Biblical Contradiction

[RyanL]

To echo what Daniel Marsh is saying, please keep in mind that to be faithful to Christ we must not doubt His word. Question, sure, but doubt, never. To use the old saying, “a thousand questions does not a doubt make.”

As the CCC states:
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[2088](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/2088.htm’) The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith: Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.

[2089](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/2089.htm’) *Incredulity *is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. "*Heresy *is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same;

Questioning is fine, doubt is not. Believe based on the credibility of the Church and the objective reasonableness of faith until you find your answers.

As you have seen, these “contradictions” are all answerable. The Church has survived 2000 years of people trying to tear her down (sometimes from inside), but no one has yet to be able to do so. There is a story that Napoleon Bonaparte once told a cardinal, “The Church is my enemy. I will destroy her.” The cardinal replied, “I don’t think you will. We cardinals have been trying to destroy her for centuries and haven’t been able to do it.” If the “pillar and bulwark of truth” (1 Tim 3:15) can withstand critics, heretics, atheists and persecuation for twenty centuries, she can withstand people pulling verses out of context, divorcing them from cultural understanding and common sense, and alleging “contradictions” in her sacred writings. Have no fear. If resolving these “difficulties” is all you are after, have faith and question on.

If, however, you are trying to resolve all of these difficulties so that someone you know will believe, I would start by preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ. If you just keep knocking down straw man arguments, they will keep erecting them. You will never finish. Start with substance. Start with Christ. You may have to start with the reasonableness of faith (arguments for the existence of God, arguments for the Bible as history, arguments for the existence of Christ, then arguments for the divinity of Christ based on the Bible as history) and proceed onward from there, but I wouldn’t get stuck arguing hermeneutics with someone who won’t believe once their “contradictions” are resolved because faith seems “unreasonable”.

You may be interested in Peter Kreeft’s Handbook of Christian Apologetics, which you can check out from your local library or buy at most any Barnes & Noble. It has excellent answers to hundreds of questions, the response you can expect, and the answer to the response. Kreeft is a Catholic, though the book is very ecumenical in its approach.

I hope this helps.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

Books on bible difficulties linked to

Hard Sayings of the Bible by Walter C. Kaiser (Editor), Peter H. Davids (Contributor), F. F. Bruce (Contributor), manfr Brauch (recommended). A compendium of five previous books. Answers to 500 verses; 12 introductory articles on miracles, the reliability of Scripture, God’s character, geneologies, differences among Gospel accounts and more.811 pp. two columns per page. $20.99. Intermediate level. Also on CD

Hard Sayings of the Old Testament - Walter Kaiser

More Hard Sayings of the Old Testament - Walter Kaiser

Hard Sayings of Jesus - F F Bruce

Hard Sayings of Paul - Manfred Brauch

More Hard Sayings of the New Testament - Peter Davids

Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties by Gleason Archer (Zondervan Publishing House, 1982). 476 pp two column format. $24.99. Scholarly, get ‘Hard Sayings…’ first.

When Critics Ask A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe (Victor Books, 1992) 615 pp single column format. This deals with bible difficulties in order from Gen - Rev and covers much of the same material as Gleason Archer in EBD. $18.89 (800 questions answered). It is less detailed than ‘Hard Sayings of the Bible’ but answers more questions. A good starter.

Exegetical Fallacies by D. A. Carson - a great little book by the scholar D A Carson designed for seminary students, dealing with: word-study fallacies; grammatical fallacies; logical fallacies; presuppositional and historical fallacies.

Solving Bible Mysteries : Unraveling the Perplexing and Troubling Passages of Scripture by D. James Kennedy

Difficulties in the Bible by R. A. Torrey (small book)

1001 Bible Questions Answered by William L. Pettingill, R. A. Torrey (I think this includes Torrey’s book above)

Today’s Handbook for Solving Bible Difficulties by David E. O’Brien

735 Baffling Bible Questions Answered by Larry Richards

Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible by John W. Haley. Note: John Haley was a late nineteenth century biblical scholar, linguist and Christian apologist. Published in 1874 and set in old typeset, written in response to the “virulent infidel literature” of the day.

Alleged Bible Contradictions Explained by Dehoff

Answers to Tough Questions from Every Book of the Bible : A

Survey of Problem Passages and Issues by J. Carl Laney

The Complete Book of Bible Answers by Ron Rhodes

A History of the Synoptic Problem : The Canon, the Text, the Composition, and the Interpretation of the Gospels (The Anchor Bible Reference Library) by David Laird Dungan

apocalipsis.org/difficulties.htm

 

[K_C]

Daniel Marsh:

Hi KC, what is the deeper issue, big picture of what’s happening with you?

Dear Daniel (and Ryan),
Thank you for your earnest attempt to help. I do not know how best to describe what is happening for several reasons. I do know that this forum discourages sharing of personal information, yet I do not know to what degree this is applied. (In one of my first posts, I mentioned the vocation of a relative, which was then deleted??) I find this rather strange because our identities are anonymous.

I guess I will just summarize by saying that I have been a devout Catholic almost all my life (chose the Church when I was about eleven) and made many sacrifices for the sake of my faith. Now that faith is being undermined on several levels at once and I am (also on many levels) alone. The only priests I respected and trusted have been relocated and my husband would never commit to one parish (insisting on attending the most convenient Mass), so I do not even feel that I belong to a parish community.

