Posted on 05/03/2008 12:11:49 PM PDT by AndrewWalden
Speaking at the White House, Pope Benedict XVI April 16 embraced America's "quest for freedom...." Benedict explained:
"Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience - almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad."
April 16 was Pope Benedict's 81st birthday. The White House greeting, carefully scripted by US and Vatican officials, included the Army Chorus' moving rendition of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" -- anthem of an earlier war for freedom which has been looked to by President Bush and administration officials. The Pope received a 21-gun salute. The Marine Band performed the National Anthem of the Vatican, and the Star Spangled Banner.
Benedict's visit to America came just weeks after his Easter Eve baptism of Magdi Allam, Italy's most prominent Muslim. Allam's public baptism itself came just ten days after the body of Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, was found in a shallow grave after being kidnapped by al-Qaeda February 29. It was on the agenda in a private meeting with President Bush: Islamist attacks on Iraqi Christians.
At the United Nations four days later, Benedict pointed out: "...it is indifference or failure to intervene that do the real damage." Underlining his point, Pope Benedict then traveled to Ground Zero where he renewed his call for conversion of Muslims with this prayer:
"Turn to your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred."
Benedict's message resonated with President Bush's White House greeting:
"We also believe that a love for freedom and a common moral law are written into every human heart, and that these constitute the firm foundation on which any successful free society must be built.
"Here in America, you'll find a nation that is fully modern, yet guided by ancient and eternal truths. The United States is the most innovative, creative and dynamic country on earth -- it is also among the most religious. In our nation, faith and reason coexist in harmony. This is one of our country's greatest strengths, and one of the reasons that our land remains a beacon of hope and opportunity for millions across the world.
"... In a world where some invoke the name of God to justify acts of terror and murder and hate, we need your message that ‘God is love.' And embracing this love is the surest way to save men from ‘falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism.'"
The coexistence of faith and reason is a theme going back to the earliest development of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is also the theme of Benedict's September 12, 2006 Regensburg speech in which he said:
"Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: ‘In the beginning was the Logos.' ...Logos means both reason and word-- a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist."
In the opening verses of Genesis, God literally speaks the world into existence. (God said, let there be ....) God acts through words. In the Judeo-Christian tradition God is limited by Reason, Truth and the law of non-contradiction.
Islam teaches that Allah is transcendental -- not bound by anything. The followers of Allah imitate their deity. Left without the use of reason, many live in conditions little changed from centuries past. As Benedict explained at Regensburg:
"The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion (to Islam) is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: ‘For the emperor (Manuel II Paleologos), 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."
The Bible written in the original Greek identifies ‘Logos' as the object of worship. But when Logos is translated this is obscured.
Without translation John 1:1-3 would read:
"When all things began, Logos already was. Logos dwelt with God, and what God was, Logos was. Logos, then was with God at the beginning, and through him all things came to be; no single thing was created without him."
For instance, John 1:1-3, New English Version, translates Logos as "Word":
"When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was. The Word, then was with God at the beginning, and through him all things came to be; no single thing was created without him."
But Logos has a broader meaning than "Word". For instance, retranslate Logos as "Reason" and the passage would read:
"When all things began, Reason already was. Reason dwelt with God, and what God was, Reason was. Reason, then was with God at the beginning, and through him all things came to be; no single thing was created without him."
The view of a deity as ‘Logos' is not limited to the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Zoroastrian angel Asha: truth and order, is a philosophical counterpart to ‘Logos'. In the Zoroastrian tradition, Asha is the opposite of Chaos, defined by Zoroastrian teachings as Druj: lie and disorder. In Greek mythology, Chaos was that which existed before the gods began to play out their stories.
Contrary to the modern neo-pagan environmentalist mythology of the ‘noble savage', the reality of many pagan societies replaced by Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism, was exactly Chaos. Life was hard, brutish, and short. The gods of multi-theistic belief systems were riven by vanity, jealousy, lust, and vengeance. Emulating their gods, tribes constantly raided one another creating an atmosphere of almost permanent low-level warfare which for tens of millennia made the development of technology, written language, and systems of thought nearly impossible.
Islam directs Chaos towards the infidels of what Islam terms Dar al Harb -- the house of war. But Islamic Chaos is not merely external. Life in Darfur, Frontier Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, or Chechnya has advanced little from that of pre-Islamic pagan tribes.
Secularists will immediately point to the worship of Logos as a contradiction. Yet if Logos is not a deity, man could convince himself he possesses reason in its entirety rather than reason being an aspiration which, like infinity, one never reaches. One might then logically presume that all humans can today be reasoned with-a common and fatal mistake when considering responses to Islam. Another dangerous conclusion comes when the belief that humans can possess reason in its entirety is combined from the belief that "scientific socialism" is the pinnacle of human achievement.
