Conference on Evolution

[Namesake]

This is why the book I referenced is so important.

Yes I can see God in the OT. In my journey some passages were bothersome and confusing. I began to look at God as a Father. Being a father myself I could relate on how I dealt with my own children. I even know what my kids are going to many times. I have a choice, I can let them learn or put them in a straight jacket. In any case I love them always. Even when they hurt me it only takes them turning back towards me and I embrace them. That is much like God.

I do not have the issue you have with God’s treatment of his children. I can submit to His wisdom, mercy and justice.

The god of the Old Testament killed his children. Would you do that?

 

[Namesake]

namesake, perhaps StA’s mocking positions are more suitable to you. You think you could accept her positions?

I very much respect her theological opinions.

 

[Namesake]

Perhaps the answer is simplistic and we are making it too complicated.

Simple is a good thing. Simplistic is not so good.

 

[reggieM]

I can see God if that is what I want to see. Can you see God in the Old Testament?

I don’t know why you would limit yourself to the revelation in the Old Testament. It’s sort of like saying that you don’t like literature because you’ve been trying to read Chaucer in the original Old English and it’s not very enjoyable. Ok, but why not try something more contemporay first? In the Catholic world, there are many resources that give vivid depictions of God our loving Father.

It might be worth it for you to see some other depictions of God. Try St. Francis of Assisi’s view or St. Therese Lisieux for example. The words of Jesus give the most accurate image of God, but later saints provide explanations that are more modern. The writings of Fr. Knox, Fr. Faber or Fulton J. Sheen are also very good. Scott Hahn offers a very contemporay view which is excellent also. Actually, some of the best writing on the nature of God comes from Pope Benedict. He addresses modern atheism as well as one-sided or narrow views of God which afflict many people.

When discussing Catholicism, there’s no reason to look strictly at the Old Testament revelations since these are completed in the New Testament Gospels.

It’s good that you’ve read the Old Testament, but it has to be understood as a whole and the theology is difficult (the books span centuries). From a Catholic perspective, the OT is not the best starting point.

 

[reggieM]

I very much respect her theological opinions.

In this case, you could accept StAnastasia’s opinion and dismiss the entire Old Testament as being “not literal” and thus your problems with the “horrors” that are depicted there are solved.

It actually ends the discussion on the Old Testament entirely, if that’s the way you want to view it.

 

[StAnastasia]

In this case, you could accept StAnastasia’s opinion and dismiss the entire Old Testament as being “not literal” and thus your problems with the “horrors” that are depicted there are solved. It actually ends the discussion on the Old Testament entirely, if that’s the way you want to view it.

I don’t dismiss the Old Testament at all. It is a composite document of multiple authorship, written and redacted over many centuries, reflective of different eras of the geopolitical situation in which the Hebrew tribes and later, national Israel, found themselves.

I read the Hebrew Scriptures as the marvelous history of one people’s developing relationship with God. Like all such histories of relationship, it moves from more primitive (near-animist conceptions) of God and nature to a much more sophisticated theological understanding of the relationship between God, creation, and humanity, reflected in the prophetic literature, the book of Job, and other later works.

I don’t doubt that child sacrifice was a Canaanite or other phenomenon with which the tribes gathering in what became known as “the promised land” – and identifying as “Hebrews” had to contend. The stories of Abraham and Isaac, and of Jephthah and his daughter, perhaps reflect varying Hebrew reactions to this phenomenon.

Bye for now; I’ve got to go help someone with his homework.

StAnastasia

 

[edwest2]

I don’t dismiss the Old Testament at all. It is a composite document of multiple authorship, written and redacted over many centuries, reflective of different eras of the geopolitical situation in which the Hebrew tribes and later, national Israel, found themselves.

I read the Hebrew Scriptures as the marvelous history of one people’s developing relationship with God. Like all such histories of relationship, it moves from more primitive (near-animist conceptions) of God and nature to a much more sophisticated theological understanding of the relationship between God, creation, and humanity, reflected in the prophetic literature, the book of Job, and other later works.

I don’t doubt that child sacrifice was a Canaanite or other phenomenon with which the tribes gathering in what became known as “the promised land” – and identifying as “Hebrews” had to contend. The stories of Abraham and Isaac, and of Jephthah and his daughter, perhaps reflect varying Hebrew reactions to this phenomenon.

Bye for now; I’ve got to go help someone with his homework.

StAnastasia

This is the Bible. Every word is God breathed. It appears you want the Psychology 101 Version of the Bible. The Catholic Church does not teach that. Modernism puts the mind of man above the mind of God.

