Soap Box
It is unfortunate that the Pope’s words to a university audience at Regensburg have been taken so out of context, to merely inflame tensions with Islam. In his speech, written for an academic audience, it is clear that the Pope is actually trying to enhance thinking about the use of reason, so theology can be used in a richer way for the important dialogues about faith for our times.
The Pope examines the different ideas of God revealed by the discussion between the emperor and the educated Persian. For the emperor, violence is not reasonable, and is incompatible with the nature of God; whereas in Muslim teaching, God is transcendent and not bound by western ideas of reason. The Pope then goes on to ask the question: “Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?”
Pope Benedict continues his speech giving an explanation of how Greek thought became joined to early Christian faith. He then explores ways in which some have more recently sought to disengage Greek thinking from Christianity, both at the time of the Reformation and in more recent theology. The Pope discusses how this then limits our understanding of reason, and relegates questions of ethics to the merely subjective. He makes it clear that he is not trying to turn the clock back on thinking, but that he believes that faith and reason need to come together in a new way.
He points out that ‘the world’s profoundly religious cultures’ see the exclusion of the divine from reason as an attack on their fundamental beliefs. Pope Benedict exhorts his audience to examine their beliefs about reason. He says “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 culture.”
It is clear that Pope Benedict wants Western theologians to examine the ways they limit reason. He sees it as important that “the whole breadth of reason” is used to enter into the debates of our time. He concludes his speech: “It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.”
Once again it appears that our “soundbite” media has led to an unfortunate inflammation of tension. The Pope’s clear intention was to challenge his university audience to examine their ideas about reason, so that more fruitful dialogue between cultures can ensue. Instead, the thrust of his speech has been totally lost in an irrational response to out of context quotes.
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