REGENSBERG ADDRESS OF POPE BENEDICT XVI

Delivered on September 12, 2006

Comments by Charles P. Poole, Jr.

at St. Joseph Church, Columbia SC, March, 2007

CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Radical Skepticism

3. Christianity and Islam

Supplementary Sections 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 10

4. Accuracy of Astonishingly Abrupt Remark

5. Reasoning that Underlines Astonishingly Abrupt Remark

6. God Described in Scripture

7. Cryptic Comment on the Septuagint

Supplementary Section 5

8. Greek Thought Now Joined to Faith

9. Hellenization

Supplementary Sections 6 and 7

10. Dehellenization

11. Conclusions

1. INTRODUCTION

In this address the Pope’s aim was to discuss the relationship between Faith and Reason in the context of our Christian Heritage. However he began his address with some remarks about Islam, and this is the part of the talk which aroused indignation in Islamic Communities throughout the world. In reviewing this address we will begin by saying a few words about his introductory remarks, then we will comment on relations between Christianity and Islam, and finally we will focus our attention on the main emphasis of his talk, namely Faith and Reason issues, especially as they relate to the Development of Christianity. All are urged to read the original address since we will be quoting extensively from it. The accompanying essay “Supplementary Comments Involving the Regensberg Address of Pope Benedict XVI” will be referred to several times in the present essay to clarify and provide background material for points being made here.

2. RADICAL SKEPTICISM

In his introduction the Pope mentioned that the University is proud to have two theological faculties, one Catholic and the other Evangelical or Protestant. A colleague once reported that “it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God.” Pope Benedict then observed that despite this radical skepticism ”it is still necessary to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith.” Fortunately “within the University as a whole” this “was accepted without question.” Raising this question seemed to be the main rationale behind his address. However, when he raised the question in the context of Islamic viewpoints he offended them, and this resulted in his address acquiring a great deal of notoriety. The object of the present essay is to point out that in reality this address raises issues that urgently need to be discussed. God is a reality, and Christianity’s claim to represent the authentic presence of God in the world needs to be examined, juxtaposed with Islam’s similar claim, using criteria derived from reason.

3. CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

The Pope mentions that Constantinople, the capitol of Eastern Christianity, was under siege from 1384 to 1402, but he kindly refrained from mentioning that this was part of the Moslem Ottoman Empire’s century-long campaign to conquer the Christian countries of Europe. Fifty one years later, in 1453, they finally did capture Constantinople, and it remains a Moslem city today under the name Istanbul. This event would be analogous to Christian armies besieging the Moslem holy city of Mecca for eighteen long years, capturing it, and converting it to a Christian city. No Christian would condone such an action. I mention these events because it is important to realize the context in which the dialogue described by Pope Benedict took place.

Three years before the start of the siege of Constantinople there was a dialogue between “the erudite emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both”, where I quote from the Pontiff’s address. The details of the dialogue were “set down” during the siege itself. The Pope mentions that “on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general” the Emperor made the statement “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 that he preached.” The Pope notes that this statement was made “with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that leaves us astounded.“ Perhaps the pope did not realize that in some parts of the world this astonishment would lead to vehement denunciations, and in some contexts it become the occasion for violence. The emperor goes on to explain that violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul by saying “God is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (συν λὀγω) is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to the 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 . . .”.

There are two questions that come to mind. One concerns the accuracy of the astonishingly brusque remark, and the other concerns the cogency of the reasoning in support of it. We will comment on each in turn.

ATTHIS POINT READ OR DISCUSS

SUPPLEMENT COMMENTS SECTIONS 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 10

