On 12 September 2006, Pope Benedict XVI gave the following address to his old university of Regensburg (also known as Ratisbon). I read this in the original German and, rather than import a ready-made translation, translated it myself. I reprint this translation here, so that readers may see that, so far from being an insult to Islam, the lecture was a far-reaching and profound examination of the relation between faith and reason -- than which, he maintains (I believe rightly) there is no more urgent spiritual problem in our time. It is a long lecture, but it repays reading, especially at the beginning of Lent.
Faith, Reason, and the University
It is a moving moment for me to stand at the
University’s lectern once more and once more to be permitted to give a lecture.
In doing so, my thoughts go back to the years when, after a wonderful period in
the Freising Academy, I began my activity as an academic in the University of
Bonn. It was still, in 1959, a professors’ university. For the individual
chairs there were neither assistants nor secretaries; on the other hand, there
were very direct relations with the students and especially among the
professors mutually. We met in the common rooms before and after lectures. The
contacts with the historians, the philosophers, the philologists, and of course
also between the two theological faculties were very lively. Each term there
was a so-called Dies academicus [a
‘university day’] at which professors of all the faculties introduced
themselves to the students of the whole university. There, in that way, a real
experience of the ‘universitas’ was made possible. That within all the
specializations which often rendered us speechless to one another, we form a
whole; that we work inside that whole of united reason with all its dimensions, and that we thus
share in a collective responsibility for the right use of reason -- that came alive there.
The University
was also absolutely proud of its two Faculties of Theology. It was evident that
they also, in so far as they inquire into the reason of faith, perform a work
which necessarily belongs to the whole of the universitas scientiarum; even if not everyone could share the faith
the relation of which to reason as a
whole was the theologians’ concern. Nor was this inner coherence in the cosmos
of reason disturbed when one colleague
was heard to say how odd it was that in our university there were two faculties
which concerned themselves with something that did not exist, i.e. God. That
even faced with radical scepticism it
remains necessary and reasonable to inquire about God with reason , and to do so in the context of the
tradition of the Christian faith, was uncontested in the University as a whole.
All this came
to mind again when I recently read the volume, edited by Professor Thomas
Khoury from Münster, of the discussion the learned Byzantine Emperor Manuel II.
Paleologos held in 1391, in winter quarters in Ankara, with an educated Persian
about Christianity and Islam and their respective truth. The Emperor himself noted down the discussion
during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; so it is
understandable that his own remarks are represented in much greater detail than
the replies of the Persian scholar. The dialogue takes in the entire structure
of faith as contained in the Bible and the Koran, and focuses especially on the
image of God and man, but also again and again, necessarily, on the relation
between the ‘three Laws’: Old Testament – New Testament – Koran. Now in this
lecture I should like to discuss just one point – and in the structure of that
dialogue a marginal one --, which fascinated me in the context of the theme of
faith and reason, and which functions as the point of departure for my
reflections on that theme.
In the seventh
round of discussion, edited by Professor Khoury, the Emperor takes up the
subject of the jihad (holy war). The Emperor certainly knew that in Sura 2.256
it is written, ‘No compulsion in matters of faith’: this is one of the early
Suras from the time when Mohammed himself was still powerless and threatened.
But the Emperor of course also knew the determinations
contained in the Koran – of later origin – about holy war. Without going into
details like the different treatment of ‘those who possess the scriptures’ and
‘infidels’, he turns to his interlocutor simply with the central question of
the relation between religion and violence, in an astonishingly brusque way. He
says, ‘So show me what Mohammed has brought that was new, and all you will find
is what is bad and inhuman: like his decree that the faith he preached must be
propagated by the sword.’ The Emperor then goes on to explain in detail why
propagation of faith by violence is absurd. It is in contradiction to the
nature of God and to the nature of the soul. ‘God takes no pleasure in blood,
and not to act reasonably is against the nature of God. Faith is the fruit of
the soul, not of the body. So he who wants to lead someone to faith, needs
skill in good speaking and clear thinking, but not violence and threats…to
convince a reasonable soul it is not one’s arm one needs, not blunt
instruments, nor any other of the means by which one can threaten someone with
death.’
The decisive
sentence in this argument against conversion by force is this: ‘Not to act
reasonably is against the nature of God.’ The editor, Thomas Khoury, adds this
note: ‘For the Emperor, as a Byzantine educated in Greek philosophy, this
sentence is evident. For Muslim doctrine, on the other hand, God is absolutely
transcendent. His Will is tied to none of our categories, even that of
reasonableness.’ In this context, Khoury cites a text by the well-known French
Islam scholar R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn goes so far as to
declare that God is not even bound by His own word, and that nothing forces Him
to reveal the truth to us. If He wanted it so, Man could be forced to commit
idolatry.
