Through Force or Faith? — Page 79
Chapter 1 — Analysis of the Papal Lecture 79 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 …(Reading by the Pope, on September 12 2006, at the University of Regensburg, Faith, Rationality, University) III The decisive statement in this argument against conver- sion through violence is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: “For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But per Muslim teachings, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. IV Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Muslim R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn H azm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practice idolatry.