To pick up from my comments on the wise words about timelines thread, I offer the following observations. First, my comment: But much of what [Fr. George] says about Scripture makes the hair on my arms brissle and I will start a thread on the Scripture Subforum to address that issue. This is nothing against you personally [Darrell]; my love for the Scriptures compels me to respond to the well-meaning priest! Let me continue: An oft misrepresented passage from Dei Verbum, par.11, has added fuel to the attack on Sacred Scripture during the period following the last Council: …the books of Scripture teach certainly, faithfully and without error the truth that God for our salvation willed to be recorded in Holy Writ. This wording was hotly debated at the Vatican II Council, and the highlighted portion has subsequently been used to argue that biblical passages discussing historical or scientific considerations can be erroneous since they have no bearing on our salvation. Fr. George appears to favor this view of limited inerrancy. He says, “Scripture which is the vehicle of God’s revelation do contain bits and pieces of history, geography and science according to the limited knowledge of the sacred writers. Their inerrancy extends only to the message of God but not to the knowledge of history, geography or science. This knowledge of the writers of Scripture is limited and in many cases wrong according to our present scientific knowledge.” On the surface the two quotes appear complementary and without contradiction. However, every time I have witnessed a reference to the Dei Verbum sentence, it fails to mention four related footnotes at the bottom of the document. Let’s listen to what a Fr. William G. Most has to say about the Council document in his book, Free From All Error: The most decisive proof of what Vatican II really meant in the sentence under consideration is this: Pope Pius XII in his great encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu had quoted the words of Vatican I saying that God Himself is the author of Scripture, and commented that the words of Vatican I were a “solemn definition.” Of course, Vatican II would not contradict a solemn definition! That would be heresy. And no matter on what level Vatican II was teaching at this point, it could not possibly teach heresy. Really, Vatican II even added four footnotes to this very passage in which it refers to the text mentioned of Vatican I and to several passages of Leo XIII’s encyclical, and to two passages of Pius XII- all of which insist more than once with great care that there is no error of any kind at all in Scripture. If we but examine one of these footnoted passages, we will find that Scriptural inerrancy is not limited. Pope Leo XIII had this to teach in Providentissumus Deus, para. 20: 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. For the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of...difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond, because (as they wrongly think) in a question of the truth or falsehood of a passage, we should consider not so much what God has said as the reason and purpose which He had in mind in saying it-this system cannot be tolerated. For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. To conclude: I am not a fundamental literalist. The genre or literary type of a passage must be respected, but that caution is a far cry from stating that Scripture contains errors. To say error is present is to open the door to ultimately discrediting the integrity and relevance of Holy Writ. It is this altogether too frequent consequence for which I grieve! Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
Mario, Thanks for this clarification. I have heard too many theologians rubbishing passages of the Bible especially those passages relating to creation. Passages are quoted out of context and current scientific theory is treated as without error. This has definitely led to loss of faith. Mary
I admire the way you have read up on all this Terry. I am afraid I am too much inclined to drift along , I need to read up more, all we Cathlics do , this stuff is so insidious, it kind of creeps in like a gas under the door when we are not looking. I recall when I was a young teacher about 13 our religious teacher was talking about Saint Marks Gospel when he started to undermine the historcity of Jesus's miracles implying they did not really happen.For instance when scripture says Jesus walked across water that there were really stones underneath and it was a shallow strem. Cases of possession were mild mental illnesses. Cases of organic cures were really hysteria..and so on.... It was only much later on I realised all this garbage originated back in the Protestant schools of theology in the 19th century onwards when they took a 'scientific ' historical 'scrutinising' view of scriptures. I think the point of view he was putting forward came from someone called 'Bultmann'. {Rudolf Karl Bultmann (August 20, 1884 – July 30, 1976) was a German theologian of Lutheran background, who was for three decades professor of New Testament studies at the University of Marburg. Only the good God knows how much harm this teacher did in our Catholic School to all those young minds. That's nothing at all to the harm that went out to millions of other Catholics before and since. But thats not so bad as when its taught from the pulpit. I met a Catholic after mass a few years back who asked me what I thought of a Jesuits priests sermon. I told him it was pure heresy. He laughed at me. A week ago he stopped me in the street and mentioned this, he said, 'You were right' I don't know what changed his mind. I am not a theologian at least not learned. But I think when you pray, especially to Our Lady you learn theology on your knees through the presence of the Holy Spirit and so develop 'feelers' of when things are not right. I notice again and again when priests from the pulpit preach on scripture wrongly and it makes me cringe. A lot of it is the purest Protestant heresy that goes straight back to Germany and France and is poison. But I think anyone who prays regularly gets a good dose of immunisation from all this and this is one of the many reason Our Blessed Lady tries to get us to get right down on our knees. I suspect that if the people who teach such stuff prayed more often they would not themselves fall vistim to this. :lol: :lol: :lol: Sorry I am off on a rant again. I am a terrible man :lol: But I hate all this :wink: Without ranting onwards I really love Michael Voris in his programme, 'The Vortex' . He is such a straight talker: http://www.realcatholictv.com/#
