I recently saw An Evening with Salman Rushdie on C-SPAN. You may remember that Rushdie is a dissident Muslim who is a best-selling author now living in New York. He is a political liberal; however, in his recorded lecture on C-SPAN he brilliantly criticized the new culture in both Europe and America that denounces the use of terms like Islamic terrorism and Islamic fascism. If you get a chance to view his speech, it is well worth the look. His fundamental point is that Islamic terrorist are no friends of liberals and that the left is committing suicide by believing that multiculturalism must foster the idea that all value systems are equal (moral equivalence). He believes that the left is doing a huge disservice to itself and to the West by being “fellow travelers” with Islamic fascists.

Theologically, Rushdie indicated that Islam needs its own reformation. He identified the historical moment when the hardcore literalists became ascendant within Islam. Rushdie noted that when Averroes the great Muslim philosopher was ignored and discredited was the historical point when Islam began to move away from thoughtful theological inquiry. Averroes (in Arabic, Ibn Roschd) was a contemporary of Thomas Aquinas and the Jewish theologian/philosopher Moses Maimonides. These three men were perhaps the brightest lights of the 12th century and all were influenced by the incredible intellectual center of Cordova, Spain where Christian, Muslim and Jewish philosophers co-mingled freely. All three religions, at that point, were dealing with and assimilating the powerful insights of Aristotle. However, unfortunately for Muslims, many of Averroes works in logic and metaphysics were burned and he left no school. It fell to Christians and Jews through their intellectual channels to keep Averroes insights alive.

Rushdie made the point that Islamic theology does not in the least hold to the idea that man is in the image of God. The Muslim God is totally separate and utterly transcendent over all creation and nothing about man reflects anything about God (this was, as Rushdie reminded his audience, the central point that Pope Benedict was making in his recent speech). Of course, such a view of God and man makes it difficult to do anything but receive the statements of the Koran in the most literal way. On the face of it, there can be no reflection on nature (or history) that can tell us anything about Allah. Only Allah can tell us about himself in the Koran. However, Averroes developed a subtle and faithful way to do theological reflection on the Koran that would have helped avoid Islamic fascism. Unfortunately, Islam left Averroes on the ash-heap of history.

Christians, of course, believe that man is created in the image of God and, therefore, there are analogous relationships between the creation and the Creator that help us to better understand our God. Christians believe it is good to study the historical, linguistic and contextual background of the Bible in order to better understand God’s message to humanity. This is not true with Muslims. This can easily be seen in the fact that Christians are adamant about translating the Bible into the common language of all ethnic groups. The opposite is true for Muslims. Muslims are required to learn Arabic in order to read the Koran. Also, Christians encourage deep reflection and discussion on the Biblical text while Muslims encourage rote memorization (even if one does not understand Arabic).

Rushdie, in a courageous speech, pointed out that Islam’s current literalistic non-reflection on the Koran has not always been the way Muslims have done religion. He is calling for a reformation within Islam. Christians would do well to pay attention to his insights and to be very grateful for our wonderful heritage of theological reflection.

In the 5th-6th century, Dionysius wrote: “Therefore, in knowing itself, the divine wisdom knows all things—the material immaterially, the divisible indivisibly, and the many unitedly.” Now this statement is profound, to say the least. First, Dionysius is saying that God knows all things through Himself. Another way of saying the same thing is that God knows all things by knowing His own essence. God, in doing this, does not have to look and examine each and every thing individually like we do. It is like when we look at a panorama of nature, we can sort of take it all in without having to examine each tree or rock in the scene. Likewise, God is able to see all things in Himself but He also sees them in the minutest detail. The Bible states it this way: Hebrews 4: 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Dionysius also noted that God knows all the material things “immaterially.” One of the things that this means is that God knows all things within Himself before they become material objects in the temporal universe. This would include not only the things that are made but the events that will happen. This, of course, does not negate man’s free choices; it just means that God knows our actions within Himself as free actions even before we come into existence. The term used for the knowledge that God has of diverse things is “exemplars.” If you are familiar with Plato’s realm of the forms (or his doctrine of Ideas), there would be some similarity here with the exception that exemplars are in God and not outside of Him and they are of all particular things.

