Posing Problems in the Westminster Confession of Faith

[hansgeorg]

You insisting that the condemnation of Galileo is a papal decree, or that it carries the authority of the Petrine office, in no way makes it so. It hasn't the signature of the reigning pope, nor the formulae he'd invoke to grant the document the authority of being his own personal judgement. It remains in the end the judgement of one cardinal, who while representing the Church, did not then, by that invocation, bind Catholic believers to that doctrine. Nothing such has occurred.

Yes, the fact the judgement was sent out to all Catholic bishops and universities.

There is no need to revoke it. Though it has been, and later popes have encouraged the writings of and distributions of heliocentric works, as well as works discussing the general theory of relativity.

I am not sure if I'd call Pius VII allowing Settele to be printed a direct encouragement, except a conditional one. He added (yes, I don't have the reference right now, I am sloppy with such things) that the reasons by which Heliocentrism had been proven should be carefully set out in annotations.

Since Heliocentrism to this day is not proven, the condition is not fulfilled.

As for whether the bible should be interpreted geocentrically, I have no reason to trust your readings of scripture, given how little of an understanding you demonstrate of any other piece of knowledge.

How do you feel about Joshua X, vss 12 and 13?

Verse 13 by itself could be interpreted as phenomenal language, but verse 12 includes the words of one performing a miracle, inspired by God, and he should therefore have been saying exactly what should happen.

Now, he did not say "Earth, stop rotating", he said "Sun, stand thou still, and Moon ..." - therefore, what miraculously changed behaviour on his words would be Sun and Moon, not Earth.

[hansgeorg]

"How about posting a comment under Karl's post and asking for a citation?"

I think I'll just bow out, as you don't seem interested in being careful or providing decent citations. This is not a topic where one can afford to be sloppy.

You don't seem interested in searching out what decent citations wiki or blogs can provide.

A certain blogger was sloppy and did not give citation, so, I suppose he had one and could provide it if challenged.

[One Bad Pig]

"How about posting a comment under Karl's post and asking for a citation?"



You don't seem interested in searching out what decent citations wiki or blogs can provide.

A certain blogger was sloppy and did not give citation, so, I suppose he had one and could provide it if challenged.

You're right, I'm not all that interested in getting random bloggers to improve their citation habits. I have better things to do, and there are plenty of sources to look at which prove their case with more rigor; please learn to cite them.

[JohnMartin]

The 1633 Papal condemnation of Galileo's moving Earth theory correctly expresses the modern Catholic belief in a stationary Earth. The Papal teaching correctly expressed the revelation made by God in the scriptures. As such, the Papal teaching which has never been revoked, remains normative and binding on the faithful.

JM

You insisting that the condemnation of Galileo is a papal decree, or that it carries the authority of the Petrine office, in no way makes it so.

Your statement is correct. However, I do not insist that the Papal statement is binding, based only upon my opinion, but upon the authority granted by Pope Urban VIII to the office given to men who formed the tribunal, such as Cardinal Bellarmine. The teaching of Galileo was placed on the index of forbidden books for a reason and that reason was the moving earth theory was considered to be against divine revelation. The condemnation of the moving earth theory has Papal authority for the following reasons -

1) The Papal condemnation issued through the Holy Office in 1633 is consistent with other Papal actions against the same theory, such as placing Galileo's works on the index of forbidden books and prohibiting Galileo's works from being published.

2) The Papal document need not have the Popes signature for the document to be binding. The claim that a signature is required is an invention that denies that Papal authority can be enacted through the powers granted an office by a Pope. The intent behind the Holy Office instituted by the Pope was for the Office to investigate the moving earth theory on behalf of the Pope. When the judgment was made, the decision carried the authority of the Pope acting through the powers granted to the Office.

It hasn't the signature of the reigning pope, nor the formulae he'd invoke to grant the document the authority of being his own personal judgment.

This Holy Tribunal being therefore of intention to proceed against the disorder and mischief thence resulting, which went on increasing to the prejudice of the Holy Faith, by command of His Holiness and of the Most Eminent Lords Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the Sun and the motion of the Earth were by the theological Qualifiers qualified as follows:

The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.

The proposition that the Earth is not the center of the world and immovable but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically and theologically considered at least erroneous in faith.

As the Inquisition had the auhtority of the Pope, then the conclusions are binding from Papal authority. As the Inquisition had the auhtority, then the moving earth theory is condemned and must be applied universally over the Church. Hence the doctrine of a staiotnary earth is a doctrine of the faith.

It remains in the end the Judgement of one cardinal, who while representing the Church, did not then, by that invocation, bind Catholic believers to that doctrine. Nothing such has occurred.

False. The office carried the authority of the Pope and Pope Urban VII acted to enforce the Office's decision. Other Popes also followed Urban VIII decision and prevented the moving earth theory from being taught. Your claim is inconsistent with Papal history.

