I read this article earlier today and it’s an excellent supplement to the Candian National Post article from last week.

There seems to be a great delusion taking over; the west believes the nonsense about Islam being a peaceful, benign force while Muslim Imams continue to unchallenged on television when they lie about either the contents of the Koran and Hadith or else they lie about what detractors of Islam have said about the ‘peaceful’ religion.

The Imam who presided over Jose Padilla’s mosque appeared on FOX News earlier today and claimed that “Christians are calling for the deaths of Moslems.” The interviewer, to his credit, asked exactly who the Imam was referring, and the Imam said Franklin Graham. The interviewer then corrected the record, reminding the lying, manipulative Imam that Graham has said no such thing, rather he has said that Islam is a wicked religion at its core. The Imam then spun this as calling for the killing of Moslems.

This clown then preceded to claim that all religions have elements of fringe extremists who advocate the murder of prosyletites of other religions. He referenced the Jewish dentist who was caught with a cache of weapons purposed to bomb mosques. Here, though, the interviewer took this at face value, agreeing with the Imam.

However, this is where Moslem apologists are disingenuous and the rest of the West stupid and ignorant. Unlike the Jewish dentist who will find no justification for killing non-Jews in the Torah or elsewhere, these Muslims are simply following the creeds of Islam. One is illegitimately using religion (whether this dentists justified his actions via Judaism is unknown) for slaughter while the other thousands of Moslems are simply adhering to what their prophet and holy books prescribe.

In response to Mr. Brewer’s comments, the Torah and the Talmud arguably contain a rather large amount of text that would allow one to justify the killing of non-Jews. Isreali military campaigns are recorded in brutal detail in the Torah, and various sections of the Talmud present non-Jews in a rather subhuman way.

Islam is a lot like Judaism in some of its “earthy” aspects, namely its frank dealings with sexuality and war, which more “heavenly” religions like Christianity and Buddhism avoid.

Still, Islamic law has strict regulations on war, and one can certainly not just kill non-Muslims for fun. This is not just rhetoric, all four schools of law of orthodox Sunni Islam maintain these restrictions on martial matters.

I firmly believe that what is often percieved as othodox Islam is actually its modern day heresy, a twisted type of neo-Islam known as Wahhabism, often despised in the Muslim world itself.

Granted many imams in the West are themselves Wahhabis and they often display the absurd effects of Wahhabism’s anti-intellectual, shallow, bigoted, and deceptive stupidity.

Brenda Walker, a feminist and immigration restrictionist, sent the following letter to the New York Post about Daniel Pipes’ article. Following it is my letter to her.

Editor:

The Post is to be commended for printing “Something Rotten in Denmark,” a brave article that illustrates in a few brief paragraphs that multiculturalism is a completely fraudulent ideology and portends particular dangers for women’s rights and safety.

Apparently western civilization has become so filled with masochistic self-doubt that elites feel obliged to welcome immigrants who hate us as people and despise some of the greatest advances of our culture—individual rights, gender equality and the rule of law.

Considered another way, would the reader care to live in Pakistan or raise a daughter in Saudi Arabia? Few Americans would, but why then do we invite millions from similarly brutal cultures into our communities?

The frightening statistics of the Muslim rape of Danish women were bad enough, but they do not compare in ferocity to a series of monstrous crimes in Australia where Lebanese gangs attacked girls as young as 14. In one case, an 18-year-old woman was raped 25 times in six hours by 14 men who finally turned a hose on her. The victims were chosen on the basis of ethnicity—they were Australians whom the Muslims wished to defile with the most extreme contempt and cruelty.

This is not the diversity we generally read about in newspaper puff pieces about ethnic festivals and restaurants, but it is part of the whole multiculturalism package nevertheless.

Brenda Walker
Berkeley CA

LA to BW:

Congratulations on a strong letter, Brenda. I see you as the Pim Fortuyn of feminism—a Western liberal who is consistent in her liberalism rather than completely contradictory and dishonest. The overwhelming majority of Western liberals, by their support for Muslim immigration and their silencing of the truth about Muslims, show that their REAL goal is not freedom or equality (for if their real goal were freedom and equality, they would question the mass influx of people who are virulently opposed to freedom and equality), but simply the weakening and ultimate destruction of the West.

However, I doubt the Post will publish your letter. The old Post, up to five years ago, which had the best letters section of any paper in the country, would have published it. But now the Post letters section is homogenized and pasteurized and all letters are cut down to the same cookie cutter length that makes it impossible for the writer to say anything significant.

Sincerely,
Larry Auster

Why encourage liberals to be ever more consistent? Politics makes strange bedfellows, but the more consistent liberalism gets with itself the more people it murders, e.g. see my comment toward the end:

http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/archives/000689.html#000689

The fact that the current death rooms are in the back of Planned Parenthood clinics doesn’t make the 1.2 million per year being murdered in the US by liberals any less real. The voiceless oppressor in liberalism’s model is always less than human.

So why encourage it? Politics makes for strange bedfellows and all that, but when your bedfellows are murdering innocent children at a rate of 4000 each day doesn’t it start to reach the point where complete rejection and disassociation is more appropriate?

