I see here is that even an image implies resemblance, even if one is not speaking of physical resemblance. The term "image" is thus emptied of meaning, as we shall see when Ibn Qutaybah says that "Allaah" having an "image" is accepted by Muslims along with Allah's other attributes, "but we do not discuss how any of them are":

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said: "The word soorah (image) in this hadeeth is like all the other names and attributes narrated (in the texts) where the words used may also be applied to created beings, in a limited manner. When these words are applied to Allaah, they carry a unique meaning, such as al-'Aleem (All Knowing), al-Qadeer (All-Powerful), al-Raheem (Most Merciful), al-Samee' (All Hearing), al-Baseer (All-Seeing), and such as His creating with His hands, rising above the Throne, etc." Naqd al-Ta'sees, 3/396

Everything that exists must inevitably have a form or image. Shaykh al-Islam said: "Just as everything that exists must have attributes that, so too everything that exists by itself must have a form or image. It is impossible for something that exists by itself not to have a form or image."

And he said: "There was no dispute among the salaf of the first three generations that the pronoun in the hadeeth refers to Allaah, and it is narrated through many isnaads from many of the Sahaabah. The contexts of the ahaadeeth all indicate that . . . but when al-Jahamiyyah became widespread in the third century AH, a group began to say that the pronoun refers to something other than Allaah, and this was transmitted from a group of scholars who are known to have knowledge and to follow the Sunnah in most of their affairs, such as Abu Thawr, Ibn Khuzaymah, Abu'l-Shaykh al-Asfahaani and others. Hence they were denounced by the imams of Islam and other Sunni scholars."

Naqd al-Ta'sees, 3/202

Ibn Qutaybah (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: "That Allaah should have an image is no stranger than His having two hands, fingers or eyes. Rather those are readily accepted because they are mentioned in the Qur'aan, but this idea (image or form) is regarded as strange because it is not mentioned in the Qur'aan. But we believe in them all, but we do not discuss how any of them are."

Ta'weel Mukhtalif al-Hadeeth, p. 221

Shaykh al-Ghunaymaan said: "Thus it is clear that the form or image is like all the other divine attributes. Any attribute which Allaah has affirmed in the Revelation, we must affirm it and believe in it."

Sharh Kitaab al-Tawheed min Saheeh al-Bukhaari, 2/41

Shaykh Ibn Baaz (may Allaah have mercy on him) was asked: There is a hadeeth narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) in which he forbids saying "May Allaah deform your face", and says that Allaah created Adam in His image. What is the correct belief with regard to this hadeeth?

He replied:

This hadeeth is proven from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), in which he said: "If any one of you strikes (another), let him avoid the face, for Allaah created Adam in His image." According to another version: "In the image of the Most Merciful." This does not imply resemblance or likeness.

What is meant, according to the scholars, is that Allaah created Adam with the ability to hear and see, and to speak when he wants. These are also attributes of Allaah, for He is All-Hearing, All-Seeing, and He speaks when He wants, and He has a Face, may He be glorified and exalted.

But it does not mean that there is any resemblance or likeness. Rather the image of Allaah is different from that of created beings. What is meant is that He is All-Hearing, All-Seeing, and He speaks when He wants, and He created Adam also able to hear and see, with a face and hands and feet. But man’s hearing is not like Allaah's hearing, his seeing is not like Allaah's seeing, his speaking is not like Allaah's speaking. Rather Allaah has attributes that befit His majesty and might, and man has attributes that befit him, attributes that are finite and imperfect, whereas the attributes of Allaah are perfect, with no shortcomings, infinite and without end. Hence Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

"There is nothing like Him, and He is the All‑Hearer, the All‑Seer" [al-Shoora 42:11]

"And there is none co-equal or comparable unto Him" [al-Ikhlaas 112:4]

So it is not permissible to strike the face or say "May Allaah deform your face".

End quote. Majmoo' Fataawa al-Shaykh, 4/226

Another thing that will help to explain the meaning of this hadeeth is the words of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him): "The first group to enter Paradise will be in the image of the moon (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 3245; Muslim, 2834." What the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) meant here is that the first group will be in human form, but because of their purity, beauty and brightness of face they will look like the moon, so they are likened to the moon, but without resembling it. So just because a thing is said to be in the image of a thing it does not mean that it is like it in all aspects.

The Prophet's words, "Adam was created in His image" means that Allaah created Adam in His image, for He has a face, an eye, a hand, and a foot, and Adam had a face, an eye, a hand, and a foot . . . but that does not mean that these things are exactly the same. There is some similarity, but it is not exactly the same. Similarly the first group to enter Paradise are likened to the moon, but they are not exactly the same. This confirms the view of Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jamaa'ah, who say that none of the attributes of Allaah can be likened to the attributes of created beings, without distorting or misinterpreting, or discussing how or likening Him to His creation.

See Sharh al-'Aqeedah al-Waasitah by Shaykh Muhammad ibn 'Uthaymeen, 1/107, 293.

For more information, see: Sharh Kitaab al-Tawheed min Saheeh al-Bukhaari by Shaykh al-Ghunaymaan, 2/33-98, in which he quotes at length from Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may Allaah have mercy on him), refuting the misinterpretation of this hadeeth by ahl al-kalaam and those who agreed with them.

