Pope Benedict asserts that both reason and dialogue are inherent to Christianity:
Possibly most readers read or heard about the lecture that Pope Benedict XVI gave to academicians at Regensburg University on September 12 of last year. Nearly all of the reaction was about his quoting a medieval source's blunt comments regarding Islam. His main point, however, was that all persuasions including religion should be promoted by reasonable dialogue and not by force. That is not to say that his comments about Islam should be minimized or ignored. Many commentators who are familiar with the Pope's ability to express himself intellectually feel that those words, even though quoted from a historically distant source, were carefully chosen. Personally, I was somewhat taken aback by how early in the talk he inserted the quote. Nevertheless, I admired the Pope's forthrightness in boldly speaking his mind. The issues of Islam and violence must be confronted head on and that is what the Pope did. Those comments, however, were not spoken without cost: the strong and sometimes violent reaction to his comments continued for a long time afterwards, carried out by partisans who consider any perceived dishonor worthy of revenge.
That particular comment, however, was not what provoked my main reaction to his talk. What really caught my attention was his thesis that Christianity has incorporated the value of reason and dialogue by way of loan from Greek thought, albeit a selective and purified borrowing. In other words, Benedict claims that Christian theology has been “Hellenized," and thereby made conformable to reason and dialogue. His chief piece of evidence is the acceptance of the Greek notion of “logos.” This term, developed by Heraclitus, Aristotle, Plato, and others, encompasses concepts inherent in the following English ideas: reason, word, seed, logic, speech, thought, order, and principle. It even is used by John to refer to Christ himself as seen in John 1:1.
Benedict developed this idea in another address referred to as the “Crisis of Culture,” given a day before the death of his predecessor (http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/RatzingerEurope.php). In that talk as well as his most recent, he asserts that Christianity is a religion built on reason, and that the world and all that is in it has a rational and therefore meaningful origin. He goes on to say that not only the world, but also Christianity was born within a context of reason and that reason continues to be its criterion and goal: “In the dialogue so necessary between secularists and Catholics, we Christians ought to be very attentive to return the faithful to this fundamental guide: to live a faith that comes forth from the Logos, from creative Reason, and which is therefore also open to all which is truly reasonable” (from “Crisis of Culture”). It is as if he is saying to Islam and other persuasions such as science: I am here to listen, to learn, and to dialogue and not just teach. Let's agree on the ground rules and begin to speak with each other. In order to drive home his point concerning religion, he adds that reason and not compulsion or violence is bound up in the very nature of God himself.
Now concerning the part that caught my attention: What he has done is revisit one of the great controversies that has characterized Christian theology since its very beginning: What should be our relationship with the surrounding culture, beginning with Greece? What should we accept and what should we reject? Or as Tertullion put it: What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? The answers, of course, vary. Benedict takes the position that we in the past have incorporated the best of Greek thought and that it is now irreversibly a part of Christianity. Of course one reason why he said this was to underscore the importance of reason and reasonable dialogue. But another reason was to point out that Christianity is not at odds with what is true in other philosophies or religions. Although he doesn't mention it, it may well have been an invitation to Muslim scholars to bring their best thinking to the table, knowing that the Pope would give it a fair and open appraisal. Since very few Muslims have been seen rushing to that table of peaceful dialogue, one can imagine how gravely misinterpreted the Pope must now feel. One thing is for sure: the repercussions from that lecture at Regensburg will be felt for a long time to come. The debate, peacefully reasonable or not, is not yet over.`
