Benedict XVI Denounces the Absence of “Reason”
among the Moslems
23 September 2006
The speech given by Pope Benedict XVI on September 12 at the University
of Ratisbon (Regensburg) has caused quite a fuss, but how many of
those who have commented on it have read it in its original German version
and in its entirety? One may well fear that the partial translations readers
have been able to consult in the French press will not enable them to form
an exact idea of it; as for the translation, said to be complete, that
Le Monde made available on the Internet, the first words and some
brief fragments elsewhere in the speech are missing.
Pronounced in German, the speech bears the title “Faith, Reason and the
University — Memories and Reflections”. It can be found on the Vatican’s
website under copyright of the Libreria Editrice Vaticana
* . Taking the podium in the great
lecture hall (Aula Magna) of the University in question, the Pope
spoke to a select audience. His first words were “Your Eminences, Your Magnificences,
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen”; among those “Magnificences”
was the University’s chancellor. The orator, addressing himself to a gathering
made up for the most part of academics and scientists, dotted his talk throughout
with Greek and Latin phrases. The substance and tone of his statements were
those of a theology professor inclined to pedantry and, at times, obscure.
An examination of the vocabulary allows one to make some surprising observations.
The first of these is the frequency with which a certain word came to this
theologian, who made a vibrant defence of it: the word “reason” (Vernunft),
repeated about forty times in a text of six pages! The second is the frequency
with which this representative of a religion said to be universal employed
words that give the impression that Greece, Rome and Europe are the centre
of the world: all by themselves, the words evoking Greek, Hellenic or Socratic
thought appeared about thirty times! The speaker’s guiding idea was that
the Roman Catholic religion is the only one where faith and reason are ideally
joined: “biblical faith” (the Jewish Old Testament and the New Testament)
and “Greek questioning”. It is, according to him, to Greece that this religion
is indebted for having brought it the so precious asset of the “logos” (reason).
Such a heritage of biblical and Greek riches, such a treasure of faith and
reason united are to be preserved in the face of all the heresies or reformist,
modernist, scientistic or irrational driftings that the Roman Catholic Church
may have experienced in the past and by which it is threatened today.
But, in contrast, the Moslem religion is, for its part, described as
being deprived of a whole important segment of that treasure, for it lacks
“reason”, also called the “logos”.
An Attack on the Moslem Religion, Addressed to a Persian
In the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of his speech, the
Pope plainly lays his cards on the table. He cites an “erudite Byzantine
emperor” of the Christian faith, Manuel II Paleologus, who, towards the
end of the 14th century, in a controversy with an “educated Persian”
of the Moslem faith, apparently demonstrated the superiority of his religion
to that of his interlocutor, for in the Christians’ conception of God there
is room for reason whereas with Mohammed there is no reason. Here, in their
entirety, are those two introductory paragraphs:
I was reminded of all this [concerning the University where I used to
teach] recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster)
of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks
near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and
an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth
of both [religions]. 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 [sic: the German text has fasziniert (fascinate),
a decidedly stronger word] and which can serve as the starting-point
for my reflections on this issue.
In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις – [dialexis] controversy) edited
by professor khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war [
Jihad]. The emperor must have known that sura 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"
[Jews and Christians] and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor
with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness which leaves us astounded, on
the central question about the relationship between religion and violence
in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and
there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to
spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed
himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading
the faith through violence is something unreasonable. 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 (σὺν λόγω [sun logoo,
with reason]) 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...".
A Confirmed and Insistent Attack
Supposing that this controversy did indeed take place and that the learned
Persian really existed, it is easy to imagine what the latter might have
retorted to the Emperor on the subject, for example, of the Crusades and
the Inquisition as far as the propagation of faith by violence was concerned.
In this respect it is surprising that Benedict XVI, wondering about “Faith
and Reason”, should not have made the least allusion in all his talk to
certain dark pages of Christian or papal history. He declares himself to
be “fascinated” by the Christian Emperor’s reflections on the Jihad, a word
understood here in its sense of “holy war”. He is so “fascinated” that he
has decided to choose this imperial and Christian reflection as the starting
point of his talk. Thus for him this is not a matter of a mere detail or
a remark made by the way. When he specifies that the Emperor “addresses
his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness which leaves
us astounded”, he is not voicing any reservation on the merits of the ideas
but rather slipping in a comment on the form, that is, on the harsh frankness
of the time. Manuel II’s words “fascinate” him to such an extent that, in
the whole of his speech, he names the Emperor (der Kaiser) ten times,
including a first mention in his introduction and a final one in his conclusion.
In the paragraph following the two paragraphs reproduced above, he declares:
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.
