From Violence to Witness via Reason and Faith : The Interreligious Message of Pope Benedict XVI

This article examines the message of Pope Benedict XVI to representatives of other religions, especially Muslims, using the pope’s interreligious addresses as the main source material. The main topics surveyed are the peaceful nature of religion, the relationship between faith and reason, and common service or interreligious witness. These are interconnected, for Benedict is convinced that religiously motivated violence is contrary to the essence of religion, irrational, and damaging to the common cause of the religions against radical ecularism. The difficulty arises in declaring a priori, based on Enlightenment convictions, that ‘genuine religion’ is nonviolent at heart, without discussing the authoritative sources of each religion. It is striking that Benedict XVI never quotes the Qur’an in his speeches to Muslims. The appeals to reason, conscience, and human nature attempt to settle the matter on a level preceding faith, but the pope’s Augustinian-Bonaventurian vision requires that reason be illumined by faith and revelation. This framework, used interreligiously, as the pope does, cuts both ways. Who or what decides, in the face of a violent instance of ‘revelation’, whether faith is to be purified by reason, or reason elevated by faith? Benedict XVI provides a strong impetus to those who agree with him and food for thought to all who are open to dialogue, but more needs to be done in order to ‘argue credibly and realistically against religiously motivated violence’.Peer reviewe