eloquence is not reason

[sophiaserpentia]

In the last week there has been a storm in the mass media about controversy over some comments Pope Benedict made about Islam.

You can read a translated text of the lecture at the heart of the controversy here.

Reading this text, it is quite immediately obvious that the mass media -- surprise, surprise! -- is mis-portraying the essence of the controversy. Muslims are not just 'overly sensitive' and protesting the Pope's obscure quotation of a medieval emperor -- though certainly that quotation doesn't help.

This entire lecture is a diatribe about the superiority of Catholic "reason" over the explicit irrationality of Islam and the godlessness of secularism. And this came from the Pope.

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.

The violent actions of some Muslim protesters -- possibly including the assassination of a nun in Somalia (the perps gave no explicit motive) -- doesn't make it any easier for Muslim scholars to rebut Benedict's comments. (Nor, for that matter, does reality.)

But it would be nice to see the Pope demonstrate in what universe the Catholic Church has adhered to this lofty idea of Catholicism as a non-violent marriage of faith and reason. Not this universe, to be sure.

Catholics have been saying this about themselves since Thomas Aquinas. I've yet to see how it really works. Instead, what i see is an abundance of irrationality which is defended very eloquently.

Eloquence is not reason.

One more time: eloquence is not reason.

Reason demands full openness of discourse, inside and outside the organization. The Catholic Church does not have this. There is no recourse for dissenters or even, in some cases, for innovators; they are censured, cajoled by superiors to 'humbly reconsider' or to 'respect tradition,' forcibly silenced, denied participation in sacraments, defrocked, excommunicated. In previous eras, they were also tortured or executed.

Coersion of dissidents is defended with eloquent expositions, which are then described as "reason" because they are moderate and intellectual in tone.

If 'Truth' will truly prevail, then there is no reason to fear any line of inquiry. So why does the Church suppress any critique of doctrine? This is not a marriage of reason and faith. What kind of faith turns away from the truly difficult questions?

The Catholic Church is guilty of the same charge Benedict makes of Islam.

This Pope is fond of warning about dangers he perceives in secularism -- and i think he perceives the same danger i do, of meaning being driven out of our cultural discourse. I am an atheist and i can see the same dangers, but i do not think the solution is for humanity to seek refuge in the deafening echo chambers of religion or tradition.

Comments

Pope Offends Jews Too

[alobar.livejournal.com]

"...Pope Benedict has managed to antagonise two major world faiths within a few months. The current anger of Muslims is comparable to the anger and disappointment felt by Jews after his visit to Auschwitz in May. He gave a long address at the site of the former concentration camp and failed to mention anti-semitism, and offered no apology - whether on behalf of his own country, Germany, or on behalf of the Catholic Church. He acknowledged he was a 'son of the German people' ... 'but not guilty on that account'; he then launched into a highly controversial claim that a 'ring of criminals' were responsible for nazism and that the German people were as much their victims as anyone else. This is an argument that has long been discredited in Germany as utterly inadequate in explaining how millions supported the Nazis. Given his own involvement in the Hitler Youth movement as a boy, and his refusal to make a clean breast of the Vatican's acquiescence in the horrors of Nazism by opening its archives to historians, this was a shabby moment in Catholic history."

Full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1875791,00.html

Re: Pope Offends Jews Too

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I think this speech that ticked off the Muslims has a very subtle anti-Semitism to it. I'm surprised i haven't heard anything about this, but it wouldn't surprise me if no one else caught it. Throughout, Benedict spoke of Hellenism as the source of "reason" within Catholic culture and mentioned Islam and Protestantism as attacks on Hellenic reason. He didn't mention Judaism, but then, he doesn't have to, if he speaks of Hellenism as the primary source of reason in a religion that started out as a Jewish movement.

Re: Pope Offends Jews Too

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I think this is the archive that the Church did actually recently make available for examination.

...

All of what i wrote above is not to say that the Pope's characterization of Islam is wrong. From what i know, he's essentially correct: "Islam" means surrender, referring to salvation as submitting to the utter superiority of god. He just chose a particularly brusque way of saying it.

He offended Buddhists also

[beowulf1723.livejournal.com]

He also quoted in the same article as referring to Buddhism as "masturbation for the mind."

He's working real hard at undoing 50 years of ecumenical work by his predecessors.

Re: He offended Buddhists also

[alobar.livejournal.com]

He was trained in the Hitler youth, wasn't he.

[susiebeeca.livejournal.com]

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

The "last" Crusade took place in 1396, a couple of years before the emperor's remarks. It could not but have been fresh in the emperor's consciousness.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

You know, the more i think about this aspect of it, the more pissed off i get. Benedict chose, of all things, a quote from a Byzantine emperor who wrote about the evils of religious war while an invasion instigated by the Pope was being caried out against the Ottoman Empire, criticizing the Muslims for the wrongness of their religious war, in what was supposedly a dialogue with a Muslim.

To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, of all the texts and all the contexts in the world he had to wander into this one.

Maybe he forgot momentarily that he was the Pope and wanted to pretend he was simply a lecturer again, like in the good old days when everything he utters doesn't get heard on the world stage.

