Is The Church Ambiguous On Parts Of Bible?

[algran]

I would like to solicit some good answers to the following argument: Is the Catholic Church ***ambiguous ***in its allowance of believers to interpret certain passages in Scripture in more than one way?

As an example, I will use my Catholic/Fundamentalist/Evangelical friend of 30 years as my point of debate. He was raised Catholic, married a Fundamentalist(40 years), and is virtually caught between Catholicism and Fundamentalism. His question to me, and therefore my question to you is this: " If the Catholic Church is the final authority of the proper and correct interpretation of Sacred Scripture, **then why does it leave it up to the believer on the interpretation of Genesis(literal/allegorical), Jonah(literal/allegorical), Noah(literal/allegorical), and finally Human Evolution(Theistic Evolution/direct creation by God of the body and soul of Adam and Eve)?"
**
His reasoning is simply that one can’t have it both ways, which only will lead to more confusion of the Truth. Please render good, sound advice on this topic, so I can finally give my friend a defensible answer. Thank You.

Art Granville
Hemet, CA

 

[Joe_5859]

I would like to solicit some good answers to the following argument: Is the Catholic Church ***ambiguous ***in its allowance of believers to interpret certain passages in Scripture in more than one way?

As an example, I will use my Catholic/Fundamentalist/Evangelical friend of 30 years as my point of debate. He was raised Catholic, married a Fundamentalist(40 years), and is virtually caught between Catholicism and Fundamentalism. His question to me, and therefore my question to you is this: " If the Catholic Church is the final authority of the proper and correct interpretation of Sacred Scripture, **then why does it leave it up to the believer on the interpretation of Genesis(literal/allegorical), Jonah(literal/allegorical), Noah(literal/allegorical), and finally Human Evolution(Theistic Evolution/direct creation by God of the body and soul of Adam and Eve)?"
**
His reasoning is simply that one can’t have it both ways, which only will lead to more confusion of the Truth. Please render good, sound advice on this topic, so I can finally give my friend a defensible answer. Thank You.

Art Granville
Hemet, CA

Good Questions. Here’s my two cents.

There are a few things that need to be addressed, I think. The first point I would make is in regards to how the Catholic Church ordinarily comes about formally defining things. The Church is far more likely to define things apophatically (i.e., to define what something is NOT, rather than what it IS). In other words, the Church often does not formally define something unless someone comes around saying the opposite. As it relates to Scripture, the Church is more likely to say that a particular interpretation is false rather than formally define one that is true.

Another thing to remember is that the Church speaks of four senses of Scripture (CCC 115-119). There is the literal sense and the spiritual sense, with the spiritual sense being further subdivided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses. All of the spiritual senses are rooted in the literal sense. You cannot have an allegorical sense of a passage without rooting it in the literal sense. Thus, it is not a case of EITHER literal OR allegorical, but rather BOTH literal AND allegorical.

Another distinction that might be helpful is the distinction between a literal interpretation and a literalist interpretation. Fundamentalists gravitate towards a literalist view, but this is different from the literal view. A literalist would say that the 144,000 or the 1000 year reign in the Book of Revelation are literally accurate numbers. This is not the Catholic view. But this does not mean the Church does not interpret Revelation literally. It does. But the literal sense takes into account things such as the type of literature.

A basic example of this would be a metaphor such as “It’s raining cats and dogs.” The literalist interpretation would be that the actual felines and canines are falling from the sky. The literal interpretation is that it is raining heavily. We take into account the use of literary devices when determining the literal meaning.

All these senses of Scripture also illustrate the point that is clear when you think of any piece of great literature: One passage can often have multiple meanings. The Church holds back from definitively speaking on every single verse in Scripture because this would stifle exploration of multiple meanings of a given passage.

One final note: Some of the examples you give, such as evolution, are beyond the scope of Scripture. The Bible is not a science textbook. In a certain respect, it doesn’t matter whether God created us through evolution or not. What matters is that God created our first parents in his image and likeness, they chose against him and this original sin has been passed down to all of us. But, at the same time, God promised a Savior.

I could go on, but perhaps this is a good enough start. Let me know if you have any questions about what I said.

 

[juliamajor]

I would like to solicit some good answers to the following argument: Is the Catholic Church ***ambiguous ***in its allowance of believers to interpret certain passages in Scripture in more than one way?

As an example, I will use my Catholic/Fundamentalist/Evangelical friend of 30 years as my point of debate. He was raised Catholic, married a Fundamentalist(40 years), and is virtually caught between Catholicism and Fundamentalism. His question to me, and therefore my question to you is this: " If the Catholic Church is the final authority of the proper and correct interpretation of Sacred Scripture, **then why does it leave it up to the believer on the interpretation of Genesis(literal/allegorical), Jonah(literal/allegorical), Noah(literal/allegorical), and finally Human Evolution(Theistic Evolution/direct creation by God of the body and soul of Adam and Eve)?"
**
His reasoning is simply that one can’t have it both ways, which only will lead to more confusion of the Truth. Please render good, sound advice on this topic, so I can finally give my friend a defensible answer. Thank You.

