How does God bring good out of evil: When a 5 year old girl is raped and murdered?

[thebible]

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God to those who are called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

 

[goout]

All of these things taken together, point to one inescapable truth. The Catholic Church doesn’t know how to interpret its own scripture. Although StAugustine will adamantly deny this, and perhaps quote some obscure passage to bolster his position, but the truth is the Church doesn’t know what’s to be taken literally, and what isn’t.

But one thing is for certain, you can’t trust StAugustine to give an unbiased opinion on the subject.

This is an assertion, not a rational argument.
Can you explain why you think “the Church doesn’t know what’s to be taken literally” etc…

yes of course StAugustine has a bias, everyone without exception has a bias. Bias is neutral per se. We need to determine if our point of view is well founded.
Are the events and information that have formed us true, or not true, or partially true? Are the conclusions we reached well founded or not?
Are we open to new information and reformation?

Do you demonstrate a bias in your point of view above?

 

[goout]

goout:

Do you demonstrate a bias in your point of view above?

Absolutely and unequivocally yes, but my bias is this, that I don’t know what the truth is, and you don’t know what the truth is either.

Now, do you wish to challenge either of these two biases?

You don’t know that if you jump off the roof you’re going to get hurt?
That’s a pretty basic truth. You must know that for sure.
What else?

 

[goout]

goout:

You don’t know that if you jump off the roof you’re going to get hurt?
That’s a pretty basic truth. You must know that for sure.

Certainly there are things that I can be fairly certain of, but when it comes to what parts of scripture should be taken literally, I don’t know, and i don’t think that you or StAugustine know either.

I think I have a reasonably good certainty based on Church writings etc… I think the Church has a good handle on it.
Have you read much about it? Do you believe the Church is mute on the interpretation of scripture?

What sources have you read on Genesis for instance? Have you read Theology of the Body, which is one of the best existing expositions of Genesis?

 

[goout]

goout:

I think I have a reasonably good certainty based on Church writings etc… I think the Church has a good handle on it.

Of course you do, that’s your bias. The question now is, which of our biases are more likely to be correct, mine, which holds that neither of us knows how to interpret scripture, or yours, that holds that indeed one of us does, and it’s you.

If we are not meant to interpret scripture, then what’s the point?
Scripture is part of revelation. Revelation is God’s revealing of himself. Revelation is meant to be approached, pondered, prayed about, and absorbed, and understood to the best of our abilities. Always with the mind of the Church, which holds the fullness of it.

What story have you read and just thrown up your hands in indifference to the message it conveys? Do you do that with any other form of communication?
No.

 

[goout]

goout:

If we are not meant to interpret scripture, then what’s the point?

Ah, what is scripture? What’s its purpose? Again, I don’t know.

The purpose of Scripture is to reveal God. God wants us to embrace salvation. Scripture points us to that economy and to God himself.

But I have noticed something, it seems to be more of a window into the heart and mind of the one interpreting it, than it is into the heart and mind of the one who wrote it, or inspired it.

Both/and

As much as it gives me insight into the mind of its author, it gives me a much greater insight into the mind of those interpreting it, for they see in it what they want to see in it. And that tells me a great deal about the kind of person they are… and perhaps that’s its purpose, to reveal the true nature of the one reading it.

We do gain insight into those who read scripture by the way the receive and talk about it. But again the purpose is to reveal God.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

Some possible thoughts: Perhaps if this had not happened, the girl would have grown up to sin mortally, and deprive herself of heaven.

This suggests that God intentionally prevented the girl from her final, free choice to reject him. Thinking of it this way, it seems Heaven or Hell is merely a matter of dying at the right time. Isn’t that a bit odd?

 

[RealisticCatholic]

You’re not totally off the mark, here. But if you don’t mind me saying, you seem to rather be critiquing a Protestant view of Scripture — one that sees the Bible as a sort of “blueprint” or manual we must consult to construct our worldviews and theologies. Even our churches.

But the Church preceded the Bible. This is not a mere Catholic apologetic point. This is the basic reality that informs the purpose of the Bible. The Bible is the Book of the Church. It reflects the history of a People, Israel and finally, the Church. If we want to know what Scripture means, we look to Christ and the community he called out, the Church.

It’s like finding a family album. Do you embark on discerning all the details on your own without consulting the real people that the album depicts? No, if you want the full picture, you have to be in communion with the family itself — the family that knows its own stories and history.

