Douglas Gresham at Liberty University

Douglas Gresham - Liberty University Convocation
Liberty University | 11.I.2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34rrfsoQieg

9:54 "the man who was on speaking terms with High King Peter of Narnia"

Was CSL or was Digory Kirke? In my fan fic, CSL rescues Susan who has just fled from some Rabadash like type (but in England!) before he inherits the papers of his somewhat distant friend Digory Kirke (who also was teacher of Indiana Jones) which papers include six stories, one by Digory and Polly and five by children they talked to.

The seventh story comes from Susan's true dreams (well after her converting from the state described by Lady Polly while they were talking among the recently died before talking to Aslan about Susan ...) - tested as such by her previously dreaming in agreement with Digory's notes on Eustace and Jill ... who was also between that story and what we know only from her dream, an archery pupil of hers.

So, in my fan fic, CSL never was the one recording what the children were saying about Narnia, it was all the time his friend (a somewhat distant one) Digory Kirke.

In Voyage of the Dawn Treader an authorial voice is saying that Lucy would always say when talking about this or that ... to Digory, on my view, not to CSL. See end of Lion, Witch and Wardrobe ...

B U T he and Warnie were on speaking terms with Queen Susan, just before you came - just after she had lost everyone (except George Kirrin and her friend Nobby and the famous five ... reduced to four since Tim died).

And his friend Tolkien was on speaking terms with Queen Lucy somewhat before that ... (that's why the seven could come to Aslan's country from our world - Tolkien was Catholic, you see, and they prayed the rosary on that train).

Btw, my fan fic is just half written - less than 80 chapters and should have c. 150 (and no, it is not all the end ones missing and all the earlier ones there, that would be too easy, one of the last chapters was one of the first written).

28:18 Exegi monument' aere perennius ... yes, I think Narnia and LotR will be read up to Doomsday. However, probably also because some bronze from then will still be around too, namely Doomsday not too far off, I shouldn't wonder ...

Just Sharing This Video - On Free Speech

When Free Speech Gets You Arrested: A True Story about the Dangers of Handing Out the Constitution
Alliance Defending Freedom | 14.VI.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qvt5IBRBQ8

(PS, if you want to hear of another threat, see here: https://saveyourinternet.eu : #SaveYourInternet · #DeleteArt13)

On Catholics Believing Evolution

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : On Catholics Believing Evolution · Creation vs. Evolution : Does Humani Generis say we must subject to a future judgement of the Church as if there was none already pertaining to the matter? · What did the Allocution Say?

Practical Catholicism: Can Catholics Believe in Evolution?
St. Benedict Monastery | 14.V.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyGOCkp-TEk

I

1:28 "belief has to do with matters of salvation, not with matters of science"

FAITH has to do with matters of salvation, but not always to exclusion of matters of science (for instance, it is a matter of science that if a boy having fallen from first or second floor through a window has broken the neck and does not breath and has no pulse, he will not usually start walking the next minute : it is a matter of faith, as in how the faith was revealed, that St Luke seems to have met St Paul over diagnosing a death by involuntary defenestration and watching St Paul raise the boy to life).

BELIEF is not the same concept as FAITH, even if German and Swedish express both concepts with same word (Glauben / Tro).

Note, in the Creed, the word "I believe in" denotes both belief as the general mode of faith and faith as the firmness mode of this particular belief.

Note also, in the Creed, one of the things we believe in with divine faith is Holy Spirit having spoken through the prophets, meaning also the hagiographers whose texts we have.

1:54 "the process God used to make everything that is something we don't know"

To make matter out of nothing or life out of no-life is not a natural process. It is a miraculous act. It involves nothing comparable to natural processes of growth or reproduction. When a boy grows to a man or when a man and a woman make a boy or a girl, there is a pre-existing capacity within what you start out with and what you end up with. And bringing this natural capacity to its fruition involves a process. Not so with things that start out with no natural capacity for what the result is to be, or no complete capacity : as with creating the first man, or as with a rational soul being given to the body as ovum and spermatozoon meet and unite : while human genetics are made so the soul can express its rationality, they cannot produce it.