Art Granville
Hemet, CA

Ah but that’s why Catholic theology is so great. We can have " both/ and" not either or.Some things to be taken as literal and some theologically,figuratively…Read any book carefully and you can see language used literally/figuratively sometimes in the same sentence.and not every phrase in the bible hold the same importance to us as others(genealogies for example)not as important as covenant material…and maybe there is a bit of (hey,don’t ask me- your guess is as good as mine )feeling to certain books like Revelation.many have tried but all have fallen short of complete decoding.

 

[Fidelis]

Good, helpful answers above! This short article by Steve Ray, Catholic convert from Evangelicalism (he was a Baptist) should also be helpful:

Bible Study: Minefield or Playground?
catholic-convert.com/Portals/0/Playground.pdf

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Catholics in general do not like ever to concede that the Church has ever erred or changed her mind. The church certainly does not like to admit it either. That is why I believe as one poster put it, the Church likes to say what isn’t but not so much what is. It wants to leave room always for new information and some wiggle room.

Mostly I think the Church is moving carefully as regards science. Her history with science is not good, and has caused much pain and confusion. I think the Church recognizes that science has made it clear and cannot be denied that many of teh Genesis stories simply cannot meet the test of natural evidence. It has moved away from any fundamentalist interpretation because it sees that to maintain such a position will eventually make the Church irrelevant to most people.

Saying that, I think it in great kindness, allows its older set in their ways Catholics to believe in these myths. One need only check out the evolution/creation threads to see how terribly upsetting this is to some. The Church learned that changing things drastically just is too upsetting and drives some away. This happened with the Ordo mass.

 

[mschrank]

Her history with science is not good, and has caused much pain and confusion.

LOL, aside from all those scientist-Priests… details, details! Galileo!



But really, the reason why the Church is “ambiguous” is because those things are outside the deposit of faith which the Church was given.

When Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will led us into all things, he didn’t mean “all things” to include the mating habits of birds in the Terra del Fuego.

 

[quasimodo]

Catholics in general do not like ever to concede that the Church has ever erred or changed her mind. The church certainly does not like to admit it either. That is why I believe as one poster put it, the Church likes to say what isn’t but not so much what is. It wants to leave room always for new information and some wiggle room.

Mostly I think the Church is moving carefully as regards science. Her history with science is not good, and has caused much pain and confusion. I think the Church recognizes that science has made it clear and cannot be denied that many of teh Genesis stories simply cannot meet the test of natural evidence. It has moved away from any fundamentalist interpretation because it sees that to maintain such a position will eventually make the Church irrelevant to most people.

Neither is the Church’s history nearly as bad and the popular narrative would have it. A little research would prove that common meme is greatly over stated.

Saying that, I think it in great kindness, allows its older set in their ways Catholics to believe in these myths. One need only check out the evolution/creation threads to see how terribly upsetting this is to some. The Church learned that changing things drastically just is too upsetting and drives some away. This happened with the Ordo mass.

The church acknowledges that each of us brings to the text our own set of experiences, knowledge, needs, and expectations. Since these are different for everyone, we each get something a little different from the scripture. How we interpret the text depends on what we get out of it. Many interpretations are permitted as long as they are in harmony with what the original author meant to convey (which was never science or straight history) and in harmony with the overall context of revelation. These are taught in tradition, the teaching of the church, in the liturgy, etc.

 

[Joe_5859]

Many interpretations are permitted as long as they are in harmony with what the original author meant to convey (which was never science or straight history) and in harmony with the overall context of revelation. These are taught in tradition, the teaching of the church, in the liturgy, etc.

Just a clarification in regards to “straight history”, I would say that this does not mean that there are not historical parts of the Bible. There certainly are. The Gosepls are very historical (i.e. Jesus really lived, performed miracles, was crucified, and rose from the dead). But the way the ancient Jews viewed history and the way we view history today are not quite the same thing.

I’m sure you didn’t intend to say otherwise, I just wanted to clarify. Sometimes when people say “The Bible didn’t mean to teach history,” people take it to mean “None of the events in the Bible really happened.”

I’ve heard someone use the distinction that the Bible teaches “religious history” (as opposed to a straight linear history) as a means to more accurately convey the same sentiment.

 

[quasimodo]

Just a clarification in regards to “straight history”, I would say that this does not mean that there are not historical parts of the Bible. There certainly are. The Gosepls are very historical (i.e. Jesus really lived, performed miracles, was crucified, and rose from the dead). But the way the ancient Jews viewed history and the way we view history today are not quite the same thing.

I’m sure you didn’t intend to say otherwise, I just wanted to clarify. Sometimes when people say “The Bible didn’t mean to teach history,” people take it to mean “None of the events in the Bible really happened.”

I’ve heard someone use the distinction that the Bible teaches “religious history” (as opposed to a straight linear history) as a means to more accurately convey the same sentiment.

