Aquinas vs Paley

From wiki:

William Paley (July 1743 – 25 May 1805) was an English clergyman, Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, which made use of the watchmaker analogy.

Wiki : William Paley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Paley

In other words : he considered the workings of the universe as a self contained machinery which needs an intelligent designer, but which designer might after designing and setting in motion, might retire from his work.

Atheists agree about the universe, they only tend to believe in blind watchmakers (a certain Richard Dawkins even called a book of his after this idea).

Did St Thomas Aquinas agree with Paley? And therefore with Dawkins, as far as the universe is concerned? No.

What does he say, in his own explanation, about the Seventh Day?

I answer that, The perfection of a thing is twofold, the first perfection and the second perfection. The 'first' perfection is that according to which a thing is substantially perfect, and this perfection is the form of the whole; which form results from the whole having its parts complete. But the 'second' perfection is the end, which is either an operation, as the end of the harpist is to play the harp; or something that is attained by an operation, as the end of the builder is the house that he makes by building. But the first perfection is the cause of the second, because the form is the principle of operation. Now the final perfection, which is the end of the whole universe, is the perfect beatitude of the Saints at the consummation of the world; and the first perfection is the completeness of the universe at its first founding, and this is what is ascribed to the seventh day.

Summa Theologica : First Part
Question 73. The things that belong to the seventh day
Article 1. Whether the completion of the Divine works ought to be ascribed to the seventh day?
http://newadvent.com/summa/1073.htm#article1

Deism and Atheism are excluded, God is not just an explanation about the past, when He created so to speak a harp, but about the present, when He is so to speak playing the harp He created.

A harp is unlike a watch insofar as it needs a good player. St Thomas says the Universe is like a harp, I do not think he would surrender to Paley who thought it was just a clockwork, even if one needing a good designer. If that is what Paley thought, of course. But if he made the analogy of a watchmaker rather than of a harp making lutenist, who then becomes the harp player as well, he may have thought so. If so, I think he was wrong.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Ezechiel
Prophet and Martyr
10-IV-2015

Apud Babylonem sancti Ezechielis Prophetae, qui, a Judice populi Israel, quod eum de cultu idolorum argueret, interfectus, in sepulcro Sem et Arphaxad, Abrahae progenitorum, sepultus est; ad quod sepulcrum, orationis causa, multi confluere consueverunt.

Cornelius and Assisi Meeting

A statue of gigantic dimensions, imitating the crooked cross of Wojtyla (a k a John Paul II) was being erected in honour of the latter and his theology (radically opposed, perhaps, to that of triumphal crucifixes so often seen in pre-Gothic, Romance or Byzantine, Church Art) and fell over and broke and killed a young man.

When some of his relics - blood from him kept in tin foil, I think - were brought to Lourdes, it was as if water nymphs said they did not want the man of Assisi meeting and of the crooked cross there. Lourdes was flooded. Even for weeks, I think I recall. At least for days.

Dave Armstrong, however, defends Assisi meeting.

Dave Armstrong

Let's imagine asking a primitive biblical Canaanite; "which idea of God are you attributing to your idols?" What could he answer? Could he answer "ipsum esse subsistens," "esse per se et non per partecipationem"? (I don't want to say that there were not also truly pagan gnostic mythologies). We can understand biblical maledictions against idolatry, to preserve true religion among Jews. But we must believe that God also loves the Canaanites and othersunbelievers and that he also offered salvation to them.

There were no Satanists at Assisi. Obviously the acts of natural religon that can prepare for grace must be compatible with all natural law; so we must exclude sexual or magic practices etc. But in Assisi the issue was the prayer.

My Comment

If you ask FSSPX critics, certain of the Pagans were in Assisi precisely doing magic.

Now, if we get to Canaan, it is true that Paganism was worse than certain later ones.

I have been saying things like "perhaps Homer introduced a less evil Paganism, perhaps the Achaeans were not so much praying to Zeus the Kronide, but to Kronos of the crooked minds and he changed that for Zeus the Kronide" or "perhaps Hindoos behind forgetting of Flood" (attempted such, I think, since later Puranas - or Puranas I consider later than Mahabharata - talk of a flood where Vishnu previously to the Krishna Avatar was in a Fish Avatar) "perhaps Hindoos behind attempt of forgetting the flood had some excuse that all the Flood story they knew distinguished Enlil the Flood perpetrator and "god of worder" from Enki the Flood saviour and "god of wisdom" ... in other words they were moving away from clearly evil Paganisms.

But if Homer and Vyasa could have such excuses, nevertheless their overall theology was still full of errors, like making a seemingly good Zeus be, not indeed the first rebel, but still a rebel against that rebel, or like making Destruction rather than Sanctification the work of a third person of a pagan trinity concept. And so also Kabbalah while retaining the primary Hebrew tradition of the Trinity (a secret up to the Incarnation of God the Son) also taints that truth with things like the 22 or the eleven times two sephiroth. And with Antichristianity. And Homer reserves ascension of souls into Heaven for the souls of demigods or secret gods (like Hercules or Castor and Pollux or Saturn of Italy or Romulus), and Vyasa preaches an ultimate recompensation for detachment which is "beyond reward and punishment". But if these men were excused, by being before Christ and far from Israel, nevertheless, their followers today may not have such excuses.

The followers of Vyasa are usually not Christians. The followers of Homer or Plato - or rather former such - usually are. On what exact ground must we suppose that the followers of Vyasa are all and singly excused? None as far as I know.

But Canaaneans, they knew the right religion before they mostly fell away to idolatry. Rabbis will say that Melchisedec was Shem and not a Canaanean. Haydock comment calls that a foolish position. I have not checked longevity charts based on Septuagint for feasability. Now, Melchisedec had the true religion, or Abraham would have been guilty for participating in it. Melchisedec had the true religion, or King David would have been a false prophet for admitting as his Lord (and shepherds of Bethlehem adoring Him on his behalf also admitted Him as their and as David's Lord) one who was priest according to the order of Melchisedec. Melchisedec was of the true religion, or St Paul or St Barnabas (whichever of them wrote Hebrews) would have been wrong to attribute this priesthood to Christ. And yet Melchisedec was priest in Salem which was a city of the Canaanean Jebusites.

A Canaanean worshipping Ba'al would have had as much excuse for it as a previously Catholic Eichmann for - not indeed joining the Nazi party as such but for - apostasising to certain cults popular in certain Nazi circles. Such as divinisation of the Swedish king Odin.

Jebusites did not do that. And they were close enough neighbours to less decent Canaaneans. Og of Bashan was evil, but Balaam was not an idolater, perhaps. What excuse had Jericho? None, as far as I can see.

Dave Armstrong

We don't forget that God doesn't give impossible orders. If natural law orders man to be religious, we have two solutions.

• A) God tolerates vain oservance of a lot of ignorant people, substantially not idolatrous.
  
  
• B) God orders to be religious without giving the means to be religious.

But we cannot admit B.

My Comment

God gave the population of Jericho the means to be religious by their neighbourhood with Jebusites. God also offered them the time to repent while Joshua had gotten back the spies hid by Rahab. They stood as one man behind their King who forbade them all contact with Israelites.

Now Jericho was close shut up and fenced, for fear of the children of Israel, and no man durst go out or come in.

Sounds like Albania under Enver Hoxha. One person had no part in this iniquity. Her name was Rahab. She was spared. And her situation was pretty close to a that of a secret Christian in Albania.

Was Wojtyla alias John Paul II sure that none of those he invited to Assisi, on friendly enough terms with him, was to his own community an obstacle to the faith, like Enver Hoxha or like that King of Jericho?

Was he sure all of them were named Cornelius? How come he did not baptise all of them then? Was he sure none of them was an evil Pharao to whom he should have said "Let my people go!"

How could he be sure of such a thing?

Ordinarily, God gave each and every religion present in Assisi the means of conversion, either by Christians among them or by Christians close by them.

A pure soul will be given the means proper for his case. We cannot say beforehand that such and such a religion is the former religion of some convert saint who did some part of his or her sanctification under it and THEREFORE it is ordinarily speaking a proper means for sanctification of a non-Christian.

