"Separated Bretheren"

[SGWessells]

Cat Herder wrote: “Why is it that, in your mind, disease must be caused EITHER by the devil OR by germs? Where did germs come from? Do you really think that an all-loving God would create cancer?”

I know you mean well, Cat, but if you’re suggesting that the devil created germs, you are veering dangerously close to dualism. Are you suggesting that the devil made flies, ticks, mosquitoes, roaches, and other disease-spreading insects, despite the scripture that says God made the creeping things?? What about someone who gets bitten by a rattlesnake? Did God make the snake without venom, which the devil added later? How then did it kill its prey? Examples could be multiplied, but I think we should recognize that God made creatures the way they are because He wanted them that way, even though they may be dangerous to us. We have to trust that His reasons are good, and that all manner of things will be well in the end. Otherwise, we’ll be telling ourselves that God only makes His messengers winds when they’re balmy breezes, but the devil makes tornadoes (Ps. 104:4). Before you know it, that sort of thinking makes you exalt Satan into God’s evil twin, and suddenly you’re a Zoroastrian or a Gnostic. Don’t go there. Read Job chapter 40 instead.

 

[JReducation]

Cat Herder wrote: “Why is it that, in your mind, disease must be caused EITHER by the devil OR by germs? Where did germs come from? Do you really think that an all-loving God would create cancer?”

I know you mean well, Cat, but if you’re suggesting that the devil created germs, you are veering dangerously close to dualism. Are you suggesting that the devil made flies, ticks, mosquitoes, roaches, and other disease-spreading insects, despite the scripture that says God made the creeping things?? What about someone who gets bitten by a rattlesnake? Did God make the snake without venom, which the devil added later? How then did it kill its prey? Examples could be multiplied, but I think we should recognize that God made creatures the way they are because He wanted them that way, even though they may be dangerous to us. We have to trust that His reasons are good, and that all manner of things will be well in the end. Otherwise, we’ll be telling ourselves that God only makes His messengers winds when they’re balmy breezes, but the devil makes tornadoes (Ps. 104:4). Before you know it, that sort of thinking makes you exalt Satan into God’s evil twin, and suddenly you’re a Zoroastrian or a Gnostic. Don’t go there. Read Job chapter 40 instead.

We have to be careful how we say this. It is a Catholic dogma that death and disease enter the world through sin. To deny this is heresy. We know that Mary was spared from both, the sickness and the effects of the grave, because she was sinless. Augustine and the other Fathers help us understand that there is a difference between the natural order of things and the disorder introduced by sin.

While it is natural for a snake to kill its pray in order to each and natural for mosquitoes and other creatures to carry germs, it is not part of the original plan of creation that these things would harm man. These vectors and microscopic life forms were created to co-exist with man and to enrich his life, not to do him harm. The harm enters through sin.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Cat_Herder]

Cat Herder wrote: “Why is it that, in your mind, disease must be caused EITHER by the devil OR by germs? Where did germs come from? Do you really think that an all-loving God would create cancer?”

I know you mean well, Cat, but if you’re suggesting that the devil created germs, you are veering dangerously close to dualism.

The devil corrupts what God made. That’s not dualism. That’s reality.

Look at cancer. It is by definition a disordered corruption of God’s creation, the human body.

 

[Steadfast_love]

…Augustine and the other Fathers help us understand that there is a difference between the natural order of things and the disorder introduced by sin…

I would like to read more about that distinction but I don’t know where to start. Would you be so kind as to recomend a starting point? My wife and I are first generation Catholics and we’re trying keep one step ahead of our kids.

 

[JReducation]

I would like to read more about that distinction but I don’t know where to start. Would you be so kind as to recomend a starting point? My wife and I are first generation Catholics and we’re trying keep one step ahead of our kids.

To stay one step ahead of today’s kids you should have started two generations ago.

You can go to St. Augustine: Anti Pelagian Writings go to chapter III: A Treatise On Nature.

Another very good site to have bookmarked is Theology Library.

To save money, which I don’t have, so I’m not sure what I’m saving I print only the chapters or portions that I want to read and place them in binders with dividers by topics: ie. Sin and Nature.

I find it a more useful filing system that filing by writers: ie. Augustine, Bonaventure, Clement, Gregory, etc.

I learned this from my many years teaching theology. I needed the subject, not the writer. Obviously, when I open to the subject page, I can see how many people and who wrote on this subject.

I hope this helps.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[SGWessells]

Roy5 wrote: “But I’m troubled when I see many in the church looking to the ancient past for guidance. For example, I’ve read the Church Fathers - many of them - and they had wisdom and knowledge for their time, but much of what they wrote sounds primitive, superstition and simply false today.”

