Genesis Account, not literal

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setarcos said:
On an aside…what do you mean by referring to other Christian “church’s” as low church’s ? Is this a derogatory remark on the supposed truths they adhere to? This seems like unnecessary hubris to me and detrimentally prideful.
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Not liturgical, lack of an organized body to decide on faith and morals, etc… Anglicans and Lutherans would generally be more organized as institutions than Baptists or Pentacostals, for example, and generally also put more focus on patristics and early councils. Some denominations are more loosely organized than others.
 
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You’re free to either accept a “literal” Genesis (which I can’t cease to believe), or a “spiritual” Genesis, in which Scripture doesn’t capture or attempt to capture precise historical events, seeking only to explain spiritual truths. Either way you see it, Scripture tells us that our race is fallen and in need of redemption.
 
setarcos said:
I disagree, isn’t it more reasonable to claim that the events in Genesis are colorful descriptions of historical events and then the events themselves may be examined in a theological light?
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I agree. Forgetting that the scribes wrote for a particular people at a particular time, today’s fundamentalists attempt to extract the Truth from the form rather than the substance of the text. Our divinely inspired authors, giving primacy to God’s inspiration, may well have melded and manipulated the traditional histories of Israel to make their Truth tangible. They were theologians first, secular historians second. Through divine inspiration, the sacred writers had definite knowledge of God’s plan. This knowledge was a priori and independent of Israel’s many traditions, oral or written. From this certainty, using their human faculties, the sacred writers enlisted the available stories, selecting and manipulating them to write the Truth for the people of their times.
 
setarcos said:
Likewise the theology of original sin is based upon the a literal event having taken place.
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Not necessarily.

Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin is coherent. There are three moments that Augustine must explain: What is human nature before the Fall, during the Fall, and subsequent to the Fall? Augustine tells us that human nature changed as a result of the Fall, was corrupted by it, and is now inclined to sin. But what was the nature during the Fall? Human nature, by virtue of our free will, was merely open to sin before Fall, corrupted forever by the Fall, and subsequently inclined to sin. The doctrine teaches us that sin is both the cause and the effect of our fallen nature.
 
seekingtruechurch said:
Real equals literal
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No, really it doesn’t. Quoting Webster’s, when you’re talking in a particular field (like theology), rarely turns out well. 😉

Figurative narratives are ‘real’. Figurative narratives aren’t ‘literal.’
Historical narratives are ‘real’. Historical narratives are ‘literal’. (More or less. 😉 )

So, you’ve identified the salient question: we agree that the Genesis creation narratives tell a story that’s ‘real’. However, do we approach them as ‘real, but figurative’ or ‘real and literal’? You’re correct that you can’t choose both. However, the Church allows you to choose either – as long as your approach fits with the theological lessons that are found in those narratives.

Oh, and by the way: folks on both sides of this debate will tend to tell you that you must see things their way, or else you’re in theological error. They’re lying to you. 😉
setarcos said:
In other words how does the figurative language of Genesis translate into the literal events which transpired between Adam and Eve’s actions, the serpent, and the consequent fall from grace?
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I think you’ve got it backward. The figurative words (which speak to ‘trees’ and ‘talking serpents’) give rise to the real event: our first human parents chose to reject God and instead seek their own wisdom. This first sin lead to their fall from grace.
 
From Catholic Answers:

Real History

The argument is that all of this is real history, it is simply ordered topically rather than chronologically, and the ancient audience of Genesis, it is argued, would have understood it as such.

Even if Genesis 1 records God’s work in a topical fashion, it still records God’s work—things God really did.

The Catechism explains that “Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’ concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day” (CCC 337), but “nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history is rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun” (CCC 338).

It is impossible to dismiss the events of Genesis 1 as a mere legend. They are accounts of real history, even if they are told in a style of historical writing that Westerners do not typically use.

Adam and Eve: Real People

It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” ( Humani Generis 37).
The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).
 
Last Sunday 1 Billion or so Catholics heard this at Mass

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time​

Lectionary: 140

Reading 1GN 2:18-24​

The LORD God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make a suitable partner for him.”
So the LORD God formed out of the ground
various wild animals and various birds of the air,
and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them;
**whatever the man called each of them would be its name. **
The man gave names to all the cattle,
all the birds of the air, and all wild animals;
but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.

So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,
and while he was asleep,
he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib
that he had taken from the man.
When he brought her to the man, the man said:
“This one, at last, is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called 'woman, ’
for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother
and clings to his wife,
and the two of them become one flesh.
 
setarcos said:
Adam literally performed some action which caused sin to enter the world. Therefore, literally a historical event took place causing the fall of man. This literal historical event is what is being theologically speculated over. Why then if a literal historical event took place do we not have a literal description of what took place instead of a colorful figurative description?
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Who wrote the history? Adam was the only possible witness, and he was asleep during a critical part of the story.