And Allaah knows best.

Well, I have certainly learned a great deal from this, namely, that Adam was made in Allah's image but that "image of Allah" in Islamic orthodoxy is emptied of any meaning that Muslims can understand.

There seems to be a type of 'agnosticism' at the core of Islam, an acceptance that nothing can be truly known about Allah. One can only submit to the Qur'anic revelation, for Allah is so utterly beyond human categories that one cannot reason about Him . . . which returns us to the issue that got Pope Benedict XVI in trouble in Regensburg.

But that's a different blog entry . . . or series of blog entries.

In the wake of the Pope's Regensburg remarks...

Aspenia

Journal of Aspen Institute

(Image: Aspen Institute Italia)

Over at Chiesa, but drawing upon the journal of the Aspen Institute in Italy, Sandro Magister offers an interesting article, "The Surprising Geopolitics of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope," that describes how the pope "has left his mark on international politics . . . . with Islam."

Magister directs our attention to the pope's Regensburg address, and since I played a small but, I hope, constructive role in the controversy raised by the pope's remarks on Islam and violence, I'd like to quote four passages from this part of Magister's article:

[T]he first action of Benedict XVI that made a worldwide impact was the long and substantial lecture that he gave at the University of Regensburg on September 12, 2006. He literally shook the world, for both the right reasons on the wrong ones. That lecture explained the new pope's view of the Church and of the West and his plans for them, including relations with Islam.

According to the canons of geopolitical realism, Benedict XVI should never have delivered that lecture in its entirety. He should have had it reviewed and purged beforehand by the diplomatic experts, something that he intentionally declined to do. And a number of people in the Vatican curia criticized him for this.

And yet, two years later, the facts tell a different story. Despite the alarm of the Cassandras, a dialogue emerged between the Catholic Church and Islam that had never existed before Regensburg, and had even seemed impossible. This dialogue is not only intellectual -- represented, for example, by the initiatives following the "letter of the 138 Muslim scholars" -- but also political. The political dimension advanced considerably after the audience at the Vatican on November 6, 2007 -- the first of its kind in history -- between the pope and the king of Saudi Arabia.

Even after Regensburg, one aspect that distinguishes the relationship with the Muslim world inaugurated by Benedict XVI is its apparent imprudence. Pope Ratzinger is not afraid of alternating gestures of openness -- one thinks of his silent prayer in front of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul -- with actions at odds with diplomatic caution. He had no qualms about granting an audience to Oriana Fallaci, one of the most committed critics of Islam, which she believes to be violent by nature. At the Easter vigil at St. Peter's in 2008, he baptized Magdi Allam, a convert from Islam and a radical critic of his religion of origin. But what is most astonishing is the heart of Benedict XVI's reasoning. The pope is asking Islam to undertake the same kind of demanding self-renewal that the Catholic Church carried out over the span of two centuries, beginning at the time of the Enlightenment.

In case anyone has forgotten, here is what the pope was 'officially' reported to have said in Regensberg concerning Islam and violence, and note the red font showing that he distanced himself from the words that he attributes to the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus (1350-1425):

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 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.

Despite the pope's careful words, and in a context within which he also deplored the church's own use of violence in its past, he was harshly criticized immediately after his talk, and Islamist radicals incited Muslims to violent riots in various parts of the world to protest the pope's words.

But as I pointed out at the time, the pope's words were not only careful in the English translation, they were even more careful in the original German, and I provided my own translation:

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 an astonishing brusqueness, for us an astounding brusqueness, bluntly 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 very forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable.

The pope continued to receive much criticism, of course, for the first but erroneous English translation of his words was so widely reported that the later, corrected version went largely unnoticed. Some people must have noticed, however, for my blog entry on this issue received a couple thousand hits within a few minutes after Ramesh Ponnuru linked to it in The National Review Online.

But let me return to Magister's article and quote a passage demonstrating that despite a careful distancing from the Byzantine emperor's words, the pope holds that Islam really does have a problem with violence because it has too radically separated faith from reason in the aftermath of its rejection of the philosopher Averroes (though he didn't explicitly state this in his Regensburg address):

Two thirds of the lecture in Regensburg is dedicated to criticizing the periods in which Christianity dangerously separated itself from its rational foundations [as I also noted]. And the pope is proposing that Islam do the same thing: that it interweave faith and reason, the only way to shelter it from violence. The difficulty of this enterprise -- recognized as arduous but necessary even by leading Muslim thinkers like Mohammed Arkoun -- lies in the fact that in the history of Islamic thought, any fruitful relationship between faith and reason practically ceased with the death of the philosopher Averroes in 1198. After this, Islam has been characterized by the separation between faith and "reasonableness" about which the pope cautioned all, Muslims and Christians, in the most memorable passages of his lecture in Regensburg.

Magister's point is that these things need to be said and that the pope has opened dialogue on this issue by saying them. I think that this is correct. The best response to Islamist threats to free speech is more speech. Personally, I don't like controversy, and I also prefer not to insult anybody, but the perception of insult is subjective, so we have no control over how others might 'feel' in response to what we say. An Iranian student told me a couple of weeks ago that the widespread criticism of Islam by non-Muslims has been good because the clerics in Iran have given up on trying to threaten violence against 'infidel' critics, and even Muslims can now discuss things openly that would have been taboo just a few years ago.