I think Matt is being, shall I say, trop exigeant, a little too exacting. Miss Walker in her letter to the NY Post simply spoke of the general liberal beliefs in “individual rights, gender equality and the rule of law” and opposed Muslim immigration on that basis. She was not, like, say, Pim Fortuyn, opposing Muslim immigration on the basis of a radical sexual liberationism including pedophilia. Though Fortuyn was certainly an interesting character and is to be credited for bringing the immigration issue to the fore in a way that honest liberals could not ignore, he was obviously not an acceptable representative of Western civilization, and may have served the restrictionist cause best by making his point and then leaving the stage. My analogy to Fortuyn was just that, an analogy. I would not form an alliance with such a person. Similarly, I take exception from the conservatives who effuse about Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan is using his “conservatism” to push a gay liberationist agenda and conservatives are foolish to embrace him. At the same time, it seems rather cramped to say that we should not point out and praise an honest, apparently mainstream liberal, such as Miss Walker, who strongly opposes immigration for consistent and logical reasons.

I certainly agree about Sullivan and Fortuyn.

A self-declared feminist in America, and in particular a feminist pundit, is complicit — really more than complicit — with the murder of 4000 innocent children every day. Joseph Goebbels may have written about immigration in a way that would make sense to myself and Mr. Auster, but would that justify writing him a letter praising him for being a more consistent Nazi? Or is there something about the voicelessness and facelessness of today’s untermensch that makes the letter to Goebbels — I mean Walker — OK in this instance?

Rory, you make the same mistake that many make when comparing Old Testament accounts of Israelite victories and defeats on the battlefield with the Koran and Hadith’s exhortations to kill Jews and Christians—people of the book—wherever and whenever they find them. More on that in a bit.

The Talmud is not considered divine Scripture but rather the sayings and wisdom of rabbinic scholars before Christ. It does teach some rather alarming things about non-Jews, to be sure. But unlike the Koran and Hadith which promote an active militarism, the Talmud doesn’t teaches gentiles are to be avoided generally. I’m not justifying what the talmud says, but rather pointing out the differences.

In any event, you don’t see large scale numbers of Jews using Talmudic teaching as justification for slaughter of non-Jews. Baruch Goldstein is an exception, but his twisting of the Talmud’s castigation of non-Jews as animals into a cadence for indiscriminate murder is bogus.

The Torah or old Testament, certainly doesn’t advocate the murder of non-Jews. There are passages in Scripture that detail Israelite victory over other nations, but these are descriptions rather than exhortations to slaughter wantonly. And with groups like the Assyrians and Hittites, which extra-biblical texts demonstrate were savage and cruel beyond contemporary comparison, it is no wonder the Jewish army treated these barbarians without mercy in a few instances. I suppose though that the point is that Almighty God wasn’t in the business of commanding the Israelites to wander Palestine killing all who wouldn’t submit and that’s the point.

Contrast that with the Koran and Islam. Consider first Muhammad. When he began preaching in Mecca he was quite conciliatory to Christians and Jews. In Surah 29:45, he says, “We believe in what has been sent down to you, our God is the same as your God.” This attitude changed completely though after he gained strength. Apparently, Allah changes his entire tune, telling MOhammad and Muslims to “Fight People of the Book (Christians and Jews, again) who do not accept the religion of the truth, until they pay tribute by hand, being inferior.” (Surah 9:29)

Regarding Christians and Jews, it seems that MOhammad hated the Jews more. he would spend the balance of his life attempting to get rid of the Jews. “You (Jews) should know that the earth belongs to Allah and his apostle, and I want to expel you from this land (the arabian peninsula), so if anyone owns property he is permitted to sell it.”

In the Hadith, which comprises actually six different books of Mohammad’s sayings, Mohammad says that “I have been ordered to fight with the people (non-believers) till they say, none has the right to be worshipped but Allah.”(Al Bukhari Vol. 4:196) Earlier in that same book, Al Bukhari, Mohammad is quoted as saying that next to believing in Allah and MOhammad, the best thing a Muslim can do is “To participate in Jihad in Allah’s cause…”(Al Bukhari vol. 1:25) Ten verses later, Mohammad says that those who fight in Jihad, if killed, will “be recompensed by Allah…be admitted to paradise.”(Al Bukhari Vol. 1:35)

The point is that these ‘extremists’ Muslims are really only adhering to their Holy books, nothing more nothing less. Mohammad’s calls are not for defensive war alone but rather for offensive conquest of peoples simply for not submitting to Allah. Those who suggest otherwise, including the lying Imams who parade on cable news networks, are misrepresenting Islam. These Alqaeda types are not pulling this rhetoric out of vaccuum or misrepresenting Islam.

With all due respect, Matt is taking conservative traditionalism to the point of absurdity. Miss Walker referred to her belief in “individual rights, gender equality and the rule of law,” and spoke eloquently about the dark side of Muslim immigration including the gang rape of an Australian woman—and for this Matt compares her to a Nazi, and compares me to a person praising a Nazi?

