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10-06-2006, 02:01 AM

QUOTEPopeâs formula for interfaith dialogue 
By Madhuri Santanam Sondhi

It is impossible to ignore the negative mention of Islam in Pope Benedictâs address to the University of Regensburg. He could have developed his thesis of reason and violence without the jarring quote from Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologusâ diary from the 14th century, a period when the Vatican was sponsoring crusades of a surpassingly bloody nature in the region.

Pope Benedict seizes on the emperorâs views that violence is incompatible with Godâs nature, and that faith should be spread through good speech and proper reasoning. Islam today is not spreading its faith through violence.

Nowadays both Islam and Christianity make converts as much through promises of improved social and economic life as through spiritual appeal.

So it may be asked, to whom is this speech addressed? Modern âjihadistsâ use terror primarily for political ends: their declared aim is not to convert the Israelis or Americans to Islam but to throw them out of or curtail their influence in, West Asia, just as the object of IRA terrorism was not to convert Irish Protestants to Catholicism but to improve the position of the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland if not make it part of Eire.

Reactive violence provoked by cartoons caricaturing the Prophet or by Rushdieâs Satanic Verses is also not connected to conversion. So perhaps Benedict XVIâs reference to Islam is directed to those who use religion and violence to further social or political ends.

The bulk of the Popeâs scholarly speech was directed at the faculty of Regensburg to defend theology as a legitimate subject of academic study, given that it represents a marriage of faith with reason.

The modern university is the universitas scientiarum â a world of knowledge governed by rational methodologies, where, thanks to this âmarriageâ theology can claim a rightful place. However the combination of faith and reason is oxymoronic, at worst casuistic: any âunionâ between intrinsically incompatible terms is more likely to result in disequilibrium or the dominance of one term. 

The Pope himself selects which partner is to dominate: âNonetheless the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself.â He hopes that âreason and faith (can) come together in a new way ... if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons.â

As to which aspects of reason will go beyond empirical verification to these vast horizons he does not elaborate.

Having thus set the terms of the debate he outlines the next step towards a âgenuine dialogue of cultures and religionsâ to be based on reason as the handmaiden of faith. 

Again one may ask, which or whose faith? Most faiths are founded in an initial non-rational revelation, be it a prophet, incarnation or scripture, with reason assisting in erecting their superstructures. In his search for inter-faith dialogue and harmony Gandhi relied on a common moral space shared by all religions and by secularism (also based on an initial leap of faith) which was amenable to rational discussion and agreement.

But inter-religious dialogue is only up to a point a rational exercise in applied ethics. The fundamental clash between different religions arises from unbounded certainty in the utter superiority of oneâs own faith or methodology.

These differences cannot be argued away; they can only be accepted, perhaps not even respected, by the faithful, who would be undone by actual acknowledgement of another valid insight, revelation or perception. To conduct a rational dialogue on the basis of such foundations is like building a house on sand.

At his âreconciliationâ meeting at Castelgondolfo, which took place with Muslim diplomats and not clerics, the Pope reiterated his Regensburg thesis that violence is irrational and anti-religion. He did not focus on the various non-rational beliefs which abound in all religions including his own, and which underlie the discord which often leads to violence.

The Pope also inveighed against religious intolerance. Earlier he had accused India through its diplomatic envoy at the Vatican of practising intolerance: this was a reference to the Rajasthan governmentâs attempts to ban conversion. Obviously, one manâs tolerance is another manâs aggression, and this is one of those knotty problems which no amount of rationality can solve.

The multi-layered Regensburg speech lends itself to various interpretations. George Friedman suggests the Popeâs message is one of solidarity addressed to George Bush in the current not so triumphant western confrontation with Islam. An alternative point for consideration is the following:

The Pope has shown himself to be proactively concerned with a new conversion campaign, especially in Asia and Africa. Islam has similar goals. Just as in the 18th century the Europeans evolved the idea of âinternational relationsâ to regulate their competition for colonies in Asia and Africa, the Pope would like to establish the rules of the game by which Christianity and Islam compete for souls: a pitch for reason over violence to be agreed on under cover of interfaith dialogue. This would make little sense to the non-proselytising religions.

This does not mean that inter-religious dialogue be scuttled. It is a great advance from the periods of religious wars that religious heads and representatives find it possible to courteously converse with one another, albeit without total âgood faith.â Undercurrents of competition remain: one religion understands the right to convert as tolerance; another regards a principled acceptance of pluralism as tolerance. There is no argument about the right of individuals to freely change their beliefs: the issue here is one of large scale conversion.

Inter-faith dialogues should also include ideological and secular representatives, who are equally absolutist in their own versions of truth, and equally prone to violence. To accommodate all, we need at least an operational equality, born of the realisation that truth cannot be embodied in only one system, at best that all systems are subject to failings and error.

The dialogues would also entail mutual respect in encouraging imaginative speaking for the other from inside the otherâs faith, or from outside by an open recognition of the otherâs positive aspects. This will help create a constructive atmosphere, but cannot bring about total harmony.

The limitations are the underlying fundamental disagreements, so the dialogue has to carry the proviso that when we reach the sensitive limits where rational argument can take us no further, we abstain from pressing our point of view.

Abstention is the conclusion that follows from a dispassionate and rational analysis of conflict, the ultimate safeguard against violent disagreements and behaviour.

Hence what can actually be cultivated at interfaith sessions is mutual abstention, retaining faith in oneâs own beliefs but refusing to enter into conflict with others.

This procedure is founded not in any vision of absolute truth, but in the recognition of diversity and universal fallibility.

The writer can be contacted at mssondhi@hotmail.com

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