The Vatican has responded to a letter sent by a group of Muslim religious figures calling for dialogue between the two faiths.
The top Vatican official for Islam has praised a novel Muslim call for dialogue but said real theological debate with them was difficult as they saw the Koran as the literal word of God and would not discuss it in depth.
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, in an interview on Friday with the French Catholic daily La Croix, also said Christians would have to discuss curbs on building churches in the Islamic world in the dialogue advocated by 138 Muslim scholars in the appeal.
Well, I don’t understand why he considers the fact that Muslims believe the Quran to be the literal word of God a hurdle to dialogue. I mean why have theological debates in the first place. Everyone is free to believe in whatever book he/she wants to believe in. No dialogue needed here.
Now, what is understandable is the discussion on Christians’ rights in Muslim countries and especially Egypt. This is fair enough.
The Vatican can’t talk to the Muslims because they believe the Koran is the literal and inerrant Word of God?
Dunno why not, they talk to evangelical Christians.
Comment by Valerie — October 20, 2007 @ 12:55 am
Valerie
Evangelical Christians believe in Bible + NT.
If Qu’ran is literal word of God that would mean that NT is not valid, wouldn’t it? And NT + bible are a basis of Christian faith.
Putting it another way accepting Qu’ran as a literal word of God would mean that all christians should become muslims
Comment by ella — October 20, 2007 @ 2:16 am
These religious people simply cannot rest so long as there is one person in the world with different beliefs from their own. The Catholics will feel obliged to sit down with these Muslims and logically prove that Catholicism is right and Islam is wrong. They are unable to say “Well, burn in Hell if you want to, it’s not my problem.”
Comment by Don Cox — October 20, 2007 @ 8:58 am
Catholics know that their beliefs and all the sacred writings were written and chosen by men, whether the records continue to exist, or not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea There’s just something bracing about knowing that the Catholic bible (and by extension, the one the evangelical Protestants use) was selected through long discussion followed by a VOTE by MEN.
Well-educated Muslims know that the Koran does not add to or change the New Testament: that all three of the sister religions are grounded by the same message, but transmitted to different cultures, and having different rules. That, at least, was the first reply to the furor about the Pope’s quote of a long-dead emporer.
Truly religious people are not the problem in any of these religions: it’s the perverts who use religion as an excuse to take other people’s lives and property who are to blame.
Comment by Valerie — October 20, 2007 @ 12:48 pm
i think that it is significant that Islam is a literal religion , unlike catholicism. At highest level, and further down there is discussion re ot and nt, and how they apply to our lives. Also, its larger concepts of brotherhood and cooperation are the things emphasized, and not strictures that are set in stone that are meant to set one apart from others, as in islam which is incredibly detail oriented and pedantic. i dont think i can imagine a fruitful discussion, as the pope implies.
Comment by limpia — October 20, 2007 @ 1:25 pm
Well-educated Muslims know that the Koran does not add to or change the New Testament
Valerie
Why don’t you read Qu’ran and then but only then make such statement as the one above.
Majority of Christians know that many things in NT and the Bible should not be taken literally. Some Muslims may believe the same of Qu’ran, they might also believe that the overall message is similar, but their clerics do not.
Comment by ella — October 20, 2007 @ 2:55 pm
So Muslims would have no exception to Jesus saying, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me?” Valerie, you have no idea what you are talking about. Just… stop before you dig yourself any deeper into a hole.
Comment by MikeT — October 20, 2007 @ 5:06 pm
So is Islam a religion of belief or of law?
SK
Comment by SK — October 21, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
I don’t know what to make of the Pope’s comments really. I know that some in conservative circles thought the letter from the Muslim scholars carried a rather threatening tone. It perhaps wasn’t intentional but if it was perceived this way then it may have caused the Pope to take the request less seriously.
Valerie, not all Catholics believe the Bible is inerrant (though some certainly do) but every devout Catholic believes Jesus Christ was the Son of God among other things. These sort of beliefs cannot be reconciled theologically with the Qur’an or even the idea of Muhammad as a prophet in the Christian tradition. Muslims often don’t seem to understand just how different the Christian view of Jesus is from their own perspective.
Comment by tommy — October 22, 2007 @ 12:58 am
The Bible says that any true prophet that comes after the time of Jesus will consider Jesus to be the son of God. Any Prophet that denies this is a false Prophet.
Islam claims that Mohammed is a Prophet, since he HAS to declaim Jesus as the son of God (in order to create a new religion) he is Biblically a False Prophet.
So how did Mohammed get around that? By claiming that the Bible has been altered by mankind and that the Koran is eternal.
But the Koran isn’t eternal. Islamic belief of this fact is shrouded in falsehood.
According to Hadith Bukhari, it was the caliph Othman who compiled the Koran from the oral remembrances of the first Muslims. Mohammed himself claimed that there were seven ways to read the Koran.
After Othman there is only one.
The Koran was compiled by MEN. It’s right there in Bukhari, Vol 6.
Comment by Ethan — October 22, 2007 @ 1:59 pm
Perhaps the vatican official is afraid of the
“you have nothing to teach us and we have nothing to learn” syndrome that seems to permeate muslim thinking
Comment by tommy — October 22, 2007 @ 5:23 pm
Clearly the meaning of this statement is that since most Muslim scholars all agree that the Kuran is quite literally the word of God and thus cannot ever be critically examined, discussed and interpreted within modern contexts, any dialogue on matters of faith and dogmas are out of bounds; this renders the whole idea kind of moot…
Besides, the western approach to religion and theology is grounded in philosophical inquiries and forays into many fields: psychology, sociology, political theory, comparative religious studies, etc.. something that simply does not exist in the Muslim world’s experience where learning is by rote and there is absolute prohibition to venture any query or criticism.
Add to this strict adherence to text an inbuilt and just as inflexible political agenda, and there you have : “un dialogue de sourds!”
Comment by northern shewolf — October 22, 2007 @ 6:17 pm
well, what about different sects, sufi, for example. They permit music and dance in rituals- do they believe differently re those beliefs re apostasy etc, women’s place?
Comment by limpia — October 23, 2007 @ 2:08 am
The problem with the Koran being taken as the literal word of god - rather than the interpretation of god’s word is that by definition the word of god must be infallible and timeless, and also unable to be reinterpreted or ignored as no longer relevent. In Christianity and Judaism this means that the the words can be interpreted as applying to cultural norms of the time, so that the war-like passages relate to a war-like time. If the Koran is indeed the literal word of god and therefore timeless and immutable - then those warlike passages have exactly the same force for believers that they did when first written. This is why Christianity is no longer a crusading religion - but Islam is.
Comment by Azrael — November 1, 2007 @ 2:35 am