Start with an excerpt from the speech of Pope Benedict 16th at Regensburg, 12 September 2006, just one small part (out of 6 pages, this is on page 2):

Excerpt:

In the seventh conversation [text unclear] edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, 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".

The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.

"God is not pleased by blood --- and not acting reasonably ... is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes:

For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

Comments:

1. The Pope and his apologists have said that one should read the whole speech and put the early part in context. Still, I want to address the Pope's contention that "acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature," and this is an important theme in his whole speech.

2. The Pope has repeatedly said that he was quoting opinions that he did not share. I reject this excuse. He chose to quote them and didn't express any reservations about the opinions in his speech.

3. My biggest concerns are with the final paragraph above. None of the media has complained or even mentioned this paragraph. It's certainly "deeply quoted." Pope Benedict is quoting Theodore Khoury, who is quoting R Arnaldez, who is quoting Ibn Hazn.

4. I find this paragraph disturbing, perversely wrong-headed. First, it is saying (or at least implying) that the God of Islam is a different God from that of Christianity. This is now a tired argument that sensible religious people should reject.

5. Next, the Muslim God is "absolutely transcendent." Our Christian God is only infinite and eternal, encompassing the entire universe, which He created. I just looked up "transcendent" in the dictionary: "beyond the limits of all possible experience and knowledge" (from Kant), etc. Sounds right to me.

6. Next comes the really scary stuff for me. Benedict is not talking about "his" God, but about the separate God of Islam.
   • "His will is not bound up with any of our categories, ..." That's correct. He's not "bound up" with anything, especially not human "categories" (whatever they are).

   • "... even that of rationality." Here the reference must be to "human rationality," which can just barely comprehend simple aspects of our experience. Of course he's not bound up with human rationality.

   • "God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us." This is crazy and irresponsible. The God of the three main religions rooted in the old testament has revealed truth to us through the prophets, and continues to do so through mystics. His world reveals truths to us.

   • "Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry." I have trouble expressing my contempt for this statement, and for anyone who would embrace it to make a point in a speech. You can utter any number of nonsense statements like this one: God might ask you to kill and eat one another. God might enjoy and promote human suffering.

7. People talk about "justice" and they mean "human" justice, which is a flawed concept. "God's justice" is forever beyond our comprehension. In the same way, when Benedict talks about "reason," it's really "human reason." We have the divine gift of reason, but in us it is a flawed and misused tool. "Reason" for God is not anything we could likely understand. For example, we use our reason to understand the world. But God "possesses this universe as a direct experience," so he does not need reason to understand it.

8. If we believed that God's concept of reason was the same as ours, why would we need to ask:

   You are always righteous, O LORD, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? Jeremiah 12:1 (NIV)

9. Pope Benedict is terrified of the God of Islam. He seems to want a God that we can be confortable with, familiar with. I guess there's nothing intrinsically bad about such a naive attitude, but it reminds me of various funny and sarcastic passages in Auden's "For the Time Being": "Leave Thy heavens and come down to our earth ... Become our uncle. Look after Baby, amuse Grandfather ... Be interesting and weak like us."