The last century is piled high with the bodies of those slain by such atheist regimes led by those who call themselves "conscious". Based on their so-called ‘consciousness' they sought to transform the nature of what they deemed to be the ‘unconscious' mass of humanity. Trying to create socialist man, Mao Zedong killed between 40-80 million. Estimates of Joseph Stalin's death toll range as high as 20-60 million. Trying to control the most fundamental element of human nature, the Chinese one-baby policy has so far resulted in the death of as many as 50 million Chinese baby girls.
The Logos is the Prince of Peace but not the Prince of Pacifism. At the White House, the Army Chorus sang:
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel, Since God is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat: Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.
Today, as in the Civil War, Logos is on the side of freedom. And in spite of the secular media effort to obfuscate, Benedict's message couldn't be clearer: Logos rises to defend against the secular call for submission to the Chaos unleashed by Islam.
pinged for later reading.
Well done! post more often
“In the Judeo-Christian tradition God is limited by Reason, Truth and the law of non-contradiction.”
This quintessentially Western notion is not at all Christian but rather thoroughly pagan as it introduces the concept that God somehow or other is controlled by a “real” God called “Necessity”. God is both completely transcendent and ineffable, yet He is known through Christ. To say otherwise is a sort of anthropomorphism which borders on heresy. It is certainly pride run rampant. Our Triune God is not limited in any way by “reason” because He is the definition of “reason” and thus always acts “reasonably” even if we cannot always fathom that reason. This is what The Church in the East has always taught and what +BXVI is reintroducing to Western theology. The Mohammedan characterization of what they worship is not simply transcedent, it is capricious.
Transcendent: “climbing or going beyond”
Reason is not ‘necessity’
Allah can transcend reason, but in doing so he debases himself and his followers.
If God IS reason (Logos), then how can God transcend reason?
Reason is not possessed by any mere mortal human, therefore this is not a standard to which WE hold God, but rather a condition of the nature of God which we humans seek to emulate. It is the secularists who arrogantly claim they possess reason. And how many have they killed? They represent eternal death, not eternal life.
Meanwhile, Allah can justify anything at all to his followers because he is not bound — even by his own word. Allah is capricious becuase he ‘transcends’ even his own word. In other words, Allah can lie.
Here is a question: Do Socrates, Plato, Aristotle have eternal life? Their Words are still alive today.
Does an unknown soldier of the Union Army have eternal life? The result of his deeds—guided by God/Logos—is still alive today.
No, it isn't at all. Necessity is what this article says constrains God and acting "reasonably" is part of that necessity...and that's heretical. It is a major difference between Christian theology in the East and what it became in the West.
"If God IS reason (Logos), then how can God transcend reason?"
The Cappadocians Fathers taught, "I believe in God; God does not exist." It all has to do with trying to define "the Being which is the source of being". In Greek its "Ο ΩΝ". "Do Socrates, Plato, Aristotle have eternal life?"
I haven't the foggiest idea. The fact that we read their writings, as we can of Stalin and Hitler, has nothing to do with it for a Christian. Same goes for that Union soldier.
“Necessity is what this article says constrains God....”
There is nothing in the article which says that.
I suggest reading the Pope’s Regensburg speech for a further idea of what he is talking about.
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=46474
““Necessity is what this article says constrains God....”
There is nothing in the article which says that.”
Of course there is; its right here:
“In the Judeo-Christian tradition God is limited by Reason, Truth and the law of non-contradiction.”
Now the foregoing is either simply extremely sloppy writing or the sentence of a heretic. In neither event is it the work of +BXVI.
“I suggest reading the Pope’s Regensburg speech for a further idea of what he is talking about.”
I am thoroughly familiar with that speech and much other of the corpus of +BXVI’s writings. That speech in particular was the subject of much discussion among Orthodox hierarchs and theologians, especially in Mohammedan lands. Where do you find in the Regensburg speech the heretical notion that God is “limited” by anything?
Limited God is an oxymoron. But we also "know" that God cannot be tempted, that God cannot lie or that God cannot sin. This suggests that God is limited—by His on nature, i.e. God is immortal; can God be mortal in His divine nature? No, but God can assume another nature in addition to His (Incarnation), and be mortal, and tempted. Is He then subject to His own nature which He cannot change? Of course not. We believe that with God all things are possible, so any suggestion that God is limited by Reason, or anything for that matter, is false. Omnipotence cannot be limited. Anything short of omnipotence is not God.
It is our limited reason that limits and redefines God to fit our limited mental framework. That's why Christianity is so patently different from other religions; Chrits is human and we can talk and conceptualize God in His human nature and establish a purely human, personal, relationship with Him.
