Hagia Sophia and the Fantasies of Gabriel Said Reynolds

Thursday afternoon, someone posted the article over at Church Life Journal entitled “Is the Decision to Turn the Hagia Sophia Into a Mosque an Obstacle to Interreligious Relations?” by Gabriel Said Reynolds. Having read the article, it struck me that there was so little dependence in it on the place of Islam in Catholic Tradition. I naturally dismissed the article as fantasy and posted a comment to that effect under the article. Later, the poster of the article contacted me in Messenger to tell me that he had deleted my comment because it was “anti-conciliar” and “theologically illiterate.” The manner in which this person dealt with my comment was immediately a red flag to me. Rather than reply to my comment under his post, he removed my comment from public view, where both our positions and ideas could be evaluated by others, and decided to “refute” me in private. I knew immediately, someone that has a coherent and compelling argument does not act this way. His actions were deliberately designed to conceal the fact that his arguments are weak.

I have come to recognize in fairly recent years that there is a very widespread heresy in the Church today. I have come to know it as “Secundovaticanism.” The essence of Secundovaticanism is the belief that the entire Catholic Tradition must be understood through the lens of the most recent Ecumenical Council. This, of course, is the opposite of the orthodox position. The truth is that the most recent Ecumenical Council must be understood in the light of the entire Catholic Tradition. This is what Pope Benedict XVI referred to as “the hermeneutic of continuity.” Secundovaticanists, on the contrary, give to the Second Vatican Council and to certain recent Popes of Rome a “superauthority” that transcends that of the rest of the Tradition. In many cases, Secundovaticanists believe that the most recent Ecumenical Council has, in fact, altered the Faith.

In the aforementioned article, Gabriel Said Reynolds states on the authority of the most recent Ecumenical Council that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. The passage in the Council document Lumen Gentium that declares this is well known and requires no direct citation. Yet, it is clear from the context of this text that the intent of the Council Fathers was merely to make an irenic statement concerning shared monotheism. This is, in the final analysis, the only possible interpretation of the text of Lumen Gentium, because, if the Council Fathers had intended to say that the gods of Christianity and Islam are conceptually identical, they would have been guilty ipso facto of impugning the known truth. After all, the differences, conceptually speaking, between the two are enormous. Neither are the differences confined to the matter of the triad versus the monad. The poster of the article to FaceBook mentioned above, when he took me aside privately in Messenger, in order to “refute” me, kept insisting on the fact that the Mystery of the Trinity cannot be rationally ascertained. That is true enough, but it is not to the point. Islam is not natural religion any more than Christianity is. Islam is a revealed religion that has its foundation in the Quran and the Sunnah, revealed texts.

Indeed, the differences between the gods of Christianity and Islam are legion. The Christian God cannot deceive, but Allah is the best deceiver. The Christian God is not the source of evil, but only good, but Allah is the source of both good and evil. The Christian God, because of His innate goodness, has bound Himself to the system of natural laws, which are observable and predictable in the world around us. Allah, on the other hand, is bound by nothing, but is instead Pure Will.

The gods of Christianity and Islam are identical in name (as the Second Vatican Council insists), but they are different conceptually. In a similar way, the Jesus of the Quran may be identical in name with the Jesus of the Gospels (although this idea is tenuous, because the name “Isa” was never in use among Christian Arabs), but they are conceptually different. One is the Divine Son of God, the other is merely a prophet. One is a faithful Jew, the other is a Muslim. One is born in a cave stable in Bethlehem of Judea, the other is born under a date palm tree with a rivulet of water flowing between his mother’s feet. One died by crucifixion, the other merely appeared to have died by crucifixion. Naturally, the list could be further elaborated, but the idea is clear. The claim that these two persons are the same person is impugning the known truth. In the same way, beyond the mere recognition of shared monotheism, the insistence that the Christian God is the same as the Allah of Islam is impugning the known truth.

The recognition that the gods of Christianity and Islam are conceptually different leads us to the essential question that can only be answered by Catholic Tradition: Why are these conceptions of the Supreme Being different? Catholic Tradition replies: They are different because Islam is of demonic origin. It doesn’t sound “nice.” It isn’t irenic, but the Tradition is consistent. The Church traditionally sees Islam as demonic not only because of the content of its revelations, but also because of the mode of those revelations. Texts of Scripture like Galatians 1: 8 and 1 John 2:22 were looked upon from the earliest times of Christian and Islamic interaction as being condemnatory of the revelations and mode of revelation in Islam. In fact, Saint John of Damascus, in the early eighth century, identifies the “heresy of the Ishmaelites” as being a forerunner of Antichrist on the basis 1 John 2:22. The theme of Islam as a “religion of Antichrist” would continue to develop in the ensuing centuries. Numerous Popes of Rome, such as Callixtus III and Pius II described Islam as a “diabolical sect.” In fact, by the 17^th century, spiritual writers like Saint Juan de Ribera regard Islam’s demonic origins as self-evident.

The theme of the demonic origin of Islam finds its ultimate basis in the traditional Islamic sources themselves. Both the most trusted hadith collection, Sahih al-Bukhari and the Histories of At-Tabari both relate that the prophet of Islam thought that he was possessed by a demon. Further, the religion’s most trusted sources also relate the prophet’s inability to distinguish between revelations that came from the angel Gabriel (the usual source for Quranic material) and counterfeit revelations that came from Satan. Christians, of course, became aware of this tradition within Islam, a tradition that added “ammunition” to the Church’s natural suspicions regarding the Arab religion’s origins.

The Catholic Tradition regarding the demonic nature of Islam as an “angel-revealed religion” is consistent throughout the fourteen centuries since the Arab prophet’s appearance. Yet, we find a will in the Church today to interpret the irenic statement in Lumen Gentium regarding the shared monotheism of Islam and Christianity as a literal affirmation that the two religions have conceptually the same God. This is so true that a great many eyebrows were raised when Robert Cardinal Sarah stated in October of 2015 that “Islam and the liberal West have the same demonic origin.” The statement is, of course, completely consistent with the constant Tradition of the Church, but on account of heretical, Secundovaticanist ideology widespread in the Church of the 21^st century, it is the Tradition that is dismissed because it contradicts a literal reading of the text of Lumen Gentium. In other words, the authentic understanding of the reception of the Council has been turned on its head by the insistence that the entire Catholic Tradition be interpreted through the lens of the Council documents. The heretical ideology of Secundovaticanism is delaying (and perhaps preventing) the Council’s reception, that is, the understanding and assimilation of the Council’s teachings according to the totality of the Tradition of the Church.

The idea that Christians should rejoice that Hagia Sophia is once again “a place of prostration” to “the true God” is, pace Gabriel Said Reynolds, completely inconsistent with the Tradition of the Church. In order to come to his conclusion, Reynolds must ignore the entirety of the Tradition, choosing to base himself on an irenic statement from a document of the Second Vatican Council. The same irenic statement should have been rightly understood in the light of the Tradition, namely that Christianity and Islam have a shared monotheism, although their concepts of God are completely different owing to Islam’s demonic origin.