By way of contrast, the Pope names a Moslem author, Ibn Hazm, for whom the
divine absolute is such that God could, if he wished, do without reason
altogether, even choose not to be bound by his own word and so refrain from
revealing the truth to us. Then the Pope returns to that Kaiser,
so close to his heart, and quotes him anew on the subject of God who, according
to the Christian conception, “acts σὺν λόγω [sun logo], with
logos. Logos means both reason and word.” In the sixth paragraph,
he again attacks Ibn Hazm and the latter’s conception of a God whose “transcendence
and otherness are so exalted”. At the very end of his speech, it is in the
following terms that he brings up the Emperor one last time:
The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which
underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage
to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur
- this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith
enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act
with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according
to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor.
It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite
our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is
the great task of the university.
Thus the Pope wishes to see a “dialogue of cultures”, including the Islamic
culture, but, as may be seen, he does so under the invocation, in a way,
of a Christian Emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, for whom the religion of Mohammed
is nonsensical. Besides, that dialogue is apparently to be held on a plane
of faith and reason but in line with the Roman Catholic Church’s understanding
of these. The Pope gives an impression here of speaking with the authority
of the inviting power. To finish, that day in Ratisbon he called on the
university, the scientists and professors to collaborate with him in promoting
a narrowly defined type of “dialogue of cultures”.
Emperor Manuel II, in the late 14th century, addressed that kind
of message, in a brusque tone, to a Persian of the Moslem faith. Pope Benedict
XVI, for his part, at the dawn of the 21st century, has addressed,
in a different tone, the same message to the whole world but not without
targeting in particular the Moslem world and, perhaps, even more particularly,
the Persia or Iran of today.
One may wonder what motives and which counsellors were able to push him
to develop such a lecture to the attention of the whole world before a German
university. Did he seriously think that the Moslem world would accept to
hear and receive his lesson without making vigorous protests?
A part of the Moslem world has reacted with fury, thus giving the impression
of religious fanaticism. At their end, the attitude of many Westerners has
betrayed consternation or embarrassment. On the other hand, a fair number
of Jews have been unable to hide their satisfaction before going to the
aid of the Pope upon seeing the Moslem authorities and crowds vilify him.
Up to this time Benedict XVI had never ceased, with a thoroughly German
submission, making reassuring gestures towards the Jews but, going about
it rather awkwardly, he had displeased them. In particular, during his visit
to Auschwitz, he thought he would be doing his duty to Jewish memory properly
by laying the blame for “the crime” of the Shoah on a “group of criminals”;
he was mistaken: the Jews did not see things that way, since for them it
is the German people in their entirety who must have the mark of Cain branded
on them. In short, this Pope seems given to making statements which subsequently
oblige him, first, to deplore the fact that his intentions have been incorrectly
grasped, then second, to voice regrets for the “misunderstandings” thus
created. That said, one very moderate reaction to his speech and to the
showings of anger that ensued is worth noting: that of a Persian, an Iranian,
the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is that of a particularly
subtle mind that the Western media like to describe as fanatical. Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad recommended coolness and calm to all concerned.
One Possible Explanation
Personally, I have sought above all to know exactly what the Pope said
in his Ratisbon address. Having read the text, my general conclusion is
that he was indulging in a sort of open lecture on theology, philosophy
and morality aimed mainly at the world’s Moslems. Therefore I think that
the media are right when, in their severe summings-up of the Pope’s statements,
they stress the sentence where Manuel II Paleologus attacked the religion
of Mohammed in a frank and brusque manner: “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.” But,
as for knowing why the Pope attacked the Moslem religion in this way, I
note that the commentators I have had occasion to read or hear have either
not asked themselves the question or have failed to provide a clear answer.
Calling Benedict XVI a “blunderer” hardly helps us understand why it was
that this specific “blunder” and not some other was committed.
Perhaps his ill-advised assault on the Moslem religion came from the
old man’s anguish at noting in Europe, the cradle of Christianity, the collapse
of Christian observance and the rise of Moslem observance. It may be that
he fears for a future where he sees that conflict of civilisations, cultures
and religions of which certain people speak these days, and so imagines
that the main danger comes from the poor of the East rather than from an
exceedingly heavily armed West and the colonial Jewish State established
in Palestine. He might finally harbour a weakness for political conservatism,
even neo-conservatism of the Jewish-American fashion. Nothing of all this
can be ruled out but perhaps also — and this will be my own hypothesis —
the cause is to be sought in a distant past when the young German Josef
Ratzinger wore, unwillingly, he tells us, the uniform of the Hitler Youth.
For more than sixty years, burnt by that tunic of Nessos, he has felt, like
any German, overwhelmed by the mortal sin that his country, it is alleged,
committed, that of the alleged genocide of the Jews. His predecessors John
XXIII, Paul VI and especially John Paul II piled up all possible forms of
allegiance to the Jews, even the most preposterous. John Paul II went so
far as to make of Auschwitz a new Calvary. At the Jews’ request he chased
the Catholic nuns out of the new Calvary and had the Christian crosses removed.
