More Tolkien and Maybe Lewis Too

Response Shared (I)

Hans-Georg Lundahl
https://www.quora.com/profile/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-2/Tolkien-once-stated-that-the-only-reason-he-did-not-consider-himself-a-socialist-was-because-he-did-not-like-the-city

Studied Latin (language) at Lund University

29.IX.2024

St. Michael's Day

“Tolkien once stated that the only reason he did not consider himself a socialist was because he did not like the “city planners” that came with that school of thought.”

Did you understand the phrase “if only” …?

The idiom “if only because X” doesn’t mean “X is the ony reason” but rather “even ignoring all the other reasons I have than X” …

Tolkien clearly was against the Soviet Union and he was at least during the war 1939 to 1945 on Franco’s side. He may have been less admiring of Franco’s administration after that.

So am I, but I might be seeing too much of myself in Tolkien, since I see so much of Tolkien in me. Believing Tolkien was for the Soviet Union is ridiculous.

That said, if Lord of the Rings was an attack on anything it was more like industrial modernity with remakes of traditional morality. The Soviet examplifies both, but had monopoly on neither. Both also existed in the Prussia he fought back in 1916 and 17 (by 1918 he had been shipped back to England). Both also existed in Victorian and early post-Victorian UK and Commonwealth, especially as projects, well before the Soviet Union.

Response To

Isn't is perfectly clear, really, given the incredible fear of the British people of the USSR when J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings, that is, in fact, an extremely complex and subtle attack on Communism, and the Soviet Union?
by John Sierra
https://www.quora.com/Isnt-is-perfectly-clear-really-given-the-incredible-fear-of-the-British-people-of-the-USSR-when-J-R-R-Tolkien-wrote-the-Lord-of-the-Rings-that-is-in-fact-an-extremely-complex-and-subtle-attack-on-Communism-and-the/answer/John-Sierra-38

I

Exchange also on

29.IX.2024

St. Michael's Day

John Sierra

Funny how you go off on an unhinged rant about the phrase “if only” when i said “the only”.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The quote I recall includes the words “if only” …

I do NOT recall any quote at all saying that Tolkien’s ONLY reason to dislike the Soviet Union was city planners.

I do recall more than one stating the opposite, like the letter involving the Yalta Conference being highly ironic about Stalin, for a very different reason, namely mendacious propaganda.

2.X.2024

John Sierra

No one mentioned the Soviet Union. the quote wast he only reason that he’s doesn’t not consider himself a socialist was that he detested city planners. .

Hans-Georg Lundahl

What is the source of this quote?

What are the exact words?

II

St. Francis' Day

4.X.2024

David Parry

“That said, if Lord of the Rings was an attack on anything it was more like industrial modernity with remakes of traditional morality. “

With special reference to Birmingham, methinks. On revisiting the university (my alma mater) a few years ago, I was walking around Edgbaston and saw a building that might well have been the inspiration for the two towers.

Tolkien is very clearly against the modern industrial world, and I wonder if he overdid it a bit with the orcs, making them too one-dimensionally evil.

The hobbits are clearly inspired by Oxbridge academics, a breed that Tolkien knew well.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Except the ones that are inspired by other guys he knew well.

Family members and some female fussy ones.

People seen in Sarehole while it was green.

Response II to I

29.IX.2024

St. Michael's Day

Hans-Georg Lundahl

“There’s also the fact that Sauron never had a proletariat,”

He certainly had more proletarian than Middle Class subjects.

“never seized the means of production,”

He certainly seized means of agrarian production from whoever lived there before his conquests.

“and there’s absolutely nothing about Mordor that resembles the Soviet Union.”

High Surveillance? Over the top control?

Q II

What was the nature of the relationship between J.R.R Tolkien and CS Lewis? How would you describe their friendship?
https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-nature-of-the-relationship-between-J-R-R-Tolkien-and-CS-Lewis-How-would-you-describe-their-friendship/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-2

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied Latin (language) at Lund University

29.IX.2024

St. Michael's Day

I’d like to validate all the answers by Jeff Mathieson[1] Jason Taylor[2] and especially Manu OG[3] … only adding that they were also both veterans of The Great War.

That was however also added in a longer answer by Timothy Train.[4] On a verbally not identic but substantially not different question.

Footnotes

[1] Jeff Mathieson's answer to What was the nature of the relationship between J.R.R Tolkien and CS Lewis? How would you describe their friendship?
[2] Jason Taylor's answer to What was the nature of the relationship between J.R.R Tolkien and CS Lewis? How would you describe their friendship?
[3] Manu OG's answer to What was the nature of the relationship between J.R.R Tolkien and CS Lewis? How would you describe their friendship?
[4] Timothy Train's answer to What was the relationship between J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis like?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

29.IX.2024

St. Michael's Day

I can say a few things that their friendship was NOT like.

1. They were not brothers in a Masonic lodge. The Inklings were no such thing. There were no initiation rites, newcomers didn’t need to shut up, indeed, the contrary, they would specifically be invited to speak up on their literary projects.
2. They were also not a homosexual couple. Tolkien was clearly heterosexual and normal, he was married and had four children. CSL has been speculated as having been marred in his heterosexuality, and he had prior to Christianity had an interest in BDSM, but he did live a somewhat married life (though not perhaps validly married) and was devastated at the death of Joy. Tolkien for his part was not surviving the death of Edith for more than about a year.

Q III

How did J.R.R. Tolkien's personal linguistic 'aesthetic' influence the development of his Elvish languages?
https://www.quora.com/How-did-J-R-R-Tolkiens-personal-linguistic-aesthetic-influence-the-development-of-his-Elvish-languages/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur linguist

29.IX.2024

St. Michael's Day

Basically, if he loved two languages that have some traits in common, he was more than happy to invent a third one that involved the same traits.

Did he love Ancient Greek and Finnish? See Quenya.

Did he love Welsh and Spanish? See Naffarin (more to the Spanish) and Sindarin (more to the Welsh). While Naffarin is a Conlang, it is not an Elvish language, by the way.

IV

Did J.R.R. Tolkien have a specific timeline for the different periods of history in Middle-earth (LOTR, Hobbit)?
https://www.quora.com/Did-J-R-R-Tolkien-have-a-specific-timeline-for-the-different-periods-of-history-in-Middle-earth-LOTR-Hobbit/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University

29.IX.2024

St. Michael's Day

I’d like to second Manu OG’s answer, which was unfairly collapsed.

I’d only like to add that The Hobbit was set some 70~80 years before the very end of the Third Age and LOTR was set in the last year and the final chapters run into the Fourth Age.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

29.IX.2024

St. Michael's Day

Here is his answer, by the way:

Manu OG's answer to Did J.R.R. Tolkien have a specific timeline for the different periods of history in Middle-earth (LOTR, Hobbit)?

Q V

Wasn't Tolkien trying to do what Homer did, to write an English version of the Iliad, and redefine English culture and religion? All Tolkien did was dress up contemporary events with some Norse legends, a kind of Norse version of the world wars!
https://www.quora.com/Wasnt-Tolkien-trying-to-do-what-Homer-did-to-write-an-English-version-of-the-Iliad-and-redefine-English-culture-and-religion-All-Tolkien-did-was-dress-up-contemporary-events-with-some-Norse-legends-a-kind-of-Norse/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University

3.X.2024

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus

No …

1. The Iliad is not fiction. It’s docufiction. It’s not like imagining how Nazism would be portrayed as (possibly) Sauron, or as (somewhat more probably) Tengil (Brothers Lionheart), it’s more on the level of how Nazism is portrayed in Cannons of Navarrone or Sound of Music or Schindler’s List. Except the Trojan war wasn’t all that much about ideology, it was more about language and resources, not totally unlike Hundred Years’ War or Seven Years War were between England and France.
2. Tolkien didn’t dress up contemporary events. When he said he “dislike[d] allegory,” he meant he disliked when Restoration poets made “allegories” about precisely contemporary events under kings and queens from Charles II to Queen Anne. The contemporary stuff that’s actually in Tolkien is more like horrors of World War I trenches, or the conflicts between Natural Law vs Reason of State, or between Industrialism and Ruralism (plus Arts and Crafts) or between often decentralised believers in freedom and the true faith (which “back then” was pretty much absence of idolatry) and very centralised, though with two or three competing factions, Satanists, Diabolists. That kind of conflict (with Bolsheviks as Satanists, I think Tolkien would have agreed with Wurmbrandt[1]) comes into contemporary events (from Spain 1931 to fall of the wall 1990, and beyond), but Tolkien’s work doesn’t quite align with Tolkiens views of The West (in the cold war), so, his fiction was not trying to depict contemporary events.
3. Unlike the Iliad, but like Robert E. Howard, Tolkien places his work into the far off past of Earth. Homer by contrast was dealing with things that happened up to 400 years earlier, like making a docufiction about the Thirty Years’ War.
4. No Norse legend as such is in The Lord of the Rings. I know them pretty well, Tolkien knew them even better. If you want an equivalent of the ring making invisible, go for Gyges in Lydia, and Herodotus considered that a true recent event. If you want to have a ring possessor cursing those who kept the ring from him, see an archaeological item. If you want a supernatural being that’s evil and that can only be killed by the destruction of an object, that’s the Russian tale of Koshchey the Deathless. If you want a quest ending with the destruction of a magic object (but of opulence, not of oppressive power), see the quest for Sampo in Kalevala, but there the destruction of Sampo is an accident, not what the heros wanted. Norse legends have contributed relatively little. Beowulf perhaps a little more, and to The Hobbit. And while certain things in Laketown may be seen as the conflict between Capitalism and Fascism (with Bard as a very idealised version of something ranging from Mussolini to d’Annunzio but just for parts of the situations at the end of WW-I and the Biennio Rosso, up to the March on Rome), the main action is very different from both most of Norse legends and most of contemporary events. One could argue important parts owe more to Rider Haggard than to either of these.

