Scripture: What's myth and what's history?

[Gottle_of_Geer]

There is no need to argue with anyone taking positions like these. This person is clearly (as St. Paul puts it) self-condemned.

Jesus was not only an expert, He was so by the time He reached the age of Bar Mitzvah (Luke 2:46-47).

This was all settled long ago in Lamentabilli Sane.

Shaking encyclicals at people, rather than showing by reason & argument where those people seem to be wrong, is not an argument - it’s an evasion of argument.​

It’s also a refusal to carry out a work of mercy - that’s not very charitable, is it ?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

If I had the power, I would require about 3/4 of the folks on this thread to read “Myth Became Fact,” a little essay by C.S. Lewis discussing the relationship between myth and the Bible, before posting anything else.

Also a short book: Where Myth and History Meet: A Christian Response to Myth.

I think they should read “Miracles” - and Tolkien’s lecture “On Faery-Stories”. And Dorothy Sayers.​

 

[wildleafblower]

Thomas Aquinas was ignorant of many things too. If Jesus possessed all knowledge and was all compassionate, why did leave his followers ignorant of the internal combustion engine, the light bulb, and the cure for cancer and other diseases? Did he not know he could save tens of millions of innocent children over the next two millennia from horrific suffering from smallpox, bubonic palgue, cholera, typhoid, diphtheria, measles, tetanus, etc., or did he choose to allow these children to suffer? Only a sadist or a misanthrope would willfully withhold medical knowledge that could ease the pain of many. I think Jesus was neither a sadist nor a misanthrope.

StAnastasia

Like it or not Johnny, you are wrong. You obviously don’t know much about science let alone evolution. You are not God, but God did give you a spiritual and immortal soul by way of evolution. And, I do hope you’re Mother still thinks that you were as a baby and still are as an adult, a grand miracle in her life.
[/QUOTE]

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

Shaking encyclicals at people, rather than showing by reason & argument where those people seem to be wrong, is not an argument - it’s an evasion of argument.​

It’s also a refusal to carry out a work of mercy - that’s not very charitable, is it ?

Lamentabilli Saneis also known as the Syllabus of Errors.

A quote for you (not shaking it in your face):

WITH TRULY LAMENTABLE RESULTS, our age, casting aside all restraint in its search for the ultimate causes of things, frequently pursues novelties so ardently that it rejects the legacy of the human race. Thus it falls into very serious errors, which are even more serious when they concern sacred authority, the interpretation of Sacred Scripture, and the principal mysteries of Faith. The fact that many Catholic writers also go beyond the limits determined by the Fathers and the Church herself is extremely regrettable. In the name of higher knowledge and historical research, (they say), they are looking for that progress of dogmas which is, in reality, nothing but the corruption of dogmas.

These errors are being daily spread among the faithful. Lest they captivate the faithful’s minds and corrupt the purity of their faith, His Holiness, Pius X, by Divine Providence, Pope, has decided that the chief errors should be noted and condemned by the Office of this Holy Roman and Universal Congregation.
Therefore, after a very diligent investigation and consultation with the Reverend Consultors, the Most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals, the General Inquisitors in matters of faith and morals have judged the following proposals to be condemned and proscribed. In fact, by this current decree, they are condemned and proscribed.

1. 
   *]The ecclesiastical law which prescribes that books concerning the Divine Scriptures are subject to previous examination does not apply to critical scholars and students of scientific exegesis of the Old and New Testament.
   *]The Church’s interpretation of the Sacred Books is by no means to be rejected; nevertheless, it is subject to the more accurate judgment and correction of the exegetes.
   *]From the ecclesiastical judgments and censures passed against free and more scientific exegesis, one can conclude that the Faith the Church proposes contradicts history and that Catholic teaching cannot really be reconciled with the true origins of the Christian religion.
   *]Even by dogmatic definitions the Church’s magisterium cannot determine the genuine sense of the Sacred Scriptures.
   (there are 65 total articles in LS)

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Pope Benedict XVI
L’Osservatore Romano - 10 December 2008
General Audience catechesis on St Paul’s teaching on Adam, the first man, and Christ, the second Adam