So, we can know there was an absence of process - therefore we cannot pretend to be ignorant of "by what process".

And if your "Pope Francis" in 2014 denied this absence of process, so much the worse for him.

2:30 "expresses our belief about how the universe came into being"

It expresses our belief insofar as it also dictates our belief. Lex orandi, lex credendi. If we read it at Easter Vigil, we are also required to believe what is in it. Precisely as if we recite "et carnis resurrectionem" we are also not allowed to pretend eternity involves only a spiritual resurrection, that one happening soon after death of each rather than on Doomsday for all (or very few exceptions).

And you said very well about how the universe came into being : the story tells us of the process, not as natural process, but as a very well ordered series of miracles. It also involves a definite time span, since the days are said to have evening and morning after the creation acts in them.

II

"we can also see that it's not a scientific account of what happened"

OK. If we put day 2 in scientific terms, the waters above the firmament are mainly hydrogen, and on day 4 God uses the hydrogen to create Sun and most stars (all burning ones and the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn). So, because Moses does not use the term hydrogen, but uses water indiscriminately for H2O and for H2 and for plasma state H ... is that a bit of how you meant?

2:52 "for instance, in the story of Genesis, earth is treated as the centre of the Universe"

Well, so? It is, isn't it?

Or do you consider Galileo a great scientist? Or Kepler a huge improvement not only on Tycho Brahe but on Riccioli?

Riccioli famously accepted most Keplerian improvements on Tycho, but not his rejection of Geocentrism.

Or do you consider Herschel was a great scientist because he took "relative Heliocentrism" over from Kantian philosophy which took it over from heresies of Bruno?

So, your example is bad.

2:58 "and all the other planets and heavenly beings are merely lights in the sky"

The word "merely" is not in the text. Secondary to earth, granted. And they are lights in the sky, even a very small asteroid in asteroid belt is, if you use a good telescope. It is lighter than the black background. At least on the side reflecting sunlight.

3:05 "there just isn't any concept of the sheer breadth of the universe as we now know it"

As we "now know it"? Or as conclusions from Herschel on have misrepresented it?

3:14 "the story even says that God credated a dome around the earth to keep the rain water up in the sky"

Take a close reading:

And God said: Let there be a firmament amidst the water: and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament, and it was so. And God called the firmament, Heaven; and the evening and morning were the second day.

• 1) The firmament is not given as being a dome in the sense of a shell or cupola : it could very well be one thing throughought the thickness of space (especially if it is grammatically possible to see "waters above firmament" as "waters in upper part of firmament"), and sth which, by its daily rotation, helps to keep things up where they are;
• 2) The waters above the firmament are also not directly said to be rain water.

If my Hydrogen reading is correct, the "flood gates of heaven" (chapter 7, Flood account) need not be trap doors in a cupola under a rain water reservoir, it could mean the normal space separating higher layers of oxygen from lowest layers of hydrogen.

In other words, unless you start out with Evolutionist or Heliocentric bias, there is nothing positively offending scientific understanding in the Genesis account, even if some technical detail is left out.

III

"the Biblical writers"

As far as I know, Genesis 1 account has one writer : Moses, who received on Sinai a vision of the six days.

"were [!] conveying the message ..."

"They were" or rather he was conveying a lot of factual material too. Celestial bodies created on day four after plants created on day three, for one.

While God's creative power is indeed a salvific truth, Genesis 1 is not limited to saying Qui vivet in aeternum creavit omnia simul or sth like that.

Making a story, unless it is a short parable announced as such, out of a statement that is true, while some details in the story are not, that is not the work of a hagiographer, but of a novelist. While novelists have their use, we do not confess of the Holy Spirit that He has spoken through the poets.

3:57 "and they expressed it based on the ideas that they had at the time"

Suppose flatness of earth was a common idea back then, why was it not expressed?

Why does the Bible often speak of "four corners of the earth" which is literally correct if taken as "four corners of the land" / "of the continents" (more than four corners implies we do not quite know which of the continental corners are enumerated as the four Biblical ones, but not that they do not exist), and why does it never say "the Earth is a square which has four corners"?

