Catholic Apologists, STOP Saying THIS
Scholastic Answers | 17 janv. 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPgprPQPnvY
Or, I don't need to know Dorcas / Tabitha lived in Lydda near Joppe to be saved, therefore someone denying it is not a heretic.
- RandomKnight
- @randomknight5236
- You're confusing two things. You're confusing the things necessary for faith with everything that is an object of faith. If you culpably deny something that is divinely revealed you do not have faith. It doesn't matter how necessary that thing is for salvation. If you culpably deny it, you don't have faith
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @hglundahl
- @randomknight5236 Thank you.
My "or" was in reference to what Wagner said, I totally agree with you.
And, judging from the words so far, Wagner.
Adam begat Seth when he was 130 / 230 (depending on text) years old. You apply this principle to the add-up of Genesis 5 and of Genesis 11 too?
- Dávid Bernhardt
- @davidbernhardt551
- We have good reason to believe that is not meant to be literal history, based on style, external evidence and the fact that other similar ancient texts in that region also used symbolic numbers for ages.
A better example would be something like the Ten Commandments and other clear statements, obviously you didn't need to wait until Evangelium Vitae to know that killing an innocent human being is intrinsically wrong.
But I agree that it would be ridiculous to apply this to these random statements not concerning faith and morals.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @davidbernhardt551 "based on style"
Like bone dry genealogy. Sounds pretty pointless other than as literal history.
"external evidence"
Like what?
"and the fact that other similar ancient texts in that region also used symbolic numbers for ages."
How do you prove they were meant as "symbolical"?
How similar are the texts? If the similarity is on subject matter, is it a matter of diverging accounts of the same events?
"something like the Ten Commandments and other clear statements"
You keep the Sabbath, abstain from all images and call God the Tetragrammaton, or avoid doing so by saying Adonai?
"it would be ridiculous to apply this to these random statements not concerning faith and morals."
Not on Christian Wagner's view and certainly not on mine. Watch the video once again!
It is specifically about statements that themselves are not matters of "faith and morals" in the subject matter.
Other dialogue:
- Billy G
- @billyg898
- Genesis, on a plain reading, depicts the world as flat with a hard dome over it, with water above the dome and below the earth. The dome (the firmament) has windows which is how rain comes through.
Even the most determined young earth creationist doesn't go this far. But why shouldn't they if we are to take the plain reading of scripture?
- I
- RandomKnight
- Bro, Wagner is talking about when the sense of the text is plain, not interpreting Scripture in a plain way
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @randomknight5236 How are these different?
- RandomKnight
- @hglundahl When Scripture says "God is my rock" to interpret it plainly would be to say that Scripture is saying that God is quite literally a rock. While the sense being plain means that what the sense of the text is is plain to us. Ignoring that OPs examples were poor examples
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @randomknight5236 No, wooden literalism is not plain meaning.
The metaphor is perfectly clear even to a plain understanding.
I'm not sure how the OP's examples were bad, he got them wrong.
- RandomKnight
- @hglundahl That's the point. Reading something plainly and the meaning being plain are two different things. OP is confusing the two. And the reason OPs examples were bad is because they're either wrong (the earth being flat) or ignorantly informed (his understanding of the firmament)
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @randomknight5236 I'm not sure he is confusing the two, he's misapplying plain reading.
Most of his examples are such that the meaning is plain if we presume the things to be true and use our knowledge of the globe.
The firmament is the exception.
The earth being flat is in fact not in the text, and he might be deriving this from a confusion between waters being below the earth (surface) and this meaning below an earth disc.
- II
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- "depicts the world as flat"
No. Give me the passage, I'll give the correct meaning. It won't be abstruse.
"with a hard dome over it"
"firm" need not mean "hard"
"with water above the dome"
Or in the upper parts of it.
"and below the earth."
Or below the surface of the earth, below the land.
"has windows which is how rain comes through."
The Floodgates of Heaven could have been a mechanism applying to only the Flood. Like an upper atmosphere mixing of Oxygen and Hydrogen into Brown's gas.
- Billy G
- @hglundahl thank you for the reply. I should note that we can help understand Genesis by other passages in scripture.
What do you suppose is meant by the word "face", as in "face of the deep", "face of the waters", "face of the whole earth", etc? The rest of scripture also seems to depict a flat earth, sitting on a foundation.
The text does seem to explicitly say the water is "above" the firmament in gen 1:7, so the firmament is able to hold the water up, indicating it is firm. We still must contend with the fact that it plainly says that the windows of the heavens were opened and closed. Like with the "fountains of the deep" bursting open and then being closed, we all know what that is. Applying it to floodgates or windows, the plain reading is that there was a physical opening and closing in the firmament. This all indicates something physical hard.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @billyg898 "What do you suppose is meant by the word "face" "
Surface.
A globe has as much a surface as a disc has.
"The rest of scripture also seems to depict a flat earth, sitting on a foundation."
If you mean immobility passages, I'm Geocentric, I have no problem with them.
If you mean "pillars of the earth" there actually are things describable as pillars in tectonic geology.
"The text does seem to explicitly say the water is "above" the firmament in gen 1:7, so the firmament is able to hold the water up, indicating it is firm."
Can air hold water up in the clouds? While air is in that sense "firm" it isn't hard.
Are hydrogen and water molecules up well above the atmosphere?
Obviously yes.
Now, my main view of the firmament is, it is the aether that God is turning around Earth each day.
Another possibility is, it's the magnetic field around Earth.
The passage about flood gates of heaven can be understood this way:
In the pre-Flood world, the atmosphere had more oxygen and oxygen higher up, and more hydrogen and a thick hydrogen layer further down. The opening means, something which had separated them disappeared, lightnings ignited this and produced water, the closing, the exhaustion of both gasses reintroduced a space between them.
- III
- ʙᴀᴛᴀᴠɪᴄᴀ ♰
- @Batavica
- ʙᴀᴛᴀᴠɪᴄᴀ ♰
- Slippery slope fallacy
- Billy G
- @Batavica i agree, its a slippery slope, but can anyone explain what is the fallacy?
Why should we take the forming of Adam from dust as it plainly states, and the ages as it plainly states, etc, but when it says plainly that there are windows in the firmament that open and close, we dont take that plainly?
- ʙᴀᴛᴀᴠɪᴄᴀ ♰
- @b @billyg898 because “literal until proven otherwise” is not held by any of the fathers, the correct reading of any verse is whatever the writer intended it to mean.
There was never a consensus that Genesis was literal, and the church holds to consensus of the fathers.
- Billy G
- @Batavica what? No consensus that Genesis is literal?
The church fathers are unanimous that it is literal. It was almost completely unanimously believed the firmament was a literal hard dome with water above it.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @Batavica I would concur that there is a definite patristic consensus that Genesis is litteral.
Any patristic support for allegory in Genesis is in addition to the literal sense, not instead of it.
Adam literally slept and Eve was created from his side. Christ "slept" on the Cross and Church was born from His side (that's the allegory part applicable to Genesis 2).
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @billyg898 "It was almost completely unanimously believed the firmament was a literal hard dome with water above it."
Say solid instead of hard.
Non-solid bodies have certain types of solidity as well, as a study of aerodynamics will tell you. If you don't believe that, I hope you never take an airplane, you wouldn't see that air has sufficient solidity to keep the plane up.
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