Genesis/Literal Interpretation

[clmowry]

It seems to me that scripture is meant to convey to man certain theological and moral truths.

It was not meant to be a historical or scientific text book.

i.e. Genesis is about the fact that God created everything out of nothing. Not about how he did so.

We wouldn’t understand the how of it anyway.

Chuck

 

[ziapueblo]

It seems to me that scripture is meant to convey to man certain theological and moral truths.

It was not meant to be a historical or scientific text book.

i.e. Genesis is about the fact that God created everything out of nothing. Not about how he did so.

We wouldn’t understand the how of it anyway.

Chuck

You’re right. The Bible as a whole teaches us God’s history, salvation history.

 

[Rogerteder]

That’s like saying “all the software publishers but Borland and Microsoft.”

Pretty much destroys the idea that the Church endorsed a literal Genesis week.

Because a literalist reading produces logical inconsistencies, a literal six-day creation week has never been Church doctrine.

No it isnt!!! Origen was a heretic basically and took almost all of scripture allegorically. Augustine’s interpretation was based on a mistranslation. See Bob Sungenis’s Q and A’s. ALL THE REST OF THE FATHERS TOOK IT LITERAL.

 

[cpayne]

Actually, Augustine’s rejection of the literal six days of creation was based on the conception of God as unchanging and outside of time. Creation occurs all at once, before time even begins as the interaction of matter and space. The days of creation are the record of God’s eternal creative activity working itself out in time—not necessarily literal days. Augustine did, however, accept the idea of the earth as being only a few thousand years old. As other posters have remarked, that was simply because he didn’t know any better. God bless him anyway for his philosophical insight into creation. As far as I can see, his (philosophical) argument against the literalist approach is still a good one. :tiphat:

 

[The_Barbarian]

No, the mistranslation concerned whether creation was instantaneous, or proceded over time. Augustine thought that creation happened instantaneously, with all other things appearing from seeds within the original creation. He was perhaps wrong about it being instantaneous, but his understanding is otherwise remarkably similar to the findings of science today.

**Saint Augustine (353-430) painted an even clearer picture. He taught that the original germs of living things came in two forms, one placed by the Creator in animals and plants, and a second variety scattered throughout the environment, destined to become active only under the right conditions. He said that the Biblical account of the Creation should not be read as literally occupying six days, but six units of time, while the passage `In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’ should be interpreted:
As if this were the seed of the heaven and the earth, although as yet all the matter of heaven and of earth was in confusion; but because it was certain that from this the heaven and the earth would be, therefore the material itself is called by that name.

Augustine likens the Creation to the growth of a tree from its seed, which has the potential to become a tree, but does so only through a long, slow process, in accordance with the environment in which it finds itself. God created the potential for the heavens and earth, and for life, but the details worked themselves out in accordance with the laws laid down by God, on this picture. It wasn’t necessary for God to create each individual species (let alone each individual living thing) in the process called Special Creation. Instead, the Creator provided the seeds of the Universe and of life, and let them develop in their own time.

In all but name, except for introducing the hand of God to start off the Universe, Augustine’s theory was a theory of evolution, and one which stands up well alongside modern theories of the evolution of the Universe and the evolution of life on Earth.’ His views were influential throughout the Middle Ages, and followed by such important thinkers as William of Occam (in the fourteenth century) and, most importantly, by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Aquinas simply quoted Augustine’s teaching on the subject of the Creation and the interpretation of Genesis; but as he was one of the highest authorities in the Christian Church at the time, and has been one of the most influential since, this amounted to an official seal of approval for the idea that God had set the Universe in motion and then rested.**
sullivan-county.com/id2/evolution.htm

 

[rossum]

It seems to me that scripture is meant to convey to man certain theological and moral truths.

It was not meant to be a historical or scientific text book.

i.e. Genesis is about the fact that God created everything out of nothing. Not about how he did so.

We wouldn’t understand the how of it anyway.

Neither would the ancient Hebrews. They did not even have the words for the required concepts: there was no Hebrew equivalent to “quantum mechanics” or “deoxyribonucleic acid”. Without the required background, anything approaching an accurate account would not have been possible, or understood.

“I made everything” is the obvious simplification at a level bronze age scribes could understand.

rossum

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

It seems to me that scripture is meant to convey to man certain theological and moral truths.

It was not meant to be a historical or scientific text book.

i.e. Genesis is about the fact that God created everything out of nothing. Not about how he did so.

We wouldn’t understand the how of it anyway.

