Saturday, September 11, 2010

To remember or to forget?

The Vatican II document, Nostra Aetate (1965) declares, as Fr. Z reminds us today (though with significant qualification), that since numerous quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Muslims, "this sacred synod [Vatican II] urges all to forget the past (praeterita obliviscentes) and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom."

Commenting on this passage, Fr. Z says: "I wonder if we can truly – nay rather – reasonably 'forget things that have occurred in the past'. On the face of it, that is not either wise or possible. However, the intent of this is surely meant to be 'not be embittered by what has happened in the past'. Fine. But my initial comment stands: we cannot, should not, forget the past. Rather, the past should be a spur and a check on our choices today."

In a post immediately preceding this one, Fr. Z offers the following remarkable stanzas from Thomas Merton's Figures For An Apocalypse, VI – In the Ruins of New York, written in 1947:
Oh how quiet it is after the black night
When flames out of the clouds burned down your cariated teeth,
And when those lightnings,
Lancing the black boils of Harlem and the Bronx,
Spilled the remaining prisoners,
(The tens and twenties of the living)
Into the trees of Jersey,
To the green farms, to find their liberty.

How are they down, how have they fallen down
Those great strong towers of ice and steel,
And melted by what terror and what miracle?
What fires and lights tore down,
With the white anger of their sudden accusation,
Those towers of silver and of steel?
Seemingly prescient, the coupling of Merton's stanzas with the images of the Twin Towers on 9/11 offer much that is hard to forget.

Again, this report from Pakistan yesterday, reminds us that a hard-to-forget pattern of intolerant hostility continues to the present, as Rorate Caeli reminds us with the sardonic remark: "As usual, no one will condemn this because persecuting Christians is normal, right? However, if you even speak about burning the Quran ..." (Flashback: "Christians in Gaza Fear for Their Lives as Muslims Burn Bibles and Destroy Crosses.")

I would like to return to Fr. Z's earlier post, however, entitled "Questions raised by Nostra aetate about the Christian God and Muslim Allah" (WDTPRS, September 11, 2010), which was prompted by a commentator on his blog who said: "It’s also about time that Catholics start repudiating those sections of Nostra Aetate referring to Muslims." Fr. Z takes a look at the relevant passage from Nostra Aetate referring to Muslims (he offers the Latin; I offer only the English here, with Fr. Z's comments and added emphasis):
3. The Church regards with esteem (aestimatio: "an estimation of a thing according to its intrinsic worth") also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they (tamen ... ?) revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past (praeterita obliviscentes) and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.
Fr. Z says he wonders about a few things, such as whether the English translation offered by the Vatican website is a good reflection of the Latin. The English strikes him as "slightly rosier than the Latin," he says.

Then, following his (above-quoted) remarks about whether it is possible or wise to forget "things that have occurred in the past," Fr. Z turns to the document's statement that Muslims worship "the one, only God" (unicus Deus). He comments:
We often hear that Christians and Muslims (and Jews) worship the same God, the God of Abraham.

Is this indeed the case?

I don’t know enough about the Muslim understanding of God to be able to embrace that assertion without hesitation.

It would be helpful to have the help of some experts on Islam on this question.

I know that this is very complicated, and leaves us open to all sorts of bickering, but perhaps we could drill at this question a bit… calmly and intelligently.

I know, for example, that it is said that the God Muslims refer to as "Allah" (among the many other names) is personal, omnipotent, and is said to be compassionate. There is some agreement (to what extent I am not sure) that the Muslim’s Allah is the same God that entered into a covenant with Abraham. St. Augustine says that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. The Koran says that Allah is closer to us than our own jugular vein… which is an unsettling image.

Christians obviously believe that God is Triune. But, "O People of the Scripture! Do not speak lies against Allah, but speak the Truth. That Jesus Christ, son of Mary, was a messenger of Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not ‘Trinity.’ Desist! It is better for you. For Allah is one God." (An-Nisa 4:17)

Sometimes a contrast is made between the God of the Old and New Testament and Allah, who seems to act in a more "capricious" manner. Christians tend to think of God in terms of Logos while, as I understand it, Muslims tend to think of Allah as "Will", which brings us back to the notion of "capricious", that such a God would not be bound even by his own word. Certainly Pope Benedict raised some interesting questions at Regensburg, in 2006.
This is an important and a good question. Perhaps it can be honed to a finer point by asking whether (1) it is the same God that Muslims and Christians worship, albeit with different understandings of Him, or (2) a roughly similar (monotheistic, transcendent, all-powerful, etc.) understanding of God that they have, notwithstanding certain differences in emphasis, but with completely different referents -- that is, one referring to the living God, the other to a diabolical fantasy. I pose the issue in this antithetical manner simply in order to highlight as clearly as possible the logical possibilities.

I close with Fr. Z's advice: "Let’s see if we can have a discussion about some of these points without being boors."

22 comments:

Roger said...

