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LateCatholic
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I clearly was discussing Ratzinger. My mind was getting caught up with Cliff Claven and recent Pixar discussions. My apologies.
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LateCatholic
Guest
Joseph Ratzinger vs. John Ratzenberger
After he was elected pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger took the name Benedict XVI to honor an earlier pontiff who argued for peace during World War I. Could it be that maybe–just maybe–he…
www.chicagotribune.com
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Shakuhachi
Guest
The need for crucifixion is to drive him the point that we must surrender our ego no matter what. It is that important. I subscribe to the Moral Influence theory.
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HeDa
Guest
- The Bible is not a science book. Science asks the question “How?” as in “How does something work?” and there could be test done to try a theory. Theology asks “Who?” as in “Who is God?” and therefor a relationship. The Genesis creation stories are written using the knowledge and words that were around some 700 years before Christ.
- God doesn’t have a clock as He is outside of time and space. Did God create everything and then leave it or does He still create? I know that God will continue to create me, until I have taken my last breath, if I let Him. If I am not, then I am sinning and want to be in control and create myself.
The 7 day creation story is poetry and should be read as such. Praising God for the creation using scientific language is like a man saying to a woman that he “has chemical reactions in his brain” when he sees her. No sane woman would marry that man if he was to propose using those words. She wants to hear that he loves her and will give his life for her and future children!
It might help to bring in the Hebrew language here. Ha’adam means the one who comes from dust/soil/earth so the “dustling” or “eartling”. It comes from the word ha’adama which means dust/soil/earth. “Ha’adam”, doesn’t become “Adam” “man” until Eve is created before that ha’adam is written. Adam becomes man in relationship with Eve. Eve means “mother of all living”, “life”. So the story is about “the man and the mother of all living and their relationship with God, the Creator”.
The relationships between human and human, and human and God, are what is important in Scripture. One second the human is praising God and the next accusing Him for something. This is typical in the story of Adam and Eve. Adam praising God for Eve and then blaming God for giving him Eve.
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Gorgias
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Umm… no. Sin entered the world with the first sin of our first human parent, but not every sin “is the result” of that sin. Every sin results from a choice that a human makes.
You’ve moved the goalposts, I’m afraid.
First, you asserted that the sin of Adam and Eve is “transferred … to all of humanity”. That’s incorrect.
Moreover, you used that incorrect assertion to conclude that there’s no justification for the Atonement. Umm… what about all the sins committed by everyone since the beginning of humanity? Doesn’t Christ’s sacrifice apply to us and our sins?
But, in this most recent post, you’re getting closer: yes, we share “guilt by association”. Please note, however, that this ‘guilt’ isn’t the guilt of “sin committed”, as in the case of personal sin.
OK… take a deep breath and think about what you’ve just written in this thread. Let me summarize for you:
- Catholics are not required to take the creation story of Genesis as literal, historical fact.
- Science tells us that there was never a time when there was a single pair of hominins.
- Catholics are required to believe that there was “one man and one man only, without biological parents”.
You see the problem with this assertion, don’t you? It requires you to claim that not only are Catholics big old dummies, but that they don’t even realize how stupid they are.
Now, there is another alternative. Your take might be wrong. Hmm… I wonder which is more likely…?
By the way: does the fact that the Church presumed something of science, based on a particular interpretation of the Bible, mean that this presumption is de facto true? (Of course it doesn’t… and the Church stepped back from scientific assertions about the relationship between the earth and the rest of the cosmos once it had been satisfactorily proven.) By the same token, then, even if there were folks who made assumptions in the face of a lack of scientific knowledge, then it doesn’t stand to reason that these assumptions legitimately become abandoned if and when science can demonstrate otherwise. The Church doesn’t teach science; it teaches theology.
