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thistle
Guest
The Church has an official interpretation of only 7 Bible verses.
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Gorgias
Guest
Well, since I don’t know your name, but looking at your sig, I’ll just call you ‘Grace’.
Grace,
Your insight isn’t totally off. Yes, there’s a discrepancy between the passages. However, the discrepancy isn’t to be found in the way that God acts, or in the assertion that the Biblical writers were inspired. The answer is to be found in the way that inspiration works.
The Catholic explanation of inspiration, in the context of Biblical inspiration, is that God wanted His message to be proclaimed. To fulfill this desire, God inspired various people to write the books of the Bible. However, God didn’t just use the Scripture authors as zombies, forcing them to write word-for-word what He wanted. God also didn’t simply use the authors as transcriptionists, telling them verbatim what the book should say. Instead, God allowed the authors of the books of Scripture to write using their own intellect, and from their own perspective.
For example, if we were asked to describe the origins of the universe, we’d probably talk about the ‘Big Bang’, and about the formation of galaxies, solar systems, and planets. However, to the author of Genesis, the context of the day was the belief systems of his neighbors, so he wrote his account of creation as a rebuttal of what his neighbors believed. (Just for the record, they thought that the earth sprung forth from the blood of a demon, and that creation was bad; under God’s inspiration, the author of Genesis wrote that God created everything from nothing, and everything God created was good.)
In this case, the writer of 2 Samuel lived during a time when every little thing was ascribed to God, directly. Did it rain yesterday? That’s 'cause God pushed a button and made it rain. Did you lose your son in an accident? That’s 'cause God was angry with you and took your son away. (We don’t see God’s action like that anymore but, to be honest, that’s how they saw things then, and so that’s the way that the author wrote.) Note that it wasn’t God, per se, but “the Lord’s anger” – now, is it true to say that God is really angry? God, who is pure love? Who sent His Son for us? No, of course not… what the author is doing is using an anthropomorphism (one that he and his contemporaries believed in!) to try and explain why David did something evil. According to his world-view, it has to be because God caused it, but how can that be? His solution is to ascribe it to righteous anger on the part of God.
The writer of 1 Chronicles lived in a context that was different, though – his culture no longer ascribed every little thing to God’s direct action. So, he could say that “an adversary” (or “a devil”) caused it.
So… same event, two different perspectives. Both tell the same story, but each author, being the product of his culture, use different ways of explaining the action and ascribing a cause to it. That’s how inspiration works…!
Hope that helps, Grace!
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ComeHome2Rome
Guest
Which 7 and in which document do I find that?
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ComeHome2Rome
Guest
I’m good with GraceWell, since I don’t know your name, but looking at your sig, I’ll just call you ‘Grace’.
Grace,
Your insight isn’t totally off. Yes, there’s a discrepancy between the passages. However, the discrepancy isn’t to be found in the way that God acts, or in the assertion that the Biblical writers were inspired. The answer is to be found in the way that inspiration works.
The Catholic explanation of inspiration, in the context of Biblical inspiration, is that God wanted His message to be proclaimed. To fulfill this desire, God inspired various people to write the books of the Bible. However, God didn’t just use the Scripture authors as zombies, forcing them to write word-for-word what He wanted. God also didn’t simply use the authors as transcriptionists, telling them verbatim what the book should say. Instead, God allowed the authors of the books of Scripture to write using their own intellect, and from their own perspective.
For example, if we were asked to describe the origins of the universe, we’d probably talk about the ‘Big Bang’, and about the formation of galaxies, solar systems, and planets. However, to the author of Genesis, the context of the day was the belief systems of his neighbors, so he wrote his account of creation as a rebuttal of what his neighbors believed. (Just for the record, they thought that the earth sprung forth from the blood of a demon, and that creation was bad; under God’s inspiration, the author of Genesis wrote that God created everything from nothing, and everything God created was good.)
