Why two accounts of creation?

[TankGirl]

Gorgias wrote:

You’re misusing the terms “literal sense of Scripture” and “spiritual sense of Scripture” here. (That’s kind of what I figured was going on, and is the reason I suggested that you review the meanings of the terms.) The literal sense is not “what is said on the face of the text”, but rather “what the intended meaning of the author was.” This speaks to the meaning that God, as the divine author of Scripture, intended when He inspired the human writer.

Gorgias, I wanted to be sure I wasn’t mistaken, so I spent some of a pleasant afternoon making sure I wasn’t going off on a tangent,

I wasn’t.

Please see:

Traditionally, there are four senses of Scripture, which are outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 115-119:

Literal Sense: “[T]he meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture” (Catechism, no. 116), the actual event, person, thing described in the biblical text. The literal sense gives rise to the following three “spiritual senses.”
Allegorical Sense: How those things, events, or persons in the literal sense point to Christ and the Paschal Mystery.
Moral Sense: How the literal sense points to the Christian life in the Church.
Anagogical Sense: How the literal sense points to the Christian’s heavenly destiny and the last things.
The foundation for the four senses of Scripture is God’s unique way of communicating. Although humans communicate primarily through words and actions, God communicates not only through His words and deeds (cf. Catechism, no. 1103), but also through the very things He has created. As St. Thomas Aquinas explained, “That God is the author of Holy Scripture should be acknowledged, and He has the power not only of adapting words to signify things (which human writers can also do), but also of adapting things themselves [to signify other things]” (Summa Theologiae I, 1, 10). In other words, God not only communicates through the words of Scripture, but, since He is the Creator and the Lord of history, He gives special meaning to the things, people, and events mentioned in Scripture and uses them as signs to tell us something about his plan of salvation. (This may occur even without the human author’s awareness, since God is coauthor of the Scriptures.)

The classic example to demonstrate the four senses is the temple. In the literal sense, the temple was the actual building that once stood in Jerusalem, in which the Israelite priests offered sacrifice, the people worshipped, and God dwelt in the Holy of Holies.

But this temple of the Old Testament has even higher importance because God has used it as a sign to tell us about greater realities in the New Testament: Jesus and the Christian life. Allegorically, the temple points to Jesus, who said he was the true temple which would be destroyed and raised up in three days (Jn. 2:19-21). Just as the Jerusalem temple was the place of sacrifice for the Jews, so does Jesus’ body house the everlasting sacrifice on Calvary for all humanity.

The moral sense of the temple is found in the Christian, whose body is “a temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:19). Just as the temple contained the awesome presence of God, so do the bodies of Christians hold the presence of the Holy Spirit by virtue of their Baptism. Anagogically, the Jerusalem temple finds its eschatological meaning in the heavenly sanctuary, where God will dwell among us in our eternal home, as described in Book of Revelation (e.g., Rev. 21:22).

Sometimes called spiritual exegesis, typology, or sensus plenior, this method of uncovering the four senses of Scripture is rooted in Catholic Tradition and has been used by many great saints, doctors, and Fathers of the Church, and even by Jesus and the New Testament writers themselves. Unfortunately, this spiritual exegesis has become somewhat of a lost art, with many modern scholars either downplaying or ignoring it. Nonetheless, with the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s recently calling to our attention the four senses of Scripture, there is likely to be a renewal in this rich approach to biblical interpretation.

catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0329.html

Specifically:

Literal Sense: “[T]he meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture” (Catechism, no. 116), the actual event, person, thing described in the biblical text.

I thought you were mistaken. You are.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Exactly as Satan appears today.

If I were writing an article about, say, William Shatner, and I depicted Shatner an a large eggplant, I might be writing a form of truth, but it would not literally be true. In order for my description to be literally true, I’d have to describe Shatner as he is, a human over-actor.

Satan is not literally a reptile.

Correct. Satan is an angel, and angels are pure spirit.

However, Angels can manifest themselves in other forms. Consequently, while the account of the fall may be accurate in its depiction of a serpent, it may simply be a literary device to tell the story of how humans disobeyed God.