 

[stpurl]

No. The fact that we think of a different possibility does not mean that the possibility is what God ‘intended’.

 

[AlNg]

Um, you are confining the meaning of ‘immovable’ to motion.

Suppose you ask a person to change his mind on a topic. He says, "No, I am immovable’. Does it follow then that the person never moves?

Well, was God walking in a garden on earth or not? Did God repent of what He had done or not?

 

[stpurl]

This is what you said:

OK. the stories in Genesis are to be taken literally. However,
according to Catholic teaching, God is immovable. If God is immovable, how come He was observed walking in a garden in the cool of the day?
Genesis 3:8.
And Enoch walked with God also. Genesis 5:22, 24. And Noah walked with God. Genesis 6:9.
How can God be immovable if He was walking around on earth?

This is what I responded to.

You took one possible definition of ‘immovable’ and then tried to use it (not moving physically) to disprove God’s immovability by claiming that if the Bible records Him as ‘moving’, that ‘He can’t be immovable’.

If you misread and misinterpreted that property of God, then it’s no wonder you’re misreading others as well.

 

[AlNg]

If you misread and misinterpreted that property of God, then it’s no wonder you’re misreading others as well.

OK. But I still have the question: Was God walking in a garden on earth or not? Did God repent of what He had done or not? Should we take those passages literally as we have been told that we should?

They are to be taken literally and at face value.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

Those examples about movement are almost laughable, but I can’t tell if you are serious or not.

 

[AlNg]

Those examples about movement are almost laughable

If the stories in Genesis are laughable, why is the story of the sin of Adam and Eve taken seriously?

we don’t look to him to prevent these things because this is part of the punishment of Original sin- death and suffering and concupiscence, a will tending toward evil

Original sin, the sin of Adam and Eve, is a very serious teaching, is it not? I would not consider these stories to be almost laughable as you appear to have suggested.

 

[goout]

stpurl:

If you misread and misinterpreted that property of God, then it’s no wonder you’re misreading others as well.

OK. But I still have the question: Was God walking in a garden on earth or not? Did God repent of what He had done or not? Should we take those passages literally as we have been told that we should?

You’ve been here quite some time. Surely you know that the Catholic Church does not read Scripture as the fundamentalists do. Right?

Genesis is not a history textbook. Genesis is not a science textbook. It has a literal value, and so it can’t be laughed off for the believer, but as you have probably read many times, literal and literalist are not the same thing. Literalism reads the bible rigidly in the language and context of the reader, not in the context it was written in. But Scripture expresses God’s saving Truth in human words, not mere facts in journalistic style.

So, where are you coming from after all of this discussion of the same points? Do you not understand the senses of scripture? Do you disagree with them?

 

[AlNg]

where are you coming from after all of this discussion of the same points?

The question is why are many stories in Genesis taken in a figurative sense, but not the story of original sin.

 

[goout]

goout:

where are you coming from after all of this discussion of the same points?

The question is why are many stories in Genesis taken in a figurative sense, but not the story of original sin.

You should do some reading if you want to explore this.

Senses of scripture
Literal sense
Spiritual senses

Scripture is taken in the senses it is meant to be taken in. Original sin is a dogma, not a story. Scripture supports it, it does not give a complete definitive theological explanation of it.

 

[AlNg]

Original sin is a dogma, not a story

I thought that the teaching on original sin came from the story of Adam and Eve’s disobedience in consuming the forbidden fruit from a tree.

 

[goout]

That’s correct.
What is bothering you about it?

 

[StAugustine]

No, these are anthropomorphisms, they are symbolic of the activity of God. To say that he walked in the garden is to say that he made himself present to Adam and Eve in a way that was comprehensible to them. To say that he repented is to demonstrate his dispassionate hatred of sin. These kinds of things are written to aid our understanding of the Supernal Triad beyond being. When you consider that God is the source of all being, he himself is beyond being and it’s categories. Infinite and uncreated reality transcending every thought and negation.

Therefore to give man some inkling of his nature, he inspired men to write things that were analogous to his nature. He is named mercy from his acts of mercy to men. He is named just for his punishment of the wicked. And he is said to repent to show how sin is an infinite offense against him. These things are not understood with a worldly mind, that is the source of idolatry; but spiritually, as they relate to the super essential Godhead.