In this case, the writer of 2 Samuel lived during a time when every little thing was ascribed to God, directly. Did it rain yesterday? That’s 'cause God pushed a button and made it rain. Did you lose your son in an accident? That’s 'cause God was angry with you and took your son away. (We don’t see God’s action like that anymore but, to be honest, that’s how they saw things then, and so that’s the way that the author wrote.) Note that it wasn’t God, per se, but “the Lord’s anger” – now, is it true to say that God is really angry? God, who is pure love? Who sent His Son for us? No, of course not… what the author is doing is using an anthropomorphism (one that he and his contemporaries believed in!) to try and explain why David did something evil. According to his world-view, it has to be because God caused it, but how can that be? His solution is to ascribe it to righteous anger on the part of God.
The writer of 1 Chronicles lived in a context that was different, though – his culture no longer ascribed every little thing to God’s direct action. So, he could say that “an adversary” (or “a devil”) caused it.
So… same event, two different perspectives. Both tell the same story, but each author, being the product of his culture, use different ways of explaining the action and ascribing a cause to it. That’s how inspiration works…!
Hope that helps, Grace!
The human writers were of different centuries/cultures?
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thistle
Guest
"The Church’s Interpretation of Scripture
The Church has officially defined the interpretation for several passages of Scripture, but most people, Catholic or no, don’t realize it. When they do know this is the case, even a well-informed Catholic cannot normally tell you which passages were authoritatively interpreted or what those interpretations were. What follows are all the authoratative interpretations of the Church has made of Scripture, taken from Heinrich Denzinger’s Sources of Catholic Dogma, nos. 789, 858, 874, 913, 926, 949, 1822. Remember that the word “anathema” does not mean “condemned to hell,” it means “formally excommunicated,” and is used in explicit statements of what the Church most emphatically does not believe. Remember also that the authoritative interpretations of these passages do not deny the possibility of additional, non-contradictory interpretations. It means only that the referenced passages certainly carry the defined meanings. Some also ask why the Church does not formally define the meaning and interpretation of every line of Scripture. The Church teaches what is necessary for understanding - what She says needs to be said, nor is any teaching more than is needful. Just as it will take an eternity to plumb the infinite depths of God, so would it take an eternity to plumb the depths of His Word. These passages were defined against pernicous heresies. Every heresy is traceable to a mis-understanding of some combinatinon of these passages.
Rom 5:12 - Council of Trent, June 17, 1546, “Decree on Original Sin”, section 2.
If anyone asserts that the transgression of Adam has harmed him alone and not his posterity, and that the sanctity and justice, received from God, which he lost, he has lost for himself alone and not for us also; or that he having been defiled by the sin of disobedience has transfused only death “and the punishments of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul,” let him be anathema, since he contradicts the Apostle who says: “By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. [Rom 5:12]”
Jn 3:5 - Council of Trent, March 3, 1547, “Canons on the Sacrament of Baptism,” canon 2.
If anyone shall say that real and natural water is not necessary for baptism, and on that account those words of our Lord Jesus Christ: “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit [John 3:5]” are distorted into some sort of metaphor: let him be anathema.
Mt 26:26 ff; Mk 14:22l; Lk 22:19 ff; 1 Cor 11:23 ff - Council of Trent, October 11, 1551, “The Real Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist”, chapter 1
First of all the holy Synod teaches and openly and simply professes that in the nourishing sacrament of the Holy Eucharist after the consecration of the bread and wine our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really, and substantially [canon 1] contained under the species of those sensible things. For these things are not mutally contradictory, that our Saviour Himself is always seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven according to the natural mode of existing, and yet that in many other places sacramentally He is present to us in His own substance by that manner of existence which, althogh we can scarcely express it in words, yet we can, however, by our understanding illumintated by faith, conceive to be possible to God, and which we ought most steadfastly to believe. For thus all our forefathers, as many as were in the true Church of Christ, who have discussed this most holy sacrament, have most openly professed that our Redeemer instituted this so wonderful a sacrament at the Last Supper, when after the blessing of the bread and wine He testified in clear and definite words that He gave them His own body and His own blood; and those words which are recorded [Matthew 26:26ff; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19ff] by the holy Evangelists, and afterwards repeated by St. Paul [1 Cor 11:23 ff], since they contain within themselves that proper and very clear meaning in which they were understood by the Fathers, it is a most disgraceful thing for some contentious and wicked men to distort into fictitious and imaginary figures of speech, by which the real nature of the flesh and blood of Christ is denied, contrary to the universal sense of the Church, which, recognizing with an ever grateful and recollecting mind this most excellent benefit of Christ, as the pillar and ground of truth [1 Tim 3:15], has detested these falsehoods, devised by impious men, as satanical.