I can give a Hindoo (if I come across one, per internet, I am not seeking for them) the history of Mahabharata as an approximation of pre-Flood history - Moses not giving the details for what happened after Tubal-Cain's time (and it is not very probable he "remained in office" or even alive in Nod up to the Flood either) but resuming as "all flesh was corrupt" and a few things like that. But I am not giving him Bhagavad Gita as an approximation of Theology, nor "aoom" as an approximation of Amen.

Wojtyla on his part seems to have been certain God was accepting the invited Hindoo's belief in Bhagavad Gita spirituality and practise of Hindoo mantras as precisely that, and not just for some particular Hindoo, but in general for a Hindoo who has not decided to become a Christian.

God has given them the means to be religious. But they have not taken it. Not visibly so we can say they have taken it. Visibly, they have taken another road, one which we must dread as leading to perdition, and Wojtyla was inviting them to take it.

Dave Armstrong

We must not forget also that God dispenses his grace to this concrete man after original sin: and God knows the difficulties of building a natural theology.

My Comment

It is very much less easy if you deny Geocentrism. Assume earth is as still as it looks like.

For one thing this confidence in the truthfulness of the Creator is a real part of natural theology. For another thing, the mechanism behind Universe swirling around us each day and including detachable pieces (like Sun, Moon, Jupiter and so on not being glued to specific spots on the Zodiac, and even α Centauri shows some detachment by zero point 76 arc seconds between extremes), very clearly argues a might and a mind behind this order in speeds that would doom our handiworks to explosion.

One can be very sure this is not a destroyer. One can be very sure this is not first cousin of whatever spirit guides the movements of the sun (daily or around zodiac, both models are there for you). One can be very sure it is spirit, not body. Ordered and not chaotic. Awake and not dreaming.

There was a time when St Paul said of philosophers (worded as of Pagans generally, but often understood as of specifically philosophers) that they were without excuse. And of each sect, it was precisely the philosophers that were invited to Assisi.

Dave Armstrong

[Quoted St Thomas]

St Thomas on Cornelius

Objection 3. Further, when that which precedes is corrupted, that which follows is corrupted also. Now an act of faith precedes the acts of all the virtues. Therefore, since there is no act of faith in unbelievers, they can do no good work, but sin in every action of theirs.

On the contrary, It is said of Cornelius, while yet an unbeliever (Acts 10:4-31), that his alms were acceptable to God. Therefore not every action of an unbeliever is a sin, but some of his actions are good.

...

Reply to Objection 3. Unbelief does not so wholly destroy natural reason in unbelievers, but that some knowledge of the truth remains in them, whereby they are able to do deeds that are generically good. With regard, however, to Cornelius, it is to be observed that he was not an unbeliever, else his works would not have been acceptable to God, whom none can please without faith. Now he had implicit faith, as the truth of the Gospel was not yet made manifest: hence Peter was sent to him to give him fuller instruction in the faith.

My Comment

So, Cornelius, like Nathanael while reposing under the fig tree, was not quite instructed in all apsects of the faith. But he was not an unbeliever.

Quoting Bible and Haydock

1 Now *there was a certain man in Cæsarea, named Cornelius, a centurion of the band, which is called the Italian,

2 A religious man, and one that feared God, with all his house, giving much alms to the people, and praying to God always:

Ver. 1. A cohort, with the Romans, was a body of infantry 500 strong. There were ten cohorts in each legion. There were, generally speaking, two centurions appointed to the command of each cohort. (Bible de Vence)

Ver. 2. A religious man, and one that feared God. He was not a Jew, yet believed in one God. — Always, that is, frequently praying, and giving alms. In the Rheims Testament we find this note: "Hereby it appeareth, that such works as are done before justification, though they suffice not to salvation, yet are acceptable preparatives for the grace of justification, and such as move God to mercy. ... though all such preparative works come also of grace." These Douay divines did not hold with the Quenellists that a true faith, or the habit of faith, must needs be the first grace. (Witham) — Cornelius religiously observed the law of nature, and the principal points of the Jewish moral law, though he did not profess Judaism. (Calmet) — He was an admirable example of virtue before his knowledge of Christianity. He feared God, and brought up his family in the same holy fear. He was leader of the first band, and consequently had the eagle, the Roman ensign, carried before him. Four hundred men were under his command. (Tirinus) — "His former goodness could no longer avail him, unless he were, by the bond of Christian society and peace, incorporated with the Church; he is therefore ordered to send unto Peter, that by him he may learn Christ, by him he may be baptized." (St. Augustine, lib. i. de bap. chap. 8.) — Alms. Nothing is more efficacious than the alms of a man, whose hands have not been defiled by injustice. It is a clear stream, refreshing in the heat of day, and imparting verdure to every plant that is near it. It is a fountain springing to eternal life. It is a tree, whose branches reach even to heaven, and which produces its eternal fruit in abundance, when death has removed from you all that is temporal. Waste not, then, your treasures in selfish gratifications, the fruit of which is sorrow; but feed the poor, and the hungry. Plant and sow in their hands, and your produce will be great; no soil is more fertile. (St. Chrysostom, hic. hom. xxii.)

Further comment on Cornelius

So, he was to the Old Testament what Noahides are to latter day Judaism. Or what para-Christians, aconfessional, perhaps Mormons and Baptists like Kent Hovind, are to Catholic Christianity.

Anima naturaliter christiana. Kent Hovind had no help from Roman Catholic tradition when speaking of the drunkenness of Noah, and yet he greed with Haydock rather than with Calvin. But Cornelius was, to the Old Testament religion, even more than Kent Hovind is to Catholicism. Kent Hovind has a historical prejudice against Catholicism. He believes Foxe. Cornelius had no prejudice against the Temple - which was an Old Testament image of the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, why was Kent Hovind not invited to talk about where the true Church is and why were people as far from him as dedicated Jove and Apollo worshippers would have been to Cornelius invited not even to debate on where the truth is, but to pray according to their false traditions? Dave Armstrong gave an answer, but I think I have already refuted it. Will look, maybe some point I forgot ... not really for the moment, but I will deepen the answer a bit.

Dave Armstrong

[Quoted St Thomas]

St Thomas on faith of Gentiles

I answer that, As stated above (5; 1, 8), the object of faith includes, properly and directly, that thing through which man obtains beatitude. Now the mystery of Christ's Incarnation and Passion is the way by which men obtain beatitude; for it is written (Acts 4:12): "There is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved." Therefore belief of some kind in the mystery of Christ's Incarnation was necessary at all times and for all persons, but this belief differed according to differences of times and persons. The reason of this is that before the state of sin, man believed, explicitly in Christ's Incarnation, in so far as it was intended for the consummation of glory, but not as it was intended to deliver man from sin by the Passion and Resurrection, since man had no foreknowledge of his future sin. He does, however, seem to have had foreknowledge of the Incarnation of Christ, from the fact that he said (Genesis 2:24): "Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife," of which the Apostle says (Ephesians 5:32) that "this is a great sacrament . . . in Christ and the Church," and it is incredible that the first man was ignorant about this sacrament.

But after sin, man believed explicitly in Christ, not only as to the Incarnation, but also as to the Passion and Resurrection, whereby the human race is delivered from sin and death: for they would not, else, have foreshadowed Christ's Passion by certain sacrifices both before and after the Law, the meaning of which sacrifices was known by the learned explicitly, while the simple folk, under the veil of those sacrifices, believed them to be ordained by God in reference to Christ's coming, and thus their knowledge was covered with a veil, so to speak. And, as stated above (Question 1, Article 7), the nearer they were to Christ, the more distinct was their knowledge of Christ's mysteries.

After grace had been revealed, both learned and simple folk are bound to explicit faith in the mysteries of Christ, chiefly as regards those which are observed throughout the Church, and publicly proclaimed, such as the articles which refer to the Incarnation, of which we have spoken above (Question 1, Article 8). As to other minute points in reference to the articles of the Incarnation, men have been bound to believe them more or less explicitly according to each one's state and office.

