Does Islam Flout Reason? Why the Pope's Case Is a Flimsy One

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Mattson says that even the Islamic radicals whom she calls "the vigilantes" are not using the kind of thought process implied by Benedict when they plan their deadly acts. They present a number of arguments for suicide bombings and the killing of non-combatants, but none of them, at least explicitly, appeals to revelation over reason. Many of their assumptions are faith-based, but faith-based assumptions are involved, by definition, in any believer's acts. We may find the terrorists horribly unreasonable, but that doesn't make them avid footsoldiers in a philosophical Islamic war on reason.

Benedict may wish to argue that somewhere in the minds of Islamic suicide bombers is an unstated understanding that if anyone tried to reason them out of their plans they would counter that logic had no role because this was the will of God. But that would be an assumption on his part. And that exposes the essential arbitrariness, at least for now, of the Pope's approach. If he wants to make an "essentialist" argument against Islam—that is, to suggest that there may be something in it that is intrinsically more friendly to fanaticism—then he needs to do it in some way other than the seemingly casual, off-the-cuff route he has chosen.

He has said that he wanted to provoke a "frank and sincere dialogue." Thus far, without really presenting any actual intellectual grist for such a discussion, all he seems to have succeeded in doing is provide an excuse for people who want to hurt someone in the name of Allah. It's a high price for a musing that was itself regrettably short on reason.