One week ago, the Pope came under scrutiny for a speech about God and reason (the full text can be found here). He begins the body of the speech by describing a dialogue during the late 14th century between āByzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.ā The excerpt in contention was this:
ā[The emperor] 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 (ĻĻ ĢĪ½ Ī»ĻĪ³Ļ) is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…”.
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.ā
But the most unreasonable thing was the reaction to the Popeās speech. Many Muslims were apparently offended for being linked with violence by an emperor from the 14th century. That is understandable; I wouldnāt like it either. But I donāt firebomb churches while insisting I am non-violent.
The point that Islam is linked with violence, whether or not the Pope intended to mean that, has been proven time and time again by the very people who most vehemently contest it.
I am an eighteen-year-old college freshman at UC Berkeley who became interested in politics at a young age. Besides being part of the Berkeley College Republicans, Berkeley Students for Life, and KALX, I enjoy reading, singing, and playing guitar. One of my main interests is sharing my opinion at my personal blog and at the ACYU, of which I am a co-founder. Email me: 
September 20th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
The funny thing is, I’m not sure that a whole lot of Muslims have come out in the media with proof that Islam is a “religion of peace.” Maybe I’m wrong.
September 20th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
Actually, Emperor Manuel’s testiness was perfectly understandable, since his Empire had been under intermittent Muslim attack for 700 years — and, as he could not have known but may well have guessed, had only a few more decades to live.
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:14 am
Katelyn, check this out:
About 1,000 Muslim clerics and religious scholars meeting Thursday in eastern Pakistan demanded the removal of Pope Benedict XVI for making what they called “insulting remarks” against Islam.
Benedict “should be removed from his position immediately for encouraging war and fanning hostility between various faiths” and “making insulting remarks” against Islam, said a joint statement issued by the clerics and scholars at the end of their one-day convention.
The “pope, and all infidels, should know that no Muslim, under any circumstances, can tolerate an insult to the Prophet (Muhammad). … If the West does not change its stance regarding Islam, it will face severe consequences,” it said.
-http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060921/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_pope
(brought to you by The Corner on National Review Online)
September 22nd, 2006 at 2:23 pm
That is a funny link Morpheus. It looks like muslims are like secualrists in that they think the Church is like any other earthly organization–they don’t have divinely-revealed teachings, just papal positions and policies (Benedict’s New Deal! :)) Do they even realize there is no ecclesiastical procedure for removing a pope? Do they care?
September 22nd, 2006 at 4:13 pm
I agree with Scott. It’s ridiculous. Do they really believe that they have sway over who the Pope is? Most likely, they are doing this to gain publicity and for once, to show themselves to be the “victims”.
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:07 pm
Not only that, my friends, but “if the West does not change its stance regarding Islam, it will face severe consequences.”
by the way, I’ve a new post on my blog regarding the proposed “civil unions ban” in Wisconsin (aka Leiniegrad). Shameful self-promotion, I know.
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:16 pm
Please. It’s obvious that the Pope made a poor choice in making this statement (although his opinion concerning religion and violence is perfectly true), and that some Muslims strongly overreacted. It’s difficult to understand, however, how strong Muslims perceive the Pope’s message that Muhammad’s teachings were “evil and inhuman” to be. My understanding is that, for a Christian, such a statement would be akin to calling Jesus’ teachings “evil and inhuman.” Obviously, such a statement by a religious leader who represents 17% of the world’s population would cause a strong reaction. I would also challenge the statement that Muhammad’s teachings are “evil and inhuman”– it seems to me that many of Muhammad’s teachings were in fact very valid, and often very peaceful; (almost) all religions contain some tradition or teaching that can be used to justify violent actions. It seems to be a very inappropriate quote for the Pope to present.
Scott W, I’m surprised that you would criticize a group of Muslims for making such a rational response to the criticism. It seems as though that is the sort of response we should be encouraging, rather than, as Katelyn mentioned, firebombing churches. The article also mentions that “[Pakistan’s] people have held small, peaceful rallies since the publication of pope’s remarks about Islam.”
Morpheus, in my opinion, it is very true that “if the West does not change its stance regarding Islam, it will face severe consequences.” We need to change our policy. Rather than expecting all Muslims to react rationally to our criticism, we need to be working to bridge the gap between us and the Muslims by, as a Vatican spokesperson recently said, cultivating “an attitude of respect and dialogue toward the other religions and cultures”. If not, the divide is only going to grow larger, to the detriment of us all.
September 23rd, 2006 at 5:03 am
Scott W, Iām surprised that you would criticize a group of Muslims for making such a rational response to the criticism. It seems as though that is the sort of response we should be encouraging, rather than, as Katelyn mentioned, firebombing churches. The article also mentions that ā[Pakistanās] people have held small, peaceful rallies since the publication of popeās remarks about Islam.ā
I’m sorry, but while I agree that such a response is better than firebombing churches, there are only two possibilities–ignorance of the Church. Pope’s simply do not get removed from office–even a cursory look into the Church would turn this up. The other more likely option I think is that they do know this. Making the response worthless political grandstanding.
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:24 am
The elite media pride themselves on their erudition and sophisticated nuance, yet when faced with a fantastic address by such an intellectual mind as Pope Benedict’s they find themselves swayed by just two sentences taken out of context. The developing story was based on the inability of certain cultures not to be able to comprehend the arguement and to have claimed to have been offended when no such offense was ever suggested by the remarks given.
What His Holiness was trying to demonstrate was that faith and reason must compliment each other in order that the faithful of any church be able to provide a true witness to the tenets that they profess. Otherwise faith collapses into anarchy.
September 23rd, 2006 at 11:35 am
Scott W: Is that true? Pope John XII seems to have been deposed in 963: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08426b.htm . Still, even though the Pope is generally not removed from office, the response of the Muslim clerics and scholars still seems to be very appropriate. Although they may ignore the rules of the Catholic tradition, their statement simply shows, in a non-violent manner, how strongly they are offended by the Pope’s statements. We can’t have it both ways– we need to respect and encourage such peaceful expression.
Tom, I don’t see the criticism of the Pope being directed to the message of his address. The Pope is being criticized for quoting a 14th-century emperor who, as Bob pointed out, held a rather one-sided view. Even though, as the Pope has stated, he does not hold such views concerning Islam, the use of this quote in his address seems to be inappropriate.
September 24th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Respect and dialogue require reason. We are, on the whole, willing and able to dialogue with respect, but if the other side isn’t, then we get nowhere.
Threatening the West with “dire consequences” doesn’t help the matter, other than to prove our point.
October 17th, 2006 at 11:32 pm
Islam may be violent and all, but it is being taught uncritically in our public schools. Isn’t it time to do something about it, like putting pressure on the school administrators?
It looks like something like that is happening around your neck of the woods: http://blog.historyalie.org/history_a_lie/2006/10/hitting_proisla.html
What do you know about it?