Here there
appears a division in the understanding of God and thus in the concrete
realization of religion, which today presents a direct challenge to us. Is it
only Greek to believe that acting against reason is against the nature of God,
or is this valid always and in itself? I
think that this is where the profound harmony becomes visible between what is
‘Greek’ in the best sense of the word on the one hand and a Biblically-based
faith in God on the other. Inflecting the first verse of Genesis, John opened
the prologue to his Gospel with the words, ‘In the beginning was the Logos’.
‘Logos’ is both Reason and Word – a reason that is creative and can communicate
itself, but precisely as reason. In this, John has given us the definitive word
of the Biblical understanding of God, in which all the often laborious and
tortuous ways of Biblical faith find their goal and their synthesis. In the
beginning was the Logos, and the Logos is God, the evangelist tells us. The
concordance of the Biblical message and Greek thought was not an accident. The
vision of St Paul, to whom the roads in Asia Minor were closed and who at night
in a vision saw a Macedonian and heard him cry ‘Come over and help us’ (Acts
16: 6-10) – this vision may be interpreted as a condensation of the inherently
necessary coming-together between Biblical faith and Greek questioning.
Moreover, this
coming-together had been going on for a long time. The mysterious divine Name
of the burning bush, which distinguished this God from the gods with many names
and declares of him simply the Being, is already a challenge to myth,
inherently analogical to the Socratic attempt to overcome and go beyond myth.
The process that began in the burning bush comes to maturity, within the Old
Testament, during the Exile, where the God of Israel, now without land or cult,
proclaims Himself as the God of heaven and earth, and introduces Himself with a
simple formula that continues the word of the burning bush: ‘It is I’. Hand in
hand with this new recognition of God goes a kind of enlightenment, which
expresses itself drastically in mockery about the gods, who are only the work
of men’s hands (cf. Psalm 115). Thus in the Hellenistic era the Biblical faith
inwardly reaches out (in spite of all its virulence toward the Hellenistic
rulers who wanted to force conformity to the Greek way of life and the worship
of its gods) to the best of Greek thought, to meet in a mutual contact that is
fulfilled especially in the late Wisdom literature. Today we know, that the
Alexandrian Greek translation of the Old Testament, the ‘Septuagint’, is more
than a mere (and perhaps not very estimable) translation of the Hebrew text: it
is an independent textual witness and in its own right an important step in the
history of revelation, in which this encounter [between Biblical faith and
Greek thought] is realized in a manner that became decisively significant for
the origin of Christianity and its spread. At its most profound, this concerns
the encounter between faith and reason, between true enlightenment and
religion. It was truly out of the inner nature of the Christian faith, and at
the same time out of the nature of the Hellenism which had fused itself with
that faith, that Manuel II could say, ‘Not to act “with the Logos” is against
the nature of God.’
In all honesty
it should here be noted that in the Late Middle Ages tendencies developed in
theology which wrench open this synthesis of the Greek and the Christian. Over
against the so-called Augustinian and Thomist intellectualism, with Duns Scotus
there appears a position of voluntarism, which eventually led to saying that
all we knew of God was his ‘voluntas ordinata’ [His ordered Will]. Beyond that
lay God’s freedom, in virtue of which He might have created and done the contrary
of everything He had done. Here we see a sketch of positions definitely
approaching those of Ibn Hazn, and which could lead to the image of a God of
Arbitrariness, Who is not bound even to truth and good. God’s transcendence and
otherness are pushed so far that our reason, our sense of the true and the
good, are no longer a true reflection of God, Whose abyssal possibilities
behind His actual decisions for ever remain inaccessible to and hidden from us.
Contrary to this, the faith of the Church has always maintained that there
exists between God and us, between His eternal creating Spirit and our created
Reason, a real analogy: even if in it the dissimilarities are infinitely
greater than the similarities, the analogy and its language are not therefore
cancelled (cf Lat IV). God does not become more divine by our interpreting Him
in a pure and impenetrable voluntarism: the true God is the God, Who has
revealed Himself as Logos and as Logos has acted, and acts, for us out of love.
True, love ‘passes’ understanding and as such perceives more than simple
thinking (cf Ephes. 3:19), but it remains the love of the Divine Logos, which
is why Christian Divine Service is…Divine Service, which is in harmony with the
Eternal Word and with our Reason (cf. Rom. 12:1).
