Jimmy Akin on Pints with Aquinas, Two Clips

Are Sedevacantists Even Catholic? w/ Jimmy Akin
Pints With Aquinas | 13 March 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1ymXI1dhpE

Hans Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

"you can you can reinterpret what 1:07 anybody says if you get to make up the 1:11 rules but this is another case of 1:14 reading a text contrary to the intention 1:18 of its author"

Genesis 1 though 11.
CCC § 283. CCC §§ around 390.

You have pretty much summed up what three of your "Popes" (counting since 1992 when that "catechism" came out) did to Moses.

igor lopes

@igorlopes7589

Context?

Hans Georg Lundahl

@igorlopes7589 Jimmy is conscious of author content in the abdication of "Benedict" but not the Bible.

Luke

@luke9747

@hglundahl so are you saying that because the catechism does not take the creation story in Genesis literally and allows for belief in big bang/evolution, they are wrong because the author of Genesis meant it to be taken literally?

Hans Georg Lundahl

@luke9747 Well, even half literal, like Day Age and Gap Theory for Genesis 1, but literal from there on, even that is far more marginal in Church history than Benevacantism is in present matters.

Let alone non-literal, allowing for Adam and Eve to not be two actual persons or not the actually first men or not actually within a few thousand years before Abraham ...

So, yes, I am saying precisely that.

New Man

@newman476

@hglundahl The Catholic Church holds that Catholics must believe Adam and Eve were real, individual people, regardless of their thoughts concerning the literal timeline of the events of Genesis.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@newman476 well, the Church Fathers uniformly held the timeline as literal

Having Adam and Eve as real people while believing in roughgly human skeleta dated 40 000 years ago, that they were really that old doesn't make sense.

1) If Adam and Eve came at the beginning of the timeline, those would be pre-Adamites, which is condemned (condemnation of a work by La Peyrère);
2) If Adam and Eve were 40 000 years ago or longer, first there would be no reliable historic transmission of Genesis 3 to Moses, and then there would have been a very long waiting time for the Messiah.

New Man

@hglundahl Sort of, Augustine may have held to a Young Earth, but he believed that the Seven Days of Creation were entirely figurative and that all Creation occurred instantaneously. Moreover, he chastised Christians for using Scripture to argue with non-Christians about the age of the world because he believed it made Christianity look foolish.

I don’t know about the rest of the Church Fathers, but that’s Augustine for you.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@newman476 I don't think you know St. Augustine as well as I do.

"Moreover, he chastised Christians for using Scripture to argue with non-Christians about the age of the world"

He didn't.

He argued from Genesis 5 and 11 in City of God, against Egyptians holding to a 40 000 year old earth. Re-read books 12 through 16.

"because he believed it made Christianity look foolish."

I think that was a remark about Flat Earthism or one specific view of how the heavens moved. It was certainly NOT about age of the earth, since the only empiric and rational way we can know that is tracking human history back to Adam, and getting revealed that Adam was not created long after the rest of the universe.

"but he believed that the Seven Days of Creation were entirely figurative and that all Creation occurred instantaneously."

Pretty much. Which is perfectly compatible with Young Earth and incompatible with Day-Age or Gap Theories wedging in millions of years before Adam.

Do DINOSAURS Disprove GOD??? w/ Jimmy Akin
Pints With Aquinas | 11 March 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB5vM10FXGM

1:15 Let's suppose animals have no rights per se.

They were created for man. Fine. This means, man was created so as to show empathy for them, and one of the shocks Adam and Eve had on the evening they had sinned was ... getting clothed in the skin of a pair of animals they had known and loved.

Even on this view, or perhaps especially on this view, animals should not have suffered before Adam sinned.

Qwerty

@Qwerty-jy9mj

How does that follow?

Hans Georg Lundahl

@Qwerty-jy9mj Because suffering, not tangs of pain, but suffering, is an ugly thing.

It's penal, either for the one suffering, or for man, seeing the suffering in an animal.

Qwerty

Why is that the case?

Hans Georg Lundahl

@Qwerty-jy9mj Catechism of St. Pius X:

35 Q. In what state did God place our first parents, Adam and Eve?
A. God placed our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the state of innocence and grace; but they soon fell away by sin.

36 Q. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace did God confer any other gifts on our first parents?
A. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace, God conferred on our first parents other gifts, which, along with sanctifying . grace, they were to transmit to their descendants; these were: (1) Integrity, that is, the perfect subjection of sense . reason; (2) Immortality; (3) Immunity from all pain and sorrow; (4) A knowledge in keeping with their state.

37 Q. What was the nature of Adam's sin?
A. Adam's sin was a sin of pride and of grave disobedience.

38 Q. What chastisement was meted out to the sin of Adam and Eve?
A. Adam and Eve lost the grace of God and the right they had to Heaven; they were driven out of the earthly Paradise, subjected to many miseries of soul and body, and condemned to death.

39 Q. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, would they have bee exempt from death?
A. If Adam and Eve had not sinned and if they had remained faithful to God, they would, after a happy and tranquil sojourn here on earth, and without dying, have been transferred by God into Heaven, to enjoy a life of unending glory.