Snake or no snake, Satan was in on it.

 

[TankGirl]

Randy wrote:

Perhaps you didn’t get all the way to the end which was contained in an separate blog post, The Age of the World - Part III in which he wrote:
The takeaway message from this is that the Magisterium’s openness to the idea that the universe is billions of years old is not some new, sinister, modernist, post-Vatican II thing. It was accepted–enthusiastically–by Pope Pius XII–the pope who defined the Assumption of Mary and, incidentally, just the year after he defined it.

He also used the finding of Big Bang cosmology and Old Earth science to buttress the idea of the existence of God, while noting a number of important caveats that this reasoning from science cannot be taken as definitive.
In Part III, Akin goes deep into Church documents to reach those conclusions.

As a…um, skeptic…you will need to know this stuff, I think.

Randy, you’re not reading my posts for content. Let’s stop. I see that I’m not going to convince you of anything, and you think I’m not going to be convinced of anything. I made a criticism of Akin, it’s of his methodology, not his conclusions. You didn’t get that at all. Okay, fine, we can’t communicate. Let’s quit.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Gorgias wrote:

Gorgias, I wanted to be sure I wasn’t mistaken, so I spent some of a pleasant afternoon making sure I wasn’t going off on a tangent,

I wasn’t.

Please see:

catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0329.html

Specifically:

I thought you were mistaken. You are.

No, you are incorrect, and here is why:

Catholics interpret the Bible in a “literal” sense, while many fundamentalists, Evangelicals, and others interpret the Bible in a literalist sense.

The “literal” meaning of a passage of Scripture is the meaning that the author of that passage of Scripture intended to convey. The “literalist” interpretation of a passage of Scripture is: “that’s what it says, that’s what it means.”

Let me give you an example to illustrate the difference. If you were to read a passage in a book that said it was “raining cats and dogs outside”, how would you interpret that? As Americans, in the 21st Century, you would know that the author was intending to convey the idea that it was raining pretty doggone hard outside. That would be the “literal” interpretation…the interpretation the author intended to convey. On the other hand, what if you made a “literalist” interpretation of the phrase, “it’s raining cats and dogs”?

The “literalist” interpretation would be that, were you to walk outside, you would actually see cats and dogs falling from the sky like rain. No taking into account the popularly accepted meaning of this phrase. No taking into account the author’s intentions. The words say it was raining cats and dogs, so, by golly, it was raining cats and dogs! That is the literalist, or fundamentalist, way of interpretation.

If someone 2000 years in the future picked up that same book and read, “It was raining cats and dogs outside,” in order to properly understand that passage in the book, they would need a “literal” interpretation, not a “literalist” interpretation. Now, think about that in the context of interpreting the Bible 2000-3000 years after it was written.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Randy wrote:

Randy, you’re not reading my posts for content. Let’s stop. I see that I’m not going to convince you of anything, and you think I’m not going to be convinced of anything. I made a criticism of Akin, it’s of his methodology, not his conclusions. You didn’t get that at all. Okay, fine, we can’t communicate. Let’s quit.

Akin comes to right conclusions despite allegedly bad methodology.

You, despite your self-professed superior methodology, come to the wrong conclusions about Christianity.

I dunno…I recommend you keep reading Akin, and give him a call, if you like. I’m sure he would be happy to speak with you.

 

[buffalo]

The two accounts are complementary.

The first describes the order of creation, the second the importance of man.

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias, I wanted to be sure I wasn’t mistaken, so I spent some of a pleasant afternoon making sure I wasn’t going off on a tangent,

I wasn’t.

I thought you were mistaken. You are.

Actually, I’m not. Since you want to appeal to the Catechism at #116, let’s see what it really says, and not what Sri says it says: “The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation.” In your article, Sri explains it thus: “God not only communicates through the words of Scripture, but, since He is the Creator and Lord of history, He gives special meanings to the things, people and events mentioned in Scripture and uses them as signs to tell us something about his plan of salvation. (This may occur even without the human author’s awareness, since God is the coauthor of Scriptures.)”

