Midwest Catholic Conference Reflections 1: The Closing of the Muslim Mind

This past weekend I attended the 16th annual Midwest Catholic Family Conference. Many great talks were given, and in my next several posts I am going to give a summary of several that I found very interesting. Topics include marriage, family life and the Eucharist, but for this post I am going to look into a talk given by Robert R. Reilly regarding his book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Caused the Modern Islamist Crisis.

The western nations find themselves today in an ideological war against radical Islam, but this is nothing new. The cause of all these wars lies deep in the history of the Islamic faith, and it really is quite shocking. In the 9th and 10th centuries, Islamic culture flourished. They were very advanced intellectually and scientifically. But soon after this time, the culture began to crumble due to something known as dehellenization.

Hellenization was the infusion of Greek knowledge, primarily philosophy, into the surrounding cultures. The modern Islamic culture of today has been completely dehellenized, meaning that the philosophy of the Greeks is not present. In fact, in countries governed by Sharia Law, the study of philosophy is illegal, which is understandable when looking at what orthodox muslims believe.

In Genesis, we learn that Man was created in the image and likeness of God. Muslims however deny this. By denying this, Muslims deny man's ability to reason as well as his ability to know. Islamic doctrine claims that man cannot know anything other than that which is revealed by Allah, and this explains why philosophy is illegal. The art of reasoning to obtain knowledge of things including God is in clear contrast with orthodox Islam.

Freedom is of a philosophical origin. Love is of a philosophical origin. The inviolable rights of the person are of a philosophical origin. Since all of these find their roots in philosophy, they are all denied in orthodox Islam.

Now it is quite clear to see why the conflict between radical Islam and the west exists. The western nations have cultures that are based on Hellenic thought, which is in direct contrast with Islamic culture. This is an ideological conflict, and the only way to win an ideological conflict is with a stronger ideology, but unfortunately the western nations cannot seem to unite under a single ideology.

If there are any questions, please feel free to ask. I have more posts upcoming but I think all of these topics should be discussed in full.

P.S. Reilly also gave a talk on Homosexuality which I can address although it is something that has been previously discussed on this blog. I will look into it only if people request it of me.