4. ACCURACY OF ‘ASTONISHINGLY ABRUPT REMARK’

The emperor claimed that Mohammed promulgated a “command to spread by the sword the faith that he preached.” Is this true? There are many statements in the Qur’an with respect to Jihad by the Sword, or Holy War, and a number of them are listed in the Section 9 of the associated Comments Essay. For example it says in surah #2, verse 190: “Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors.” This sounds like a defense of a just war. A more aggressive statement appears in surah #9, verse 123: “O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto him).” There is no indication here of trying to convert the disbelievers or spread the faith. The harsher sounding quotation from surah #9 verse 3 “Give tidings (O Muhammad) of a painful doom to those who disbelieve” appears in a section which is calling all people to repent, and the doom will be for those who do not repent. A fourth proclamation from surah #25, verse 37: “We have prepared a painful doom for evil-doers” sounds especially harsh, but in its context it refers to the doom that befell those who were not in the ark of Noah during the flood. The doom is for evil-doers, not for disbelievers. Christianity also proclaims doom (i. e. hell) for evil doers. In any event, there does not appear to be in the Qur’an a specific command for Muslims to spread their faith by the sword. Pope Benedict himself referred to surah #2, verse 256, which says “There is no compulsion in religion.” He also referred to “the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the ‘Book’ and the ‘infidels’.” Infidels are the disbelievers mentioned above. Those who have the “Book” are Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians whom Islam accepts as having received valid scriptures from God, and hence must be allowed to live in peace in Muslim countries, and receive better treatment than Infidels who do not possess valid scriptures.

Due to the present state of tension in the world it is important for all non-Moslems to make themselves aware of exactly what the Qur’an has to say about jihad, and of the context in which each statement appears in their holy book.

5. REASONING BEHIND ‘ASTONISHINGLY ABRUPT REMARK’

The emperor made several successively more fundamental claims in defense of his ‘astonishingly abrupt remark.’ He initially stated that “spreading the truth through violence is something unreasonable.” He continued: “violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.” Then he summed up by asserting: “Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature.” Pope Benedict identifies this as a Greek idea which those people who have been shaped by Greek philosophy, such as we of the West, would consider as self evident. In contrast to this he claims that “for Muslim teaching God is absolutely transcendent” and not bound by the category of rationality. Further “God is not bound even by his own word, and nothing would oblige Him to reveal the truth to us.” This prompts the Pope to pose the question: Is it “always and intrinsically true” that “acting unreasonably is contrary to God’s nature?” The analysis of a medieval emperor’s ‘astonishingly abrupt remark.’ has led His Holiness to seek an understanding of a profoundly theological/philosophical question, identified by him as an “unavoidable dilemma”, which we will pursue in the next section.

6. GOD DESCRIBED IN SCRIPTURE

Pope Benedict discerns a “profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God.” The Gospel of John begins “In the beginning was the word .” The Greek word for word, namely logos (λὀγος), that was used in the Prologue to John’s Gospel, also has the meaning ‘reason’, a meaning characterized by His Holiness as “a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason.” The evangelist wrote “In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God.” In other words God is reason.

From standpoint of the Old Testament God revealed Himself to Moses from the burning bush (Ex 3:14) as having the name “I Am.” Pope Benedict then asserts that “the process which started at the burning bush came to a new maturity at the time of the exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and its worship, was proclaimed as the God of heaven and earth, and described in a simple formula which echos the words uttered at the burning bush: ‘I Am’.” The Pontiff calls this simple formula a “new understanding of God . . . accompanied by a kind of enlightenment.” However he never mentions what the simple formula is, nor does he clarify what he means by “an enlightenment.” What he does is refer to Psalm 115 which describes a God of “faithfulness and love”, a universal God, and one who “will bless the house of Israel.” He also says that the enlightenment results in “a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature,” which is probably a reference to Old Testament books such as Ecclesiastes, Wisdom and Sirach. He attributes this mutual enrichment to the fact that “biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level.”

7. CRYPTIC COMMENT ON THE SEPTUAGINT

Next in this address comes what to me is a somewhat cryptic comment on the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint which contains the Deuterocanonical books Tobit, Judith, Maccabees I and II, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, as well as parts of Esther and Daniel. These books are called the Apocrypha by the Protestants, and are not included in Protestant and Jewish bibles, as explained in Section 4 of the Supplement. The Pope appends to this comment other observations, and we quote his overall statement verbatim: “the Septuagint - is more than a simple (and in that sense really less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text; it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of the Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act ‘with logos’ is contrary to God’s nature. ”

The Pope is acknowledging that the Septuagint is not a totally accurate translation of the original Hebrew text into Greek. It is, of course, “an independent textual witness” because of the presence of the extra books. Nevertheless I have the impression that the Pope also suggests that the wording of the Greek translation of the Hebrew text provides additional insight into the real meaning of this text when the senses of the two renditions differ from each other. Biblical scholars should take both renditions into account when they comment on the meaning of Old Testament texts. This can have theological implications. For example the Hebrew rendering of the prophesy of the Messiah in Isaiah 7:14: “the young woman (almâ) shall be with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel” reads in the Greek: “the virgin (parthenos) shall be with child.” Catholic bibles always follow the Septuagint for this text which is interpreted as making the Hebrew more explicit.