**Jn 20:22 ff - Council of Trent, October 25, 1551, “Canons on the Sacrament of Penance,” canon 3 **
If anyone says that those words of the Lord Savior: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins ye shall retain, they are retained [John 20:22ff]”, are not to be understood of the power of remitting and retaining sins in the sacrament of penance, as the Catholic Church has always understood from the beginning, but, contrary to the institution of this sacrament, distorts them to an authority for preaching the Gospel: let him be anathema.
**James 5:14 - Council of Trent, October 25, 1551, “Canons on Anointing of the Sick,” canon 1 **
If anyone says that anointing of the sick is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ [cf. Mark 6:13], and promulgated by blessed James the Apostle [James 5:14], but is only a rite accepted by the Fathers, or a human fiction: let him be anathema.
**Lk 22:19, 1 Cor 11:24 - Council of Trent, September 17, 1562 “Canons on the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,” canon 2 **
If anyone says that by these words: "Do this for a commemoration of me [Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24], Christ did not make the apostles priest, or did not ordain that they and other priests might offer His own body and blood: let him be anathema.
Mt 16:16; Jn 21:15 ff - Vatican I, July 18, 1870 “The Institution of Apostolic Primacy in Blessed Peter,” chapter 1
[Against heretics and schismatics]. So we teach and declare that according to the testimonies of the Gospel and the primacy of jurisdiction over the entire Church of God was promised and was conferred immediately and directly upon the blessed Apostle Peter by Christ the Lord. For the one Simon, to whom He had before said: “Thou shalt be called Cephas [John 1:42]”, after he had given forth his confession with those words: “Thou art Christ, Son of the living God [Matthew 16:16], the Lord spoke with these solemn words: “Blessed art thou, Simon bar Jonah; because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it: and I shall give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven [Matthew 16:17ff].” [Against Richerieus etc.] And upon Simon Peter alone Jesus after His resurrection conferred the jurisdicition of the highest pastor and rector over his entire fold, saying: “Feed my lambs,” Feed my sheep [John 21:15ff].” To this teaching of Sacred Scriptures, so manifest as it has been always understood by the Catholic Church, are opposed openly the vicious opinions of those who perversely deny that the form of government in His Church was established by Christ the Lord; that to Peter alone, before the other apostles, whether individually or all together; was confided the true and proper primacy of jurisdiction by Christ; or, of those who affirm that the same primacy was not immediately and directly bestowed upon the blessed Peter himself, but upon the Church, and through this Church upon him as the minister of the Church herself."
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LionHeart777
Guest
Here is Haydock’s Catholic Bible Commentary on 2 Kings (“now known as 2 SAMUEL”) ch. 24:1:
Source: haydock1859.tripod.com/id666.html
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Gorgias
Guest
Grace,I’m good with Grace
The human writers were of different centuries/cultures?
Scholars consider that 2 Samuel was written around the late 7th century B.C., while 1 Chronicles was written circa 400 B.C. So, yes… different centuries. In addition, there are considerable cultural differences between the Jews of the 7th century B.C. and the Jews of 400 B.C. (who had experienced the full impact of exile). So again, yes, there is significant cultural difference between these groups.
It’s not as hard to believe as it might seem at first glance. Would you say that the cultural outlook of 1820’s America is the same as that of our contemporary decade?
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fisherman_carl
Guest
I don’t see how this apparent contradiction could prove the bible has been corrupted. In order to prove the bible has been corrupted you would have to have the original copy which Muslims do not have. Therefore, it is entirely plausable this apparent contradiction is in the original.
In addition, this apparent contradiction can be explained. Both God and the devil were involved but in different ways.
“God, by withdrawing his grace from David (see on 2 Sam 24:1) permitted the tempter to prevail over him. As the result of this successful temptation was the entail of a heavy calamity as a punisment from God upon the people, it might be said that “Satan stood up against Israel.””
