Is the Stationary Earth the Heaviest Object in the Universe?

[Leonhard]

But he did not, there is not a signature on it, nor his statement that it was in forma specifica, as there usually is.

I disagree. No signature is required.

Your disagreement carried with it no authority. I have already provided you with links that says that when Popes wanted declarations to be in forma specifica they would ammend it by making a declaration within it, and by adding their name.

All you've done is deny it, you even imply by your argument that nothing can be in forma communis.

The Popes gave consent to the congregations decisions

That is irrelevant. All congregations, all bishops, everyone with authority in the Church have it by having it granted by the pope. That has been the teaching in the Catholic Church since the First Vatican Council. However that does not make all the decisions of the congregations the popes own. If you take this statement seriously, all declarations by any bishop would have to be taken as if they were by the Pope himself.

You're free to cite authoritarian sources saying otherwise.

The catechism of the council of Trent is further confirmation that the magisterium taught Geo.

As we have already been through. The Council of Trent itself is silent on the matter of geocentrism. And as I've pointed out you're importing cosmological language into the Catechism of Trent (which is not infallible though was at the time binding). And as I've further pointed out the Catechism of Trent has been entirely superseded by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which completely silent on Geocentrism.

The JPII statement and the imprimatur are of no consequence for neither is binding

The imprimatur was a permission to print, distribute and to teach Heliocentric works. And the apology of St. Pope John Paul II, was a work of great charity.

and neither has the authority to overturn the consent of the fathers, the scriptures

As per Verbum Domini, and the encyclicals I've shown you. The Catholic Church holds that the Bible is only infallible in the matters it intends to teach. However all the passages you claim are obviously teaching geocentrism, are taking from poetic works, and the strongest example you have in that of Joshua can be given a phenomenological interpretation.

You have made no sound argument against this, except to claim that if one did so, everything could be denied. Which is ridiculous. We are bound to believe in Christ's Ressurection, because on that matter the Catholic Church has made such things entirely binding. This is an infallible matter.

The historicity of Job on the other hand may be questioned, without censure, no Catholic is bound to believe that, though it remains sensus probabilis, and anyone can argue that is is good and pious to believe this. Yet no one is bound to do so.

the council of Trent,

Does not bind us to Geocentrism.

a canonical trial,

The ban on Heliocentric works was lifted a century later, and an imprimatur was given in 1820. The end.

nor the sensus fidei.

Geocentrism is not a sensus fidei, unless you believe that all of the bishops, 99.9% of the lay-people and the Pope have descended into heresy.

The removal of the books from the index does not indicate Catholics are free to believe any cosmology against the revealed Christian cosmology.

You were claiming that such works being on the Index was evidence that it was heresy. The fact that they were later removed shows that the Index was not infallible, which the Vatican has never claimed it to be. It remains a mostly good guide, but it was for good reasons that Blessed Pope Paul VI abrogated it.

and the visions of Hildegard

Are private and may be dismissed without further discussion. They carry zero weight in any discussion regarding doctrinal beliefs.

Private revelation can never be made binding on the faithful. At most the Vatican can declare them 'worthy of belief', and even then will never make any attempts at explaining how such revelations are to be understood.

I hold with St. John of the Cross, a great suspicion against private revelations.

are no longer understood to be revealed because some Popes took books of a list, an imprimatur was given and a non authoritative statement was made by one Pope.

Actually multiple popes. The removal of works of Heliocentrism was the work of a pope. Multiple popes following Galileo had an attempt to place Newtonianism on the Index. This wasn't done.

Galileo remains the first and only person ever under suspicion of heresy for this.

I'm a maximalist in these matters. The Church was right to sentence him at that time.

But they were wrong in the reasons for doing so.

[JohnMartin]

The quotes were made in the context of the faithful and the fathers near universal belief in a stationary earth. To read a rotating earth into the sentences is to commit the error of historical anachronism.

JM

[Leonhard]

The quotes were made in the context of the faithful and the fathers near universal belief in a stationary earth. To read a rotating earth into the sentences is to commit the error of historical anachronism.

You're admitting to reading Geocentrism into it.

I did not read Heliocentrism into it. Rather I only read what was said. God established land in the middle of the world.

As I said, I the Council Fathers left their cosmological beliefs at the door basically, and whoever wrote the Catechism (which is itself not the judgements of the Council), were good enough theologians to stay only to the texts.

[JohnMartin]

The quotes were made in the context of the faithful and the fathers near universal belief in a stationary earth. To read a rotating earth into the sentences is to commit the error of historical anachronism.


L -You're admitting to reading Geocentrism into it.

