Religion Within Reason

I would recommend this article only for those with a taste for some of the more intricate arcana of religious debate. Normally, my tolerance here is extremely limited, but the issue here thrust itself into our hearts, minds and/or faces in late 2006. It concerns the address given in Regensburg by Pope Benedict concerning the relative status in modern life of Faith and Reason. Most of his remarks were actually addressed to the West and to what he sees as our overly rigid division between the two which thus weakens both.

However, most of the attention went to his characterisation of Islam, or rather, to his quotation of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus. The point he was making was the different status Reason has in the two religions. He said,

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 practise idolatry.

The Pope was, in fact, calling for dialogue on this, and other issues. Dialogue was not the initial reaction he got. However, later, some more sensible people (138 of them, to be precise) wrote the Pope an open letter called "A Common Word between Us and You", which began a correspondence, which will lead to a meeting this spring between the Pope and a delegation from among the writers of the Muslim open letter.

In any case, the article I am steering towards, "Religion Within Reason" by Mark Gould, discusses both the Pope's position and the response contained in the Muslim open letter. I won't try to summarise it; it's way too complex. However, it's worth the effort in order to understand the gap between a religion that has absorbed the Enlightenment and one that hasn't.

Candle in the window

The Church of England just cannot trust itself any more. Time to stop being silly and go back to Daddy.

Radical proposals to reunite Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope are to be published this year, The Times has learnt.

The proposals have been agreed by senior bishops of both churches.

Under this flag

From The Australian

SENIOR Muslim leaders have called for the Australian flag to be flown outside the nation's mosques as an expression of the Islamic community's "loyalty" and commitment to this country.

Muslim clerics yesterday urged Australia's 300,000 Muslims to back the idea as a symbol of "integration" and pride.

Whatever you may think of putting flags on places of worship, this is surely a sign of the right people making the right moves in the current climate. It is also a confirmation that John Howard's hard-headed approach to the dangers of radical Islam is one that gets results.

Yet I can't help recalling my own childhood. More or less up to the generation before mine, Catholics in Australia considered themselves outsiders. The establishment was English and Anglican; 'we' were of Irish background and Catholic (somewhat muted in my case being only a quarter Irish and half Lebanese). 'They' had all the best jobs, made the decisions that counted (always in favour of the Empire) while 'we' stayed in our ghetto and thought more about what the Pope said than the Prime Minister.

There's a story, which may even be true, about Cardinal Manning of Melbourne and his relations with the 'Proddy' powers of the land. After the First World War, the Cardinal wanted to hold a procession for the Catholic fallen. He was told that the procession would have to be headed by the Australian flag. There was a bit of a kerfuffle, but in the end he relented. He found an acquaintance in a pub who had started celebrating several hours previously, put in his hands a flag about the size of a hat, and placed him at the head of the procession. He evidently made it to the end, though he needed some help. Not surprising really. He must have walked twice as far as everyone else what with the weaving and stumbling.

Even when I was young, the idea of putting up that flag with the Union Jack in its top left-hand corner could not even be considered. I wonder how it is now.

Losing faith in godlessness

I have a strong feeling that, if Europe is to rediscover its confidence and its élan, it will, in part, be through a resurgence of the Catholic church. It will not just be that people flee from relativism towards dogma, but rather that they will accept the framework of an intellectual tradition built on the idea of truth achieved through reason though built on faith. Pope Benedict XVI is the embodiment of this tradition; his Regensburg Address was one fruit of it. His church is the daughter of Greek as much as Hebrew civilisation.

It has another strand, one that has an important political dimension.

"Within this history of mankind which is ours," Ratzinger wrote, "there will never be the absolute, ideal condition." Which more or less means: Salvation is not of this world, let's not fool ourselves, but instead try to live truthfully.

Islam is going to attract a lot of adherents among those who previously were drawn to communism and fascism and their millennial promises. In its more radical versions it, too, imagines a world turned upside down, a revolution that will bring about the triumph of virtue. It imposes a discipline that can shut down doubt and uncertainty. It enables righteousness armoured with victimisation. The Catholic church has always postponed the New Jerusalem indefinitely, thus encouraging both hope and caution, essential political qualities.

It has other weapons in its armoury. According to this article, Benedict is planning to bring back some of the more sensual faith aids.

The dramatization of the sacred - Gregorian chants, billowing incense, ritual formulas murmured in Latin, the whole marvelous mystery play with a soupçon of Dan Brown - is a "unique selling point" on the faith market, and should not be thoughtlessly cast aside.