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Gorgias
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continuing my reply to @LateCatholic…
Evolution doesn’t say anything of the sort that you think it does. When we talk about our “first human parents” in the context of theology, we’re talking about persons with eternal souls. Does science talk about souls? (Of course not.) Then, of course, science – including evolution – cannot address questions about our first human parents. There’s no conflict here, at least in the way you’re framing it up. Science and theology are talking about different concepts.
Unfortunately, you’ve misinterpreted what you’ve read, and have read into his statements a few presumptions that he (and the Church) do not hold to.
So, if Ratzinger says “one of our ancestors”, he means our first truly human ancestor. There were other ancestors – apes, at the very least – who were ancestors but not human. You seem to be blind to this nuance.
LateCatholic:
Evolution doesn’t say anything of the sort that you think it does. When we talk about our “first human parents” in the context of theology, we’re talking about persons with eternal souls. Does science talk about souls? (Of course not.) Then, of course, science – including evolution – cannot address questions about our first human parents. There’s no conflict here, at least in the way you’re framing it up. Science and theology are talking about different concepts.
Yeah, you’re gonna need to find that citation for me. You realize how ludicrous it is to suggest that Ratzinger agreed that there was no first sin of our first human parents, right? Or that there was no pair of first human parents?
Unfortunately, you’ve misinterpreted what you’ve read, and have read into his statements a few presumptions that he (and the Church) do not hold to.
So, if Ratzinger says “one of our ancestors”, he means our first truly human ancestor. There were other ancestors – apes, at the very least – who were ancestors but not human. You seem to be blind to this nuance.
Two, actually. And the doctrine doesn’t state “no parents”.
Again, you’re making the invalid presumption that science is talking about ensouled humans. It isn’t.
First off, you’re using Wikipedia, not a magisterial source, as your source of theological information.
False. We sin due to our own faults.
False. Our first human parent (call him ‘Adam’ if that makes you happy) does not bear the fault for our personal sins.
Ugh. False. The way you’ve phrased this makes it obvious that you don’t know what ‘original sin’ is. (Specifically, you’re using the term colloquially and too expansively, and attempting to make it apply to a variety of other concepts. I would recommend you read up on the catechism.)
Then seek the truth, ok? And, part of that search is to read what others before you have written, and think hard about what they’re really saying. Don’t stop asking questions – but don’t presume you have all the answers.
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Dan_Defender
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I would add that DNA science does support the existence of a Last Universal Common Ancestor on earth.
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LateCatholic
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I will define “Adam and Eve” as those two beings created from effectively nothing by God as fully developed, evolved, functional and conscious human beings that had no parents approximately 6000 years ago. If you are saying, given the above definition, that “Adam and Eve” were real persons, I won’t bother arguing, as hundreds of years of scientific discoveries, evidence and experiments over EVERY branch of science including predictions made years ago that have been validated have proven me correct. This is not the 18th century anymore. We all know Adam and eve is a myth.
But the fact that we are still discussing this and changing theology is a problem. Science improves based on experiment and theory, but religion does not. For instance, it is generally agreed upon by scholars that the virgin birth is also a myth. I could explain but it would require a separate reply. Why won’t the Church acknowledge this? Because theology must not change for faith to survive. If the Church changed it’s teaching, the faithful would have a crisis.
Case in point, I was very upset when as a child I was told that I could believe in Limbo (where unbaptized babies go) “if I wanted to”. This was a big eye opener. I looked at it this way - there IS an answer. Either Limbo is real or not. Either unbaptized children go to Limbo or they go to Hell. Which is it? The point is not to argue Limbo or not.
The point is that there MUST BE an answer. Correspondingly, there MUST BE a reason for the Atonement. If we can legitimately argue about it, then there is clearly a problem with the foundation theology. If we can disagree on why Jesus died on the cross, something is very wrong with our religion. Just my current thinking.
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LateCatholic
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Well, I’ll give you this - I haven’t heard that before.
You are saying that a finite act of disobedience committed by a finite being against an infinite being can only be resolved by another infinite being. Since God is the only infinite being, he himself has to resolve the act of disobedience.
