If you consider the issue of Noah's flood, it is much substantiated by hundreds of flood stories from many civilizations. I've copied just one of many sites that address this. http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=64 It is interesting that studies of the Black Sea have given evidence of a cataclysmic flood event. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...ndicate-that-noahs-flood-was-real-697782.html I love this stuff because the more our archeology advances, the more the historical events of the Bible are supported. http://www.wnd.com/2009/09/111091/ Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
Yes and most interestingly in the whole bible there is very ocnsiderable scientific evidence for the death and resurruction of Christ too. However you know all this can only lead so far. In the end it is Faith that carries us. Often for instance I question even the nature of reality itself. Life to me often seems to have a dream like quality. Yes it is Faith that carries us in her arms at the end of all.
Yes..and of course we Christians draw heavily from him; in metaphysics for instance, which is a pure delight to mystics http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-metaphysics/#2 The Phaedo is Plato's eulogy to Socrates. It recounts the last hours of Plato's teacher. Socrates/Plato wants to convince us that we should care about our souls and that the best way to care for the soul is to live philosophically. Towards that end we find a series of arguments whose aim is to prove the immortality of the soul. At least three of these arguments, the Argument from Recollection and its prelude (65a-67a and 72e-78b), the Affinity Argument (78b-84b), and the Final Argument (102a-107a) and its prelude (95a-102a), are crucial for understanding Plato's initial thoughts on metaphysics and epistemology. Here Plato draws a contrast between unchanging Forms and changing material particulars. Unfortunately, neither in the Phaedo nor in any other dialogue do we find Plato giving a detailed description of the nature of Forms, or particulars, or their interaction. What is referred to as Plato's theory of Forms is thus a rational reconstruction of Plato's doctrine. In such a reconstruction scholars try to determine a set of principles or theses which, taken together, allow us to show why Plato says what he does about Forms, souls, and other metaphysical items. In the attempt to make more precise what Plato is after, one risks attributing to Plato notions that are either not his or not as well developed in Plato as scholars would hope. Perhaps the notion of a particular is such a case. Intuitively, particulars are things like my dog Ajax, Venus, my computer, and so on, the ordinary material things of the everyday spatio-temporal world. (But we also speak of particular actions, particular events, particular souls, and much else.) In a rational reconstruction, we can be more precise by stipulating, for instance, that a particular is that of which properties are predicated and which is never predicated of anything (or anything other than itself). This ‘stipulated definition’ is nowhere in Plato, though it may well capture his thinking about ordinary particulars. For the sake of exposition, I will assume that in the Phaedo Plato is appealing to our naïve, intuitive understanding of what it is for something to be a material particular. In the author's opinion, the metaphysics of the Phaedo and other middle period works is devoted to developing the account of Forms; perhaps because while most of us think that included in what there is are the various, e.g., dogs, people, mountains and trees, few of us ever think about whether there is some universal/Form, Justice Itself, The Large Itself, and so on, that exists outside of space and time. (In the late dialogues, especially the Timaeus and Philebus, Plato attempts to give a systematic account of material particulars.)
The bible is literal, it is allegorical, it is symbolic. We as Catholic's have to take it as the Church teaches in its many forms for 2000 years. For instance, it you don't take Jesus discourse in the 6th chapter of John's gospel literally (when foretelling of his literal presence in the Bread and Wine) then one would be Protestant.
"Literal" in the context of biblical exegesis seems to have a broader meaning than the one we would use in everyday conversation. I think that what Dean meant by saying that the bible cannot be taken literally was that we shouldn't use the literalist interpretation favoured by the Fundamentalists which, according to the Pontifical Biblical Commission had its origin at the time of the Reformation..... "F. Fundamentalist Interpretation Fundamentalist interpretation starts from the principle that the Bible, being the word of God, inspired and free from error, should be read and interpreted literally in all its details. But by "literal interpretation" it understands a naively literalist interpretation, one, that is to say, which excludes every effort at understanding the Bible that takes account of its historical origins and development. It is opposed, therefore, to the use of the historical-critical method, as indeed to the use of any other scientific method for the interpretation of Scripture. The fundamentalist interpretation had its origin at the time of the Reformation, arising out of a concern for fidelity to the literal meaning of Scripture. After the century of the Enlightenment it emerged in Protestantism as a bulwark against liberal exegesis. The actual term <fundamentalist> is connected directly with the American Biblical Congress held at Niagara, N.Y., in 1895. At this meeting, conservative Protestant exegetes defined "five points of fundamentalism": the verbal inerrancy of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, his virginal birth, the doctrine of vicarious expiation and the bodily resurrection at the time of the second coming of Christ. As the fundamentalist way of reading the Bible spread to other parts of the world, it gave rise to other ways of interpretation, equally "literalist," in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. As the 20th century comes to an end, this kind of interpretation is winning more and more adherents, in religious groups and sects, as also among Catholics." The above quotation is taken from a longer section dealing with the Fundamentalist interpretation. The rest of it can be read here: http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/pbcinter.htm Apologies for linking the same document a second time in this thread, but I think that it is a very important document for anyone seeking to understand the Church's approach to interpreting the Bible.