Perhaps you'd argue from 40 Q ...

40 Q. Were these gifts due to man?
A. These gifts were in no way due to man, but were absolutely gratuitous and supernatural; and hence, when Adam disobeyed the divine command, God could without any injustice deprive both Adam and his posterity of them.

Nevertheless, "subject to many miseries" is "chastisement" in 38 Q.

Qwerty

And how do these relate to non rational animals?

Hans Georg Lundahl

@Qwerty-jy9mj Given the empathy Adam and Eve had for them, it was at least fitting that they should not needlessly suffer prior to Adam's sin.

Take the canary in the coal mine. When the canary dies it means there is gas that can kill men. When the first non-rational animal died, or two, it signalled to Adam and Eve that God was serious about sin, it was a real disaster.

You are familiar with the distinction "de condigno" and "de congruo" right?

Qwerty

@hglundahl
Yeah but it doesn't seem to apply here, if humans merit mercy upon their dignity and that's characterized by their rational nature, we can say that empathy towards non rational animals is desirable without saying it's analogous to mercy given among rational creatures because they are different in kind, not degree.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@Qwerty-jy9mj You missed the part about "de congruo" ...

Qwerty

@hglundahl
No, I did imply that the comparison is invalid because of the category error.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@Qwerty-jy9mj There is no such one.

Men have a kind of merit of mercy "de condigno", because of their nature.

Beasts have a reasonable expectation (by men) to be seen in merciful circumstances, because God is the kind of God He is -- "de congruo" ... "the righteous has mercy even over his livestock" says the Bible, and before Adam, all livestock would have been God's. God being righteous, it follows that beasts would have suffered at least no wasteful and useless suffering before Adam sinned.

Alonso B

@alonsoACR

@hglundahl Animals dying is absolutely compatible in a non-Fallen world. Aquinas made this point I believe.

Basically if a rock fell upon a Fido, Fido may have died.

It's totally fine. Death isn't inherently evil.

Let's not forget that, regardless of your emotional attachments, animals aren't morally significant the way humans are. They don't have the image and likeness of God, and never had, thus technically speaking they're even incapable of love.

Oh my God, I hope I'm not being too harsh here. What you're saying is absolutely possible going off Bible alone. I just, personally, have my reservations, and in fact agree with Aquinas.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@alonsoACR "Aquinas made this point I believe."

I believe he made the point that in an unfallen world, wolves would also have eaten rabbits, but the rabbits that Adam allowed them to eat, on occasions.

In other words, there would on that view (not held by all Church Fathers, perhaps based on misunderstanding one remark by St. Basil!) still have been no wasteful or useless animal death or suffering.

Qwerty

@hglundahl
Our dignity is de congruo because despite original sin all men are made in the image and likeness of God. We are within the genre of rational souls, animal souls by definition lack the intellect which remains after death and as such it's incongruent to believe they can participate in whatever we will participate as an afterlife. Maybe there's some post mortem fate for non rational sensitive souls but that's mere speculation and it certainly can't be said that it would be confused with ours because they would serve different final causes.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@Qwerty-jy9mj Since we are made in the image and likeness of God, we have an expectation "de condigno" prior to sin, not totally abolished by sin.

Beasts have an expectation in our eyes (they don't have expectations themselves) "de congruo" given how fitting that is for God. AND given that animal suffering is traumatising for a rightly constituted man.

"as such it's incongruent to believe they can participate in whatever we will participate as an afterlife."

I am not arguing from the position that beasts have an afterlife, especially one idependently of man. If they have one, it's because God revives animals that men who go to Heaven have loved. As part of their bliss.

Precisely because a dino living (supposedly) 65 million years before Adam does not have an afterlife it is the more fitting that they be not exposed to either long lasting cancers or tooth ache or healing after gruesome infighting wounds before dying. On the other hand, if they suffered all of this because Adam sinned, and became dangerous to men getting close, because Adam sinned, the things really do fit.

Qwerty

@hglundahl
I don't disagree with that, insofar as humans have a duty of humane treatment of non rational sensitive souls, humane as in "proper to humankind". Meaning it's the human who becomes "more human" by treating an animal in relation to the dignity the human has and not the animal's.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@Qwerty-jy9mj And given that God has a greater dignity than man?

Qwerty

@hglundahl
We're made in his image where animals aren't, the comparison isn't analogous.

Alonso B

@hglundahl I struggle to see the problem of animal suffering per se. Or even animal death.

Animals that have no capacity for intellect or love (no image and likeness + breath of life) aren't people. If it has purpose or use, then animal suffering is permissible in my eyes.

In the Old Testament, in fact, animal suffering is implicitly mandated due to sacrificial laws. You NEEDED to kill animals for their meat. Other places practiced veganism, but God's People had to eat meat regularly. Lamb every Easter, etc. The sacrifice itself wasn't painless to the animal.

God has allowed morally gray things, but God never mandated morally dubious things. Ever. Especially not outright evil.

So this is why I struggle. My vision of a non-Fallen world doesn't include vegan humans, especially not vegan and pacifistic animals.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@alonsoACR "In the Old Testament, in fact, animal suffering is implicitly mandated due to sacrificial laws."