[pooperman.livejournal.com]

Your last sentence strikes me--I find it difficult to believe it was a simple slip of mind and that he had no motive in mind. He might have misjudged the effect and not got what he wanted, but I do wonder what he was after, because he had to know it would cause a stir.

And I think he meant to cause a stir.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Considering his non-apology "apologies," i'm really beginning to wonder.

Your comment below, about Benedict representing profound change in the Catholic order that hasn't even really begun to manifest yet, has me wondering. I'm not really knowledgeable enough to follow that thought any further, but i can imagine some pretty ominous ramifications.

[pooperman.livejournal.com]

I like to quote Cicero sometimes:

"If the truth was self-evident, there would be no need for eloquence."

Perhaps I should read the translation of Benedict's speech that you did, since the one I read was too mangled to be confused with "eloquent". The Germans have a way of being quite confusing when translated (although I admit it was easier to digest than a translation of Kant), I am not sure they are any better if you speak the language.

What struck me about the speech was its intellectualism, which seems to me to be a pretty big difference in style when one compares it to the more inspirational/spiritual tone of JPII.

I didn't get the same thing from the speech as you did, however. I imagine it was because I approached it differently. Benedict caught my attention with something interesting early on about the Septuagint and a comparison of Platonism to Cartesianism, as well as a contrast of these two against a neoplatonism/hellenism of the foundations of the early Catholic church (before the Greek/Roman schism).

Above you noted a subtle anti-semitism, which was interesting, because I did notice that in how the discussion of the Septuagint (Greek) OT and how it compared to the available Hebrew texts. I think there may be something in that, something I can't put my finger on at the moment.

I can't help but wonder if Benedict is a profound shift from JPII and this speech may be a good indication in that shift. Not an opposing shift, just a new tangent that makes Benedict unique and not simply a JPIII or something like that.

Not necessarily a good shift, but a shift, and an important one that may not be noticed for a few decades.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Benedict's comments about the Septuagint are interesting, and i think the focus on his comments about Islam unfortunately clouded this over.

Benedict is essentially claiming that the Septuagint was not just translated, but it was "revealed." This may be the only stance that he can take, really, since the gospels reflect differences with the Tanakh that can only be attributed to translation errors in the Septuagint (such as the "virgin birth").

It's remarkably similar to something that Karl Barth would say, though, isn't it? ::strokes chin::

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

So, why didn't he just say "reason is what I say it is." Woulda made the speech much less boring and less controversial - at least as far as insulting specific groups. Because really, that is what it comes down to.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

It's more like "pay no attention to the ugly history behind the curtain." Benedict wants to claim that the Catholic Church is on this wonderful moral high road but, like a cartoon character, has stepped up into thin air because he neglected to notice that the staircase didn't rise along with him.

[ulyart.livejournal.com]

I am an atheist and i can see the same dangers

This was a surprise to me. Because you discuss Christianity and Gnosticism so often in your journal, I had assumed you were engaging them from the inside.

Was this always your position or have you changed since you've been blogging here? I've often criticized religious dogma in my journal, because I think beyond a certain point they actually prevent us from accessing the divine.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

It's only been very recently that i've come to think of myself as an atheist. There is a glimmer of agnosticism there, but i finally came to the conclusion that the idea of divinity reflects a dangerous dualism, and that whatever i think might be "there" can't really fit any reasonable definition of the word "god" or "divine." So i am open to the idea -- more than open -- that there is something greater of which we are a part, but i do not subscribe to the notion that it is in any way supernatural. Not sure if that makes sense...

I have spent a lot of time examining Christianity and Gnosticism but have been trying to wean myself from approaching everything "big" through these lenses.

[barriequark.livejournal.com]

You know its funny. I hate the word "Supernatural". I mean, look at the very concept of it. If something exists, then neccesarily it must be part of nature. Just because you don't understand something doesn't negate that fact.

All these people running around screaming about the "Supernatural" are missing the damn point. There is an infinite universe and quite likely , infinite universes, in which all possible things can and probably do exist. To state for certain that your way is the one, right, true, and only way is to be grossy arrogant and misinformed. I was raised Jewish and see myself that way, but I am very much aware that "Jewish" is but one point of view in an infinite sea of possibilites.

When I am studying another faith or point of view, I have to put aside the lens of my upbringing and try to see through this new perspective. That is the job of a scholar. The Pope has failed this mandate. to say that he is an intellectual, or a scholar, is to insult the profession. He manipulated the facts to suit his bias. An unforgivable sin for a researcher. He is a lecturer, a regurgitator of rhetoric, a propagandizer. I have no faith in his judgement, or in his compassion, and all the JPII did, he will undo as quickly as he can.

[sassenach1970.livejournal.com]

"Jesus was said to have put an end to worship in favor of morality. In the end he was presented as the father of a humanitarian moral message. "

Did anyone see the irony in this?

It seemed to me like he wasn't just picking on the Muslims or Jews, that he was lumping the Religious/Political aspect of Christianity with that violence as well -- but he seems to be more of an amateur philosopher than anyone with any sense of how to deal with politics.... which is good in some ways, but probably leads to a lot of misunderstandings....

It reminds me of the bumpersticker/prayer: "Jesus, please protect me from your followers"