I’ve heard this news repeated often in many forums I am a member of (some of them non-religious). I think we can make a few points on this:
1.) The title of the article tells us that ‘The Catholic Church no longer swears by the truth of the Bible.’ And the introductory paragraph says that the ‘hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church’ has published a document yet the article continues by saying that those who published it are the bishops of England, Wales and Scotland (not
all the bishops, i.e. the hierarchy of the Catholic Church!). Obviously, anyone could figure out that not all bishops of the Church are located in these locales; the (arch)dioceses in England, Wales and Scotland comprise only a small fraction of the universal Church.
2.) The article says:
Some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis, taught alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution in schools, believing “intelligent design” to be an equally plausible theory of how the world began.
But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this country’s Catholic bishops insist cannot be “historical”. At most, they say, they may contain “historical traces”.
This belief is not new. The bishops are merely repeating what was already believed before in Church circles; after all, since when should we expect the media to actually give a care about the Church, much less report about her and her beliefs accurately?
Biblical literalism (believing and interpreting every word in the Bible in an explicit literal manner, denying any existence of allegory, parable and metaphor in it) only became widespread during the Reformation.
Before that, the Bible was not usually interpreted in a completely literal way; while some Church Fathers such as Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom and Ephrem the Syrian, believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible; that does not mean all took the Bible very literally. Here is St. Justin Martyr on Genesis:
“For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression, ‘The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,’ is connected with this subject.” (Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 81)
Origen once remarked:
“What intelligent person will suppose that there was a first, a second and a third day, that there was evening and morning without the existence of the sun and moon and stars? Or that there was a first day without a sky? Who could be so silly as to think that God planted a paradise in Eden in the East the way a human gardener does, and that he made in this garden a visible and palpable tree of life, so that by tasting its fruit with one’s bodily teeth one should receive life? And in the same way, that someone could partake of good and evil by chewing what was taken from this tree? If God is represented as walking in the garden in the evening, or Adam as hiding under the tree, I do not think anyone can doubt that these things, by means of a story which did not in fact materially occur, are intended to express certain mysteries in a metaphorical way.”
Saint Augustine, one of the most influential theologians of the Catholic Church, suggested that the Biblical text should not be interpreted literally if it contradicts what we know from science and our God-given reason. In the book “
The Literal Interpretation of Genesis” (408 AD), Augustine took the view that everything in the universe was created simultaneously by God, and not in seven days like a plain account of Genesis would require. He argues that the six-day structure of creation presented in the book of Genesis represents a logical framework, rather than the passage of time in a physical way. Augustine also doesn’t envisage original sin as originating structural changes in the universe, and even suggests that the bodies of Adam and Eve were already created mortal before the Fall. Apart from his specific views, Augustine recognizes that the interpretation of the creation story is difficult, and remarks that we should be willing to change our mind about it as new information comes up.
“It not infrequently happens that something about the Earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.” (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, chapter 19)
“With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation.” (ibid, 2:9)
By the way, here is a website
reviewing that document which is entitled “
The Gift of Scripture.”
