On September 12, 2006, almost five years to the day from 9/11, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a watershed lecture at the University of Regensburg. He argued that Islam and the modern West hold a significant tenant in common: a voluntarism that puts will above reason. For classic Islamic thinkers this meant that Allah was not bound by any restraints of...

If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest ...

“If someone had invited him to their church, would he have still gone out and done what he did?”  A good friend of mine posed that question to me recently about Sayfullo Saipov, the Muslim man charged with murdering eight people in the recent Manhattan terror attack.  My friend’s own answer to the question: “I don’t think that he would ...