Monism maintains that there is no real distinction between God and the universe. Either God is indwelling in the universe as a part of it, not distinct from it (pantheistic Immanentism), or the universe does not exist at all as a reality (Acosmism), but only as a manifestation or phenomenon of God.
[newadvent.org/cathen/10483a.htm](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10483a.htm)

St. Thomas is Acosmist - but in a Catholic sense; & Dante is a Catholic Panentheist. These ideas are capable of being reclaimed for Christ, so we should do so, just as they did.​

In comparison with the Infinitely Real God, all creatures are smoke & wind & dust - they are fictions, compared with Him. As for evolution, the idea fits the fact that anything worthwhile is worth taking time over - the Incarnation is so worthwhile, that 13.7 billion years were taken in preparing for it. Besides, it’s been taken up into the Incarnation of the Word, Whose Body is that of one Who belongs to a race which has evolved - ours: the evolutionary process is all for Him.

 

[wildleafblower]

St. Thomas is Acosmist - but in a Catholic sense; & Dante is a Catholic Panentheist. These ideas are capable of being reclaimed for Christ, so we should do so, just as they did.​

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

St. Thomas is Acosmist - but in a Catholic sense; & Dante is a Catholic Panentheist. These ideas are capable of being reclaimed for Christ, so we should do so, just as they did.​

In comparison with the Infinitely Real God, all creatures are smoke & wind & dust - they are fictions, compared with Him. As for evolution, the idea fits the fact that anything worthwhile is worth taking time over - the Incarnation is so worthwhile, that 13.7 billion years were taken in preparing for it. Besides, it’s been taken up into the Incarnation of the Word, Whose Body is that of one Who belongs to a race which has evolved - ours: the evolutionary process is all for Him.

I don’t mind your interjection of fancy and homespun euphemisms, as long as you qualify your remarks as opinion, personal philosophy and not science or theology. Your syncretizing of Christian dogmas with evolutionary theory is a grave and dangerous error. The Spirit of Christ knows nothing of the supposition that man evolved. It is completely alien to the Teaching Tradition of the Church.

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

1. If anyone examines the state of affairs outside the Christian fold, he will easily discover the principle trends that not a few learned men are following. Some imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution, which has not been fully proved even in the domain of natural sciences, explains the origin of all things, and audaciously support the monistic and pantheistic opinion that the world is in continual evolution. Communists gladly subscribe to this opinion so that, when the souls of men have been deprived of every idea of a personal God, they may the more efficaciously defend and propagate their dialectical materialism.
2. Such fictitious tenets of evolution which repudiate all that is absolute, firm and immutable, have paved the way for the new erroneous philosophy which, rivaling idealism, immanentism and pragmatism, has assumed the name of existentialism, since it concerns itself only with existence of individual things and neglects all consideration of their immutable essences.

Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis

 

[StAnastasia]

I don’t mind your interjection of fancy and homespun euphemisms, as long as you qualify your remarks as opinion, personal philosophy and not science or theology. Your syncretizing of Christian dogmas with evolutionary theory is a grave and dangerous error. The Spirit of Christ knows nothing of the supposition that man evolved. It is completely alien to the Teaching Tradition of the Church.

Start your own religion, if you wish, but Catholicism has no problem accepting evolution. As Catholic theologian John Haught expresses it, evolution is “Darwin’s gift to theology.” That’s why the March conference will be so interesting to me – the Church is eager to dialogue with evolutionary biologists and investigate the implications for Catholic theology of an evolving cosmos.

StAnastasia.

 

[wildleafblower]

This is supplemented by my previous postings, which should be read in conjunction with:

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO MEMBERS OF THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
ON THE OCCASION OF THEIR PLENARY ASSEMBLY

Clementine Hall
Friday, 31 October 2008

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am happy to greet you, the members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, on the occasion of your Plenary Assembly, and I thank Professor Nicola Cabibbo for the words he has kindly addressed to me on your behalf.