This inward
encounter which has happened between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical
questioning is a decisive event, not only in terms of the history of religion
but in terms of the history of the world; and today also it lays a duty upon
us. When one sees this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, in
spite of its origin and important developments in the East, has eventually
taken its historically decisive stamp in Europe. We can also say, conversely:
this encounter, to which is added also the heritage of Rome, has created Europe
and remains the foundation of that which one can rightly call Europe.
The thesis that
the critically-purified Greek heritage is an essential part of the Christian
faith is opposed by the demand for de-Hellenization of Christianity which since
the Early Modern period has increasingly dominated theological conflicts. On
closer observation one can distinguish three waves of the deHellenization
program which, while they are related, nevertheless differ clearly from one
another in their foundations and goals.
De-Hellenization
first appears in conjunction with the 16th-century Reformation’s
chief concerns. Vis-à-vis the scholastic theological tradition, the Reformers
saw themselves as confronting a systematization of faith that was completely
determined by philosophy: as it were a hijacking
of faith by an alien [system of] thought. As a consequence, faith no longer
appeared as a living historical Word, but embedded in a philosophical system.
Contrary to this, the [Reformers’] ‘sola scriptura’ [‘by Scripture alone’]
seeks the pure original form of the faith, as it exists from the beginning in
the Biblical Word. Metaphysics appears as an alien parameter, from which faith
needs to be liberated so that it can once more be entirely itself. In a radical move which the Reformers could
not foresee, Kant realized this agenda in his statement that he had had to put
thought aside to make room for faith. In so doing, he anchored faith exclusively
in practical Reason and denied it access to Reality as a whole.
The liberal
theology of the 19th and 29th centuries brought with it a
second wave in the de-Hellenization program, of which Adolf von Harnack is the
outstanding representative. In the days when I was a student, and even in the
early days of my academic activity, this program was strongly at work even in
Catholic theology. Pascal’s distinction between the God of the philosophers and
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was its point of departure. In my 1959 Bonn
inaugural lecture I attempted to engage with this. I do not want to go into all
this again here. But I should like at least very briefly to attempt to
characterize what is distinctly new in this second wave of de-Hellenization
compared to the first. In Harnack’s work, the central concept is the return to
Jesus the simple human and to his simple message, which precedes all
theologizations and all Hellenizations: this simple message, supposedly,
represents the true pinnacle of mankind’s religious development. Jesus (he claims)
has turned his back on worship in favour of morality. He is finally represented
as the father of a philanthropic moral message. In reality this attempts to
re-harmonize Christianity with modern Reason, precisely by liberating it from
apparently philosophical and theological elements like belief in Christ’s
divinity and in the Trinity. So far, the historical-critical interpretation of
the New Testament brings theology anew back into the cosmos of the University:
theology, for Harnack, is essentially historical and as such strictly
scientific. What it determines by the
critical method about Jesus, is so to speak an expression of practical Reason,
and as such justifiable also within the whole that is the University. In the
background is the modern self-contraction of Reason, as it had been classically
represented in Kant’s Critiques but was now being further radicalized by the
thinking of natural science. This modern concept of Reason is based on a
synthesis, confirmed by the success of technology, between Platonism
(Cartesianism) and empiricism, to put it succinctly. On the one hand is advanced the mathematical
structure of matter, its inner rationality, so to speak, which makes it
possible to understand and to use it in its outward form: this basic premise is
what one might call the Platonic element in the modern understanding of
nature. On the other hand what the
concern is for the functionality potential of nature for our goals, in which
only the possibility of verification or falsification in an experimental context furnishes the
decisive certainty. The emphasis between these two poles can lie on one side or
on the other. A thinker as strictly positivist as J. Monod has referred to
himself as a convinced Platonist or Cartesian.
This brings
with it two fundamental orientations which are decisive for our question. Only
that form of certainty that proceeds from the conjunction of mathematics and
empiricism is permitted to be called
scientific. That which claims to be Wissenschaft [science
and/or scholarship] must adopt this criterion. And so the human-directed
disciplines also – history, psychology, sociology, and philosophy – attempt to
approach this canon of scientificity. For our present reflections it is
important, moreover, that the method as such excludes the question of God and
presents it as an unscientific or pre-scientific question. This, though, places
us before a contraction of the range of Wissenschaft and
Reason, which must be called into question.