Now, Sri is a solid scholar; but his assertion that it is “the actual event, person, thing described in the text” is at odds with his later assertion that it’s really about the meanings that God is able to give the things, people and events. If it were only the things themselves, then the Catechism wouldn’t say that we discover the literal sense “by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation;” it would say that we discover it simply by understanding the words on the page.

You seem to think I’m pulling your leg; I’m not.

Let me suggest another bit of reading from the mind of the Church. In 1994, the Pontifical Biblical Commission published The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church. Reading it might help you step away from your confusion that the literal meaning of Scripture is simply to be understood as the fundamentalist’s literalist appeal to the words on the page (rather than the meaning with which God imbues these words). In particular, the following passage is valuable:

It is not only legitimate, it is also absolutely necessary to seek to define the precise meaning of texts as produced by their authors—what is called the “literal” meaning. St. Thomas Aquinas had already affirmed the fundamental importance of this sense (S.T. I, 1, 10, ad 1).

The literal sense is not to be confused with the “literalist” sense to which fundamentalists are attached. It is not sufficient to translate a text word for word in order to obtain its literal sense. One must understand the text according to the literary conventions of the time. When a text is metaphorical, its literal sense is not that which flows immediately from a word-to-word translation (e.g. “Let your loins be girt”: Lk. 12:35), but that which corresponds to the metaphorical use of these terms (“Be ready for action”). When it is a question of a story, the literal sense does not necessarily imply belief that the facts recounted actually took place, for a story need not belong to the genre of history but be instead a work of imaginative fiction.

The literal sense of Scripture is that which has been expressed directly by the inspired human authors. Since it is the fruit of inspiration, this sense is also intended by God, as principal author. One arrives at this sense by means of a careful analysis of the text, within its literary and historical context. The principal task of exegesis is to carry out this analysis, making use of all the resources of literary and historical research, with a view to defining the literal sense of the biblical texts with the greatest possible accuracy (cf “Divino Afflante Spiritu,” 550). To this end, the study of ancient literary genres is particularly necessary (ibid. 560).

Does a text have only one literal sense? In general, yes; but there is no question here of a hard and fast rule, and this for two reasons. First, a human author can intend to refer at one and the same time to more than one level of reality. This is in fact normally the case with regard to poetry. Biblical inspiration does not reject this capacity of human psychology and language; the fourth Gospel offers numerous examples of it. Second, even when a human utterance appears to have only one meaning, divine inspiration can guide the expression in such way as to create more than one meaning. This is the case with the saying of Caiaphas in John 11:50: At one and the same time it expresses both an immoral political ploy and a divine revelation. The two aspects belong, both of them, to the literal sense, for they are both made clear by the context. Although this example may be extreme, it remains significant, providing a warning against adopting too narrow a conception of the inspired text’s literal sense.

Just to close the loop, then, in the context of our discussion: my assertion about Numbers 31 is that “by means of a careful analysis of the text”, and by being sensitive to stay “within its literary and historical context,” we see that we do not have a passage about God or Moses acting unjustly toward anyone. It is not that the text is metaphorical, or even that it tells a story outside the realm of historical narrative. Rather, understood in its historic context, it’s a story about rooting out sin where it is found. Sitting outside its historic context, do we find the methods described brutal? Absolutely. Are these methods something that would be tolerated today? Of course not. But, within their historic context, the meaning is clear: Midian transgressed against Israel, and therefore, against God. The appropriate response to that kind of sin against God – in that time and place – is precisely what the Israelites did. It does not mean “God is unjust” or “Moses sinned”; no one in that historical context would walk away from that passage with that interpretation. So, if we want to ask what the “literal sense” of the passage is, we cannot impose a 21st century historical context upon it and still hope to understand it.

 

[Gorgias]

You surprise me, TankGirl; reading the Akin essay, I thought you’d absolutely love it! Akin describes his project in the essay as “from a purely literary perspective … trying to arrive at the correct interpretation by considering the question of textual interpretation first… my interest is in figuring out what the text most likely means taken on its own terms.”

In other words, he’s not ‘betraying fundamentalist sympathy’; he’s taking on the fundamentalists on their own territory, showing that their approach leads to bad results.