There is no need to revoke it. Though it has been, and later popes have encouraged the writings of and distributions of heliocentric works, as well as works discussing the general theory of relativity.

There is a need to revoke it if Catholics can believe any model they wish. The Papal Bull of 1633 is consistent with the scriptures and the church fathers. The decree has subsequently been verified by modern sciences attempts to find proof for the moving earth, when none has been found. In fact, modern science has only ever been frustrated by the lack of support for the moving earth theory and support for the stationary earth.

Even if a case is made showing that the Papal decree of 1633 can be ignored, you still have to explain the many statements in the OT which teach that the earth is stationary. You also have to explain the statements in the Catechism of the Council of Trent which teach the earth is stationary. Then you have to explain why the church fathers had a unanimous consent on the doctrine of the stationary earth. Then you have to explain why anyone who sees the evidence from the sources of revelation for the stationary earth would want to follow your opinion over that of the Popes, the Council of Trent, the church fathers and the OT scriptures. You have no authority, and the sources of revelation have all the authority. Thus your position is untenable. You cannot hold to a moving earth and be faithful to what God has revealed.

As for whether the bible should be interpreted geocentrically, I have no reason to trust your readings of scripture, given how little of an understanding you demonstrate of any other piece of knowledge.

Then go to the Church fathers and see what they taught on the matter of the stationary earth and you will find they had a unanimous consent. They all taught the earth was stationary.

The case for God revealing the stationary earth as found in the sources of revelation is very strong and the case against the stationary earth is very weak. God can create the universe any way He sees fit. It has been revealed in the sources of revelation that the earth is stationary and the universe does the rotating around the earth once per day.

JM

[One Bad Pig]

Then go to the Church fathers and see what they taught on the matter of the stationary earth and you will find they had a unanimous consent. They all taught the earth was stationary.

What the church fathers had to say about the science of the day depended on their understanding of it (which was sometimes quite good). It was occasionally useful in apologetics of the time, but it was hardly an infallible tool. Do you still argue from the four elements recognized in antiquity - earth, water, fire and air?

[JohnMartin]

What the church fathers had to say about the science of the day depended on their understanding of it (which was sometimes quite good). It was occasionally useful in apologetics of the time, but it was hardly an infallible tool. Do you still argue from the four elements recognized in antiquity - earth, water, fire and air?

The universal consent of the Church fathers on matters of faith are binding. The consent of the Fathers is part of tradition that binds the faithful to understanding what has been revealed by God.

true sense of Holy Scripture which has been held and is held by our Holy Mother the Church, whose place it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; (Providentissimus Deus 14).

The above statement by Pope Leo XIII places geocentrism, or at least geostatism in a very strong position. For the Church has made a statement that the scriptures do teach the earth is stationary, as evidence in the Papal statement of Pope Urban VIII in 1633. Furthermore, there is a strong, and universal consent of the church fathers on the matter of the stationary earth.

True, Pope Leo XIII taught Catholics are not bound to every opinion of the church fathers, but Catholics are bound to the universal consent of the fathers and the manner by which the church understands the scriptures to teach divine truth. Both the fathers and the church have spoken and say the earth is stationary, hence the stationary earth has been revealed by God.

JM

[One Bad Pig]

The universal consent of the Church fathers on matters of faith are binding. The consent of the Fathers is part of tradition that binds the faithful to understanding what has been revealed by God.

Well, there's the root of your problem. Geocentrism, and the four elements, and the four bodily humours, etc., are not matters of faith.

[JohnMartin]

Well, there's the root of your problem. Geocentrism, and the four elements, and the four bodily humours, etc., are not matters of faith.

You do not have the authority to declare what is and is not of faith. The fathers and the Popes do have the authority. Your root problem is one of confusion over authority within the Church.

JM

[Leonhard]

How do you feel about Joshua X, vss 12 and 13?

Verse 13 by itself could be interpreted as phenomenal language, but verse 12 includes the words of one performing a miracle, inspired by God, and he should therefore have been saying exactly what should happen.

Now, he did not say "Earth, stop rotating", he said "Sun, stand thou still, and Moon ..." - therefore, what miraculously changed behaviour on his words would be Sun and Moon, not Earth.

It is phenomenological language. It describes things as they appear to one observing it.

[Leonhard]

Then go to the Church fathers and see what they taught on the matter of the stationary earth and you will find they had a unanimous consent. They all taught the earth was stationary.

The Church Fathers were luminous on many things, and I interpret all scripture in accordance with not only the principles of Trent, but also the Second Vatican Council which superceded (and indeed moderated some of its excesses). Henceforth, it is impossible to say that tradition can ever be binding on matters of natural fact, unless those natural facts impact a matter of faith or morals. Hence a Catholic can hold that some form of evolution of species took place, however a Catholic is not free to deny the existence of Adam and Eve, and our monogenesis from them. Infallibility of the Church extends only to matters of Faith or Morals, and nothing else.