Talk about ideological purity!

Uh oh, I can feel it coming: Matt’s going to call me a nominalist.

I agree with Jeff Brewer about the differences between Judaism and Islam. Islam ineluctably requires conquest and subjection of all non-Muslims. Muslims can only be “moderate” to the extent that they give up real Islam. Turkey is a case in point.

Calling an argument absurd is not the same thing as engaging it. It is the same phenomenon as saying that PC is “silly”.

Mr. Auster seems to miss the point that feminism IS today’s Naziism. It is an advanced form of liberalism that has clearly defined its ubermensch (women) whose freedom has been traditionally oppressed and obstructed by the untermensch (men and children), many of whom are not even really human (unborn children) and are being murdered to get them out of the way. The words “moderate Nazi” or “mainstream Nazi” also had meaning at one time.

Equating a person with a Nazi for doing nothing more than stating the standard mainstream American belief in “individual rights, gender equality and the rule of law” and for opposing the gang rape of white women by Muslim immigrants is—ipso facto, prima facie, res ipsa loquitur, or what have you—absurd.

I wonder what Matt does as he participate in life in contemporary America—look at all the people around him as though they were Joseph Goebbels?

Such thinking tends to lead into a paranoid alienation from reality. Right now we’re facing the necessity of a major war to protect America from being attacked by weapons of mass destruction. But, since the majority of Americans believe in “individual rights, gender equality and the rule of law,” they are, by Matt’s lights, the equivalent of Nazis. Why should such a people be allowed or encouraged to defend themselves? Don’t they deserve to be destroyed?

I am quite certain that many Germans felt the same way as Mr. Auster during a different period in History. Mr. Auster seems to think that a principled traditionalist German could not have pride in his country, hope and work staunchly for its defense, oppose mass immigration into it, participate in its culture to some degree, etc. without at the same time being horrified by what the Nazis were doing to it. I suppose Mr. Auster would think of such a traditionalist German in the 1930’s as paranoid and alienated from reality? I wonder why he thinks that?

And in the meantime, while we’ve had this conversation, a few hundred more children have had their skulls crushed by mainstream America.

I can’t quite get into the hypothetical Matt proposes because had I been a (non-Jewish) German in the 1930s I would not have been able to go on living in Germany because I would have opposed that evil regime and my life would have been in danger. Either I would have been arrested and killed or I would have escaped into exile. For example the conservative philosopher Eric Voegelin, of German birth but living in Austria, having written books attacking the Nazi race theories, escaped by the skin of his teeth at the time of the Anschluss and came to teach in America.

Let me try to bring this exchange to a close in a way that I hope Matt will find acceptable. If Brenda Walker had explicitly advocated the absolute right of abortion or the right of people to form “families” of any kind and so on, and then added that we must oppose Muslim immigration because they threaten such radical freedoms, I would not have written to her praising her. But the beliefs she defended were the kinds of things that most Americans, even many conservative Americans, would defend today. Also, I personally endorse (with qualifications) two of the three beliefs she mentioned: individual rights and rule of law. I do not believe in “gender equality” and see it as a harmful and destructive idea. But I do not see it as the equivalent of explicitly saying that one believes in total life style freedom, unrestricted abortion, and so on. (Of course such things may be implied by “gender equality,” but I was responding to the standard issue liberal ideals as Miss Walker was stating them, not to my speculations as to all the more radical things she may possibly believe in). Nor do I see stating a belief in “gender equality” as the moral equivalent of Nazism.

I actually have considered moving elsewhere specifically for this reason, and it is a real option for me unlike for most people. Ireland might be nice, although the walls of the haven are crumbling. But I love my home very much and would rather see the evil within stopped than throw rocks from the outside, as if throwing rocks from the outside would somehow insure my moral superiority.

Mr. Auster seems to think that moving away and throwing rocks from the outside would have been the best moral course of action for a German in the 1930’s. That is not obvious to me, as someone with the privilege of being in a position to consider it seriously. Anne Frank for one was glad that not everyone who opposed the Nazis moved away to criticize from afar. And in any case it is certain that Mr.-Auster-the-1930’s-German would have had to decide to move away and throw rocks at some contingent point in the history of the development of Naziism. I may yet do it myself if it seems the right moral course. But the implicit notion that Naziism emerged in full bloom on day X and that all Germans who were horrified by it should have moved away on day X+1 is, I think, disconnected from reality.

Finally, I think that a person who calls himself a feminist simply by that act supports abortion, just as someone in Germany who called himself a Nazi simply by doing so supported the gas chambers. And if Miss Walker is really some sort of double agent she will hardly respond positively to being praised for being a more consistent feminist. So in sum, there appears to be no moral justification for praising a feminist for being consistent with his feminism.

In response to Mr. Brewer, well, you have brought up some important points. The Koran and the sayings of Muhammad certainly impel the believers to engage in conguest of non-believers and to try to submit the world to the ‘rule of Allah’.