You can’t accept his project and then diss him for not taking into account science; he provides a disclaimer, right at the start, that this isn’t what he’s going to attempt in this essay!

Concerning strict 6-day creation:

It’s an interpretation that a reasonable person can come to upon reading the text

Umm… again: that’s. not. his. project. If one reads the text on its own, then he’s right – the ‘ordinary day’ interpretation is the likely and reasonable one that will be reached. (Is that interpretation, then, the most plausible one? Akin answers ‘no.’)

It’s more plausible by leaps and bounds than the others we have considered. And I would most definitely hold this view of the text if I didn’t think
there was a more plausible one.

Which is bad, because the day-age theory at least is consistent with the major facts of history, which makes it more true…Akin considers it less true due to linguistic analysis, which is pretty much fundamentalism writ small.

Hmm… are you unhappy because you’re saying that Akin is referring to the day-age theory here? He’s not – he’s saying that the ordinary day theory is the one that’s “more plausible”.

Or, perhaps you’re unhappy with his ranking? You’d prefer that he like the day-age theory more than the ordinary-day theory? That doesn’t make sense either – after all, it’s not just linguistic analysis that condemns the day-age approach, which Akin mentions: how can days and nights exists three days prior to the creation of the sun?

No, the first big clue is that the universe was not created in six days 6,000 years ago.

Two problems: first, you’re introducing the notion of “6000 years”, which is a concept that’s external to the creation narrative. We can’t posit new-earth creationism unless we take the report of the ages of the patriarchs as literal and historically true. So, it’s irrelevant in the context of the present discussion. Secondly, however, your assertion about the universe not being created in six days is, yet again, an appeal to science. Just in case it hasn’t sunk in: that’s. not. Akin’s. project. here.

(Really now: if he’s going to dismantle a variety of fundamentalist approaches to Genesis 1, he needs to avoid an appeal to science, since a fundamentalist will reject that approach out of hand. Rather, Akin must wade into the fundamentalist’s territory and demonstrate his own internal inconsistencies in order to have a hope of convincing them.

To use internal consistency as the primary analysis of how to interpret the creation narrative, even if Akin comes to the right answer, is spooky. Why? Because it indicates that Akin is not interpreting the scriptures according to reason as well, which is precisely what the Church tells us to do!

See! You’re almost there! Don’t stop now – keep going!!! His motivation for this essay was his previous essay on Hugh Ross’ “Death Star” argument, which asserted not only that the day-age interpretation of Genesis 1 is correct, but that the ages of the patriarchs are likewise to be taken literally. That is, in this essay, the starting point is the observation that fundamentalist-literalist approaches to Genesis 1 tend to fail. Therefore, he’s not going to “interpret the scriptures according to reason” or do “precisely what the Church tells us to do” – rather, he’s going to go toe-to-toe with the fundamentalists and beat them at their own game! Bravo! That’s it! You’ve got it! (Congratulations…)

If I said that I believed that Jesus rose from the dead because the Greek of the Gospels compelled that interpretation for linguistic reasons, but I did in fact see how someone could believe that Jesus never rose because that was the second most likely interpretation - and I said all this with no reference to the external reality of the resurrection, you’d call me crazy. You might envy my Greek skills, but you’d realize that I had lost the plot.

But, if I knew you were responding to others who had lost the plot, I’d understand why you were disproving them from the basis of their own arguments.

 

[WilT]

Because creation is so very, very wonderful!

Because it takes more than one account to probe God’s marvelous creation!

Because our human minds are not infinite, we need many accounts to even grasp a molecule of what has happened!

Because God loves our limited material physical spiritual being so much that He wanted us to understand the beauty of our own personal human nature!

 

[TankGirl]

Gorgias - Nice reply on the Akin article. Allow me to process.

 

[Randy_Carson]

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias - Nice reply on the Akin article. Allow me to process.