His Holiness further asserts that: The Septuagint is an “important step in the history of revelation.” An example of this is the biblical justification for Purgatory in Chap. 12, verse 46 of the second book of the Maccabees. The fact that the Septuagint was “decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity” could arise in part from the fact that most of the quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament come from the Septuagint, and the Deuterocanonical books are quoted or alluded to in the New Testament many times: Wisdom over 100 times, Sirach 109, the two Maccabee books 58, Baruch 8, Judith 14, and Tobit 19 times. There is probably also a more historical reason for the Septuagint being judged so decisive. These facts are not very well known by educated Christians at the present time.

AT THIS POINT READ OR DISCUSS

SUPPLEMENT COMMENTS SECTION 5.

8. GREEK THOUGHT NOW JOINED TO FAITH

Referring to Acts 16:6-10, the Pope makes a remarkable assertion about “the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.” He claims that “Biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature.” By the phrase “later wisdom literature” I surmise that the Pope is referring, in particular, to the Deuterocanonical books of Wisdom and Sirach.. He continues his reasoning: “This inner rapprochement between biblical faith and Greek inquiry was an event of decisive importance”, and further, “Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe.” His Holiness concludes this section of his address by expressing his thoughts “the other way around” when he asserts “this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what we rightly call Europe.”

My impression of these events detailed by the Pope has always been different from what he describes. I looked upon the development of Christianity as arising from the preaching, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, followed by the missionary endeavors of Paul, the apostles, and their successors. Then in the third and fourth centuries there was an encounter with reason when it became necessary to establish and codify: (a) the official canon of the scriptures, namely which books constitute the Bible, (b) the proper way to worship, or how to celebrate the Eucharist, ( c) the precise definition of our fundamental beliefs, or our creeds, and (d) the hierarchical organization of the Church. These were established as follows: (a) The Synod of Hippo (393 AD) determined and the Third Synod of Carthage (397) confirmed which books constitute the New Testament. (b) The Didache and early Church Fathers such as Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr refer to Eucharistic celebrations, and Hippolytus provided us with a third century Eucharistic prayer. ( c) The Ecumenical Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople I (381) proclaimed what is called the Nicene Creed, and further beliefs were formulated at the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451). (d) The Apostolic Fathers such as Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus discuss the deacons, presbyters and bishops who constitute the Church Hierarchy.

9. HELLENIZATION

The Middle Ages was a time during which the synthesis between the Greek and Christian ideas Christendom enjoyed widespread popularity. However during the late Middle Ages “we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis.” There were trends that suggested “the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of of the true and the good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions.” The Pope implies that this has been a Muslim viewpoint. It is counterbalanced by the Christian view of a truly divine “God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf.” St. Paul says that love “transcends knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone.” Christian worship is worship “in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason.” Pope Benedict is emphasizing that we love and worship a personal God, a God with whom we can develop a personal relationship. God is concerned about each of us individually, and cares very much for every one of us. This viewpoint, arising from the synthesis of Greek reason (logos) and Christian belief (fides), a process of hellenization, survived the contrary trends that surfaced during the late middle ages.

ATTHIS POINT READ OR DISCUSS

SUPPLEMENT COMMENTS SECTIONS 6 and 7.

10. DEHELLENIZATION

The Pope summed up the developments described in the previous three paragraphs by affirming that this “critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith.” The so-called Protestant Reformation sought to disassociate the Greek heritage from the Christian faith. In other words it introduced a “call for a dehellenization of Christianity.” This has “dominated theological discussions since the beginning of the modern age” and continues to do so. His holiness identified three clearly distinct but nevertheless interconnected stages in this process of dehellenization, and we will examine each in turn.

1) In the sixteenth century the Protestant Reformers thought that Christianity had developed into a “faith system totally conditioned by philosophy,” a philosophy which corresponded to “an alien system of thought.” Faith now appeared as only a single element of a much more complex system of philosophy. To counteract this Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers chose to adopt “The principle of sola scriptura” which “sought faith in its pure, primordial form, as originally found in the biblical Word.” Faith had to be liberated from an alien metaphysics (i.e. from alien philosophical ideas arising from the super-added Greek heritage) “to become fully itself.” Another aspect of sola scriptura was to bring the faith back to the way it had been in the early Church. This step in the dehellenization process coincided with the establishment of the main Protestant religions, as well as with the Catholic Counter Reformation, which took place during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This is easy to comprehend, but the remaining two stages are not so easy to understand.