However, I have a point of contest. Al-Queda do adhere to texts you mentioned, but do so in disregard to many other texts not mentioned, like the one in the Koran that exhorts the believers to make peace with those who try to make peace with them, not to be aggresors “for verily, Allah loveth not the aggressor”, and that the believers should fight only those who drive them from their homes for their belief, and that they should treat those who do not do so with respect and justice.

This is precisely where Al-Queda goes astray from orthodoxy, in that the traditional schools of law take into account ALL (there are a lot) of the Koranic verses and ahadith on a single issue before making a ruling binding on Muslims. Hence the traditional schools have rulings that mandate peace treaties with non-hostile non-Muslims, and strictly forbid the killing of civilians in war.

Al-Queda rejects these schools of law, and this rejection allows them to take rather shallow and extreme interpretations of a few verses in isolation from the whole canon of scripture, justifying to themselves what the majority of orthodox scholars consider abhorrent crimes.

Aswell the ethic of mercy runs through the whole of Islamic scripture, an ethic which is reflected in the orthodox rulings, but unsuprisingly absent form the heretic Wahhabi views of Al-Queda.

Rory, you segue perfectly into the problem with Islam. The verses you allude to to prescribe war and conflict for ostensibly defensive purposes are wholly contradicted by the chpater and verse I cited. How do we reconcile these?

First, from what I’ve read, which I touched on briefly before, is that these ‘peaceful’ Mohammadan exhortations were spoken before Mohammad gained sufficient strength to go on the offensive. In other words, they were simply a means to an end, an attempt to endear the first Moslems to surrounding infidels until a time in which the Moslems had gained enough in numbers and ability to turn the sword on said. I tend to agree with this, as other passages and history on Mohammad reveal him as a conqueror who used his contrived religion (he for a long time was convinced he was receiving demonic visions rather than angelic instruction) to united the bedouins and arabs to push out Jews and Christians in the Middle East. hence we see a religion that demands strict, unwavering adherence, deviations of which were punishable by death. Mohammad knew that for his vision of uniting the arab world to succeed he must maintain the ultimate cohesion as he started to conquer; any wavering on the part of anyone, any relenting threatened to dissolve his entire enterprise.

However, some reject this view. But if you do, how does one reconcile these obviously contradictory statements by Mohammad? He claims infallibility and divine origin, and yet he advocates murder and mayhem; he certainly practiced what he preached.

I’m sick of hearing these Muslim apologists lying boldfaced and saying their religion is about peace and tranquility. This is bogus on its face, as a brief examination of post 9/11 historical works (those not tarnished and compromised by revisionists) that chronicle Islam’s murderous history, including their invasion of Europe. Obviously, consider what the face of Islam resembles today, as well: women are under the yoke in all mannerof life; freedom of speech or dissent is squelched; private property rights are infringed upon with impunity; Christians are imprisoned by evangelizing and Arabs or Muslims that convert are either executed or imprisoned. No economic infrastructure beyond crude oil industry, which, BTW, the West built and financed.

Instead of the burden being on us to prove we didn’t provoke the Muslim attack on September 11, why not put the onus on Muslim’s to honestly tell us those attacks are not justified by the Koran? The truth is, those acts are more than justified, they’re encouraged.

Mr. Brewer is quite right in his sense of the implications of the Koran, but it goes even farther than he supposes. Mohammed was the original inventor of textually literal religious authority, going so far as to blasphemously make the reading of the Koran the equivalent for Muslims of the Christian Eucharist. Modern Protestant _Sola Scriptura_ is an adaptation of this Muslim doctrine.

It is self-contradictory because one always has to interpret text with some hermeneutic: even if the text expressly says “this text is a comprehensive statement of all there is to be said about the subject matter” the assertion itself violates Godel’s theorem. If one accepts logic as authoritative then Godel’s Theorem comes along for the ride; if one does not then the brilligs slithy on the toves and the momeraths outgrabe. I personally consider this a mathematical self-refutation of _Sola Scriptura_, though it is far from the only refutation.

The problem with self-contradictory texts is that a self-contradiction implies both itself and its opposite at the same time and with the same force. So the Wahhabis can argue in all sincerity that the Koran requires world conquest, and other Muslims can argue with equal force that something else is required. This has tended over time to result in a lot of testy people arguing with a lot of sharp objects.

Mr. Brewer, I do reject the view that Muhammad contrived Islam as a religious means to a political end. My extensive study of his life and Islamic scripture renders that view absurd, the way he lived and the nature of the Koran cannot be explained by that view, in my opinion.

How indeed does any religion reconcile divergent texts? One could go into this topic for every religion, as they all face this issue in one way or another. What I mentioned before was that the schools of law did just that, they sought the spirit of the texts as a whole, which contextualised the specific texts. This is what orthodoxy does in every religion.

The more merciful texts are not just those that were put forth before Islam’s gain of temporal power, many of them must have been Madinan verses that were put forth late in Muhammad’s life, as in the Makkan era, war and political relations were not even an issue.

As well, one should remember that Jewish prophets were ordered to wage war, and if you justify it on the barabarism of the Jew’s enemies, the pagan and Jewish Arabs qualify in this regard as well.