Well, one reason could be, hagiographers were never flat earth, though they took care not to be too overtly round earth either, or, an alternative one could be, while they were personally flat earth, God protected them from expressing it, as He would have protected a Pope personally considering the Blessed Virgin was sanctified from original sin after her first instant from expressing that in more than a private manner prior to 1854.

So, why would Moses have enjoyed less protection, less even negative infallibility, than Popes?

Of hagiographers, we predicate positive inspiration and therefore total inerrancy, of Popes only negative protection and therefore just infallibility as to doctrine and morals ... and you are saying in effect that "hagiographers" (reducing Moses to a committee!) had less even infallibility than Popes?

They had at least as much, if they were personally flat earth, and more, if they were personally round earth. Indeed, they had more than negative infallibility, not less! Including Moses in his first few paragraphs, obviously.

"their ideas were not based on scientific that they did not have"

Their ideas were based on God given knowledge which the scientists of today do not have.

IV

"we can accept [evolution] like the writers [!] of Genesis accepted the ideas of their time"

No, we can't. If you "can" you are contradicting the Creed (see previous), the council of Trent, the chronology in the Christmas proclamation being one Trentine item (we are not supposed to criticise the received Roman liturgy) and the consensus of Church Fathers on a short overall history being another one (we are not supposed to have, perhaps even extrapatristic-consensus, certainly not counterpatristic-consensus exegesis of the Bible).

"It's our belief God was the one who set everything in motion"

• 1) this is not an accurate rendering of Prima Via. God in Prima Via is not concluded as earliest mover in a temporal series of movements, but as first, like the pedalling biker is first mover of the wheels, in a contemporary series of linked movements;
• 2) it is not in any text of the Bible
• 3) it sounds like a combination of Newton and Voltaire, like Deism.

Therefore, it does not accurately reflect Catholic belief.

So, you are getting wrong what we can accept, but also wrong what is "our belief".

V

Dialogue

starting with Jorge Ramos and myself.

Jorge Ramos

St Augustine and others said that we cannot take literal the whole Bible, specially the book of Genesis chapters 1 to 11. If you take it literally, there are contradictions with logic of the real world and God cannot contradict itself. In addition, there are 2 creation narratives and 2 Noah’s Ark accounts. If we take everything literal we are in a contradiction because in the first creation narrative man and woman were created last after everything else, while the second narrative God creates man first and woman last. However, we are allowed to believe either narrative or evolution ir any other rational explanation as long as it does not contradict Catholic teaching. But we should form our consciences and be rational in matters of science and faith.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"St Augustine and others said we cannot take literal the whole Bible, specially the book of Genesis chapters 1 to 11"

In what work and what book and chapter, please?

NOT De Genesi ad Literam Libri XII, I specifically checked.

"If you take it literally, there are contradictions with logic of the real world"

• 1) which ones do YOU note?
• 2) do you say St Augustine noted any, and which ones if so did HE note? Work, what book, what chapter?

"and God cannot contradict itself"

Himself, you mean? That is the one thing you have said so far I agree on, even if your English is not excellent.

"If we take everything literal we are in a contradiction because in the first creation narrative man and woman were creaed last after everthing else, while the second narrative God creates man first and woman last"

• 1) Two narratives, but they do not contradict, since they do not have the same scope.
• 2) Woman after man does not contradict first account, since it is a close-up.
• 3) Animals after man is not clearly in the text of second account, which says "God having created beasts brought them fourth to Adam" - it could mean the beasts He had created earlier on day six but brought fourth to Adam after He had created Adam, and it could also mean He created extra examples of each before Adam's eyes, so Adam was to know He was the creator.

"However, we are allowed to believe either narrative"

No, required to believe both.

"or evolution"

According to what decision by the Catholic Church? What level of magisterium? What exact wording?