It would seem at least by definition that One God means "One" there is no other, and "God" there is no greater, however the attributes of God are miles apart.

Lutheran said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/246272/imagining-islam-andrew-c-mccarthy?page=1

Ralph Roister-Doister said...

Words Obama could have written.

Ralph Roister-Doister said...

We have a lot more to worry about from Muslims than boorishness. I don't know if such a thing as "calculated naivete", but Nostra Aetate is yet another document of a council that radiated in pursuit of a bizarre and at times incoherent agenda.

Nancy Reyes said...

while you are at it, why not discuss the one million catholic guest workers in Saudi who have to travel to Dubai to attend mass, since no churches are allowed in Saudi?

And let's not forget the anti American anti Christian/Jewish/Hindu press in many Muslim countries that makes Glenn Beck look like a flaming liberal in comparison.

Ralph Roister-Doister said...

Fr Z's concern with "boorishness" reflects President Black Jesus' own fear of offending our enemies. The quoted portions of Nostra Aetate could be parts of our president's stump speech boilerplate. Woe to those who "tolerate" evil, and dialogue with depravity.

Samwise Gamgee for president, pope, or blogmaster, whichever he would prefer.

Bonald said...

While I would be quite happy if we Catholics could forget Nostra Aetate (as well as the rest of the ill-conceived council of which it was part), there are important reasons for saying that Muslims do worship the true God, imperfectly known, rather than a fictitious one.

The idea of a fictitious God is, in fact, problematic given divine simplicity. In God, there is no distinction between substance and essence; He is His divinity. Therefore, we can't think of God as one instantiation (even the only one) of a general type. Divinity is inherently singular. Forthermore, if all God's attributes are identical, then affirming one means implicitly affirming them all. Muslims do recognize some distinctly divine attributes, and these all necessarily refer to the true God.

Why is this important? Because Islam is not a significant threat to our neighbors' souls, but atheism is. If we start playing the game of "there are many possible gods, and it just so happens that none of them exist except the one we worship", we're setting ourselves up for attack.

Anonymous said...

Praeterita obliviscentes is from St Paul's Epistle to the Philippians and is very often quoted by St Augustine.

Pertinacious Papist said...

Anonymous, I think the context of the usage in Philippians and St. Augustine may be a trifle different from that envisioned by Nostra Aetate.

Sheldon said...

Bonald,

Let me say that the verdict is still out as far as I'm concerned on this one. It should go without saying that I have no quarrel with the claim that only one true God exists. I'm not sure it follows from this fact or from the doctrine of absolute divine simplicity that polytheistic language should be altogether shunned. In fact, the Old Testament regularly speaks of the rivalry between the God of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) and the Gods of Canaan and Egypt, etc. I don't think for a moment that this entails the conclusion that these other "gods" are "true God of true God." But that's the way the Bible reads.

Further, I don't think that the fact that we could be "setting ourselves up for attack" is a principled reason for avoiding a conclusion -- except perhaps, provisionally for reasons of diplomacy or something.

Even if it were true that Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christians -- something which they would vociferously deny, by the way -- I don't think we can avoid the conclusion that their understanding of this God differs radically in some ways from the Judeo-Christian understanding. For example, it's an understanding that does not allow for free will, human agency and responsibility, in the way the Judeo-Christian understanding does.

Is this understanding of God "not a significant threat to our neighbors' souls"? Insofar as Islam cultivates an awareness of a higher power who governs our lives, I think that it offers an advantage over atheism, perhaps as Alcoholics Anonymous does, in requiring that we are helpless in our habitual addictions without a "higher power" who has the power to liberate us. On the other hand, the powerful totalitarian quality of Islam, with the unquestioning, fatalistic and irrational submission it demands, and the fruits of violence that it historically displays, may be worse than atheism, as demonic obsession may be substantially worse than Enlightenment naturalistic humanism.

Sheldon said...

By the way, contrary to popular opinion (even among most Muslims), the name "Allah" comes from a pre-Islamic, pagan moon god of early Middle-Eastern polytheism.

Sheldon said...

Here's a bit on it: "Allah - the Moon God."

"The pagan Arabs worshipped the Moon-god Allah by praying toward Mecca several times a day; making a pilgrimage to Mecca; running around the temple of the Moon-god called the Kabah; kissing the black stone; killing an animal in sacrifice to the Moon-god; throwing stones at the devil; fasting for the month which begins and ends with the crescent moon; giving alms to the poor, etc."

Thus, many of the ritual customs of contemporary Islam originate in pre-Islamic Arab polytheistic paganism. But don't tell anyone.

Bonald said...

Dear Sheldon,

Thank you for your thought-provoking critique of my position. A few replies:

1) I think the occasionalism of Muslim philosophers more represents a different idea of creation than a different idea of God. I would say that it removes intelligibility from creatures rather than from the Creator, Who is left as the only principle out of which to make sense of anything.

