Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Logos, Reason, Creation, Mahomet, and Statism

Stuff which should be known....

“In the beginning was the Word.” In effect, the creation account . . . is characterized by the regularly recurring phrase: “And God said…” The world is a product of the Word, of the Logos, as Saint John expresses it, using a key term from the Greek language. “Logos” means “reason,” “sense,” “word.” It is not reason pure and simple, but creative Reason, that speaks and communicates itself. It is Reason that both is and creates sense. The creation account tells us, then, that the world is a product of creative Reason.

"Here we are faced with the ultimate alternative that is at stake in the dispute between faith and unbelief: are irrationality, lack of freedom, and pure chance the origin of everything, or are reason, freedom and love at the origin of being? Does the primacy belong to unreason or to reason? This is what everything hinges upon in the final analysis. As believers we answer, with the creation account and with Saint John, that in the beginning is reason. In the beginning is freedom . . . --Benedict XVI, Easter Vigil homily

If you paid attention to B-16's Regensburg lecture on the deficiency of Mohammedanism, you'll see the echoes in the second graf above. B-16 equates "irrationality" with "lack of freedom" and "pure chance." The Christian worldview--that 'freedom' and 'love' (and thus, 'reason') are at the origin of being, stands in direct contrast to the Islamic Allah-tyrant model.

And thus the connection between Islamic and Statist tyrannies. The Statist model differs only in naming its god.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"And thus the connection between Islamic and Statist tyrannies..."

I just threw up in my mouth.