Posted on 07/25/2009 8:04:47 PM PDT by bdeaner
The Catholic blogosphere was recently set on fire by word of a document issued by the bishops of England, Wales, and Scotland entitled The Gift of Scripture.
The firestorm was triggered by an October 5 article in The Times of London carrying the inflammatory headline "Catholic Church no longer swears by the truth of the Bible."
The Times article contained a number of errors and distortions, but it also contained a number of quotes from the British bishops' document that were of concern to faithful Catholics.
For example, the document is quoted as saying that "we should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision" and that, while the Bible is reliable when expressing truths connected to salvation, "we should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters."
Such statements are common these days from catechists, theologians, and biblical scholars. They are trying to express something important — that there are certain things we should not expect from Scripture — but they have not used the right language in expressing these facts.
The Traditional View
Scripture presents itself to us as the very word of God, and the Christian Church has always honored it as such. Historically, Christians have held that the Bible is absolutely free of error, or inerrant.
Yet it has also been clear that there are many difficult and perplexing things in the Bible. This has led some to entertain the idea that Scripture may be protected from error in a way different than previous generations of Christians have held. Instead of being totally free of error, these thinkers have said, perhaps it is only free from error on certain matters.
For example, some have said that the Bible is meant for teaching us faith and morals, so perhaps it is inerrant on faith and morals but not on other matters. Other have suggested that Scripture is oriented toward our salvation, so maybe it is inerrant only on matters of salvation.
This might be called the limited or restricted inerrancy view, as opposed to the total or unrestricted inerrancy position.
As attractive as limited inerrancy may be, it faces significant problems.
Some Problems
It does not seem that the Bible understands itself in these terms. When the authors of Scripture quote each other, they speak in a way that suggests that every single word is authored by God.
The authors of the New Testament, for example, regularly quote the Old Testament with introductions such as "The Holy Spirit says" (Heb. 3:7), and Jesus himself said that "not an iota, not a dot" would pass away from the law of Moses before it was fulfilled (Matt. 5:18).
In the last couple of centuries the Church has weighed in on this question and rejected limited inerrancy. The First Vatican Council taught:
"These books [of the canon] the Church holds to be sacred and canonical, not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor only because they contain revelation without error; but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author" (De Fide Catholica 2:7).
Pope Leo XIII stated that "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" and condemned "the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of these difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond" (Providentissimus Deus 20).
Pius XII stated that the Vatican I passage cited above was a "solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, by which such divine authority is claimed for the 'entire books with all their parts' as to secure freedom from any error whatsoever." He repudiated those who "ventured to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture solely to matters of faith and morals" (Divino Afflante Spiritu 1).
And then came Vatican II.
Vatican II
The Vatican II decree Dei Verbum taught:
"In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things that he wanted. Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully, and without error that truth that God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation (DV 11).
The last phrase of this passage — "for the sake of salvation" — has become a sticking point, and many have argued that it restricts the scope of scriptural inerrancy to just those things that have to do with our salvation.
There was actually an intense behind-the-scenes controversy at Vatican II over this clause, which ended up being appealed to Pope Paul VI, and there is no doubt that some at the Council wanted the phrase understood as allowing restricted inerrancy. In fact, some wanted a formula that would even more clearly allow for restricted inerrancy.
But ultimately this position did not prevail. The text as it stands continues to affirm that the Bible contains all and only what God wanted written — that everything asserted by the human authors is asserted by the Holy Spirit.
There are countless instances where Scripture is clearly making an assertion that is neither of faith and morals nor connected in any direct way with our salvation. For example, the Bible clearly asserts that Andrew was the brother of Peter in some accepted first-century understanding of the word brother.
Dei Verbum thus teaches the unrestricted inerrancy of Scripture, and the "for the sake of our salvation" clause is thus most plausibly read as a statement of why God put his truth into Scripture, not a restriction on the scope of his truth.
What to Do?
That leaves us with the problem of how to explain the limits of what Scripture can be expected to do and how we can go wrong if we approach it the wrong way. How can these limitations be explained to the faithful in a way that does not charge Scripture with error?
Dei Verbum has given us an important tool for doing this. The Council spoke of those things "asserted by the inspired authors" as asserted by the Holy Spirit and thus protected from error. So we need to determine what the inspired author is trying to assert, for that is what is protected from error.
What a person asserts is not the same as what he says. Suppose someone says, "It's raining cats and dogs out there today." What he has said is perfectly obvious, but he is not asserting that cats and dogs are falling from the sky. Instead, he is asserting that it is raining hard.
