Not surprisingly, the pope's last lecture at the University of Regensburg has found appeal within Arab media services, as the we-are-under-attack feeling is getting stronger among Muslims day after day. And as every other event of our life, different interpretations by the major media services plays - unfortunately - an important role in formulating one's opinions about these events.
I first heard the news on some popular Arab TV, It sounded as if the pope has called for an urgent press conference where he criticized Islam, accused Muslims of endorsing terrorism and more of this Bush-y blabla. It's simply not the case.
In my opinion, the lecture has much more to say, especially about the relationship between faith and reason, between Christianity and Greek philosophy, between theology and modernity.
The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them.
His message was clear: Christian faith is not in contradiction with reason, they are in perfect harmony. The church sees no shame in admitting it's profound roots in the Greek philosophy while also asserting it's own importance to scientific reasoning:
Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought - to philosophy and theology.
I'm not defending the guy, but I insist that things should be considered maturely, and that people should not take a defense position. Being aware of the sensitivity of this issue, the pope twice said "I quote" before mentioning the 6 centuries old controversial commentary about Jihad, which clearly indicates that he does not nessessarily endorse this historical point of view as a whole. Still, he stated that "The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature." Then he continued his arguments about the reason/faith question and the other points I mentioned above. After all, Christianity and Islam are different regarding a lot of subject, this is not a shame, this is not a reason for disrespect or a reason of conflicts between followers of each religion. We should not pretend to agree on stuff while we really don't. This is a precondition to any mature dialogue between us, we should admit our differences.
Now Suppose the pope really gave all this lecture just to criticize Islam, What would the reaction be? The same as the reaction to the cartoons thing? This is maybe the most ironic thing that would ever happen, as it will be nothing but a direct proof of the point he was - supposingly - criticizing: violence!
Technorati Tags: Pope, Benedict, Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, News, Media, Arab, Violence, Reason, Faith, Lecture.