Examples in ad 3

Reply to Objection 3. Many of the gentiles received revelations of Christ, as is clear from their predictions. Thus we read (Job 19:25): "I know that my Redeemer liveth." The Sibyl too foretold certain things about Christ, as Augustine states (Contra Faust. xiii, 15). Moreover, we read in the history of the Romans, that at the time of Constantine Augustus and his mother Irene a tomb was discovered, wherein lay a man on whose breast was a golden plate with the inscription: "Christ shall be born of a virgin, and in Him, I believe. O sun, during the lifetime of Irene and Constantine, thou shalt see me again" [Cf. Baron, Annal., A.D. 780. If, however, some were saved without receiving any revelation, they were not saved without faith in a Mediator, for, though they did not believe in Him explicitly, they did, nevertheless, have implicit faith through believing in Divine providence, since they believed that God would deliver mankind in whatever way was pleasing to Him, and according to the revelation of the Spirit to those who knew the truth, as stated in Job 35:11: "Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth."

My Comment

Does this sound like Hindoos or Muslims present in Assisi? No. They were not just outside the full confession of the faith as not having heard about it, they were opposed to confessing certain truths of the faith, since they had heard of these and had refused to abandon the errors opposed to them.

It sounds very much more like what Tolkien and probably the Beowulf poet believed about Beowulf: he did not know the true God, but neither did he actively worship the false gods. Nowhere in the Beowulf poem does it say he divinised such kings and royalty of Uppsala as Odin, Niord, Frey (all on King list) or Thor. Nowhere does it say he himself sacrificed to them, although he did not either actively distance himself from Heathen worship if there was such among Danes in his presence or even among his people. THAT is the kind of character of whom one can reasonably hope he has implicit faith. There is less hope for his uncle Hygelac if instead of listening to Monks in Christendom he plundered them. That is, if he is identic to Chlochilaicus. But it does not say Beowulf was part of that raid - neither in that chronicle, nor in the poem. Neither in the text about himself, nor in the text about his uncle.

Now, it is theoretically possible there are Hindoos and Muslims who do so - that is oppose themself to confessing truths of the faith, as said - because they have not heard the Gospel with ENOUGH support. Without taking sides in the Feeneyite controversy, one can say some are already justified before abandoning such and such an error. Whether or not such can remain justified if not abandoning these errors before they die.

But such justification is before the eyes of God. The Church judges about non-believers (not directly judging* unbaptised, which is why Hovind is probably no heretic in the full sense, since probably not validly baptised, but judging about - as in judging them to be outside the Church, and as judging them unfit to receive the Sacraments) according to their visible acceptance or rejection of truth. And the guests of the Assisi meeting were in that sense not judgeable as having access to Sacraments of the Church. Nor did they come, like a still unbelieving Augustine, to hear the Rhetoric of an Ambrose. In ways that could convert him. They were invited precisely as leaders of false religions.

But here I come to some substance again:

Dave Armstrong

We have now to deal bravely with a decisive issue, because HERE is the difference between Assisi and modernism, false ecumenism, panchristianism etc.

The issue is about the contents of implicit faith: any faith, more or less explicit, must have contents - more exactly, supernatural revealed contents -, otherwise it would not be faith, but human thought. According to modernists, religion is the emerging of religious feelings: for modernists, the content of this feeling is not important: a good existential outcome of this religious sentiment is sufficient. So they reason: "Are you contented or satisfied to be a Buddhist or to practice Your homemade religion? Let this sentiment emerge! If you let your religious sentiment emerge, you are a Christian, even though you are not conscious of being a Christian."

What is the difference between implicit faith, as we have learned by St.Thomas, and this modernist conception? The differences concern dispositions of the subject, and the object itself. Man knows, by natural reason, that he must pursue his utimate end; man knows this end is good, lovely; so he desires to pursue his ultimate end. Grace manages to get into this natural desire, and so this natural desire becomes supernatural; this is the psychological beginning of the act of faith. There are already important differences between the Catholic and modernist conceptions of faith.

God himself reveals the means of act of faith, the objective contents, even though this knowledge may be not completely explicit. Gods acts in two manners:

• 1) with his natural providence; an unbeliever can admire the creation (Rom. 1:20: ever since the creation of the world, the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind's understanding of created things) and believe (but he may also not believe); or God sends a missionary to the unbeliever.
  
  
• 2) with an immediate supernatural inspiration: we can read the autobiography of some convert, and admire their reflections. But we cannot exclude mysterious inspirations in the hearts of a lot of umbelievers: may we think that a poor primitive in Amazonia or in Asia is forgotten by God?

In both cases, a truth, a content, a supernatural - implicit or explicit - revelation, is proposed to man. A good will wants, "chooses," all these means God revealed to her.

My Comment

True enough as far as it goes.

But any concrete organised non-Christian religion contains a lot of things NOT revealed by God at all (that includes Judaism and non-Catholic Christianities).

This means that a belief in what is revealed by God in a non-Christian religion is not the same thing as believing all of it.

In the Protestant religions I left**, "the Bible is the word of God" is indeed revealed by God. Tenets such like "Albigensians were true Christians persecuted by the Catholic Church" or "the Bible has ONLY 66 books, Maccabees and Tobit are no part of it" or "the true Church is invisible, hence you must get out of the Catholic Church claiming to be a visible Church and you must do that VISIBLY in communion with our or a similar but not identic sect" are very much not revealed by God and were very much not believed by me even when I was pro forma a Protestant.

Obviously, I could not without changing my tenets for more anti-Catholic errors have become a Pastor.

And as obviously, the ones invited to Assisi were in their false religions precisely pastoral functionaries.

But here endeth my attempt to refute Dave Armstrong, and I hope readers will get on and think about it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
St Marc, Easter Octave Friday
25-IV-2014

* Judging - like condemning or forgiving or acquitting about faults those who are unbaptised, that the Church does not.

** Calvinism as denial of freewill or of Real Presence or of both is rather a Protestant religion I never believed in. Not as if I omitted profitng from such parts of my heritage, rather it was not even part of my heritage.

Solange Strong Herz on Geocentrism and Denial Thereof

The following passage makes me glad that my favourite convert from Puseyism was not Cardinal Manning but Cardinal Newman. Not an adept of Scientism. But here* is Solange Hertz on Cardinal Manning:

Cardinal Manning, one of the famous converts from Anglicanism brought into the Church by the Oxford movement, is a fairly representative case. In his popular book The Internal Mission of the Holy Ghost, written in the 1870’s, he writes in perfect good faith,

From the moment that the motion of the earth was established as a scientific truth, the Church has accepted it. And why? Because the Church has no revelation of physical science. No revelation whatever is made of astronomy. The Book of Joshua uses the language of sense and not the language of science in saying that the sun stood still. Therefore faith and theology are in no way implicated and in no way in conflict.

Doesn’t this sound familiar? The good Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster didn’t hesitate to throw the entire weight of his office behind heliocentrism, despite a total absence of documented proof that the Magisterium of the Church has ever accepted heliocentrism, let alone that heliocentrism has been proven scientifically. Leo XIII’s Providentissimus Deus, promulgated in 1893, staunchly defended the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, but did nothing to remedy the situation because it allowed considerable leeway to accommodated meanings and interpretations. With science permitted to go its own way unchecked and to wield so unprecedented an influence over the minds of Christians, it’s no wonder that less than a half century later G. K. Chesterton would see no reason why a Catholic could not accept the equally unproven theory of theistic evolution, now openly preached by the new conciliar religion.

If men like Palm and The O'Floinn and Mark Shea think that Geocentrics are contradicting Church teaching, part of the blame goes to Cardinal Manning. Part of the blame goes to those that brought his thoughts too much to the forefront of English Catholicism. And part of it goes to predominance of English in the Western Civilisation, hence also of English Catholicism in Catholicism.

But Cardinal Manning was not Pope. He was not adressing the whole Church. And English Catholic Tradition since Cardinal Manning is not in every detail identic to Catholic Universal Tradition.

Pope Benedict XV clearly taught a book of fiction can convey Theological truth correctly, despite being inaccurate in natural sciences. I agree Dante was not up to date on the flow of blood through the body. As to him possibly being wrong, also on place of the Earth in the Universe, that was only admitted as a concession, it was NOT the subject on which the Pope was teaching in the Encyclical. Just this yesterday morning I had a letter from Dimond Brothers on that matter.

Until then [Galileo's time] the whole world, both Christian and pagan, believed that our earth was the center of the universe and that the entire cosmos revolved around it, because geocentricity is a truth of the natural order revealed by God from Adamic times. Inasmuch as it’s impossible to see what’s actually going on in outer space without standing outside the universe, this truth is a proper object of revelation. God had to reveal that He had set His earth at the center of the universe because, although, like Aristotle, we might be led to deduce this from simple observation, we could never be certain of it for lack of conclusive empirical proof, given the fact that we have no stable point of reference outside ourselves by which to judge relative motion between us and other heavenly bodies.