There is a lot of astonishingly “historical” history in the Bible. That is historical by our 21st century understanding. But it is important to remember that they generally wrote with an I to understanding the meaning of an event and not mere facts. Theological Truth was far more important than “facts” to the original authors.

 

[inthecloud]

The Church position is far wiser that the position of fundies that have put themselves into a cul de sac.
The Church never condemmed or endorsed evolution formaly to avoid the huge problem fundies have today. A problem that is not going away. People cannot uninvent evolution, the big bang, linguistics, history. As times goes by the credibility of fundies will fade away. Sadly they are also doing a huge damage to the credibility of Christianity in general.
You can fool some people sometimes but not all people all time.
The moment people start to look for themselves they will discover that the world is not 6000 years old, that there was no universal flood, that the Adam and Eve, Caim and Abel and Noah stories if taken literaly have serious inbreeding and incest problems their faith in the whole Bible will be suspects. The kids that go to Bible camps tomorrow are the future Dawkinian atheists.
So the wise thing is to reinterpret Genesis and o behold, the message of Genesis is far more stronger when is not read as a literal story. Bergson, Teilhard and others had shows us the way.
If I return to christianity, I will never be part of a church that teaches creationism. I want a relationship with God but not at the expense of false doctrines.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

LOL, aside from all those scientist-Priests… details, details! Galileo!



But really, the reason why the Church is “ambiguous” is because those things are outside the deposit of faith which the Church was given.

When Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will led us into all things, he didn’t mean “all things” to include the mating habits of birds in the Terra del Fuego.

Oh I do agree. It is odd we have these discussions when it was a Catholic priest who claims the fame for naming the big bang. But you are right, its involvement with Galileo I think has caused it to tread carefully. Piux XII I think for that reason was fairly ambiguous, go ahead with your experiments, but we aren’t ready to adopt them yet. JPII and Benedict have as far as I can see, but in a less than clear way. I think this whole ID/creationist thing has got them a bit befuddled as to how to come down. I think they are struggling with polygenism as well, at least JPII seems to have pointed out that “soul” may be the key element and not actual Adam and Eve.

But I agree, the bible was not meant to be a science manual and the Church is not well equipped to speak on science, though if you look at the Pontifical Science acadamy, you certainly see a list of impressive names with impressive credentials and awards, and they are all evolutionists so I am led to believe.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Neither is the Church’s history nearly as bad and the popular narrative would have it. A little research would prove that common meme is greatly over stated.

Undoubtedly quite true, but the Pope did apologize for a reason. Seriously a good deal has been said by prior popes, and some of it is hard to unsay easily. I think the Church is quite uneasy about this area. I mean look around this site, you will find several threads wherein some posters argue quite strenuously that their interpretation of Church documents suggests that several things that JPII and Benedict have said are without authority. They feel more than able to take on the Vatican because they find something written by a pope in 1245 that says directly the opposite than is said today, and so they find what is said today as invalid. The idea the church doesnt grow in understanding over time and that that may mean change doctrine in some respects is simply not allowed, yet wink wink we all know it happens.

The church acknowledges that each of us brings to the text our own set of experiences, knowledge, needs, and expectations. Since these are different for everyone, we each get something a little different from the scripture. How we interpret the text depends on what we get out of it. Many interpretations are permitted as long as they are in harmony with what the original author meant to convey (which was never science or straight history) and in harmony with the overall context of revelation. These are taught in tradition, the teaching of the church, in the liturgy, etc.

Well I agree almost entirely. But for the bit about all interpretations are allowed as long as they are in harmony with what the original author meant. First he didnt mean multiple things I doubt most of the time, so there can’t be too many different interpretations by definition i would think. Secondly, I’m not sure we will ever know the author’s true intent. We can make some very educated guesses a lot of the time.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

The Church position is far wiser that the position of fundies that have put themselves into a cul de sac.
The Church never condemmed or endorsed evolution formaly to avoid the huge problem fundies have today. A problem that is not going away. People cannot uninvent evolution, the big bang, linguistics, history. As times goes by the credibility of fundies will fade away. Sadly they are also doing a huge damage to the credibility of Christianity in general.
You can fool some people sometimes but not all people all time.
The moment people start to look for themselves they will discover that the world is not 6000 years old, that there was no universal flood, that the Adam and Eve, Caim and Abel and Noah stories if taken literaly have serious inbreeding and incest problems their faith in the whole Bible will be suspects. The kids that go to Bible camps tomorrow are the future Dawkinian atheists.
So the wise thing is to reinterpret Genesis and o behold, the message of Genesis is far more stronger when is not read as a literal story. Bergson, Teilhard and others had shows us the way.
If I return to christianity, I will never be part of a church that teaches creationism. I want a relationship with God but not at the expense of false doctrines.

I agree. The amazing theological truth stated in Genesis is mindboggling in its breadth and depth and so far beyond mere “history”. The fundie reasoning just misses the truest aspects of what the bible has to offer.