Footnotes

[1] WAS KARL MARX A SATANIST?: A Documented Study: Wurmbrand, Pastor Richard: 9798986178905: Amazon.com: Books
https://www.amazon.com/WAS-KARL-MARX-SATANIST-Documented/dp/B09YQ33N23/

Q VI

Can you describe the physical features and climate of Westeros and how they differ from our world?
https://www.quora.com/Can-you-describe-the-physical-features-and-climate-of-Westeros-and-how-they-differ-from-our-world/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University

3.X.2024

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus

No, I can’t.

Just because I love Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, that doesn’t mean I’m into George R. R. Martin.

Q VII

What education did medieval European aristocracy receive?
https://www.quora.com/What-education-did-medieval-European-aristocracy-receive/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Answer requested by

Alex Pismenny

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Was bullied in school, both as pupil and as teacher. Against school compulsion.

6 years ago

My impression is, as C. S. Lewis was a good medievalist, he fairly much nailed it in the question of education on the page where Shasta, sorry, Cor enumerates what he is going to have to learn.

Note, the intellectual standards have been different for different periods and you would also like to consult the education of Prince Caspian.

But he took from a wide range, and a Latin grammar by “Pulverulentus Siccus” was clearly a good Renaissance asset …

In the earlier Middle Ages, one reason you did not necessarily learn all that much Classic Latin was, Latin was how you wrote your own language, up to Alcuin and in certain places some longer.

At the time of Alcuin, take a look at his dialogue for prince Pépin, probably while the latter was fairly young.

Dialogo di Pipino e Alcuino (This page takes it, Pépin was 5 years old)

I

St. Francis day, 4.X.2024

Hans-Georg Lundahl

To the initial statement, from The Horse and His Boy, the chapter “How Bree became a wiser horse”:

"Buck up, Bree," said Cor. "It's far worse for me than for you. You aren't going to be educated. I shall be learning reading and writing and heraldry and dancing and history and music while you'll be galloping and rolling on the hills of Narnia to your heart's content."

II the following dialogue

is from six years ago too, soon after the answer:

Alex Pismenny

“P. Quid est libertas hominis?—A. Innocentia.”

I wish they taught that today.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

One can also enjoy “P. Quid est lingua?—A. Flagellum aeris.”

Alex Pismenny

Remarkable here is that these are questions a 5-year old is asking. We don’’t know if young Pepin can appreciate Alcuin’s wit, but can you imagine a 5-year old asking “what is liberty” or “what is language”, in any language?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Actually, I think he asked “what is the tongue?”

I have been a five year old asking about technicalities in Star Trek, because I have been a five year old watching Star Trek.

Five year olds ask about what they hear about.

One such asked “what is God?”

Not “who is God?” as he knew the answer from the Catechism, but “what is God?”

He is referred to as St Thomas Aquinas.

I wonder if it is ironic about his Summa that his last confessor said he found his conscience as pure as that of a four year old - or whether he was actually just four when he asked?

Alex Pismenny

Yes, perhaps, since he asked about other body parts.

Q VIII

What does the term "Canon" mean in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien?
https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-term-Canon-mean-in-the-world-of-J-R-R-Tolkien/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University

6.X.2024

XXth LD after Pentecost

In the case of any author who has derivative works[1] , whether authorised or as fan fiction, what the author wrote himself is considered “canon” …

The word means “measuring rod, standard” in Greek, so, what the author wrote himself is “canon” in relation to all derivative works and for that matter discussions.

This is not the only way[2] in which the word is used outside the discussion whether the canon of sacred scripture is 73 or 66 books.

Footnotes

[1] Canon (fiction) - Wikipedia
[2] Canon - Wikipedia

Q IX

How does living in Tolkien's world differ from living in the real world?
https://www.quora.com/How-does-living-in-Tolkiens-world-differ-from-living-in-the-real-world/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University

Fri 11.X.2024

How does living in Ellen Gould White’s world differ from living in the real world?

How does living in Sigmund Freud’s world differ from living in the real world?

Whether you are a Seventh Day Adventist or a Shrink or both, you certainly also have literary heros the works of which are not obviously by everyone considered as reflecting the real world.

Q X

What are some ways that Tolkien's universe is more imaginative and comprehensive?
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-ways-that-Tolkiens-universe-is-more-imaginative-and-comprehensive/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-2

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied Latin (language) at Lund University

16.X.2024

Than what?

It’s not more imaginative and comprehensive than primary reality, as God is a better author than Tolkien, which Tolkien himself acknowleged.

It is certainly more imaginative and comprehensive than some modern and Puritan views of the real world, though. For instance, it features the idea that people who “just want to help” (Saruman, Grima) can be eager to abuse that position. In some minds, those who “just want to help” can never be wrong, at least not compared to those they pretend to be helping. That’s one VERY basic way.

According to some, living good and safe lives, physically, depends on industrialism. Tolkien’s universe features a peasantry (the Shire) which the real world has seen as well (Croatia[1] and Poland[2] are even today much more rural than France or the UK).

In 1987 about 2.7 million private farms were in operation. About 57 percent of these were smaller than 5 hectares (12 acres). Of the remaining farms, 25 percent were between 5 and 15 hectares (12 and 37 acres) and 11 percent were between 10 and 15 hectares (25 and 37 acres). Only 7 percent of private farms were larger than 15 hectares (37 acres). Whereas the majority of the private farms were below optimum size, the majority of state farms were excessively large. Only 12 percent of the latter farms were below 200 hectares (494 acres), and 60 percent were larger than 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres).

If the current population[3] is projected back to 1987, because I’m lazy, and if each private farm is considered as a farmer’s family of five, also because I’m lazy, that means 10 in 28 were private farmers.

38,036,118 / (2,700,000*5) = 2.8 …

Croatian agriculture has come a long way, emerging from the closed system and market of the former Yugoslavia to become integrated into the common market system of the European Union (EU). During this time there have been a lot of changes in Croatian agriculture. Today there are between 180,000 and 200,000 family farms from which, depending on the year, around 95,000 are under the subsidies system. In terms of land ownership, Croatian agriculture and rural areas are still characterized by many small plots with an average of 5.7 hectares per farm.

Here too, I’ll be lazy and estimate five persons per farmer family. One in four Croatians[4] is part of a farmer family, on this estimate.

3,861,967 / (190,000 * 5) = 4.065 ...

According to some, the key to “greatness” (whatever that means) is “progress” and the key to “progress” is discarding old ideas and “trying out” new ones. Again, Tolkien provides a corrective, bringing us back to the real real world.

And obviously, Tolkien celebrates long walks, the beauty of landscapes, the patience of seasons, and lots of humanly fun and healthy stuff.[5] Part of which one might sometimes forget or neglect, if it weren’t for reading him, or authors like him.

Footnotes

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
[2] Agriculture in Poland - Wikipedia
[3] Poland - Wikipedia
[4] Croatia - Wikipedia
[5] There are some things that Tolkien loved

Q XI

How are the stars portrayed in Tolkien's world compared to our world?
https://www.quora.com/How-are-the-stars-portrayed-in-Tolkiens-world-compared-to-our-world/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund UniversityJ

17.X.2024

I would reformulate the question.

How are heavenly bodies and stars portrayed in Tolkien’s Legendarium, compared to in Modern Astronomy.

You see, the stars and heavenly bodies in Silmarillion are based on older real world ideas of the stars.

When in the Silmarillion the stars are said to be lit by an angelic being or goddess (the line between angelic beings and pagan gods are somewhat floating for the Valar of the Silmarillion) named Varda in Quenya or Elbereth in Sindarin, this reflects the very real world predominant idea that stars are created and lit on a specific occasion in the past, rather than evolving through gradual compression till heat produces fusion, this is the predominant Christian (day 4), Jewish (dito) and Pagan idea about stars, and in precisely our world believers in the creation model vastly outnumber believers in the “modern science” (alias atheism) idea.

When in the Silmarillion Sun and Moon are considered as carried by angelic beings, this reflects very clearly the position of St. Thomas Aquinas and of the astronomer Riccioli about celestial bodies. Again, in precisely our world, the believers in either the “stars are angels with bodies” model or “stars are angels carrying bodies” model taken together vastly outnumber believers in “stars are balls of burning gas, moved only by gravity and inertia, therefore by mass” model.

When in the Silmarillion Earth is described as first flat, later a globe, but all the time immobile, below the stars and celestial bodies turning, this also reflects the historical vast majority position (harmonising flat earthers and round earthers) of the people thinking of the matter precisely in our world.

When I say “vast majority” I do not mean vast majority of scientists, alive today, but these are a tiny splinter minority of mankind overall, I do not even mean the vast majority of successful students in modern Western education, who systematically access the “scientific” view rather than the philosophical and religious ones. I mean the vast majority of all people, past, present and possibly even future, to which the modern West is a tiny minority.

Don’t get me wrong. Tolkien himself believed the “modern scientific” pov, except it’s systematic exclusion of the supernatural, which he probably in some fashion tacked on to the other viewpoint, that’s inherently naturalistic and has been so since the Enlightenment. I do not believe in Geocentrism because Tolkien believed it, he didn’t, I do not believe Geocentrism because he described it in a “legend” which isn’t one, but a novel mimicking myths, I believe it because it corresponds to eye sight, inner ears and the conviction that matter is not all, and that spirit exists and moves on vaster scales than myself moving the fingers over a keyboard. It’s not an epiphenomenon of the brain that moves the fingers, it’s an intelligent being in union with a brain and with fingertips that moves them according to my understanding. I see three camps on the question, in the real world, way outside Tolkien’s legendarium:

• you believe your eyes, you realise matter, gravity, inertia wouldn’t create the convoluted spirograph patterns of Geocentrism, so conclude (on this and on other items) God and angels;
• you pretend “God and angels must be proven before they can be used as an explanation” which is not how unseen explanations work, since they are proven by what they explain, but you pretend so anyway and are in reality an Atheist, a strong Atheist, convinced there is no God, there are no angels, and conclude that astral movements need purely will-less and mind-less explanations, which are only possible (if even then) with the simpler orbits of Heliocentrism (on the level of each solar system) within an overall “we are very far away from a centre we cannot identify”;
• you fall somewhere in between and do not really reason consistently, but mix viewpoints from both camps, for instance if you are both a Christian and a Heliocentric.