The pope, it seems, has contributed to this new state of affairs.

Adrian Pabst: Real Debate on Christianity and Islam?

Adrian Pabst

Stirring the pot...

(Image: Dept. of Theol/Relig Stds,

University of Nottingham)

A scholar of religion and politics at the University of Nottingham, Adrian Pabst (who also holds a position as research fellow at the Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies), has written an interesting column for the November 13th edition (2007) of the online International Herald Tribune (IHT):

"Christianity and Islam: We need a real debate, not more dialogue"

A provocative title . . . though not the sort to provoke violence, I hope. Pabst was responding to a Muslim letter to the pope:

Last month, 138 Muslim scholars addressed an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders in which they call for a new dialogue between Christianity and Islam based on sacred texts.

Entitled "A Common Word Between Us and You," the document claims that the shared Muslim and Christian principles of love of the One God and love of the neighbor provide the sort of common ground between the two faiths that is necessary for respect, tolerance and mutual understanding.

The letter was a response to Pope Benedict's remarks about Islam in his talk at Regensberg, Germany about one year ago:

The publication of this letter coincided with the anniversary of a previous open letter in response to the pope's controversial Regensburg address on Sept. 12, 2006, when he appeared to link violence in religion to the absolute transcendence of God in Islam. His point was that according to Muslim teaching, God's will is utterly inscrutable and therefore unknowable to human reason -- with the implication that divine injunctions cannot be fully understood and must be blindly obeyed.

Against this background, the latest initiative by Muslim scholars marks an attempt to move interfaith dialogue away from debates about reason and revelation towards scriptural reading. Christian-Muslim relations, so their argument goes, are best served by engaging in textual interpretations that highlight shared commandments and common beliefs.

Pabst thinks that this suggestion in based on some mistaken assumptions:

But to suggest, as the authors of "A Common Word" do, that Muslims and Christians are united by the same two commandments which are most essential to their respective faith and practice -- love of God and love of the neighbor -- is theologically dubious and politically dangerous.

Theologically, this glosses over elementary differences between the Christian God and the Muslim God. The Christian God is a relational and incarnate God. Moreover, the New Testament and early Christian writings speak of God as a single Godhead with three equally divine persons -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Interesting. Does the New Testament speak so clearly in this way? A generous reading of Pabst's remark would parse his statement to mean that "the New Testament and early Christian writings" taken together -- and "early" taken to include the first several centuries -- "speak of God as a single Godhead with three equally divine persons." Joseph Cyr (of Tucson, Arizona), in a letter to the IHT editor, does not read him quite so generously:

Careful analysis of the New Testament, though, shows that the idea of a triune God does not exist in its pages. In fact, it was not until the fourth century that the doctrine of a Trinity was firmly established as Church dogma . . . . Rather than state, as a matter of fact, that scripture supports a Triune God, Pabst would do well to say that it is a result of tradition and church dogma. That would be a piece of truth to throw into the debate about God and holy writings.

I agree that the New Testament does not refer to a "Triune God" or to a "Trinity," and I wish that Pabst had been more clear (though he doesn't actually use the terms "Triune" or "Trinity"), but I'll continue to read him generously so as not to miss his point, which is:

This is not merely a doctrinal point, but one that has significant political and social implications. The equality of the three divine persons is the basis for equality among mankind -- each and everyone is created in the image and likeness of the triune God.

As a result, Christianity calls for a radically egalitarian society beyond any divisions of race or class. The promise of universal equality and justice that is encapsulated in this conception of God thus provides Christians with a way to question and transform not only the norms of the prevailing political order but also the (frequently perverted) social practices of the Church.

By contrast, the Muslim God is disembodied and absolutely one: there is no god but God, He has no associate. This God is revealed exclusively to Muhammed, the messenger (or prophet), via the archangel Gabriel. As such, the Koran is the literal word of God and the final divine revelation first announced to the Hebrews and later to the Christians.

Again, this account of God has important consequences for politics and social relations. Islam does not simply posit absolute divisions between those who submit to its central creed and those who deny it; it also contains divine injunctions against apostates and unbelievers (though protecting the Jewish and Christian faithful).

Moreover, Islam's radical monotheism tends to fuse the religious and the political sphere: It privileges absolute unitary authority over intermediary institutions and also puts a premium on territorial conquest and control, under the direct rule of God.

These (and other) differences imply that Christians and Muslims do not worship or believe in the same God; in consequence, across the two faiths, love of God and love of the neighbor invariably differ.

This latter statement will certainly generate some debate. Already, a letter to the IHT editor has taken issue with Pabst's remark about Christians and Muslims not worshipping the same God. Bianca Schlesinger, of Tel Aviv, demurs:

Pabst writes "These (and other) differences imply that Christians and Muslims do not worship or believe in the same God." How can they believe in different Gods if there is only one? If there is only one God, as declared by the monotheistic religions, than they all worship the same God; they only conceive of Him differently.