Here I do not quite agree. Was Geocentricity revealed or co-revealed to Adam?

In the Gospel some "psychology of unjust judges" is what I would call co-revealed. Unjustly lazy people sometimes do start doing what they should if nagged at. But was the world totally ignorant thereof until Jesus said that?

Perhaps in some sense the psychology of unjust judges was unknown before Jesus mentioned it. And yet, this was not exactly what Our Lord was revealing and intending to reveal to us. But even so, it remains true.

So, I am certainly not saying Adam was ignorant of Geocentricity. Nor that God and he never mentioned it before their familiarity was broken by the Fall. I am rather saying Adam could have wondered and God said something like "of course". It was in that case "co-revealed" rather than per se revealed.

But normally speaking, the senses should be enough to convey to us the truth of Geocentricity. It is true that we have no perception of the matter by watching the Universe from the outside - so we have no corrective to the senses in such a direct manner should they be wrong. But that fact in turn suggests pretty clearly we have no reason to assume they are wrong.

The reasons given are consciously or unconsciously assuming there is no God or He doesn't move the Heavens around us each day "because that's not His job" and that there are no angels or they are not moving planets, "because that's not their job".

But what if these are if not actual "jobs" as sons of Adam experience after the Fall (there have been moments when writing has been made so to me, through persecutions of low intensity and thus improbable detection where I am writing - even if writing is my own personal ideal of hobby = work), it could still be their appointments? That ruins all the physical argument for Heliocentrism.

And the optical ones are dependent on physical assumptions about, for instance, α Centauri.

There are two kinds of optical arguments that would not do that, both depending however on spacecraft (not necessarily manned) and therefore on the honesty of NASA. One is if:

• all parallaxes measurable from here are confirmed in distance calculations (like c. four light years for α Centauri) by parallax measured from Mars.
  
  The other is if:
  
  
• • either earth has been observed vacillating each year from a spacecraft presumable to be moving rectilinearly,
    
    
  • or spacecraft has been observed zigzagging from earth, although presumed to proceed rectilinearly. So that apparent zigzagging would be parallactic.

The first I have heard has not been a priority to observe, and the second I have been asking for years, and got only one very brief "of course" from an astronomer who did not care to explain his source - perhaps it was only his obvious conclusion (as obvious to him as to me) from the Heliocentric view of the cosmos he didn't doubt.

But assume now that Cardinal Manning had to be answered on the account of Bible not formally teaching Geocentrism in the Book of Joshua.

The author could have used "the language of appearance" when telling about the event. The problem posed is whether the miracle worker could have either - while working a miracle on behalf of God - been ignorant of the proper words to use or taken into account his human listeners' impressions all the while ostentatiously adressing what ostentatiously needed adressing.

If Heliocentrism is true, why did he not say "earth, cease from the rotation"?

Assume the story is false, it becomes apparent to any modern why: he would not have known enough. But assume it is false, and you are no longer Christian.

Assume it is true, and his choice of words become problematic to say the least, or rather impossible, unless Geocentrism is true.

Normally a simple observational truth like Geostasis (Geocentricity once you discover the earth is round) would not have needed such a strong proof from the veracity of a miracle worker while working a miracle. But if the story is true - and as a Christian I cherish no doubt thereon (even Cardinal Manning didn't) - the reason would be that God foresaw the Heliocentric errors before they came into fashion. Precisely as Jacob and Esau refuted horoscopes probably before such came into fashion (for the greater benefit of an Aurelius Augustinus on his way to becoming Saint Augustine of Hippo - and many after him).

The Gospel contains so much comment on Paganisms not known in Palestine at the time. Could not some Old Testament books contain pertinent comment on the latter day paganism we see?

One of the Puranas says an Avatar of Vishnu saved a King from the Flood ... and that Avatar was a fish. Matsya in Sanscrit. Now, this Sanscrit word for fish sounds a bit like the Hebrew word for Christ (Mashiac'h). And the early Christians, without any knowledge of either Sanscrit or Puranas, described the Christ as ΙΧΘΥΣ - Ιησους Χριστος Θεου 'Υιος Σοτηρ. The abbreviation means - fish. The Babylonian Myth of the Flood (long since forgotten by the time of Christ, but unearthed in ceramic tablets with cuneiforms) also refers to Christ: Shamash the Sun God miraculously provided bread for those on board Ziasudra's or Utnapishtim's ark. Christ is called the Sun of Justice and He has given bread miraculously. Turning water to wine was a speciality of Dionysus - but Christ did it, in Cana. Defeating death was predicated of Hercules. Raising dead was predicated of Aesculapius. Both of these came true of Christ.

I think there are two attitutdes possible about these parallels : God gave some prophetic content to the false myths, and sometimes to some true events (like Ulysses' homecoming, prefiguring Christ's return to defeat an Antichrist who is like unto the evil suitors and like unto the worst of them**, and Penelope, like the Church, remained faithful until rescued), and therefore we see a kind of prophecies fulfilled in Christ. The other is the charge that Christianity plagiarised the mythologies. If that were so, how come Gospels succeeded in covering more of them than Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion put together, in less space and with at least as much if not greater coherence?

And in the same way, either we ought to believe the Book of Joshua says Heliocentrism is a Pagan error, or we would be condemned to say Heliocentrism proves the Book of Joshua a Christian error. The latter, I utterly reject. The compromises, I find them less interesting.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Marc / Easter Friday***
25-IV-2014

* The Scientific Illusion
Solange Strong Hertz
http://www.ldolphin.org/geocentricity/Hertz2.pdf

** Antinous, son of Eupeithes. Is it not ironic and sadly emblematic of Paganism that much later Hadrian made the Empire adore his drowned ephebe Antinous? In a way this shows forth that the worship of Paganism, when not given directly to devils, is given in some way to Antichrists.

*** Not sure whether the Friday in the Easter Octave or the Feast of a Gospeller prevails. For Saints George and Fidelis I think it is the Easter Octave that prevails, so they or one of them is celebrated Monday next week, but for St Marc I am not sure.

Hier à St Eustache, on louait Hitler

Peut-être pas avec l'intention de le faire, peut-être l'intention était plutôt à noircir St Louis IX de France.

Les mots en question étaient de toute manière "St Louis faisait ça avant Hitler" ou peut-être "déjà avant Hitler", j'ai aussi l'impression très forte que les mots ont été répétés.

Bon, être contre les Juifs parce qu'on est pour quelqu'un d'autres (l'Église Catholique dans le cas de St Louis, les loges de Thulé ou de Frédéric II de Prusse dans le cas d'Hitler, ou encore les pauvres Français dans le cas de St Louis ou les pauvres Allemands dans le cas d'Hitler) n'est pas en soi un acte, donc pas une chose qu'on pouvait décrire avec les mots "faisait ça".

Puisque j'avais l'impression que l'homme n'était moins en train de louer un bon côté chez Hitler que de noircir un bon côté parmi tant d'autres de St Louis, je n'ai pas eu envie de lui poser des questions.

Autant plus que ça m'aurait été très pénible de devoir le baffer devant l'équipe de St Eustache, l'autre hiver je m'étais absenté depuis le soir que j'avais vu que l'équipe chassait un homme qui avait fouetté un autre avec sa ceinture, et on l'a vraiment voulu retenir à tout prix pour qu'il ne soit pas impuni (ou pire encore pour qu'il ne reste pas sans "soins"). Donc je flairais une piège.

Mais pour retourner au propos de cet homme, ça m'a intrigué.

St Louis n'a certainement pas eu de camps, ni de mort ni de travail forcé avant Hitler.

Que pouvait-il donc entendre?

Peut-être que St Louis avait expulsé les Juifs "avant Hitler"? Mais Hitler ne les a pas expulsés. Il ne l'a pas pu. La France ne voulait pas des Juifs supplémentaires à Madagascar, le Mufti de Jérusalem et même Angleterre (après un échec de sa politique zioniste) ne les a pas voulus en Terre Sainte. Donc, Hitler n'a pas expulsé les Juifs après St Louis, puisqu'il ne les a pas expulsés. Et St Louis ne les a pas expulsés avant Hitler, puisqu'il les a expulsés avant Los Reyes Católicos.