(Commentary Critical and explanatory on the whole bible, Commentary on 1 Ch 21)
Perhaps your Muslim friend should spend less time trying to prove that Christianity is apostate and more time worrying about the fact that there is no evidence that their Muhhamed even existed.
catholic.com/radio/shows/searching-for-muhammad-7264
In addition, this apparent contradiction can be explained. Both God and the devil were involved but in different ways.
“God, by withdrawing his grace from David (see on 2 Sam 24:1) permitted the tempter to prevail over him. As the result of this successful temptation was the entail of a heavy calamity as a punisment from God upon the people, it might be said that “Satan stood up against Israel.””
(Commentary Critical and explanatory on the whole bible, Commentary on 1 Ch 21)
Perhaps your Muslim friend should spend less time trying to prove that Christianity is apostate and more time worrying about the fact that there is no evidence that their Muhhamed even existed.
catholic.com/radio/shows/searching-for-muhammad-7264
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ComeHome2Rome
Guest
Houston we have a problem
Is Vatican II under anathema of the Council of Trent?It was VII that gave us the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
In the CCC paragraph 1257 says that “those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ…brings about the fruits of Baptism” yet the above anathema extends to those who “say that real and natural water is not necessary for baptism…let him be anathema”.
And in paragraphs 1261 & 1259 & 847 each cites the ability to be saved without baptism for certain groups of people: catechumens, unbaptized babies & non-Catholics with distorts/makes exceptions to the verse quoted above in the anathema.
I’ve always believed in VII & the CCC, but seeing that it directly contradicts Trent. To put it in the words of my teenage: “Dude, we got issues.”
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ComeHome2Rome
Guest
Houston we have a problem
Is Vatican II under anathema of the Council of Trent?It was VII that gave us the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
In the CCC paragraph 1257 says that “those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ…brings about the fruits of Baptism” yet the above anathema extends to those who “say that real and natural water is not necessary for baptism…let him be anathema”.
And in paragraphs 1261 & 1259 & 847 each cites the ability to be saved without baptism for certain groups of people: catechumens, unbaptized babies & non-Catholics with distorts/makes exceptions to the verse quoted above in the anathema.
I’ve always believed in VII & the CCC, but seeing that it directly contradicts Trent. To put it in the words of my teenage: “Dude, we got issues.”
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Gorgias
Guest
Grace,Houston we have a problem
I’ve always believed in VII & the CCC, but seeing that it directly contradicts Trent. To put it in the words of my teenage: “Dude, we got issues.”
No, there’s no conflict here. Keep in mind that councils address particular issues of the day. In the case of Trent, they were dealing with the doctrines that various Protestant groups were spreading. One of these was that a baptism of water was not necessary for the kind of baptism that Jesus mandates in the Gospels. The response of Trent, then, is answering the question, “in a normal baptism, do we need water?” (to which the answer is “yes!”).
The snippet from Vatican II, on the other hand, is answering a different question: “if someone who wishes to be baptized, but isn’t able to (because s/he suffers a martyr’s death), does s/he go to hell because s/he was never baptized with water?” … and the answer to that is “No! The martyr’s death s/he undergoes is itself a baptism into Christ, and has all the effects of a ‘normal’, typical baptism.”
Does that help?
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ComeHome2Rome
Guest
The Catholic Church’s interpretation of those Bible passages are not to be accepted because the interpretations were provided during the Council of Trent?
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adrift
Guest
I am having a problem with the initial OP
What verse states that God motivated David. In reading 2 Samuel 24, it states that God was angry for taking the census and that is was sinful. The footnotes state this
I am confused about the premise. It seems that the premise is faulty. However, if there is somewhere in 24 that I have missed I would appreciate it being pointed out.
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Gorgias
Guest
Hmm… no, that’s not what I was trying to say.The Catholic Church’s interpretation of those Bible passages are not to be accepted because the interpretations were provided during the Council of Trent?
