C
Contarini
Guest
Missed how?
Your interpretation of just what things have been so declared is not shared by many of your fellow Catholics. Now possibly they and I are wrong, but this is a fact that you need to acknowledge. Many learned persons of ostensible good will disagree with you on what the Church’s position is. Thus, just as Protestant fundamentalists act unreasonably when they claim that their interpretation of Scripture is simply what Scripture teaches, so it seems to me that you are acting unreasonably in not recognizing that your interpretation of the Church’s position is rejected by many Catholics.
I just skimmed the document and did not see Jonah mentioned. I think you may be relying on the CE article on Jonah, which says that PD implicitly condemned the theory of inspiration held by the two Catholic scholars whom PD recognizes as having taught that Jonah was non-historical. That’s not quite the same thing.
In fact PD does appear to condemn the view I presented above, as follows:
You chose a poor example when you focused on Jonah, since in fact I suggested that Jonah may have been intended by the human author as a work of fiction, and it is quite obvious (from the example of Jesus’ parables if nothing else) that Scripture does contain some works of fiction–nor does PD say anything different.
However, Pope Leo seems in the passage above to be taking square aim at the argument I endorsed, that Scripture is inerrant in the sense inspired by God, so that we should look at the reason why God inspired a passage in order to understand in what sense it is without error.
His phrase “not so much what God has said” is not a good way of describing my position. Rather, I’d say that we should consider (in this context) not so much what the human author intended as what Tradition teaches us to believe that God primarily intended. But, of course, his very use of this phrase shows that he identifies the human author’s meaning with God’s meaning in a way that I’m unwilling to do.
So I agree that my position doesn’t seem to be compatible with PD. However, I point out yet again that many of your fellow Catholics do not consider PD to be infallible in all its clauses, and that it certainly is not the last thing the Magisterium has said on the subject. A distinct trajectory is noticeable from Pope Leo through Divino Afflante Spiritu through Dei Verbum, and the trajectory points toward a greater openness to legitimate Biblical criticism and a more nuanced understanding of what it means to say that Scripture is without error.
I should also add that while I appreciate your courtesy in saying that my position is “acceptable for Edwin, since he is not a Catholic,” I don’t accept the underlying assumption about the implications of not being in communion with Rome. Isn’t it “false ecumenism” to accept that any baptized Christian is not subject to the doctrinal standards of the Catholic Church? I understand, of course, that what you mean is probably that the standards of my own communion don’t require me to take a literal view. But your wording seemed to be saying that “non-Catholics” aren’t obliged to follow Catholic doctrine–in fact to be Catholic. And surely you should hold that we are!
I certainly wish to adhere to everything that the Catholic Church teaches. Whether the second-millennium developments in Western or “Roman” Catholicism fully and adequately represent the teaching of the Catholic Church is a point that I believe to be somewhat open to question, though I certainly acknowledge that I have an obligation to seek communion with Rome and to respect the authority of the Pope.
God bless,
Edwin
if I pass away today and come back as someone else, if there is such a thing as…, I would like to come back being a catholic scholar because of how accurate they are, and even maybe a Jesuit…but that would be asking for to much, a teacher.