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Jamie Glazov interviews the dreaded Jihad Watch Director at FrontPage:
Frontpage Interview's guest today is Robert Spencer, a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of seven books, eight monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Religion of Peace?.FP: Robert Spencer, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
Spencer: Thanks, Jamie. I am a great admirer of your work and it is always good to talk with you.
FP: Likewise sir.
What inspired you to write this book?
Spencer: For six years now, almost invariably when I would talk about the elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims, people would respond by referring to violence in the Bible and the sins of Christianity. Over time I came to see that the all-pervasive sense of guilt and self-hatred that blankets the West in this age of the dominance of multiculturalism is the single greatest obstacle keeping us from meeting the ideological challenge that the jihadists present. Insofar as Westerners are ashamed of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and so many are, they will not defend it.
This is not a matter of faith. Whether or not one is Jewish or Christian, Judeo-Christian civilization has given the world numerous ideas of human rights that the jihadists directly challenge: freedom of conscience, the equality of dignity of men and women, equality of rights before the law for all, and more. Islamic Sharia offers a radically different model of society. We in the West need to recognize this and stand up for our own civilization, culture, and heritage. If we are too paralyzed by guilt and consumed with self-hatred to defend our own civilization, we certainly won't keep it.
FP: Ok, so let's build on these themes. Can you talk a bit about why the lib-Left wages war on Christianity and keeps quiet about Islam? This is a pathology in the context of Islamic jihadists being the real threat to free societies.
Spencer: Well, Jamie, this phenomenon is so all-pervasive that I thought it deserved book-length treatment. Ayaan Hirsi Ali said it well to a Leftist interviewer in Canada a few weeks ago: "You grew up with freedom, and so you think you can spit on freedom." They take it for granted, without realizing how severely it is imperilled. Would Leftists prefer to live in an Islamic society rather than in one that is or was Judeo-Christian? If they would, they will be, eventually, quite unpleasantly surprised: they will discover that many of the liberties they enjoyed were made possible by core assumptions of the Judeo-Christian civilization they helped to subvert, and that those liberties are not upheld under Islamic law.FP: I disagree with you in the sense that I think that the Left realizes very well how severely imperilled our society is in the face of radical Islam. Just like in the days of communism, the Left venerates tyranny and yearns for submission under it. The Left knows exactly what it is doing when abetting and supporting an entity that it knows it itself will be consumed by. There is a logic to why leftist intellectuals support societies that butcher intellectuals, why leftist feminists support societies that mutilate women and why leftist homosexuals and minorities worship societies that barbarize homosexuals and minorities. It's a death wish based on self-loathing. But perhaps this deeper discussion between us belongs in another forum.
Let's continue: in what ways is Christianity a religion of peace and Islam not a religion of peace?
Spencer: In terms of your disagreement with me, I think you have a fascinating thesis, and I think it is well worth exploring. It is noteworthy, as you yourself have pointed out elsewhere, that both the Left and the jihadists envision an earthly utopia enforced by terror: the Left has demonstrated this every time it has gained power, and Sharia is a recipe for a totalitarian reign of terror in the name of justice and right, as the Taliban showed. I look forward to discussing this further with you and getting your thoughts on this.
So getting back to Christianity and Islam: Islam is unique among religions in having a developed doctrine, theology, and legal system mandating warfare against unbelievers. This is found in the Qur'an and Sunnah, as well as in Islamic jurisprudence. Many like to point to violent passages in the Bible as an alleged equivalent to this, but actually the Bible contains no open-ended, universal command for believers to wage war against unbelievers, as does the Qur'an (9:5, 9:29, 2:190-193, etc.). The violent passages in the Bible are also spiritualized by most exegetes, while mainstream Muslim commentators going back to Muhammad's first biographer, Ibn Ishaq, and including many modern authorities (such as Imran Ahsen Khan Nyazee of the International Islamic University and many others) see the Qur'an's violent passages as taking precedence over other, relatively peaceful passages.
Jesus taught, "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44). The Qur'an tells Muslims to be "ruthless to unbelievers" (48:29). When one commits violence in the name of Christianity, he is transgressing against Christ's teachings, but the jihadists make and sustain the case among their fellow Muslims that they are the believers who are being truly faithful to Islamic teaching.