If Humani Generis (only an encyclical) contradicts a canon by Council of Trent (infallible), Humani Generis cannot be Church teaching. If on the other hand Humani Generis does not really necessarily contradict that canon, perhaps Humani Generis is NOT allowing us to believe (actually believe) evolution : just preliminarily allowing learned men to argue for it. And requiring them to combine good exegesis with good science, when doing so.

"But we should form our consciences and be rational in matters of science and faith"

Here is one rational thing for you : God cannot contradict what He actually did. Now read Mark 10:6.

Updates

on this dialogue, if forthcoming, are below here.

Commenting on CMI, Two Videos

Video A

Creationists damage Christianity? (Creation Magazine LIVE! 7-10)
CMIcreationstation | 6.VI.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCiVk5hTAnc

I

@ 9:18

Forensics you say is two things:

• collecting data
• making a story that will fit them

History actually comes in on more than just the latter, so, more:

• having a history involving a need to collect data
• collecting them and analysing them
• making a story which will fit both the data and the already known parts of history.

II

@ 22:09 or a little before

While it is true that Geocentrism was very widely held so that at a time a serious Heliocentric (not just considering the idea nice sci fi, as Nicolas Oresme) would have been at a smaller percentage than "clinically insane" (how good clinical insanity back then was not decided like that!) ... it is totally envisageable that Geocentrism is actually totally true (absolute Geocentrism, that is), even if the proportions are inversed now.

Why? Because the "geography" of space is no more tested science (beyond certain points, like last object which can give trigonometry by angle of reflected sunlight on it) than history of the universe.

Unless, of course, you take the prima facie evidence of sight and inner ears (these latter saying earth is not moving as we stand on it) as the scientific argument it actually is.

As to Phlogiston, it certainly had a passing majority, but it was a fairly new theory (about a few decades) by the time it was rejected.

Video B

Archaeology supports the Bible (Creation Magazine LIVE! 7-06)
CMIcreationstation | 14.III.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE6yyn4dFms

I

15:35 How can an archaeological discovery show that the magnetic field was 40 % stronger in AD 1000? So far you have mentioned THAT archaeology supports that, but not HOW ...

II

18:02 I do not support the idea of radioactive decay rates having been much faster in the recent past.

In Barry Setterfield's version, it also involves speed of light having been much faster - totally unnecessary if geocentrism accounts for trigonometry to "near stars" not being trigonometric and the stellar distances therefore possibly very much closer to us.

For Argon or Helium trapped in rocks, they could be from atmosphere ...

As to Potassium Argon and alpha decay resulting in Helium, one can also doubt that the half life was correctly measured in the first place.

With half life of Carbon 14, we can check it against historically identifiable organic material. Take a bone splinter from Charlemagne - he died in 814 so his bones are 1204 years old. If they contain 86.446 percent modern Carbon, this confirms the halflife of 5730 years.

You can't get any comparable confirmation for long half lives, and 5730 years is not a half life calculated in a lab, since Libby calculated 5568 years, not 5730 years.

For decaying carbon 14, it is easy to get material that is 1/3 or 1/4 the age of a halflife, historically dated, but for decaying potassium or uranium, it is impossible.

III

2300 BC Ebla Tablets?

That would have been between Joseph in Egypt (carbon date 2600 BC, as per Djoser if Joseph was "Imhotep") and birth of Moses (carbon date 1713 BC as per funeral ship of Sesostris III).

Note, it seems coherent texts in any language come from this time ...

IV

At 25:49 - it seems you have already drifted from the topic of archaeology.

Keaton Halley's "atheists can know morality, but only because atheism is wrong" is of course gold.

But it is another topic.

Now, nowhere on the archaeology topic did you mention carbon 14 and rising C14 levels up to the present level (which on my view was reached well before the present).

So, perhaps time to mention it : if Genesis 14 as per Osgood 1986 on CMI was at the end of Chalcolithic of En Geddi (Hazazon Tamar), this means it's carbon dated about 5000 years old but it is really from only about 4000 years ago.

This means the carbon 14 level was at least as low as in samples that are now 1000 years old, that being 88.606 percent modern Carbon, but probably even lower. Genesis 14 is thus still during the "carbon 14 rise".