Whether the sun moves around the Earth, the or the Earth moves around the sun, at most impacts a handful of verses, in completely unimportant ways.

St. Bellarmine offers the famous passage from Joshua. And in the absence of any evidence for a moving Earth, a geocentric reading is the plainest. However since there is evidence that the Earth moves, especially in the fullest form of General Relativity which makes absolute geocentrism completely untenable, this reading cannot be defended. And in fact it not only isn't defended, but no Pope has spoken explicitly on it in all the hundreds of years since Galileo. Which probably means you think the current leadership is failing us, which is certainly what Sungenis is implying, and I consider that to be disrespect of the authority of the bishops to teach and defend the faith.

On the contrary Pope Benedict XVth spoke with admission that the earth no longer considered motionless, while commenting on Dante. And it is without doubt that the Vatican has allowed the printing with papal permission, of books teaching heliocentrism.

The codex of forbidden books has been totally abrogated, and the Vatican makes no claim on the whether any of the books on there are of any danger to Catholic. One is bound neither by threat of excommunication or mortal sin if one reads from any of those books. Which is good because Les Miserable ended up on that list, and it is rightfully considered a masterpiece of writing.

[hedrick]

I'm sort of interested where JM is going with this. It seems to me that his argument is basically one that a Protestant would typically make as a disproof of Papal authority by contradiction. That is, if true (which I don't accept) it would show that the Pope established by authority something that is false. I happen to think that the immaculate conception and the assumption more legitimately play the same role, but it's hard to see JM's claims as doing anything other than discrediting the Magisterium.

[Leonhard]

I'm sort of interested where JM is going with this. It seems to me that his argument is basically one that a Protestant would typically make as a disproof of Papal authority by contradiction. That is, if true (which I don't accept) it would show that the Pope established by authority something that is false. I happen to think that the immaculate conception and the assumption more legitimately play the same role, but it's hard to see JM's claims as doing anything other than discrediting the Magisterium.

I thought the same thing, but at most you'd only be able to show that the Vatican could be unreliable and unfair at times. The doctrine of Papal infallibility requires the pope to make use of his extraordinary ministerium, speaking ex cathedra. Something that really only happened twice in the Catholic Church in affirming two doctrines: The Immaculate Conception and The Ascension of Mary.

The condemnation of Galileo, though it was done by a congregation of bishops, doesn't carry the Pope's personal authority. And of course even if it did the Church has multiple levels of just how much authority, and how binding a teaching can be made. From sensus probabilis (basically 'the most probable sense') which one can dispute, but one must realize one is being in the fringe for doing so, to papal exhortations that require assent of will but which are still in principle reformable, all the way up to infallible doctrine which is considered completely unreformable, and must be read eodem sensu eademque sententia (with the same sense and the same meaning), leaving little more than the ability to further clarify in the future. Most of the core Christian doctrines are in that sense.

Catholicism in the core of legal matters is ecclesial complexity in the most baroque sense. I wouldn't try to completely penetrate this stuff without a solid degree in canon law, of which I have a friend doing in Rome currently Fr. Jan Hansen, and I have a serious theology nerd friend who is undergoing his postulancy to be a Dominican monk down in France.

[Leonhard]

In case anyone is wondering its very rare for the Catholic Church to make a big proclamation of something, unless there's a problem that needs to be addressed. Most decisions are off the books more or less. One of them was the suspension of the liturgical law that required that women wear veils in churches, which was done away with in the seventies. You won't find a document precisely declaring this, yet all the bishops are unanimous in their opinion that this has happened.

That being said many women still wear veils out of a sense of tradition, the frequency of which varies from place to place.

[JohnMartin]

Quote Originally Posted by John Martin
Then go to the Church fathers and see what they taught on the matter of the stationary earth and you will find they had a unanimous consent. They all taught the earth was stationary.

The Church Fathers were luminous on many things, and I interpret all scripture in accordance with not only the principles of Trent, but also the Second Vatican Council which superceded (and indeed moderated some of its excesses). Henceforth, it is impossible to say that tradition can ever be binding on matters of natural fact, unless those natural facts impact a matter of faith or morals. Hence a Catholic can hold that some form of evolution of species took place, however a Catholic is not free to deny the existence of Adam and Eve, and our monogenesis from them. Infallibility of the Church extends only to matters of Faith or Morals, and nothing else.

Whether the sun moves around the Earth, the or the Earth moves around the sun, at most impacts a handful of verses, in completely unimportant ways.

According to Leo XIII the unanimous consent of the fathers is a binding rule of faith. The fathers were unanimous on the stationary earth as revealed by God, hence that position of the fathers is binding.