FP: Why is there no distinction between Church and State in Islam? What are the consequences of this reality?
Spencer: The ideas of the non-establishment of a state religion, and the equality of rights of all before the law, both of which are essential to any viable republican government, arose in a Christian context. The philosopher and cultural analyst Roger Scruton observes that Christ's "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21) "contrasts radically with the vision set before us in the Koran, according to which sovereignty rests with God and His Prophet, and legal order is founded in divine command."
From a Muslim perspective, this is a virtue. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a professor at George Washington University and author of many books about Islam, suggests that Christianity was incomplete because, unlike Islam, it offered no comprehensive system for governance. Nasr asserts that because Christianity "had no Divine legislation of its own, it had to absorb Roman law in order to become the religion of a civilization." Therefore "in Christian civilization law governing human society did not enjoy the same Divine sanction as the teachings of Christ. In fact this lack of a Divine Law in Christianity had no small role to play in the secularization that took place in the West during the Renaissance." By contrast, "Islam never gave unto Caesar what was Caesar's. Rather, it tried to integrate the domain of Caesar itself, namely, political, social, and economic life, into an encompassing religious worldview."
The jihadist Sayyid Qutb stated this idea more bluntly in 1948. After criticizing both the Communist world and the West for their materialism, he continues: "But Christianity.cannot be reckoned as a real force in opposition to the philosophies of the new materialism; it is an individualist, isolationist, negative faith. It has no power to make life grow under its influence in any permanent or positive way..Christianity is unable, except by intrigue, to compete with the social and economic systems that are ever developing, because it has no essential philosophy of actual, practical life. On the other hand, Islam is a perfectly practicable social system in itself.It offers to mankind a perfectly comprehensive theory of the universe, life, and mankind." In short, it offers a totalitarian, theocratic vision -- which might be quite attractive to true believers like Qutb, but remains less appealing to dissenters.
Scruton notes that in contrast to this theocratic framework within Islam, "the fifth-century Pope Gelasius I made the separation of church and state into doctrinal orthodoxy, arguing that God granted 'two swords' for earthly government: that of the Church for the government of men's souls, and that of the imperial power for the regulation of temporal affairs." While the understanding of the relationship between the two has been the source of a great deal of controversy, "throughout the course of Christian civilization we find a recognition that conflicts must be resolved and social order maintained by political rather than religious jurisdiction." One reason why this is so important is for the protection of minorities and dissenters -- freedom of conscience, Scruton says, "requires secular government."
Scruton, of course, is not referring to the aggressively anti-religious secularism that has dominated the public discourse on religion in the United States for several decades now, but simply to the non-establishment of a state religion. Only a state in which there is no established religion can people of differing religions live together in harmony, enjoying equality of rights before the law. Freedom of conscience can only be guaranteed where one is free to change his religion, or to have no religion at all, without incurring a death sentence or any other legal penalty.
FP: Many Muslim extremists love to paint the West as being rampant with "immorality" and the Islamic world as being somehow "pure." But is the Islamic world really more "moral" than the West?
Spencer: Jihadists routinely deride Western freedom as libertinism: "In essence," one explained, "the kufr [unbelief] of Western society can be summed up in one word which is used over and over to justify its presence, growth, and its glorification... Freedom. Yet what such a society fails to comprehend, is that such 'freedom' simply represents the worship and enslavement to desires, opinions, and whims, a disregard for what is (truly) right, and a disregard for the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth."
However, as much as American conservatives may deplore the depravity of pop culture today, they should not allow themselves to be placed on the defensive by the Islamic moral critique - and not just because of the hypocrisy of the jihadists in making this critique. In reality, the freedom at which the jihadists sneer is an essential component of any genuine morality. "Australian law guarantees freedoms up to a crazy level," remarked the controversial Australian Mufti, Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali - but without freedom, even "up to a crazy level," morality is hollow. The secular West, with all its irreligion and debauchery, provides the only authentic framework for genuine virtue. Without the freedom to choose evil, the freedom to choose what is good actually amounts to nothing more than coercion. If an individual is forced to be good, he may display an outward conformity, but this conformism bears no other resemblance to the genuine virtue that is manifested in a choice to do good when one could just as easily choose the opposite.