His assertion may well be true. It may indeed be raining hard, and if so then he should not be charged with error.
Native English-speakers are familiar with the phrase "raining cats and dogs" and recognize what is meant. But non-native English-speakers could be perplexed by the statement. It's the same with Scripture.
The Example of Genesis
We don't come from the same culture that authored Scripture. We aren't ancient Israelites, and we don't have a native's feel for how their literature works. When people from our culture read the Bible they are particularly liable to miss symbolism that the text may be using. We know that God can do amazing, miraculous things, and if we don't know how ancient Hebrew literature worked, we can read perplexing things as miracles rather than symbols.
Throughout history many have taken the six days of creation in Genesis as six literal twenty-four-hour periods, but there are clues that this may not be what is meant. For example, the sun is not created until day four, though day and night were already in existence on day one. The ancients knew that it's the sun that causes it to be day as well as we do, and so this may mean that the passage is not to be understood literally.
By asking ourselves what it does mean — what the inspired author is asserting — then we see that he is asserting that the whole of the material world was created by God — the true God and not a bunch of pagan deities.
One could look at the passage and conclude that the inspired author is not trying to give us a scientific account of the creation of the world. The magisterium has recently favored this view (CCC 337, 283).
So would it be right to say, as The Gift of Scripture does, that "we should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy"?
Finding the Right Words
Because Genesis is not making scientific assertions, it is wrong to charge Genesis with scientific error. If someone draws erroneous scientific conclusions from a misreading of Genesis, the error belongs not to Genesis but to the person who has misread it.
Therefore we should not say that Genesis does not have "full scientific accuracy" — a statement that is bound to disturb the faithful and undermine their confidence in Scripture. Instead we should say that Genesis is not making scientific assertions and that we will draw erroneous conclusions if we treat the text as though it were.
The same applies to statements such as "We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible." In fact we should, for everything asserted in Sacred Scripture is asserted by the Holy Spirit, and he does not make mistakes.
The burden is on us to recognize what the Spirit is and is not asserting, and we may stumble into error if we make a mistake in doing this.
This applies to science or history or faith or morals or salvation or any other subject. The error belongs to us as interpreters, not to the Holy Spirit and not to the Scripture that he inspired.
***Wow, more fine language. I congratulate you sir.
The “duh” was directed at myself for my error in posting to myself. How in the world did you interpret it as directed to you?***
How in the world did you interpret it as me interpreting it as directed towards myself?
I merely made a comment as to the fine language. I made no statement as to the person that I interpreted it directed towards. We’re not feeling guilty, are we?
Beyond a reasonable doubt is used in criminal cases. Although green men from Mars COULD have murdered OJ’s wife, most reasonable people wouldn’t accept that explanation. Of course, no reasonable person would have accepted his defense’s explanation, but that is a problem with juries.
Civil cases are based on a preponderance of the evidence - is it more likely than not.
No court uses beyond a shadow of a doubt.
You use past experience to guide you. You might want to read the book ‘Deep Survival’ - it talks about how people make very dumb decisions when they use their past daily experiences to guide them in mountaineering, backpacking, etc.
From the view of aircraft accident investigation, there are all sorts of experiences we have that can cause an accident flying jet aircraft. For example, when people shot at me, it didn’t seem real. I think this is because I’ve seen so many movies where the hero (who must be me) couldn’t die, that my mind extrapolated from that fake experience to present a false impression of the real world. When a bunch of AAA went off near the aircraft, I just thought it was interesting...NOT the best reaction for survival in combat.
Reality is a construct in your mind. It serves you well in familiar situations, but can kill you in others.
Religion involves a god who, if he exists, is totally outside our daily experience. Think of it as a backpacking trip raised a thousand-fold. Our minds are not capable of analyzing it. Do donkeys speak? Certainly not in our daily existence. Do donkeys speak if God wants them to? Logically, any god capable of creating a universe could easily make a donkey speak. You only find it hard to believe because it hasn’t happened to you.
There are people who work on theories to explain what happens when the highly improbably happens. Unhappily, I’m not smart enough to understand what they write...
And you act all the time based on probability. If there is an 80% chance of rain, you take a raincoat or umbrella. You don’t ask the weatherman to first PROVE there is an 80% chance of rain, and not an 82.7% based on a total understanding of every facet of earth’s weather system.