Schlesinger has responded as Pabst might wish, i.e., theologically, and thereby raised a crucial point. Do Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christians. Schlesinger -- who is, I take it, Jewish -- argues that Muslims do so, based on the theological position that there can be only one God. The argument might need some refining, however, for by a similar intellectual move, I could argue that polytheists also worship the same God as Jews and Christians because there can only be one God, and the polytheists "only conceive of Him differently" -- radically differently, of course, but they nevertheless recognize the divine and treat the divine as an object of reverence. Yet, polytheism and monotheism can only worship the same 'God' at a very general, very abstract level (if at all). As Pabst himself says:

By ignoring these fundamental divergences, the authors of the open letter perpetuate myths about Christians and Muslims praying differently to the same God. Worse, they exhibit a simplistic theology of absolute, unmediated monotheism.

Anyway, go read the entire article and see what you think about Pabst's theological, political, and ethical points.

Ratzinger's Jesus of Nazareth: A Question on Reason and Violence

Ecce Homo (Behold the Man!)
Antonio Ciseri, 19th Century

Violence: Submitting, not Committing?
(Image from Wikipedia)

I should first clarify that I haven't read this book Jesus of Nazareth (Doubleday, 2007), which the Pope has authored under his personal name, "Joseph Ratzinger," to emphasize that the work is a personal rather than ecclesial view.

I am reporting only on a review written by Jack Miles for the Catholic magazine Commonweal: A Review of Religion, Politics and Culture. Miles, as some may know already, is the author of God: A Biography and Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God, neither of which I have read.

To be succinct, I haven't done my homework. Still, one can ask a question, perhaps receive an answer.

Commonweal has been sending me emailed copies of its magazine ever since I firmly defended Pope Benedict XVI during the Regensburg Controversy concerning the Pope's statement about rationality, violence, and Islam. Here is the official, Vatican translation of the offending passage:

In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to some of the experts, this is probably 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 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 that we find unacceptable, 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. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood -- and not acting reasonably (συν λόγω) 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...". (Pope Benedict XVI, Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections, paragraph 3)

Interesting, by the way, is the fact that the official Vatican translation still quotes Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos as 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" (italics mine).

The Pope's German text reads:

"Zeig mir doch, was Mohammed Neues gebracht hat, und da wirst du nur Schlechtes und Inhumanes finden wie dies, daß er vorgeschrieben hat, den Glauben, den er predigte, durch das Schwert zu verbreiten." (Pope Benedict XVI, Glaube, Vernunft und Universität: Erinnerungen und Reflexionen, paragraph 3) (italics mine)

As I had noted during the controversy, the words "Schlechtes und Inhumanes" could better have been translated as "bad and inhumane" instead of "evil and inhuman," and since the latter sounds worse (to my ear), I don't know why the Vatican stayed with that translation -- unless it better reflects the literal Greek words of Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos himself (though the Pope didn't quote the Greek).

Anyway, a dispute over translation is not my issue today.

Rather, I wish to remind us of the Pope's Regensburg words on reason and Christianity:

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, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the λόγος". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, συν λόγω, 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. (Pope Benedict XVI, Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections, paragraph 5)

In the same Regensburg address, the Pope goes on to defend the Hellenization of Christianity, the Church's intellectual synthesis of Greek philosophical reason and Jewish divine revelation that makes Christianity a reasonable religion and its theology a rational undertaking because it insists that God is intrinsically rational.

Note that this view depends upon philosophical assumption about God's nature being rational.

I therefore wonder what Ratzinger means about a new synthesis between historical and theological exegesis, as Miles explains it, anyway:

Key to this synthesis is his [i.e., Ratzinger's] assertion that events can be meaningful prior to, and even without, human interpretation. When God enters human history, the resulting events are meaningful in and of themselves and therefore deserve to be heard as history, and humbly. They require no completion by anybody's overweening literary creativity, even an evangelist's. To the properly prepared hearer, in short, the events are capable of speaking for themselves, just as they did for the evangelist, but exegetical preparation is indeed the key. The exegete "should not approach the text with a ready-made philosophy, nor in accordance with the dictates of a so-called modern or scientific worldview, which determines in advance what may or may not be." (Jack Miles, "Between Theology & Exegesis," paragraph 8)

Yet, approaching the biblical text with a "ready-made philosophy" is precisely what the Pope seems to have been advocating in his Regensburg lecture, for he interprets the Johannine logos as including -- or perhaps even primarily meaning -- "reason," "rationality" (and not merely "word"). In his Jesus of Nazareth, however, Ratzinger would appear to be exalting the text, revelation, over reason.

If so, then this can present problems, if I may use another quote from Miles:

Jesus of Nazareth generally is content to repeat, again and again, that the Incarnation is an act of ongoing divine revelation. As for what the Incarnation reveals about God's character that the Old Testament did not know, this we are never quite told, nor does this book ever confront the unsettling ways in which God as we encounter him in the Old Testament seems decidedly unlike God incarnate as we encounter him in the New. In the scriptural index to the book that I prepared for my own use, I note not a single quotation from the Book of Joshua, though Jesus was named for the warrior hero of that book. At issue, I submit, is the relative importance, within Christian revelation, of God's incarnation and his renunciation of violence. God might have become a man without renouncing (or suffering) violence. He might have renounced violence without becoming a man. What matters more: the metaphysical wonder or the categorical reversal? (Jack Miles, "Between Theology & Exegesis," paragraph 11)

Without getting into the personal theology of Jack Miles as expounded in his books (for I'd then have to read them), I think that I can nevertheless borrow this thought:

[Why does Ratzinger] note not a single quotation from the Book of Joshua, though Jesus was named for the warrior hero of that book[?]