Q XII

Does Narnia really exist?
https://www.quora.com/Does-Narnia-really-exist/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund UniversityJ

17.X.2024

I cannot say Narnia exists.

But I can say Narnia could exist, since God would be perfectly free to create it, if He so wanted.

Or, perhaps rather it could not exist, since it involves faults in theology peculiar to C. S. Lewis. If Aslan is Jesus in His real human body taking on the appearances of a lion, there is no theological problem, but it contradicts the words of Aslan to Bree. If God the Son is supposed to have two parallel incarnations, as Jesus in our world and as Aslan in that world, that would be very problematic theology, and it has probably already been condemned, for instance in the Giordano Bruno case.

Q XIII

Is there a fifth book in The Chronicles of Narnia series? If so, why was it not adapted into a movie like the other four books?
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-fifth-book-in-The-Chronicles-of-Narnia-series-If-so-why-was-it-not-adapted-into-a-movie-like-the-other-four-books/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

avid reader back when I had better sleep than now

18.X.2024

There are seven books.

There were two screen adaptations, small and big screen, both started in publication order, and both stopped before completion.

• BBC on the small screen took The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair.
• The new franchise for the big screen didn’t even make it to The Silver Chair.
• Both adaptations lacked The Horse and His Boy, The Magician’s Nephew, The Last Battle. The middle one of these features a fallen evil empire in the world of Charn, the idiocy of doing magic, and the creation of Narnia. The two other ones feature Calormen.

The reasons would be that BBC in 1988 to 1990 and Hollywood in c. 20 years later was too politically correct to include these.

• Even if Calormen is in fact neither Hindoo nor Muslim in religion, but more like sth between Phoenician and Assyrian, the culture has some Near East vibes, and the Calormenes have been taken as being a dog whistle parody against Muslims.
• Charn with a world wide empire and a queen was perhaps a bit close to home. Check out what “Commonwealth” means and whether the UK in 1988 had a king or a queen.
• Dito for the portrayal of Andrew Ketterley, a magician clearly parodic of Theosophy.
• The Magician’s Nephew and The Last Battle are the ones most rich in parallels to the Bible, i e to Genesis and Apocalypse. Some people who tolerate Christianity sufficiently to allow The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (with parallels to Crucifixion and Resurrection) are much more allergic to taking Creation Story and Doomsday after Tribulation realistically. Hence, the ones who hate Fundamentalism would have discouraged these two.
• The two featuring Calormen also feature Susan in an unflattering light. The Horse and His Boy spotlights her love of luxury and flattery as the reason she ends up being a Damsel in Distress and bringing others into grave danger. The Last Battle features same traits (a person more eager to flirt than to marry is hardly likely to hate compliments or be even healthily indifferent to them) making her a non-believer (at least in the eyes of Jill and Polly) in the truth of Narnia. Feminists would have taken umbrage because traits not uncommon in women and not discouraged by feminism are portrayed as wrong. And specifically, Susan did accept Narnia as a “play”, meaning there is a jibe against liberal Christians who take Christianity as not true but a decent play, rather than taking it precisely as truth. The reason these two were not aired on BBC or filmed in Hollywood are the precise reasos why both BBC (1986) and Hollywood (1988) did Fay Weldon’s The Life and Loves of a She-Devil.

Q XIV

Does Tolkien believe that Eru created multiple universes, each with its own drama?
https://www.quora.com/Does-Tolkien-believe-that-Eru-created-multiple-universes-each-with-its-own-drama/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University

24.X.2024

St. Raphael Archangel

1. Not that I know of. His friend C. S. Lewis possibly or even probably did.
2. He did not believe in Eru as much as in God. Eru is an imagined name in an imagined language, for this God we Christians believe in.
3. He did not place Middle Earth in “another universe of the multiverse” it is meant to be our world, it’s just that he took liberties with the timeline. Precisely like he already did as a Catholic given he was supporting Old Earth compromise. Note, I said “as a Catholic” and not “because he was a Catholic” there were and are Catholic Young Earth Creationists.
4. The fall of Barad-Dûr does not replace Calvary and Resurrection, it’s a “liberty with the timeline” fanfic prequel to it.

Can Sedevacantism Be Condemned as Heresy? No, Here is Why

Can Sedevacantism Be Condemned as Heresy? No, Here is Why · Casey Chalk is Wrong to Deny Scripture is Perspicacious

Q on

Catholic Apologetics

Why do a number of Catholics believe in Sedevacantism? Why has the Catholic Church not declared it to be a heresy?
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/Why-do-a-number-of-Catholics-believe-in-Sedevacantism-Why-has-the-Catholic-Church-not-declared-it-to-be-a-heresy

Submission accepted by

Alex Pismenny

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Catholic convert, reading many Catechisms

Palm Sunday, 2.IV.2023

To the first:
Because various Catholics due to various traditionally held positions on what certain Catholic dogmas mean have concluded that people who are widely claimed to have been or now be the Pope of the Catholic Church have contradicted such dogmas, and therefore are not Catholics, and therefore, according to Catholic dogma, cannot be Popes. Note that Sedevacantism (in this sense) subdivides into Sedevacantism proper (there have been no Popes since 1958) and Ortho-Papism (someone else than the commonly accepted series of “John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis” has been pope for at least part of the time since 1958).

To the second:
Catholic dogma is not a sand box for the Popes’ whims, nor a stronghold for the Popes’ powers. A Pope (if such) who wants to discourage Young Earth Creationism, the Latin Mass, Catholic exclusivism, the understanding that people in objective circumstances of mortal sin have to abstain from receiving the sacraments, would be better bolstered there were a Catholic dogma that stated Sedevacantism cannot be true. There cannot be, since the best relevant dogma at least does not exclude Orthopapism, and was in fact interpreted so that at least a 40 years sedevacancy was considered as within the limits imposed by “perpetuos successores” at Vatican Council, decision about the papacy. And, as said, it is dogma that a Pope cannot be a heretic. Logically there is in this no preference for concluding “he is a Pope, ergo not a heretic” over “he is a heretic, ergo not a Pope” … it’s a question to be decided about the facts, not a once and for all principle.

Side note:

5 Things Every Catholic Should Know
https://youtube.com/shorts/AMiM9jEREQ4?feature=share

Resuming with Pismenny

Alex Pismenny

Catholic Christian

shared on Catholic Apologetics, Feb 18, from

Faith, Nation, Beauty

Posted by Alex Pismenny, Feb 18

Catholic Views on Creation and Creationism

The Evolutionary Theory suggests that life developed randomly from DNA copying errors during reproduction. It doesn’t mean life forms (species) are random as their formation follows the logic of survival of the fittest. The copying errors are indeed random, but errors that reduce survivability of the mutant kill the mutant and the error doesn’t spread. Errors that enhance survivability, on the other hand, produce offspring and are no longer errors. This is, obviously, at odds with the Catholic understanding of life: God created all forms of dead matter and life following His purpose. Error and death of the unfit cannot be His building blocks, love is. God created species at once or nearly at once. In fact, we don’t have a scientific proof that one species came from another in the realm of advanced species. We only see evolution inside a certain genetic perimeter, e.g., we can find frogs that evolve separately because a single pond became separate ponds due to some geological event. We don’t see frogs becoming fish. We only see bacteria mutate and speciate. Maybe macroevolution is possible, but we haven’t observed it. It is tempting, however, to construct a theological hypothesis that invites the evolutionary theory into Catholic Theology. Indeed, the thinking goes, the scientific method is not antithetical to the teachings of the Church; it was, in fact, invented by the Church. I would like to examine the various claims at that synthesis closely and separate plausible claims from implausible. I’ll begin by offering this generic proposition. It is not a fact that we understand God and His purpose with any clarity. Rather the opposite is true. For example, often we hear that God must have been an evil killer for commanding the Israelites to wage brutal wars. It takes a careful examination of the purpose of Israel of old existing and culminating in the building of the Church in order to discern the Divine Purpose of love in the destruction of Paganism. So, perhaps, endless creature dying so that to give room for improved creatures, -- was a manifestation of Divine Love as well? We also see allusions to a complex and gradual process of creation in the account of the Creation in the first chapters of Genesis. The “days” of the creation generally follow the order as astrophysics and paleontology propose it, from electromagnetic fields to verdant farmland. Man is made not from nothing but “of the slime of the earth” (Genesis 2:7). While the Bible does not propose that species of animals were created one out of another, it is in keeping with the general style of the Books of Moses using simple language of farmers and herdsman to describe events a scientist would struggle to explain to a child today. Likewise, there is nothing in the text to suggest that the “days” of creation were 24-hour days. Much the opposite: a literal day is produced by the Earth’s rotation, but Moses starts counting “days” way before the luminaries and planets were made. This is, I think is commonly held Catholic view on the Creation is today: that random evolution through DNA copying errors and regulated only by the survival of the fitness cannot be discerned from observable facts any better than a process of gradual creation of astrophysical matter, plants, and animals by God, on His own schedule. Scientific discovery results in better understanding of the Divine works, never disproving it. Literal reading of the Old Testament ignores clear poetic patterns in many books, the complexity of the subject matter, and the inability of ancient men to comprehend modern astrophysics. The reader must discover points that the divine inspired writer is making underneath the limitation of primitive language and unschooled audience. For example, that the Universe is created from nothing but Man is created from the “slime of the Earth” is hardly an accident; that “light” and “firmament” precede the creation of the luminaries is something that only a modern reader who knows of electromagnetism can grasp, but there was something in Moses’ vision of the Creation that separated the generic matter of the early Cosmos from the astronomical order that we can observe. That, by the way, also shown that Moses was not composing a tale but rather he was given an insight into fundamental physics beyond his rational comprehension. Well, that compromise between the Evolutionary hypothesis and the account of Creation is, however, full of illogicalities that surround the creation of Man. Let’s postulate that the creation of inanimate matter, plants, and animals corresponds well with astrophysics and paleontology, given the leeway in interpreting ancient Hebrew texts written for Moses’ contemporaries. In other words, “days” are eons, the order in which life appears is really a process of one species evolving from another, apes appearing on the evolutionary scene and learn to use tools and communicate. Macroevolution, to be sure, has defects as a scientific hypothesis regardless of any true or imaginary divine revelation, but we want to proceed to the main focus of this essay, the Catholic Anthropology. We have several immutable theological facts that the Church teaches infallibly. Man, and shortly after, Woman are created from the “slime of the earth”. Seeing an evolutionary progression from primitive life to man here is a mistake: if animals had been the building blocks of human race, there was no need on day Six to go back to slime when apes were available. The evolution of animals could not have anything to do with the creation of man. Man is created in the image of God; animals aren’t. No matter how it is interpreted, -- usually, as the presence of rational soul and free will, -- again, if man came from apes, he would have born the image of an ape. The building material for man is purposely lacking an image as slime has none. Man is loved by God. The rest of the creation is pre-built to be man’s home. Man is called to subdue the creation made for him. Even when Adam and Eve sin, God protects them insofar that it is possible and, apparently, slaughters some animals to make them clothes. Later, God likes the sacrifice of Abel, wo is a shepherd, and condemns Cain who is a vegetarian. Animal life is evidently of no particular value to God. Death of an animal is a part of its existence, whereas Adam is sternly warned to avoid the forbidden fruit because disobedience will cause him to “die the death”, -- the death he was not to ever taste. Man is also given the “paradise of pleasure”, whereas the animals are merely provided so that “they may have to feed upon”. Man is master of all the animals as he is the one giving them names. Finally, God commands the animals to “be fruitful and multiply”, but the Book of Genesis does not explain how the animals are to do that. But man is given a woman that is his wife and partner and is a source of joy: “This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”. Human reproduction is, therefore, cardinally distinct from animal reproduction. We have to conclude that, perhaps, some form of evolution pertains to the animal kingdom; we certainly know from observation that closely related species evolve, like dogs evolve from wolves. Also, primitive forms of life, such as viruses and bacteria mutate and evolve. The hypothesis that all species evolved from a single form of life is not provable of observable, but since the Bible is silent on whether the order of creation of animals also implies macroevolution, a Catholic should be free to believe either way. However, Man’s evolution from apes is wholly inacceptable. The Bible makes it clear that Man’s creation was a distinct act of God. The popular in modernity idea that at some point in evolution from Ape to Man God saw one particular couple of apes and made humans out of these two by giving them rational souls does not only contradicts the clear text of the Bible, it contradicts the entire Catholic anthropology of Man as the only creature elected for eternal life. Another area of encroachment of theology by science is cosmogony. The Catholic, and generally mainstream Christian understanding is that the universe was made for Man. We have already dealt with the evolutionary view of genesis of men and found it incompatible with the Christian understanding. In the spatial domain, likewise, the view of the universe being exceedingly vast, created by no one, without purpose, and containing the Earth at its periphery, possible one among many planets suitable for life, -- seems problematic. Let us discuss this aspect further. The Gentle Reader need not panic. I am not about to propose that in fact the world with its stars and galaxies rotates around the static Earth. I am merely pointing out that when discussing spatial phenomena, the choice of the reference point is determined by the nature of the phenomenon under consideration. As Galileo realized, the best reference point for the study of the movement of planets is the Sun. With modern astronomy, we probably should choose the centers of galaxies as reasonable reference points, etc. However, even a modern man uses left and right, up and down relative to himself when he is riding a bicycle. He was heliocentrist when he was looking for Venus in the sky, but he is egocentrist as he navigates a bike path. What coordinate system does a Christian believer use? His primary concern is his actions. What are my duties? Did I live my day right? What behaviors of mine require amendment? But man doesn't judge himself alone. God also judges, justifies, gives strength for the next day, and loves. That is a domain of heaven above. The fact that the Earth's atmosphere is a rotating ball of gasses enveloping the Earth has no bearing on that. Heaven is above, and it is a Kingdom. The Church Triumphant is up there. Heaven is as real as Andromeda Galaxy; it is just not accessible with telescopes. Then there is Hell. It is below us, again, no matter what rotates around what. It is useful to think of the Christian "above" and Christian "below" not as spatial directions but as measure of sanctity and of beauty. Angels are from above. Demons are from below. Angels are beautiful. Demons are ugly. And people are around us. They form the plain of our existence: those that we love, those that we are supposed to protect or to teach or to shun. Other people are the geography of our daily life. In antiquity, the spiritual view of the cosmos was also the scientific view because for the tasks the primitive man had to do, flat earth with rotating Sun and Moon was all the science he needed. Today, the spiritual view did not change, but the scientific view changed quite a bit. What are we to do? We are to recognize that these are unrelated views and switch between them as needed. There is nothing wrong with the spiritual view exactly as it was thousands of years ago, today. We still love the sky and fear crevices in the Earth. In our daily life, Flat Earth is the operational theory. But why is the world so big if it had been made for us? It seems, a section of the world with the Sun and the Moon and a few planets whirling around would be quite enough. There is no answer. We don't know the entire purpose of God. It is enough to know that the immenseness relates to the immense power of Creator God. To us as spiritual beings, all the stars and galaxies are Heaven, which has no dimensions. And it is very big. Similarly, another question comes up, why are we on a periphery even of our galaxy? And again, we are not on periphery of anything. We thrive on Earth where it is. Therefore, the location of the Earth is best for us. In general, the confusion that astrophysics bring is psychological and not real. We think that if we are so important to God, then we should be in the center of the universe. That is incorrect and childish psychology. Place God in that center and remember that you were made from mud. Not from gold, not from a diamond, -- from mud. I am grateful to Hans-Georg Lundahl, whose line of questioning inspired this essay. See his comments on Catholic Apologetics [better link : Catholic Apologetics [sharing] Catholic Views on Creation and Creationism

Comments

are on Catholic Apologetics, where he shared the answer.

Intro

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.II.2023

Quadragesima

Ah, found it - do you mind if I post several comments, for several threads, about different aspects?

Alex Pismenny

Quadragesima

Sure, and I will highlight on which share your comments are.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

I have started out with three threads about the theory of Evolution. I’ll come back later on cosmology.

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

I "The Evolutionary Theory suggests that life developed randomly from DNA copying errors during reproduction."

Ambiguous.

• 1) "life developed" can refer to abiogenesis, which is an impossibility, you don't have reproduction before you have life and you don't have viable life before you have reproduction;
• 2) "all variety of life developed" would be more proper to the Synthetic Theory of Evolution - which says man and mice and mango trees had a common one celled ancestor, and developed from it by copying mistakes;
• 3) "each life form that is develops and so far developed" is fairly consistent with what Young Earth Creationists usually share of Evolutionary Biology. Please note, in related forms you can have not just locus mutations, but also chromosome mutations. In placental mammals, at least, trisomy exaggerated to tetrasomy is not a viable way to augment the number of chromosomes. However, Robertsonian fusion in the right moment is a viable way to reduce them.

"The copying errors are indeed random, but errors that reduce survivability of the mutant kill the mutant and the error doesn’t spread. Errors that enhance survivability, on the other hand, produce offspring and are no longer errors."

Functions cannot arise through one error - or at least not all can. A function usually (at least one of the ones I think of) involves a cell type, something we have never observed evolve, and it involves more than one specific gene producing more than one specific proteine. Each gene usually has hundreds of loci, hundreds of codons composed of three loci or base pairs. Assembling a new function codon by codon, gene by gene, from zero by copying mistakes is a structural impossibility.

"This is, obviously, at odds with the Catholic understanding of life: God created all forms of dead matter and life following His purpose. Error and death of the unfit cannot be His building blocks, love is. God created species at once or nearly at once."

While errors are indeed not what God started from, God can, after Adam's fall make use of them. And as the kinds of Genesis 1 need not the least be identic to the taxonomic level in Linnaean taxonomy called species, there is not even a problem in accepting that jackals and wolves / dogs, Atelerix and Hemiechinus, had common ancestors on the Ark. The hedgehogs on the Ark were arguably one couple, but since then there are five genera (two of which have been mentioned) and 17 species.

However, Atelerix algirus and Hemiechinus auritus having common ancestors, with each other and with other hedgehogs, or jackals having them with wolves does not involve new cell types, just minor differences of functionality within the ones existing. Perhaps loss of some. It is no proof that Atelerix and jackals (which very clearly have different functions and different cell types) ever had a common ancestor. Apart from that being against the Bible, it is also against common sense observations from the evidence.

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

I didn't want to go into specifics on what the Evolutionary Theory is. Thank you for the detailed comment.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

Do you not even want to go into specifics of what you meant?

How much is this like giving Donald Prothero or Stephen Jay Gould or Kenneth R. Miller a blank cheque?

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

Correct, I don't. It is interesting to do so but I don't want to dilute the main message: that God driven replacement of one species with another is permissible to a Catholic, and God creating whole species out of nothing is also permissible, but random evolution without Divine plan is not permissible.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

“God driven replacement of one species with another is permissible to a Catholic”

1. Not before Adam sinned
2. and what about checking whether there is any kind of scientific necessity rather than just presuming there is?

It sometimes gives me the very irksome impression that you consider me as having one theological scruple, no theological good case and also no scientific good case. And that you are very content with presuming this to be true without even checking.

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

1. Why is that? God was creating animals. Some of them went extinct. Then God created Man and led the animals to Adam to get named.
2. Yes, scientists should be good scientists and check for necessity.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

1. The animals that went extinct did so after Adam sinned and sometimes after the Flood
2. Why do you not live up to that?

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

That is acceptable position. Not the only acceptable though.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1.III.2023

You were specifically challenged to provide an idea on how another one would be acceptable.

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

II "It is not a fact that we understand God and His purpose with any clarity. Rather the opposite is true."

This sounds more like Moses Maimonides than St. Thomas Aquinas.

But all these things they will do to you for my name's sake: because they know not him who sent me. / John 15:21

"For example, often we hear that God must have been an evil killer for commanding the Israelites to wage brutal wars. It takes a careful examination of the purpose of Israel of old existing and culminating in the building of the Church in order to discern the Divine Purpose of love in the destruction of Paganism."

Those wars were not just the destruction of Paganism in general, but destruction of a specific Paganism. Scipio also waged war against Canaanean Paganism, and Roman historians mentioned what they did to firstborn male infants, in times when "sacrifice" was needed.