But again, that is a decision based on past experience. When you go outside you everyday experience - flying jets in the weather, or at 400’ and 540 kts, or go mountain climbing - your past experience can kill you.
And I speak of things as a fact because it is faster than saying that I firmly believe it to be true based on my past experience and estimates of probability of future events.
“11”You may eat all clean birds. 12But these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, 13the kite, the falcon of any kind; 14every raven of any kind; 15the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; 16the little owl and the short-eared owl, the barn owl 17and the tawny owl, the carrion vulture and the cormorant, 18the stork, the heron of any kind; the hoopoe and the bat.”
The ones you are not allowed to eat are listed, and all others are permitted. Since the chicken isn’t listed as prohibited, it is permitted.
***There’s the proof that you regard the first eleven chapters of Genesis as non-historical.***
That is not proof.
To the contrary. It proves everything.
Show me the proof in my postings.
You have sat back and implicitly endorsed everything bdeaner said by not disputing with him. Only Vladimir998 argued with him at all.
***Wow, more fine language. I congratulate you sir.
The “duh” was directed at myself for my error in posting to myself. How in the world did you interpret it as directed to you?***
How in the world did you interpret it as me interpreting it as directed towards myself?
Why else would you take offense at a remark I directed at myself?
I merely made a comment as to the fine language. I made no statement as to the person that I interpreted it directed towards. We’re not feeling guilty, are we?
For saying "duh?" Is that against the rules of the forum now? Perhaps if I'd said "oops" or "silly me" you'd have hit the "abuse" button?
You're really worked up.
The ones you are not allowed to eat are listed, and all others are permitted. Since the chicken isn’t listed as prohibited, it is permitted.
You may be right, though that's not the answer I had in mind. There's still the issue of being absolutely sure that none of the Hebrew words of the original text are an obscure word for "chicken." For example, certain species of locusts are kosher, but despite the fact that the kosher species are named most Jews have long since forgotten which species these names apply to (only the Yemenites have retained a tradition on this).
I'll tell you the answer I had in mind in a PM.
******There’s the proof that you regard the first eleven chapters of Genesis as non-historical.***
That is not proof.
To the contrary. It proves everything.***
Supposing that you dispense with the hysterics and present your argument.
***Show me the proof in my postings.
You have sat back and implicitly endorsed everything bdeaner said by not disputing with him. Only Vladimir998 argued with him at all.***
I am not going to carry your water for you. If you would engage in debate with me, then engage. If you would rather sit on the sidelines, then that is your perogative.
Just don’t complain and whine about it.
And so to bed. Good night.
******Wow, more fine language. I congratulate you sir.
The “duh” was directed at myself for my error in posting to myself. How in the world did you interpret it as directed to you?***
How in the world did you interpret it as me interpreting it as directed towards myself?
Why else would you take offense at a remark I directed at myself?***
Who said that I took offense. I merely commented on the language that a civilized person would make on an online forum. You are free up to the point of the moderators intervening to utilize whatever words you wish.
*** merely made a comment as to the fine language. I made no statement as to the person that I interpreted it directed towards. We’re not feeling guilty, are we?
For saying “duh?” Is that against the rules of the forum now? Perhaps if I’d said “oops” or “silly me” you’d have hit the “abuse” button?***
Please cite an instance where I hit the abuse button.
***You’re really worked up.***
In reading the thread for the last several hours, I’d say probably not. The invite back to Christianity is still there. I don’t particularly care about your abuse of Christianity; Jesus still would have all men be saved; even those who transition through on their own whims.
***You argue with me instead of with bdeaner because you agree with him and disagree with me.***
May I ask if you are a ten year old girl?
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
What a nut! From the Church of Christ, to Apocalyptic weirdness, to New Age Mysticism, to the PCA, and then on to Dr. Gene Scott - and all that before he marries a half-Catholic-half-New-Ager-half-Anglican (yes, that's three halves), moves to a PCA church, then leaves it four years later!He was born in 1965, and attended a Church of Christ congregation until "five or six" (1970-71). Started reading "end times" parts of the Bible at "thirteen or fourteen" (1978-79). Turned to the New Age Movement for "about five years", but broke from them in his "first year of college" (1984). "Some time later" he starts listening to Dr Gene Scott, and "six months later" he joins Scott's church" (let's call it 1986). He was "fascinated...for some time" but decided to "find some other religious affiliation" and settled on the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). He says at this point that his goal is to become "a pastor or...a seminary professor."