Also, Dionysius stated that God knows things “divisible indivisibly, and the many unitedly.” Since there is no time in God, there is no temporal sequence of events. For us there is a past, present and future. Also, for us there is before and after. However, these are terms that refer to the course of events passing in time. For God, all things are simultaneously one. Therefore, God, in understanding Himself, not only fully understands Himself, but also understands all those things which are “exemplars” of things in His mind. In this way, therefore, through one intellectual glance at His own divine essence, God understands all the multiplied many things. Also, it is in this way that the multiplicity of things are considered as united in God because they are understood together by Him. For God, the multiplicity of things are understood as a continuous whole all at once and not part after part.

Isaiah 55: 8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. 9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Well, Hollywood is at it again. Literally, they cannot control themselves. They, seemingly, are bent on desecrating every thing that Americans hold hallowed from apple pie to Jesus Christ. The latest hatchet job is on the heroic struggle to conquer Iwo Jima and plant the American flag on Mt. Suribachi. The photograph taken from atop Mt. Suribachi is not important because of the individual men or even the emotive power of the famous picture. The fact is you cannot see the faces of the men in the photograph so they have an anonymous quality, which is very important. The reason the photograph was so significant to the American public is because it showed an American flag being raised for the first time on Japanese soil. It signaled the possibility of victory in the titanic and brutal battle of the South Pacific. Additionally, the anonymity of the men from Easy Company made it possible to keep the focus on the sacrifice of all the Marines and soldiers that fought at Iwo Jima.

However, the mass media, exemplified by the N.Y. Times, is virtually falling over itself handing out accolades to Clint Eastwood and Paul Haggis for the film depiction of James Bradley’s book “Flags of Our Fathers.” The Times noted:

“Above all it [Flags of Our Fathers] is a study of the callous ways in which heroes are created for public consumption, used and discarded, all with the news media’s willing cooperation. And it is imbued with enough of a critique of American politicians and military brass to invite suspicions that Hollywood is appropriating the iconography of World War II to score contemporary political points.”

If you are not aware, the screenwriter, Haggis, willingly admits that his work was intended to be a critique of the war in Iraq and has announced a new project about an Iraq soldier who goes AWOL and gets murdered. Haggis is also on the board of the hard-Left group, Office of the Americas, along with such people as: Ed Asner, Martin Sheen, Noam Chomsky, Jackie Goldberg and Howard Zinn. I believe it is helpful to be aware of this before you see the movie.

Normally, I wouldn’t bother with posting about a movie like this; however, I am taking this at a more personal level than usual because of the memories of both my father and my father-in-law. My dad served in the U.S. during WWII as a part of a fire rescue team stationed at the air base in Reno, Nevada. He and my uncle risked their lives to save airmen flying fighters and bombers in and out of their busy base. However, my father-in-law served in some of the toughest battles in the South Pacific and lived his life with impaired hearing from artillery barrages and a jungle disease that forever affected his fingers and toenails. Both my dad and father-in-law were patriots to the last. They loved America, and, by the way, they knew what they were fighting for in WWII. Frankly, I am sick of hearing movies espouse the idea that WWII veterans only fought for their “buddies.” My father-in-law hated that idea and believed it was disrespectful and dishonoring to the men he served with and those that died next to him. He always maintained that he and all the guys around him served in the armed forces because they were fighting to save America from Fascism.

However, Hollywood and the left cannot control their desire to rewrite history and throw a dark cloud of cynicism over every heroic and honorable thing held dear by Americans. The purpose of the movie “Flags of Our Fathers” is clearly noted above by the N.Y. Times. Allow me to repeat: “Above all it [Flags of Our Fathers] is a study of the callous ways in which heroes are created for public consumption, used and discarded, all with the news media’s willing cooperation.”

Now let me show you just a few ways that Eastwood and Haggis have changed actual history in order to callously create a distorted and untrue picture of what happened on top of Mt. Suribachi:

1. Yes, there were two flags planted on the peak of Suribachi. The first one was also photographed. When planted it caused a wave of positive excitement from the men on Iwo Jima. However, it was only 54 x 28 inches and so it was decided to put a second and larger (eight foot long) flag up so all the men could see it. The first flag was not taken down and a second put up because some cynical Marine brass could have the first flag as his trophy. The movie portrays the planting of the second flag as a mocking act of military greed.