"So, perhaps, endless creature dying so that to give room for improved creatures, -- was a manifestation of Divine Love as well?"

Before sin, there was no death.

"Man is called to subdue the creation made for him. Even when Adam and Eve sin, God protects them insofar that it is possible and, apparently, slaughters some animals to make them clothes. Later, God likes the sacrifice of Abel, wo is a shepherd, and condemns Cain who is a vegetarian. Animal life is evidently of no particular value to God. Death of an animal is a part of its existence, whereas Adam is sternly warned to avoid the forbidden fruit because disobedience will cause him to “die the death”, -- the death he was not to ever taste."

Stating that animal life is of no particular value to God makes the idea of animal sacrifice nonsensical.

The just regardeth the lives of his beasts: but the bowels of the wicked are cruel. - Prov 12:10

Whose beasts were the beasts before Adam was created? God's. Is God just? Yes. The one reason why beasts die is, Adam sinned. This is not common ground to all Church Fathers, but it is in early Church Fathers.

Please note, even if this argument were possible about the goodness of God to beasts, if you admit Adam was created directly, the idea that beasts died to make men come into existence is non-sense, and furthermore, if you don't, there are much more important questions about God's goodness to Adam before he sinned.

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

The one reason why beasts die is, Adam sinned.

Beasts didn't sin. It explicit in Genesis that beasts are to be used by man. One way to use an animal is to kill and eat it; another, to kill it and forego eating it in sacrifice to God. I think that animals were made that way, mortal and without a rational soul. The idea that animal death is a consequence of human son is, I think, pure speculation.

Of course, the goodness of animal and therefore its value consists in their usefulness to man, direct or indirect usefulness.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

“The idea that animal death is a consequence of human son is, I think, pure speculation.”

Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. - Romans 5:12

At least consistent with no animals dying before Adam sinned.

But do you know what? I saw Church Fathers a few decades ago, who did think carnivorousness would have existed even without Adam sinning. However, drawn out senseless suffering wouldn’t.

“It explicit in Genesis that beasts are to be used by man. One way to use an animal is to kill and eat it; another, to kill it and forego eating it in sacrifice to God.”

Both of those uses are posterior to Adam’s sin. Abel’s sacrifice is in Genesis 4, ordering carnivorousness is in Genesis 9. Both come after Genesis 3.

“Of course, the goodness of animal and therefore its value consists in their usefulness to man, direct or indirect usefulness.”

Since developing man from animals would at best have been only one option, and considering Adam’s language, even a non-option, this cuts out the possibility of animals living millions of years before man - they would not have been even indirectly useful to man.

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

Right, the Bible records even animal death only after the Fall, but it doesn't follow that it didn't occur. Certainly, plants were killed before the Fall since they were food.

I don't think God-driven evolution of animals is precluded by this. Surely, the Bible puts animal death in a different category that human death, directly linked to sin.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

"plants were killed before the Fall since they were food."

In Hebrew terms, plants and invertebrates are not nephesh khaya (breath of life).

Other solution, grass blades and fruits are not whole organisms. The seeds that can grow, and which are, could have passed unhurt through the digestion tract to make a new plant. But either way, plants were eaten before the fall.

"Surely, the Bible puts animal death in a different category that human death, directly linked to sin."

Whatever the case about death of animals, wastefulness ("vanity") is linked to sin.

Romans 8:19-23
For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that made it subject, in hope: Because the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now. And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body.

The part on "every creature groaneth" cannot refer to every human creature, since right next verse it is added "and we too" - and another reason we can't use it of men only is, when Christ says to preach the Gospel to every creature, we Catholics think this applies to blessings of domestic animals and of salt, and Easter blessings on food. These being obviously non-human creatures.

If you had found me the place in St. Augustine where it says that animals would have been eaten by other animals before the fall, I would have shown you how he also states this would have happened in an ordered way and not a wasteful way.

You have not answered this challenge: Since developing man from animals would at best have been only one option, and considering Adam’s language, even a non-option, this cuts out the possibility of animals living millions of years before man - they would not have been even indirectly useful to man.

So, God killing animal after animal, over millions and millions of years, when He was able to and even had to (considering the Biblical statements about God and man) create man with no bestial ancestry, would have been a cruelty to animals, sth which God forbids men. Again:

The just regardeth the lives of his beasts: but the bowels of the wicked are cruel. - Prov. 12:10.

Proverbs isn't saying that beasts cannot be killed at all for a good purpose serving man. But he is saying that he cannot allow predators to serve themselves in his hen coop or among his sheep. Now, whose were the animals prior to Adam's creation? God's only. Is God just? Yes. Does He follow His own laws? He even stepped down to a manger and a cross to do so. Ergo, a Tyrannosaur with bone cancer can safely on this ground alone be dated to after when Adam fell.

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

Good point about plants.

Back to animals, I don’t know why God created so many animals that went extinct and some that did not. Same as I don’t know why there are so many galaxies. Somehow, it serves us.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

Extinction of T Rex has served us very well since the fall of Adam made them a danger to us.

You do not know that there are “many galaxies” or even that there is one.

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

I don’t know why God allowed dinosaurs to go extinct, or when.

We’ve seen galaxies in telescopes.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1.III.2023

No.

You can see in telescopes that Andromeda, Hercules A and Maffei 1 exist.

You cannot see in telescopes that we have a Milky Way galaxy extending far beyond the Solar system, and you also cannot see in telescopes that Andromeda, Hercules A and Maffei 1 are parallels to the supposed Milky Way galaxy.

III

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

III "Let’s postulate that the creation of inanimate matter, plants, and animals corresponds well with astrophysics and paleontology, given the leeway in interpreting ancient Hebrew texts written for Moses’ contemporaries. In other words, “days” are eons, the order in which life appears is really a process of one species evolving from another, apes appearing on the evolutionary scene and learn to use tools and communicate."

Apart from the absurdities in the text, and the patronising attitude against Moses' contemporaries, you have a major even scientific impossibility in the last part of what you said.

"apes appearing on the evolutionary scene and learn to use tools and communicate."

Apes communicate. "Hello" - "How are you?" - "We're fine!" - "Enjoy your meal!" - "Let me have my meal!!!!!" - "You stop that nonsense!" and some more like that are perfectly fine to postulate about what apes already have. What they do not have is concepts. Without concepts to make truthful or false judgements about, communications are very much fewer. There is no need and therefore no reason to develop and also no known means to develop a language capable of expressing concepts and their combinations or separations. Language origin is as dead an end in research as abiogenesis.

In order to have infinitely more possible communications than apes have, men have:

• sentences composed by morphemes (it doesn't matter all that much whether a given sentence is a sentence word, combining the morphemes in one fixed order, like ид-у, or combines it into separate words where something may come between Я большой, я очень большой, or combines the procedures, like Я ид-у)
• morphemes composed by phonemes очень = о+ч+е+нь

In "ape," a sentence is more like a specific phoneme, perhaps with a specific intonation or rhythm.

No non-human, no being that is not the image of God, can have developed human speach from bestial communications.

If you hear anything about Language development, that's another issue. One language may develop into another, like a trouser that is worn and torn is repaired and re-repaired and ends up being a very different trouser than it was. One house may develop into another by constant reparations and other improvements to counter the degradations. But you don't make a house into a trouser or a trouser into a house by such a procedure.

This is the precise and adequate reason why Adam cannot have non-human ancestry without God having been cruel to him on some level before he sinned. His "immediate ancestry" (Pius XII rightly forbids to call non-humans "parents") could not have taught him to speak, so he would have grown up a feral child. Which is a handicap. This is not about God's goodness to beast lives, but about God's goodness to His own image. Feral children, very rarely, exist now. Don't think of the girl who got kidnapped and then rescued by monkeys when she was five - she had already learned how to speak. Not perfectly, but she knew the procedure. If she had been taken away from human company when she was between 6 months and 2 years, she could never have learned to speak. There are some cases like that too. Adam cannot have been one.

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

I didn't imply all that much into “communicate". I could have said “grunt and gesture".

I agree that Adam did not come from apes.

It is not patronizing to pour out that Moses' contemporaries could not understand astrophysics and did not need to.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

A statement like “you see the sun move because we move” would definitely have been understandable in Moses and Joshua’s time.

Thank you for the agreement. As for human anatomies grunting and gesturing, that is definitely much less that we must credit beings for who were dated by carbon 14 to 40 000 BP or earlier. See more on the next comment, the dating question.

IV

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

IV “However, Man’s evolution from apes is wholly inacceptable. The Bible makes it clear that Man’s creation was a distinct act of God. The popular in modernity idea that at some point in evolution from Ape to Man God saw one particular couple of apes and made humans out of these two by giving them rational souls does not only contradicts the clear text of the Bible, it contradicts the entire Catholic anthropology of Man as the only creature elected for eternal life.”

Very good.

This is Orthodox. However, does it fit with the ideas you call discoveries of modern science? Or that § 283 (of the CCC) call that?

Suppose you accept the Synthetic Theory of Evolution. Then you presumably accept the time scale. Then you presumably accept the carbon dates for Neanderthals or the Cro-Magnon population as given.

Where do you put Adam in this timescale?

Late? 10 000 - 6000 years ago?
Early? 600 000 to 40 000 years ago?

Don’t bother about in between since that will only combine the problems of each approach.

Early = Adam can be ancestor to all, including Neanderthals, but cannot have transmitted Genesis 3 the way Catholicism presupposes. I’ll quote the Haydock comment on Genesis 3, attached to the comment on verse 24 in it.

// Concerning the transactions of these early times, parents would no doubt be careful to instruct their children, by word of mouth, before any of the Scriptures were written; and Moses might derive much information from the same source, as a very few persons formed the chain of tradition, when they lived so many hundred years. Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram. Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the father of Moses, were contemporaries: so that seven persons might keep up the memory of things which had happened 2500 years before. But to entitle these accounts to absolute authority, the inspiration of God intervenes; and thus we are convinced, that no word of sacred writers can be questioned. H. //

With a LXX based chronology (Eastern Rite for Sept 1 or Roman martyrology for December 25), the distance is somewhat greater. On the other hand, I consider it probable already Abraham wrote it down, as a separate piece or along all of Genesis 2 - 11 (Genesis 1 and a few verses into 2 is a vision given Moses), and Moses collected such writings along with the vision he was given into one book. With an early placing of Adam, this is out.