2) Unlike Allah, I don't think Baal, Zeus, or the like had *distinctly* divine qualities attributed to them. They were just very powerful creatures.

3) Far more people in the West are abandoning Christianity for atheism or agnosticism than for Islam.

Anonymous said...

Well, if Muslims don't worship the same God as Christians, in what sense do the Jews? I mean the 50 to 60 percent of American Jews who even believe in God. At least Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet; the Talmud has Him burning in excrement.

Confitebor said...

By the way, contrary to popular opinion (even among most Muslims), the name "Allah" comes from a pre-Islamic, pagan moon god of early Middle-Eastern polytheism.

So what? Archaeology shows that the Hebrew names for "God" -- El, Elohiym, and Yahh -- were commonly used among the Canaanites and peoples of Syria and Phoenicia prior to the time of Moses, and the Old Testament itself uses El and Elohiym both for the true God and for false gods. It simply doesn't matter that before Islam, "Allah" was applied by the idolatrous Arabs to one of their deities. Muslims no more worship the moon than Christians who go to church on Sunday worship the sun god.

Hussein Wario said...

A Muslim’s idea of God is derived from the Qur’an and Prophet Muhammad’s Hadith. Both these sources show how “God,” “Allah” in Arabic, differs from the God in Judaism and Christianity. I believe “God” in Islam is of Muhammad’s invention. Here are a few reasons.
First, Allah is considered omniscient (all knowing) yet he says Mary the Mother of Jesus is a sister to Moses and Aaron of the Old Testament. Muhammad recited verses of the Qur’an and also said it in the Hadith. It took a Christian to correct Muhammad’s mistake years later. However, in the Qur’an Allah did not issue a correction. The error is still there.
Secondly, Muhammad invoked Allah’s name to get his wishes. There are instances in the Qur’an and also in the Hadith where when Muhammad had a desire for something, he got it with a “revelation” from Allah. For example, in Surah (chapter) 33 of the Qur’an, Muhammad admired a woman, wife of his adopted son; he got a “revelation” which forced his adopted son to divorce Zainab. Then Muhammad—who had at least five wives at that time—married her.
Thirdly, there are other references in the Qur’an where a Muslim must obey Allah and Muhammad. Surprisingly, none of these verses was from a period when Muhammad was powerless. I bet he concocted it all for his own gain. Therefore, one can emphatically say the God Muhammad preached cannot be the same as the Christian God. Even Muslims in Malaysia agree. The New York Times reported how they burned Catholic churches in January over Malay Christians’ use of “Allah” in their publications. Muslims know better who their “God” is. He is not the same as the Christian God!

anon said...

Regardless if we "worship the same God" or not... what is gained by saying so? Why is is even being said? Worship the same God?

Pertinacious Papist said...

Jordanes,

I appreciate your caveat to Sheldon's comments.

Still, I find the list of things originating in pre-Islamic paganism (praying toward Mecca several times daily, a pilgrimage to Mecca, circumambulating around the Kebah, etc.) remarkable simply by dint of their integrated relationship to the whole of each religion. It's as if practices of the earlier pagan religion were taken over in toto and then given a new Islamic meaning.

There are elements of Christian practice with pagan antecedents, as you (and Cardinal Newman amply) point out. Yet I don't see anything like a wholesale borrowing of an integrated system of practices from an ante-Christian pagan religion. This I find rather remarkable, whatever its significance.

Pertinacious Papist said...

Mr. Hussein Wario,

Greetings and many thanks for gracing this comment box with your insights.

For any of you who may not know, Mr. Wario is a Christian convert from a Sunni Muslim background, abundantly school in the esoteric doctrines of Islam. He is author of Cracks in the Crescent, which I reviewed for the New Oxford Review (July-August, 2010). It's a remarkable book based on first-hand experiences and acquaintance with vast Islamic resources practically inaccessible to many Muslims.

Pertinacious Papist said...

Mr. Hussein Wario also has a blog relevant to the topic at hand: http://husseinwario.com/blog/,

Ralph Roister-Doister said...

We keep looking for common ground, pawing desperately, like burrowing animals in late November. There isn't any. Their god is a god of avarice and power. Are we supposed to rejoice that there is only one of him? "Us monotheists got to stick together" How naive. How simpleminded. How Vatican IIish.

Anonymous said...

"I know, for example, that it is said that the God Muslims refer to as "Allah"

Not only muslims. It's an arab word. Christian arabs use it.

Interestingly, you tell us to reconsider Nostra Aetate when it comes to Muslims, but not when it comes to the Jews, who follow the Pharisaic (and Anti-Catholic) tradition, strongly condemned by the Tradition (i.e., every pope until John XXIII). The jewish concept of God (I mean the Orthodox Jewish concept, not their watered-down versions called "Reform", "Conservaite", Progressive, etc, etc) is actually very different from the Catholic concept - probably even more different than the Muslim concept of god is.

We should treat these questions without double standart. Unfortunately, it is not the case of this blog.