By the Word or by the Sword

Humiliation in Abu Ghraib.  Koran desecration at Guantanamo.  Mohammed cartoons in Denmark.  Now we have papal insensitivity in Regensburg.  The Horror!!

Did Pope Benedict XVI innocently believe that he was talking to a sophisticated and learned audience at the University of  Regensburg, or did he deliberately poke the ant bed of Islamic intolerance?  In his address to the school where he once taught theology, the Pope refers to a dialogue between a 14th century Byzantine Emperor and a Persian scholar.  Following his address, the "Islamic street" (as defined by the world news media) erupted in protests and outrage.  Here is the excerpt which has caused all the furor:


In the seventh conversation [between Emperor Manuel II and the Persian scholar] 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.

God 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 practice idolatry.

As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. 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, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: In the beginning was the logos. This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts with logos.


This whole argument is far over the heads of the Muslim street punks who scream at the cameras and burn effigies.  The meat of the discussion is whether or not God is limited by His own nature.  It is the same thing as asking if God can create a stone too heavy for Him to lift.  The Christian answer is no, God cannot act against His own nature.  God cannot violate Logos because He IS Logos.  Jesus says that He IS the truth.  God is entirely good and holy because this is His fundamental nature.  In the beginning was the Word, the Logos.  The Pope asserts the congruence between the Jewish and Greek philosophies which culminated in the theology of Paul.

But for the Muslim, God is not bound by anything at all.  He is free to violate His own nature because He is utterly transcendent.  Allah is a profoundly different god than Jehovah.  The God who makes covenants is completely trustworthy because He cannot be otherwise.  The God who spoke to the prophet Mohammed is not obliged to fulfill His covenants, so that truth and rationality, although they may be manifestations of God, are not intrinsic to His nature.  For the Christian, God is King.  For the Muslim, Allah is Absolute Ruler.  This difference in world-view is the heart of the philosophical divide between a diminished  and secularized Christendom and an increasingly malignant Islam.  The Pope asks the question whether or not it is God's nature to bring people to faith by the Word or by the sword.

So with a sound bite from the hungry news media and a radical Muslim clergy bent on forced conversion of the infidel, the weapons of mass deception lie ready to turn on the Roman Catholic church, as well as Christianity in general.  The secular Left screams INTOLERANCE while militant Islam screams BLASPHEMY.  They are taking it to the streets.  It is the latest propaganda campaign in a long series of campaigns, seeking to weaken the resolve of the West by undermining those leaders who speak truth in a pluralistic world.

The Pope has since apologized for quoting from a medieval emperor, declaring that these are not his personal views.  Is it possible that the Pope did not note the irony in quoting the leader of an expiring empire in dialogue with a Persian/Muslim scholar?  Could there be any analogy less apt?  Modern Europe is roughly two generations away from an Islamic takeover.  The ancient heart of Christendom crumbles and the message of the desert Prophet fills the void left by two centuries of intellectual and spiritual suicide.  Rather than issue a clarion call, the Pope selects the most benign venue for his profound remarks, and then recoils because of the barbarians clamoring outside the walls.  "Bring us his head!!" they cry.  So let us be clear -- when Western civilization finally dies, it will be our own leaders who open the gates to the hordes.

Do we worship a God who is bound by His Word, or do we worship a God who makes no Covenant with His people?  This profound schism between Christendom and Islam is a tale of two histories.  On one side we have  arbitrary rulers with absolute authority.  On the other, we have constitutional and democratic governments.  These world views emerge directly from each culture's understanding of the nature of God.  Western civilization has been a continual struggle between the autocratic power of leaders and the constitutional and representational forms of government.  Planting a democracy in Iraq will take at least one generation, but we may not have the patience, or the time.

If the Pope wished to begin a dialogue between Islam and Christianity, his apology has only emboldened the radical theocratic forces who control the streets and the cameras.  It would have been better left unsaid.