Dietrich Bonhoeffer: For God Before Caesar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
NYT

In "Between God and the Führer," a review (August 8, 2014) by Randall Balmera of Charles Marsh's Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we read the following:

As a leader of what would become the Confessing Church, Bonhoeffer organized a school for dissident seminarians at Finkenwalde, near the Baltic Sea. Until it was closed down by the Gestapo in 1937, Finkenwalde immersed Bonhoeffer in Christian community, a place where, in his words, "the pure doctrine, the Sermon on the Mount, and worship are taken seriously" . . . . An avowed pacifist, Bonhoeffer secured an appointment with German military intelligence, which allowed him remarkable freedom to travel both in and out of Germany. His complicity in a plot to assassinate Hitler, however, sealed his fate, although his principal involvement lay in providing moral justification for tyrannicide.

Marsh contends that Bonhoeffer produced his finest work during his final months, including those in prison, where "the strenuous austerity of his writings" gave way to "a faith more open, munificent and sensuous." Here the paradox of a believer in the face of evil comes fully into focus. Bonhoeffer "gave his blessings to those who conspired to murder the Führer while affirming the essential nonviolence of the Gospel," Marsh writes, invoking Luther's dictum to sin boldly. "Bonhoeffer did not try to resolve the paradox by assuming moral innocence but accepted the paradox by incurring the guilt born out of responsible action."

Bonhoeffer evidently put God before 'Caesar,' but Islamists do the same, yet we judge them extremists. What is the difference? The difference between Allah as pure, absolute will for Islamists and God as rational in essence, at least in the best of Christianity?

An appeal to God's will alone is an appeal to ungrounded fideism, but that's the error Protestants most often fall into . . .

Misquoted Housman: God's Will?

Bogdan Kipling

(Image from Canada Free Press)

Yesterday was Korea's Memorial Day, a holiday somewhat free from work, so my wife and I decided on a brief vacation and cycled off early in the morning up the bike path along Jungnang Stream some ten kilometers or more upstream to our favorite pathside food-and-beer spot and enjoyed an early meal there garnished by a pleasant, two-and-a-half-hour conversation.

Though we'd left before 8:30 in the morning, we didn't return home until about 1:30 in the afternoon, but we had work facing us here, editorial proofreading of a children's story that we'd translated from German into English, Monika Feth's Der Gedankensammler (illustrated by Antoni Boratyński), which we've tentatively rendered The Collector of Thoughts. We finished around 4:00 p.m., but I then had editing to do alone on abstracts for the Trans-Humanities Journal published by Ewha Womans University, not finishing with that until after 6:00 in the evening.

Only then did I have an opportunity to read the day's newspapers, and I discovered there a gift -- the topic of today's lazy-man blog entry -- an article by Bogdan Kipling, a Canadian journalist stationed in Washington, DC, who had written a memorial column honoring the late, great, head bartender of the National Press Club, Jack Kujawski. Titled "Legendary press club bartender poured on as his best customers dwindled," it appeared in my Korea Herald, but I'm citing this article from the online issue of the Canada Free Press (June 2, 2011).

Now, let me just state up front that Jack Kujawski and Bogdan Kipling both seem to me like fine individuals -- no problem there. But one of the two has misquoted A. E. Housman's poetic quip on John Milton. The embarrassment ensues when Mr. Kipling praises Mr. Kujawski's erudition:

A well-read man, Jack could toss out adept literary references and quotes at the drop of bar rag -- often citing such greats as Plutarch, Napoleon, Ambrose Bierce and Dorothy Parker in a single hour.

Among his favorites was A.E. Housman's line from A Shropshire Lad: "And malt does more than Milton can; To justify God's will to man."

This is the misquote, which might or might not grasp the essence of what Milton was up to -- and I'll get to that in a minute -- but what Housman literally penned was the following:

And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.

Housman himself was paraphrasing Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost 1.26, which expresses Milton's desire to "justifie the wayes of God to men." I suspect that Milton would not have entirely liked the expression "justifie the will of God to men," for God's ways are not reducible to 'Will' alone, in Milton's thought, but include -- as that which informs His Will -- "Divine Reason," for Milton's God is a fully rational rather than arbitrarily willful deity.

I'd be interested, by the way, in the views of others on this point, which might prove to be a contested one, though I don't recall any scholarly debate over the subjunctive question as to why Milton didn't seek to "justifie the will of God to men."

But thanks to either Mr. Kujawski or Mr. Kipling for the gift of something that even a lazy man can blog on . . .

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.

Natural Law and Limits on the Divine Will

Allah

Humanity Confronted by Divine Will

Eski Cami (The Old Mosque) in Edirne, Turkey

(Image from Wikipedia)

In 1999, Edward T. Oakes published an interesting article in First Things, "Natural Law in Judaism," in which he looked at the work of David Novak (Natural Law in Judaism) on the "Euthyphro problem" in Judaism.

The "Euthyphro problem" refers to Socrates's dialogue with the Athenian seer Euthyphro, in which Socrates subjects the Greek gods to an ethical critique on the basis of the abstract norms of moral law, in the light of which, the behavior of gods like Zeus appear decidedly immoral.

The problem -- reputably a dilemma for revealed religions like Judaism and Christianity -- can be posed as follows: "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"

Oakes argues that in Judaism and Christianity, abstract moral law has triumphed over the conception of God as omnipotent Divine Will.