Also, with an early date of Adam, you pretty blatantly contradict God’s care for mankind up to the time of Abraham. A point in Dei Verbum § 3.

So, you might be tempted to a late date. Would you be fine with that?

It is only:

• on such grounds unlikely that Adam is ancestor to all now living or even more that he was so when white people arrived to the four corners of the earth (where they are not indigenous)
• unexplained why we would have also in that case “ape” ancestry (Homo Sapiens older than Adam, and Neanderthals, and Denisovans not being image of God, hence apes)
• unexplained how “apes” could do things that would very clearly seem to require language.

The one scenario in which neither difficulty arises is, no man or manlike creature at all existed prior to Adam. By now, unlike 1950, before carbon dating was a thing, that is only feasible with a dismissal or recalibration of dating methods. Which is my position, but hardly that of § 283 of your CCC.

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

All I am saying is that man is not an evolutionary product of apes. Theological difficulties disappear. The Bible stands as written. Scientific difficulties remain and unanswered questions emerge, but at least the Ape-Man hypothesis is destroyed.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

Good to destroy that.

How about resolving the “difficulties” and “unanswered questions” even if it means ditching § 283?

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

I don’t mind Canon 283. Knowledge indeed is an increasing thing.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

Things are supposed to be increasing knowledge in it, which are incompatible with the data we agree on.

Do you insist, once again, to skirt away from the difficulties of your position?

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

Yes I do. I don’t see any difficulties and you did not highlight any.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

You have basically forgotten all of the dilemmas I gave in the previous debate - is your memory selective?

Papal Divisions

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

I remember you presented what you saw as dilemmas, and that my time is valuable.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1.III.2023

OK, dilemma in logic has a very specific meaning. Let me brief you on a sudoku, to help you out.

Imagine in column I, square iv from top could be 2, and square v from top could be 6. But you still cannot have 2 in sq iv and 6 in sq v, for instance because only possibilities in sq vi are 2 and 6, meaning you can’t have both 2 and 6 in other squares of the column.

Denying Adam from ape and affirming deep time would be like trying to have both sq iv as 2 and sq v as 6, when sq vi only allows 2 or 6.

If your time is valuable, set some aside to read though what I actually wrote, instead of taking 5 minute snippets you can just barely spare and then you make a total mess of your arguing skills.

My time is valuable too, you know.

I was challenging you for a scenario that could overcome the dilemmas in some at least tentative way, not a confessio fidei to prove you are really, truly, honestly fine both with an absolute necessity of theology and with § 283. You let me wait for weeks, and you absolutely didn’t provide it.

V

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

V "In general, the confusion that astrophysics bring is psychological and not real. We think that if we are so important to God, then we should be in the center of the universe. That is incorrect and childish psychology. Place God in that center and remember that you were made from mud."

You seem so painfully eager to be the adult and to tell the other guy what he really means and why that is childish psychology.

Your priest arguably did learn "psychology" as one of the subjects in seminary. It's been in vogue for quite a while now. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine didn't. Nor did Pope St. Pius X.

How about you forget about your priest and his trauma from seminary days? Freudians in France are willing to stamp one as having a childish psychology if at adult age one still enjoys the Chronicles of Narnia or anything by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. That kind of nincompoop busibodies are the guys uncautious bishops and pseudopopes allowed to train your priest. When salt loses its savour ...

"It is useful to think of the Christian "above" and Christian "below" not as spatial directions but as measure of sanctity and of beauty. Angels are from above. Demons are from below. Angels are beautiful. Demons are ugly."

Sed contra est:

• a) spirits other than God are finite, and they are therefore in one place rather than in another, hence above or below us, in precisely spatial dimensions
• b) Heaven involves at least two human bodies - Our Lord's and Our Lady's. Probably it will also involve the risen bodies of the blessed. Therefore, Heaven is a specific place, where human bodies can survive.

"And people are around us. They form the plain of our existence: those that we love, those that we are supposed to protect or to teach or to shun. Other people are the geography of our daily life."

People who use psychology instead of argument, and speak of childish psychology as if it were an argument against a proposal or perceived relation, are among those I have a duty or at least interest to shun. Or argue strongly against in debate.

"In antiquity, the spiritual view of the cosmos was also the scientific view because for the tasks the primitive man had to do, flat earth with rotating Sun and Moon was all the science he needed."

This patronising of antiquity won't do. You are even conflating geocentrism with flat earth, which are two very different proposals. No Bible passage can be pinpointed as expressing a flat earth. Quite a few as expressing a usually rotating sun and moon, most notably Joshua 10:12-13.

Add to this that cosmic distances and sizes and implications from star light travel time only start off really with the Heliocentric scam:

New blog on the kid : Have you heard the expression "von Neumann chain"?
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2022/08/have-you-heard-expression-von-neumann.html

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

I am not replacing physics with psychology at all. Man on a bike is adequate coordinate system when on a bike. Geocentrism is adequate coordinate system when praying.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

Your reformulation is not an excuse for the initial statement “childish psychology” …

Before we do astrophysics, how about doing astro-geometry? It used to be called “planar astronomy” back in Laplace’ days, and it so happens, his transition from planar astronomy to the Heliocentrism of his “physical astronomy” was badly argued then, and if you don’t want to go on and on patronising me, talking down to me, it is about time you start arguing why you prefer a physical astronomy which puts either God’s throne room billions of light years away, or into the position of a space ship or in no place at all, contrary to Christ, who is bodily risen, being there, and Mary, who is assumed body and soul, being there.

Especially as billions of light years also make it awkward to have creation 7222 years ago, and far stars still visible.

For instance, you pretended that we observe “other galaxies” - that’s like saying we “observe parallax of alpha Centauri as 0.76 arc seconds” … has it occurred to you that other interpretations of Andromeda than being “a galaxy like our own” or even of the stars “of our own galaxy” being sth else than a galaxy? Has it occurred to you that an angel could with each star and exo-planet in the Centaur be performing a dance to the glory of God, which is also poking fun at astronomers analysing the movement as “aberration, parallax, proper movement”?

What would the consequences be if Andromeda were only one light day up? Which one of them would deny the kind of reality a Christian can live with? Obviously, angelic movers are outside what atheists accept, but you are not agreeing to be called an atheist, are you?

Jacques Arnould in Paris wrote a book in which he lauded the progress of science to where a Universe “has its centre everywhere and its periphery nowhere” … are you aware this is quoting a statement of Nicolas of Cusa about God? “God is a circle who has its centre everywhere and its periphery nowhere” …. if the universe is infinite, it is inheriting God’s attributes, as if God had died for good instead of rising on the Third Day. If, as it should, the universe has a periphery, it also has a geometric centre, not just the centre of a coordinate system.

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

God is not a galaxy, not on the physical throne anywhere. God is not a part of the creation.

When praying or contemplating God is it best to think of Him in heaven above. That is all.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

“God is not a galaxy,”

I did not say He was.

“not on the physical throne anywhere.”

Do you deny that Jesus is true God and true Man and truly risen and living forever?

Papal Divisions

Writing of the Bible - I, Theological Principle · Papal Divisions · Galileo Revisited

Q

As a Catholic, do I have to accept the current pope?
https://www.quora.com/As-a-Catholic-do-I-have-to-accept-the-current-pope/answer/Alex-Pismenny

Answer requested by

Ricky

Alex Pismenny

Catholic Christian.

Sun 15.I.2023

You have to accept that he is the Pope (except in the interregnum).

You do not have to accept everything he says.

You have to reflect on the areas you have a disagreement and try to see his position fairly.

If the Pope makes an infallible pronouncement you have to accept it as a dogma of faith. Few popes made such. This Pope hasn't.

Pray for him.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

18.I.2023

Chair of St. Peter

“You have to accept that he is the Pope”

What about someone in 1400 who believed the Pope was the one in Avignon?

Who is Pope is not as much of a dogmatic fact as it is pushed as ….

Alex Pismenny

18.I.2023

Chair of St. Peter

Back then it was probably an earnestly held belief.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

19.I.2023

So, someone who holds Pope Michael (recently died) or “Peter III” (Joseph Odermatt) is somehow not earnestly holding that belief?

Presuming that Bergoglio were Pope Francis as you say, what is on your view the difference between someone holding to Pope Michael or to Joseph Odermatt now and someone holding to an Avignon Pope back then?

Alex Pismenny

19.I.2023

The information about the Conclave held in Rome in 2012(?) was available to the general public.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

19.I.2023

2013. The ones holding to Avignon papacy weren’t disputing that conclaves had been held in Rome, but that they were valid.

Alex Pismenny

20.I.2023

Those that knew them had no excuse.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

20.I.2023

That would be all, including St. Vincent Ferrer, while he was supporting the Avignon Pope.

You are simply wrong about the theology.

The news that “a conclave took place” is no guarantee that someone was validly elected Pope. There are for instance lots of people who know an emergency conclave took place in 1990, and who still do not accept the late Pope Michael.

Vice versa, David Bawden in 1989, when deciding to hold the emergency conclave certainly knew that a conclave had taken place in Rome in 1978, or rather two of them.

The real issue with Avignon schismatics is, they had some reasons, I do not agree they were the best ones, to consider a Roman conclave invalid.

// Robert of Geneva, (French: Robert de Genève; 1342 – 16 September 1394) elected to the papacy as Clement VII (French: Clément VII) by the cardinals who opposed Pope Urban VI, was the first antipope residing in Avignon, France. His election led to the Western Schism. //

Antipope Clement VII - Wikipedia

// Robert was elected pope at Fondi on 20 September 1378 by the cardinals who opposed the return of the Papacy from Avignon to Rome, and the election of Pope Urban VI in the latter town. //

Note, they did not ignore Pope Urban VI, they opposed him, as invalidly elected. And St. Vincent Ferrer supported that.