Finally, as I said before, killing civilians is simply not allowed, this is not a watery apologetic, if you look deeply into Islamic law, and its sources, structures, and applications, you will see much of what I am speaking about.

Rory, I question your knowledge of Mohammad’s life. Mohammad certainly contrived of Islam as a means to unite peninsular Arabs into a cohesive force, free of idolatry and more united. I’ll demonstrate this if you like.

Secondly, you imply that the ‘nature’ of certain portions of the Koran cannot be explained as the contrivance of a mere man, an illiterate like Mohammad. But if you know anything about Islam you’ll know that much of what is contained in the Koran is taken from the Torah, Talmud and even from heretical Christian sects. Hence there are token hints at divine authorship of some of the passages in the Koran.

It’s interesting to note that Moslems hold that their faith came directly from heaven via the angel Gabriel. But history shows that large portions of the doctrines and tenets of Islam can be traced to other faith’s or sources preceding the prophet or existing at the time.

When the desire arose in the mind of Mohammad to draw his people from the worship of idols to that God worshipped by Abraham, and when he remembered that their forefathers in the days of Abraham believed in the divine unity and that his contemporaries inherited many of the beliefs and customs of these forefathers, he was therefore unwilling to force abandonment of all idolatry. Rather, he desired to purify their faith , maintaining ancient practices that he saw as reasonable. Consult Surahs iv.124, iii.89, and vi.89 for Koranic references and acknowledgment of Abraham’s faith as the legitimate faith.

There is every reason to believe that, centuries before Mohammad, arabia was home to every type of polytheistic yearning imaginable. The Biblical text in Job alludes to as much and Herodotus in the fourth and fifth centuries BC recorded the same. The term Allah itself is repeatedly found in the seven Moallaqat, whose authors lived before Mohammad, and also in the Dewan of Lebid.

Along with the spread of idolatry throughout Arabia, however, there remained a consciousness of the one true God. Shahristani, Ibn Ishac, and Sirat al Rasul—all Arab historians of the day, relate that several tribal deities, including Ozza of the Coreish Hobal emblazoned on the Kaaba stone were esteemd by the various Arab tribes. Hence, Mohammad retained the esteem for the Kaaba stone when he selected certain practices to incorporate into his new religion.

It’s obvious that the first source of the Koran consisted of the notions, customs and religious beliefs existing around Mohammad at the time. he understood that to successfully amalgamate his brethern into a cohesive force, he had to pick and choose certain deluctibles to keep everyone happy. The Koran reflects this in several different instances.

As for your assertion that Mohammad’s later years also included peaceful pronouncements, akin to those announced early on in Islam’s formative years, this assertion is not entirely true. Violence was an underlying motif recurrent in the Koran and Mohammad’s life. Mohammad still breathed belligerent sentiment at his later days. Consider that after the Hegira when he had gained the powerful Ansars as allies and followers he granted them permission to defend themselves and beat off their opponents (Surah xxii.40) Some time later, this simple ‘permission’ as changed into a command as we find in Surah ii.212, 214

In the last revealed Surah at the end of Mohammad’s life, (Surah ix.5, 29) he says, “And when the Sacred months are ended, kill the idolaters wheresoever ye find them, take them prisoners and besiege them, and lay wait for them in every convenient place. But if they repent, and offer up the appointed prayers, and pay the legal alms, then dismiss the freely, for God is gracious and merciful. Fight against those who believe not in God nor in the last day, nor forbid that which God and his apostle have forbidden, and profess not the true religion, namely of those to whom the Scriptures have been given, until they pay tribute by the hand, and be reduced low.”

How strange, Rory, that the great and unchanging Allah allowed his divine law to be altered step by step, as the prophet and his followers gradually gained successive victories by the sword. Indeed, the Koran acknowledges the contradiction, however spun, in Surah ii.100, “We abrogate no verse, or cause it to be left out, but we bring in its place a better, or one like unto it…”

So long as Mohammad entertained the hope of bringing together both Jews and Christians and Arab tribes, by the retention of some of their native practices, there seemed to him the possibility of uniting Arabia in one grand religion.

YOu also posit a logical fallacy as well when you insist that pagan and Jewish Arabs qualifyed as barbarians, in the same mold that the Israelites cast their enemies. However, Mohammad thought no such things, especially about the Jews; he reconized their smarts and intelligence and their worshipping of the one true God; only after they rejected him did he begin to speak of them as infidels.

As far as killing innocents, it seems very probable that succeeding generations of Muslim scholars have distanced themselves from MOhammad’s clarion calls for categorical extermination or removal of infidels, makiing no distinction between combatants and civilians. In order to make Islam more palatable to the West, it is easy to see why Muslim legal scholars have spun Islamic law in a reorientation that flies in the face of Islam.

Matt, you start off your argument with a false premise, which is to assert that all text must be interpreted using a hermeneutic. The Word of God does not, being as God is a first cause.

