S
spauline
Guest
Can the Flood and Babel, which are admittedly allegorical language, nevertheless be reduced to merely fictitious parables, with no historical context whatsoever? Most likely not, given God’s need to progressively prepare humanity for the Coming of Incarnate One, which involves, amongst other things, the formation of a prefiguring Covenant. And that is really the crux: if the Jewish history must be mainly historical overall, can we conjecture that the Hebrew Covenant could come immediately after the Fall, without the preliminary stages of Flood and dividing of humanity?
Some Catholics are so soft hearted and compassionate, that they believe that Catholicism formally endorses the notion that Divine Intervention is never, or is at least no longer, physical in a *negative *sense.
Actually, it would be partially contrary to Catholic teaching to believe that God never interferes with the physical in an extraordinary, *disciplinary *manner.
First of all, all states of existence are brought, at least in part, into being by God from nothing. That is dogma. Now, admittedly, in the case of free creatures, which in this world are humans, God must at some point *pass the power of choice onto the creature to make of the state what he will *. That is one of the can-of-worms issues that Thomists and Molinists argue about. (The situation is much easier in Calvinism, since man is not free in their extreme brand.)
It would also be heresy to believe that God is like a Deist, never interfering with not only the spiritual component of things but also the physical. For one, the miracles of the Church through saints are a *positive *Divine Intervention in the physical sense, not to mention, leaving aside OT history, of which little is said dogmatically between the Fall and Christ, the Resurrection of Christ is dogmatically defined as a literal physical event, and not merely a “resurrection of faith in the Apostles,” as modernists would have it.
Also, Catholic Tradition does understand the notion of positive Divine Intervention in the natural order of physical things as a means of *chastisement *.
To begin with, whereas it is not dogma yet, general Oral Tradition of orthodox Catholic scholarship would say that the Flood and Babel are in some sense history.
Therefore, we are to believe by all orthodox Catholic standards, although not yet to the level of dogma, that the Fall descended in the first great age of history into a near total wickedness of man, sparing a remnant, leading God to interfere in the necessary manner of a physical but merciful chastisement to manifest to humanity the consequences of the refusal of the natural law of morality but more importantly to prevent the world from ending. I emphasize *merciful *, since, it was not wrath in the proper sense, but forgiving so as to *prevent the world from ending *…
… (For, the end result of a culture of spiritual death, if not healed, is physical death; therefore, since the Flood was not conditional, as in the OT prophets pleading to the Jews before the Babylonian Exile, the connotation was that man would not repent at this stage, never having felt the disciplinary action of God beyond the condition of pain and suffering inherent in the fall. Therefore, had God not intervened in a chastising sense, the wickedness would have continued to the point of *self destruction *),…
… in order that God may begin salvation. Therefore, it was not wrath for the sake of wrath but rather necessary and merciful chastisement in order that the salvation of humanity would be possible.
Similary, as the Catechism mentions on the sections of beginning covenants, it states that humanity’s division into distinct nations and tongues is in some sense a religious and cosmic reality, implying that Babel is history in some sense. And why?
Well, again, consider the analogous situation with the Flood. In the first case, we see that the first stage of humanity in the fall was a near total regard for the natural moral law, that is, *wickedness *. In a certain sense, this is the antithesis of the Baptismal disposition: no *faith *in God’s clear punishment for evil, and no *repentance, *that is, no regard to turn away from wickedness. Hence, the first stage of the fall in history was more or less the *anti-Baptismal disposition *, which prompted a *Baptism *of the world, the Flood.
If we go on, we see the next positive Divine Intervention was the confounding of languages. By the same token, this was a necessary intervention of a physical nature to wound the *second *aspect of the fall (in addition to *anti-Baptism *), namely, the *selfish, arrogant and passionately ambitious cooperation of humanity towards a materialistic dominion and utopia *. This condition, if it had not been unchecked, would have persisted indefinitely, again, in the very same sense in which wickedness in Noah’s day would have persisted indefinitely without a positive physical intervention by God to mercifully chastise.