Yes, we moderns have learned some things. We have also forgotten some things. Nobody reads the Fathers for their expertise in physics and astronomy, just as nobody knowledgeable in theology sits at the feet of Dawkins and Hawking for insights into the mysteries of God’s kingdom. Just because the scientific knowledge of the Fathers has been surpassed doesn’t mean they have nothing of value to teach us in other areas, and far more vital in the long run. Is it more important to learn how the heavens go, or how to go to Heaven?

 

[Usagi]

I don’t pretend or plan to be an expert on Vatican II. Actually, I sense that efforts are being made in some quarters to interpret Vatican II in the most conservative way possible, and I worry about that. In my view the church hasn’t made enough reforms, and the push in some circles to go back to - say - more masses in Latin, etc., worries me.

The “push,” as you put it, is to interpret Vatican II in continuity with all that has come before. That is indeed “conservative” in the dictionary sense.

Both extreme Traditionalists and extreme adherents to “the spirit of Vatican II” tend to view the Church before the Council and the Church after the Council as very different entities. Of course, they differ in which of the two they consider superior.

The Pope’s position (and, I would argue, the only logical one) is that the Church is and always has been the same, and therefore that the documents of Vatican II ought not to be read (whether with disgust or with glee) as breaking with what came before so much as restating the same truths in a new context.

While some of the pushing for more of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is undoubtedly being done by Traditionalists of the sort I mention above, I am sure that the Pope’s own concern is unity rather than one-upsmanship. If both forms of the Mass are available and identified by the Pope as two forms of one rite, then there should no longer be so much reason to fight over whose version of the Mass is better. If the two forms can coexist, then the extremists on both sides are foiled. I would think you would appreciate that bit of cleverness on the Pope’s part, given your laudable preference for peaceful coexistence.

Usagi

 

[SGWessells]

Two quotes from JReducation:" Astronomy, for example is a science or a knowledge of the Astros. Is it the only knowledge? No. Does it provide the answer to every question that we can raise about the Astros? No. It does not intend to do so. It limits itself to that which can be seen and measured. There are other realities about the Astros, such as their reason for existence, which astronomy cannot explain and does not attempt to explain. It only tries to explain how they work."

But the Bible says the purpose of the sun and stars is to provide light to earth and enable man to measure time. Every purpose theology mentions for them is centered on man. The heavens declare the glory of God, yes…but to whom? Not to the angels; they live in Heaven, which transcends our material plane. But when science finds out how the “Astros” works – how vast the distances, how the universe is expanding, how many hundreds of billions of stars there are, and over three hundred planets so far discovered outside our solar system – it seems the height of arrogance to relegate their purpose to merely telling us on this little backwater planet in one of billions of galaxies when it’s time to plant the barley. But that is all the Fathers knew. Science does overlap with theology in many fields, notably biology (see the thread called “is the earth only 6,000 years old”). The very fact that a product of our educational system needs to ask that question shows me, at least, that science needs to invade the domain if theology a lot farther and faster, or we will raise a generation of ignoramuses who cannot compete with China, Korea, and India.

JR again:" The astronomer asks questions that he can answer. The theologian asks questions that can only be answered through our understanding of God. That’s why empirical science and theology are not in contradiction. We put them in juxtaposition, because our current education system is so lacking, that we’re no longer taught the levels of rhetoric and the domains of discourse. When we see the Fathers say one thing about the physical universe and the biologist who studies evolution says another, we scream that one of them has to be wrong, because they are saying different things. The truth is that they are speaking about the same universe, but not in the same cognitive domain. "

The Fathers assumed the Aristotelian picture of the Heavens as primary evidence of God’s rationality and harmonious ordering of the world. Their universe, with earth at the center, the sun and the “other” planets circling it on crystalline spheres, and Heaven outside the last sphere in which the stars were encrusted like jewels in an altarpiece, was itself part of the reason they had for glorifying God. It was not set apart from theology in its own separate compartment. It was part of “natural philosophy,” as was whatever rudiments they had of the scientific method, and they thought it was as objectively real as we know our picture to be… It was only when science proved that tidy picture was wrong that theologians felt it necessary to separate science and theology into self-contained realms that never interact. It is true that science studies the tangible and theology the intangible; but theology doesn’t stop there. By saying God created the world in a certain way, it infringes on the territory of science. When it says that God created the soul of each person immediately upon conception (or, in Thomas’ case, some time after, and twice as long for a woman), it infringes on neuroscience and genetics, which are showing the marked influence genes and brain chemistry have on behavior and personality – that is, the “soul” God supposedly created distinct and with its solely “spiritual” motivation.