Archives for September 2006

September 15, 2006

The Pope, Islam, Reason

There is only one Google "Top Stories" category this morning: "Muslims' anger at pope is growing," "Muslim leaders accuse Pope of bigotry," "Islam row raises pope safety fears," "Turkish lawmaker compares pope to Hitler," and, of course, "all 894 related."

The source of the anger derives, unsurprisingly, from a speech Pope Benedict XVI gave at the Unviersity of Regensburg in Germany on September 12, where the Pope quoted from Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus 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.

Naturally enough, many papers are mistakenly reporting these words as belonging to the Pope, and Muslim leaders (as well as state leaders in predominantly Muslim countries) the world over are condemning the Pope's words as bigotry. And naturally enough, Catholic apologists are breathlessly responding that the Pope was only quoting a 14th century emperor (and Crusader).

The speech itself is academic and opaque--discerning the context for the quote is difficult because of its historical reliance. And the Pope was less interested in bashing Islam than he was assail western secularism, upon which the majority of the speech focuses. The speech appears to largely be an attempt to rescue "reason," presently held hostage by secularists. "Reason's" historical pedigree (from the Greek word "logos", which meant both reason and "word of God") grants it a greater claim to validity, and therefore reason is not possible without God.

A look at the words surrounding the money quote permits the inference that while the Pope's words may indeed be taken out of context, those who would criticize him for insensitivity aren't far off the mark anyway. Here's the same quote, in broader context, and with emphasis added by myself:

In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: There is no compulsion in religion. It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.

But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels," he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words:

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

The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.

Juan Cole knows a great deal more about Islam and the Quran than myself, and concludes that the Pope is simply wrong on the facts, which is certainly believable.

But whether the Pope is misquoting someone who may already be misquoting someone is of little interest to me. I don't have much faith that what was said yesterday is being accurately reported today, much less what religiously driven demagogues allege to be accurate history. History is written by victors, and edited relentlessly (with an eye toward bolstering) by the victors' descendents. What does interest me is what the Pope believed would be the natural consequence of his historical quote mining.

And here is why I think the Pope knew exactly what he was doing when he cited emperor Paleologus: the quote (the only quote referred to in the entire speech) does very little to advance his main thesis concerning the compatibility of reason and religion. This Pope is no idiot--indeed, his intellectual heft is what elevated him to the head of the CDF and now Pope. The speech is largely a jealous railing against the scientific community's exclusion of the divine from the "universality of reason," a theme familiar to us self-identifying western secularists. It's beyond me why the Pope saw it as necessary to characterize Islam as inherently violent while arguing that secular thought mistakenly compartmentalizes religion as subjective and 'outside' of reason. Maybe the Pope is hinting that Islam is less "reasonable" than Catholicism.

But that notion works against the Pope's otherwise carefully chosen non-denominational language, a technique becoming familiar here in the US. Just as evangelical Christians decry secularization as "excluding religion from public life," when all they want is to impose policy on everyone, the Pope really means "Catholicism" when he says "divinity." Where converting people to your faith is a natural end, religion is a zero sum game--there is no room for multiple divinities, and Christians of many stripes have become well versed in using diplomatic language that masks those intentions.

But again, for all his linguistic skill, the Pope simply had to know how his speech was going to be interpreted; the Vatican's aghast official bewilderment notwithstanding. We only have to thank the Intelligent Designer that the evil secularists have stayed their vengeful hand, else we'd have a holy war on our hands, wouldn't we?

posted by scott pilutik at September 15, 2006 01:35 PM

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