À moins que cet homme avait l'arrière-pensée de vouloir entendre que les camps de mort était un astuce - de la part de Hitler lui-même, et non pas simplement de la part de Wiesenthal et al. - pour faire accepter le projet zioniste. Ce qui me rappelle un peu Goebbels. Vous savez homme de famille chrétienne, femme de famille juive, fin, avec meurtre des enfants et double suicide, style Masada. Mon grand-père avait le droit à une aliyah, il ne la pas utilisé. Peut-être parce qu'en Terre Sainte il avait trouvé un guide qui louait le "sacrifice" suicidaire de Masada et qui vantait Hérode le Grand comme un grand homme de sa nation.*

Mais il y a quand même un acte que St Louis avait effectivement pu faire avant Hitler: brûler des livres. Avec St Louis c'était le Talmud. Quel livres c'était avec Hitler, je ne sais pas exactement, mais normalement il s'agissait des livres en charactères de l'alphabet latin** et non pas de livres en texte hébreu, et s'il brûlait des livres en texte hébreu aussi, je ne suis pas sûr qu'il prenait la piété de le faire avec non jamais la Loi mais toujours le Talmud.

J'ai eu l'occasion de soupçonner que du mauvais traitement qui m'a privé de sommeil a été dû à Baba Batra:

Voir le quatrième commentaire sous le message:
HGL's F.B. writings : Guns, Homeless, Shelters, My Own Situation
hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2013/02/guns-homeless-shelters-my-own-situation.html

Et Père Pranaitis avait trouvé d'autres trucs encore dans le Talmud.

Mais de temps en temps on retrouve des choses qui justifient du point de vue de l'orthodoxie religieuse le fait par St Louis de brûler des Talmuds. Voici comme ils peuvent être anti-Torahiques, les "sages" ou "savants" talmudiques, comme quand (Rev Dr) Rowland S. Ward, pasteur de Knox Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia, en Wantirna, Victoria avait dans le journal écrit ceci (mon emphase):

Quite apart from the fact that Jewish Talmudic sages did not regard the flood as geographically universal, and leaving aside arguments from geology, zoology, geography, archaeology and the like, I make the following points***

[Mais voir là-dessus le troisième PS, marqué PPPS.]

Quand à moi, je fais le point que pour les Presbytériens les "sages talmudiques" prennent la place qui est dans l'orthodoxie relgieuse due sinon au Nouveau Testament (qu'ils reconnaissent mais interprètent mal) au moins aux Pères de l'Église. Mais aussi que le Talmud est un livre pour des gens qui ont Moïse et les Prophètes sans les croire. Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ disait à leur propos:°

Derniers versets du 5 chap. de St Jean
English		Français
[46] For if you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me also; for he wrote of me.		46.Car si vous croyiez Moïse, vous me croiriez aussi, parce qu'il a écrit de moi.
[47] But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?		47.Mais si vous ne croyez pas à ses écrits, comment croirez-vous à mes paroles?"

Je ne vais pas donner tort à mon cher Seigneur, ni à St Louis.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BU Nanterre
St Thomas d'Aquin°°
7-III-2014

PS, Adamthwaite n'était pas totalement orthodoxe non plus:

In similar vein, our Lord’s birth involved both the miraculous and the normal: the conception was indeed miraculous, but the gestation and birth were along the normal biological lines.

Et ici Calvin aurait été avec l'Église Catholique. La Naissance était miraculeuse par une préservation de l'intégrité virginale physique. Le crédo nous dit "natus ex Maria virgine". Un Maure sémiconverti en Espagne avait voulu nier cet aspect devant St Ignace de Loyola, il a considéré la possibilité de le poursuivre pour le corriger physiquement. Le saint ne l'a finalement pas poursuivi, mais le propos du Maure reste blasphème./HGL

PPS, encore Adamthwaite:

Again, He has provided an ark: Jesus Christ! He has promised to carry through to the world to come all who trust themselves to Him.

Pas tout faux, mais inadéquat. Notre Seigneur Jésu-Christ ne l'est qu'avec son Église, c'est Elle qui est principalement signifié dans la lecture allégorique du Déluge. Notons que l'existence de cette lecture allégorique n'exclut nullement que la lecture lttérale reste vraie et innérrante./HGL

PPPS. Il est à ajouter que le Créationniste parmi les deux Presbytériens, donc Adamnthwaite, essaie d'exonérer le Talmud de négationnisme quant au Déluge. Les rabbins - dont il dit bien à propos qu'ils manquent la lumière du Nouveau Testament, il cite II Pierre ch. 3 - dont parle Ward n'auraient que prétendu La Terre Sainte identique au Paradis Terrestre et épargné du Déluge. Sur cette position je refère au commentaire Haydock Genèse 2, commentaire pour le verset 8, mais si Adamthwaite a vraiment exonéré Talmud en entier là-dessus, alors soit Ward, soit ses amis parmi les rabbins ont été malhonnêtes avec un pilpoul, ce qui me donne à penser qu'il s'agit effectivement des rabbins, et que le clergé vraiment chrétien, donc catholique, ou sémichrétien comme les Presbytériens (avec un clergé qui n'en est pas!) devraient se garder bien de prendre les mots de leurs amis Rabbins pour de la monnaie comptante./HGL

PPPPS, j'ai essayé de communiquer ceci aux deux concernés, et le fait de réussir de rejoindre l'un m'a valu un petit debat supplémentaire, en anglais:

Correspondence of Hans-Georg Lundahl : With Ward, on Flood, Rabbis, Joshua's Long Day
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2014/03/with-ward-on-flood-rabbis-joshuas-long.html

* Imaginez écouter un homme qui vante Hitler comme un grand Allemand? Et encore non pas une personne privé, mais un guide officiel! "Voici le Bunker, Hitler et Eva Braun ... c'était un très grand Allemand, le plus grand Allemand depuis Frédéric II le Stauffer et Frédéric II de la Prusse ..." - un Catholique, comme le sont les Autrichiens et les Bavarois peuvent se passer de ces trois "grands Allemands", danke schön, bitte nicht noch einmal!

** En ductus de renaissance comme ceci ou en ductus de fracture - utilisé en Allemagne par tout le monde et non pas par les seuls nazis. C'est d'ailleurs Hitler et Bormann qui ont interdit le style fracture dans les nouveaux livres, comme ce sont eux qui ont commi la barbarie de la législation Reichsschulgesetz.

*** Republié avec la réponse dans cet article de Creation Ministries International:

Church leader ‘aghast’ at belief in a worldwide Flood?
Published: 15 July 2002 (GMT+10)
creation.com/church-leader-aghast-at-belief-in-a-worldwide-flood

Puisqu'il y a référence à l'hérétique Jean Calvin dans cet article, il y est cité comme une référence, je signale que quand le commentaire biblique par Père George Leo Haydock (qui cite des commentateurs d'avant lui) commence de critiquer Jean Calvin et Martin Luther, c'est à partir de chapitre 3 de la Genèse. Donc, le Catholicisme est traditionnellement d'accord avec Calvin et Bèze et Luther et les autres sur les premiers deux chapitres, donc sur les Six Jours.

Great Bishop of Geneva! : Does Haydock - OT - take into account what Beza and Calvin wrote? And others?
greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2014/02/does-haydock-ot-take-into-account-what.html

Par contraste, Barnes, à peu près le contemporain de Haydock, ne l'est pas:

Creation vs. Evolution : Why a Literalist should be a Papist and not a Barnesist
creavsevolu.blogspot.fr/2014/02/why-literalist-should-be-papist-and-not.html

°

Douai-Reims Bible Online Gospel according to St John, Chapter 5 drbo.org/chapter/50005.htm

Bible Crampon Évangile selon St Jean jesusmarie.free.fr/bible_crampon_jean.html

°° "In monasterio Fossae Novae, prope Tarracinam, in Campania, sancti Thomae Aquinatis, Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris, ex Ordine Praedicatorum, nobilitate generis, vitae sanctitate et Theologiae scientia illustrissimi; quem Leo Papa Decimus tertius caelestem Scholarum omnium catholicarum Patronum declaravit."

Whose Reading of the Bible is Illiterate, Now?