Put into place because Adam's sin required sacrifice.

"You NEEDED to kill animals for their meat."

Since after the Flood, when vegetation and especially cereals were a bit too scarce. See Genesis 9:2.

"The sacrifice itself wasn't painless to the animal."

Neither was the humanity it was sacrificed for sinless.

"My vision of a non-Fallen world doesn't include vegan humans, "

Even if in fact righteous men before the Flood were either vegan, or vegan outside sacrifice?

Even if the most vegan culture there is, Hinduism, seems to have a general "pre-Flood nostalgia" complex, as evidenced by Mahabharata, the main events of which (not including pagan gods existing as gods!) happened before the Flood?

Hans Georg Lundahl

@Qwerty-jy9mj Yes, but it's precisely his image that makes us obliged to be kind to animals, meaning He presumably is too — except when there is human sin to allow for them being used for correction.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@alonsoACR "especially not vegan and pacifistic animals."

Vegan, Church Fathers are divided.

But uselessly cruel, impossible.

IF you traced the comments in Sts Augustine and Bede and Aquinas about non-vegan carnivores, you'd find that a good order would have prevailed. Not the chaos and misery of T Rex dealing with cancer, caries, and bites from each other for years before they died.

Qwerty

@hglundahl
You mean when the pit bull mauls a kid to death?

You're running in circles at this point, I already addressed this. The claim that man was created to "show empathy" to non rational souls is insane.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@Qwerty-jy9mj If you shoot that pit bull, you are very correctly priorising a human child over a non-rational animal gone rogue.

You are also doing so after Adam sinned.

The pit bull gone rogue is also acting so after Adam sinned.

By and large we are meant to show empathy for non-rational animals, especially vertebrates and among them mammalians, this is not insane, it is just that it has to step back before other considerations at times.

And the one you mentioned arose after Adam sinned. As did a perfectly innocuous hamster getting cancer to the distress of the girl owning it.

Alonso B

@hglundahl Why the preference for mammalians?
Don't let your emotions taint your reason. The heart is deceitful above all else, says the Lord.

All animals, vertebrates or not, lack the same qualities that give mankind a higher moral significance.

I can understand why so many Church fathers believed that animals mustn't have suffered unnecessarily before the Fall, but what is "unnecessary" only God knows. Going by the design of creatures it doesn't seem like God was intending to make a Cosmos like you describe.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@alonsoACR "Don't let your emotions taint your reason."

That sentiment is Kantian, not Aristotelian or Thomistic. You think you had a proof text for it?

"The heart is deceitful above all else,"

Deceitful ... aqob
Definition: insidious, deceitful, tracked by footprints

LXX
9 βαθεῖα ἡ καρδία παρά πάντα, καὶ ἄνθρωπός ἐστι· καὶ τίς γνώσεται αὐτόν;
9 The heart is deep beyond all things, and it is the man, and who can know him?

Vulg.
9 Pravum est cor omnium, et inscrutabile : quis cognoscet illud?
Pravum translates as skewed, unjust

Douay Rheims
9 The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it?

I don't think the text says what you think it says.

"All animals, vertebrates or not, lack the same qualities that give mankind a higher moral significance."

If you mean image and likeness of God, correct.

But mammals do not lack certain qualities that God intended men to have and not angels to have. We are not meant to divest us from all of them and be as angels in this life.

"animals mustn't have suffered unnecessarily before the Fall, but what is "unnecessary" only God knows."

Er, no.

For individual cases, yes, but for existence overall, we are in a position to make a theodicy.

This means, we can pin point what's due to the curse of Adam.

"Going by the design of creatures"

How do you know your heart is not misleading you in interpreting it?

Vegan lions exist, not due to vegan zoo keepers, but despite carnivore zoo keepers.

@alonsoACR "I can understand why so many Church fathers believed that animals mustn't have suffered unnecessarily before the Fall,"

Sounds like you were patronising them.

Can you give a Church Father who says animals would have become sick and died in pain, had Adam not sinned? I don't think so.

1:34 Again, not necessarily true if for instance Adam had not sinned.

God is being fair, because we are a sinful kind. If we come out on the plus side, God has given us more than we deserve.

Some things would not have happened at all, if Adam had not sinned.

7:05 And this brings us to the question whether Fluffy had an afterlife in and of herself (or himself), or because the cat was loved and its raising is part of the bliss of ma and the own self (once you die again, if you make it to Heaven).

7:52 Phenomenal conservatism.
Take experiences, as they present themselves, as long as there is no cogent reason for taking them otherwise.

An excellent reason against Heliocentrism, and therefore also the best answer against the Distant Starlight Problem. I e the "most cosmic" reason for Deep Time. You do realise that "13.8 light years to the furthest stars" comes via "4 light years to alpha Centauri" and "4 light years to alpha Centauri" from "it's parallax is an apparent movement due to the actual movement of earth" ... which is not a phenomenon we experience.

8:57 I'm reminded of CSL's remark.

A Heaven for mosquitos is perfectly compatible with a Hell for damned men.