Theo Fessenden Debate

Catholic Apologetics

"primary duty of charity does not lie in toleration of false ideas" St. Pius X

Theo Fessenden

Studied Catholic and evangelical theologies.

On Aug 25 2023 answered

Do you know why the Bible has zero errors?
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/Do-you-know-why-the-Bible-has-zero-errors-1

Thus:

First, recall that the Bible did not define the Church, rather Jesus founded His Church, and that Church later defined the Bible. We know the Bible is inerrant because the Church Jesus founded says so (including what does and what does not belong in it) however, this does not mean it has zero errors.

When we Catholic Christians say the Bible is inerrant, we mean in terms of teaching spiritual and moral truth when understood as guided by The Holy Spirit.

If by "zero errors," you're speaking in terms of Fundamentalist literalism, that is not the case. The Bible is not without practical errors. Its writers were inspired by The Holy Spirit. They were not possessed by it.

Note: Jesus never promised us a New Testament. He never charged anyone to write anything: not its various components or other things which didn't make the cut.

He did appoint Apostles and He empowered them. He did send them The Holy Spirit to further empower and guide the Church in all truth (as He promised). It is by this power He gave to the Church that all Christians have the scriptures we do today. It also is through this same power He gave His Church that we may properly understand them.

Further, The Bible is not a single book, but a library comprised of many writings of various kinds of literature. Some components contain various literature types within themselves.

Biblical literature types include:

• Religious History: Interpretation of actual historic events in light of revelation [e.g. The books of Kings, The Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles]
• Apocalyptic Literature: Intentionally disguised, politically charged narratives, often with some prophetic content — can include political prophesy disguised as latter-day prophesy. [e.g. parts of Daniel, The Apocalypse of John]
• Poetry and Idiom: Poetic content may include idiom, metaphor, simile, allegory, analogy, hyperbole, parables and more. [e.g. The Song of Solomon, the gospels' parables]
• Songs and Hymns: used in worship and as teaching devices, these may have multiple poetic elements. [e.g. Psalms, the preamble to the Gospel attributed to John]
• Wisdom Literature: Didactic proverbs whose sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory meanings provoke the reader to seek and find balance and wisdom. [e.g Proverbs, The Wisdom of Sirach]
• Sacred Mythology: ancient stories of origins and early heroes whose histories include mythology, but whose stories represent spiritual truths, especially regarding the natures of humanity and God, and their relationship [e.g. the Creation myths of Genesis, parts of the books of Judges, parts of the books of the Maccabees]
• Prophetic Narratives: Often highly-stylized and symbolic inspired messages intended to admonish, teach, and/or encourage. The prophet speaks with divine authority as directly inspired by The Holy Spirit. Prophesies range in styles from the literally pragmatic to the overtly enigmatic. [e.g. Ezekiel, Joel, eschatology narratives of the Gospels]
• Didactic / Pious Folk Tales: stories intended as morality tales or teaching fables. Their fictional characters (even when representing actual beings) represent models of how we should (and often should not) live our lives and contemplate right and wrong. [e.g. Job, Tobit, gospel parables.
• General Didactic Narratives: straight-up moral and practical teaching [e.g. Deuteronomy Leviticus, The sermon on the mount, other parts of the Gospels]
• General Epistles: Often didactic, corrective and dogmatic letters sent by Church Fathers to the Church at large [e.g. 2 Peter, James]
• Community Epistles: Often corrective and edifice-building letters sent by Church Fathers to guide particular communities through spiritual and/or physical crises [e.g. Hebrews, Romans, 1 & 2 Thessalonians]
• Private Epistles: "House keeping" and administrative correspondence from a Church father to an individual. e.g. 1 & 2 Timothy, Philemon]

We believe all are inspired [See Timothy 3:16,17.]. Yet as you should see, their content needs to be understood in historical context and in their intended purposes. Much is not literal.

Asked:

Do you know why the Bible has zero errors?

I answered him

more than once, and am giving the order in which they get answered back, not the order in which they were given.

