Saturday, September 16, 2006
Reading the whole thing
Ratzinger's Regensburg speech is short and readable. He does in fact criticize the Mohammedan way of thinking, but he spends far more time and effort criticizing the Protestant sola scriptura approach and the modern post-Christian social-gospel mindset. Funny, I don't see any Lutherans or Episcopalians rioting or bombing churches in response. Wonder why?
His conclusion tells us what he's really after:
Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss".
The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur – this is the program with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably (with logos) is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. 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.
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Indeed an excellent point. Dialog is nice, I suppose ... though I've never seen any genuine effect from dialog. However! The middle of a war is simply not the time to propose a dialog. ¶ 11:31 AM
His conclusion tells us what he's really after:
Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss".
The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur – this is the program with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably (with logos) is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. 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.
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Indeed an excellent point. Dialog is nice, I suppose ... though I've never seen any genuine effect from dialog. However! The middle of a war is simply not the time to propose a dialog. ¶ 11:31 AM
