Them’s fightin' words, Pope.

So I just read the Pope's homily on reason and faith that has so inflamed the tongues and guns of the world, and I’m fascinated. Though I can (sort of) understand the anger engendered by his quotation [1], it seems to me that his argument for the integrality of reason to faith (and the inherent call for an Islamic Reformation) is vastly more worthy of comment. I have been no fan of this Pope’s policies on most issues, but I admire the intellectual rigor he brings to this lecture. Below, (and at the risk of boring you to tears) is my brief summary of the Pope’s arguments. It’s really just a quick regurgitation that I made to make sure I was paying attention while reading, but I thought there might be some who would find it interesting. Enjoy.

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Pope Benedict (Ratzo)[2] presents a critique of the modern bifurcation between reason and faith. He connects reason with the Greeks and thus refers to this bifurcating process as the "De-Hellinization of Christianity". I won't go into his argument in detail, but my understanding of the idea is that the modern conflation of empiricism with reason has damaged both the sciences and faith. Mostly, I will talk about Ratzo’s contention that faith has been damaged by it's separation from reason and the controversy he engendered.

The Greeks (or at least Socrates) saw humanity as a critter whose telos (ultimate end/goal) was to reach for the divine. Thus humans, though not divine themselves, saw and strove for the divine in a way that separated them from all other creatures. The divine was represented as the Good of which Reason (Logos) was most certainly a part. Thus, the Christian understanding of the divine, of God, was inextricably entwined with the reasonable. Ratzo underscores this intense Greek-ness of Christianity by illustrating that the Biblical usage of “Word” is enhanced and elucidated when we replace it with logos.

“In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God…”

This Hellenization of Christianity, Ratzo argues, was not an arbitrary European acculturation of Christianity’s Middle Eastern roots, but rather an event Divinely inspired and central to both to the evolution of Christianity and European thought.

This then brings us to Islam, and the Pope’s trouble making passages. Early in the homily, Ratzo holds up Islam as an example of a faith unconnected to Reason. He contends that in the Muslim faith, God is absolutely transcendent – beyond the rational. Thus the formulation that reason is humanity’s grasp toward the divine is turned on its head by the Islamic understanding of reason as a human construction designed to limit God’s infinite divinity. To put it another way, Ratzo is arguing that for Christians, Reason is humanity’s path to the divine while for Muslims, Reason shackles the divine to base humanity. Violence (though inherently unreasonable) then becomes a valid tool to facilitate the spread of Islam.


[1] Benedict quotes 14th century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, as saying, "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."

[2] Prior to his Papacy, Pope Benedict was known as Cardinal John Ratzinger. I call him Ratzo a lot.