In choosing the topic Scientific Insight into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life, you seek to focus on an area of enquiry which elicits much interest. In fact, many of our contemporaries today wish to reflect upon the ultimate origin of beings, their cause and their end, and the meaning of human history and the universe.

In this context, questions concerning the relationship between science’s reading of the world and the reading offered by Christian Revelation naturally arise. My predecessors Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II noted that there is no opposition between faith’s understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences. Philosophy in its early stages had proposed images to explain the origin of the cosmos on the basis of one or more elements of the material world. This genesis was not seen as a creation, but rather a mutation or transformation; it involved a somewhat horizontal interpretation of the origin of the world. A decisive advance in understanding the origin of the cosmos was the consideration of being qua being and the concern of metaphysics with the most basic question of the first or transcendent origin of participated being. In order to develop and evolve, the world must first be, and thus have come from nothing into being. It must be created, in other words, by the first Being who is such by essence.

To state that the foundation of the cosmos and its developments is the provident wisdom of the Creator is not to say that creation has only to do with the beginning of the history of the world and of life. It implies, rather, that the Creator founds these developments and supports them, underpins them and sustains them continuously. Thomas Aquinas taught that the notion of creation must transcend the horizontal origin of the unfolding of events, which is history, and consequently all our purely naturalistic ways of thinking and speaking about the evolution of the world. Thomas observed that creation is neither a movement nor a mutation. It is instead the foundational and continuing relationship that links the creature to the Creator, for he is the cause of every being and all becoming (cf. Summa Theologiae, I, q.45, a. 3).

To “evolve” literally means “to unroll a scroll”, that is, to read a book. The imagery of nature as a book has its roots in Christianity and has been held dear by many scientists. Galileo saw nature as a book whose author is God in the same way that Scripture has God as its author. It is a book whose history, whose evolution, whose “writing” and meaning, we “read” according to the different approaches of the sciences, while all the time presupposing the foundational presence of the author who has wished to reveal himself therein. This image also helps us to understand that the world, far from originating out of chaos, resembles an ordered book; it is a cosmos. Notwithstanding elements of the irrational, chaotic and the destructive in the long processes of change in the cosmos, matter as such is “legible”. It has an inbuilt “mathematics”. The human mind therefore can engage not only in a “cosmography” studying measurable phenomena but also in a “cosmology” discerning the visible inner logic of the cosmos. We may not at first be able to see the harmony both of the whole and of the relations of the individual parts, or their relationship to the whole. Yet, there always remains a broad range of intelligible events, and the process is rational in that it reveals an order of evident correspondences and undeniable finalities: in the inorganic world, between microstructure and macrostructure; in the organic and animal world, between structure and function; and in the spiritual world, between knowledge of the truth and the aspiration to freedom. Experimental and philosophical inquiry gradually discovers these orders; it perceives them working to maintain themselves in being, defending themselves against imbalances, and overcoming obstacles. And thanks to the natural sciences we have greatly increased our understanding of the uniqueness of humanity’s place in the cosmos.

The distinction between a simple living being and a spiritual being that is capax Dei, points to the existence of the intellective soul of a free transcendent subject. Thus the Magisterium of the Church has constantly affirmed that “every spiritual soul is created immediately by God – it is not ‘produced’ by the parents – and also that it is immortal” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 366). This points to the distinctiveness of anthropology, and invites exploration of it by modern thought.

Distinguished Academicians, I wish to conclude by recalling the words addressed to you by my predecessor Pope John Paul II in November 2003: “scientific truth, which is itself a participation in divine Truth, can help philosophy and theology to understand ever more fully the human person and God’s Revelation about man, a Revelation that is completed and perfected in Jesus Christ. For this important mutual enrichment in the search for the truth and the benefit of mankind, I am, with the whole Church, profoundly grateful”.
[snip]
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/october/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20081031_academy-sciences_en.html
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b...ben-xvi_spe_20081031_academy-sciences_en.html

 

[wildleafblower]

Start your own religion, if you wish, but Catholicism has no problem accepting evolution. As Catholic theologian John Haught expresses it, evolution is “Darwin’s gift to theology.” That’s why the March conference will be so interesting to me – the Church is eager to dialogue with evolutionary biologists and investigate the implications for Catholic theology of an evolving cosmos.