Some reject this as illogical and a violation of Godel. However, if you view Scripture as infallible and written by men divinely inspired and instructed, then Godel’s theorem isn’t violated at all. Actually, you could say that Scripture negates Godel’s theorem.

Things arrived deductively from Scripture—that abortion is murder, that pornography is an evil—are determined by using Scripture as a hermeneutic. These two statements are both proven true by using the maxims of Scripture to arrive at these conclusions.

It would seem to me that as far as my understanding of Godel’s work goes, Catholicism’s usage of several different authorities to interpret Scripture poses problems because by going outside the system of Scripture you’ll only create a larger system with its own unprovable statements. By staying within Scripture, evangelicals maintain a logical system while Catholics contradict, change, amend and otherwise vary their interpretations of passages in Scripture.

As for the implications for Islam, their belief system is much more akin to Roman Catholicism rather than Sola Scriptura. Indeed, while they see the Koran as divine, they also consult the six books of the Koran for guidance. THis creates all sorts of complications likened to the sort Godel says are inherent with systems that take from several other systems to prove a point or win an argument.

As for those thongs outside of Scripture, Godel is certainly the master.

I don’t know how better to put it.

Not at all. Nearly 2000 years before Godel published his theorem the Catholic Church taught the existence of sacred mysteries. If Mr. Brewer is willing to forego calling me a coward, a weasel, and making other _ad hominem_ attacks, and makes a legitimate commitment to attempt comprehension, I might be willing to attempt to educate him. If not I will not continue discussion just for the sake of discussion.

Understanding Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem (_On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems_, 1962) requires the study of formal logic, and any description of it I give here will necessarily be an abstraction from the actual proof. Abstraction does not mean ambiguity, however: the result is quite unambiguous. The theorem is directly applicable to the Protestant doctrine of _Sola Scriptura_ and anyone with the proper fortitude can study and verify the verity of what I here claim.

Mr. Brewer makes the claim that Scripture is its own hermeneutic, but what he really means is that he attempts to use a hermeneutic of _logical deduction alone_ in interpreting Scripture. Since Scripture does not precisely describe logical rules of inference it cannot itself be a hermeneutic, so Mr. Brewer attempts to apply the basic rules of logic — which he learned elsewhere than Scripture — in order to interpret Scripture. (In reality most Protestants, like most Catholics, simply repeat things that they have been taught by others and that in hindsight strike them as reasonable; but lets set that practical issue aside for the moment).

Lets attempt to state _Sola Scriptura_ in a comprehensible way.

Define the following:

IF: a DOGMA is simply a true statement about the subject matter of the Bible,

THEN: SOLA SCRIPTURA is the proposition “all DOGMA are deducable from the text of the Bible using logical rules of inference.”

This is a direct violation of Godel’s Theorem. Godel’s Theorem guarantees the existence of DOGMA which are not deducable using logical rules of inference applied to the original text.

The fact that knowledge and mystery are (mysteriously) inseparable, and that therefore knowledge about any subject matter cannot be COMPLETELY specified in any text, can be illustrated intuitively without resort to Godel’s Theorem. Given any very well known object, no matter what I know about it already I can always ask more questions about it and potentially learn more about it. Given any mysterious object, I already know enough about it to begin asking questions. So neither my knowledge of something nor its mysteriousness are ever _complete_. When this is reduced to a discussion of text and logical rules of inference, Godel refers to this strange property — the textual reflection of the inseparability of knowledge and mystery — as “incompleteness”.

Sola Scriptura asserts the _completeness_ of Scripture with respect to statements of dogma. Mr. Brewer can claim that God has ineffably decided that logical rules of inference do not _apply_ to the Scripture, and that therefore Godel’s Theorem does not apply, but that hardly helps to make Sola Scriptura more comprehensible to the common man or grant it greater authenticity as a hermeneutic. If we can’t read Scripture and make logicical inferences then what can we do?

This all explains of course why a small number of Protestants have been going crazy trying to disprove Godel’s Theorem for the past several decades. If 2 + 2 = 4 is not true for Protestants then God must be a pretty deceptive guy.

There are (of course) some new doctrines that respond to this which claim to be _Sola Scriptura_ but in fact resemble the original Luther/Calvin creations only in name. For anyone clever enough to produce one I will show how, even if we take it quite seriously, this new strawman Sola Scriptura no longer constitutes an objection to Catholic authority.

I don’t think sola scriptura claims that all truths about the subject matter of the Bible (e.g., God) can be deduced from the text of the Bible, only that the truths God wanted to make known to us for our salvation can be so deduced. Prots and Papists agree that our knowledge of the things the Bible talks about is incomplete.

Well, OK. My “intuitive model” above is dopey and casts more darkness than light. Teach me to get all full of myself. Sorry.

The fact that my “intuitively helpful” model (objects/knowledge/mystery) above is inane and not intuitively helpful doesn’t invalidate the Godel result itself, though.

A different way of getting at how the Godel result applies is to point out that it demonstrates a basic problem with the concepts “only” and “all” when applied simultaneously to self-referential formula (text) and rules of inference. Since my first intuitive example turned out to be such a botch I am reluctant to attempt another without further thought.

