Catechism Question

[TruthSeeker7]

Thanks PrayerWarrior, you’ve helped alot.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Perhaps Stephen made a mistake while speaking and the inspired author of Acts inerrantly recorded his errant address.

The Catholic Church only vouches that the original OT and NT writings were inspired and inerrant. Since, as far as we know, those original writings are no longer extant, perhaps our current rendition of Genesis, Acts, or both, contain minor copists’ errors at this point.

Agreed. And furthermore, the Church does not claim inerrancy across the board, but only as those things that have to do with faith and morals. or salvation. The literalness of Genesis for example is not held to be true by recent popes or by most Catholics. The Church recognizes that the writers,though inspired, were products of their own time and place and reached conclusions on issues well outside their ability to understand that have turned out incorrect. This is no way lessons or alters the value of the texts.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

This is my first post in this section so I just wanna say “HI!” before I ask my question. So, HI!

So here’s the question.

The Catechism says, “G-d is the author of Sacred Scripture.” (Cate.105) and goes on to elaborate on the point in the following paragraphs (Cate. 105-8). So according to the Catechism the Bible can’t be wrong in anyway. After all how could G-d not know something, but the NT says,

What’s interesting is that according to Torah, also authored by G-d according to the Catechism, says something different,

So basically the Torah says that Jacob was buried in Hebron while the NT says that he was burried in Sychem, definitely not Hebron, and yet they are both authored by G-d…

So exactly how does this work?

Thanks for any and all replies!

Stephen the deacon, who is the speaker in most of Act 7 - including vv. 15 & 16 - may simply have been wrong.​

Sychem AKA Sychar in NT = Shechem of Gen. 34.

The Bible can be inerrant even if it includes speeches which are not inerrant. One could in principle have an inerrantly accurate account of an non-inerrant speech; though whether this kind of solution does justice to the character & purpose of inspiration, is a different matter.

What would be impossible, is for two contradictory states that something is the case both to be true in the same sense. For example, if Samuel was an Ephraimite, he cannt have been a Levite. Both statements are made - so any doctrine of total inerrancy has to be able to cope with both presentations of his ancestry. (Whether the Bible needs to be totally inerrant, or even is, are two further questions.)

The meaning of “total inerrancy” is not free of ambiguity - for example, most people here who believe in it also seem to believe that there is no difference between OT & NT ethics. But OTOH if the bloodier attitudes of the OT are still valid for Christians, this has serious effects for the character of God’s revelation in His Son. Again, does total inerrancy require us to believe that the OT People of God believed in the resurrection of the dead ? And does TI requre totally inerrant grammar in the texts ? If not - why can there not be defective morality, & defective history, & defective doctrine, as well as defective grammar ?

TI is fine - as long as one does not look at it too closely. Start asking awkward questions - & it crumbles.

Hope that helps

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Agreed. And furthermore, the Church does not claim inerrancy across the board, but only as those things that have to do with faith and morals. or salvation. The literalness of Genesis for example is not held to be true by recent popes or by most Catholics. The Church recognizes that the writers,though inspired, were products of their own time and place and reached conclusions on issues well outside their ability to understand that have turned out incorrect. This is no way lessons or alters the value of the texts.

If I may throw a spanner in the works :​

There is a line of Popes since 1893 who have explicitly rejected & condemned any limitation of inerrancy to matters of F & M. And sometimes the Ratzinger Note of 1998 is quoted:

Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei

1. The first paragraph states: “With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed.” The object taught in this paragraph is constituted by all those doctrines of divine and catholic faith which the Church proposes as divinely and formally revealed and, as such, as irreformable. These doctrines are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and defined with a solemn judgment as divinely revealed truths either by the Roman Pontiff when he speaks `ex cathedra,’ or by the College of Bishops gathered in council, or infallibly proposed for belief by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.

These doctrines require the assent of theological faith by all members of the faithful. Thus, whoever obstinately places them in doubt or denies them falls under the censure of heresy, as indicated by the respective canons of the Codes of Canon Law.
…

1. Examples. Without any intention of completeness or exhaustiveness, some examples of doctrines relative to the three paragraphs described above can be recalled.
   To the truths of the first paragraph belong the articles of faith of the Creed, the various christological dogmas and marian dogmas; the doctrine of the institution of the sacraments by Christ and their efficacy with regard to grace; the doctrine of the real and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the sacrificial nature of the eucharistic celebration; the foundation of the Church by the will of Christ; the doctrine on the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff; the doctrine on the existence of original sin; the doctrine on the immortality of the spiritual soul and on the immediate recompense after death; the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts; the doctrine on the grave immorality of direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being.
   …

ncronline.org/NCR_Online/documents/ratz.htm

[My **emphasis]

Which does seem to rule out any limitation of inerrancy to matters of F & M. A commentary on the document would help. I’m thinking of asking my bishop for a bit of help on this