StAnastasia.

Humm, let’s hope Anastasia will answer these questions since Anastasia’s claim to fame is “I’m a theologian”.

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

Start your own religion, if you wish, but Catholicism has no problem accepting evolution. As Catholic theologian John Haught expresses it, evolution is “Darwin’s gift to theology.” That’s why the March conference will be so interesting to me – the Church is eager to dialogue with evolutionary biologists and investigate the implications for Catholic theology of an evolving cosmos.

StAnastasia.

Ah, how telling that it comes to this. Those that defend the consistent, Holy Spirit vouchsafed message of the Lord, His Apostles, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church are told to leave the Church. Just as the Lord and His disciples were rejected by Israel, so now those who stand for the Magisterial Proclamation are told to get out and start their own Church.

Teilhard de Chardin’s views have long been rejected as WildLeafBlower correctly reminds us. His idolatrous adoration of evolutionary principle was formally denounced by the Holy See. And why should I care for Haught when I have Peter, Paul, John, Basil, Augustine, Aquinas and Leo XIII?

Catholicism ‘accepts’ evolution? Then why this thread? Oh, we must leave and start our own Church, therefore, in your view, we are not Catholics. ‘True’ Catholics dismiss the Magisterial Teaching Authority and ‘accept’ unproven pagan theories because some theologian says its so.

You would win so much more respect if you would just admit that its a belief and not a fact. No transistional forms in the fossil record. Uniformitarianist geology has been disproven. Laws of thermodynamics and irreducible complexity. No evidence of human civilization older than 10,000 years. Hundreds of corroborations of Genesis from the fossil and archeological record. No dissidence or divergent theories are even considered by the intolerant consensus of [unbelieving] scientists. And yet we are to overthrow 5,000 years of the testimony of the holy martyrs for this.

And theistic evolutionists shrug off the fact that Jesus Himself believed Genesis. Wow.

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

To state that the foundation of the cosmos and its developments is the provident wisdom of the Creator is not to say that creation has only to do with the beginning of the history of the world and of life. It implies, rather, that the Creator founds these developments and supports them, underpins them and sustains them continuously. Thomas Aquinas taught that the notion of creation must transcend the horizontal origin of the unfolding of events, which is history, and consequently all our purely naturalistic ways of thinking and speaking about the evolution of the world. Thomas observed that creation is neither a movement nor a mutation. It is instead the foundational and continuing relationship that links the creature to the Creator, for he is the cause of every being and all becoming (cf. Summa Theologiae, I, q.45, a. 3).

His Holiness Benedict XVI
TO MEMBERS OF THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ON THE OCCASION OF THEIR PLENARY ASSEMBLY
Clementine Hall
Friday, 31 October 2008 link

I don’t know why you think the Holy Father is giddy about “accepting” evolution. I hear a ringing endorsement of Humani Generis here.

 

[mpartyka]

Two quick notes:

First, I think a couple of other points in the Syllabus of Errors are relevant to the present discussion:

1. Divine inspiration does not extend to all of Sacred Scriptures so that it renders its parts, each and every one, free from every error.

1. Scientific progress demands that the concepts of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption be re-adjusted.

Second, “There are no transistional forms in the fossil record,” is simply not a true statement. I again recommend Donald Prothero’s Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, which was published in 2007 and contains the most recent (at the time) fossil discoveries, including many transitional forms (e.g., a fish with elbows).

–Mike

 

[TMC]

I haven’t averred to any conflict between faith and science. True science can only be an ally of reason informed by the light of revelation. When you conflate contemporary unproven theories and hypotheses with science, you are out on a limb. Evolution is not science. Neither is the rationalist redaction criticism you apply to the Sacred Scriptures. Both are philosophical positions that you bring to the Word of God.

What is science then? Are you saying that hypotheses based on observation and theories backed by experimental inquiry are not science? I agree that hypotheses and theories are generally flawed, which is why they are continually being refined. I am not a scientist, but I believe that this process of refining theories through observation and experimentation is what we call science. How would you define science?