Some comments - first and most importantly, you have said nothing to resolve the fundamental problem with most Atonement theories: that God is somehow subservient to some greater law. In fact, you highlight it. Your ideas are actually quite interesting - I’m not saying they make sense - but they in many ways clarify my point. Specifically, you say “infinite transgression requires infinite redemption”. OK. But WHY? Who made THAT RULE? God himself? Well, he can just drop it then. He’s God. Why make his only son suffer so much? That makes him horribly cruel. I don’t see how the above resolves the theological problems with the Atonement.
Just to be clear - this isn’t just me complaining - philosophers and theologians have raised these issues for centuries.
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Mboo
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not quite, in Genesis it is written that God created Adam from the earth, so we can at least remember that Adam was not created from nothing as you say, but that he has was made from created elements that already existed …
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Mboo
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The story of Adam and Eve is an allegory, that is to say, a pictorial story to teach a truth, so we must know what are the truths, and what are the images when we read an allegory.
The Church teaches us that one truth is that Adam and Eve actually existed, and that they sinned and therefore inherited a fallen nature!
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opop
Guest
- Yes indeed, there are many theories. However, I don’t think this is a problem for our faith. God’s Revelation only teaches us what is useful for our salvation. So if God didn’t teach us the mechanism of how Christ’s death allows our salvation, it is because it is not really useful for our salvation. All we have to know is that Christ’s death allows us to be saved, even if we don’t know exactly how and why.
However, it is very interesting on a purely theoretical point of view and I’m as frustrated as you that the Church doesn’t have a definitive answer to this question. - I don’t know which is the more fashionable theory nowadays, but it doesn’t really matter. You can also propose your own theory.
- The fact that there was not a first single couple is not at all a problem for the teaching of original sin. Original sin only implies that our common ancestors sinned. It doesn’t matter if they were two or more. I advise you to read “Can we give up the origin of humanity from a primal couple without giving up the teaching of original sin and atonement?”, from Antoine Suarez. It proposes a quite good theory on the subject. Also this may interest you: About BioLogos - BioLogos
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opop
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No he can’t. You are falling for a variation of the Euthyphro dilemma. God cannot drop moral rules. Not because those rules are above him, but because he IS the moral rules (or the moral criteria, if you wish). Therefore dropping a moral rule would be dropping himself, which is impossible because God (and so moral rules) is necessary. God cannot make contradictions real.
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ZMystiCat
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As with a lot of matters, Jesus gave His Apostles a base to work from, that His death was necessary to atone for our sins, but they weren’t given all the finer details that some theologians and philosopher would inevitably start asking. We see the same in two other critical doctrines, the Trinity and Eucharist. For instance, “transubstantiation” is an attempt to philosophically understand the internal workings of what wasn’t fully understood just from the Apostles’ teachings.
And frankly, I’m not really sure why that is a problem. We’re permitted to have holes in our understanding since:
- We can’t understand all the finer nuances of every topic. Some are simply beyond human comprehension, even if we understand certain boundaries to work in.
- Our religion is centered around a person, Jesus, not a series of proverbs or doctrines. The doctrines help us to understand the person, but on certain subject matters, like the finer nuances of atonement, it doesn’t ultimately help that much so long as we understand the basic teaching.
The Atonement isn’t the reason that the Church refuses to make a declaration on the theory of evolution. The Church just doesn’t make definitive statements about scientific theories in general. It does offer theological guidance (e.g. God guided evolution) and moral guidance (e.g. don’t employ eugenics) in light of science, but it doesn’t actually make declarations about whether or not that science is true.
We are not required to believe in Adam and Eve as laid out in Genesis, and frankly, we just don’t know a whole lot about the historical figures that they reference and what made them “human” from a theological perspective in the first place. We might be able to say that X explanation is not scientifically viable, but ultimately, there’s more to how we define “human” in a theological sense that science just wouldn’t be able to detect happening.
