Are Catholics allowed to

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Based on how rapidly the universe is expanding from what appears to be a center point.
 
MikeySee said:
I’m also curious how something being not factually correct is different than being not true? Could you explain this so I can understand?
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Maybe this analogy will help. If I said to you, “man, I have a ton of laundry to do this weekend”, you’d probably recognize that people sometimes use “a ton” to simply mean “a lot.” It’s a figure of speech most of us in 2019 are familiar with. You’d probably understand that I meant I had a lot of laundry, but not actually 2000 pounds.

Would that mean you thought I was a liar? No, you’d still believe that I had a lot of laundry to do. You would just take my figure of speech as a figure of speech and not a scientific measurement.
 
I don’t understand how someone could read an account on how the Earth was created, detailing such things as the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, creating light, and a firmament, all the animals…etc and draw the conclusion that the story was not about creating the world but about creating something else.
 
“True” and “factual” are different things.

It is true that Winnie the Pooh and Tigger are friends, it is not factual.

There are parts of Scripture that are allegorical. It was never be intended to be some sort of encyclopedia or history textbook.
 
This comes down to semantics. There’s an indelible grace left by Baptism that cannot be removed from a soul. In this sense, they are Catholic.

In another sense, if the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church teaches something with the force of dogma, then to truly be in good standing with that Church, you have to submit to that(those) thing(s).
 
It was about creating the world. However, I think they mean that the high point of creation was humans. Scott Hann’s Book says something about how good builders always start with the end in mind.

In this case, God is the builder, and humans are the end.
 
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I’m not understanding where you’re having difficulty. Real things can be described using poetic imagery that is not meant to be taken literalistically. Jesus used imagery to make a point all the time. No one thought He was saying the Kingdom of God is actually a mustard seed.
 
The Bible contains two different creation accounts. This helps us to know it is not a literal history.
 
MikeySee said:
I’m also curious how something being not factually correct is different than being not true? Could you explain this so I can understand?
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Every part of the Bible has a truth to impart. Sometimes it’s a scientific truth, but usually it’s something else. For example, as Pope Benedict said:

"The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man …

The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are."

From: http://www.catholic.com/qa/genesis-symbolical-or-literal
 
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No. The word day doesn’t even always mean a 24-hour period. I can say, back in my day, this or that happened, right? And I do not have a day like 17 August, 1967.

I think even St Augustine in the 400s considered these issues. Isn’t that something 😁
 
That is true. I have heard (not sure though) that the Hebrew word for day refers to a period of time.
 
MikeySee said:
The ten commandments say “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy”. The concept of the Sabbath is based on God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh. We measure time this way, SMTWTFS. I just can’t seem to understand why someone who is writing down the word of God would write that creation occurred over six days if it fact did not. What is the reason it says six days in the Bible?
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Because the Bible is also a cultural document, not a literal history text. God made the Sabbath for man. We also see understand that six generally represents a lack of fullness in scripture, and seven represents fullness and covenants (the Hebrew word for seven and oath are pretty much the same). Note that Adam and Eve were, at least in the narrative, married on the seventh day.
 
At age 6 in 1st grade, I was able to understand the concept of billions of years.
Are you suggesting that the author of Genesis assumed that people would not be able to understand “what really happened” so he wrote “six days” to avoid confusion?
I think stating that it only took six days if infact it took billions of years is confusing.
 
Do you understand the concept of allegory? The Old Testament stories reflect the truth of the Hebrew people’s understanding of their special relationship with God. It doesn’t mean those stories would meet some scientific or journalistic scrutiny for being factual—because they weren’t written to be understood that way.
 
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I think it is more about what best portrays the message. Would going into detail about the years it took, how things evolved, etc show the message better than six days? Probably not.

Also, didnt people only assign names to certain amounts (millions, billions, etc) until relatively recently, as they had no use for them before?
 
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My religion teacher told me that the ancient Israelites would have understood that the story was allegorical and immediately understood the message.
 
This why the Church/magisterium is so important-to discern the truth-to distinguish between symbolic and literal language, to glean and correctly understand the message within a particular passage. So the Catechism teaches:
390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man . Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.

Because that happens to be her job:
85 "The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ."47 This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

113 2. Read the Scripture within “the living Tradition of the whole Church” . According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (". . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church"81).
 
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OP, I’m curious. You seem quite concerned about a non-literal interpretation of Genesis 1. What do you make of John 6:54-55?
 
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