He canonised Edith Stein and, for the occasion, dared to state in his homily
that the saint had met her death in a “gas chamber”. It is in this atmosphere
of penitence and of sickly repentance that J. Ratzinger has himself laboured
at the Vatican in the shadow of his predecessors. Elected Pope in his turn,
he was not about to break with precedent. On the contrary, now that the
whole world was to know of his past membership in the diabolical Hitler
Youth organisation, he had imperatively to carry still further his allegiance
to the people describing itself as the whole world’s martyr par excellence.
Benedict XVI is among those who “pray for peace in the Middle East” but
who do so whilst placing the Jewish coloniser and the colonised Palestinian,
whether Moslem or Christian, on the same level. In his eyes, the Jewish
Army and the Jewish State do not appear to bear any particular responsibility
in the catastrophic situation in the Near and Middle East. Thus there remain
those fanaticised Moslems, impervious to reason, to the “logos” of the Greeks,
Europe and the West, and they are that way in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon
as well as in a lot of other Islamic countries and, perhaps especially,
in Iran. As he sees it, the right thing to do is to bring these poor people
to reason.
It is perhaps here that the German Pope’s bottom purpose lies: to
ingratiate himself with the Jews by denouncing Moslem fanaticism. But
J. Ratzinger went about it too naïvely, too clumsily. Overbidding did not
pay off and the venture failed. Today some Jewish intellectuals are going
so far as to find fault with him for it. Tomorrow, when he has to calm the
storm, he will explain to us that he did not say… what he, nonetheless,
did actually say.
Additional note on Benedict XVI and the Old Testament:
If there exists a work in which calls often arise for hatred, vengeance
and the physical extermination of entire peoples (men, women, children,
including the aged and the infants, not to mention herds of livestock),
it is indeed the Bible of the Jews, that Old Testament mentioned eulogistically
by Benedict XVI. According to Isaiah (13, 15-16, 18), Babylon shall
be punished: “ Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every
one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword. Their children also
shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled,
and their wives ravished… [The Jews] shall have no pity on the fruit of
the womb”. According to Hosea ( 13, 16 ), “Samaria shall become desolate;
for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their
infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped
up”. According to Nahum (3, 6, 10), “I will cast abominable filth
upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock. […]Yet
was she [Nineva] carried away, she went into captivity: her young
children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets”. According
to Psalm 137, David, addressing the land of Edom, declares: “Happy shall
he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”
According to the First Book of Samuel (1 8 , 25 , 27
), King Saul will give David the hand of his daughter Michal on condition
that David bring him “a hundred foreskins of the Philistines [Palestinians],
to be avenged of the king's enemies”; David and his men “slew of the Philistines
[Palestinians] two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they
gave them in full tale [tally] to the king.” As for the Book of Esther,
it relates the “joy and gladness” felt by the Jews in exacting revenge.
Thanks to the intrigues of Esther and Mordecai in the court of Ahasuerus
(Xerxes), King of the Persians (Iranians), Haman is hanged and all his property
conveyed to Esther, who puts Mordecai in charge thereof; Mordecai subsequently
takes Haman’s place “next unto king Ahasuerus”. Then Esther and Mordecai
also obtain permission for the Jews to slaughter all their enemies: “And
in every province, and in every city, whithersoever the king's commandment
and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day.
And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews
fell upon them [like the hood upon the head of a man sentenced to hang]”
(8, 17). These are the days of Purim, plural of Pur, “that
is, the lot [cast]” (Esther 9, 24), signifying “destiny”. The ten
sons of Haman are in turn hanged as well. The Jews kill at least 75,300
Persians. And so it is that, still in the 21st century, every
year the Jews, exchanging gifts, joyously celebrate Purim. One could go
on citing quite a few other pages of the Bible where an invitation to murder
or mass slaughter is expressed. As for the Talmud, it evokes a Jesus Christ
condemned forever to boil in excrement. On this last point one may consult
Der Babylonische Talmud [Gittin, V, VI, Fol. 57], neu
übertagen durch Lazarus Goldschmidt, Berlin, Jüdischer Verlag, 1932, p.
368, where the expression is: “ mit siedendem Kote ”. One may also
refer to The Babylonian Talmud [Seder Nashim, Gittin,
Fol. 57] under the editorship of Rabbi Dr I. Epstein, London, The Soncino
Press, 1936, p. 260-261, where the expression employed is “with boiling
hot excrement ”. The cult of violence in Jewish religious tradition and
practice has been the subject of numerous publications by Jewish and non-Jewish
authors. One of the latest to address it is Elliot Horowitz in his book
entitled Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence
(Princeton University Press, May 2006, 344 p.). Some Jews are uneasy at
seeing “the people of the Book” ritually celebrate those orgies of vengeance
as they do.
It is with this “people of the Book” that the Palestinians currently
have to deal. It would be good to hear the Pope, now so preoccupied with
Moslem violence, speak on that score.
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