Oakes does not deal in detail with the implications of this for Christian theology (though others have more or less reconciled God with Natural Law). Instead, he observes, rather pragmatically, that this victory of natural law has an upside, one that becomes evident when compared to the absence of the concept in Islam:

That victory is not entirely a matter for dismay, in my opinion, as the example of Islam suggests. Consider the matter of the stoning of adulterers, which, to the great horror of Westerners, is part of Islamic jurisprudence. That practice, as it happens, is not required by the Qur'an. In fact, it was introduced into Islam from Jewish law, according to an oral tradition transmitted by the second Caliph of Medina, Umar ibn al-Khattab (reigned a.d. 634-644):

They brought to the Prophet, on whom be God's blessing and peace, a Jew and a Jewess who had committed fornication. He said to them, "What do you find in your book?" They said, "Our rabbis blacken the faces of the guilty and expose them to public ridicule." Abdullah ibn Salam [a convert to Islam from Judaism] said: "Messenger of God, tell the Jews to bring the Torah." They brought it, but a Jew put his hand over the verse which prescribes stoning [probably Deuteronomy 22:21-22] and began to read what came before and after it. Ibn Salam said to him, "Raise your hand," and there was the verse about stoning beneath his hand. The Messenger of God gave the order and they were stoned. . . . They were stoned on the level ground and I [Umar] saw the man leaning over the woman to shield her from the stones.

Now, Muhammad is obviously thinking of Moses when he orders the stoning of the fornicating pair, but the crucial point is that the Mosaic law being enforced here has reached the Prophet unmediated by either Talmud or New Testament. Moreover, for accidental reasons of history, Islam never passed through the "fiery brook" of the Enlightenment; its confrontation with Judaism and Christianity in the contemporary world is often intertwined with a simultaneous confrontation with the Enlightenment. The clash gets even more complicated by Islam's much higher doctrine of revelation, which makes an accommodation with secular Enlightenment morality even more painful than has proved to be the case with Judaism and Christianity. (Islam's high doctrine of revelation had such difficulty conceding legitimacy to the deliverances of reason that it eventually deprived Muslim philosophers of the oxygen needed for independent, rational reflection; and Muslim philosophy almost entirely died out with the death of Averroës in a.d. 1198.)

At least in certain formal respects, Islam can be described, after a fashion, as "Judaism without a Euthyphro problem," or Moses without a Talmud, so to speak-as the civil war in Algeria so amply testifies, where the most horrific acts of barbarity are perpetrated under religious auspices and in the name of the God of revelation. The Euthyphro problem lives on in today's headlines, and it seems to me that David Novak needs to probe this issue more deeply, for his own (admittedly quite mild) Enlightenment-bashing leaves him with more problems than he seems to realize. (Edward T. Oakes, "Natural Law in Judaism," First Things, 1999, Part IV, paragraphs 4-5)

Islam lacks a Euthyphro dilemma because it simply denies the problem, holding that what is moral is moral because it is commanded by Allah. This is what Pope Benedict XVI was referring to in his Regensberg address when he noted that the Muslim thinker "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."

Quoting that got the Pope a lot of bad press, but Ibn Hazm's conclusion is the problem that the world faces in the Islamic refusal to put limits upon Allah's will.

The problem was posed with particular acuteness by the Jesuit James Schall, professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University, in an interview about the Pope's Regensberg address. Schall's words were published in ZENIT: The World Seen From Rome as the article "God as Logos, Allah as Will":

The Holy Father posed the fundamental question that lies behind all the discussion about war and terror. If God is Logos, it means that a norm of reason follows from what God is. Things are, because they have natures and are intended to be the way they are because God is what he is: He has his own inner order.

If God is not Logos but "Will," as most Muslim thinkers hold Allah to be, it means that, for them, Logos places a "limit" on Allah. He cannot do everything because he cannot do both evil and good. He cannot do contradictories.

Thus, if we want to "worship" Allah, it means we must be able to make what is evil good or what is good evil. That is, we can do whatever is said to be the "will" of Allah, even if it means doing violence as if it were "reasonable."

Otherwise, we would "limit" the "power" of Allah. This is what the Pope meant about making violence "reasonable." This different conception of the Godhead constitutes the essential difference between Christianity and Islam, both in their concept of worship and of science.

Finding an authoritative voice is not easy in a religion so decentralized as Islam, but perhaps the words of Abdul M. Omar can be cited as representative, for he was the editor of a 22-volume Encyclopedia of Islam, and in an online article, he states the following:

He is Incomprehensible, and nothing is like him, therefore the knowledge of Allâh's Reality (His Essence, Haqîqat al-Dzât), cannot be known through logical proof (Dalîl) or rational considerations (Burhân Aqlî). Revelation is indispensable as a proof of His existence. Nor can any definition or description grasp Him. (See: A. M. Omar, "2. Allâh -- The God of the Holy Qur'ân," paragraph 6, in online article, "Who is Allah?")

Although the reference to "His Essence, Haqîqat al-Dzât," might imply that Allah has a 'nature', Omar is quick to insist of Allah that "There is nothing like Him (He is beyond all comparison)" ("2. Allâh -- The God of the Holy Qur'ân," paragraph 4). If Allah is beyond all comparison, then he can be known only through revelation, as Omar also insists, but such a revelation would not touch on Allah's nature in any substantive sense but merely inform us of how he intends for us to submit to his will, which cannot be questioned.

But this is a complex issue requiring closer philosophical reasoning, and I'm not sure that I'm up to the task, though my friend Bill Vallicella would certainly be able to handle it.