As I mentioned before, the way that councils work is that the council fathers are trying to answer a particular question that is posed in a particular way in their times. From Sacraments, Signs of Faith, Fransen writes, “the assembled Fathers never delineate a complete exposition of the doctrine of the sacraments … they aimed only at condemning the heretical positions of the Lutherans and the Calvinists, deliberately dropping whatever question, however important, was still under discussion among Catholic theologians… The positive Catholic doctrine in the decrees and canons is therefore only the necessary minimum, in opposition and contrast to the heretical positions of that time.” Looking at the document you reference, in its first decree, the fathers of Trent state that “the holy, ecumenical and general council of Trent … set as its aim the removal of errors and the rooting out of heresies, which have arisen at the present time concerning the most holy sacraments.” (Council of Trent, Introduction to the First Decree [on the sacraments], Session 7, 3 March 1547)
So, as we look to the passage from Trent that you quoted, we have to ask the question, “what is it that Trent is addressing here?”. It seems obvious that the question is whether true and natural water (“aquam veram et naturalem”) is necessary for baptism. Notice that, in this passage, the question isn’t about the necessity of baptism, but rather, about the matter of the sacrament.
(Catholic sacraments take place when the appropriate person uses the proper matter and utilizes the proper form, with the intent to do what the Church intends in the particular sacrament. In the case of baptism, the matter is water and and form is the Trinitarian formula (“I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”); if a person uses different matter (beer, for instance, instead of water (don’t laugh – Pope Gregory IX found it necessary to write to the Archbishop of Trondhjem that baptisms in beer or mead were invalid!)) or a different form (baptizing “in the name of God” or “in the name of the Creator and of the Redeemer and of the Sanctifier”, for example), are all invalid baptisms.
So, the quote you provide is only asking the question about the particular physical matter that’s necessary at a baptism, and, using John 3, it answers that water is what is physically necessary for a baptism. So far, so good.
Now, what is CCC 1257, 1259, 1261, and 847 talking about? That is, are they saying that water isn’t necessary in a baptism? No, of course not. They’re asking a completely different question: what happens if a person desires to be baptized, but because of circumstances, is unable to be baptized? (The various reasons given in these paragraphs are: martyrdom for the faith, death of a catechumen prior to baptism, death of a baby prior to baptism, death of a non-Catholic who never had the opportunity to encounter the Gospel of Christ.)
In 1257, the catechism states that “(b)aptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament”. But, what about those who are unable to have a water baptism? Did Christ bind himself, limiting salvation only to those who have a water baptism? Is the notion of water baptism more powerful than God? (In a Greek tragedy, you’d answer ‘yes’ – a person is powerless to change his word, once it’s given.) Is God powerless in the face of the notion of baptism?
Of course not. And so, the Church has always proclaimed a “baptism of blood” by those martyred for the faith (prior to their baptism) and a “baptism of desire” by those who passed away before they could be sacramentally baptized. Does this conflict with Trent? Not at all – centuries before Trent, the notions of baptisms of blood and of desire were espoused by Catholic theologians, including Cyprian (catechumens who die prior to baptism “are certainly not deprived of the sacrament of baptism”), Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory Nazianzen, Bonaventure, Aquinas, and others.
OK – sorry for the long post, but you did ask for clarification, right?
So, there’s no disconnect between Trent and Vatican Council II in the passages you quoted: Trent is only talking about whether, in a baptism, it is water that’s required; and VC II is only reiterating millenia-old Church teaching that God’s desire to save isn’t hamstrung by the actual ceremony of baptism. (Note that the questions of unbaptized babies, and of those who never had the chance to respond to the Gospel, hinge on slightly different arguments. Do you want to discuss these two particular cases?)
Does that help? Perhaps you have a question that might focus us in, on what is bothering you about these passages?
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Gorgias
Guest
2 Samuel 24:1 states “The LORD’s anger against Israel flared again,a and he incited David against them: ‘Go, take a census of Israel and Judah.’” The implication there is that it was God who ordered the census (whereas 1 Chronicles says it was “a devil”).
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ComeHome2Rome
Guest
The verse 2 Sam. 24:1 reads in the RSV-Catholic Edition “Again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and He incited David against them, saying ‘Go, number Israel and Judah’.” - my bold to point out that the verse does state that God was the one, in this verse, who incited David. The other verse, says it was Satan who incited David.
Maybe you were you reading a non-Catholic Church approved version?
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