A 15th century rabbi said "If I knew God, I would be Him." And Islam posits that any human thought of God is actually creating God in human image. Both of these statements are rather profound relaizations that God is "beyond everything," a profound and ineffable mystery, that cannot be expressed in any human terms, words or concepts and any attempt to do so will fall short of His true nature.
Reason, Truth and the law of Non-contradiction are not equivalent to or reducable to ‘necessity’. ‘Necessity’ is a malleable concept which humans own and change to suit their own so-called ‘needs’. Perhaps you should consider the difference between reason and logic.
Here is a taste from Regensburg:
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=46474
Paragraphs 9-11 (caps added for emphasis)
“The emperor 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 practice idolatry.”
(end)
As you can see the Islamic concept of Allah is un-BOUND by anything. The logical conclusion is that the Judeo-Christian God is BOUND by reason. If God has a NATURE, then that NATURE implies that God is BOUND by something (but not by someone). If God IS Logos, and Logos is God then God must act according to Logos. But that is not an external binding becuse Logos IS what God IS.
There is much more — but this is enough for you to go explore it for yourself instead of accusing ‘heretic’. There are many interpetations of Christianity and many are ‘heretical’ to each other. This concerns me not.
BXVI-Regensburg:
“From the very heart of 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.”
some more from BXVI Regensburg:
In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which ultimately led to the claim that we can only know God’s voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God’s freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazn and might even lead to 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 the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions.
As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created REASON there exists a real analogy, in which unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language (cf. Lateran IV).
Its all there if you are willing to hear it from Pope Benedict....
BXVI Regensburg:
God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as LOGOS and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love TRANSCENDS knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who IS logos. Consequently, Christian worship is worship in harmony with the eternal WORD and with our REASON (cf. Rom 12:1).
“Reason, Truth and the law of Non-contradiction are not equivalent to or reducable to ‘necessity’.”
No, they are not. Being limited by them, collectively and individually is.
Why do you insist that God is “limited”? The Pope doesn’t say that. The Pope speaks of certain reactions or actions as being contrary to God’s “nature”. I’ve never been particularly enamored of speaking about the “nature” of the Being Who created Beingness, but the West has been doing that for a very long time and I doubt it will change. That aside, what the Pope is doing is engaging in apophatic theology. He is describing what God “isn’t”. That’s not limiting God, especially by something as pagan as the “law” of non-contraiction, though the West has done just that to such an extent that it is often used as an example of how very different Christianity is in the West from that in the East. The writings of Prof. Kalomiros spring to mind as something recent. God, AW, isn’t bound by some Aristotelian concept.
But even that grand opening betrays anthroporphic limitations placed on God considering that it says "In the beginning..." In the beginning of what? God?
Bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev) says, emphases added:
If we call Him being, He transcends being, He is supra-being. If we ascribe to Him righteousness and justice, in His love He transcends all justice. If we call Him love, He is much more than human love: He is supra-love.
God transcends all attributes that we are capable of ascribing to Him, be it omniscience, omnipresence or immutability. Ultimately we arrive at the conclusion that we can say nothing about God affirmatively: all discussion about Him remains incomplete, partial and limited.
Finally we come to realize that we cannot say what God is, but rather what He is not. This manner of speaking about God has received the name of apophatic (negative) theology, as opposed to cataphatic (affirmative) theology...
The way of negation corresponds to the spiritual ascent into the Divine abyss where words fall silent, where reason fades, where all human knowledge and comprehension cease, where God is. It is not by speculative knowledge but in the depths of prayerful silence that the soul can encounter God, Who is ‘beyond everything’ and Who reveals Himself to her as in-comprehensible, in-accessible, in-visible, yet at the same time as living and close to her — as God the Person. [Online Orthodox Catechism]
“Bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev)”
I predict a very, very bright future for this young man! I like his music too! :)
Very nice post. So nice to have an reasoned discourse on a thread without disruption!
Agree and also much appreciate.
But the little devil in me wants to speak up, and has this to say:
When Romans and Greeks debate theology, they must first promise to keep their hands off each other's throats. In fact, put both hands on the table, palms up, to prove no weapons. And while you are at it, you must promise not to trash each other's cities, especially in the name of a war against Islam.
Then you can debate to your hearts' content.
And when it's over, you must promise a round of hugs for all, and then go out and have a couple of beers -- or some wine and bread, as the case may be... ;-)
He is about 41 years old, already a bishop, and a superb composer. I wached his concert in the Vatican last year on TV (EWTN). The Gospels were sung in Italian, but the antiphons were in Slavonic. Unbelievably powerful and beautiful.
I Know you’ve heard this, Kosta, but for the rest of you, here’s a link to portions of His Grace’s Passion According to +Matthew. Scroll down. Its magnificent.
http://bishop.hilarion.orthodoxia.org/1_3_18_3
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