I have no trouble believing what you have stated for the very reasons you laid out above.I wonder why its so hard for people to believe that Genesis is historical. If you believe that Jesus rose from the dead, then how’s it so hard to believe that those things in Genesis really happened? I cannot imagine that the belief of original sin could be seen as a binding doctrine if it never really happened! What kind of religion is that!!
God can violate physics all the time.He’s not a doctor and he is currently in prison for FRAUD. He is also vehmently anti-Catholic. He is, simply, a deceptive and untrustworthy man. His explanations of the flood, in addition, violate not just geological concepts, but physics itself and the very laws of nature that govern our universe hundreds of times over. Nothing about that man’s perspective on the subject should be appreciated in any way. The guy is not even a real doctor. His “school” had 4 students, 1 staff member, no textbooks, no class schedule, and it took him 6 weeks to go from undergrad to doctorate.
Thank you for posting that.The Church has stated many times that when the Church Fathers were unanimous or in consensus concerning scripture, them we are required to believe what they taught. And they taught unanimously that the flood was an historical event.
Sorry but I don’t believe that. You need to show me a list of Church Fathers who taught that the flood was not an historical event.
It does matter and the Church HAS spoken in an official capacity declaring the flood to have been an historical event
I disagree. And the question of miracles needs to apply to all Catholics. I don’t find the theory you refer to as “great a miracle.” It’s just speculation and cannot be proven.I have no trouble believing what you have stated for the very reasons you laid out above.
However, I also think that God could have brought His message of love through parables in the Old Testament same way that He taught with parables in the New Testament. In either case, my faith in the Bible and my faith in God is not in any way compromised.
If God chose to create the Earth and over billions of years and the Theory of Evolution is the means by which He created human beings, I find that as great a miracle as believing the literal translation of creation of Genesis.
The belief of original sin is a binding doctrine and that is not compromised by either concept of God’s creation.
We are simply blind people arguing about the color of blue.
I didn’t say that our first parents are just symbols. We all have the same ancestors. It is science proving what the Bible has always said. We belong to the same family. All human beings can trace their ancestors back to an original couple. How these humans related to God is the reason we are human beings made in the likeness of God and not mere animals.I disagree. And the question of miracles needs to apply to all Catholics. I don’t find the theory you refer to as “great a miracle.” It’s just speculation and cannot be proven.
Why did Jesus Christ wait for Lazarus to die and then publicly tell people he could bring him back to life? God doesn’t need science and technology to raise the dead, give sight to the blind, and cleanse the lepers - instantly.
In the beginning, God made them, male and female. God.
Original sin is immediately compromised if we deny what the Church teaches about it or refer to our first parents as just symbols.
Peace,
Ed
Good points! But it seems to me that the parables in the NT are pretty easy to see that they are parables, Jesus usually will say “its like…”. Or the author will say things like “Jesus spoke in parables…”. But when the OT tells a story as if its history, and then the Lord or NT authors make reference to it as a historical example, such as Daniel, Jonah, Job, Adam and how “sin entered the world through one man…”, it seems to rule out it being a parable.I have no trouble believing what you have stated for the very reasons you laid out above.
However, I also think that God could have brought His message of love through parables in the Old Testament same way that He taught with parables in the New Testament. In either case, my faith in the Bible and my faith in God is not in any way compromised.
If God chose to create the Earth and over billions of years and the Theory of Evolution is the means by which He created human beings, I find that as great a miracle as believing the literal translation of creation of Genesis.
The belief of original sin is a binding doctrine and that is not compromised by either concept of God’s creation.
We are simply blind people arguing about the color of blue.
Yes, but how do we know how the inspired authors of the old testament and the readers of that period comprended the telling of their faith?Good points! But it seems to me that the parables in the NT are pretty easy to see that they are parables, Jesus usually will say “its like…”. Or the author will say things like “Jesus spoke in parables…”. But when the OT tells a story as if its history, and then the Lord or NT authors make reference to it as a historical example, such as Daniel, Jonah, Job, Adam and how “sin entered the world through one man…”, it seems to rule out it being a parable.
Also, there is a difference between the OT using metephors vs it being a parable. Using figures of speech to make deep things understandable is not the same as telling a story to teach a lesson.
We get a pretty good idea by Jewish interpreters and historians of the past who passed on oral tradition, as well as NT authors. Especially the NT authors who referenced those people of the OT as historical figures. Those authors of the NT gives us a very good picture because that is the Holy Spirit’s reference. Ancient Jewish tradition, which goes back before Christ, clearly understood it as history. Scripture itself, such as Kings and Chronicles gives genealogies going all the way back. The OT prophets refer to Noah and people in Genesis as historical. The deuterocanonicals as well.Yes, but how do we know how the inspired authors of the old testament and the readers of that period comprended the telling of their faith?
