The Catholic Bible is completely True, BUT IS IT ALSO Completely Factual?

[Nita]

What really gets me is the fact that so many Catholics believe in the symbolism of Genesis due to macroevolution. I don’t really care about the scientific evidence, but how does one distinguish the symbolism from the pure facts (using purely spiritual and/or theological bases) when the Church doesn’t have an official teaching on it?

What one has to do is study and learn the doctrines of the Church. This is a responsibility we have. (Two great resources: The Catechism of the Catholic Church and Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma) Having learned them, and accepted them as true, we must interpret Scripture in a way that does not contradict these defined truths.

When it comes to Genesis and macroevolution, we may not interpret it in a way that contradicts Church teaching on creation and original sin.

 

[DorianGregorian]

A good reading on this specific topic could be found in the Providentissimus Deus.

“But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred.”

This quote is from the section labeled Inspiration Incompatible with Error.

The Scripture is free of all error, but we do not yet have a full understanding of it. That is why it continues to be studied even today.

 

[PJM]

Help - this turning into a thread about semantics (which is hugely important…) ​

Could you say what you man by “factual” ? FWIW, Tolkien believed, rightly I think, that in some sense his stories were “true”. He did not imagine that the world of hobbits, elves, orcs & the other peoples who inhabit his books were actually existing beings.

Here’s an example for you. Is it true? Yes is it factual?

Mt.16: 5 When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. 6 Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 7 And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “We brought no bread.” 8 But Jesus, aware of this, said, “O men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? 9 Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? 10 Or the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?”
**
So here are the questions on this being both TRUE and factual…

Were their exactly 4,000 men and exactly 5,000 men, and what about the baskets collected were their really 12 or is this number symbolic (or both?)**

The parable of Jotham in Judges 9 attributes to plants & trees such familiar activities as taking council, seeking a ruler, refusing the honour, & speech itself. It does not follow that Jotham had lost his wits - the truth of the parable is “located” in its lesson for the listeners, not in its description of the activities of plants & trees: activities which are impossible to them, but not at all impossible to men; such as those whom Jotham was seeking to persuade by his parable.

The parable of the Good Samaritan does not require that Jesus was speaking of a really existing traveller who was set up by really existing robbers, nor that a really existing Levite & a really existing priest passed by him on the other side; nor that a really existing Samaritan helped the traveller. The story, with its mention of Jerusalem & Jericho, is probable in every respect but one: that a Samaritan would help (or be helped by) a Jew. And that is the entire point of it - it is a story that is meant to elicit a response from the hearer; the real existence of the dramatis personae is beside the point: Jesus may have based it on real circumstances of some description, or he may have invented the whole thing: it does not matter.

So then you agree that the Bible is “TRUE but not always factual!” Excellent examples.

So then, how does one discern with regularity and ceritude when "facts are fiction?"

What does matter, very much, is the point of the story; it matters as much as it did then, because it describes how people in every age behave. The dramatis personae might bedifferent for us: Samaritans & Jews were at enmity in that culture, not in ours - but the point would be the same, even if the parable became (say) that of the Good Democrat helping the mugged Republican. The parable challenges & upsets our biases, & an adaptation for today would need to do the same. The person whose group we hate is sometimes our neighbour when those who might seem to be our natural allies pass by us, & on the other side. It is not “just” a story, even though it is not an account of really occuring events - so if it is to “speak to our condition”, we need to get past the specific details of the parable as it was told, & identify the modern equivalents of the characters in it; otherwise, it speaks to its own age alone.

On this point we are in complete agreement!

Love and prayer’s Pat

 

[diggerdomer]

A good reading on this specific topic could be found in the Providentissimus Deus.

“But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred.”

This quote is from the section labeled Inspiration Incompatible with Error.

The Scripture is free of all error, but we do not yet have a full understanding of it. That is why it continues to be studied even today.

Good reading, yes, but it has to be understood in its historical and theological context (i.e. in 1893).

A better reading to understand what Catholic teaching regarding Scripture and its interpretation – addressing the topic of this Thread --would of course be current Church teaching, e.g. the Catechism (para 50-141), Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum), the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” (1993, I think) and so on.