Now at some unnamed date he marries his wife in a non-Catholic ceremony, but we are given a date when they later remarry in a Catholic ceremony - 1991. Thus, Akin's conversion happens no later than 1991, at age 26. During those intervening years (198? - 1991), his wife has converted from New Ageism (back) to Catholicism, to Anglicanism, and (back) to Catholicism AGAIN. At least several years prior to 1991, a former attendee of his PCA church sent a Catholic article to the congregation - Akin says he read it, but not how he got it, since the writer left the congregation "some time before I started attending there". He also mentions reading other Catholic materials "a year or two" before he converts to Catholicism himself (i.e. 1989-90). Akin also mentions that he was "having problems" with the fundamental doctrines of sola fide and sola scriptura, roughly four years after he claims to have become a Christian via Dr Scott's telechurch and even less than that as a PCA member.
It bears repeating that, during this very same period, Akin makes his decision to become "a pastor or...a seminary professor" yet he's having trouble with his own beliefs.
-- Post #13, summarizing James Akin's pedigree, from the thread How to become a Catholic
Ad hominem argument, Alex. Supposing all that is true—and I have no reason to believe it is true, and suspect it is more rumor than anything factual, since it has the tone of gossip—nevertheless, even a broken clock is right twice a day. And, with that said, Akin’s work is solid, based on my experience reading his essays. Never met the guy; his personal life is not all that relevant.
What I posted was a summary of the all the facts as offered by Akin himself in the thread/article A TRIUMPH AND A TRAGEDY. I focused specifically on both husband and wife's frequent movement from one set of beliefs to another, If you have problems with the facts, your issue is with Akin, not me.
Are you joking? That's not a mitzvah that Hebrews must believe in him. This is supposedly God who allegedly "introduced" himself to Moses. Of course, we "know" about it because it's in the book—that is, if you are willing to believe it's true.
I will give you another chance: where does God say in the Bible "You must believe in me"?
Yet Jews know that chickens are committed.
Well, judging from the above, you have pretty much used up that "knowing" card. But I am sure there is a convoluted reason or maybe it's just a game you are playing and there is no reason. If the reason is religious, it's an assumption.
So is everyone else, yet you don't cut the people you disagree with any slack
And you do?
Yet you hang out here and pretend to be Eastern Orthodox, beating your chest about how it is "real chr*stianity" even though you don't even know that J*sus ever existed. (You really enjoy driving rednecks crazy, don't you? I'll bet you really went to town with magnifying glasses and ants when you were a kid.) And if somebody calls you on it you back up and say "now wait a minute, I didn't actually say I was Eastern Orthodox, did I?" And the "real" Eastern Orthodox on this forum play along with you because twanging rednecks are such an embarrassment to the "glorious chr*stian religion" and need to be put in their place.
I didn't realize I was this popular with you. I can't say I remember a single one of your posts (nothing personal, just not very impressive). But, speaking of "hanging around" isn't it what you are doing on Christian topics, yet Christianity is so odious to you that you won't even spell its name fully. Imagine if we wrote J*ws and J*daism!
As for me "pretending" to be Eastern Orthodox, I was baptized Eastern Orthodox as an infant and raised in the Orthodox faith. So, where is the pretense? If I have my doubts does that nullify my baptism? And how would you know anyway? And, yes, Orthodox Christianity is not only real but the purest Christianity of all. It's a historical issue, not a value judgment. Eastern Orthodoxy remains liturgically unchanged more than other branches of Christianity.
No I don't know if Jesus ever existed. That doesn't mean one cannot believe he did. How do you know Moses existed? How do you know Exodus happened when there is no trace of it? And how could over a million people (if one can trust biblical figures) roam around a patch of land the size of West Virginia for 40 years—"lost" when the whole place can be covered on foot in five days' time? And how can such multitude leave nothing behind, not even their garbage? I am sure there is some numerological, mystical, kabbalistic explanation for that as well that I would just love to hear along with your chicken story, but don't expect me to readily believe it.
BTW, though I doubt you're interested, I have a few labels for you.
My pay is the same, no matter what you call me. I guess I should be flattered that you spend so much time finding labels that would fit your idea of me, and memorizing my posts. Sounds a little obsessive to me that I am that important in your life? I am sorry, I don't care about you nearly as much.
Most reasonable people would not accept talking donkeys even if "with God everything is possible" but dismiss green men from Mars because that is 'unreasonable'! For anyone who uncritically believes the world that is described in the Bible and yet dismisses little green men as possible culprits is being disengenuous.