Is Ratzinger avoiding a difficult issue that he had earlier raised with respect to Islam, the use of violence against unbelievers? The question is a pressing one even for Christians since, as Miles notes, Jesus (Yeshua) was named for Joshua (Yehoshua), the Prince of Peace for the warrior hero.

I think that whether we place primacy upon the text (revelation) or upon theology (reason) makes a great difference in how we understand this problem of violence even within Christianity, and I'd like to know how Joseph Ratzinger -- or Pope Benedict XVI -- treats this issue.

Perhaps the Pope already has, somewhere in his voluminous writings, and I'm depending upon secondhand information from Jack Miles and my own speculative propensities.

Pope Benedict XVI: "what can rightly be called Europe"

Europa in a Fresco at Pompeii

Contemporary with Ovid

(Image from Wikipedia)

In a nod to some of my critics during the recent controversy over the brusque words from Emperor Manuel II Paleologus in the Pope's Regensburg lecture, I acknowledged that the Pope touched on more than the issue of God's nature, and I quoted this passage:

This inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history -- it is an event which concerns us even today. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.

Tariq Ramadan honed in on the implications of this phrase "what can rightly be called Europe," and he had a point even if he missed the Pope's more central theme about God's rational nature.

The Pope, a man of many interests, is also a systematic thinker, so when he touches on a point, it undoubtedly has more than a superficial connection to his main theme. In looking into the matter of "Europe" more closely, I've discovered that the Pope has recently published a book with Marcello Pera titled Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam. In this book, we find the Pope's article, "The Spiritual Roots of Europe: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow," which first appeared in the form of a lecture given in May 2004 as an address by the then Cardinal Ratzinger to the Italian Senate on the spiritual state of the West.

This published form seems to have been revised, for an earlier printing of the lecture appears in the June-July 2004 issue of the Catholic magazine Inside the Vatican. A subscription is required, but the lecture has been reprinted on the website Catholic Culture as "Europe: Its Spiritual Foundation: Yesterday, Today and in the Future."

In determining "what can rightly be called Europe," Ratzinger notes that "Europe is a cultural and historical concept, not a continent clearly definable in geographical terms," and he discusses the rise of a European consciousness partly as a reaction to Islamic expansion. The Roman Empire, he implies, was not Europe, but it -- along with the Hellenic states -- "led to the formation of a continent that became the basis for later Europe." To become Europe, however, the Empire would have to alter its borders. Or have them altered:

[T]he triumphal advance of Islam in the 600s and the beginning of the 700s traced a border through the Mediterranean, thereby cutting it into two. As a result, everything which until then had been a single continent was now subdivided into three: Asia, Africa and Europe.

And thus helped found Europe. Thanks for that. Anyway, Islam as "The Other" also played a role in the emergence of European consciousness -- as Ratzinger perhaps implies in touching on the Carolingian Empire but explicitly notes with reference to the Turkish threat to Europe in the early Modern period:

The process involving this new historical and cultural identification took place as an intentional pursuit under the reign of Charlemagne. Likewise, emerging once again was the ancient name "Europe," but with a change in meaning: this title was now used to define the kingdom of Charlemagne, while at the same time expressing an awareness of the continuity and newness with which this new set of states was projecting itself as a force ... into the future. Projecting itself into the future, precisely because it saw itself as the continuation of what had thus far been the history of the world and therefore anchored in what perseveres forever. Likewise expressed in this emerging self comprehension was an awareness of definitiveness, together with an awareness of a mission to be accomplished.

It is true that the concept of "Europe" practically disappeared once again after the demise of the Carolingian reign, while the word itself retained a certain pride of place only in the language of learned persons. In ordinary language, however, it then resurfaced at the beginning of the modem age, as a form of self identification in relation to the threat represented by the Turks, while its widespread and general use brings us all the way up to the 18th century. Independently from this history of the actual word "Europe." [T]he consolidation of the kingdom of the Franks as the never-faded and now reborn Roman Empire, marked the decisive step towards what we now mean when we speak of Europe.

By the expression "now reborn Roman Empire," I presume that Ratzinger means the European Union -- thereby supplying grist for the mills of eschatological conspiracy theories being regularly ground out by the occasional Protestant fundamentalist (but that's another matter).

As for Islam, despite its 'helpful' role in defining Europe by restricting Christendom, Ratzinger has some kind words for it, conceding that it has proven itself successful in a way now failing Europe:

The rebirth of Islam is connected not only with the new material wealth of the Islamic countries, but is nourished by Islam's ability to offer sound spiritual grounds for the life of peoples, grounds which seem to have slipped out of Europe's steady hand. Therefore, despite its lasting political and economic might, Europe is increasingly looked upon as condemned to decline and downfall.

