eloquence is not reason
Sep. 19th, 2006 04:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaIn 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 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.
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.