No. I am reading the text faithfully in its historical context. Also the texts indicate the stars universally rotate around the earth. This is the way cosmology was understood at the time of Trent.

I did not read Heliocentrism into it. Rather I only read what was said. God established land in the middle of the world.

The world is the universe. That's the way the word world was understood back then. Again, your reading is anachronistic.

As I said, I the Council Fathers left their cosmological beliefs at the door basically, and whoever wrote the Catechism (which is itself not the judgements of the Council), were good enough theologians to stay only to the texts.

The catechism was faithful to the council and to the historical context, and to the consent of the fathers. You must ignore the historical context of the understanding of Christian cosmology to arrive at your anachronistic understanding of the texts. This is why your position is very weak. You are always thinking according to the physics circumstance of today and project that into the past statements. Your method is false.

JM

[oxmixmudd]

No. I am reading the text faithfully in its historical context. Also the texts indicate the stars universally rotate around the earth. This is the way cosmology was understood at the time of Trent.



The world is the universe. That's the way the word world was understood back then. Again, your reading is anachronistic.



The catechism was faithful to the council and to the historical context, and to the consent of the fathers. You must ignore the historical context of the understanding of Christian cosmology to arrive at your anachronistic understanding of the texts. This is why your position is very weak. You are always thinking according to the physics circumstance of today and project that into the past statements. Your method is false.

JM

Yes, the writers of OT scripture understood the world to be the universe. They also understood it to be flat and covered over with a metallic or crystalline dome into which the sun, moon, and stars were placed and across which the birds flew and . And you not reading it that way is just you using an anachronistic reading of the text.

Jim

[JohnMartin]

Yes, the writers of OT scripture understood the world to be the universe. They also understood it to be flat and covered over with a metallic or crystalline dome into which the sun, moon, and stars were placed and across which the birds flew and . And you not reading it that way is just you using an anachronistic reading of the text.

Jim

And of course you wold have to justify all of your claims other than the one where the world was understood to be the universe.

JM

[hansgeorg]

Yes, the writers of OT scripture understood the world to be the universe. They also understood it to be flat and covered over with a metallic or crystalline dome into which the sun, moon, and stars were placed and across which the birds flew and . And you not reading it that way is just you using an anachronistic reading of the text.

Your statement would make sense on two options: they were not inspired or God wanted it that way.

And if you say the latter, how are YOU not making the God behind the Bible a liar?

[oxmixmudd]

Your statement would make sense on two options: they were not inspired or God wanted it that way.

And if you say the latter, how are YOU not making the God behind the Bible a liar?

I'll answer you with this questiin: when did the simplicity of scriptural interpretation become a litmus test for God telling the truth?

Jim

[hansgeorg]

I'll answer you with this questiin: when did the simplicity of scriptural interpretation become a litmus test for God telling the truth?

Jim

We are not concerned with "simplicity of scriptural interpretation", we are concerned with hagiographers having on all levels the truth from God so that God is on all levels the main author.

If Daniel thought the world was flat, and expressed that conviction, so there is any part of the book of Daniel which needs to be dismissed as Daniel's culturally conditioned view, this would mean that God were not author of those words in the book of Daniel.

As a matter of fact, nowhere does Daniel express the idea that the Earth as a matter of fact is flat.

[oxmixmudd]

We are not concerned with "simplicity of scriptural interpretation", we are concerned with hagiographers having on all levels the truth from God so that God is on all levels the main author.

If Daniel thought the world was flat, and expressed that conviction, so there is any part of the book of Daniel which needs to be dismissed as Daniel's culturally conditioned view, this would mean that God were not author of those words in the book of Daniel.

As a matter of fact, nowhere does Daniel express the idea that the Earth as a matter of fact is flat.

Well then you have a serious problem, because there are a large number of passages, especially in the OT, where the authors express views of the creation that are culturally derived and wrong. Further, there are many passages where the grammar is wrong (i.e. does God not know the correct grammar?). When you take the approach you do, that all of scriipture is essentially the dictated literal words of God, as opposed to God inspiring the prophets to speak, then you simply do not have a leg to stand on. There are too many errors to be found there under that assumption which must then be ascribed directly to God Himself.

For example: Job refers to the heavens as cast bronze. Does that mean the heavens must be cast bronze because this is the word of God, or does that mean Job thought the heavens were cast bronze and these are Job's words recorded in the text and they carry with them Job's cultural understanding.