 

[clem456]

See! You’re almost there! Don’t stop now – keep going!!! His motivation for this essay was his previous essay on Hugh Ross’ “Death Star” argument, which asserted not only that the day-age interpretation of Genesis 1 is correct, but that the ages of the patriarchs are likewise to be taken literally. That is, in this essay, the starting point is the observation that fundamentalist-literalist approaches to Genesis 1 tend to fail. Therefore, he’s not going to “interpret the scriptures according to reason” or do “precisely what the Church tells us to do” – rather, he’s going to go toe-to-toe with the fundamentalists and beat them at their own game! Bravo! That’s it! You’ve got it! (Congratulations…)

The Akin article was confusing. It was apparent that he was taking a rigidly specific textual point view without regard to science, as he states. But it was not obvious that he doesn’t share that point of view.

 

[TankGirl]

clem wrote:

The Akin article was confusing. It was apparent that he was taking a rigidly specific textual point view without regard to science, as he states. But it was not obvious that he doesn’t share that point of view.

True. However, it illuminated me as to the fact that there is a ‘team Catholic Answers’ operating here (why wouldn’t here be?) and if you criticize a team member you had better know his entire corpus and CV. Point taken.

 

[clem456]

Are there any thoughts on the Theology of the Body links?

 

[Randy_Carson]

clem wrote:

True. However, it illuminated me as to the fact that there is a ‘team Catholic Answers’ operating here (why wouldn’t here be?) and if you criticize a team member you had better know his entire corpus and CV. Point taken.

Would it be fair then to suggest that you are a member of Team Dawkins or Team Hitchens?

Maybe what’s really happening is that Catholics who know their stuff are generally on the same page because there is often a single Catholic viewpoint on many subjects (though not all). So, naturally, we’re all on the same page, and Akin just happens to be one of many high visibility apologists for the Catholic faith and a prolific writer.

 

[Gorgias]

The Akin article was confusing. It was apparent that he was taking a rigidly specific textual point view without regard to science, as he states. But it was not obvious that he doesn’t share that point of view.

Hmm… his justification wasn’t “the only way to look at this is on the letter of the Word”, but was “let’s try it this way and see if we come up with plausible results”; his conclusions weren’t “this is the right way to look at it”, but rather, were “none of these methods work – the only one that does is one that refuses to posit a literalistic historical narrative”. That doesn’t suggest to you that “he doesn’t share [a fundamentalist] point of view”?

 

[Gorgias]

True. However, it illuminated me as to the fact that there is a ‘team Catholic Answers’ operating here (why wouldn’t here be?) and if you criticize a team member you had better know his entire corpus and CV. Point taken.

LOL! Is ‘Team Catholic Answers’ the sparkly vampires or the angsty werewolves? (I can never keep them straight…)

I’m with Randy on this one – it’s not that we’re defending allies against outsiders (heck, there are conclusions that Akin has reached that I think are off-base!), but rather, it’s just that, on this point, I happen to agree with him and not with you. I don’t think that this means that you and I are on different teams; it’s just that we disagree on this issue.

(Oh… and BTW – I don’t know Akin’s “entire corpus”. I just looked at the link Randy provided you, and noticed that, in it, Akin refers to a previous post he had made and followed the link to that post. It was right there, in the first paragraph (IIRC). No special knowledge, no team decoder rings. Just a little click on a link that demonstrated the context for his discussion… )

 

[Randy_Carson]

LOL! Is ‘Team Catholic Answers’ the sparkly vampires or the angsty werewolves? (I can never keep them straight…)

I’m with Randy on this one – it’s not that we’re defending allies against outsiders (heck, there are conclusions that Akin has reached that I think are off-base!), but rather, it’s just that, on this point, I happen to agree with him and not with you. I don’t think that this means that you and I are on different teams; it’s just that we disagree on this issue.

(Oh… and BTW – I don’t know Akin’s “entire corpus”. I just looked at the link Randy provided you, and noticed that, in it, Akin refers to a previous post he had made and followed the link to that post. It was right there, in the first paragraph (IIRC). No special knowledge, no team decoder rings. Just a little click on a link that demonstrated the context for his discussion… )

Dude-

See what happens when you miss staff meetings? We were told specifically to keep an eye on…wait, can she see this?

npatrol:

Okay…we’re cleared.

 

[TankGirl]

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