Because _Sola Scriptura_ attempts to apply self-referentially to the totality of Scripture and propositions logically deduced therefrom it cannot itself be a logical deduction therefrom. Attempting to take the “all” and the “only” together results in the Godel contradiction. But obviously I don’t have a great way to describe that result that makes it intuitively obvious. Grumble.

If you don’t like Godel you can try the following:

—-

Sola Scriptura: Only this text must be believed.

The basic rules of logic are not defined in this text.

Therefore the basic rules of logic are optional.

Therefore the statement “Only this text must be believed” can be construed as “pink elephants dance on inverted balloons”.

—-

Is that more intuitive?

Martin Luther understood this at least partially, by the way. He knew full well that Scripture (or any text) isolated all by itself is meaningless, that every text presupposes people who speak the language, understand the words and idioms, know the rules of inference, traditions, exegesis of teachers, etc. He had to presuppose a sort of gnostic mysticism in order to hang on to the notion that only the text of Scripture must be believed. Otherwise he would have no basis from which to assert that Scripture does not presuppose the Church, if it presupposes all of these other things.

I still prefer the Godel formulation to the one above, because it refutes _Sola Scriptura_ even in the case where the scripture in question actually does contain a tutorial on and basic explanation of the rules of deductive logic. I just don’t have a way to express it intuitively.

That is the great tragedy of _Sola Scriptura_. Although it is often motivated by a desire to respect Sacred Scripture in its proper authoritative place, and to protect Scripture from “innovative” interpretations, it ends up asserting Scripture’s meaninglessness.

Godel in no way refutes Sola Scriptura. I think before making assertions like that you ought to familiarize yourself with Godel and Sola Scriptura instead of cutting and pasting from a Godel website. You are totally missrepresenting sola Scriptura in order to make it fit into a mathematical logical theorem that really doesn’t apply to this case.

You are also not undertsanding what I am saying. You errantly suppose that God has suspended the rules of logic as applied to Scripture. This is obviously not the case, as God has given us the power to reason logically; indeed the whole study of systematic theology is a logical construction. I also never said logical inference didn’t apply to Scripture; the fact that Scripture doesn’t contain a logic blueprint, formal and informal instruction on validity and soundness, in no way means Scripture has no claim as being a hermeneutic. By asserting the fallacious premise that Scripture needs some outside tool to interpret passages (that are discernible through mere reading and study and when taken in context of surrounding verses), you can logically say that sola scriptura isn’t adequate.

The only problem with that, Matt, is that you couldn’t be more wrong. That both Christ and the apostles viewed Scripture in the highest regard is evident from statements such as John 10:35 where Christ says, “The Scripture cannot be broken.” or Matthew 5:18 where Jesus says “Not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything has been accomplished.” Or how about Luke 16:17 where Christ again makes this point, “It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.”

In Matthew 24:35, Christ says that “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” In Matthew 5:19, Christ asserts that greatness in heaven will be measured by odebience to Scripture. These verses certainly demonstrate the importance that Christ places on His Word.

Scripture is complete, doctrinally and otherwise. Christ said so, which negated the need for tradition. He said as much in Mark 7:13 when debating the Pharisees, “Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition…” Therefore, we infer that Scripture determines whether tradition is acceptable, rather than the other way around that Catholics adhere to. Moreover, Christ subjected himself to the supreme authority that is Scripture in Luke 24:44. Logically, our view of Scripture cannot be inferior to his, right Matt?

Scripture derives none of its authority from the church; it’s authority is inherent because it is the very word of the living God. Consider 2 Timothy 3:16 if you doubt this premise.

You are also confused about the difference bewteen logical deduction and interpretation. Deductive reasoning is not interpretive, as least as far determining Scripture’s meaning and intent. Deduction is simply a tool that we use to determine positions on matters that aren’t spelled out in Scripture. Consider the use of computers to surf for pornography. Obviously there is no chapter and verse that prohibits computer porn expressly. But we know from Scripture that pornographic material, gazing upon naked men, women, children or whatever else is a sin because God said it—in Scripture—is sin. This takes no interpretation but rather deductive reasoning skills.

I’d like you to give me something in Scripture that is a mystery to you, Matt. YOu go on and on about how Godel’s Theorem can be applied to Scripture because you assert there are so many ‘mysteries’ contained therein that aren’t intuitively known nor deductively deriven.

Jim Kalb hints at something which I think is quite true, and that is that revealed truth is certainly clear as revealed in Scripture. Salvation, eternity, damnation, justification, soteriology, sanctification, sola fide etc. are all clear in Scripture, explicit or deductively. Other portions of scripture, ie. certain historical portions aren’t wholly clarion, but then again Scripture isn’t concerned so much with giving mankind a clear historical overview as it is revealing Truth.

Your analogy about pink elephants is also, predictably bogus. You’re premises are once again all wrong. Scripture doesn’t suspend the basic rules of logic in a given text. Besides Scripture is taken in its context, in light of other portions of Scripture.