The Popes such as Leo XIII in Provdentissimus Deus have taught there are no errors in scripture, so if the scriptures say the earth is stationary, and the sun and moon do the moving, then those statements are truths revealed about nature by God, made without error. Anyone who contradicts those truths is doing so, knowing those truths are contained within the sacred deposit of faith, as spoken by God and therefore without error. Hence one who holds to the moving earth theory, does so, knowing he is holding to a position against what has been revealed. This is why the 1633 Papal Bull of Urban VIII stated the moving earth theory was heresy, because the stationary earth was revealed in scripture as a truth within the sacred deposit.

There are not less than 30 passages in the OT that teach geocentrism. You are wrong to assert there are only a handful of verses.

St. Bellarmine offers the famous passage from Joshua. And in the absence of any evidence for a moving Earth, a geocentric reading is the plainest. However since there is evidence that the Earth moves, especially in the fullest form of General Relativity which makes absolute geocentrism completely untenable, this reading cannot be defended. And in fact it not only isn't defended, but no Pope has spoken explicitly on it in all the hundreds of years since Galileo. Which probably means you think the current leadership is failing us, which is certainly what Sungenis is implying, and I consider that to be disrespect of the authority of the bishops to teach and defend the faith.

You have a jumbled mess of grand claims without much evidence. You have admitted the geocentric claim is the plainest, then provided no evidence from the text of any reason to understand that text, or any other relevant text as teaching a moving earth.

One point that is definitely consistent with Sungenis's claims is the modern church (only within the general population of Catholics and not the magisterium formally) has dropped teaching/believing the fullness of the faith. In doing so the modern Catholic has an eclectic worldview that takes some theories from science and makes those theories the normative rule of belief. I see this where you have reduced the truth of geocentrism as revealed in scripture to an error, by assuming the truth of GR as the normative rule of your belief. In effect what you have done is take an invented man made theory, and make that theory the benchmark of belief and then compare that human benchmark with the truth of scripture. In doing so, you are forced to deny the truth of geocentrism as contained within scripture. Your method is typical of the modern Catholic who does not take the fullness of the deposit of faith seriously, in accord with the teaching of the Popes and the church fathers. Your example is typical of what occurs in other areas of revealed truth, which are systematically questioned, or denied.

On the contrary Pope Benedict XVth spoke with admission that the earth no longer considered motionless, while commenting on Dante. And it is without doubt that the Vatican has allowed the printing with papal permission, of books teaching heliocentrism.

So a Pope has a private opinion that contradicts scripture, the fathers, the catechism of the council of Trent and Pope Urban VIII Papal Bull. You have already stated in the past that private opinions of Popes have erred and this is one such example. Pope Benedict XV has contradicted Pope Urban VIII. Urban's statement was binding on Galileo and enforced in public by banning his works from being taught. Urban's teaching was formally as Pope and Pope Benedict XV teaching was not.

The codex of forbidden books has been totally abrogated, and the Vatican makes no claim on the whether any of the books on there are of any danger to Catholic. One is bound neither by threat of excommunication or mortal sin if one reads from any of those books. Which is good because Les Miserable ended up on that list, and it is rightfully considered a masterpiece of writing.

[JohnMartin]

I thought the same thing, but at most you'd only be able to show that the Vatican could be unreliable and unfair at times. The doctrine of Papal infallibility requires the pope to make use of his extraordinary ministerium, speaking ex cathedra. Something that really only happened twice in the Catholic Church in affirming two doctrines: The Immaculate Conception and The Ascension of Mary.

The condemnation of Galileo, though it was done by a congregation of bishops, doesn't carry the Pope's personal authority. And of course even if it did the Church has multiple levels of just how much authority, and how binding a teaching can be made. From sensus probabilis (basically 'the most probable sense') which one can dispute, but one must realize one is being in the fringe for doing so, to papal exhortations that require assent of will but which are still in principle reformable, all the way up to infallible doctrine which is considered completely unreformable, and must be read eodem sensu eademque sententia (with the same sense and the same meaning), leaving little more than the ability to further clarify in the future. Most of the core Christian doctrines are in that sense.

Catholicism in the core of legal matters is ecclesial complexity in the most baroque sense. I wouldn't try to completely penetrate this stuff without a solid degree in canon law, of which I have a friend doing in Rome currently Fr. Jan Hansen, and I have a serious theology nerd friend who is undergoing his postulancy to be a Dominican monk down in France.

You have not yet established the athority of Pope Urban's 1633 Papal Bull. You have only ever made assertions about the authority of that document and you have done so by ignoring the content of the document and the historical actions of the Popes that enforced the decisions of the congregation made against the moving earth theory. You have a long way to go to make any real solid case against the geocentric position as a matter of faith. Mere assertions about authority does not make for solid argument.

JM