Alex Pismenny

20.I.2023

Yes, Avignon Papacy was illegitimate but it was plausible to manyt.

This, with all respect, is not plausible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bawden

Hans-Georg Lundahl

20.I.2023

On what ground?

Obviousness of a man having convoked Assisi I a few years earlier being Catholic?

And a few months before that even provoking arguably God’s wrath in Chernobyl, by visiting a synagogue as respectful guest?

The visit was on 13 February Gregorian, Chernobyl disaster was 13 February Julian.

Obviousness of a man promoting in CCC, after the emergency conclave, this:

• Heliocentrism
• Deep time
• Evolution
• an unvarying intermediate stage of oral tradition before each Gospel

is nevertheless completely Catholic?

Obviousness of a man provoking the wrath of God in the Balkan war’s worst massacre, Srebrenica, by praying a second time for peace along with inviting non-Catholics and non-Christians to do so? And around that time also making deals with psychiatry, which didn’t cease to be influenced by Sovietic political psychiatry …

I do not find this more obvious than the election of Urban VI, I find it very much less obvious.

Alex Pismenny

20.I.2023

Papacy is not a reward for right thinking.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

20.I.2023

To a certain extent it is.

Or rather, the reverse is true. Being blocked from it is one of the penalties of false thinking.

A heretic is not eligible as Pope. A conclave voting a heretic into apparent office, has voted sedivacancy into office.

Alex Pismenny

20.I.2023

No. We had notoriously bad popes but papacy persisted. Fraternal correction is the recognized way of correcting heresy.

We don't have a precedent of conclave resulting in empty see.

In any event, self-organized preudo-conclave doesn't cure a sedevacancy.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

20.I.2023

1. Bad Popes were sinners. Not heretics. Even Honorius just favoured heresy indirectly and never came out in direct favour of it.
2. You would have precedents in a conclave resulting in a see vacated at Sutri. It’s doubtful whether the predecessor of Pope St. Leo IX (I think it was) or St. Gregory VII (other possibility) was actually Pope, since invoking Pagan deities would put in question whether he was Christian.
3. What exact part of the procedure would have been impossible on your view even if you had admitted non-papacy of “John Paul II”? What would on such a view have needed to be done instead?
4. As you took this up: “Fraternal correction is the recognized way of correcting heresy.” Well, here you are speaking of Catholics who actually allowed heretical statements to be corrected, like John XXII renouncing the theory of Soul Sleep. I think some issues were very clear already fourth “papacy” after start of V-II, and some issues are sufficiently clear now, like 3rd “papacy” after the early 90’s distance taking from Fundamentalism. Also, St. Robert Bellarmine recognised other ways.

See also:
June '22 Interview Of Pope Michael
6th July 2022 | vatican in exile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0UBHcNZu4U

Alex Pismenny

20.I.2023

With all that, self made “papacy' is laughable.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

21.I.2023

It’s easier for you to laugh than to argue.

Also, apart from some semblance of canonicity, what is not laughable in your line of Popes after 1958 and especially after 1978? Perhaps what’s tragic …

Alex Pismenny

21.I.2023

I love Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict. They were great popes and taught solid doctrine.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

21.I.2023

1. Did they take the option offered as one of two by Pius XII, that Adam biologically had non-human ancestry?
2. When did they place Adam in time? 40 000 - 90 000 - over 100 000 BP? How is Genesis 3 history, then? Or 4000 - 5500 BC, but with acceptance of dates for older human like creatures (that anatomically can often not be distinguished from some men who live now)? How is he then ancestor of all?
3. If Adam had non-human parents, how was he not a feral child who grew up language handicapped? Once you have learned a first language, at the right age, you can learn any other language as second language later on, but if you miss it at the right age, you can’t. This would involve Adam becoming handicapped due to God’s providence, while already the image of God, and before he had sinned, God having in some way to heal him.
4. If you try to solve the problem by saying language evolved gradually, no, it doesn’t. The gradual changes that lead from Latin to French, from Proto-Germanic to English, from Proto-Slavic to Russian only affect very minor detail compared to the gigantic leap between ape communications and human language.

No, their doctrine was very far from solid there.

Other examples, if they believe modern cosmology, where are they placing Heaven? If “not in a place” is the answer, this is against Christ’s Risen Body being, precisely there.

Alex Pismenny

21.I.2023

These are theological hypotheses that are not heretical.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

22.I.2023

Denying the goodness of God or factuality of His promise given to Adam and Eve is.

So is denying significant parts of Eschatology and the Eucharist.

Alex Pismenny

22.I.2023

That is your interpretation of these hypotheses.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

22.I.2023

I have gone through each possible interpretation of them and they are all in conflict with Catholic doctrine.

I’m not just making a random interpretation which could be a misunderstanding and basing a conflict thesis on that.

Do you want to try to spell out a scenario where the conflict doesn’t hold? I’d be happy to rip it apart.

Alex Pismenny

22.I.2023

pick one.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

23.I.2023

Adam not being created de novo.

Alex Pismenny

23.I.2023

I only heard something similar as a theological hypothesis. Who taught that as an approved magisterial doctrine?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

23.I.2023

283 The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers. With Solomon they can say: "It is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements. . . for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me."

[https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P19.HTM]

Alex Pismenny

23.I.2023

That doesn’t teach anything of the kind. Paragraph 283 and following go over various scientific hypotheses, Manichaeism, etc. Read in context:

Catechism of the Catholic Church
[http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p4.htm#283]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

23.I.2023

The following, from 285 on, would correspond to what you describe, but the paragraphs 283 and 284 have one message about “the appearance of man.”

1) “ many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge”
2) but the question goes beyond science only, and allots God a place as deliberation behind what the scientific studies tell us.

In other words : “science tells us how, faith tells us why” … if science tells us how man appeared, it implies Adam had non-human ancestry.

IF the beginning of 283 holds, “enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos” either Adam had non-human but anatomically human ancestors or he is not ancestor of all men or he lived so long ago that Genesis 3 is not history.

The statement implies a Cro-Magnon skeleton dated 30 000 years before present is really 30 000 years before present.

If this is before when Adam was created, it means he descended from men or from non-men in human shape, and also makes it highly improbable first nations in pre-Columbian and pre-Cook times descend from him.

If it is after he was created, Genesis 3 is not historically reliably transmitted.

Alex Pismenny

23.I.2023

You speculate about the meaning. Nothing in the plain text negates a single Adam, the first human made by God. That apes resembling humans pre-existed humans is the enrichment of knowledge brought by science.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

24.I.2023

1. I conclude about the meaning (and its further implications) from facts about the scientific ideology referred to. Non-existence of a single Adam was in my analysis not the only possible clearly heterodox implication.
2. You would seem to confirm the meaning in one heterodox implication by calling Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals “apes resembling humans” and “pre-existing humans.”

We have part Neanderthal genomes, and the view you defend implies real humans were mating with “apes resembling humans” … i e, you give as God’s plan (even had Adam not sinned?) for the propagation of mankind, that men should commit a kind of bestiality, unlike the sin normally so called by fertility, but like it in the context of exploiting sexually a being incapable of consenting to marriage.

Before you go on to take another model than “apes pre-existing humans,” or another candidate than Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals for that “slot” - how about exploring why this is contrary to the goodness of God, if true? And also, why it is not true?

1. Some have argued against the fundamentalist model by the fact it implies sibling marriage “therefore incest” … but bestiality is worse than incest. So, you cannot argue your model reflects the goodness of God better than mine if you imply bestiality.
2. It is also not possible that Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals are “apes pre-existing humans” because they have shown themselves capable of deliberations that only human minds can make both in toolmaking and in caring for a disabled member of the tribe (the examples involve Shanidar Neanderthal skeleton).
3. Whichever take you make on Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals from 30 000 or 40 000 BP, if Adam existed from 7222 BP, and this is later than these skeleta were living creatures, he is unlikely to be ancestor of all men, or to have been ancestor of all pre-Columbians of the Americas when Spaniards arrived or of all pre-Cookians of Oceania when James Cook arrived.

Alex Pismenny

24.I.2023

In short, you read the Catechism as you imagine a heretic would.

The plain text makes it clear that there was one Adam, made by God.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

24.I.2023

The plain text makes it clear that he’s unlike the Biblical Adam not at the beginning of time.

I draw out the logical consequences, and you shirk the issue. You also make a statement how you understand it with heretical conquences, shirking those too.

Alex Pismenny

24.I.2023

Oh. Biblical Adam is from the beginning of time?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

24.I.2023

Douay-Rheims Bible [Mark 10]
https://drbo.org/chapter/48010.htm

But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.

Our Lord Himself said so. The Word of the Father.

Alex Pismenny

24.I.2023

So Day Six is what?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

25.I.2023

Conversion of St. Paul

Negligible in relation to the 5229 years between then and when Jesus spoke.

Alex Pismenny

25.I.2023

Conversion of St. Paul

Absurd, my friend. The Six Days of creation is the foundational teaching of the Old Testament. Neglecting it is heresy. Aren't you glad no Pope denied it?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

25.I.2023

Conversion of St. Paul

I cited Jesus.

Six days are certainly all of the distance of the six days or most of the distance of the first seven days.

But it is still just the beginning of the time from Adam’s creation / the world’s creation to when Jesus was speaking 5229 BC.

Alex Pismenny

25.I.2023

Conversion of St. Paul

The point Jesus is making is that people have always been male and female, not that they were made before the stars were made.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.I.2023

It is sufficient they are from about the same time as the stars.

Your view of “that” being the “point” depends on what?

EDIT :

Haydock comment has:

Ver. 6. But from the beginning of the world it was not thus; for then God only formed one man and one woman, that they might be exclusively and invariably attached to each other.

Note - “from the beginning of the world” and not “from the beginning of mankind” …

Alex Pismenny

26.I.2023

OK. You think the Catechism denies this view?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.I.2023

“has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos,” (from 283)

And note, this was not among the viewpoints the catechism touched on to reject.

I don’t see how I could honestly think otherwise.

Alex Pismenny

26.I.2023

At worst it requires you as a young Earth Creationist to reconcile your year-counting with astronomical observation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.I.2023

You mean Distant Starlight?

