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

[Catholic_Johnny]

Post #397 below should say

should not be lightly forsaken for novelties introduced by profane science and documentary hypothesists.

My apologies.

 

[StAnastasia]

Anastasia, let’s face it, if you can read than obviously you are able to comprehend but have failed to respond so let me try it again. Do you agree with what Pope Benedict XVI wrote below? A simple answer from you will let me know if you agree with the POPE who is the teaching authority of the Church. Here it is:

Blower, I don’t do the kind of antagonistic inquisition you tend to level at people (e.g., like you did to SpiritMeadow). I don’t respond to rude demands that I genuflect in assent to some particular piece you have posted. Your screed has nothing to do with our discussion at hand, which is about how theology in the twenty-first century reflects the contemporary evolutionary world view, just as thirteenth century theology reflected the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic world view. When you’re ready to return to that discussion, we can proceed. Otherwise, good day to you.

StAnastasia

 

[StAnastasia]

Clearly the fruit of evolutionary theory is death, destruction, utopianism, religious persecution, war, atheism, iconoclasm, and immorality. When syncretized with Christianity it produces doubt, confusion, heterodoxy, antisupernaturalism, and finally apostasy. The Churches of Europe and Russia are ample testimony.

Tut tut! You’re so out of touch. All I can do is to recommend reading far more widely in theology than the EWTN reading list.

StAnastasia

 

[Pete_Holter]

The oldest tree now living is a 4,600+ year old bristlecone called “Methuselah” in the White Mountains of California. Some reports have it as 4,789 years old.

If the flood happened when the bible says it did, how did this tree survive? The bible dates the flood at 2400 years before Christ. This tree was 200 years old then. How did it survive the flood?

Neil! My brother!

What do you think of Sungenis’ dating scheme?

 

[StAnastasia]

What do you think of Sungenis’ dating scheme?

If Sungenis is correct, no doubt the Holy Spirit will arrange for his philosophy to triumph shortly. If he isn’t correct, perhaps the Holy Spirit has spoken through the American Astronomical Union, the American Society of Geophysics, and a host of other organizations. The truth will out!

StAnastasia

 

[wildleafblower]

Blower, I don’t do the kind of antagonistic inquisition you tend to level at people (e.g., like you did to SpiritMeadow). I don’t respond to rude demands that I genuflect in assent to some particular piece you have posted. Your screed has nothing to do with our discussion at hand, which is about how theology in the twenty-first century reflects the contemporary evolutionary world view, just as thirteenth century theology reflected the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic world view. When you’re ready to return to that discussion, we can proceed. Otherwise, good day to you.

StAnastasia

Anastasia, I don’t appreciate you calling me Blower. In the future please use my handle name “Wildleafblower”. I’m surprised by your comments. They aren’t what I would expect from a person who claims to be a Roman Catholic theologian. Apparently, asking you a simple question sends you off in a rant of induendos. Pitiful! So you think it’s rude to ask someone a simple question or seriously debate with others.(e.g., like SpiritMeadow & Peter Hess). And you have made very clear that it is “you” who decides what it is that “we” should be discussing. That’s wishful thinking on your behalf. Furthermore, you appear to divert from the question I asked of you purely to avoid the answer, which leaves me wondering that your answer might be contrary to what the Pope has stated in my last message. Humm. As far as I’m concerned you have failed to impress me. My concern is that you have stated on another topic which we both were on that you are going to teach a RCIA class. Well, I’ve taught RCIA classes. People ask questions. Lot’s of questions. I wouldn’t call that the INQUISITION! In all fairness, my last question to you has everything to do with scripture. Remember ADAM! Be honest, you seem to me to be avoiding ADAM in your ‘quaint twenty-first century contemporary-evolutionary world view’ that appears to be contrary to that of BENEDICT XVI comments on The Apostle’s teaching on the relation between Adam and Christ unless you state otherwise. I think this is an extremely important discussion. I’m waiting . . .

 

[Mea_Culpa]

Blower, I don’t do the kind of antagonistic inquisition you tend to level at people (e.g., like you did to SpiritMeadow). I don’t respond to rude demands that I genuflect in assent to some particular piece you have posted. Your screed has nothing to do with our discussion at hand, which is about how theology in the twenty-first century reflects the contemporary evolutionary world view, just as thirteenth century theology reflected the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic world view. When you’re ready to return to that discussion, we can proceed. Otherwise, good day to you.