Now, do we have theories about how this happened? Sure, but we don’t have enough to declare any of those theories definitively true, even if we have good reason to believe some of them (e.g. Six Day Creationism) aren’t true.
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meltzerboy2
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Does the Church choose only one of these theories? If so, then why can’t you conform to the one theory the Church believes? If not, then maybe the exact mechanism of the theory is not so important to the Church and should not be to you either. And another thing: does everything, even (or perhaps especially) the most basic dogma, have to be completely explained? Isn’t the mystery of faith an important part of Catholic teaching, since our reasoning is incapable of total understanding at the same level as Gd?
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ZMystiCat
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Maybe there’s version of the ransom theory that explain it like that, but as far as I’m aware, the ransom theory tends to center around both or either of:
- We owe Satan something, and Jesus paid that for us.
- We owe God something, and Jesus paid that for us.
Explain yourself. You can’t just call something “ridiculous” and not bother to offer an explanation.
It makes more sense with it. It clearly shows that things like death, such as through martyrdom, are not excuses to leave God behind. If Jesus Himself, the ultimate example for how we should live, willingly went into death for the sake of the Father’s will, then that is something that we should be willing to do if that be a consequence of us submitting to and obeying God.
In fact, this would have been really important in the early Church. Many were faced with persecution and martyrdom for choosing to obey God, and since Jesus had already set the standard that they should be willing to embrace both for the sake of God, they did.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
I’ve wondered about atonement theory myself (I see the “ransom” theory as debt paid to God, not Satan).
Afaik, the Church doesn’t “choose only one” theory. Depending on what you read, you’ll see the different theories popping up. For example, the “ransom” theory is considered old hat and not popular, but there are Catholic hymns still in use that describe Christ’s “ransom” of us.
I myself have wondered why it was so important that we have one theory given that the Church kinda leaves the question open. It’s pretty clear that Jesus (God) sacrificed himself for us though we didn’t deserve it. Sacrificing yourself for others is an idea that humans can generally understand without arduous philosophy. So I am not sure what purpose the philosophy serves, also when (as you said above) you seem to be able to pick from several theories or just make something up that works for you.
If someone would like to set me straight on the importance of clarifying a single theory of atonement, I’m all ears.
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LateCatholic
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No - I’m not falling for it. You are invoking it. Saying that my point is a variation of the dilemma doesn’t mean it’s not a valid criticism.
The Euthyphro dilemma is not something you “fall” for. It is a legitimate argument against the existence of an all-powerful and all-loving God. It has not been resolved and has been the source of consternation among apologist for centuries.
The point is (and the endgame of the Euthyphro Dilemma) is that you MUST choose one of these two. Either:
- God is not all-powerful because there are higher order laws that even he must answer to.
- God is cruel and not all-loving because his morality and resolution thereof involves torture, pain,and horrible suffering of innocents.
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LateCatholic
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But this is what bothers me. There MUST be an answer. Like I said in the very beginning of this thread - I spent 10 years in Catholic education and then final answer was always either “Stop asking questions” or “It’s a mystery and smarter people than you know the answer”.
Saying you can ‘pick’ which one you like seems like a cop-out - it’s too hard, so we’ll punt.
I mentioned elsewhere you see this a lot. For example, unbaptized babies and Limbo, or evolution and Adam and Eve
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if when the going gets tough, the answer is “choose whichever makes you feel warm and fuzzy” theologically - that is a real problem for me.
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LateCatholic
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I definitely like this reasoning a lot more than denying the evidence. However, I don’t think the Church has formally embraced this thinking. My understanding is that the formal teaching of the Church remains that Adam and Eve were real beings, had no parents, and were the source of the one sin that henceforth all of us must pay for (or have Jesus pay for).
And it still is not satisfying. Why must I be responsible for sins of my ancestors? This transferal of guilt that is a foundation of Judeo-Christian theology is something I do not agree with (some in the thread have said no such foundation exists - but it is right in the ten commandments).
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