Jesus mentions Moses wrote concerning Him. It is a common argument of the atheist (like Richard Dawkins) to say the Christian God was/is this horrible being. God tells us in the Bible, The wages of sin is death. In the Old Testament, God punished the people directly and spoke through the prophets. Then, in the New Testament, He sent His Son, who willingly dies for us.

I ask you to consider that God is not man. He tells us in the Bible, My ways are not your ways.

Peace,
Ed

 

[reggieM]

Who’s mocking?

I didn’t realize that you expected to be taken seriously.

Old Testament Jeopardy: I’ll take child sacrifice for 500 shekels.

Your comparison of the Old Testament with a television game show must be an example of the respect you have for the “marvelous history of one people’s developing relationship with God” and not mocking at all.

I don’t dismiss the Old Testament at all.

I’m glad you explained that. The Jeopardy reference was a reflection of the geopolitical situation of the Israeli nation as it moves into more sophisticated theological understanding.

If you accept the stories literally, child sacrifice was no laughing matter for Issac or Jephthah’s daughter

If you don’t accept the stories literally, then it is a laughing matter – as you indicated.

And for Namesake’s interest, since you don’t take it literally, then there’s no problem to worry about.

I don’t doubt that child sacrifice was a Canaanite or other phenomenon with which the tribes gathering in what became known as “the promised land” – and identifying as “Hebrews” had to contend.

Sure. You’ll take child sacrifice for 500 shekels in Old Testament Jeopardy. So, the Hebrews must have had to contend with a pretty humorous situation after all.

 

[mpartyka]

Let me first express my sincere appreciation of your well written and very thoughtful reply. That is a breath of fresh air!

If what you say is true, and I believe that it is, than have we not also progressed beyond the New Testament need for the blood sacrifice of Christ?

Well, yes and no.

“Yes” in the sense that the multiple bloody sacrifices of the Old Testament have been replaced with the single rational and bloodless sacrifice of the Eucharist. (I hope you’ll agree that bread and wine is a heck of an improvement over blood and gore.)

“No” in the sense that we can’t get rid of the fact that Christ did die as a human being on a cross, not as bread and wine on an altar, so Christ’s sacrifice must have been a bloody sacrifice. It’s just a matter of historical fact. Plus, all the New Testament authors refer back to Christ’s bloody sacrifice on the cross as what sealed up the Old Covenant and opened up the New Covenant, and it is to that singular offering that the Eucharist points every single Sunday (again, in an unbloody way).

So there’s certainly no need to repeat the blood sacrifice of Christ – the Eucharist is not a repetition of that sacrifice at Calvary but rather a mystical “making present” of that one historical sacrifice (sort of like bringing the past into the present). So in this mystical sense, the blood sacrifice is* necessary, though it is represented week after week in the rational and bloodless form of the Eucharist.

It may help to look upon Christ’s sacrifice as “the blood sacrifice to end all blood sacrifices” – i.e., it was God’s way of wrapping up the age of the sacrificial system and opening the door to a new way of life in the Spirit.

–Mike*

 

[StAnastasia]

So there’s certainly no need to repeat the blood sacrifice of Christ – the Eucharist is not a repetition of that sacrifice at Calvary but rather a mystical “making present” of that one historical sacrifice (sort of like bringing the past into the present). So in this mystical sense, the blood sacrifice is** necessary, though it is represented week after week in the rational and bloodless form of the Eucharist.–Mike

Mike, I like everything you write here except for the part about the eucharist being rational. I think “rational” is a term that simply doesn’t work in the context of the eucharistic mystery, any more than it works in the context of the incarnation or resurrection.

StAnastasia

 

[mpartyka]

Mike, I like everything you write here except for the part about the eucharist being rational. I think “rational” is a term that simply doesn’t work in the context of the eucharistic mystery, any more than it works in the context of the incarnation or resurrection.

The phrase “rational and bloodless sacrifice” is in the Orthodox version of the Divine Liturgy, but I admit I don’t know precisely what is meant by “rational.” I assume it has to do with the fact that our physical senses can perceive no change in the bread and wine, so the “reality” of the sacrifice is apprehended by us rationally (i.e., via the mind, not through physical perceptions).

–Mike

 

[grannymh]

That isn’t true. In fact, I am very well educated even in Catholic thought.