We will return
to this. For now, we must remark that in any attempt, determined by this
outlook, to derive theology ‘scientifically’, there will be left of
Christianity only a miserable remnant. But we need to say more: man himself is
diminished by it. For the genuinely human questions, those of the Whence and
the Whither of us, the questions of religion and ethics can then find no place
in the space of the collective, scientifically circumscribed “Reason”, and must
be relegated to the subjective. The subject decides, with his own experience,
what seems to him religiously tolerable, and the subjective ‘conscience’ is
finally made the only ethical authority. But in this way ethics and religion
lose their power of creating community and fall into arbitrariness. This
condition is dangerous to humanity, as we see by the pathologies of religion
and reason that threaten us, and which necessarily erupt where Reason is so
narrowed that questions of religion and ethics are no longer its concern. The
ethical remnants of the rules of evolution or of psychology and sociology are
simply not adequate.
Before arriving
at some conclusions from all this, I need briefly to point to the third wave of
de-Hellenization, which is currently active. Vis-à-vis the encounter with the
multiplicity of cultures it is fashionable to say that the synthesis with
Hellenism that occurred in the ancient Church was a first embedding of
Christianity in a culture,
to which one may not bind the other cultures. They should have the right to
reach back beyond this embedding to the simple message of the New Testament,
then in their turn to embed it in their own cultural spaces. This proposition
is not purely and simply false, but nevertheless crude and inexact. For the New
Testament is written in Greek and carries in within it that contact with the
Greek spirit which had matured in the preliminary development of the Old
Testament. Of course, there are layers in the development of the early church
which do not have to enter into all cultures. But the fundamental decisions that
concern precisely the coherence of faith with the seeking of human reason,
these belong to this faith itself and represent its proper development.
And so I come
to my conclusion. The self-criticism of modern reason I have rather crudely
sketched in no way comprises the idea that we should now go back beyond the
Enlightenment and reject the insights of modernity. The greatness of the modern
spiritual development I entirely acknowledge: we are all thankful for the great
possibilities it has unlocked for man, and for the advances in humanity that
have been given us. For the rest, the scientific ethos is a will to obedience vis-à-vis truth,
and as such the expression of a fundamental attitude that belongs to the basic
determinations of Christianity. What is meant is not a return, not a negative
criticism, but what is at stake is a widening of our understanding and our use
of Reason. For in all the joy at the new possibilities of man we also see
threats, which arise from these possibilities , and we must ask ourselves, how
we can master them. We can only do so, when reason and faith meet in new ways;
when we conquer the self-authorized contraction of reason to that which can be
experimentally falsified, and when we once again open to reason its full scope.
In this sense, theology belongs to the University and to its far-reaching
dialogue of Wissenschaften. not only as a historical and
humanities discipline, but as actual theology, as the inquiry into the Reason
of Faith.
Only thus will
we be prepared for the genuine dialogue of cultures and religions that we so
urgently need. In the Western world the opinion often dominates that only
positivist Reason and the forms of philosophy belonging to it are universal.
But the world’s deeply religious cultures see precisely this exclusion of the
divine from universality of Reason as a
rejection of their inmost convictions. A Reason that is deaf to the divine and
relegates religion to the territory of subcultures is unprepared for the
dialogue of cultures. Moreover, as I have tried to show, modern scientific
Reason with its inherent Platonic element implies a question which transcends
it and its methodical possibilities. It [this Reason] must simply accept the
rational structure of matter, like the correspondence between our mind and the
rational structures that reign in nature, as givens upon which its methodology
is based. But the question why this should be so, nevertheless exists, and
science must pass it on to other levels and manners of thought – to philosophy and
theology. For philosophy, and in a different way for theology, attending to the
great experiences and insights of humanity’s religious traditions, but
especially to the Christian faith, is a source of knowledge and insight, the
refusal of which would entail an impermissible narrowing of our listening and
of our response. I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In the
earlier dialogues many false philosophical opinions had been touched on; and
now Socrates says, ‘It would be entirely understandable if someone was so
infuriated by so much falsehood that for the rest of his life he would hate and
spurn all talk about Being.’ But in this
way he would neglect the truth of that which is and incur great harm. The West
has for a long time now been threatened by this aversion from the fundamental
questions of its Reason, and can only incur great harm from this. The courage
to explore the scope of reason, not a denial of its greatness: that is the
program with which a theology committed to Biblical faith enters into today’s
debate. ‘Not to act according to reason (with the Logos) is against the nature
of God’, Manuel II, out of his Christian concept of divinity, said to his
Persian interlocutor. Into this great Logos, into this breadth of Reason, we
invite our interlocutor in the dialogue of cultures. To find it, again and again, is the great
task of the University.