I opened the Bible tonight and the page that opened was on Noah and the ark and how bad the world was before God flooded the Earth. I think I got my answer. Personally I believe it is an accurate account, otherwise we are just picking and choosing.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 Douay "All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work." All scripture, inspired of God. YES. Sanctus, God instructed you through His scripture, and is teaching you, and He desires to do the same with each one of us. Thank you for sharing. I agree.
Thanks HH, it feels like He is guiding me that way. Otherwise the Bible is just full of "stories", which of course is not the case.
I don't think we are picking and choosing. Great minds in the Church study the bible and interpret its meaning for us and have been doing so for millennia. As long as we trust the Church we can't go far wrong. I believe there was a flood. I believe that Noah was told to prepare for it, to build an ark and to pack it with pairs of as many animals as he could round up. I'm not so sure, however, that a worldwide flood destroyed every living creature on the planet. I'm not sure the ark would have been big enough. On a lighter note..... Teacher asks kids do they think Noah would have caught plenty of fish while on the ark. One little boy says no because Noah only had two worms.
Here is another related document for studying scripture. http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xi...-xiii_enc_18111893_providentissimus-deus.html
I understand that there is evidence, sceintific evidence of a massive flood over a huge area at that time. But I would find it a little far fetched that every animal in the world was in the ark (koala bears, kangaroos? Polar bears..?/ ) Look it like cooking , they mean needs some seasoning to swallow. But I am not forcing my own take on others, if people want to take it in a highly literal way that's fine.
When it comes to metaphysics the Church's teaching is not so much indebted to Plato but to Aristotle and the Angelic doctor himself who developed and refined his basic doctrine.
In terms of renaissance thinking Aristotelian thought yes. In terms of pre renaisance such as the Fathers of the Church; Plato . It strikes me in reading St Paul with his very clear thinking and experesion he at least was influenced by a Platonian influenced education. I am no expert, it is only my own perosnal opinion. There was a Catholic intellectual life before Aquinas. 'Dean Inge, the famous professor of divinity, writes that: “Platonism is part of the vital structure of Christian theology . . . . [If people would read Plotinus, who worked to reconcile Platonism with Scripture,] they would understand better the real continuity between the old culture and the new religion, and they might realize the utter impossibility of excising Platonism from Christianity without tearing Christianity to pieces. The Galilean Gospel, as it proceeded from the lips of Jesus, was doubtless unaffected by Greek philosophy . . . . But [early Christianity] from its very beginning was formed by a confluence of Jewish and Hellenic religious ideas.” (Emphasis added) https://blog.logos.com/2013/11/plato-christianity-church-fathers/
One of the very earliesy mystical writers in the Church, for instance, was pseudo Dionysius who heavily influenced furture generations of Catholic writers on the subject and whose writing was heavily neo Platonist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Dionysius_the_Areopagite
I am a fan of Plato but when it comes to metaphysics, the problem of universals, the working of the human mind, the unity of body and soul etc Catholic thinking is very much Aristotelian and Thomistic.
Aristotle and Plato each have their place. I think if politicians such as Clinton and Trump had paid more attention to Plato they would be less inclined to indulge in slanging matched in their debates and each stick to the issues.
Sanctus, This is an old article about the resignation of Pope Benedict and the Prophecy of the Popes but I think it touches on something that may interest you and is related to your question. At the end of the article, the author gives examples of how prophecies in the bible have proved true.
