In terms of your analogy, I would say that I am “married to her” but that I roll my eyes whe she pretends to be something she is not. I don’t plan to file for divorce on account of megolomania.
It sounds like you are among those who claim to be Catholic while simultaneously denying Catholic dogma. That’s like taking an oath of office while denying the same oath. It’s absurd.
That rather depends on what it means to be Catholic.
Or mabe I’ll just wait for the dogma to be corrected. In the mean time, I’ll just keep rolling my eyes at claims of inerrancy.
This is not really my concern. I’m willing to believe that the Bible is substantially true to its original form. (And Anon5216 explicitly ruled out this issue for the discussion here.)
This is an all-or-nothing claim that really doesn’t hold up. First of all, the Bible is special because it is a (perhaps merely human) book about God. The subject alone distinguishes it.
That is certainly a good point but I would suggest the criticism is more applicable to the ineerrant faction. In this case, Jesus was criticizing those who had their nose in the book and weren’t looking up to see God staring them in the face.
This doesn’t follow of necessity. Jesus didn’t write the Bible. And the Holy Spirit doesn’t leave footprints to let us know where it’s been active.
Having spent a fair amount of time in study at a Catholic College and being taught by Catholic theologians, I can only express that what I was reading and what I was taught was that in no way do Catholics believe in literalism for much of the bible. For instance, Genesis is not considered an accurate account of how the earth came to be and how it came to inhabited. Noah’s ark is not thought to be an accurate depiction of a real event in history. There are many many more. There is a difference between literal and literalism. Catholics have always accepted that many stories in the bible are not historical but metaphorical and allegorical. They are designed as all good oral stories to conveny truths, and a colorful story helps to make such truths memorable. Hopefully you see the difference. Fundamentalism speaks to a theory that the stories in the bible are all accurate depictions of actual events, and are to be accepted as such. This of course flies in the face in scientific discoveries as well as many archaeological ones.
Is there anything in the catechism or canon law that clears this up in terms of fundamentalism versus metaphorical & allegorical interpretations? My understanding is that there is no dogmatic statement one way or the other. And since my NAB suggests that certain stories may be allegorical, it suggests that allegorical interpretations are OK but really does not negate a literal interpretation explicitly. My thinking is that the citations of St Justin, St Iraneaus, & St Augustine are opinions of learned saints but not dogma required by Catholics to believe.
Please remember that the catechism and canon law and Church tradition are completely irrelevant to the question of “are the biblical writings the undistorted Word of God?”.
Your premise is based on 100% literalism. It suggests that allegories and metaphors are bogus, which would say that Jesus’ parables were bogus as well. It would suggest that sacred stories have no merit for proper education in spiritual matters. In my opinion, your 100% undistorted premise says that God expects humans to relay stories of importance in ways that are not memorable. The allegorical & metaphorical story is designed to drive home the point of the story, not the inconsequential details of 100% factual account. The point of the story is 100% inerrant. Jesus used parables. Sacred authors used stories to convey messages in a background of historical context. To my mind, the miracles are the prizes that let the faithful understand that they are getting the point and it is true. The Catholic Church’s rulings are important if the key is that Jesus’ words mean something when He founded the RCC through St.Peter.
And again, I’m not saying that my premise invalidates any spiritual usefulness of biblical writings.
No, read my prior post again.
OK, I take your point. Now let’s concentrate on the biblical passage that is literalist and very distorted. Could you clarify your meaning in view of the statement:
Does anyone (here) want to argue that God dictated the Bible to the authors? (As I noted previously, Orthodox Jews believe that about the Torah and some Protestants seem to believe that about the Bible generally.) If not, then let’s dispense with that red herring.
Anon opened up the question Inspired Word of God as dictated to man as messenger who may not relay the information correctly. More importantly, how can one distinguish truth from a sacred author of a religious persuasion from another sacred author of another religious persuasion, if you can’t nail down the apparent contradictions in other factors such as history with what we know to be true.
I prefer the historical view. I don’t believe that anything is added to the Bible by distinguishing the spiritual from the non-spiritual. I cringe at the argument that the Bible might be factually false but still morally true.
I’m not entirely clear what you are saying here. But suppose for a moment that we put aside our holy vestments and don our historian vest. Looking that the Bible from that perspective, what we find are stories told by people who encountered God (as well as poems, geneologies, etc.). If we want to increase our confidence in the Bible, we can compare it to other sources of knowledge, such as, in the case of the NT, Josephus and Titus. If we are confident in the historical accuracy of the Bible then we can conclude that when it says Jesus told such and such a parable, that he told that parable even if not in those exact words.
This is good but a bit limited in scope. It does help explain the terms and concepts under discussion (and argues that it has been essentially consistent). But it offers nothing of argument for the traditional view of the CC.