More specifically, the confounding of languages and consequent division of humanity into separate societies must have been required by God in light of the fact that without this proactive impediment from God, manking would indefinitely continue to ignore God’s Invitation to *Spousal *Relationship and Covenant (as in the Covenant with the Jews and now the Church) and rather carry itself away to *“fornicate” *spiritually with the material world and its seductions.
…
Some Catholics are so soft hearted and compassionate, that they believe that Catholicism formally endorses the notion that Divine Intervention is never, or is at least no longer, physical in a *negative *sense.
Actually, it would be partially contrary to Catholic teaching to believe that God never interferes with the physical in an extraordinary, *disciplinary *manner.
First of all, all states of existence are brought, at least in part, into being by God from nothing. That is dogma. Now, admittedly, in the case of free creatures, which in this world are humans, God must at some point *pass the power of choice onto the creature to make of the state what he will *. That is one of the can-of-worms issues that Thomists and Molinists argue about. (The situation is much easier in Calvinism, since man is not free in their extreme brand.)
It would also be heresy to believe that God is like a Deist, never interfering with not only the spiritual component of things but also the physical. For one, the miracles of the Church through saints are a *positive *Divine Intervention in the physical sense, not to mention, leaving aside OT history, of which little is said dogmatically between the Fall and Christ, the Resurrection of Christ is dogmatically defined as a literal physical event, and not merely a “resurrection of faith in the Apostles,” as modernists would have it.
Also, Catholic Tradition does understand the notion of positive Divine Intervention in the natural order of physical things as a means of *chastisement *.
To begin with, whereas it is not dogma yet, general Oral Tradition of orthodox Catholic scholarship would say that the Flood and Babel are in some sense history.
Therefore, we are to believe by all orthodox Catholic standards, although not yet to the level of dogma, that the Fall descended in the first great age of history into a near total wickedness of man, sparing a remnant, leading God to interfere in the necessary manner of a physical but merciful chastisement to manifest to humanity the consequences of the refusal of the natural law of morality but more importantly to prevent the world from ending. I emphasize *merciful *, since, it was not wrath in the proper sense, but forgiving so as to *prevent the world from ending *…
… (For, the end result of a culture of spiritual death, if not healed, is physical death; therefore, since the Flood was not conditional, as in the OT prophets pleading to the Jews before the Babylonian Exile, the connotation was that man would not repent at this stage, never having felt the disciplinary action of God beyond the condition of pain and suffering inherent in the fall. Therefore, had God not intervened in a chastising sense, the wickedness would have continued to the point of *self destruction *),…
… in order that God may begin salvation. Therefore, it was not wrath for the sake of wrath but rather necessary and merciful chastisement in order that the salvation of humanity would be possible.
Similary, as the Catechism mentions on the sections of beginning covenants, it states that humanity’s division into distinct nations and tongues is in some sense a religious and cosmic reality, implying that Babel is history in some sense. And why?
Well, again, consider the analogous situation with the Flood. In the first case, we see that the first stage of humanity in the fall was a near total regard for the natural moral law, that is, *wickedness *. In a certain sense, this is the antithesis of the Baptismal disposition: no *faith *in God’s clear punishment for evil, and no *repentance, *that is, no regard to turn away from wickedness. Hence, the first stage of the fall in history was more or less the *anti-Baptismal disposition *, which prompted a *Baptism *of the world, the Flood.
If we go on, we see the next positive Divine Intervention was the confounding of languages. By the same token, this was a necessary intervention of a physical nature to wound the *second *aspect of the fall (in addition to *anti-Baptism *), namely, the *selfish, arrogant and passionately ambitious cooperation of humanity towards a materialistic dominion and utopia *. This condition, if it had not been unchecked, would have persisted indefinitely, again, in the very same sense in which wickedness in Noah’s day would have persisted indefinitely without a positive physical intervention by God to mercifully chastise.
More specifically, the confounding of languages and consequent division of humanity into separate societies must have been required by God in light of the fact that without this proactive impediment from God, manking would indefinitely continue to ignore God’s Invitation to *Spousal *Relationship and Covenant (as in the Covenant with the Jews and now the Church) and rather carry itself away to *“fornicate” *spiritually with the material world and its seductions.
…