We must test the spirits (I John). The carnal/natural man cannot receive the things of the spirit of God (St Paul). One need not be a scientist nor a theologian to discern the spirit by which you are speaking.

What are you saying here? Are you suggesting I am speaking for the devil?

 

[cpayne]

Please cite a Papal Encyclical that supports your claim. I can cite several that support the Church’s:

Divino Afflante Spiritu
Lamentabili Sane
Providentissimus Deus
Humani Generis

I was specifically referring to your equation of atheism and evolution. Are you denying that the last several popes accepted evolutionary theory as an accurate picture of the physical development of humanity?
(Just want to get the claim straight before I have to do the necessary research.)

 

[cpayne]

What are you saying here? Are you suggesting I am speaking for the devil?

I don’t think he was SUGGESTING it.

Seriously, though, here’s another recommended read, this one from Catholics: Handbook of Christian Apologetics, by Kreeft (Peter) and Tacelli. They discuss the relationship between myth and the biblical accounts, and provide a good checklist on how to differentiate between what is presented in the Bible as strictly historical and what is not.

 

[TMC]

I don’t mind your interjection of fancy and homespun euphemisms, as long as you qualify your remarks as opinion, personal philosophy and not science or theology. Your syncretizing of Christian dogmas with evolutionary theory is a grave and dangerous error. The Spirit of Christ knows nothing of the supposition that man evolved. It is completely alien to the Teaching Tradition of the Church.

Start your own religion, if you wish, but Catholicism has no problem accepting evolution. As Catholic theologian John Haught expresses it, evolution is “Darwin’s gift to theology.” That’s why the March conference will be so interesting to me – the Church is eager to dialogue with evolutionary biologists and investigate the implications for Catholic theology of an evolving cosmos.
StAnastasia.

Official: Bible and Darwin Could Both Be Right

There is no a priori incompatibility between the Bible and Darwin’s theory of evolution, says the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, 9/19/2008

Evolution Doesn’t Contradict Bible, Cardinal Affirms

There is no incompatibility between the scientific theory of evolution and the Christian understanding of creation, says the archbishop of Vienna.

…

The prelate explained that there is no contradiction between evolution and a belief in creation, but rather a “conflict between two diverse concepts of man and his rationality, between the Christian vision and a rationalism that pretends to reduce man to the biological dimension.”

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, 11/3/2008

 

[mpartyka]

I also noticed in the Syllabus the following:

1. The critics can ascribe to Christ a knowledge without limits only on a hypothesis which cannot be historically conceived and which is repugnant to the moral sense. That hypothesis is that Christ as man possessed the knowledge of God and yet was unwilling to communicate the knowledge of a great many things to His disciples and posterity.

This item speaks directly – even presciently, one might say – to some points raised earlier:

Jesus’ knowledge about science and the cosmos was limited to what could be known in first century Palestine. His knowledge about the composition of scripture and the history of its redactions and literary history over a millennium was limited by what was known at the time.
…
If Jesus possessed all knowledge and was all compassionate, why did leave his followers ignorant of the internal combustion engine, the light bulb, and the cure for cancer and other diseases? Did he not know he could save tens of millions of innocent children over the next two millennia from horrific suffering from smallpox, bubonic palgue, cholera, typhoid, diphtheria, measles, tetanus, etc., or did he choose to allow these children to suffer? Only a sadist or a misanthrope would willfully withhold medical knowledge that could ease the pain of many. I think Jesus was neither a sadist nor a misanthrope.

–Mike

 

[patg]

I think this is good. Although, again, I’m looking for a more balanced understanding of our prophet’s behavior and character: “something greater than Jonah is here.”

I agree, we should look for balance in interpretation - this is a point well made in Dei Verbum.

I think that there is benefit to be derived from your post. I hope that you’ll eventually be persuaded of the historical character of this great book from God…

I may. But even if that never happens, the thought process both of us used is essential to the analysis of scripture. You have to look at it from all perspectives, not just literally and not just as fiction. If one ignores either side, one is denying the teaching authority of Dei Verbum.