Already solved that in 2001, the night to St. Bartholomew’s, after being confronted with that.

If Geocentrism is true, there is no proof the Bessel phenomenon is parallactic in nature, can be a proper motion performed by the angelic mover of each star (like the retrogrades for planets), and with no parallax, the Cosmic Distance ladder breaks down well before we reach the number of light years that conflict with Biblical chronology.

Alex Pismenny

26.I.2023

Interesting. So how do you know that those wonders of time and dimension contradict Geocentrism?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.I.2023

Trigonometry.

I did not state that I knew they contradicted Geocentrism, but they contradict the Bible, however, I said if Geocentrism is true, there is no proof the Bessel phenomenon is parallactic in nature, … and with no parallax, the Cosmic Distance ladder breaks down well before we reach the number of light years that conflict with Biblical chronology.

Heliocentric interpretation of the Bessel phenomenon : we have one distance between two positions of earth and at each position earth has an angle between the star and the other position. One distance and two angles = sufficient to calculate the rest.

Geocentric interpretation of the same phenomenon : we have one angle between two positions of the star and NO distance. One angle = insufficient to calculate the remaining angles or the distances.

Alex Pismenny

27.I.2023

A vague statement about scientific discoveries cannot contradict anything

Answered twice

A and B

A

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.I.2023

My statement was precisely not vague.

I made it clear why, if the so called “discovery” isn’t one, the trigonometry of parallax isn’t trigonometry.

If you don’t get it, you were sleeping in math lessons.

Alex Pismenny

28.I.2023

Your statement was fine. 283 is vague, intentionally.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.I.2023

Not sufficiently to cloak references to deep time and man “emerging” rather than having a punctual creation.

Alex Pismenny

28.I.2023

Emerging like made from mud. I read that somewhere.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.I.2023

“the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man.”

Not clear how many scientific studies can enrich that concept, especially as in the same breath deep space and deep time are mentioned.

Alex Pismenny

28.I.2023

Doesn't contradict your Young Earth theory.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.I.2023

You have failed to make it clear how somehow it doesn’t.

Alex Pismenny

28.I.2023

Because 283 does not teach anything about the chronology of creation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.I.2023

While it teaches nothing of the relative chronology, it teaches something of the absolute chronology, and gives “scientific studies” a blank check.

As I know how it is filled in, I know how it contradicts.

Alex Pismenny

28.I.2023

What is absolute chronology and how is it taught?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.I.2023

The “age … of the cosmos” is referred to as having been enriched by “scientific studies” - as 1992 was before the RATE project and before my own calibration of C14, it would normally refer to the deep time ones.

“many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos,”

As “dimensions” are also mentioned, the author of that part was also into deep space. Ergo, as per Distant Starlight problem, also Deep Time.

And note “enriched our knowledge” - not as if one could call those things bare hypotheses.

Alex Pismenny

28.I.2023

Sound like if the Catechism mentioned that the universe is very large and existed for a long time you would find that heretical.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.I.2023

Basically yes.

By now, the anthropological implications about Adam would be heretical.

Mind you:

• no older than 8000 years
• no wider than on the one hand 8000 light years, but more important, there is a sphere of the unmoved heaven above the stars, if both of these are fulfilled - no problem.

However, fulfilling these two while referring to modern science in basically so many words = denying these caveats. Contradicts.

Continued

below B ...

B

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.I.2023

Meanwhile, your eagerness of deflecting from Biblical and philosophical reasons (already given) why Adam needs to be at the beginning of time and especially not come after man like apes or things, to the supposed difficulties of holding a YEC position show that you yourself take paragraph 283 as contradicting how St. Thomas or St. Augustine or Historia Scholastica would present the traditional doctrine.

Alex Pismenny

28.I.2023

No, paragraph 283 doesn't contradict anything you said or St. Thomas might say.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.I.2023

Except by pretending to discoveries about deep time …

Alex Pismenny

28.I.2023

… which confirms creation ex nihilo

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.I.2023

But the point is, creatio ex nihilo is not the only credendum.

There are points about nature of man, alternatively goodness of God, alternatively both that go to Hell in a handbasket if you admit deep time!

Alex Pismenny

28.I.2023

No.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.I.2023

Yes, they do.

Continuing A

Alex Pismenny

28.I.2023

It is your problem then.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

29.I.2023

No, you try to make it so.

I have shown how by now it leads to heretical conclusions, with alternative scenario after alternative scenario.

You could say of each as plausible denial, that that scenario is not what the catechism states.

I asked you to show at least one scenario which is compatible with the normal sense that § 283 has and which is also compatible with:

• man being truly different from irrational animals, not just by a shade of degree
• God being truly good to Adam up to when he sinned.

Instead of complying with the request, you deflected to various quibbles if the paragraph really says this or the Bible really says that or whether I’m not reading the paragraph as a heretic would.

You cannot presume in a debate between us that CCC is a document of the Church that Jesus founded, that is precisely in debate. You haven’t shown my statements were heretical. So, that was just deflecting from the issue.

In case you would pretend to dispute this resumé of what we said so far, here is the blogpost where it is mirrored. Don’t worry, I am not trying to monetise it without your getting royalties, this specific blog is not monetised and for editors I give the counsel to check with consent from other copyright holder … if you consider yourself as such.

Papal Divisions
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2023/01/papal-divisions.html

Alex Pismenny

29.I.2023

Tell your blog I said Hi.

I would agree that if the Catechism consisted of 283 alone, it would be incomplete and people who believe in Kansas popes might even find it contrary to their faith.

But the Catechism knows the proper place of science. See, for example, this collection:

https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/education/catechism-catholic-church-references-science/

Hans-Georg Lundahl

29.I.2023

A statement doesn’t* change meaning by being put into its context, and nothing in the quote series you showed on that link has any bearing on changing the meaning of § 283 as I understood it.

My readers on the blog will perhaps appreciate your hi.

*normally

Alex Pismenny

29.I.2023

It teaches that scientism is heretical and man has the universe available for his pleasure.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

30.I.2023

Teaching verbally that scientism is heretical is somewhat useless if you approach certain questions from a viewpoint of scientism.

It doesn’t teach that Evolutionism is heretical, and it promotes, as mentioned, Evolutionist heresies in § 283. Promoting one heresy is not excused by condemning an other one, even if related.

Patriarch Sergius condemned Monophysitism, but he was a Monothelite.

I already explained why Evolutionism is heretical, how it is taught here, and you are into your umpteenth attempt of deflecting from that.

Alex Pismenny

30.I.2023

God guided evolution theory is not heretical and the Catechism supports that view along with Young Earth theory.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

31.I.2023

God guided Evolution theory is heretical, even if Pius XII didn’t see it.

Unlike Wojtyla he didn’t try to define it was OK to believe, but he said it was OK to defend in debate, however, he asked for competence in Bible and sciences. This competence is obviously compatible with coming to the result of the debate that God guided Evolution is heretical, by now we have sufficient data to conclude that with extremely good certainty.

As to “along with Young Earth” you have not shown the CCC supports still accepting that. If it does, it’s not in § 283.

Alex Pismenny

31.I.2023

You can conclude that God did not guide the evolution?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1.II.2023

How about ceasing to:

• deflect
• strawman
• otherwise stall?

I have already said what my issue with Theistic Evolution is : it denies God’s goodness to Adam prior to Adam sinning.

Does it do so directly in the immediate formulation of the words? No.

Does it do so in every conceivable scenario that can be proposed, at the very least you have not proposed one.

21.I.2023 I made one comment which you can look up without laboriously going up the thread simply by using the link to the post with our dialogue. I mean the one where I enumerate 4 points, mainly questions. Question number 3 involves how God would have been extremely cruel to a not yet sinful Adam in his small childhood, if Theistic Evolution held true.

For that matter, question number 2 involves whether Genesis 3 is history or not.

It is not just necessary to allow God to be the Creator. As a Christian, I need a God who was good to Adam from the first moment of his as yet sinless existence, and a God who made the promise in Genesis 3:15 within a reasonable time of historic transmission. These things are not covered by your saying “Theistic Evolution leaves God as the creator” - and you have so far not given any other attempt of covering them.

Alex Pismenny

1.II.2023

I deflect nothing. If you can't answer, don't. My time is valuable.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1.II.2023

So is mine.

You have digged into a strawman to deflect from what I asked you about more than a week ago, if you find Theistic Evolution defensible to defend.

The questions aren’t problems for YEC, they are problems for Theistic Evolution. Your question from six hours ago is a pure strawman.

Alex Pismenny

1.II.2023

It's not the only time when you said something false and got upset when I followed up.

Alex Pismenny

1.II.2023

Matter of fact I see your objections more clearly. I'll write an essay on that and you will comment. You are right that certain way to look at evolution is wholly heretical.

Give me time

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1.II.2023

Deal.

C

new thread under his answer ...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

7.II.2023

A friendly reminder that we had a deal you write an essay, and tomorrow you’ve had a week.

If Theistic Evolution is really compatible with all Catholic dogmas, not just God being really creator, how long can it take to refute the contradiction beetween the idea you cherish and for instance God’s goodness to Adam prior to his sin?

In my carreere as a debater, since 2001, Catholic and YEC, and since St. Bartholomew that year also Geocentric, I have never had to take a full week to come up with an at least preliminary reply to a pretended refutation of my position.

Obviously, no criticism if it only takes time to do the research for precise facts … but in certain cases, I just might save you some trouble. If you told me what you were looking for.

Alex Pismenny

7.II.2023

Pressure at work. I have not forgotten.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

15.II.2023

Is the pressure one of time, or is it peer pressure about the actual issue?

Alex Pismenny

15.II.2023

Almost done.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

15.II.2023

Nice, looking forward to it!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

25.II.2023

“almost done” - ten days ago

Alex Pismenny

25.II.2023

It's been on Faith Nation Beauty for a while now, but I couldn't find this thread to ping you. Sorry.

Faith, Nation, Beauty

Hans-Georg Lundahl

25.II.2023

Ah, thank you!

Sorry for missing it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

25.II.2023

Sorry, again, but our deal involved me making comments, and you have precisely disabled them …