9/11 Revisted (A Jesuit Analyses the Root Causes: Islamic Theology)

Ignatius Insight ^ | 9/8/06 | Fr. James Schall, S.J.

[AliVeritas]

Thanks for this post.

[AliVeritas]

BTTT

[AliVeritas]

ping

[khnyny]

Great post. Basically, as outlined, the problem is theological and that fact is not being fully addressed.

[johnny7]

Islam is a death-cult.

[itslex71]

bump for later

[Oratam]

Fatalistic Islam is a problem for us all.

[ClaireSolt]

All this mindless tolerance without respect to a search for truth can only make sense from an aethist perspective.

[defconw]

Wow, why is it that Jesuits always make my brain hurt? Good points, however.

[livius]

But it is an opinion, at least in my own mind, which respects Islam for what it claims it is: a religion destined to subject all to the will of Allah. That is why I think its claim, even when principally promoted by what we call "terrorists," needs much more serious intellectual attention than it is receiving. This religious position, accurately spelled out, is, I think, closer than the other explanations to the real cause of that horrific event and day that we know as "9/11."

Excellent, excellent article. And he's absolutely correct in his analysis of the grave and perhaps fatal defect in our response to the assaults of Islam.

He also mentioned a very interesting point, namely, that our rejection of things such as suicide bombings and mass homicides is based on natural law - which of course regards such things as contrary to it and prohibited - but that the problem is that Muslims do not accept natural law. To them, "Allah" is a wilful, capricious and entirely arbitrary god who might do one thing one day and another thing the next, and has no law within himself and therefore has established no natural law among men or in the universe. Everything comes through a weird legal code, the objective of which is extension of the cult of Allah, and believers are told, usually through their clerics, how "Allah" wants them to achieve this. Since there is no natural law, anything goes, and the Muslim believer can and will do anything he feels "Allah" is telling him to do in order to extend the cult of "Allah worship."

This is a very major difference from the Greco-Roman Judeo-Christian concept of a rational universe with a God who follows his own laws, which can be known and recognized. It has a major impact on Muslim thinking (or non-thinking, more accurately), and it is something that few analysts recognize or fully appreciate.

[Just another Joe]

We need an examination that is objective, sympathetic, and accurate, but one that does not avoid the fact that not a few Muslim thinkers and their political followers think that what they are doing, including acts of terrorism, is nothing less than the will of Allah.

You cannot be objective and sympathetic at the same time.

When you fight for what you believe is your god, anything goes. The most outrageous acts of barbarism become acts of piety.
If your god tells you to take over the world, that becomes your mantra.
Any act forwarding that goal is acceptable, especially if your god doesn't have a specific prohibition against the taking of innocent lives.

[khnyny]

[This is a very major difference from the Greco-Roman Judeo-Christian concept of a rational universe with a God who follows his own laws, which can be known and recognized. It has a major impact on Muslim thinking (or non-thinking, more accurately), and it is something that few analysts recognize or fully appreciate.]

Great synopsis and so true.

[khnyny]

I always say, that a good Catholic education is hard to beat, but then I'm biased, lol.

The Muslims do not use the same play book as the West.

[defconw]

Biased as well, I guess. I need to read this again. It's very well done.

[madconservative]

ping for later read

[adgirl]

Thanks for your post. I had to read some posts before I read the article. I went to Jesuit Universities for undergrad and grad school and honestly, the Jebbies are like a box of chocolates--you never know what you are going to get (politically). I guess I better get out my highlighter and read this one.

[VOA]

bump

[marshmallow]

It is an excellent article, but the only issue on which he fails to touch is timing. In other words, why now? Why is this rising tide of Islamic violence occurring now? What has stimulated this resurgence of militant Islam in the last half-century (roughly)?

My personal .02 is that the reason can be found in our own abandonment of God's natural law and our Christian beliefs. My reading of salvation history, both Old and New Testament, tells me that a frequent and recurring punishment for those who abandoned God's law was to be given over into the hands of barbarians, pagans and violent invaders. It seems to me that the current Islamic scourge falls into that pattern; a chastisement permitted by God for our turning away from God's love and His natural law.