The Pope, Dialogue and Idolizing the Mind
An opinion formed before knowledge will find the knowledge it needs. You would think that the Pope had spent his whole speech attacking Islam. The Pope is the Pope. We didn't expect him to praise Islam.
Our love and respect for Jesus is due to his being our prophet, not "their son-god." The demand for an apology was fair, but fair demands should be made within a framework of just principles.
A speech explaining how compatible Christianity is with reason was prepared for the Pope to present at the university where he taught for years. While reading the speech text, the Pope must have realized that references to Islam exceeded their purpose because he deviated from the text. For example, even though it wasn't in the original text, he called the words of Byzantine Emperor Manuel Paleologus II "heavy expressions" while he was talking. Also in the text there were sentences regarding Ibn Hazm by Adel Theodor Khoury, who quoted from Paleologus' words. Here the Pope made his own interpretation and criticized Ibn Hazm and some Christian theologians for seeing God free from the limits of the mind.
It is normal for these sentences to make Muslims uncomfortable, and a demand for an apology was fair. However, the part of the speech not referring to Islam is likely to initiate a lot more serious debate in the Christian world. Perhaps for the first time in the history of Christianity, a pope praised Greek reason this much. He said that today's Christianity is standing not in the way that Jesus preached it, but mixed with Greek philosophy that it met in Alexandria and that this produced the "ideal Christianity." For a religion that has always stood on dogma throughout history, the highest spiritual leader's devastating dogma, his identifying the limits of God's will with the limits of man's mind, and his elevating Greek rationality above revelation (softening it with "the good parts") are not the kinds of things that traditional Christian theology can bear.
Turning again to the lines regarding Islam, let's underline the parts that the media exaggerated. First, let's note that the Pope's quotation from Adel Theodor Khoury's book is similar to Bektasi's taking the "don't pray" verse as evidence and then saying "Have I memorized the Quran" in regard to the rest of the verse. In this respect, Khoury, who is the most successful translator of the Quran's meaning into German and who gives importance to Islam-Christianity dialogue, was very upset and should be the first to deserve an apology.
The Pope's referring to an apologetic text from the 14th century on Christianity's internal theological debate regarding the issue of God and rationality opens the door to debate on his academic consistency. Of course, he is aware of this and attributes the lines implying that Manuel II has convinced his Muslim counterpart to the fact that the book was written by Manuel II. Still, it is an unforgivable mistake for the Pope's taking an Orientalist position that the verse, "there's no compulsion in religion," came during the Meccan period when the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was weak and didn't have many followers and that his attitude changed as soon as he grew stronger.
In recent months I interviewed one of our theologians who is critical of dialogue activities and published the interview in "Aksiyon" magazine. I explained that in America and Europe Christians had allowed Muslims, particularly Turkish Muslims, to take over the initiative in dialogue activities, and that, for this reason, the current Pope doesn't get much pleasure from dialogue. He said to me, " "I really like this Pope." The Pope dear to opponents of dialogue is saying some things that exceed their purpose; the same opponents of dialogue are criticizing those who elected the Pope, as if they were pro-dialogue. Take care; even Manuel Paleologous II, the author of the words the Pope referred to as "heavy," found a Muslim to "make dialogue" with.
- Created on .