In the end, it is your refusal to believe the Truths that SCripture makes plain which gets you into all sorts of trouble.

And I would be very interested in reading accounts of this great debate between Protestant Theologians and Godel’s Theorem. Enlighten me.

Arriving at this conclusion deductively is not the equivalent of interpreting. Simply, the example of porno requires no interpretation but only basic reasoning abilities.

for Sola Scriptura, Both Christ and the Apostles viewed scripture, and Scripture alone as the unerring Word Of God

Mr. Brewer fails to answer the problem directly, Godel or no Godel, and instead wanders around in Lutheran gnosticism and evangelical quote-slinging.

Sola scriptura: one is free to disbelieve anything that is not defined within the canon of Scripture. In fact, one cannot claim that something not defined in the canon of Scripture is a true dogma. (If one could, then Papist claims to legitimacy could not be refuted by sola scriptura. It might be possible to argue against Papist claims by other means, but sola scriptura itself would not help).

* The rules of logic are not defined in Scripture.
* The meanings of the words used in Scripture are not defined in Scripture
* The grammatical rules of the langauge are not defined in Scripture
* The historical context is not defined in Scripture
* The traditional understanding of idioms are not defined in Scripture
* Arithmetic is not defined in Scripture

(I could go on forever here, but here’s an important one:)

* The canon of Scripture is not defined in Scripture

And finally, the grand prize-winning entry of all time (which, even if it WERE in Scripture, would refute itself via Godel):

* Sola scriptura is not defined in Scripture.

Mr Kalb’s comment above is actually not an accurate characterization of sola scriptura. Sola scriptura is the claim that anything that is not in Scripture _cannot be asserted as dogmatically true_. So it attempts to define a sort of uber-truth self-referentially (just like the Koran, I might add), which by the Godel result cannot itself be an uber-truth.

Mr. Brewer’s insinuation that I got my understanding of Godel’s Theorem from a web site is 1) false; and 2) a continuation of his _ad hominem_ approach from another thread. He doesn’t know anything about me. I could actually BE the Pope for all he knows, or a Cardinal at the Vatican, or Richard Dawkins out messing with the Christians. Engaging my character, background, occupation, and education is 1) not the same thing as engaging my arguments and 2) an act he performs in complete ignorance. He demonstrates his ignorance of Catholic regard for the inerrancy of Scripture in numerous places and assumes all manner of things about my person and position for which he has no justification. So I will not be expending any additional effort to educate him in these matters.

One thing that is clearly demonstrated by this tedium is that relentless liberal denial of the authority of tradition is just a development of relentless protestant denial of the authority of tradition. I’ve made the additional claim that protestantism took this heresy from Islam; so if that is a correct reading of history then Islam, modern liberalism, and protestantism are all of a piece in that respect.

Matt, my friend you are not giving this on honest attempt. When I quote Scripture as evidence of an asserted position you equate that with evangelical quote-slinging; when I don’t quote from Scripture you play victim and accuse me of attacking your character.

Nevertheless, I’ll discuss this further. Sola Scriptura means that Scripture alone is the primary and absolute source for all doctrine and practice (faith and morals). This implies several things. First the Bible is direct revelation from God, and as such it has divine authority; for what the Bible says, God says.

Second, since the Bible is sufficient, it is all that is necessary for faith and practice. Thirdly, Scriptures are not only sufficient but authoritative, as in having final authority. In other words Matt, Scripture is the final court of appeal on all doctrinal and moral matters. However well intentioned and good they may be, all the church fathers, popes and councils are fallible. Only the Bible is infallible.

Fourth, Scripture is perspicuous or clear. This doesn’t mean everything in the Bible is perfectly clear, but rather the essential teachings are. You wrongly assume that Protestants obtain no help from the fathers and church councils. To the contrary, we accept the great theological and Christologial pronouncements of the first four ecumenical councils. I personally have high regard for the teachings of the early church fathers, but I do not believe they are infallible. In other words, tradition is at most of secodnary importance.

Lastly, Matt, Scripture interprets Scripture. This once again is the point I’m trying to get across to you. When we have difficulty in understanding an unclear text of Scripture, we turn to other biblical texts. Clear texts explain unclear ones.

As for the assertion that Scripture doesn’t teach sola Scriptura, you surely know that even most Catholic scholars recognize that it is not necessary that the Bible explicitly and formally teach sola scriptura in order for a doctrine to be true. Many Christian teachings, as I’ve stated for the upteenth time, are a necessary logical deduction of what is clearly taught in Scripture (i.e. the Trinity). Likewise, it is possible that sola Scriptura could be a logical deduction from what is taught in Scripture.

The Bible does teach implicitly and logically, if not formally and explicitly, that the Bible is the infallible basis for faith and practice. This is does in a number of ways. First, that fact that scripture, without tradition, is said to be “God breathed” and thus by it believers are “competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17), supporting the doctrine of sola scriptura. This flies in the face of the Catholic claim that the Bible is formally insufficient without the aid of tradition. Paul declared as much.

I’m leaving work at the moment by I look forward to continuing this debate.