I'd like to hear more from Ratzinger about these "sound spiritual grounds" that Islam offers. Presumably, he means moderate Islam's day-to-day moral code, which he considers contemporary Europe to be lacking.

Between Ratzinger's positive reference to Islam's "sound spiritual grounds" and Pope Benedict XVI's concerns about Islam's concept of a "capricious God" lies a broad expanse waiting to be filled in with the Vatican's official words.

But perhaps the Pope should pass a rough draft by me first ... just to be safe?

Marie-Hélène Congourdeau: On Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus

Changing Fortunes of the Byzantine Empire

(Image from Wikipedia)

Over at the MideastWeb Middle East Web Log, Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, a scholar on the Byzantine Empire, offers her views on Pope Benedict XVI's quote from the writings of Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus. Interestingly, her rendering of the quote partly confirms my own:

Show me that Mohammed brought anything new: you will find nothing, but bad and inhuman, for instance what he states by ordering his faith to be imposed by sword.

I don't know if Congourdeau is translating or quoting a translation, but her quote uses the term "bad" rather than "evil" -- and she'd certainly know what the Greek stated, for she informs us:

I happen to know about Manuel II and to have studied this text.

For those interested in checking sources, she supplies some:

The controversial statement ... is taken from the 7th chapter of a book which is composed of 26 chapters.

This 7th book was edited in 1966 by Th. Khoury in Sources Chretiennes 115, and, it seems, it is from this edition that Pope took this statement, since he quotes Th. Khoury. The entire Greek text was edited by E. Trapp in 1966 in the Wiener Byzantinische Studien. A revised edition is being done by K. Förstel in the le Corpus islamo-christianum, series graeca. A German translation of chapters 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7 has been published by R. Senoner in 2003 in Wien.

If anyone has a chance to check the Greek, I'd be interested in seeing the original quote.

Congourdeau also tells us some interesting points about this text:

Contrary to many treatises of anti-Muslim polemics, which we find in Western Christendom as well as in the Byzantine Empire, this text is the written record of a discussion that really took place. Manuel presents his Muslim partner in a positive way, as an host respectful and curious to know the religion of his host. The discussion is as cordial as frank, since neither of the two hesitates to expose what he doesn't like in the religion of the other. The relations between both men are not altered by it. This text is one of the first interreligious dialogues, where each people displays his own truth and looks for dialogue without disavowing anything of what he believes.

Nevertheless, the emperor seems to have altered the text in writing down the conversation some years later:

The editor, Th. Khoury, writes in his introduction: "The immoderate expressions, relatively rare, which we can read in the text come mostly from the liberties that Manuel took when finally writing his text". The fact that Bayezid was besieging Constantinople when Manuel was writing can explain the hardening of his language.

Congourdeau implies, but does not explicitly state, that the now infamous quote -- "Mohammed brought ... nothing, but bad and inhuman" -- stems from this later period.

Congourdeau also notes that "[a]t the time of Manuel, when Byzantines objected to the idea of a holy war, they have as a line of sight, in the same time, Muslim Jihad and western crusade ... [especially] the trauma of 4th Crusade and all the expeditions when they saw Christian soldiers with a cross ... handling a sword ... [in] the name of Christ." I don't blame them for thinking this way. The later Crusades were as often directed against the Byzantines as against the Muslims -- and probably hastened the fall of the Christian Byzantine Empire to the Muslim Ottoman Turks.

But who is Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, aside from being a scholar on the Byzantine Empire? She's a member of the Comité Français des Études Byzantines, an association dedicated to scholarship on Byzantium, and you can find her CV and even a photograph by clicking her name on the member list. An even better photograph, as well as one of her articles online, can be found at the website Clio, which appears to be a French organization that organizes conferences, publishes books, and generally informs people about history and the world.

Tall order.

Lee Harris: Why the Pope Quoted Emperor Paleologus

Lee Harris's 2004 Publication

...unread by me, but it offers a provocative iconic gambit to my post

(Image from Wikipedia)

Lee Harris, in "Socrates or Muhammad? Joseph Ratzinger on the destiny of reason" (The Weekly Standard, 10/2/2006, Volume 12, Issue 3), has offered an interesting analysis of Pope Benedict XVI's controversial lecture. It is not the Pope speaking as Pope "but simply as Joseph Ratzinger, an intelligent and thoughtful man, who makes no claims to any privileged cognitive authority .... [and who] has come, like Socrates, not to preach or sermonize, but to challenge with questions."

Harris notes Ratzinger's provocative quote from Manuel II Paleologus -- "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" (though I would translate the German expression "Schlechtes und Inhumanes" as "bad and inhumane") -- and he offers his understanding of why Ratzinger chose this quote:

Ratzinger's daring use of this provocative quotation was not designed to inflame Muslims. He was using the emperor's question in order to offer a profound challenge to modern reason from within. Can modern reason really stand on the sidelines of a clash between a religion that commands jihad and a religion that forbids violent conversion? Can a committed atheist avoid taking the side of Manuel II Paleologus when he says: "God is not pleased by blood -- and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature . . . . 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."

