But the difference between the two conceptions of God is not something that would require you to dig up Manuel II’s dialogue or be familiar with the intricacies of Islamic theology. The crucial difference is that for Christianity, as expressed through the categories of Greek language and Hellenistic philosophy, God is His own Word, which is Reason (Logos), Who is His co-essential Son and eternally One with Him from before the ages, whereas Allah’s word is the eternal Qur’an, which has no obvious or necessary relationship to reason, and which he could nonetheless repudiate at any time if he so chose. Put more dramatically, Christians believe that God gave His own Reason for our sakes that we might become like Him, while Muslims believe that they ought to obey and submit to the will of Allah even if he were to command them to do the most unreasonable things. As the suppression of the Muta’zila shows, this obedience even extends to the diminution of man’s own use of reason in understanding God.
The supreme irony, of course, is that the Pope main point was that a religion which is not in harmony with reason, which believes in a God who can contradict himself in the capricious exercise of Supreme Power, and which rules and converts by means of violence, is a religion that cannot, in the end, either survive or be true. He was speaking there, not simply or even primarily of Islam, but of the post-modern relativistic West which has likewise abandoned both faith and reason. If the Islamists would use their heads, they would see a powerful critique of the Great Satan in the words of the Pope. But when you abandon faith and reason, whether in the East or the West, that sin makes you stupid: stupid enough to print simplistic headlines that inflame Islamists and stupid enough to have hysterics and threaten yet again because your brittle little religion can’t hold up to some questions and criticism.
Stupendously Stupid Summation:
In clinging to theology and orthodoxy, the bookish Benedict has shown little regard for media management in getting his message across, unlike the communications-savvy John Paul II. (Via Kathy Shaidle)
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