StAnastasia

Do you really think we should change our beliefs based on whatever secular “worldview” is popular at a certain time?

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

I guess if you believe that Holy Scripture is a collection of fairy tales, you can believe anything.

The Bible is inspired and inerrant. That is the teaching of the Catholic Church.

 

[StAnastasia]

Anastasia, I don’t appreciate you calling me Blower. In the future please use my handle name "Wildleafblower.

Blower, there is a bit of hypocrisy in your objecting to my choice of reference to you, since it was you who decided unilaterally in post #394 to begin abbreviating my screen name. I appreciate that no more than you do, and I shall resume referring to you by your screen name when you accord me the same honour.

StAnastasia

 

[Mea_Culpa]

If Sungenis is correct, no doubt the Holy Spirit will arrange for his philosophy to triumph shortly. If he isn’t correct, perhaps the Holy Spirit has spoken through the American Astronomical Union, the American Society of Geophysics, and a host of other organizations. The truth will out!

StAnastasia

Isn’t it more likely that the Holy Spirit has spoken through Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church?

Remember the First Commandment - “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before you.” The American Astronomical Union is not a god that we should worship. Neither is the American Society of Geophysics, or a host of other organizations. You are making science into a golden calf - a false god that you are worshipping instead of the Lord.

It seems you get angry when some people on here refuse to bow down to your golden calf and pay it homage. All knees will bend at the name of Christ Jesus, not at the name of Darwin.

 

[StAnastasia]

Do you really think we should change our beliefs based on whatever secular “worldview” is popular at a certain time?..The Bible is inspired and inerrant. That is the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Mea Culpa, I’m not sure what you mean by “changing our beliefs.” Yes – some are mutable. The Church Fathers of the first few centuries accepted a small, geocentric cosmos, with “hell” at the center of the earth and “heaven” in the sphere of the primum mobile. The Fathers knew nothing of the pulmonary circulation of the blood, of the the germ theory of disease, of the theory of gravity, of atomic theory, or evolutionary theory, of airplane travel, of the Hubble Red Shift, of the Big Bang, of the Pauli Exclusion Principle, of the Deep History of Time, of Paleolithic megafauna, or of the chemical composition of gases.

Some are immutable, e.g., the Trinity, the saving work of Jesus Christ, the life of the world to come.

Yes, I do think we need to change our belief as the secular worldview changes, and we need to reinterpret our theology accordingly.

StAnastasia

 

[StAnastasia]

Isn’t it more likely that the Holy Spirit has spoken through Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church?

No. The Bible was not written to teach us about astronomy, or geology, or hydrology, or species diversification. These things are discovered or “revealed” gradually by the Holy Spirit over the centuries. Of course atheists will see scientific progess only in a secular humanist light, but we Christians are not bound by that.

StAnastasia

 

[Pete_Holter]

If Sungenis is correct, no doubt the Holy Spirit will arrange for his philosophy to triumph shortly. If he isn’t correct, perhaps the Holy Spirit has spoken through the American Astronomical Union, the American Society of Geophysics, and a host of other organizations. The truth will out!

StAnastasia

Good evening StAnastasia,

I was referring to Sungenis acknowledging the gaps in the genealogies as they are found in Scripture, and I was wondering if perhaps Neil would be open to a more ancient dating for the flood in light of this.

Have a nice evening!

 

[StAnastasia]

Good evening StAnastasia,I was referring to Sungenis acknowledging the gaps in the genealogies as they are found in Scripture, and I was wondering if perhaps Neil would be open to a more ancient dating for the flood in light of this.
Have a nice evening!

Oh, I see – thank you for the clarification, Pete Holter. A good evening to you as well!

StAnastasia

 

[Mea_Culpa]

No. The Bible was not written to teach us about astronomy, or geology, or hydrology, or species diversification. These things are discovered or “revealed” gradually by the Holy Spirit over the centuries. Of course atheists will see scientific progess only in a secular humanist light, but we Christians are not bound by that.

StAnastasia

So you see science as an ongoing public revelation by the Holy Spirit, continuing up until today (and presumably into the future)?