You use past experience to guide you. You might want to read the book ‘Deep Survival’ - it talks about how people make very dumb decisions when they use their past daily experiences to guide them in mountaineering, backpacking, etc.
Every situation is new. Applying a reflex reaction to a similar situation is likely to lead to a "dumb" mistake. One has to use reason in addition to past experience. Situational awareness and some experience may save your life. Mindless reaction to a past experience may do the opposite. I see it every day. People do stupid things on a routine basis. They just don't think. I watch them speed past me just to get to the red light.
But that past experience has to be real, not assumed or presumed, in order to have some validity. What are you going to do with your religious experience? Hope the waters part so you can cross to the other side?
From the view of aircraft accident investigation, there are all sorts of experiences we have that can cause an accident flying jet aircraft
The past experience of gliding saved the lives of the people when the pilot, using reason and his experience, decided to land the plane into the Hudson, after both of his engines were knocked out by a flock of birds.
He not only had to rely on his situational awareness (given the speed and the height and the position of the plane), assessing the conditions, etc. but also on his experience as a glider pilot to reasonably attempt such a feat, to expect to be able to point the nose down and get enough speed to control the plane and keep the wings leveled, and to possibly use the flaps and air breaks at a critical moment to bring the bird down and bleed its speed to a stall just above the water. Without good reasoning and past experience he could not have done it.
You are making a straw man—again.
When a bunch of AAA went off near the aircraft, I just thought it was interesting...NOT the best reaction for survival in combat.
It's denial. In psychology it is know as a "defense mechanism."
Reality is a construct in your mind. It serves you well in familiar situations, but can kill you in others.
Then you live in denial.
Religion involves a god who, if he exists, is totally outside our daily experience
Ergo you can't possibly know about him because we don't know what is God.
Do donkeys speak? Certainly not in our daily existence. Do donkeys speak if God wants them to?
How would you know?
Logically, any god capable of creating a universe could easily make a donkey speak. You only find it hard to believe because it hasn’t happened to you.
First, why should I believe such an assumption? Because anything is possible? Then, if we can allow a priori assumptions, we should seriously entertain the idea that little green men killed OJ's wife too. You don't believe it because it seem improbable to you. But I think it would be better to say because there is no evidence that such creatures were involved. What evidence do you have that God exists and how would you know it's God?
And you act all the time based on probability. If there is an 80% chance of rain, you take a raincoat or umbrella. You don’t ask the weatherman to first PROVE there is an 80% chance of rain, and not an 82.7% based on a total understanding of every facet of earth’s weather system.
I don't trust the weathermen to begin with, precisely because they can't prove that it will rain with a given degree of certitude. It's a statistical assumption.
And I speak of things as a fact because it is faster than saying that I firmly believe it to be true based on my past experience and estimates of probability of future events.
First, that is deceptive because you are saying one thing and mean another. Not very Christian is it? Second it's another straw man. Necessary exaggerations betray such a creature. It doesn't take special effort or too much extra space to substitute "know" with "believe" or "is" with 'is believed".
“First, why should I believe such an assumption? Because anything is possible? Then, if we can allow a priori assumptions, we should seriously entertain the idea that little green men killed OJ’s wife too.”
Wrong. You fail to discern between a situation slightly out of normal (someone is killed) with a situation well outside our common experience (the Creator taking obvious acts in His creation). This is the sort of mistake that kills people in the wild - they think they are inside their experience, but they are not.
It also is what the folks I mentioned think about - what happens when the probability isn’t 10% or 1%, but 0.00001%. Yet the latter events do happen...0.00001% of the time.
You define improbable as impossible.
You also do not understand what I said about aircraft accidents. You past experience, if it is close enough (landing aircraft) can save you. If it isn’t close enough (weather conditions unique to flying), it can kill you. An example would be a flight in Korea years ago, where our wingman, at night, rolled inverted and pulled...went from 25000 feet to 10000 feet, THINKING he was staying level. It was the backseater who realized the altimeter was spinning like a fan.
With training, if it is sufficiently probable, you can overcome these. However, if highly improbable, you won’t have that option. One aircraft accident involved a form of a spin that had only been seen once before...and struck again 30 years later.
You complain about a hundred miracles taking place over a 3000 year period...that is much rarer.
“First, that is deceptive because you are saying one thing and mean another. Not very Christian is it? “
Learn English before you criticize me for doing what all of us do. NO ONE uses language with complete precision, nor would anyone waste time listening to you if you did.
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