Robert R. Reilly: The Closing of the Muslim Mind

A very thought provoking interview by Frontpage of Robert R. Reilly, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, on his new book "The Closing of the Muslim Mind"

from Frontpage

here is a short excerpt from the interview:

To protect their notion of God’s omnipotence, the Ash‘arites denied cause and effect in the natural world. For God to be omnipotent, nothing else can be so much as potent. Therefore, fire does not burn cotton; God does. Gravity does not make the rock fall; God does. God is the direct cause of everything and there are no secondary causes. To say otherwise is blasphemy – comparing something to the incomparable God. Everything therefore becomes the equivalent of a miracle. By their very nature, miracles cannot be understood. Without causality in the natural order, anything can come of anything, and nothing necessarily follows. The world becomes incomprehensible because it is without a continuing narrative of cause and effect.