That leaves God as the only possible author. Does God copy the way we write history and tell stories? Does that fit with what you experience of God? It is tempting to say God is the omniscient narrator, especially since God is omniscient anyway, but God usually seeks us on a different level.

Even Jesus, who did adopt human ways of speaking, rarely reports on events. Mostly he spoke with parables. “A sower sewed some seed.” Did he say “Adam sewed some seed.”? Or “Mary sewed some seed.”? Jesus said a sower because he wanted to portray a universal experience and use that experience to explain the truth he wished to convey.

The author of the Adam and Eve story tells his story in much the same way. “ God formed the man out of the dust.” Adam, the man, is made of dust, adam, a Hebrew pun that points to a universal meaning. Eve is made from Adam, as each of us is made from the body of another human. And so on.

This is no more historical than “A sower sewed some seed.” It is true because it has happened so many times and to each of us. We are made of the dust, and are brought out of another person. Most people recognize another person as “flesh of my flesh.” They know temptation, disobedience and shame. etc. Genesis 2-3 is not meant as a description of a particular person, but as a description of every particular person. It explains our exile, the labors that each of us suffers through.

This is so much more than an historical reporting of what happened to a man and a woman. It is God speaking to us about ourselves through the words of someone who wrote many years ago yet lived a life like ours. It is not history any more than than “A sower sewed some seed” is an agricultural handbook. At the same time, it is the history of each of us.
 
and the Church, protected by the Holy Spirit, deceived us for so long, until just recently.
 
seekingtruechurch said:
If we cannot take the Genesis story literally, how can we hold to the doctrine of original sin (as I understand original sin, we inherited it from Adam from which we originated) and how do we reconcile holding to the Nicene Creed where we acclaim, God is the Maker of all that is seen and unseen? Thanks in advance.
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There’s a long thread about this, but the answers are in the following ranges:
  1. It is literal and there are no issues
  2. The event (basically a realization and denial of God) was real, but the account is not literal
  3. There was no such event
The second answer still has many issues, including:
  • The “real” event includes several other events that must occur, specifically:
A) No “human” up to that point in time had a soul. God decided to give a soul to ONE person (or two, if you count ‘Eve’)’. No one else - parents, siblings, friends, tribesmen, etc - had souls.
B) God somehow conveyed the concept of morality to this person, either through instinct, or some other form of communication.
C) This person, the FIRST AND ONLY person on earth among thousands of other kinsmen to have a soul, decided to reject this ethics and go against the communication from God he was given.
D) All other genetic lines in existence at the time eventually died out. ONLY that genetic line exists today.
E) We do not know how long it took for the other genetic lines to die out, but it can quite plainly be stated that for hundreds if not thousands of years, the world was populated by “soulless” humans.

The above is what you MUST accept if you want to maintain that the Genesis account is not literal, and still believe in Original Sin. Although quite a few evolutionists will deny the above is possible in terms of genetics (Ie Y-Chromosome man and mitochondrial Eve were NOT contemporaries), it is logically and theologically consistent. Sure is not satisfying though. I’m personally not convinced.
 
buffalo said:
and the Church, protected by the Holy Spirit, deceived us for so long, until just recently.
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Not at all. The adoption of an enlightenment era idea of history and truth affected some in the Church to try to read the Scriptures in that way. This positivistic kind of history has long been debunked.

The more ancient way of reading, understanding the figurative language as figurative, and seeking the spiritual significance rather than the “history” has made a comeback.
 
Carmel said:
Whats to stop us likewise deconstructing the rest of the Bible ?
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Nothing. That is why Creationists are so hard to talk to. They realize what they are giving into when they admit is is just allegorical myth. The evidence, of course, is overwhelming. Yet Creationism and the literal reading of Genesis persists. Perhaps we need to re-evaluate and come up with a theology that is both consistent with the universe we live in and the moral teachings of Jesus? And if that turns out to be something other than Christianity in the traditional sense, so be it.
 
I do not think I am hard to talk to…being one of those pesky “creationist” and all…
 
BlueMaxx said:
I do not think I am hard to talk to…being one of those pesky “creationist” and all…
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Not trying to insult in any way. But how do you rationalize all the evidence, history, and facts that clearly show the Genesis account is not literal? Literally EVERY scientific discipline, every experiment, every piece of legitimate evidence discovered, contradicts the account of Genesis. The only “rational” response I have seen is that everything we see, hear, touch, experience that contradicts the Genesis account is a trick by the Devil.

Or do you simply not care and believe what you want?
 
No, I do not believe “what I want”.

Science exists within a vacuum that God created…our known reality…of which God does not reside nor is He subject to the laws of said reality.

I believe in a high view of God…

I believe that God is Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient…

HTH…
 
The same way I rationalize the Virgin Birth and when Jesus said For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
 
LateCatholic said:
Perhaps we need to re-evaluate and come up with a theology that is both consistent with the universe we live in and the moral teachings of Jesus? And if that turns out to be something other than Christianity in the traditional sense, so be it.
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Interesting idea to bring up in a Catholic forum!
 
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