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.

Benedict's misquotes?

In his Regensburg Address, Pope Benedict quoted the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus as translated by Professor Theodore Khoury:

"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.”

You know what happened next. However, it seems that Khoury's translation may have been a bit strong.

Sandro Magister at Settimo Cielo reproduces a letter to the Pope written by don Silvio Barbaglia of the diocese of Novara in which he seeks to correct the translation of the infamous phrase.

According to don Silvio, the context was one of comparison: the ancient Law of Moses and the newer Law of Mohammad, the fact that it was more recent being, according to the Persian in dispute with the emperor, what made it superior.

The emperor replies that whatever Mohammad brought that is new is ... Well, Khoury's version has 'mauvais', which is rendered into English as 'evil', and into Italian as 'cose cattive' (bad things). The original Greek, says don Silvio, uses a comparative, not an absolute adjective, which would best be translated as 'worse' or 'of less import'.

The second adjective, as well, should be understood as comparative, or rather, as a superlative and with its meaning as something like 'dehumanising'. This because he is approaching the main point of his argument: the use of violence in the diffusion of the faith.

So don Silvio would translate it like this:

Show me whatever Mohammad brought that was new, and you will find only worse things and the most dehumanising of all, the command to spread with the sword the faith that he preached.

SFW, I hear you mutter. Not a huge change, I'd agree, but a significant one. In Khoury's version, Mohammad's own additions to the Law of Moses are 'evil and inhuman', and that's it. In don Silvio's version, his contribution is only of less value than the original, not necessarily bad in itself. And the adjective 'dehumanising' applies only to the command about violence.

Mind you, the connection with violence is still made, if anything it is more explicit. So it's good to know that our enthusiastic friends were not shouting for nothing.

Unfortunately, the article is in Italian and doesn't appear on Sandro Magister's English-language blog.