 

[StAnastasia]

So you see science as an ongoing public revelation by the Holy Spirit, continuing up until today (and presumably into the future)?

Well, secular scientists would probably see the advancement of scientific knowledge as the fruit of human reason. However, since human reason is itself a gift from God, I regard increased human knowledge concommitantly as a divine gift, perhaps of the Holy Spirit.

StAnastasia

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Teilhard was not the first Catholic theologian to endorse evolution; one might look to Holy Cross Father John Zahm as an early figure in this regard (1898). What makes Teilhard especially important for theology is that he placed evolution in cosmological context, and then interpreted the whole of evolving cosmology through a christological lens, the christology of the cosmic Christ. As important to the twentieth century as Aquinas was to the thirteenth, Teilhard became one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the century, and his fundamental insights have been widely incorporated into theological thought.

StAnastasia

As I recall, Fr. Zahm got into some very hot water as a result. What’s new ?​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Catholic Johnny, unless you have made Thomas Aquinas your God, I recommend you not throw around the term “blasphemy” quite so freely!

What have you said now ? ​

Aquinas was a great thinker in his day, interpreting Catholic theology in light of the recently rediscovered Aristotelian corpus. Teilhard de Chardin was a great thinker in his day, interpreting Catholic theology in light of what we now know about the evolutionary history of the universe, which has completely superseded Aristotelian physics and biology.

A significant measure of the the influence of Teilhard is the extent to which theologians have incorporated and already moved beyond his thinking. I know of no theologians who have rejected evolution and moved backward to articulate an Aristotelian view of the universe. The hundreds of theologians with whom I’ve worked and interacted – including Teilhard’s fellow Jesuits – have taken evolution on board. You might participate in one of the meetings of the North American Teilhard Society some day, just to see how creatively people are workling with evolutionary themes in theology.

StAnastasia,

Thanks for quoting Catholic-bashing Jacko I’ve turned him off, as I was getting tired of his verbal peanut-throwing & lack of intelligent responses - I see I was right to do so.​

I doubt you’ll make any headway by mentioning anything quite so crude as the facts about Aquinas as he was in life, before he became the Great Panjandrum of Catholic thought. He was a great thinker - but he is not infallible, omniscient, inerrant or entirely free of illogic. A great saint - but not God.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Blower, you launch an inquisition that is hard to comprehend!

I see you’re getting the same treatment as yours truly ​

Now, if our friends would only think theologically, rather than reaching at all the time for words of Popes, like Linus - good Papal name, that; *very *apposite - for his comfort blanket, we might actually get somewhere. Unfortunately Fundamentalists, though keen on protesting their orthodoxy, aren’t much good with theology - they have doctrines instead: not theologies

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Isn’t it more likely that the Holy Spirit has spoken through Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church?

No. God is bound to the “official channels” - had it been otherwise, He would not have spoken through the herdsman Amos of Tekoa, not through the artisan Jesus, not through fisherman & a tent-making rabbi. A peasant woman is as likely to be his mouthpiece as any number of clerics.​

And if He wishes to reveal His ways through Darwin or Mendel or Teilhard de Chardin, Marx, Gramsci, or any other, He does so. None of the Biblical characters were anything much either. What they are, they are because God chose them - not because they were great already. This saves the Church & the world from suffocating on their smugness.

Remember the First Commandment - “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before you.” The American Astronomical Union is not a god that we should worship.

Nor is the Church - or the Popes. Like all creatures, they are ***all ***dust & ashes without God.​

Neither is the American Society of Geophysics, or a host of other organizations. You are making science into a golden calf - a false god that you are worshipping instead of the Lord.

It seems you get angry when some people on here refuse to bow down to your golden calf and pay it homage. All knees will bend at the name of Christ Jesus, not at the name of Darwin.

Yes - not to Tradition, Magisterium, BVM, Pope, or Church. They are nothings, & far less less than nothing, compared to God. Nice that you realise this ​

 

[Catholic_Johnny]

Tut tut! You’re so out of touch. All I can do is to recommend reading far more widely in theology than the EWTN reading list.

StAnastasia

Ad hominem attacks. The last bastion of liberalism. What can you say? There is no credible response. Our Blessed Lord said “you shall know them by their fruits.”