Yet this coercion is a fundamental element of Sharia law, with its stonings and amputations. The Ayatollah Khomeini admitted this without apology: "Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors!"
The alternatives are not to try to appease the jihadists by deriding permissiveness in accord with their cultural critique or to turn a blind eye to the genuinely revolting aspects of pop culture. In fact, one of the most potent recruiting tools the jihadists have today is their ability to present themselves as those who are loyal to God, as opposed to a Western world full of blasphemers and libertines. Thus a shrewd response to the jihadists' ideological critique of the Western world would be to point out that the Judeo-Christian tradition, with its principle of individual freedom as a prerequisite for virtue, offers a superior (yes, superior) vision of God and the world than that offered by the Ayatollah Khomeini and his sword as the key to Paradise. Certainly there is great moral evil in the West, as there is everywhere else in the world, but that moral evil is an unavoidable byproduct of the freedom without which there can be no genuine adherence to moral norms.
Such a response would give content to the oft-repeated avowal that America is offering "freedom" to the Islamic world. Rather than allowing the jihadist characterization of that freedom as mere libertinism to go unanswered, an explanation of the elements of genuine virtue would take the substance out of the jihadist moral critique altogether.
FP: Who is threatened by militant Islam? Who are the potential victims?
Spencer: Everyone is threatened by the Islamic jihad in various ways, except the Muslim male jihadists themselves. The Islamic law the jihadists want to institute institutionalizes the subjugation of women and non-Muslims, denies freedom of conscience, inhibits freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry. So who is not among the potential victims?
FP: Overall, what role is the Left playing in this terror war?
Spencer: One of obfuscation and denial, with a smattering of outright identification with those who would destroy us. There is plenty of denial and wilful ignorance about the jihad threat on the Right also. It is long past time for both sides to stop playing politics with this threat, and to take steps to secure our national survival.
FP: What are Islam's and Christianity's disposition toward reason? What are the effects of these dispositions?
Spencer: Nietzsche once noted that "there is no such thing as science 'without any presuppositions.' A philosophy, a 'faith,' must always be there first, so that science can acquire from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist." It may be jarring to those who believe that faith and reason are at odds, and that religions are all the same, but it is nevertheless a historical fact that modern science took its presuppositions from Christianity, and that Islam gave modern science no impetus at all.
The Qur'an explicitly refutes the Judeo-Christian view of God as a God of reason when it says: "The Jews say: Allah's hand is fettered. Their hands are fettered and they are accursed for saying so." (5:64) In other words, it is heresy to say that God operates by certain natural laws that we can understand through reason. This argument was played out throughout Islamic history. Muslim theologians argued during the long controversy with the Mu'tazilite sect, which exalted human reason, that Allah was not bound to govern the universe according to consistent and observable laws. "He cannot be questioned concerning what He does." (Qur'an 21:23).
In contrast to the dogmatic stagnation of the Islamic world, science was able to flourish in Christian Europe during the same period because Christian scientists were working from assumptions derived from the Bible, which were very different from those of the Qur'an. The Bible assumes that God's laws of creation are natural laws, a stable and unchanging reality-a sine qua non of scientific investigation. In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas even went so far as to assert that "since the principles of certain sciences-of logic, geometry, and arithmetic, for instance-are derived exclusively from the formal principals of things, upon which their essence depends, it follows that God cannot make the contraries of these principles; He cannot make the genus not to be predictable of the species, nor lines drawn from a circle's center to its circumference not to be equal, nor the three angles of a rectilinear triangle not to be equal to two right angles." (Emphasis added)
Such ideas could never have taken root in the Islamic world. They would have been tantamount to saying that Allah's hand was fettered.
FP: What reactions do you expect to your book? What reactions have there been to your book?
Spencer: I expect the usual venom and distortion of my thesis from Muslim and non-Muslim apologists for jihad in the U.S. I'd like to begin a dialogue with those who believe, like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, that religion itself is the problem. John Derbyshire has begun this with an elegantly written review at Pajamas Media, to which I have been invited to reply. I have written a reply, and hope PJM will publish it soon.