You might want to take a look at my overview attempt over this carbon 14 rise: http://ppt.li/3zr

As you mentioned evolution based morality of Hitler, it may be noted that not all the movements often lumped together as Fascism share it. Notably, the other German Fascism, Austrofascism (actually a stage in the longer story of Christian Social Party) did not.

Full link

http://ppt.li/3zr
= Creation vs. Evolution : Ultra Brief Summary on Carbon 14 Method
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/05/ultra-brief-summary-on-carbon-14-method.html

Responding to "Critics of Pope Francis, What’s your End-Game?"

New blog on the kid : So, Catholicism is Demographic - But is the Catholic Demography Always Catholic? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : On Marcel Lefebvre and "Traditionalist Dissent" · Responding to "Critics of Pope Francis, What’s your End-Game?"

Here is the link:

Critics of Pope Francis, What’s your End-Game?
by Mike Lewis · May 9, 2018
https://wherepeteris.com/critics-of-pope-francis-whats-your-end-game/

My answers are:

• to title question : I accept Pope Michael
  
  
• to another question, in the text, see exchange below. Note, Mike Lewis very graciously supplied the exact text of my comment:

Mike Lewis

... Ultimately, however, the argument is useless. Regardless of how emphatically and convincingly someone insists on the historicity of the heresy of Honorius, they still can’t point to a single point of doctrine or canon law that says anything about how Catholics are to respond should a pope teach heresy. ...

Hans Georg Lundahl

You are forgetting Saints are a valid interpretation of God’s law.

Liberius : St Athanasius explained his stance as circumstanced by persecution and ignored it (as a forced concession), St Felix the second accepted to become Pope in his stead (he seems to have already been antipope, but now, acc to Liber Papalis, “began to be Pope”).
Honorius : St Sophronius ignored his laying on the lid.
John XXII : I recall from my SSPX days that St Paschalis (was it he?) threatened to “withdraw his obedience”. On SSPX interpretation, that threat, if John XXII had persisted, would have been a “recognise and resist” stance. On a probably more realistic sede (and orthopapist) stance, if John XXII had persisted, St Paschalis would have concluded he was not Pope.

For any SSPX : the stance of St Paschalis was a temporary one which effected what it intended (conversion of a Pope from an inconsiderate statement) within a reasonable delay. The stance of St Sophronius simply seems to have been “laying on the lid” is not really and truly a Papal power, so he could ignore that (and Honorius does not seem to have demanded any direct acceptance of Monotheletism).

That of St Athanasius was only possible because there was a reasonable position the papal stance at Sirmium was more a tortured than a freely papal one, and St Felix conceded this and stepped back for Liberius when he came back and cleared himself. So, the stance of St Athanasius before having full proof of Pope Liberius having been forced and to what extent of concession (only ambiguity) would correspond to the Palmarian stance to “Paul VI” as “prisoner in the Vatican”. So far, unlike Liberius, we have no proof he was (I’m an ex-Palmarian, btw).

Feel free to comment here, either with a blogger account, or using name+URL!

Charles A. Coulombe Wavering on the Flood Issue

Four Creeds referred to in video : Apostlic, Nicene, Athanasian and Trentine, I suppose.

Noah & the Flood
Tumblar House | 23.II.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OILJ1RPbSU

I

1:55 Charles, you were exemplary ... it is that "Father" who should have been either recanting or (back in those days) being put on a bonfire, personally, or if he escaped to non-Catholic territory (well, that is where he was) by proxy of a haydoll.

