Genesis notDarwin

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Science is just a way to explain the how but not the why. God invites us to reason and explore this amazing universe
 
That is a good thing, but how can the Church discount Biblical teaching?
 
Meow1 said:
I do take the scriptures literally. How can we not ? If the Bible is the Word of God it must be interpreted literally.
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The Catechism paraphrases “Dei Verbum,” a document of Vatican II http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_...ents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html

Catechism, p. 32: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM

“In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.

In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking, and narrating then current. ‘For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression.’”

All Biblical stories exist to illustrate a point. There could be a long story (Job, for example) whose message is very simple: “God is #1.” You could have a story like the Prodigal Son, whose message is “God will forgive you.” Notice that, like any story, the details of the story are NOT “what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.” In other words, does it affect the meaning of the story if the prodigal son is 25 or 32? Or goes to Assyria or Egypt? Or comes home via boat or by road? Notice the Apostles didn’t go up to Jesus at the end of the story and say “What was his name? What village was he from? How much money did his father have?” or anything like that. To a literalist, all this matters. To others, it doesn’t matter at all.

And p. 33:

115 “One can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual….”

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.
  1. the allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.
  2. the moral sense. the events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written for our instruction.
  3. the anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem."
 
Meow1 said:
how can the Church discount Biblical teaching
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Hi Meow1

I don’t think it need be interpreted as rejecting biblical teaching. The finest Catholic minds I’ve heard on this topic, Dr, David Anders and Father Mitch Pacwa, point out that the creation stories were written as allegories and were never intended by the writers to be taken literally. We find the scriptures filled with allegory and metaphor. It takes nothing away from the bible, but actually greatly expands our understanding of the passages. In many cases, stories were written in order to teach specific lessons. That lesson risks being lost if we reject all but one way, the literal way, of looking at things. We create our own problems with that understanding when we insist on viewing centuries old manuscripts through 21st century lenses. Good biblical scholarship is essential to get the whole story behind the writings.

Granted this will be viewed with suspicion by some, particularly certain evangelical Protestants, but the bottom line is that, while certain doctrines are essential to the Catholic life, we are free to make a wide variety of choices in how we read much of scripture. If our opinions differ it offers wonderful ground for conversation. What really matters is whether our thoughts on these issues bring us closer or drive us further from God.
 
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Meow1 said:
are you saying the first 11 books are written for the Jews; we New Testament Christians are not bound by the law? If not, what is your basis for that?
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not bound by the law: St. Paul covered that in Corinthians and elsewhere. The Jewish customs (not eating pork, circumcision, etc.) did not bind Christians. But when the Corinthians heard Paul say that the “law” did not bind them because they were “saved” by the sacrifice of Jesus, they thought the moral law no longer applied either. Paul set them straight in Corinthians II–the moral law still applied.
 
Thank you for the very detailed answer. I’m going to have to re read this, look up in the catechism and ponder.
 
Wow you have given me much to research and ponder! I really appreciate the answer
 
ok you need to learn about Exegesis and hermeneutics.
Thats how we read and interpret the Bible.
Because, things that were relevant in life thousands of years ago, are not relevant today. For example, we eat pork, we don’t build parapets on our houses,
we don’t spurn samaritans, men speak openly to women, we don’t sacrifice animals,
the list goes on.
No slaves anymore.
and in evolutionary theory we are NOT and never have been descended from ape like creatures. whomever that guest was is very uneducated in just what evolutionary theory is.

science has had some wonderful progress and discoveries.

I am also going to ask you this, why do you believe in such a polarised view of the world. Is it not possible that God created evolution when He created everything?
 
Meow1 said:
do take the scriptures literally. How can we not ? If the Bible is the Word of God it must be interpreted literally. Curious, are you saying the first 11 books are written for the Jews; we New Testament Christians are not bound by the law? If not, what is your basis for that? Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut
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The Catholic Church teaches we do not take the Scriptures literally, we must apply meaning to them in todays context. First we read what the original text is, then we ask about the cultural conditions of the time of writing, then we ask , how does this speak to me today. What is God saying to me through this?

I am saying the first 11 chapters , not books, chapters of Genesis, we can take literally or not. its up to us. The 12th Chapter of Genesis is about Abraham. Abraham is if you like, the start of history for the Jews. And as Abraham is our adopted father, he is the start of it for us too. God called Abraham, then told Abraham to leave Ur, and go and journey to the promised land. And on the way, God promised Abraham 3 things in a covenant with Abraham.
We are both New Testament and Old Testament Christians. The Old Testament is not negated because of the New Testament, its still very relevant in the salvation history God wants us to know.