May I add a bit of education to everyone’s Catholic thought. The Old Testament is given to us as a preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ. The New Testament fulfills the promises of the Old Testament. To understand the relationship between the Old and the New, a form of typology is employed. Thus, the passage relating to Abraham and his son prefigures Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Instead of trying to figure out God’s actions in human terms which goes nowhere, it would be far better to view the Bible in the terms of God’s economy of salvation.

 

[Camron]

With all due respect, Camron, if I burned as a holocaust either my son – or a ram caught by its horns in my front yard – and tried explain to the police and fire officials that “God had put me to the test,” they would put me away either in prison or in a mental institution. Who could blame them?

Yeah, I know…you’ve mentioned this several times already. I think you’ve made your point clear already. Trust me, I get what you’re saying.

I’ve offered as much sympathy as I can. However, I do think that Abraham had a faith in God that I don’t have. He is the father of faith of three major world religions after all. He was not doing anything evil, nor was he tempted by God to do evil evil, precisely because God never had any real intention for Abrahma to kill Isaac.

This part seems to be overlooked. GOD DID NOT REALLY PLAN ON ABRAHAM REALLY KIILLING ISSAC AT ALL… It was a test of Abrahma’s faith.

 

[Camron]

The kind of God who is not omniscient, and who would need to set such a test rather than know what Abraham was thinking without having to test at all.

rossum

No.

 

[Orogeny]

The god of the Old Testament killed his children. Would you do that?

The God of the Old Testament stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son. That same God did not stop the sacrifice of His own son in the New Testament.

That’s the point, isn’t it?

Peace

Tim

 

[Camron]

Yeah – that was a really good plan! If I ever do decide to sacrificed one of my kids to Jehovah, I’ll do it in a wilderness area, and pretend he or she got dragged off and eaten by a bgear or a cougar, leaving (shucks!) no evidence. I certainly won’t leave an altar with a pile of bones on top of it.

But Abraham didn’t actually sacrifice his son, remember?

You keep leaving this part out and it’s actually quite disgraceful that you fail to mention this part over and over again. He actually said, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

See how he said “we” will come back?

He reasoned that God could raise Isaac back to life and he was right. But he didn’t really need for God to return Isaac back to life, because Abraham never actually sacrificed Isaac, remember? Remember this part about Abraham never actually sacrificing Isaac?

Here’s Genesis 22 for a refresher…

Now, if people want to discuss this further, could someone please start another thread for this topic about Abraham’s faith being tested, because it has NOTHING to do with the Conference on Evolution!!!

 

[Camron]

The God of the Old Testament stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son. That same God did not stop the sacrifice of His own son in the New Testament.

That’s the point, isn’t it?

Peace

Tim

Exactly!

 

[ricmat]

The God of the Old Testament stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son. That same God did not stop the sacrifice of His own son in the New Testament.

That’s the point, isn’t it?

Peace

Tim

Yes, that’s the point! Thanks for bringing it up.

 

[ricmat]

But Abraham didn’t actually sacrifice his son, remember?

You keep leaving this part out and it’s actually quite disgraceful that you fail to mention this part over and over again. He actually said, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

See how he said “we” will come back?

He reasoned that God could raise Isaac back to life and he was right. But he didn’t really need for God to return Isaac back to life, because Abraham never actually sacrificed Isaac, remember? Remember this part about Abraham never actually sacrificing Isaac?

Here’s Genesis 22 for a refresher…

Now, if people want to discuss this further, could someone please start another thread for this topic about Abraham’s faith being tested, because it has NOTHING to do with the Conference on Evolution!!!

Good point Camron. I’ve also red bolded part of your response above which demonstrates Abraham’s faith in God omnipotence and his mercy.

 

[Namesake]

Yeah, I know…you’ve mentioned this several times already. I think you’ve made your point clear already. Trust me, I get what you’re saying.

I’ve offered as much sympathy as I can. However, I do think that Abraham had a faith in God that I don’t have. He is the father of faith of three major world religions after all. He was not doing anything evil, nor was he tempted by God to do evil evil, precisely because God never had any real intention for Abrahma to kill Isaac.

This part seems to be overlooked. GOD DID NOT REALLY PLAN ON ABRAHAM REALLY KIILLING ISSAC AT ALL… It was a test of Abrahma’s faith.

It was a test for Abraham, but it wasn’t a test for God because He knew how it would turn out. OK, I get that deal. But suppose that Abraham was just testing God to find out how far He would let this go on? Maybe Abraham would not have murdered his son. Maybe at the last second Abraham would have just freaked out and told God that he wouldn’t kill his son. We don’t know that unless we believe that God knew that Abraham would have done the deed, or whatever.