II

2:45 ... I said you were exemplary ...

http://ppt.li/3zo

III

6:45 "maybe the standard view of fossilisation generally is right"

By fossilisation, we usually mean permineralisation. Creationists (Kent Hovind on some videos, notably - and I just checked CMI too) have documented cases of rapid such (linking to CMI, before reading):

http://creation.com/make-no-bones-about-it

The reason fossils are supposed to support long age and evolution is actually another one, which I deal with here:

http://ppt.li/3zp

Extended links

http://ppt.li/3zo = Creation vs. Evolution : Can Six Days or Eve from Side of Adam be a Metaphor?
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/06/can-six-days-or-eve-from-side-of-adam.html

CMI : Make no bones about it!
May 28, 2000
http://creation.com/make-no-bones-about-it

http://ppt.li/3zp = Creation vs. Evolution : Archaeology vs Vertabrate Palaeontology in Geology
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2016/06/archaeology-vs-vertabrate-palaeontology.html

Austrofascism, as Some Call It ... and Italian Fascism

Fascism
Tumblar House | 8.XII.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8OS-e3xEHw

I

On a topic related to America and Italy.

Are all or most Americans from Tierra del Fuego to Newfoundland and Alaska descended from Amerigo Vespucci or namesakes of him or disciples of other Aymerics, like Anne Catherine Emmerich?

Or could it be they are only called Americans after living between Tierra del Fuego, Newfoundland, Alaska and that place having its name after an Emmerick whose Italian pronunciation of it was Amerigo ... the mapmaker Vespucci?

You see, that case is a bit parallel to whether Palestinians are called so because Philistines (they aren't, at least except marginally), or whether they are called so from Palestine, the Roman name imposed in memory of Philistines, while themselves being Israelites.

II

Nobody else?

I think Dollfuss didn't look too mournful over sharing the label with Mussolini and even Finzi.

Calcandi Serpentes

As Catholics we have a lot more in common with fascism than any other secular political belief.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I suppose you consider Distributism as a directly Catholic, then?

III

[Benito Mussolini named after Juarez, since Italian for Bennett is Benedetto was mentioned by Charles A. Coulombe:]

Speaking of Benedetto. The ASCII value of BENEDETTO, as of Portuguese PAPABENTO, is ... matching the Greek gematria for BENEdIKTOC ... (sorry, can't copy paste proper Greek spelling from Greek wiki, the firefox in Nanterre University Library won't allow that). In other words, it matches Apocalypse 13:18.

B 66 060 06
E 69 120 15
N 78 190 23
E 69 250 32
D 68 310 40
E 69 370 49
T 84 450 53
T 84 530 57
O 79 600 66

IV

12:22 In fact, the corporativist view on shoe industry working together for the common good is one which was in fact shared by Christian Social Party as well as Italian Fascism, National Socialism and I think also Peronismo.

Partly, but not totally even by Swedish Social Democrats : LO would be for "we want higher wages", but if they went to strike to long, SAP governments would tell them "you go to a table with your employers".

It does make some sense to call that strategy fascism, insofar as Benito Mussolini was for it once he had hit down the Communist Unions ... (dopo il biennio rosso) and before either Hitler or Dollfuss took power in 1933 or Saltsjöbad deals were signed in 1938 or Perón got elected in 1946.

I also honour the mayor of Assisi who collaborated with Father Ruffino Niccacci to save Jews because he was a Fascist of the early days recalling when Jews were even overrepresented and considering Salò Republic was a puppet régime with Hitler pulling the strings.

And I honour a socialist adversary to whom I expressed my objection to class struggle and my preference for harmony between classes - he said "harmony between the classes is fascism" and I replied "then I'm a fascist".

Meaning of course, while I think you have a right to not call Christian socials fascists, I think it is somewhat pedantic to exact this same behaviour of everyone else (unless you are a Habsburg ... if you have Otto's word, I'll assume I'll ... if not enthusiastically obey at least try to not disobey too much ...)

No, I am of course not using "Austrofascist" of people I dislike. I consider myself an Austrofascist myself, unless Otto von Habsburg or his heirs were to actually forbid me to use that word of Christlich Soziale Partei ...

One thing they did wrong, though - the camp for tramps. Yes, it was not a labour camp or a death camp, but it falsified the labour market by forcing tramps to look for work ... and I am not surprised it was made in Oberösterreich (that is where Hitler came from and there is even a fossile whale there - a monster from before the deluge, you know like that horror that swallowed Jonah and the one that swallowed Pinocchio ...) ... but apart from that, I am a fan of Austrofascism - or to call things by proper names, of course, Christian Socials ...