The entire Bible is what God wants us to know for our Salvation History. And the Old Testament is preparing firstly the original peoples, the Jews, and secondly us, for the incarnation of the Word, Jesus. And the Old Testament is rich in the relationship God has with His chosen people, the Jews, and us, by our adoption as Abrahams descendents.

we are bound by the 10 Commandments. But we are not bound by Jewish law.
 
God created science. How can God trump his own creation?

Don’t you think God wants us to find cures for disease, infection, environmental spills, invent computers, mine precious and heavy metals, drill for oil, heat and cool our homes,
develop ways to maintain potable water supplies.
Manage his creation as He charged Adam with doing.
 
Meow1 said:
I am a recent revert…I am having doubts about coming back to the Church because I hear that the Church endorses evolution, whereas I believe in the Biblical Creation account written in Genesis. I don’t believe in a millions of years earth ; I believe fossils were created by the Great Flood.
I am not looking for a debate if my beliefs; rather my question is should I leave the Church since I do not believe evolutionary theory?
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Meow1, this is a subject that many Catholics and many non-Catholics struggle with.

The Church allows for you to believe in evolution or not believe in evolution. Many think that the word evolution and science are synonyms and if you reject evolution, you reject all of science. That is not true.

The Church also allows you to believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis and six days of creation. It does not cause any type of scandal and, as someone else says, it does not effect your salvation to believe in the theory of evolution of a literal six days creation.

Though I will say the problem with not taking Genesis literally can cause people to pick and choose what other Bible verses they do not have to take literally and that has caused many to fall away from the Church out of lack of belief.

You could check out this website. It is Catholic.

http://kolbecenter.org
 
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Meow1 said:
I must say I hold the belief that if you toss out Genesis you toss out the whole Bible. How could Catholics deny this, when Catholics had the Bible before any other Christians?
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I encourage you to follow up on some of the resources you are being pointed to, as I think that will help a great deal in understanding the Catholic perspective.

We need to avoid creating a false dichotomy. It isn’t a matter of the only two choices being (1) everything in Genesis happened literally as described and the earth is only 6000 years old; or (2) Genesis is a fairy tale that we don’t pay attention to because Evolution.

As Catholics, we do interpret the Bible literally, in the proper sense of that term. If you look at the Catechism (CCC 115–119), it speaks of the “senses of Scripture”—the literal sense and the three spiritual senses. Everything is rooted in the literal sense, though.

What does that mean? Well, the literal sense is what the words actually intend to convey. We commonly distinguish between interpreting things literally and interpreting them literalistically. The example I always use is the common phrase “It’s raining cats and dogs.” If someone says this, what do they literally mean? They mean that it is raining heavily. To think the person really meant that canines and felines are falling from the sky would be interpreting those words literalistically.

The bottom line is that, to interpret things literally (properly understood), we must consider what type of passage we are looking at: is it metaphors, allegory, poetry, history, etc.?

So when we look at Genesis, we approach it the same way. Did the biblical author really intend to mean that the world was created in six, 24 hour days? Most Catholic biblical scholars say no. However, Catholics can still choose to believe so. It’s not critical to our salvation. What is critical to our salvation from those early chapters of Genesis is:
  • God created everything in the universe out of nothing.
  • God’s creation is good.
  • God created man and woman in His own image and likeness.
  • God uniquely breathed life into our first parents (i.e. He gave them souls)
  • His creation of man and woman he called very good.
  • Man and woman were created to live in friendship with God and follow his will.
  • Our first parents broke that relationship by deciding for themselves what ought to be god and evil.
  • That Original Sin is now passed on to the whole human race.
Whether or not our first parents came into existence exactly as described in Genesis, or whether they came to be through millions of years of evolution, we know that God breathed into them their soul. The mechanical details of how He did that are of secondary importance and good Catholics are free to hold differing views on that.

Another good author to read is Scott Hahn. He has a book “A Father Who Keeps His Promises” which does a great job of delving into the Old Testament. You can’t walk away from reading that and think that Catholics disregard Genesis. 🙂 We definitely do not!
 
To your initial question: You may personally accept a literalistic interpretation of Genesis. You would only run into problems if you mandated that others beoieve in a literal six day creation.

A website I find quite illuminating in regards to how evolution and Catholicism coexist is thomisticevolution.org . Written by priests, they also offer a book with the exact same content. It does a good job of explaining things. The essays you might find most interesting are on the various exegesises that have existed. (Church Fathers, Aquinas’, and Modern.) It’s a good read in my opinion.
 
Meow1 said:
I believe in the Biblical Creation account written in Genesis.
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I believe the first sentence in the Bible to be an absolute truth; 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. Like you; I believe in the Genesis account of creation, but I don’t understand all the hows and whys.

I don’t believe we can extrapolate back a few billion years and use the ToE to explain the life we see today.

And I don’t see that my beliefs bring me into conflict with the Catholic Church.

Blessings
Eric
 
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