O documento na sua plenitude diz respeito ao papel da “razão” na relação com Deus.
Ir buscar um registo de um imperador bizantino em batalha com tropas islâmicas, por causa de uma invasão ocidental, em que este afirma que é idéia original do Islão a conversão a fio de espada, para contrapor com a conversão pela razão no cristianismo é um argumento deveras débil.
Foi relembrado uma doutrina casuistica americana, no debate sobre FAIFE na IFLA, que reza: ‘a liberdade de expressão não permite gritar “FOGO” num teatro apinhado de gente.”
A citação feita por Bento XVI não é exactamente a mesma coisa, mas que encapotadamente lembra “incêndios” passados, tentando pôr as as culpas desses incêndios no Islão, quando na verdade a culpa desse fogo foi Cristã é muito inapropriada neste “teatro apinhado” de 7 mil milhões de pessoas!
As passagens relevantes, em inglês rezam:
This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable 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: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.
I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on – perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara – by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur’an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between – as they were called – three “Laws” or “rules of life”: the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur’an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point – itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole – which, in the context of the issue of “faith and reason”, I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.
In the seventh conversation (*4V8,>4H – controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion”. According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: “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 he preached”. The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, 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”, he says, “is not pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably (F×< 8`(T) 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…".
Como homem da era da comunicação social, não me custa a imaginar o dia explendoroso de propaganda anti-ocidental que muita gente está a ter podendo apresentar apenas a citação selectiva destas palavras na boca do Papa!!!
Como heresiólogo amador (aposentado) sinto-me despeitado por o Papa esquecer tão convenientemente todas as perseguições e todos os casos em que o Cristianismo “pediu” a conversão e a obediência à teologia do momento pelo fio da espada! O Imperador Manuel II Paleologus podia ter uma visão limitada da história, mas Ratzinger não tem desculpa.
É interessante notar que várias das posições teológicas defendidas pelo Imperador, na citação papal, foram consideradas heresia num ou noutro momento da Igreja Católica Apostólica Romana, e pessoas foram à fogueira por elas (há pelo menos fortes laivos de docetismo).
PS: Só tenho pena que o trabalho de 20 anos da vida de Francis Arinze tenha sido tão displicentemente mandado para o saco do lixo, mas estavam à espera de quê?!
PPS: Como dizia alguém na TV hoje de manhã: fecharam-se algumas portas e abriu-se um novo capitulo no diálogo entre as “Três Leis”…