FP: What do you hope to achieve with Religion of Peace?
Spencer: I hope that all those people -- Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, secular Muslims, atheists, etc. -- who enjoy the benefits of Judeo-Christian Western civilization will be moved to mount a more spirited defense of that civilization in its hour of greatest peril.
FP: Robert Spencer you are a true soldier. Thank you for having the nobility and the courage to tell the truth and for your priceless contribution to the West's fight for freedom. We hope to talk to you again soon.
Spencer: Thank you, Jamie. I admire your courage and that of everyone at FP for your willingness to discuss these issues openly and freely, despite the political correctness that blankets us and the smears and intimidation that are at this point virtually the only non-lethal weapons remaining to the politically correct Left and the apologists for jihad.
Posted by Robert at August 29, 2007 7:56 AM
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"FP: Overall, what role is the Left playing in this terror war?
Spencer: One of obfuscation and denial, with a smattering of outright identification with those who would destroy us. There is plenty of denial and wilful ignorance about the jihad threat on the Right also. It is long past time for both sides to stop playing politics with this threat, and to take steps to secure our national survival.""
......and That Is The Truth.....no ifs, ands, or buts............
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at August 29, 2007 8:12 AM
Glenn Beck would disagree, someone should send him this link( me@glennbeck.com )and ask why he ignores Mr Spencer's Books, and how he explains Islams 1400 year history of murder and mayhem and jihad under his theory that Islam has been hijacked .
Since he has "done his homework" he should be eagar to defend his hypothesis .
at August 29, 2007 8:16 AM
"'Australian law guarantees freedoms up to a crazy level,' remarked the controversial Australian Mufti, Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali - but without freedom, even 'up to a crazy level,' morality is hollow...
"Without the freedom to choose evil, the freedom to choose what is good actually amounts to nothing more than coercion..."
Right on.
Posted by: Josephine at August 29, 2007 8:25 AM
I think the Left provides the necessary intellectual support for the Islamic position that they are "oppressed" by the West. The Left created the notion that a McDonalds on every street corner in Europe means Europe is part of the "American Empire." Similarly, American movies in Jakarta are reasons to kill Americans in New York --> IF you have the Left's "cultural imperialism" babble.
Posted by: Beagle at August 29, 2007 8:43 AM
Spot on, Robert -- excellent discourse.
The mainstream remains reluctant, but through your ceaseless and articulate endeavors we are realizing progress toward a common understanding of the very tangible threat islam and its jihadists pose to our way of life. Thanks for your sweat and tenacity.
Gondemar
at August 29, 2007 8:58 AM
Bravo Robert.
Courageous and vital.
"Hear wisdom my son, hear wisdom and live..."
Posted by: dgene at August 29, 2007 9:43 AM
"Just like in the days of communism, the Left venerates tyranny and yearns for submission under it. The Left knows exactly what it is doing when abetting and supporting an entity that it knows it itself will be consumed by. There is a logic to why leftist intellectuals support societies that butcher intellectuals, why leftist feminists support societies that mutilate women and why leftist homosexuals and minorities worship societies that barbarize homosexuals and minorities."
*sigh* And here I was beginning to think Mr. Spencer was an intelligent human being...Alas, I thought wrong.
Posted by: GetBornAgain at August 29, 2007 10:00 AM
GBA
Robert Spencer didn't say that. Jamie Glazov said that.
Posted by: wrathofasma at August 29, 2007 10:21 AM
Scruton notes that in contrast to this theocratic framework within Islam, "the fifth-century Pope Gelasius I made the separation of church and state into doctrinal orthodoxy, arguing that God granted 'two swords' for earthly government: that of the Church for the government of men's souls, and that of the imperial power for the regulation of temporal affairs."
Scruton is a very smart philosopher, but I wouldn't take him as an expert on "doctrinal orthodoxy" if he thinks that Pope St. Gelasius I's "two powers" (not "two swords," as explained below) doctrine is anything like what is generally understood as "separation of church and state." Moreover, he ignores many other formulations of doctrinal orthodoxy, in the context of which St. Gelasius's letter must be understood. He ignores, for example, the teaching of Pope Leo XIII (in Immortale Dei) that "the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion." I can't think of any modern-day advocate of separation of church and state who would agree with Leo on this point, but I can't imagine St. Gelasius disagreeing with it.