The main thrust of this attack is coming - almost daily - from my youngest son, who is extremely intelligent, and an apostate (despite my best efforts to educate him and our other children in the faith). He claims that he believes in the “scientific process” and “logic” and that Christianity (let alone Catholicism) does not meet the tested, verifiable processes of logical thought.

Of course, this (and the fact that my other two sons have also left the Church) breaks my heart. I do not have a college education, but did choose Catholic high school and have always nourished my faith by reading spiritual books. More than that, I often have long "talks’ with God. But now I am getting older and, while my son’s discussions are respectful (for the most part), I am easily wearied after 2 - 3 hours of debate.

I have tried to encourage him to seek answers from Catholic apologists better educated than I, but he is computer savvy and says he has done so, and that the Christian rebuttals always fail the test of logic. He even has shown me a videotape (“The God Who Wasn’t There”) which offers logical “evidence” to disprove religion. The bottom line is that he cannot accept a faith which he sees as “superstitious” and illogical. He cites the contradictions I’ve submitted and much more and, along with other emotional crises in my life, I feel simply broken down and defeated.

You are right…I do feel as if I were being “eaten alive”. The worst part, though, is that my own experience in life seems to be mocking me because it all seems to have been in vain. I think I am extemely depressed…have been for years…because I have had to fight my battles alone. Now the heartaches I’ve endured for my faith seem to mock me.

So, I hoped to find some answers here with which to placate my young son. I have already used many of those you and Ryan have offered here. But it seems that you are unable to explain why God seems to contradict Himself.

The list of books seems, to me, overwhelming. I would really love to be able to present a book to my son which would answer all his many objections. However, how does one determine *which *book will be most effective? It would be necessary to purchase and read them all in order to do so, and that would be both expensive and very time-consuming. Then I am not even sure that my son would read the resulting choice.

I do realize the difference between the kinds of doubt (as well as the usual, uterior motives for apostacy or heresy), but cannot say which kind has me in its grip. I only know that, in my own (relative) youth, I begged God for “a loaf of bread”, and thought He had granted my request, only to discover that it was actually “a stone” which would, eventually, wear down my health, my spirit and ruin my life. I cannot explain more fully to you here, but the knowledge of this is the greatest cross of all.

What all this boils down to, I guess, is that I am doing my best to pray for God’s help, seek it here, and to not give up entirely on my family, my faith, and my life.

It would certainly help if I could receive some strong rebuttal arguments rather than just a list of references. Is our faith illogical? Why does God demand such a high price for salvation…a price that slowly destroys one’s health and hope?

Maybe this will clarify my position for you…if it is not deleted or relocated too.

 

[Della]

KC, don’t argue with your son. You aren’t going to convince him of anything by arguing with him. And don’t allow him to undermine your faith any longer, either. You don’t have to try to correct him when he will not be corrected. Just love him and pray for him, and leave the results in God’s hands. Even Jesus couldn’t convince everyone who heard him and he was the Son of God! All that God expects is that you love your grown children and pray for them. They have to make their own decisions and do what they are going to do. You can’t make them think/believe what they don’t want to and you aren’t going to help them by long debates that only tire you out. Your son doesn’t want to see the truth, and you can’t make him, so drop it and just love him. That’s the best way you can help him. I will keep you and your family in my prayers.

 

[K_C]

Della:

KC, don’t argue with your son. You aren’t going to convince him of anything by arguing with him. And don’t allow him to undermine your faith any longer, either. You don’t have to try to correct him when he will not be corrected. Just love him and pray for him, and leave the results in God’s hands. Even Jesus couldn’t convince everyone who heard him and he was the Son of God! All that God expects is that you love your grown children and pray for them. They have to make their own decisions and do what they are going to do. You can’t make them think/believe what they don’t want to and you aren’t going to help them by long debates that only tire you out. Your son doesn’t want to see the truth, and you can’t make him, so drop it and just love him. That’s the best way you can help him. I will keep you and your family in my prayers.

Thanks so much for the advice and, especially, for your prayers, Della. I know that I can’t really convince him, but I just can’t ignore him either. To do so would be to give the impression that he is right. So I’m hoping that the Holy Spirit will put the right words in my heart and mind…the ones that will move him most and, also reaffirm my own faith.

In fact, I have to thank God (and his poster here) for the link to the page on CA about the AntiChrist because, in a sidebar, I found an article (“My Exodus from Atheism”) which sounds like it might reach my son because the author traveled the same road of doubt and ended up in the Church. So, I think that the Holy Spirit is taking some notice of this board and leading me in the right direction to help my son. Thanks to all for your kind replies and help.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

Hi Della and KC, is there a womens group that KC can join that meets during the week to give her an anchor to the faith? I know there is a men’s group called something like Knights of Columbus or something like that. Maybe a weekly womens bible study group would help.

Is there anything in Josh McDonalds Evidence that Demands a Verdict that is objectionable to Catholics? If Not then that would be a book worth giving him to read. Basically, Josh sounds like KC’s son before he became a Christian.

KC, Della is right Loving him and praying at this point is the best thing you can do. It sounds like at this point in time he does not want truth.

For a good logical defense of the Catholic Faith, you may want to give him a copy of Newmans Development of Doctrine book. It is logical in nature.

 

[K_C]

Thanks, Daniel, for the references. I will look for them. Thanks, too, for the idea of a women’s group. I appreciate your kindness very much!