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Tue 29.VIII.2023

Decapitation of St. John the Baptist

What exactly do you mean by “mythology” here?

// Sacred Mythology: ancient stories of origins and early heroes whose histories include mythology, but whose stories represent spiritual truths, especially regarding the natures of humanity and God, and their relationship [e.g. the Creation myths of Genesis, parts of the books of Judges, parts of the books of the Maccabees] //

Do you hold there is such a genre as “myth” with the characteristic of non-factuality?

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon 28.VIII.2023

The Bible is not without practical errors. Its writers were inspired by The Holy Spirit. They were not possessed by it.

Are Magisterial Definitions without errors in faith and morals? Are Popes and Council Fathes possessed by the Holy Spirit?

The point you seem to make is, hagiographers retained freewill and were therefore free to err.

Fine, but God was free to make sure the ones who did when they did were not taken for hagiographers.

Popes and Council Fathers also retain freewill and are free to err. God is free to make sure that such errors are not taken for magisterium, including by showing Popes to be non-Popes, Councils to be non-Councils.

Theo Fessenden

Mon 28.VIII.2023

I'm not sure what you're saying, but that isn't what I am saying.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Tue 29.VIII.2023

Decapitation of St. John the Baptist

My point is: a man does not have to be possessed by the Holy Spirit to be totally preserved from uttering an untrue word, by the same Holy Spirit.

It is not as if the Holy Spirit were “inspiration” in the way artists speak of “inspiration” - and it is clearly as if the Holy Spirit Himself spoke. Qui locutus est per prophetas.

My point is: if you can see how this works when it comes to infallible magisterium, like the Protestants can, how come you can’t see how it worked for the Hagiographers.

Theo Fessenden

Tue 29.VIII.2023

Decapitation of St. John the Baptist

I am defending the inerrancy of scripture.

Are you claiming every word of scripture is literal?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Wed 30.VIII.2023

Unless otherwise obviously marked, yes.

And by obviously, I mean things like hyperbolic remarks in the form of absurd commands, taken at face value.

III

Francis Marsden

Aug 25 2023

You will make the literalistic Fundamentalists froth with apoplexy. But well written!

Theo Fessenden

Aug 25 2023

Better they catch their breath than pluck out or cut off whatever body part causes them to sin. I've yet to meet a literalist who has done so, regardless of Jesus' apparently explicit instruction.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon 28.VIII.2023

Metaphor and error are two different things.

Theo Fessenden

Mon 28.VIII.2023

Yes, we know.

I think you're misunderstanding the answer.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Tue 29.VIII.2023

Decapitation of St. John the Baptist

What am I misunderstanding about this? Here:

// If by "zero errors," you're speaking in terms of Fundamentalist literalism, that is not the case. The Bible is not without practical errors. //

I take objection to this, and I find the Chicago Declaration in Biblical Inerrance MOSTLY compatible with Trent Session IV.

Theo Fessenden

Tue 29.VIII.2023

Decapitation of St. John the Baptist

Read my answer. Clearly it all is not literal. In practical terns, the cosmos from Creation to humanity was not made in 1,008 hours. There are no floodgates in the sky. There never were.

Take all the exception you like.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Wed 30.VIII.2023

"In practical terns, the cosmos from Creation to humanity was not made in 1,008 hours."

6 * 24 = 144 hours - where do the 1,008 come from?

"There are no floodgates in the sky. There never were."

Yes, the division between Oxygen layers of the atmosphere and Hydrogen layers of the High Atmosphere. When the division was eliminated, it was like gates opening. Brown gas + lightnings = water.

Theo Fessenden

Wed 30.VIII.2023

Ah. So you're a literalist. Got it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Wed 30.VIII.2023

Sure, that’s what inerrancy entails.

Theo Fessenden

Wed 30.VIII.2023

No. My brother, that is not what inerrancy means… And that's the central point of my answer.