BTW, "two swords" is not the expression used by Pope St. Gelasius. What the pope said was: "There are two powers by which chiefly this world is ruled: the sacred authority of the priesthood and the authority of kings. And of these the authority of the priests is so much the weightier, as they must render before the tribunal of God an account even for the kings of men."
The "two swords" formulation *was*, however, used by Pope Boniface VIII in Unam sanctam, where he said:
"[I]f the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John 'there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.' We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: 'Behold, here are two swords' [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: 'Put up thy sword into thy scabbard' [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered _for_ the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.
"However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: 'There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God' [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other."
Not the Islamic view of church-state relations, but not what I'd call a ringing endorsement of separation of church and state, either.
Posted by: Seamus at August 29, 2007 10:22 AM
I found this at Atlas Shrugs. It gives a quick history of the relationship of marxism to political correctness done by William Link on behalf of the Free Congress Foundation. Marxism has a clear intent to destroy western civilizaion.
This is really worth listening to.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/08/the-history-of-.html
Posted by: jb at August 29, 2007 10:34 AM
Important discussion here between Jamie and Robert.
This especially jumped out at me:
"There is a logic to why leftist intellectuals support societies that butcher intellectuals, why leftist feminists support societies that mutilate women and why leftist homosexuals and minorities worship societies that barbarize homosexuals and minorities. It's a death wish based on self-loathing. But perhaps this deeper discussion between us belongs in another forum."
I find myself unable to disagree with that statement from Jamie Glazov. The corruption and self-deprecation that overwhelms the majority of the Left brings with it the mentality of lemmings and sycophants that secretly wish to give everything over to the 'enlightened barbarians' simply because they are not Western in origin. It is an inescapable trend if you look straight at it.
I'm going to link this article.
Posted by: Foehammer at August 29, 2007 11:09 AM
What are we are fighting besides jihadists? The communist tentacles that have reached into our society since WWII. Roosevelt let them in his administration even after being warned he had some spies - he laughed and didn't bother to look futher, the hollywierdos fully accepted them so we are inundated with their agenda on the airwaves and were enthusiastic in bashing everyone who crossed them, and the Democrats who have successfully allowed their thinking to be carried on in our courts and schools.
What did the very early communists do? Basically worked on getting rid of Christianity in Russia, China, and wherever they are dominate. What have the muslims been doing in the Middle East and elsewhere? Wiping out Jews, Christians and others in every places they occupy. What are the communists doing in Europe? The same thing and they are more advanced in their goals than in the USA, but they are doing the same thing here too. And the muslims are striking when we are weakened in this sense. The only problem is that the communists don't realize that the muslims will be after them next. Now that is something I hope that never happens because both of those 'idiot'ologies are so totalitarian and intolerant.
Posted by: R_not at August 29, 2007 11:24 AM
Beck is a coward. He is hoping to run the middle of the road and sell commercials.
Remember: There are only two things in the middle of the road - yellow stripes and dead skunks.
Posted by: infidel! at August 29, 2007 11:34 AM
Excellent interview.
Both Glazov and Spencer do a good job at exposing the Left's(not Democrats, they are two different beasts) aiding and abetting of Islamic fundamentalists.
If one doubts the Left's culpability - then where are their Spencer's and liberal blogs demanding that we not give in to the demands of medieval thugs and their expelll their preachers of hate and death in this country?
BTW here's a test you can do on Lefty blogs to see where they stand. Bring up Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson in some discussion and just watch their response.
Posted by: waltc at August 29, 2007 12:50 PM
Beck isn't a coward...but he's also not stupid.
Remember hwere he's at...in the lion's den of political correctness-the commie news network CNN.
It is NOT even close to "neutral" site.
He's already pushing it as it is, and to mention the book is "biting the hand that feeds you"...he's be off the air in 15 minutes flat. This is the same network that broadcast that islamist propaganda spewed by the islamist ass-kissing militant propagandist, "christ-i-am pour-some-more!".
