President Bush sees Third Awakening

From Rich Lowry & Kate Kate O'Beirne's story @ National Review Online, Sep. 12, 2006
The President mentioned that he is struck by the number of people he meets who tell him they are praying for him. He jokingly noted, “Now maybe the only people who pray in America come to my events,” but he wonders if there is evidence of a Third Awakening saying, “It feels like it to me.” He talked about the two constituencies that faithfully supported President Lincoln, noting that he had recently read extensively about the former President and his own policies aren’t based on his insights (nor obviously does he consider himself another Lincoln). Bush explained that Lincoln’s strongest supporters were religious people from the Second Awakening “who saw life in terms of good and evil” and who agreed with Lincoln that slavery was evil, and the Union soldiers who Lincoln had “great affection and admiration for.”

About the current situation, he added, “A lot of people in America see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me.” He kept coming back to how cultures change, both in America and overseas. “Cultures do change and ideological struggles are won.” “There was a stark change between the culture of the ‘50’s and the 60’s—boom—and I think there’s change happening here.” “It seems to me that there’s a Third Awakening.”

Joseph Ratzinger on the destiny of reason

(Abridged from the 10/2/06 Weekly Standard article, by Lee Harris)

Ratzinger is troubled that most educated people today appear to think that they know what they are talking about, even when they are talking about very difficult things, like reason and faith. Reason, they think, is modern reason. But, as Ratzinger notes, modern reason is a far more limited and narrow concept than the Greek notion of reason. The Greeks felt that they could reason about anything and everything--about the immortality of the soul, metempsychosis, the nature of God, the role of reason in the universe, and so on. Modern reason, from the time of Kant, has repudiated this kind of wild speculative reason. For modern reason, there is no point in even asking such questions, because there is no way of answering them scientifically. Modern reason, after Kant, became identified with what modern science does. Modern science uses mathematics and the empirical method to discover truths about which we can all be certain: Such truths are called scientific truths. It is the business of modern reason to severely limit its activity to the discovery of such truths, and to refrain from pure speculation.

Ratzinger, it must be stressed, has no trouble with the truths revealed by modern science. He welcomes them. He has no argument with Darwin or Einstein or Heisenberg. What disturbs him is the assumption that scientific reason is the only form of reason, and that whatever is not scientifically provable lies outside the universe of reason. According to Ratzinger, the results of this "modern self-limitation of reason" are twofold. First, "the human sciences, such as history, psychology, sociology, and philosophy, attempt to conform themselves to this canon of scientificity." Second, "by its very nature [the scientific] method excludes the question of God, making it appear an unscientific or pre-scientific question."

...Socrates hated the very thought of slavery--slavery to other men, slavery to mere opinions, slavery to fear, slavery to our own low desires, slavery to our own high ambitions. He believed that reason could liberate human beings from these various forms of slavery. Socrates would have protested against the very thought of a God who was delighted by forced conversions, or who was pleased when his worshipers proudly boasted that they were his slaves. He would have fought against those who teach that the universe is an uncaring thing, or who tell us that freedom is an illusion and our mind a phantom. Ultimately, perhaps, Socrates would have seen little to distinguish between those who bow down trembling before an irrational god and those who resign themselves before an utterly indifferent universe.

In his moving and heroic speech, Joseph Ratzinger has chosen to play the part of Socrates, not giving us dogmatic answers, but stinging us with provocative questions. Shall we abandon the lofty and noble conception of reason for which Socrates gave his life? Shall we delude ourselves into thinking that the life of reason can survive without courage and character? Shall we be content with lives we refuse to examine, because such examination requires us to ask questions for which science can give no definite answer? The destiny of reason will be determined by how we in the modern West answer these questions.

Pope Benedict Demands Reciprocity

(abridged from Captains Quarter's Blog, Sep. 26)

Pope Benedict XVI met with envoys from several Muslim nations today, greeting them warmly and emphasizing the need for dialogue between the faiths. He did not offer another apology for his remarks at Regensburg two weeks ago, but he did remind the envoys that they have not fulfilled their responsibilities in ensuring freedom of religious practice for Christians:

Pope Benedict XVI told Muslim diplomats Monday that ''our future'' depends on dialogue between Christians and Muslims, an attempt to ease relations strained by his recent remarks about Islam and violence.

The pontiff quoted from his predecessor, John Paul II, who had close relations with the Muslim world, when he described the need for ''reciprocity in all fields,'' including religious freedom. Benedict spoke in French to a roomful of diplomats from 21 countries and the Arab League in his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo in the Alban Hills near Rome.

After his five-minute speech in a salon in the papal palace, Benedict greeted each envoy individually, clasping their hands warmly and chatting for a few moments with every one.

''The circumstances which have given risen to our gathering are well known,'' Benedict said, referring to his remarks on Islam in a Sept. 12 speech at Regensburg, Germany. He did not address those remarks at length. ...

Benedict cited John Paul II's statement that ''Respect and dialogue require reciprocity in all spheres,'' particularly religious freedom, a major issue for the Vatican in Saudi Arabia and other countries where non-Muslims cannot worship openly.

Defending reason, from David Warren online

There is more, far more, to be said about Pope Benedict’s speech at Universität Regensburg last week. It was an important statement, not only for Catholics. But what he said has almost dissolved in the international fracas over a quotation of a quotation, taken maliciously out of context. The Pope was speaking about the ground rules for “dialogue”, not only between Muslims and Catholics. He was saying that Reason -- let’s give that a capital letter -- was the only ground on which we could discuss anything, since in matters of Faith, we are bound to disagree. But even our respective beliefs may be examined in the light of reason, and must be, if our dialogue is not to be a sham, an imposture, a dissemblance, a cheat.

The first thing is to note that the speech was only obliquely about Islam. Angry Muslims who think it was all about them have been badly misinformed. The Pope was addressing the intellectuals of the West, through a fine old institution of higher education where he used to teach. He was offering a “Selbstkritik der modernen Vernunft” -- a critique “from within” of modern reason. He was very careful to take no article of Catholic faith for granted, to play by the rules of strict reason...

Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth…or principals. About these things we must be intolerant…right is right if nobody is right; and wrong is wrong if everybody is wrong. And in this day and age we need not a church that is right when the world is right, but a church that is right when the world is wrong.

-Bishop Fulton Sheen

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