You demonstrate its truth yourself. You haven't plucked out your right eye because (as you say) it's "obvious" to you that it isn't to be taken literally. Yet you embrace a pseudoscience nonsense explanation for there to be (or have been?) literal floodgates opening in the sky, because that is obvious to you. Of course they were/are literal only to the extent that you're able to envisage. Your floodgates do not have actual gates that lift away or swing open. So it's obvious to you that at some point they aren't literal floodgates. Your description has

• no physical infrastructure,
• no actual water channels, gates and sluices,
• no dammed up watercourse or multi-trillion-ton dammed-up physical body of liquid water suspended above all the world (unless you claim a an atmospheric inversion can do that. And no, it cannot.),
• no mechanism to raise or lower the gates and
• no physical remnants of these watercourses, gates, sluices and dam(s) to be found on earth or in the sky—even though no text says they fell to earth or vanished.

Whatever explanations you might toss at the wall, in your opinion they obviously stick.

Why stop there?

• Why not decide for yourself what obviously is and what obviously is not Holy Scripture? The Bible's Table of Contents is not part of any of the texts. Jesus Himself never mentions a New Testament. He never tells us what belongs in the canon of His own time while on His earthly mission. Nothing in either covenant tells us that.
• Why not make your own Bible? You could even write your own new text and clarify everything so nobody need disagree again. By your standard you are free to make The Gospel of Hans-Georg be Holy Scripture should you desire

Please consider:

• Was all of creation made (including humanity) in 144 hours? (Thank you again for pointing out the weird number I had there before—I have no idea where that came from.)?
• Is the Earth literally stationary a flat circle?
• Is the sky (the heavens) God's literal throne upon which He sits and the earth His literal footstool?
• Does the sun move about the Earth as scriptures literally describe. Did it once simply stop moving for a while as per scripture?

To me, all of the above obviously are not literally the case. They each represent factors in stories about moral, spiritual and even historical truths, but in light of revelation about God's relationship with His people and His creation. They are not paleontology or astro physics lessons.

So long as you recognize that you are not meant to literally chop off your hand and pluck out your eye, you're simply agreeing with me except you make yourself your own magisterium. The result is that the Bible means to you whatever you want it to mean—and you "take issue" with anything that contradicts your personal take. Your trust is in yourself.

To you there is no doctrine, no reason, no physical fact of God's own Creation or tenet of The Church Jesus founded contradicting your own private interpretation of scripture which you cannot ignore or explain away if it doesn't suit you. In the end, it's not about any authority other than your own. You deem you follow scripture, but in actuality it simply follows you according to your personal preference and whimsy..

Yet according to Scripture, truth is not what is "obvious to you." In fact what is obvious to you may lead you to death. [1] Rather, the Church is the foundation and pillar of truth. [2]

May God bless you with all good gifts He would lavish upon you. May the face of Jesus shine upon you. May the Holy Spirit lead you into the Church which Jesus founded and to which He promised all truth. May He hold you in the midst of His fold that you too may run and finish the race and gain the imperishable prize. [3] By His grace may we live with Him and in Him in the fellowship of the saints forever and ever.

. .

Footnotes

[1] Proverbs 14:12 NABRE - Sometimes a way seems right,but the - Biblics
[2] 1 Timothy 3:15 But if I should be delayed, you should know how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth. | New American Bible, revised edition (NABRE) | Download The Bible App Now
[3] 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crow | New American Bible, revised edition (NABRE) | Download The Bible App Now

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Wed 30.VIII.2023

Would you mind telling me where you get it from the CHURCH defined 144 hours to be non-literal?

I hold to Trent Session IV.

If something is such that the Church tenuit atque tenet it, or is consensus of all Church Fathers, you can safely ask me to take that.

Theo Fessenden

31.VIII.2023

At this time the Church has no official teaching on what we must believe about our origins in terms of ira tú al history. The Church does assert that faith and genuine scientific discovery cannot contradict one another. Thus, for example, the continuous unbroken record of tree ring analyses proves beyond any doubt that trees were here at least 13,000 years ago. The earth is far older than the literal 6000 years delineated in scripture. We therefore know that if our literal interpretation denies this proven truth, then the literal is not the correct interpretation.