In Harris's view, Ratzinger's quote was not primarily directed at Muslims but at modern, self-critical, rational Westerners. In effect, he was asking them, "What sort of God would you prefer, one whose nature is supremely rational or one whose nature is absolutely willful?" Now, Ratzinger might also, secondarily, be asking Muslims, "Which sort of deity is Allah?" -- and if so, he has received a preliminary answer -- but he's more centrally concerned with what Westerners think about this.

Harris is an atheist, but he replies to Ratzinger's provocative question by affirming that he prefers a reasonable deity because a religion based upon such a God will produce a community of reasonable individuals:

Modern reason, to be sure, cannot prove scientifically that a community of reasonable men is ethically superior to a community governed by violent men. But a critique of modern reason from within must recognize that a community of reasonable men is a necessary precondition of the very existence of modern reason. He who wills to preserve and maintain the achievements of modern reason must also will to live in a community made up of reasonable men who abstain from the use of violence to enforce their own values and ideas. Such a community is the a priori ethical foundation of modern reason. Thus, modern reason, despite its claim that it can give no scientific advice about ethics and religion, must recognize that its own existence and survival demand both an ethical postulate and a religious postulate. The ethical postulate is: Do whatever is possible to create a community of reasonable men who abstain from violence, and who prefer to use reason. The religious postulate is: If you are given a choice between religions, always prefer the religion that is most conducive to creating a community of reasonable men, even if you don't believe in it yourself.

For Harris, the choice is to support Christianity, for early in its intellectual development it joined Greek rationality to the Hebraic tradition and created a reasonable faith.

Even within Christianity, there have been theological developments that sundered faith from reason by emphasis upon God's radical willfulness, such as the nominalist theology of Duns Scotus:

For example, Ratzinger notes that within the Catholic scholastic tradition itself, thinkers emerged like Duns Scotus, whose imaginary construction of God sundered the "synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit." For Scotus, it was quite possible that God "could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done." If God had willed to create a universe without rhyme or reason, a universe completely unintelligible to human intelligence, that would have been his privilege. If he had decided to issue commandments that enjoined human beings to sacrifice their children, or kill their neighbors, or plunder their property, mankind would have been compelled to obey such commandments. Nor would we have had any "reason" to object to them, or even question them. For Scotus and those who followed him, the ultimate and only reason behind the universe is God's free and unrestrained will. But as Ratzinger asks, How can such a view of God avoid leading "to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness?" The answer is, it cannot.

The insightful German philosopher Hans Blumenberg has argued in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age that Christian theology led more or less inevitably to the Scotus position because its initial overcoming of Gnosticism had merely repressed rather than solved the possibility of a deceptive God and that the modern world had decisively overcome the Gnostic problem by centering reason in the self-assertive human being and disregarding the absolutely willful God.

Ratzinger and Harris disagree, arguing that Modernity's rationality stems from Medieval Christianity's mainstream understanding of a rational God and that our current imperative is to recognize this fact.

Whether modern reason can be severed from that Christian tradition and yet survive is the question reasonably posed by both Ratzinger the Christian and Harris the atheist.

Gypsy Scholar Hits the Bigtime!

The National Review

(Image from Wikipedia)

I crawled out of bed at my usual, bleary-eyed hour of 3:00 a.m., turned on my computer, checked my blog's site meter, and rubbed my eyes. Twice.

"Already 353 visitors today?" I muttered. "That's a record."

My blog has only occasionally topped 300, so I was definitely surprised. I looked at the details and saw that most of the visits were quite brief, lasting no more than "0" seconds.

"No big deal," I thought.

On exiting from the site meter some minutes later, I paused to refresh the page and see how many visitors had now stopped by:

1,543

I stared in disbelief. The numbers had clicked up with a startling briskness, a briskness that left me astounded. I again refreshed the page:

1,639

Again:

1,701

And just now:

1,752

Uh-oh, the stream of visitors clicking in appears to be slowing down. What am I suddenly doing wrong? Is my 15 minutes of fame nearly up? ... with me sleeping through most of it. More seriously, why did this happen? Investigating more closely, I discovered the cause:

The National Review Online

"The Corner"

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Parsing Benedict [Ramesh Ponnuru]

Did he really say what we think he said? (Via Mirror of Justice)

If I understand this correctly, Ramesh Ponnuru found a link at Mirror of Justice to one of my blog entries on the Pope's speech and linked to me directly (and indirectly). That explains the phenomenal number of hits so early this fine Korean morning.

But who is Ramesh Ponnuru? According to his author's bio at NRO, he's the senior editor. Also, he has published in various big-name newspapers and journals and even seems to be quite the talking head appearing on:

CNN's Inside Politics, NBC's The McLaughlin Group, MSNBC's Buchanan & Press and Donahue, CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer, PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CSPAN's Washington Journal, Comedy Central's Politically Incorrect, Fox News, and NPR's Morning Edition

Wow! This guy's bigger than the Pope! No wonder my blog is getting so many hits.

Thank you, Mr. Ponnuru, sir. I tip my hat to your hat tip.

What the Pope didn't quote...

Emperor Manuel II Paleologos

(Image from Wikipedia)

It has been widely reported that the Pope quoted the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus as stating the following:

"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."