The simple truth is, God did not always simply overtake the writer so that they wrote only God's words, but rather most often the writer/prophet was inspired by God and wrote God's revelation in their words, within the context of their culture, in the context of their language, and sometimes from the standpoint of what they saw. And indeed, most of the time when the prophet is claiming not the latter but the former, we will see a direct claim of such along the lines of "Thus saith the Lord".

This does not mean these non 'Thus saith the Lord' words are any less God's revelation, Holy and true. But it does mean that we can't read the text simplistically, because the cultural context is critical to a correct understanding of it. Thus Joshua's long day is understood to be written from the perspective of the writer, the Sun and Moon were indeed observed to 'stop in the sky', but this was because whatever mechanism God used to accomplish the miracle produced that observed effect and the author recorded what He observed. It does not mean that from a scientific perspective Sun and Moon must necessarily actually move across the sky.


Jim

[hansgeorg]

Well then you have a serious problem, because there are a large number of passages, especially in the OT, where the authors express views of the creation that are culturally derived and wrong.

That I dispute. The Bible is inerrant on whatever subject it touches.

Further, there are many passages where the grammar is wrong (i.e. does God not know the correct grammar?). When you take the approach you do, that all of scriipture is essentially the dictated literal words of God, as opposed to God inspiring the prophets to speak, then you simply do not have a leg to stand on. There are too many errors to be found there under that assumption which must then be ascribed directly to God Himself.

I am no Hebraist, but it could be the grammarians are wrong or the Massoretic text (when different from LXX, especially) is wrong, rather than the grammar of the original text as inspired by God.

For example: Job refers to the heavens as cast bronze. Does that mean the heavens must be cast bronze because this is the word of God, or does that mean Job thought the heavens were cast bronze and these are Job's words recorded in the text and they carry with them Job's cultural understanding.

as

The simple truth is, God did not always simply overtake the writer so that they wrote only God's words, but rather, the writer/prophet was inspired by God and wrote God's revelation in their words, within the context of their culture, in the context of their language, and sometimes from the standpoint of what they saw. This does not mean the words are any less God's revelation, Holy and true. But it does mean that we can't read the text simplistically, because the cultural context is critical to a correct understanding of it. Thus Joshua's long day is understood to be written from the perspective of the writer, the Sun and Moon did both stop in the sky, but this was because whatever mechanism God used to accomplish the miracle produced that observed effect and the author recorded what He observed. It does not mean the Sun and Moon must necessarily actually move across the sky.

You are reasoning about verse 13.

But verse 12, we have Joshua speaking while working a miracle. His actual words were inspired by God, or he would not have known he could work that miracle.

[hansgeorg]

All congregations, all bishops, everyone with authority in the Church have it by having it granted by the pope. That has been the teaching in the Catholic Church since the First Vatican Council. However that does not make all the decisions of the congregations the popes own. If you take this statement seriously, all declarations by any bishop would have to be taken as if they were by the Pope himself.

I think I have heard or read somewhere that the decision of 1909 is to be taken as the Pope's own, while that of 1947 to the Paris Bishop is not to be so taken, since Pius XII denied his Biblical commission that status. He specifically relativised one thing they said about Moses' sources, by the fact that Moses when citing them was inerrant author.

[hansgeorg]

And as I've further pointed out the Catechism of Trent has been entirely superseded by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which completely silent on Geocentrism.

1) I totally disagree with the assessment of "entirely superseded" by KKK (as we abbreviate it in Danish and Swedish).
2) I am surprised by the fact you call it "silent on Geocentrism".

Not quite as bad as I thought then.

[hansgeorg]

As per Verbum Domini, and the encyclicals I've shown you. The Catholic Church holds that the Bible is only infallible in the matters it intends to teach. However all the passages you claim are obviously teaching geocentrism, are taking from poetic works, and the strongest example you have in that of Joshua can be given a phenomenological interpretation.

Only infallible in the matters it intends to teach ...

Would you mean thereby it is fallible in matters it does not intend to teach?

Or are you going to a distinction like "there is no God" is not infallible because it is said by "the fool" "in his heart"?

Those are two very different approaches.

St Thomas can easily have said that "the Bible/sacred author does not intend to teach there is no God, but only that this is what the fool is saying in his heart", that is entirely credible.

He can not have as easily said "the Bible/sacred author does not intend to teach about astronomy and passages about this can therefore involve erroneous opinions of the human authors".

[hansgeorg]

Geocentrism is not a sensus fidei, unless you believe that all of the bishops, 99.9% of the lay-people and the Pope have descended into heresy.

By now, Pope Michael, who is a Geocentric, actually is also a bishop. So, you are not only "wrong about the Pope" (more like on who is Pope), but you are clearly wrong about "all of the bishops".