2) The ideas of Adolf von Harnack represented the second stage. His “central idea was to return simply to the man Jesus and to his simple message” which had become covered over by ideas from theology and hellenization. This “simple message” was judged to be the high point of humanity’s religious development, and should not have been covered over by a complex system of theology which was based on the divinity of Christ and the trinity of persons in God. These theological ideas had to be eliminated from Christianity.

From a more fundamental point of view “Harnack’s goal was to being Christianity back into harmony with modern reason” by liberating it from the accretions of philosophy and theology. This could be accomplished through the “historical-critical’ approach to the interpretation of the scriptures. The result would be a transformation of Christianity into a historical and scientific discipline, with the benefit that it would thereby attain a rightful place within the university.

There is an even more fundamental aspect to this situation, and this involves two principles which determine whether of not a claim of certainty can be considered to be truly scientific. These principles are: a) the claim results from “the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements,” and b) the question of the nature of God is automatically excluded from consideration. It is no longer appropriate for rational human beings to discuss religious and ethical questions such as our origin as creatures of God, our obligations to conform our lives to Christian moral codes, or our destiny in the afterlife. The scope of topics judged to lie under the banner of reason has now become much too restricted. The pope concludes this section by asserting: “Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.”

3) The third stage of dehellenization is now in progress. It involves detaching the simple message of the New Testament from its synthesis with Hellenism or Greek philosophy which took place in the early Church. This synthesis was called an inculturation, The Pope admits that “there are elements in the evolution of the early Church which do not have to be integrated into all cultures.” Nevertheless he concludes that “the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself; they are developments consonant with the nature of faith itself.”

4) In recent years some modern biblical scholars have been claiming that there are many early Christian gospels and other writings which were not included in the canon of the scriptures, bur which nevertheless should be taken into account as equally historically valid as the scriptures themselves in terms of telling us the true story of Jesus. They accuse the early Church of having unfairly suppressed these writings. The Pope does not make mention of these. In my opinion it could be looked upon as a fourth stage of dehellenization.

Perhaps this section should be summarized. The three stages of dehellenization are: 1)

detaching an alien philosophy from faith by the principle of sola scriptura, 2) removing from our beliefs the overlay of a complex theology by returning to the simple message of Jesus, and 3) detaching the simple message of the New Testament from its synthesis with Hellenism or Greek philosophy. From my perspective all this seems to be mainly matter of emphasis on different aspects of a single viewpoint: the first stage was emphasizing scripture alone, the second stage was emphasizing “what is the simple message of Jesus.” and the third staage was a continuation of the process.

11. CONCLUSIONS

Pope Benedict XVI begins his conclusion by affirming that he does not recommend reverting to the age before the Enlightenment. He acknowledges the positive aspects of modernity, and expresses gratitude for the marvelous progress in humanity that has resulted from it. He notes that the scientific ethos is “the will to be obedient to the truth,” and he claims that this “embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit.” He urges that reason and faith come together in a new way, by removing the modern desire to limit reason to what can be verified empirically. Reason has vast horizons which must be recognized as such. It must include within these horizons “theology as an inquiry into the rationality of faith.”

His Holiness emphasizes that today we urgently need a genuine dialogue between cultures, and this is not possible if we exclude the divine from the universality of reason. Such an exclusion is viewed by the world’s profoundly religious cultures as an attack on “their most profound convictions.” He affirms that “theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening, and responding.” He continues “The courage to engage the whole breath of reason ... is the programme with which theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time.’ He now refers back to the response of Manuel II to his Persian interlocutor that was mentioned at the beginning of the address: “Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God.” The Pontiff’s final words are “It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To discover it constantly is the great task of the university,”

As a final comment let me mention my conviction that the writings of the Apostolic and later Fathers of the Church, such as the Didache and the Epistles of Barnabas, Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, provide keen insights into the nature of early Christianity. By reading them we find out how the synthesis of faith and Greek thought began to develop, as well as learning what the first few generations of Christians believed, how they worshiped, and how they were governed. All are urged to study these early writings of our Tradition which are extensively discussed and commented upon on this website. Instead of lauding dehellenization, what we really should do is seek an understanding of how and why hellenization came to develop so early in our Christian Tradition.