Apostatic Rejection of "Fundamentalism" in 1994

1) New blog on the kid : As Someone Said : You Catch More Flies with Honey than with Vinegar, 2) Creation vs. Evolution : A Pretty Vile Attack on "Christian Fundamentalists" - but a Parodic One, 3) Great Bishop of Geneva! : Apostatic Rejection of "Fundamentalism" in 1994, 4) Dwight Makes a Calmer Attack on Catholic Fundies

Great Bishop of Geneva!: Apostatic Rejection of "Fundamentalism" in 1994 · New blog on the kid John Shelby Spong and Joseph Ratzinger

Scripsit Ratzinger:

Ratz. 1994
= THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCH
Pontifical Biblical Commission
Presented on March 18, 1994
http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.htm

The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that, refusing to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation, it makes itself incapable of accepting the full truth of the incarnation itself. As regards relationships with God, fundamentalism seeks to escape any closeness of the divine and the human. It refuses to admit that the inspired word of God has been expressed in human language and that this word has been expressed, under divine inspiration, by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources. For this reason, it tends to treat the biblical text as if it had been dictated word for word by the Spirit. It fails to recognize that the word of God has been formulated in language and expression conditioned by various periods. It pays no attention to the literary forms and to the human ways of thinking to be found in the biblical texts, many of which are the result of a process extending over long periods of time and bearing the mark of very diverse historical situations.

Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth. It often historicizes material which from the start never claimed to be historical. It considers historical everything that is reported or recounted with verbs in the past tense, failing to take the necessary account of the possibility of symbolic or figurative meaning.

HGL

Let us break this down.

Ratz. 1994

The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that, refusing to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation, it makes itself incapable of accepting the full truth of the incarnation itself.

HGL

It seems that Ratzinger is here by "full truth of the incarnation" referring to a recent heretical view on it, called The Kenotic Heresy by Jonathan Sarfati Ph. D. and contradicting the view of St Thomas Aquinas saying that Christ as Man was certainly ignorant, in his human capacity, but never but never in error.

Ratz. 1994

As regards relationships with God, fundamentalism seeks to escape any closeness of the divine and the human.

HGL

On the contrary. Ratzinger proposed a "closeness" where the divine, when coming to man, dilutes itself with error. That is, ceases to be divine.

Ratz. 1994

It refuses to admit that the inspired word of God has been expressed in human language and that this word has been expressed, under divine inspiration, by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources.

HGL

On the contrary.

Precisely because the revelation is inspired in human language, it means that it must be intelligible to us. THerefore that its significance in precisely human language is inerrant.

The six days, one way or another, have to be what human language calls days.

There is no use pretending that "day in God's language might mean millions of years" or unknown ages, precisely because God is expressing the six days as days in precisely human language.

Ratz. 1994

For this reason, it tends to treat the biblical text as if it had been dictated word for word by the Spirit.

[my emphasis]

HGL

Let us confer Providentissimus Deus, §20:

For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true.

[I copied above from the site of the Vatican itself.]

Ratz. 1994

It fails to recognize that the word of God has been formulated in language and expression conditioned by various periods.

HGL

No, only that the conditioning by such and such a period induced the original hearers or especially hagiographers in what is actually an error, which we should reject as such.

For instance, Feminist theologians in Swedish Lutheran sect have insisted that Christ chosing only male disciples to be present at Last Supper, was "conditioned by his times". Therefore the exclusion of women from priesthood, whether they say so much or not, is in fact treated as an error to be now corrected.

Ratz. 1994

It pays no attention to the literary forms and to the human ways of thinking to be found in the biblical texts, many of which are the result of a process extending over long periods of time and bearing the mark of very diverse historical situations.

HGL

Simply slandering.

The people on CMI pay great attention to any due question of literary forms - even when given undue answers by non-fundamentalists.

Ratz. 1994

Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, ...

HGL

No, with God as real author of the text, the details are also inerrant.

Ratz. 1994

... especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth. It often historicizes material which from the start never claimed to be historical. It considers historical everything that is reported or recounted with verbs in the past tense, failing to take the necessary account of the possibility of symbolic or figurative meaning. ...

HGL

As to six days being as long as 6*24 h. as opposed to 6 nanoseconds in which angels apprehended what God did in a single moment, sure, fundamentalists tend to think St Augustine was wrong, but so did most of the other Church Fathers.

As to the fall involving a Literal Adam, a literal Eve, both literally taken from virgin soil, as opposed to being for instance developed from other previous life forms on an old and scarred earth, yes, they do. And so did Church Fathers.

And, I would like to forward what CMI has quoted in this about professors of Hebrew, by one:

‘… probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:

• creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience
  
  
• the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story
  
  
• Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.’

After which CMI gives this reference:

James Barr, Oriel Professor of the interpretation of the Holy Scripture, Oxford University, England, in a letter to David C.C. Watson, 23 April 1984. Barr, consistent with his neo-orthodox views, does not believe Genesis, but he understood what the Hebrew so clearly taught. It was only the perceived need to harmonise with the alleged age of the earth which led people to think anything different—it was nothing to do with the text itself.

Taken from: CMI : Oxford Hebrew scholar, Professor James Barr, on the meaning of Genesis
http://creation.com/oxford-hebraist-james-barr-genesis-means-what-it-says

I note the year. In 1994, I was safely outside direct obedience to Wojtyla and therefore his then "Cardinal" Ratzinger, by having accepted SSPX. I was sinning, but I was NOT in communion with THAT Rome, not that directly. Thank God!

I also note that for the year 1994 the Christmas proclamation was changed:

Creation vs. Evolution : Newspeak in Nineteen - Eighty ... er Sorry ... Ninety-Four
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2013/12/newspeak-in-nineteen-eighty-er-sorry.html

The post I linked to starts a series rather much about the dating question. Read it if you like.

Meanwhile, on this blog dedicated to Catholic Apologetics against Protestant Errors, I note that the passage about Fundamentalism from 1994 is NOT a masterpiece in this genre.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Thursday after III Lord's Day in Lent
3.III.2016