1) Creation vs. Evolution : Why a Literalist should be a Papist and not a Barnesist, 2) New blog on the kid : Whose Reading of the Bible is Illiterate, Now?

One Brian Switek (I'll return to him later) explained his non watching of the Ham-Nye debate with it being a non-debate. Exactly as Creation Museum is a non-Museum. He linked to one Josh Rosenau (I think I came across him as interviewed in a French language video by Belgian Evolutionists*, put on youtube by a local Communist group near Paris*). Now, Josh Rosenau (who made a bad impression on me* in that video)) in the second paragraph of the blog post linked to** says this:

It’s a view that tosses out everything we know about biology, geology, physics, archaeology, and astronomy in service of an idiosyncratic, ahistorical, and illiterate reading of the Bible.

And, as I feel an urge to get past the ugly features of Josh Rosenau as soon as possible, I am glad that this fanatical evolutionist sentence actually linked to something I found a bit more intelligent though erroneous. Here it is:***

Suppose I told you that I don’t believe in Ohio because the Gospel of Matthew says it doesn’t exist.

After the initial surprise, you would — as a friend — set about trying to convince me not to believe such falsehoods. That’s falsehoods with an “s” — plural — because I’ve just told you I harbor two equally false and equally outrageous delusions: One about the fine state of Ohio and the other about the Gospel of Matthew.

You can’t do everything all at once, of course, so it makes sense to tackle these one at a time.

I very totally agree on that one. A bit further down:

I stop clinging to one falsehood and come to accept that, yes, Ohio does in fact exist. But I’m still clinging to the other falsehood — to the other half of one two-part falsehood.

“The Gospel of Matthew is wrong,” I say.

But you can’t leave me there. I don’t just mean that you can’t leave me there on the side of the highway outside of Youngstown (you may want to, but we’re in my car, remember). I mean that you can’t leave me there, disabused of one falsehood but still clinging to the other.

Now you have to address the other half of my delusion.

This is not optional, for either of us.

You’ve shown me that I was wrong to think that Ohio does not exist and now you must show me that I was wrong to think that the Gospel of Matthew says otherwise.

And a bit further down:

This is true even if you don’t like the Gospel of Matthew. Maybe you had an unpleasant experience in a community theater production of Godspell. Maybe you’re a rabbi who has long criticized the way Matthew’s Gospel has been used to reinforce anti-Semitism. Maybe you’re a committed atheist who also feels a responsibility to convince me that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of myths and fairy tales and that I need to reject the whole book along with all my ideas about an invisible friend in the sky.

None of that outweighs the simple fact that the Gospel of Matthew does not say that Ohio does not exist.

It totally agree on that one too. But now we start getting to things I would like to caution a bit against, even before he starts (possibly, I am still reading) getting to stuff like applying his parable to the case he has in mind.

You remind me that the Gospel of Matthew was written more than 19 centuries ago by people who had never heard of the Americas, let alone of Ohio.

When Satan showed Jesus all kingdoms of the world - was that another Gospel btw? - did he also show him Ohio? Now, it is possible he did not since it is possible Ohio had no real social organisation beyond family mini tribes back then. And did not count as a kingdom. I am not even sure the empires that went before Azteks in Mexico were shown, since sacrificing men to idols (as their successors did so they might have done so too) is a gross injustice and "a kingdom without justice is a large robber band" rather than a real kingdom (look it up in St Augustine if you do not believe me).

You note that the New Testament was written in a form of Greek that did not have a word for Ohio.

It could of course very easily import the word Ohio. Modern Greek makes it Οχάιο. Supposing there was another pronunciation before the great vowel shift, I would have made it Ωείω or Ωίω, but if the letter I was always a diphthong in the word, Classical Greek would have made it Ωαίω and declined the noun as Ινώ. Proper names (such as Ohio) are very easily incorporated in any language. Now, I have myself made use of this idea - in a context really about terminology - when meditating over day two, the separation of the waters. Moses wrote in a Hebrew which has no word for Hydrogen (or for that matter Oxygen). I wonder whether "waters above the firmament" may not be H₂ rather than H₂O and the Oxygen of our atmosphere also being created on day 2 as 2 H₂O > 2 H₂ + O₂. But I somehow doubt that Fred Clark is using the parallel with the same reasonable application (even apart from the fact that the parable is badly chosen, since Greek would easily have incorporated a word for Ohio).

But in any case, you could emphatically demonstrate that — as a matter of indisputable fact — the Gospel of Matthew never claims that the state of Ohio does not exist.

Indeed. The Bible (some other book than St Matthew, though) when saying "Earth" - as in eretz, landmass - has four corners (check with SW corner Cape of Good Hope, NE corner Sachalin or Korea, SE and NW corners a bit more rugged and England and Australia may have become islands since the words were written) does maybe count the Americas as "islands" rather than part of the landmass, but it does not deny the Americas exist.

What happens in that worst-case scenario is this: You do half the job, and then allow me to do half a job on you. You convince me that Ohio does, in fact, exist, but then I, in turn, manage to convince you that this means the Gospel of Matthew is wrong.

And thus the total cumulative level of delusion and deception remains unchanged. You’ve convinced me to abandon one falsehood, but you’ve allowed me to retain the other — and now I’ve convinced you to adopt it with me. All that achieves is a slight redistribution of wrongness. We remain, collectively, just as far from the truth as when we started.

That should never happen. Even if you’ve never heard of the Gospel of Matthew before I mentioned it, and even if have no idea whether or not it has anything to say about the existence of Ohio, you should know enough not to take my word for it. You know what I had to say about the existence of Ohio, after all, and if I’m so utterly, completely, massively wrong about that, why would you decide to accept my expertise on the New Testament?

Very much agree.

This worst-case scenario, alas, is not as hypothetical as the rest of the clumsy analogy sketched above.

I wonder (or rather no longer do so) if the last part of the analogy is not worse than the rest as far as analogousness is concerned.

This worst-case scenario even trips up otherwise very smart people like Neal DeGrasse Tyson. Tyson is a brilliant communicator when it comes to popularizing complex scientific ideas. But he’s also apparently a young-Earth creationist.

Or, at best, he is a credulous believer in the hermeneutics of young-Earth creationism. And that’s wrong. Accepting the hermeneutic claims of young-Earth creationism is just as wrong as accepting its claims about biology, geology or the “evidence” for Noah’s flood.

“You read, say, the Bible, the Old Testament, which in Genesis, is an account of nature, that’s what that is,” Tyson said to Bill Moyers. That’s an invocation and affirmation of Ken Ham. That’s a declaration of the wisdom and interpretive expertise of all young-Earth creationists.

And that’s a mind-boggling bit of illiterate nonsense which is every bit as factually wrong, anachronistic, and genre-illiterate as the assertion that the Gospel of Matthew is a geographical treatise on the American Midwest.

Now, first of all, I do not know if Ken Ham ever said such a thing as Genesis being an account of nature, except of course certain chapters of its origin and others of its remaking of the flood. I do not think Ken Ham is as genre illiterate as to confuse true history with true science. Even when there are scientific implications of a historic fact.

One exemple would be someone saying "rivers never flood the land beside them and so never threaten human lives (except unwary who fall in) or habitations" and I could show them wrong because in such and such a year the news said such and such a river actually did so. Or a sociologist would argue that governments are never overthrown by people taking up arms against them, and I could point at Rubicon and Teruel, for Caesar and Franco successfully overthrowing Republics, to Milan and Venice taking arms to overthrow the governments of a Stauffer or a Basileus in their countries, to Romans chasing Tarquines and Swedes chasing Ynglings from power after the rape of Lucrece or the burn-in trap of Ingjald, to George Washington overthrowing English rule over 13 Colonies, to Cromwell, Monk and Bill Orange changing the government in England, Scotland and Ireland or Robespierre and Napoleon and ... I could go on ... the one in France, or Mensheviks and Bolsheviks the one in Russia. And if he tried to deny that governments fall without people taking up arms against them (or more of arms than were used in chasing the Tarquins and the Ynglings), I could point to Poland, Rumania and Russia, not forgetting the three Baltic States around 1990.

