"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 (σὺν λόγω) 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 Christian God is Truth itself, and doesn't contradict himself. The Muslim view is distinct:
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 practise idolatry.
If that's true, one would think the jihadists might have a little more Western-style self-doubt, no? Allah says you get 72 virgins for jihad, but he might be playing a cruel prank? But to return to Benedict, this little observation is the springboard to one of his characteristic brilliant summaries of intellectual history --which you'll have to read on your own, it's no good trying to give excerpts-- but I would say in a nutshell he is making the same argument Joseph Pieper makes in "Is There A Christian Philosophy?" Namely, that it is close-minded and anti-intellectual for philosophy to close itself off a priori from the insights and experiences of the religious traditions of humanity.
I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: “It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss”. The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur – this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time.
Thus
“Not to act reasonably (with logos) is contrary to the nature of God”, said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.Vatican Radio also has all the other texts, so you should poke around and find your favorites. Everything is splendid.
Update: Heh. Ninme posted this AFP headline for their story on this address:
Pope enjoys private time after slamming Islam.