2. Both flag ceremonies were photographed; however, the first flag ceremony showed the faces of the Marines and was less dramatic, lacking the struggle to erect the flag—the second pole weighed over 100 lbs. The fact that the second picture made the soldiers more anonymous played a role in its selection as a defining image of Iwo Jima. The movie presents the whole process of selecting the second image as a purely contemptuous endeavor.

3. The second flag ceremony took place several hours later and was a deliberate act to improve the visibility of the American flag over Japanese soil to encourage Marines still heavily engaged in brutal combat. The movie presents the second ceremony as an immediate off-the-cuff and arbitrary action by insensitive Marine brass. In the movie, the average Leatherneck on Suribachi has no idea why the second flag has to be raised immediately after the first. This is pure nonsense to invent the impression that (again, as the N.Y. Times stated) our military callously creates our heroes “for public consumption.”

I could go on point-by-point to prove that the movie “Flags of Our Fathers” is pure cynical propaganda intended to dispirit the American public and desecrate the symbols of our national identity. Instead I recommend that you explore these two websites. The first has interesting information about Iwo Jima including a live broadcast from the actual Marine landing which you can listen to. The website is called Eyewitness to History: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/iwoflag.htm . The second website has an interview with the actual person portrayed in the book and movie, James Bradley: http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq87-3l.htm. I would plead with you to not allow an immoral entertainment industry cause you to think that the selfless and courageous actions of our greatest generation were simply cynical manifestations of greed and callous politics. Greed, cynicism, and callousness can be found in Hollywood. God bless America.

I recently did an internet search and happened upon a theology blog called “Faith and Theology” (http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/) that was a hoot for me to spend some time on. “Faith and Theology” seems to be stocked with left-leaning divinity students and professors. It is a hermetically sealed world where its participants write verbose posts filled with made-up words like “hi-story” (instead of history) and support each other with grandiose but vapid theological reasoning that uniformly supports a leftist political agenda. Obviously, I was in “hog-heaven” as I presented them with some Aristotelian and Thomistic reasoning on different subjects. An apt metaphor might be that it was like shoving a stick into an undisturbed hornets nest.

While on the “Faith and Theology” blog I noticed that all roads seemed to lead to certain political topics. Chief among these was the issue of war and non-violence. It is probably needless to say that the participants at FAT consider themselves pacifists. While on FAT I even read an article making the case for vegetarianism based on Christian theology. Please understand, this article was not saying that one may wish to be a vegetarian, it was making the case that it is a moral imperative that all Christians must be vegetarians and oppose the “slaughter” of animals. I’ll set that aside for now and concentrate on the subject of war.

Christians and Non-violence: The History

Throughout Christian history there have been Christians who have believed that it was wrong to participate in armed conflict. However, this has been the minority position. We can see this today with such groups as the Amish, some Friends, and the Mennonites. Generally, these groups have taken the position that their Christian conscience does not allow them to be soldiers. They have not sought to push their view on other Christians nor on the countries in which they have resided.

The majority opinion has been the Just War Tradition which was first formalized by Augustine and fine-tuned by Aquinas.

Basis for the Just War Tradition

The basis for the Just War Tradition is that it separates the individual Christian’s personal ethic from that of the government’s responsibility to provide justice and peace. The JWT also takes into account the full counsel of Scripture giving full weight to the Old Testament teachings on war, punishment and God’s nature. Christian pacifism seems to be unable to grasp that there are two separate ethics taught in the Bible that spring from the same God. One ethic is for the Christian as a private citizen within a country and another ethic is for the government and the magistrates of the government.

The Private Christian Ethic

The New Testament clearly teaches that Christians are to love their enemies and to do good toward those that treat them evilly (Matt. 5:43-47 and Romans 12:14-21). The mandate for the individual Christian is to “…not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” This makes complete sense and is reasonable when we understand God’s nature. God has overcome His own just right to punish us through His mercy made available through the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Likewise, Christians are, by the power of the cross, able to overlook an injustice and through love overcome evil.

On the other hand, the government and governing magistrate is in no position to overlook injustice. In fact, the Bible teaches that the magistrate is God’s “servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer” (Roma 13: 4). Both Paul and Peter go into some detail on this issue (Rom 13:1-5 and 1 Peter 2: 13-14). The governing magistrate does not act as an individual but as a representative of the government and, as such, must act in accordance with God’s requirements of the institution of government. God requires of governments that they act on His behalf to provide peace and tranquility (1 Tim 2:2) to the populace by “commending the good” and punishing wrongdoers. They are to provide justice for the oppressed and those who have been unjustly treated. When governments and magistrates fail to provide justice for their people or pervert justice, they are punished by God (check out the OT prophets).