Chuck

And unless we are to believe that the Jews of 2500 years ago were either:​

• miraculously endowed with the scientific knowledge of the 500 years or so
  or
• far better acquainted with the sciences (as we know them) than their contemporaries
  or
• both
  the early chapters of Genesis would have been equally beyond the understanding of their first hearers & readers. Those who insist that evolution is & must be incompatible with Genesis are forgetting that ancient books would be monstrosities if they reflected [what to *us is] modern science or modern anything else. And what about the future ? If Genesis must be scientifically accurate by the standards of 2008, it may well be woefully inaccurate by the standards of 2108, 3008, 10,008.

Such people think only of the Bible as they know it, & of their pre-occupations - they forget past generations, & they ignore the future. This is “chronological snobbery” with a vengeance. Why should the men of the past be interested in what interests us ?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

No it isnt!!! Origen was a heretic basically and took almost all of scripture allegorically. Augustine’s interpretation was based on a mistranslation. See Bob Sungenis’s Q and A’s. ALL THE REST OF THE FATHERS TOOK IT LITERAL.

• Origen was the greatest Biblical scholar among the Eastern Fathers: that’s for starters
• Far from being a heretic, he was so much a “man of the Church” that he made very clear that the ideas associated with him were not doctrines held by him against the Church, but ideas, suggestions: that of itself acquits him of heresy, because it shows a lack of obstinacy - but obstinacy is the defining mark of the heretic
• By the standards of his century, he was not unorthodox - only if he is judged by a later time when what was uncertain has ceased to be uncertain, can he even look unorthodox: IOW, his status as a heretic is the result of an optical illusion
• Why blame him for allegorising, when this was usual among Christians before him & long after ? His exegesis was based on principles that were no preculiarities of his; they were commonly received, a sort of “common doctrine” as to the sorts of meaning the Bible contained.
• St. Bernard does not seem to have suffered from reading him; if Origen was a heretic, he was one much admired by many who were not, in his own time & later; as for his detractors, great men are often pilloried by lesser men.
  As for Augustine - it’s worth recalling that he was familiar with Ecclesiasticus 18.1; which (to say the least) does not suggest a process of creation. Maybe the ideas of the various Fathers are influenced by whether or not they considered it authoritative, & what weight they allowed to it.

 

[PraRFLEsEkHm]

Hi

well, to answer the OP - I believe in evolution, because of the science - AND I believe in the literalness of Genesis, because the Church teaches that Scripture should always, unless it is OBVIOUS that it is NOT meant to be taken that way, to be taken literally.

That doesn’t mean a literalistic interpretation, just a literal one. IOW - the flood, for example - we find now was not a global event, but rather probably a “known world” event - no contradiction. Although finding sea creature remains on mountaintops is a curiosity…perhaps the mountains were lower at some previous time?

As for creation, there is absolutely nothing (to my knowledge) of discovery contradicting Genesis. In fact, regarding the day/evening thing in discussion, if we take Peter’s statement of ‘A day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day’ (2 Pet 3:8) and do the math, it works out to 1/22,222.22222222 of a second (of our time) that God created everything into a compact ball (probably) and set in motion creation with the statement of “Let there be Light” (Big Bang). I see no problem with this understanding until (BIG if) a better one comes along.

I believe the fact that the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of Sacred Scripture, and the fact that God cannot lie, should lead us rather to discover the “how” of what Scripture says, rather than disregard it altogether and write it off as “simple stories” that have no meaning for us outside of Salvation. Because once that ball starts rolling (disregarding the God-Breathed inspiration of Scripture) the door is opened wide for everything else to be called into question…up to and including the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus. Dangerous - to say the least - territory.

Neither should we stubbornly hold fast to a (no insult intended here) fundamentalist literalistic interpretation, the results of that are rather obvious.

God gave us curiosity, and a brain to pursue that curiosity and discover Him in ever more amazing ways. Keeping Him in the forefront and pursuing the knowledge of Him not only gives us a solid ( albeit sometimes precarious) stance against those who would destroy Scripture altogether, at the same time it gives us a middle ground for evangelism.

Just my :twocents:

Peace

John

 

[Rogerteder]

No, the mistranslation concerned whether creation was instantaneous, or proceded over time. Augustine thought that creation happened instantaneously, with all other things appearing from seeds within the original creation. He was perhaps wrong about it being instantaneous, but his understanding is otherwise remarkably similar to the findings of science today.

**Saint Augustine (353-430) painted an even clearer picture. He taught that the original germs of living things came in two forms, one placed by the Creator in animals and plants, and a second variety scattered throughout the environment, destined to become active only under the right conditions. He said that the Biblical account of the Creation should not be read as literally occupying six days, but six units of time, while the passage `In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’ should be interpreted:
As if this were the seed of the heaven and the earth, although as yet all the matter of heaven and of earth was in confusion; but because it was certain that from this the heaven and the earth would be, therefore the material itself is called by that name.

