To remember or to forget?

The Vatican II document, Nostra Aetate (1965) declares, as Fr. Z reminds us today (though with significant qualification), that since numerous quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Muslims, "this sacred synod [Vatican II] urges all to forget the past (praeterita obliviscentes) and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom."

Commenting on this passage, Fr. Z says: "I wonder if we can truly – nay rather – reasonably 'forget things that have occurred in the past'. On the face of it, that is not either wise or possible. However, the intent of this is surely meant to be 'not be embittered by what has happened in the past'. Fine. But my initial comment stands: we cannot, should not, forget the past. Rather, the past should be a spur and a check on our choices today."

In a post immediately preceding this one, Fr. Z offers the following remarkable stanzas from Thomas Merton's Figures For An Apocalypse, VI – In the Ruins of New York, written in 1947:

Oh how quiet it is after the black night
When flames out of the clouds burned down your cariated teeth,
And when those lightnings,
Lancing the black boils of Harlem and the Bronx,
Spilled the remaining prisoners,
(The tens and twenties of the living)
Into the trees of Jersey,
To the green farms, to find their liberty.

How are they down, how have they fallen down
Those great strong towers of ice and steel,
And melted by what terror and what miracle?
What fires and lights tore down,
With the white anger of their sudden accusation,
Those towers of silver and of steel?

Seemingly prescient, the coupling of Merton's stanzas with the images of the Twin Towers on 9/11 offer much that is hard to forget.

Again, this report from Pakistan yesterday, reminds us that a hard-to-forget pattern of intolerant hostility continues to the present, as Rorate Caeli reminds us with the sardonic remark: "As usual, no one will condemn this because persecuting Christians is normal, right? However, if you even speak about burning the Quran ..." (Flashback: "Christians in Gaza Fear for Their Lives as Muslims Burn Bibles and Destroy Crosses.")

I would like to return to Fr. Z's earlier post, however, entitled "Questions raised by Nostra aetate about the Christian God and Muslim Allah" (WDTPRS, September 11, 2010), which was prompted by a commentator on his blog who said: "It’s also about time that Catholics start repudiating those sections of Nostra Aetate referring to Muslims." Fr. Z takes a look at the relevant passage from Nostra Aetate referring to Muslims (he offers the Latin; I offer only the English here, with Fr. Z's comments and added emphasis):

3. The Church regards with esteem (aestimatio: "an estimation of a thing according to its intrinsic worth") also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they (tamen ... ?) revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past (praeterita obliviscentes) and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.

Fr. Z says he wonders about a few things, such as whether the English translation offered by the Vatican website is a good reflection of the Latin. The English strikes him as "slightly rosier than the Latin," he says.

Then, following his (above-quoted) remarks about whether it is possible or wise to forget "things that have occurred in the past," Fr. Z turns to the document's statement that Muslims worship "the one, only God" (unicus Deus). He comments:

We often hear that Christians and Muslims (and Jews) worship the same God, the God of Abraham.

Is this indeed the case?

I don’t know enough about the Muslim understanding of God to be able to embrace that assertion without hesitation.

It would be helpful to have the help of some experts on Islam on this question.

I know that this is very complicated, and leaves us open to all sorts of bickering, but perhaps we could drill at this question a bit… calmly and intelligently.

I know, for example, that it is said that the God Muslims refer to as "Allah" (among the many other names) is personal, omnipotent, and is said to be compassionate. There is some agreement (to what extent I am not sure) that the Muslim’s Allah is the same God that entered into a covenant with Abraham. St. Augustine says that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. The Koran says that Allah is closer to us than our own jugular vein… which is an unsettling image.

Christians obviously believe that God is Triune. But, "O People of the Scripture! Do not speak lies against Allah, but speak the Truth. That Jesus Christ, son of Mary, was a messenger of Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not ‘Trinity.’ Desist! It is better for you. For Allah is one God." (An-Nisa 4:17)

Sometimes a contrast is made between the God of the Old and New Testament and Allah, who seems to act in a more "capricious" manner. Christians tend to think of God in terms of Logos while, as I understand it, Muslims tend to think of Allah as "Will", which brings us back to the notion of "capricious", that such a God would not be bound even by his own word. Certainly Pope Benedict raised some interesting questions at Regensburg, in 2006.

This is an important and a good question. Perhaps it can be honed to a finer point by asking whether (1) it is the same God that Muslims and Christians worship, albeit with different understandings of Him, or (2) a roughly similar (monotheistic, transcendent, all-powerful, etc.) understanding of God that they have, notwithstanding certain differences in emphasis, but with completely different referents -- that is, one referring to the living God, the other to a diabolical fantasy. I pose the issue in this antithetical manner simply in order to highlight as clearly as possible the logical possibilities.

I close with Fr. Z's advice: "Let’s see if we can have a discussion about some of these points without being boors."