Actually, the Pope quoted this:

"Zeig mir doch, was Mohammed Neues gebracht hat, und da wirst du nur Schlechtes und Inhumanes finden wie dies, daß er vorgeschrieben hat, den Glauben, den er predigte, durch das Schwert zu verbreiten."

The crucial, 'insulting' words in the quote are "evil and inhuman," which in the original German text of the Pope's speech are "Schlechtes und Inhumanes."

Now, I don't have at hand the Greek text of the Byzantine emperor's dialogue (though it's probably online somewhere), so I don't know his exact words, but they would be irrelevant anyway since the Pope didn't quote them directly in Greek.

What the Pope quoted in his original German text was "Schlechtes und Inhumanes," which rather than "evil and inhuman" could perhaps better be quoted as "bad and inhumane." The English text then might better read as follows:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only bad and inhumane, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

I don't have any illusion that Muslims would be greatly mollified by this restatement, for it's still critical of Muhammad (though the Pope is merely quoting, not explicitly affirming), but to my ear it has a different connotation. The word "bad" doesn't raise the suspicion of "Satanic" that the word "evil" does, and "inhumane" doesn't sound quite so brutal as 'inhuman."

So ... I offer to the Vatican this translation and urge them to alter the English in their official text in accordance with my suggestion -- as they apparently did with the English translation that I proposed yesterday. You will recall this passage in the official English text:

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 on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general.

I suggested a different English rendering of the German:

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 an astonishing brusqueness, for us an astounding brusqueness, bluntly on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general.

And what do we find in today's slightly revised version of the Vatican's official English text? This:

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.

They didn't use my exact words, but they seem to have liked my suggestion that "überraschend" be translated here as "astounding," though they used the past rather than present participle.

I think that I deserve at least a footnote. Whether I get one or not, I'm gratified to discover that the Vicar of Christ reads Gypsy Scholar. And if he's willing to learn from a Protestant's correction, then I'd say that this Pope is ready for ecumenical dialogue.

Despite my original doubts...

New York Times Insults the Pope

Entrance to the New York Times' Main Offices

229 West 43rd Street in New York City

(Image from Wikipedia)

In an editorial published on September 16, 2006, provocatively titled "The Pope's Words," the New York Times distorts what the Pope actually said by citing his Regensburg speech in a way that strongly implies that he himself called Islam "evil and inhuman":

There is more than enough religious anger in the world. So it is particularly disturbing that Pope Benedict XVI has insulted Muslims, quoting a 14th-century description of Islam as "evil and inhuman."

In the most provocative part of its editorial, the Times treats as disingenuous the Vatican's assurance "that Benedict meant no offense and in fact desired dialogue," for it objects that "this is not the first time the pope has fomented discord between Christians and Muslims."

Giving itself some wiggle room, the Times allows for possible carelessness in the Pope's remarks:

[I]t is tragic and dangerous when ... [the Pope] sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly.

Clearly, however, the Times does not really consider the Pope's remarks merely careless, for it demands "a deep and persuasive apology."

A billion Catholics worldwide are doubtless angry at the Times for its strong suggestion that the Pope, whom Catholics consider the Vicar of Christ, has deliberately insulted Muslims and that he is now being disingenuous about his insult. Undoubtedly, Catholics will soon be marching in streets across the globe to protest the Times' "Pope-o-phobia." Let us hope that their injured feelings for their revered Pope does not lead them to commit regretable acts of violence, but if they do, then the Times must be held accountable for its role in this crisis.

The world listens carefully to the words of the New York Times. And it is tragic and dangerous when this paper sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly. The Times editors need to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal.

Pope Benedict XVI Need Not (Yet) Apologize

Iraqis set fire to an effigy of Pope Benedict XVI during a protest in Basra

Photographer: Nabil Al-Jurani

September 18, 2006

(Image from USA Today)

Since the Pope's recent remarks on Islam have sparked intense anger among Muslims -- to everyone's surprise -- I decided to look more closely at what the pope actually said.

The Pope was speaking at the University of Regensburg on the relation between reason and faith and had recounted a brief anecdote about his experience teaching in the 1950s at the University of Bonn, which had two theological faculties (presumably, Catholic and Protestant), concerning which a colleague -- possibly not a theologian -- observed that "there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God."

This anecdote led into the Pope's discussion of reason's role in Christian thought, which he introduced with a reference to a Medieval discussion between a prominent Christian and a prominent Muslim, and I'm providing here that reference within its larger context in the Pope's talk:

I was reminded of ... this [issue of reason and faith] recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Muenster) 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 presumably 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 those of his Persian interlocutor. 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 between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point -- itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole -- 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 ... edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this 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 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 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. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood -- and not acting reasonably ... 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 Hazn 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.

At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?

I have marked in red the phrases used by the Pope to distance himself from the source that he is citing.

By characterizing as brusque and forceful the words criticizing Muhammad's teachings, the Pope indicates that he does not fully agree with the way that the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus has formulated the issue.

How, precisely, he would differ in his own formulation, the Pope does not say. Presumably, we will find out later, for a note at the end of the Pope's text states: "The Holy Father intends to supply a subsequent version of this text, complete with footnotes."

While we wait for that, we might also wait for the inevitable, inadvertent ironies in reactions to the Pope's speech.