Augustine likens the Creation to the growth of a tree from its seed, which has the potential to become a tree, but does so only through a long, slow process, in accordance with the environment in which it finds itself. God created the potential for the heavens and earth, and for life, but the details worked themselves out in accordance with the laws laid down by God, on this picture. It wasn’t necessary for God to create each individual species (let alone each individual living thing) in the process called Special Creation. Instead, the Creator provided the seeds of the Universe and of life, and let them develop in their own time.

In all but name, except for introducing the hand of God to start off the Universe, Augustine’s theory was a theory of evolution, and one which stands up well alongside modern theories of the evolution of the Universe and the evolution of life on Earth.’ His views were influential throughout the Middle Ages, and followed by such important thinkers as William of Occam (in the fourteenth century) and, most importantly, by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Aquinas simply quoted Augustine’s teaching on the subject of the Creation and the interpretation of Genesis; but as he was one of the highest authorities in the Christian Church at the time, and has been one of the most influential since, this amounted to an official seal of approval for the idea that God had set the Universe in motion and then rested.**
sullivan-county.com/id2/evolution.htm

Here is Sungenis on Augustine:
And though in many other instances Augustine was a superior exegete of Scripture, he didn’t know Greek well enough to figure out that the sole verse in the Greek Septuagint upon which he based his fundamental conclusion that God made all things instantaneously instead of over six days, was based on an erroneous translation in his Latin Vulgate of Sirach 18:1, and which actually means just the opposite of what he proposed in his concept of an instantaneous creation. Jerome’s Vulgate was certainly a good translation, but it was not infallible, and Jerome never claimed it to be.

And likewise, Augustine didn’t know, and wouldn’t be able to know for at least the next twelve hundred years, that small organisms are not spontaneously generated from inorganic matter, and thus there are no “seminal principles” inherent in dead animal carcasses that automatically produce new life forms. As God told Daniel in Daniel 12:4, “knowledge will increase,” and thus God anticipated that we would plumb the secrets of nature. But the warning given to scientists and exegetes from Pope Leo XIII in 1893 is that we are nevertheless obliged to interpret Scripture literally, in its plain and ordinary meaning, unless science can provide us with irrefutable evidence to the contrary. Anyone who knows science will admit that there is very little it knows irrefutably. As biologist and physician Lewis Thomas, who died in 1993, admitted:

Science is founded on uncertainty. …We are always, as it turns out, fundamentally wrong…The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature. …It is this sudden confrontation with the depth and scope of ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of twentieth-century science to the human intellect. (Lewis Thomas, “On Science and Certainty,” Discover Magazine, 1980, p. 58. )

 

[The_Barbarian]

Here is Sungenis on Augustine:

I prefer Augustine on Augustine. More credible. Your guy seems to have confused Augustine’s concept of “gemmae” with spontaneous generation.

He taught that the original germs of living things came in two forms, one placed by the Creator in animals and plants, and a second variety scattered throughout the environment, destined to become active only under the right conditions.

Neither of these would be spontaneous generation.

 

[edwest2]

Neither would the ancient Hebrews. They did not even have the words for the required concepts: there was no Hebrew equivalent to “quantum mechanics” or “deoxyribonucleic acid”. Without the required background, anything approaching an accurate account would not have been possible, or understood.

“I made everything” is the obvious simplification at a level bronze age scribes could understand.

rossum

Hello,

You are living under the new, new knowledge myth. The Bible clearly tells all Christians that God made everything and that everything made knows or understands this. The atheist attempts to put science first and the Bible second, or, if they could, discredit parts of it, will not succeed.

The latest slogan from the atheist camp is that the Bible tells us why but not how, and evolution tells us how.

That is completely false and part of the plan. Evolutionary Psychology is telling us that our genes are god. That random mutation and natural selection brought us into being and that our minds are just expressions of matter. Anyone who knows Church teaching will also know that these ideas are incompatible with Church teaching and do not ground the dignity of man.

For Christians, the biology textbook has been politicized for the atheist movement. Science has been corrupted to serve a non-Christian end. Just ask PZ Myers, and Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and Dennet or Bill Maher for that matter.

Science has limits but institutionalized atheism has taken over and the scientists are out there, pushing for it.

Peace,
Ed

 

[rossum]

You are living under the new, new knowledge myth.

No, I am living under an old knowledge, older than Christianity - Buddhism.