Catholics should weigh the evidence for the universe’s age by examining biblical and scientific evidence. “Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 159).

and

The Catholic Church has always taught that “no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits. . . . If nevertheless there is a disagreement . . . it should be remembered that the sacred writers, or more truly ‘the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men such truths (as the inner structure of visible objects) which do not help anyone to salvation’; and that, for this reason, rather than trying to provide a scientific exposition of nature, they sometimes describe and treat these matters either in a somewhat figurative language or as the common manner of speech those times required” (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus 18).

and

“Methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things the of the faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are” (CCC 159). The Catholic Church has no fear of science or scientific discovery.

See also: [1], [2]

Footnotes

[1] https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1115&context=claritas
[2] https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/10/28/pope-francis-comments-on-evolution-and-the-catholic-church

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Thur 31.VIII.2023

“The Church does assert that faith and genuine scientific discovery cannot contradict one another.”

Key word “genuine” …

“Thus, for example, the continuous unbroken record of tree ring analyses proves beyond any doubt that trees were here at least 13,000 years ago.”

I’d be happy to take a debate on that one.

I’m an amateur on the question, and according to your credentials, so are you:

Former Writer: Science, IT and Engineering. at Att Bell Labs
Studied Information Technology & Management at DeSales University

IT and Engineering = NOT tree rings.
IT and Management = NOT tree rings.

For starters, the further back you go, as with the other now usually lignine based dating method (written records on paper or papyrus, though there were other writing supports), the fewer samples survive and the shorter they are and the less sure the fitting together of them are.

“The earth is far older than the literal 6000 years delineated in scripture.”

• Scripture and post-Acts history … Masoretic history by itself would give c. 4000 years
• I use a LXX based Biblical history, Christ born 5199 after Creation, as the old Christmas proclamation said.

“We therefore know that if our literal interpretation denies this proven truth, then the literal is not the correct interpretation.”

Or we know that if our literal interpretation has to be the correct one, as per being the one which the Church tenuit et tenet, which has the consensus of the Church Fathers, then this cannot be a proven truth.

“Catholics should weigh the evidence for the universe’s age by examining biblical and scientific evidence.”

But I do.

“The Catholic Church has always taught that “no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits.” “

That’s why I am against scientists going beyond their limits. Note, I agree the Bible is not a scientific text book. But nowhere in Providentissimus Deus does it say that the Bible is not in fact inerrant when it touches on science, nor that the age of the earth can have no bearing on salvation.

Just two, three possible bearings:

• If Adam lived way further back than 7000 years ago, Genesis 3 is not historically certain, and God could have said something other to the serpent than the recorded Proto-Gospel. Utterly false.
• If Adam had biological pedigree to non-humans, he grew up as a feral child. Utterly false.
• If Adam did not individually exist, the punishments for original sin are not for a voluntary act, but for a social coincidence of acts, which is per se willed by no single individual, and does not directly proceed from free will. Utterly false.

“The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are”

That’s a very good description of a scientist finding his way into Young Earth Creationism.

It’s also a very bad description of the consensus against YEC, fabricated among other things by Carnegie’s funding of institutes of higher learning. He was biassed against Christian Orthodoxy.

More may come ... meanwhile, note, his writing position included, while his studies did not include science ... he's not the guy to pick on me for writing on subjects outside my field of studies ...

Theo Fessenden

31.VIII.2023

Enough nonsense.

Pseudoscience removed.

We're done.

Any further from you also will be removed.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1.IX.2023

Glad my comments are already saved, Mr. Cancel Culture!

Or were you removing your pseudo-science of 13000 years “recorded” in tree-rings?

Theo Fessenden Debate
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2023/08/theo-fessenden-debate.html

Theo Fessenden

1.IX.2023

There's no debate. I care not one bit about whatever you post under your own auspices.

This is not a platform for pseudoscience. You are done here.

In other words, a Catholic doing "pseudo-science" for the faith is unwelcome, one who does actual pseudo-science against the faith is thrown out ... nice for a forum called Catholic Apologetics ...