Anyone stupid enough to believe such outrageous puke like she put out needs their head examined.
He's been lucky so far...and is walking on eggshells.
He'd do rather well on FoxNews, but the timeslots are all taken up for now.
Patience.
at August 29, 2007 3:21 PM
Foehammer:
A good but disgusting example of a self loathing left wing ideologue is that America hating fraud Ward Churchill. And of course David Horowitz has got a whole book on these America haters.
Is the American system of government perfect? far from it, but the next one is much worse. The problem with most left wingers is that they are not very bright when it comes to looking at the big picture, their concepts, and their causes are narrow and not well thought out as to how it effects everything else.
Watching one of these left wing parades marching by in San francisco, one gets the feeling that alot of it could have easily been staged in Cuba,Iran,or in the Palestinian territories.
Posted by: Mackie at August 29, 2007 3:32 PM
"Everyone is threatened by the Islamic jihad in various ways, except the Muslim male jihadists themselves"
Is that accurate? I mean, lets says for example in Bizzaroland, once Al Qaeda finally wins and kills everyone except other Al Qaeda members, wont they start criticizing the splinter in their fellow jihadists eyes and bumping each other off? That's the nature of the beast and the trouble I have always seen with absolute monotheists like the islamists. There's always something someone does that's not quite right in their own view (Arab jihadsts dislike Slavic Jihadists and vice versa).
Anyhow, very refreshing exchange, especially the Leftist discussion.
Another thing I took from this interview is how Muslims are so arrogant about imposing Allah's way on everyone else (via sharia) so we can all live so called 'holy' lives. What's the matter, can't they trust in their belief enough to get on with their lives and pay no attention to what others do in the world around them?
Posted by: GreatShaitan at August 29, 2007 4:30 PM
I once read an opinion from Ibrahim Desai that stated that democracy was not allowed because people could choose to legalize liquor or gambling if they had enough votes.
Cetain counties in Nevada have legalized prostitution, and gambling is becoming an important source of revenue in most all states.
Spencer hit the nail on the head when he said that goodness by the sword is not goodness.
Islam is all about appearances, ritual cleanliness, making a big show out of prayer, hiding women in tents, and wearing clothes approved by Mo. Christianity is, on the other hand, all about what is inside the person and what comes out.
Posted by: Pelayo at August 29, 2007 4:59 PM
Wonderful interchange. Fascinating the stuff about Thomas Aquinas in effect denying the omnipotence of God. (God could not contradict mathematical laws.) Because in the Judeo-Christian tradition God's hand is "fettered" by natural and other laws, those laws can be investigated, and thus science can be created. But Islam says that "Allah is not fettered" in any way, and obeys only himself, not any set of laws. Thus Islam has been relatively inhospitable to science.
Until reading Spencer's book, I had no clear idea of those distinctions.
Posted by: traeh at August 29, 2007 5:39 PM
Charles Hartshorne, the process theologian, somewhere says that there is really nothing in scripture to support the notion that God is omnipotent. Hartshorne, unless my memory is mistaken, says the omnipotence notion was an idea that came in to Christianity from without, during the medieval period. I wonder if it came in via Islam. Hartshorne argues that taking freedom seriously means that God cannot be omnipotent or omniscient.
Hartshorne also says that the notion that the existence of God cannot be proved is obsolete. Hartshorne says a rehabilitated version of Anselm's failed proof contains four or sixteen (depending on how you count them) successful proofs of the existence of God. But how can God be God if not omnipotent and omniscient? Hartshorne argues God has a number of other preeminent characteristics. For example, that God is the most responsive of all beings -- or something to that effect. But I'm sure I'm bastardizing and simplifying his view. He was a formidable formal logician and a colleague of Whitehead.
In any event, Spencer's point that the Judeo-Christian tradition fetters God's hand by laws seems in accord with Hartshorne's view that God is not omnipotent.
Posted by: traeh at August 29, 2007 5:48 PM
Robert, I have a bit of a quibble as to what has caused science to flourish in the West. Namely, more credit should be given to the ancient Greeks. If there were Jews who believed that God lived according to Reason and that the results of His laws were observable, then they were Hellenized Jews--those who were influenced culturally by Greco-Roman civilization, specifically Stoicism. Natural Law theory started with the Stoics in Athens a few centuries BC. I will not go so far as to agree with the militant secularists that Judaeo-Christian religions have only held back the course of Reason and science. But the presuppositions giving them their initial impetus go back to ancient Greece.