Not so if the one could tell me "but the Times is not a treatise in river science, in hydrology" or if the other could tell me "these political stories make great propaganda but notice how they were not written by professional sociologists" and get away with that kind of thing as an argument. Unrepeatable exact fact (even beyond ocular testimony, and with a record transmitted for others from either time or place of event) trumps abstractions about repeatable facts. And I think that Ken Ham would basically agree with that assessment. Rather than - as Fred Clark's strawman would have it - consider Genesis as being, as far as text genre is concerned, natural science. He is given with a truncated citation as “Genesis … is an account of nature, that’s what it is.” But he is not even in that truncated citation said to call it an account with a systematic and detailed rather approach rather than a general and historic one.

It is anyone calling it something which has no relation to nature as such, some pure slush as far as exact information about observable things, who has an illiterate understanding of the Bible. Plus, even if rabbis could somehow squeeze in millions of years into the days (despite the fact that unlike days a series of years has no evening and morning) or Barnes into the gap between verses 1 and 2, the millions of years before Adam married Eve, the millions of years with people or even humanoid animals dying before the same Adam ate a forbidden fruit and "died the same day" (=millennium, in verse 2:17 we see no reference to evening and morning), that would contradict Christ and St Paul. And as rabbis do not love Christ, may they be αναθημα!

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BU Nanterre
St Valentine's Day
14-II-2014

PS, it may be added that though rabbis very certainly know Hebrew, they have no monopoly on it. St Jerome translated most of OT from Hebrew rather than Greek to Latin. He also calculated the age of Heaven and Earth when Christ was born to 5199 years - which is still in the traditional Christmas Proclamation in the Latin Mass - using the exact same method as later Ussher did on a different text than the Greek one he used for the calculation. And of course the Seventy Translaters knew Hebrew as well, when translating yôm as 'ημερα rather than as αιων. Nor is there any sense in claiming an exegetic question must only be decided by those alive today and the previous exegetes be bypassed. Rather the reverse is true.

* Following three links resume my previous acquaintance with Rosenau:

Créationnisme, danger école (partie 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JepqGWaHKU

youtube user Parti Communiste Français of Gennevilliers
http://www.youtube.com/user/PCFgennevilliers

My blog Répliques Assorties : Créationnisme Danger École
http://repliquesassorties.blogspot.com/2013/12/creationnisme-danger-ecole.html

** Josh Rosenau / Science League of America / National Center (sic!) for Science Education : Getting Ready for the Nye-Ham Debate
http://ncse.com/blog/2014/02/getting-ready-nye-ham-debate-0015367

*** Fred Clark's blog slacktivist : Redistributing falsehoods isn’t the same as finding truth
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2014/01/22/redistributing-falsehoods-isnt-the-same-as-finding-truth/

Erreurs de Bruno

Agora : Giordano Bruno, le mécréant religieux
http://agora.qc.ca/documents/giordano_bruno_le_mecreant_religieux

L'auteur de l'article est:

Pierre-Jean Dessertine

Professeur de philosophie à Aix-en-Provence. Il a publié des articles dans diverses revues. Il a écrit plusieurs ouvrages de pédagogie de la philosophie. Il est l'auteur de "Pourquoi l'homme épuise-t-il sa planète ?". Il anime le site de philosophie : www.anti-somnambulique.org

Maintenant aux citations qui sont à mon propos dans l'article:

Encore aujourd’hui, alors que Galilée a été récemment réhabilité par Rome, Bruno demeure toujours proscrit, sous le coup des jugements infâmant prononcés il y a plus de 400 ans par le Saint-Office.

Oui. Et, comme dit auparavant dans l'article, par les Luthériens et les Calvinistes aussi, directement. J'imagine que le sobriquet pour les astronomes ayant contribué au nouveau calendrier, dit le Calendrier Grégorien, quand les évêques de l'Orient en schisme d'avec Pape Grégoire le condamnent, les qualifiant d'astronomes athées, a bien pu être une condamnation indirecte de Bruno qui était lui aussi un astronome occidental.

Pourtant son œuvre est extraordinairement riche et généreuse. Si le cœur en est l’exposition de sa philosophie, elle traite des sujets les plus variés – astronomie, mathématiques, physique, mnémotechnique, magie, astrologie, etc. –, comme elle se décline en de multiples formes – traités, dialogues, discours, satires, comédies, poèmes.

Mais les Hadithes et les Ayah des Sourates sont très riches aussi! Et comme Suédois je me rappelle d'un autre intellectuel très riche fondateur d'une religion condamnée par l'église, à savoir de Wodan! N'avez-vous pas lu Hávamál? Les nouveau baptisés doivent-ils vraiment abjurer son auteur? Oui, dans la mesure que Wodan était faussement adoré comme quasiment un Mardouk nordique. Et la richesse intellectuelle de Bruno ne dit rien sur son orthodoxie.

Bruno anticipe plusieurs idées qui allaient devenir importantes dans l’histoire ultérieure de la pensée comme l’idée d’infinité de l’Univers,

Où alors si situe Le Ciel? Traditionnellement audelà des Étoiles Fixes. Mais s'il n'y a pas un audelà des étoiles fixes?

la gravitation universelle (voir la citation dans ce document),

Qui pourrait être une erreur à moins qu'elle n'ait été confirmée par Armstrong ...

l’idée de monade (atome de réalité doué de vie, reprise par Leibniz),

Une âme et un atome de matière (tel que St Isidore l'aurait pu considérer, sans de verser dans les absurdité d'Épicure) sont certes deux choses différentes.

l’idée de relativité générale dans l’Univers (reprise par Einstein),

Idée suspecte d'erreur pour le moins et liée à l'erreur à propos le Ciel.

l’idée d’amoralisme (il n’y a pas de Mal absolu, reprise par Spinoza puis Nietzsche),

Le thomisme aussi dit qu'il n'y a pas de mal absolu, puisque le mal est un déficit du bien, et puisque le déficit peut épuiser le bien dont il est un déficit, mais pas celui dans lequel il est un déficit. Être aveugle peut épuiser la vue, mais pas l'œuil. Être sourd ne signifie pas de ne pas avoir d'oreilles du tout - et un être qui n'a pas d'oreilles du tout ne peut pas être sourd. À la limite être sourd peut épuiser l'ouie dans l'oreille. Et ainsi de suite. Ce qui vaut aussi pour la morale.

Ceci ne signifie pas qu'il n'y ait pas des interdits absolus, ou qu'il n'y ait pas de transgresseur absolument pire que les autres transgresseurs. Par exemple le diable parmi les êtres angéliques ou l'Antéchrist parmi les hommes.

etc. La pensée de Bruno nous interpelle. Comment a-t-elle pu amener l’institution catholique à commettre un de ses actes les plus lourds de conséquences quant à l’avenir de la pensée et à sa propre crédibilité ?

Si l'on parle de crédibilité devant les nostalgiques de Bruno, condamner celui-ci est lourd de conséquences pour sa crédibilité. Si l'on parle de crédibilité en tant que telle, ça aurait été pire de ne pas condamner Bruno.

En défendant l’idée d’un Univers infiniment étendu occupé par une infinité de mondes, Bruno chasse Dieu de cette place. Mais sa véritable audace est ailleurs, dans la manière dont il justifie l’infini spatial. Traditionnellement, l’argument était logique : que devient la flèche de l’archer lâchée à travers la sphère des fixes ? Bruno propose un nouvel argument qu’on pourrait appeler « l’expérience du déplacement d’horizon ». À première vue l’horizon se donne comme une couture entre la voûte céleste et la surface terrestre qui enclot l’espace humain. Mais si je me déplace, l’horizon se déplace et de nouveaux espaces apparaissent.

Normalement non pas parce que la voûté céleste ou la surface terrestre ou les deux soient illimitées, mais parce que leur contiguité simplement est une illusion optique.

Il n'y a pas une infinité de nouveaux horizons, si l'on se déplace droitement, tôt ou tard on revient, tel Innocent Smith, au même horizon.

Il y a donc une loi qui rend le champ de l’espace visible relatif au point de vue du spectateur. Si j’applique cette loi à la vision des astres, il s’ensuit que si je pouvais me déplacer très loin dans l’Univers, je pourrais sans cesse voir apparaître de nouveaux espaces avec de nouveaux astres ;

Sans cesse? Non. Les nouveaux horizons peuvent paraître incessables pour Rahan dont les moyens de se déplacer sont inadéquats, mais non pas pour Innocent Smith. Ceci aussi peut très bien être applicable pour le parallèle de Bruno sur les nouveaux astres.