The Bible clearly tells all Christians that God made everything

We agree. That is precisely what I said in my post: “I made everything”.

The atheist attempts to put science first and the Bible second, or, if they could, discredit parts of it, will not succeed.

This is irrelevant because I am not an atheist. I believe in more gods than you do.

You have missed the point of my post. Even if God had wanted to explain the full details of how He created the world, the ancient Hebrews did not have the background knowledge or even the vocabulary to understand what He would have told them. It is probable that we ourselves lack enough background knowledge and vocabulary to understand all of the details. God spoke at a level His audience could understand. Giving the full detail would have been as useless for Him as to have given an advanced University level lesson to the reception class in a kindergarten. Saying “I made everything” summarised His point well and at a level His audience could understand.

rossum

 

[edwest2]

What you are offering is not consistent with what the Church is teaching. Pope Benedict stated: “Evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.” He also does not regard nature or evolution as an active force. Church teaching as explained in Human Persons Created In The Image of God looks at science but, as Pope Benedict has stated, must go beyond science to other areas of reason we still need. The simple fact expressed is that God had a direct, causal intervention in what science calls evolution. That without this direct, causal intervention, evolution would not be possible. Period.

This is what the Church teaches. The Church also teaches that the human mind is not just an expression of matter.

This critical information is missing from science and, yes, I understand why. It is up to the Church to defend reason itself against the spreading of biased scientific information that attaches itself to a naturalist, materialist and atheist philosophy.

Too many people are walking around thinking: I’m just another animal, there’s no God and I have no possibility of discovering Him. When the Church tells every human being that by the light of natural human reason, God can be detected.

Peace,
Ed

 

[buffalo]

Are we to ignore and rewrite the constant teaching of the Catholic Church?

Are we to believe the Holy Spirit the guarantor of truth has been asleep?

Are we to believe God deceived us in the past and only now we know the truth?

Are we to believe God could not inspire Scriptural truth to be read now and later?

 

[gavanhe]

Just to add my two cents worth.
We were all born and infused with a thinking and inquiring mind, put there intentionally by Our Lord. To suggest that we should then close our minds to that inquiry and just blindly accept on face value everything we read or are taught is a travesty of that intention.
We were meant to investigate to the fullest of our abilities - hence scientific endeavors,debates, forums and discussion sites such as this.
In the light of present scientific knowledge - knowledge not available to the ECF - it is not reasonably possible for the inquiring mind to accept a literal interpretation of the Genesis account unless we put our reasoning aside.
Many things we must take on faith, but it must be a reasoned faith (where possible, as some of us are less well endowed in the reasoning department than others).
Wherever we come up against issues we believe are incompatible with our faith we must consent to the guidance of our church as we must in all things.
Gerry

 

[edwest2]

Hello Gerry,

Do you know what Catechism tells us about Genesis or Adam and Eve? Have you seen the encyclical Humani Generis (dated 1950) and available online?

Be careful to not confuse reason with a ‘science only’ attitude. There are other areas of reason that we still need, as said by Pope Benedict. The secular world wishes to deny God, just ask Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris. I think the book, The God Delusion is quite clear.

Today, a cult of scientific atheism is trying to explain away God.

Peace,
Ed

 

[The_Barbarian]

What you are offering is not consistent with what the Church is teaching. Pope Benedict stated: “Evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.”

That’s very astute. As you might know, science cannot “prove” anything, being inductive in the way it learns about the world. And of course, science can’t even talk about the supernatural. However, Pope Benedict says that common descent, the most sweeping claim of evolutionary theory, is “virtually certain.” He says the evidence shows humans evolved from other organisms.

 

[buffalo]

That’s very astute. As you might know, science cannot “prove” anything, being inductive in the way it learns about the world. And of course, science can’t even talk about the supernatural. However, Pope Benedict says that common descent, the most sweeping claim of evolutionary theory, is “virtually certain.” He says the evidence shows humans evolved from other organisms.

Actually Catholic teaching has consistently been “common descent”. From Adam and Eve that is.

 

[gavanhe]

Hello Gerry,

Do you know what Catechism tells us about Genesis or Adam and Eve? Have you seen the encyclical Humani Generis (dated 1950) and available online?

Be careful to not confuse reason with a ‘science only’ attitude. There are other areas of reason that we still need, as said by Pope Benedict. The secular world wishes to deny God, just ask Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris. I think the book, The God Delusion is quite clear.

Today, a cult of scientific atheism is trying to explain away God.

Peace,
Ed

Ed
I agree, hence my last sentence!

“Wherever we come up against issues we believe are incompatible with our faith we must consent to the guidance of our church as we must in all things.”

Gerry