Why is it so important to so many people that the Bible be a literal historical and scientific book?By the way, the OT did not get discovered or appear all of a sudden, it progressed over time. It was a part of Jewish life and beyond that traces back to the times as it happened. Just like Christianity (Catholicism), the NT is not a book that a faith was built around, it was a collection of books that was a result of a faith that has been around 2000 years. The OT was lived out among people who passed on the tradition.
Science doesn’t say that at all. And the Church does not teach that God picked a pair of almost humans and dropped souls into them. See this illustration:I didn’t say that our first parents are just symbols. We all have the same ancestors. It is science proving what the Bible has always said. We belong to the same family. All human beings can trace their ancestors back to an original couple. How these humans related to God is the reason we are human beings made in the likeness of God and not mere animals.
Well for one if the Bible cannot be relied upon for historical or scientific matter then the entirety of our salvation cannot be relied upon. Jesus preformed miracles that contradict science and rose from the dead. Many things in the Bible contradict physics, and biology. If we cannot accept these things then we are not believers. I mentioned before that as Catholics we accept many approved miracles that go against science and logic. The miracle of the sun, The incorruptibles, The Eucharist turning to actual flesh and blood, Bi location, levitation, healings, apparitions, and the such. If we say “I just dont see how God could have created the flood within the confines of science as we understand it” then we really could say the same about any article of our faith. As far as history goes the entire way we document years is based on one single miraculous event. If you cannot believe seemingly outlandish things in the OT then why would you believe them in the NT? Surely we dont deny the resurrection or the incarnation, but in both of those instances there is no scientific proof or way it could have happened. Just the accounts divinely inspired. Hmmmm just like the flood.Why is it so important to so many people that the Bible be a literal historical and scientific book?
There are many levels of truth and beauty in the Bible. Whether or not Jonah was three days in the belly of a whale or the flood covering the Earth was a historical actual event, has absolutely no bearing in my belief that Christ is the Son of God and the the Church in the one true Church…
There is a great deal of solid historical information in the Bible. There are many wonderful stories. It is the most important books (or collection of books) in the world. The truth and history of mankind is all there for us to behold. I simply to not understand why we quibble over the flood and the whale.
That is not my vision of our first parents at all.Science doesn’t say that at all. And the Church does not teach that God picked a pair of almost humans and dropped souls into them. See this illustration:
darwiniana.org/trees.htm
That’s you on the right and your ancestors to the left.
Peace,
Ed
I suggest you read up on what the Church does teach about Genesis, our first parents and Original Sin - the reason that Christ was made flesh, died and rose again. If this did not literally happen then our faith is in vain.That is not my vision of our first parents at all.
My point is, we do not have all the knowledge of God’s purposes. I do not question the truth of the Bible. I do not know exactly how God did what he did. I don’t understand why it is so important for some people to expect that the Bible be a book of historical facts or why it needs to be a scientific treatise to be loved and believed.
It isn’t an issue of science simply not being able to prove it. Its an issue of a complete lack of any empirical evidence whatsoever and the illogical notion that at least two of each of the 1.4 million known species on Earth migrated to the Middle East and packed into a 450ft x 75ft boat.This is called schizophrenia with a mixture of Science Worship. God has no ability whatsoever to perform miracles, because science can’t prove it.
I hope that you are still reading this. Richard Dawkins, in his book, The God Delusion, (page 73) stated the following:Thank you for the most gracious insult towards me, my friends, and my peers in the geologic field.
This about this for a moment. If true, then you do not exist, at least your body. Neither does the computer in front of you. Likewise, you do not have any free will; everything that you do and say and everything else that everyone else does and says is the result of the code that runs in the computer simulation. Likewise, all natural and/or man-made disasters are segments of code (functions/procedures/routines) which execute on the grand computer that gives us all existence. (Evidently, if someone ever unplugged this computer, we would all cease to exist.) Natural and physical law is simply computer code that is executed frequently; a miracle would be code that executes on rare occasions, or perhaps only once and is never executed again, say, a special subroutine that is called once and then never called again.“Science-fiction writers, such as Daniel F. Galouye in Counterfeit World, have even suggested (and I cannot think how to disprove it) that we live in a computer simulation, set up by some vastly superior civilization…”