On pourrait par exemple arriver audelà des Étoiles Fixes dans le Ciel avec les Chérubims et les Séraphims, et dans un moment qu'on regarde autre chose que le Bon Dieu on voit les moindres astres qu'il y ait en dessous le Jérusalem Céleste. Et les plus loins de la Terre.

en particulier, les constellations d’étoiles que je vois depuis la Terre se déformeraient à en devenir méconnaissables :

Avec une sphère des "Fixes" - mauvaise expression après 1838 si par exemple Alpha Centauri se déplace en temps avec le Soleil - mais avec une "Sphères des Fixes" sans épaisseur, les constellations doivent rester les mêmes jusqu'à l'arrivée des âmes (ou des corps après la résurrection, je parle de ceux des justes) audelà qu'on puisse les regarder à l'invers.

Avec par contre quelque épaisseur, il se peut que cette déformation vaille jusqu'à une certaine limite, mais après s'arrête. Comme on sait, la première sonde spatiale a cessé de nous envoyer des images ... on en a un signale qui montre que la batterie et l'émetteur fonctionnent, mais on n'a plus d'images. Si c'est parce que NASA avait vue un point qui se conformait plutôt à un univers limité, à la St Thomas, qu'à un Universe Infini ou d'extension de 13 milliards d'années-lumières et quelque plus?

il n’y aurait plus de « sphère des fixes » !

Ce que son raisonnement ne prouve pas.

Ainsi : « Dès que l’on a reconnu que le mouvement apparent du monde est dû au mouvement diurne réel de la Terre (lequel se trouve aussi dans les autres astres semblables), aucune raison ne peut nous contraindre à accepter que les étoiles soient équidistantes de nous ». Bruno, De l’univers infini et des mondes – 1584.

Bon, ça serait peut-être pour ça que Pape Urbain VIII aurait vu en Galilée un menace - inconscient pour l'homme de Pise - d'un scepticisme plus au moins absolu, un scepticisme pour lequel finalement il n'y aura pas d'interdits absolus, un scepticisme pour lequel finalement Kant pouvait conduire Eichmann à une modification de sa morale connu par un tribunal et ayant choqué l'autre Kantienne qu'était Hannah Arendt?

L’intérêt de cet argument est qu’il est d’expérience vécue : on a une preuve de l’infini par la simple démarche rationnelle d’une extrapolation de notre expérience perceptive.

Mais on n'a pas une preuve et l'extrapolation n'est pas rationnelle telle que la fait Bruno à partir de l'expérience perceptive. Innocent Smith (et son auteur Gilbert Keith Chesterton) viennent de corriger l'idée aberrante d'un déplacement de l'horizon infiniment continué et additif sans limite. Et, de manière additive nous avons l'expérience d'Innocent Smith ou de Filéas Fogg et Passepartout en assez bonne supplémentation pour affirmer que le déplacement de l'horizon sur la terre à une limite, à savoir le retour au même horizon. Le νοστον αημαρ d'Ulysse. Si cher à Homère, à Chesterton et à Tolkien. L'image terrestre de l'arrivée in patria pour ceux qui arrivent. Et, puisque c'est le retour d'un roi qui n'aurait pas dû être remplacé par des prétendants, et une révanche sanglante sur leur impiété, aussi une image prophétique sur l'Apocalypse chapître 19 ou fin de chapitre 20. Raison de plus pourquoi je crois, sinon dans la théologie au moins dans l'historicité de l'Odyssée.

La faiblesse des aristotéliciens est de s’en tenir à cette vision infantile qu’est l’image instantanée du monde.

Cette image est infantile? Si vous ne devenez pas comme des enfants ... vous n'aurez jamais de certitude philosophique, au moins. Et celle-ci n'est pas découpée de la certitude de la foi qui prépare pour l'arrivée à la vision béatifique.

Et Bruno, dans le texte cité ci-dessus, était déjà capable de voir la Terre telle que la voient aujourd’hui nos astronautes depuis leur station orbitale.

Si les astronautes peuvent se dire que notre vue de la Terre est une illusion optique alors nous pouvons dire que la leur l'est aussi. La station orbitale est la preuve la plus bête qu'il y ait contre le Géocentrisme, pour le Géokinétisme. Si cette fameuse vue des astronautes à partir de la station orbitale est prise pour monnaie comptante elle ne prouve pas que la décision arbitraire de regarder la vue normale sur la Terre était bienfondée, mais plutôt qu'elle est épuisante pour l'esprit. Comme une décision de se "libérer des dogmes chrétiennes" est généralement épuisante pour l'esprit humain de la manière qu'elle conduit la plupart de ses adeptes, c'est à dire des apostats, à un dogmatisme pas moins stricte, uniquement moins bien fondée.

Dieu a bien pu créer le monde comme Il voulait et le faire paraître comme Il voulait. DONC, Il a bien pu réaliser une volonté que la vue normale sur l'Univers soit la vue la plus immédiatement correcte (je ne dis pas totalement immédiatement correcte, mais la plus telle*). Et ceci a ses connexions avec Romains 1:20, comme je viens de le détailler en un essai en anglais, avec une traduction du latin en anglais du commentaire de Saint Thomas d'Aquin. Effectuée par ma pauvre compétence.**

Si pour découvrir naturellement le Bon Dieu et sa loi naturelle à partir de ses œuvres visibles il faudrait une sophistication à la Kant ou Spinoza, alors les Payens auraient été très excusables. Mais Saint Paul les considère comme inexcusables. Donc il suffit d'une vue beaucoup plus simple et banale que ça. Par exemple celle rejeté par l'Héliocentrisme et par Bruno.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Sainte Dorothée
6-II-2014

* De manière que les inexactitudes qu'il y a sont facilement découvrables ou immatériels quand à la découverte de Sa Sagesse et son Pouvoir ou les deux à la fois.

** Creation vs. Evolution : Romans 1:20 and Dawkins, Richard
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2014/02/romans-120-and-dawkins-richard.html

Proximate causes are not always secondary

St Thomas Aquinas and a few more (let's not name drop) divided causes into two categories: secondary causes and primary cause. The prima causa (first cause, but not as in "earlist cause" like someone winding up a pianola, rather as in primary as someone playing a piano while it sounds, hence my translation "primary cause") is God.

The secondary causes are created causes.

The proximate causes are usually secondary causes. When the proximate cause of an event that is visible and down to earth is the primary cause itself, that is what is referred to as a miracle. But they do happen and there are other cases when God is proximate cause for something. Like when being cause for the secondary cause that is least proximate to us in space or time.

The one instance of that is turning heaven around us each day - if we believe our eyes' witness for Geocentrism (and our inner ears' witness too, that's where the organ is which tells you if the floor is a house on the ground without earthquake or a deck of a ship in a storm). That is where God is proximate cause for least proximate secondary cause in space. And the other is creation - of heaven and earth, of all there is in them, of angels and of each human soul. Except for the last that is where God is proximate cause for least proximate secondary cause (like Adam for human bodies) in time (or like a fish or bird on day five for those of its kind living now, for that matter).

Creation of a human soul whenever a baby is made is God being proximate cause here and now, but the reason why this is not a miracle is that it is invisible.

Now, sciences are concerned mostly with secondary causes. But traditionally speaking by admitting them to be secondary, they point up to the primary cause, to God. Unfortunately sciences have been cut off from theology last centuries. This gives them a non-scientific tendency, as to what scientific properly means, but a clear scientific communal tendency or scientific cultural tendency to not just ignore but even deny the primary cause. Solutions are "proven" by assuming secondary causes are the only ones - that is as if they are otherwise than secondary, as if the universe itself were primary.

And some benighted wannabee Thomists - people who want to brag about reading and understanding St Thomas Aquinas - reinterpret both Joshua and Genesis and sometimes even more. Because science - the study of secondary causes so to speak - has proven Heliocentrism or Evolution or (saying this with Kent Hovind accent:) milllllllllions of year.

Obviously they are not very good students of St Thomas Aquinas, and obviously they are not very good students of Holy Bible either. At least not of Joshua X or Genesis I and II. Sometimes not even of Genesis III. Usually not of anything before Genesis XII.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Library of
Mouffetard Street
St Eulalia and St Julia
10-XII-2013