The Just War Tradition

The JWT builds on the apostolic teaching in the New Testament in that it reasons that the government must protect its citizens from violent predators within its borders (i.e. criminals and murderers) and from outside its borders (i.e. pirates, brigands, mercenaries, terrorists and invading countries). The JWT notes that if a government fails to protect its citizens from those from outside its borders it is just as irresponsible as when failing to deal with criminals and murderers.

Here I will summarize the JWT; however, if you would like a fuller explanation you can check out Aquinas’ brilliant overview at: http://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/SS/SS040.html#SSQ40A1THEP1

1. War may only be declared by the proper governing authorities. No private individual or group is justified making war (by the way, Al Qu'ida is not a legitimate government and has no right to make war against the U.S.).
2. There needs to be a just reason for waging war (i.e. Augustine lists: “…one that avenges wrongs, when a nation or state has to be punished, for refusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects, or to restore what it has seized unjustly”).
3. Thirdly, it is necessary that the “belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil.”

Aquinas quotes Augustine, “True religion looks upon as peaceful those wars that are waged not for motives of aggrandizement, or cruelty, but with the object of securing peace, of punishing evil-doers, and of uplifting the good." The participants at FAT would probably go into coronary arrest if they read Augustine’s quote. Imagine that, Augustine actually believed that wars can be waged as “peaceful,” meaning, for the purpose of providing peace. Such a concept does not seem to make much sense to those at FAT, however, to the rest of us who live on planet Earth, and enjoy the peace and tranquility provided by our government from fascist and communist dictators, it makes perfect sense.

It seems that the will of God is not always fulfilled. For example, the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 2:4 (KJV) “…(God) will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” But this does not happen. So it appears that God wills that all men are saved but only some are saved. Therefore, apparently we must conclude that God’s will is not always fulfilled. But how can that be, isn’t God omnipotent? If not everything God wills comes to pass then maybe God isn’t really all powerful, right? No, but to understand this, you’ll have to hang with me.

You see, the Apostles words “(God)…will have all men to be saved” can be understood in three different ways. The first way is by restricting its application. This is what Augustine and others have done. Augustine said, “God wills all men to be saved that are saved, not because there is no man whom He does not wish saved, but because there is no man saved whose salvation He does not will.” In other words, God wills only certain men to be saved. The word “all” applies only to all the men God will save.

A second way of understanding 1 Timothy 2:4 is by applying it to every class or type of people. In other words, God will save certain people out of all ethnic groups or types of people: males and females, Jews and Gentiles, or great and small—but not every single person.

The third way to understand 1 Timothy 2:4 is according to the theologian Damascene’s work (De Fide Orth. Ii, 29), c. 675-749 AD. He wrote of the antecedent (a cause or condition that comes first) will of God and the consequent (something that follows as a result, or conclusion) will of God. However, when we refer to God’s will there really is nothing that comes first or last. These terms just help us understand the things that are willed by God as to their logical order and importance as they fall out in time.

Here is the deal, anything that happens can be considered in its absolute sense as either good or bad. Yet, when additional circumstances are considered, the goodness or badness of a situation may change drastically. For instance, from an absolute sense, for a man to live is a good thing and for a man to be killed is an evil. But if in a particular case we find out that a man wantonly murdered innocent school girls, it becomes a good thing to execute punishment against him. Conversely, to allow him to go his merry way would be an evil. Consequently, we could say that a judge would antecedently (in advance) want every person to live a happy and full life; but consequently (because of circumstances) he must will murderers to be executed. In the same way God antecedently wills all men to be saved, but consequently wills some men to be damned as an act of His justice. Just as we will things after all particular circumstances are considered, so does God. This is what is meant by willing consequently. Thus we could say that a just judge wills straightforwardly the execution of a murderer, but in a qualified way he would will all men to live. This qualified willing might be better termed a “willingness” rather than an absolute will. In short, it is clear that whatever God straightforwardly wills (with all things considered) takes place; although what He wills antecedently (His willingness) may not take place.