I'm quite certain that either Hellenized Jews or Judaized Greeks have laid the foundations for our glorious civilization.
Posted by: Hyman Roth at August 29, 2007 5:57 PM
Traeh:
The thing misunderstood about all of these "defintions" of God is that God himself is THE definition. Change exists only in the Logos because that is our link to God and how we see God, for we are in a time realm. So he has power in his manifestations to US, which is real, as we link both material and spiritual worlds. Keep in mind that this is our human perspective and is folly to consider too intricately. Reason is a guide but ultimately spirit carries everything to truth and ultimate understanding (which we will n ever attain, but whose likeness we may). I would take omnipotence just to mean "in all things", because everything that exists has a "power" to it in some fashion.
Hyman:
The Greeks observed many things. One thing that they didn't do was set up a method to TEST them. They theorized about heavier objects falling faster. But they never dropped a small stone vs. a heavy stone to see that they hit the ground at the same time, actually. They were of course right about quite a few things but they rarely had the frame of mind that went about testing things to prove them in the way that the future westerners would ... so they were precursors, but not scientists inasmuch as we know them now. There's a reason why Newton and Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes were as they were, and from where they were from.
at August 29, 2007 6:58 PM
jb, thanks for that link. Outstanding - and frightening. I watched the whole show - it seemed to cut off around the end - is there more?
In any case, that video should be required viewing for all Westerners who question the existence of a war being waged against us by the cultural Marxists, who have a stranglehold on the media and academia (I know the latter is true by 18 years' personal experience), and are trying to destroy Western civilization.
I'm neutral in the Glazov-Spencer disagreement. Glazov is right insofar as there is a self-conceived "vanguard" of the cultural revolution, but they are being followed by a lot of stupid people who don't know or care where this is all heading, and can't believe the consequences of their choices. It's like showing up at a concentration camp in Europe in the early 1940's in a state of denial. The hard left is evil. The liberals who hate President Bush (as confused as he often is) more than militant Islam are the fuel to the left's destructive fire.
Posted by: Surak at August 29, 2007 8:53 PM
"In any event, Spencer's point that the Judeo-Christian tradition fetters God's hand by laws seems in accord with Hartshorne's view that God is not omnipotent."
Posted by: traeh at August 29, 2007 5:48 PM
There is a much simpler way to look at the "fettered hands of God". And that is - He set up a nice, orderly universe and it is up to us to figure out how it works.
Ask an illiterate Bedouin, "How does that airplane fly?" and he will tell you, "Allah's will."
"Why did that airplane crash?" "Allah's will."
at August 30, 2007 1:47 AM
The Leftist critique is one of the main reasons I find this site interesting and educational, even though I am generally a liberal guy (as you could tell). I believe in helping the poor and respecting human rights--but at the same time, I am well aware of the Jihadi threat to these very ideals, and am discomfited that many of my peers so minimize it. Especially noteworthy, in my opinion, is the way Jihadis often treat other MOSLEMS, as can be seen from current events in Iraq and Lebanon.
However, I strongly disagree with what seems to be the generally endorsed solution for solving Jihadism. Spencer himself states he wants a "reevaluation of Islamic texts", to move toward a more tolerant version of Islam. FOR SPENCER, this is the ultimate end goal. But how does he expect such a reevaluation to take place, when he favors squelching the political expression of Islam?
Any potential "reforming Moslem" is still a Moslem--even as he is against Jihadism, he wants to practice his faith fully. When you deny him this desire, he swallows the bitter pill, and becomes a Jihadi to avoid compromising his devotion to Islam. So basically, many on the the Left deny there's a problem, and many on the Right demagogue the problem to score Crusader points with the electorate. As Mr. Spencer so eloquently states, "It is long past time for both sides to stop playing politics with this threat, and to take steps to secure our national survival."
Posted by: Shlomo_Michael at August 31, 2007 12:29 AM
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