The scholarly paper presented by Pope Benedict to assembled professors at the University of Regensburg was an unthinking blunder, the misstep of a slightly befuddled old dear who hasn’t yet learned the media ropes. So the clods at the NY Times and various other outlets of the MSM would have us believe.
Read the text!
It is another example of Benedict’s brilliant, tough, incisive mind at work in all its beautiful clarity, and, as such, whether one is of the Catholic persuasion or not, is a pleasure to behold. This mind does not make blunders, this mind makes subtle points, this mind has a plan.
What Benedict has done in these few paragraphs is remarkable. He is calling for a dies academicus on a worldwide basis, a worldwide reasoned discussion of the very underpinnings of belief and faith, for a shared “responsibility for the right use of reason”. He suggests to us that, “it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason”. Taking up this endeavor, Benedict has staked out, very clearly, the wide horizons of the Church’s philosophical ground vis à vis more constricted worldviews, as he defines them, that of Islam, and that of the relativist/multi-culti/Popperian hoards. This is no blunder, it is very closely reasoned, purposeful thinking. The question of whether there is anyone “reasonable” with whom he can have this discussion remains to be answered. The early response is not encouraging.
The brief bits that seem to have the collective knickers of the p.c., relativist NY Times, et al, and the Muslim “street” in a twist treat the relationship between religion and violence, Mohammed’s exhortation to spread the faith by the sword, and our erudite Benedict’s view that, “Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and with the nature of the soul.”, a view echoing that of the Byzantine emperor Paleologus who said, “God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature.” The reactions of Benedict’s hoped for interlocutors speak for themselves. He has set himself a difficult task to try to take up this dialogue, but one worth the doing.
He then goes on to a wide discussion of the hellenistic strand of influence in theology, and the various stages of “dehellenization” in progress. For anyone at all interested in the nexus of faith and reason, or their opposite number, gnosis, Pope Benedict’s paper rewards careful reading with a wealth of ideas to ponder.
On the field of action, confusion reigns. As Ms. Rosett wonders in rightful exasperation, “What does it take for the democratic world to understand?” I would counter that it is not the monolithic democratic world that doesn’t get it, and is thus causing our confusion of response. It is, rather, that part of it lost to the vagaries of the relativist/multi-culti/Popperian worldview and its very narrow horizons (i.e., most of the “elites”, the MSM, the Democratic party en masse, etc.). I leave to her wisdom and courage how best to displace that entrenched worldview, though I suspect that, unfortunately, the eventual weight of events will do the deed.
On the field of ideas, Pope Benedict sees the situation very clearly, and he has now announced his readiness to enter into a reasoned dialogue with both the Muslim world and the relativists of the West. The question is whether either group has the courage or the wits to take up his offer.
