When I say "rivalling", I am treating him as a man of goodwill. There is a word that says Noli aemulari in malignantibus somewhere in Psalm 36. Ergo, I am rivalling only a man of goodwill ... which Jimmy Akin is at least showing on this occasion by being a scholastic. I have not yet heard his audio, so I don't know he blows it. Here is first from Mark Shea's intro to Jimmy:
All of which is to say that Jimmy Akin stands in a deeply Catholic–and proudly nerdly–tradition of theological speculation as he ponder the wonderfully weird, but very interesting question of (among other things) teleportation and the Eucharist.
Jimmy Akin Stands in a Grand Tradition of Catholic Speculation
February 6, 2019 by Mark Shea
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2019/02/jimmy-akin-stands-in-a-grand-tradition-of-catholic-speculation.html
So do I. I also stand in it.
Now, there is a link to Akin's audio, here ...
Catholic Answers Live : Weird Questions
Jimmy Akin | February 02, 2019 - 12am
https://www.catholic.com/audio/cal/8914
... and I find on it not just the audio I cannot access right now, but also a list of questions:
- 01:36 - In the Swedish New Testament, we use Lukas for Luke, Matteus for Mathew, Markus for Mark and Johannes for John. What were the names in the original language?
- 08:40 - If teleportation is ever invented, would a teleported Eucharist still be the body of Christ?
- 14:20 - Is there a parallel universe?
- 21:40 - If we discovered extraterrestrial life, would we evangelize them or only teach the cardinal virtues?
- 29:02 - What is the Church’s stance on Ghosts, specters, and hauntings? Can a soul that’s departed this life stick around to “haunt” things or can these be interpreted as demons trying to “trick” us?
- 30:34 - How can we square scientific discoveries of early human life and the creation story?
- 35:00 - Will those who have died and been buried on Mars miss out on the final Resurrection?
- 44:25 - Can angels appear as dogs and cats?
- 45:51 - Are binaural and isochronic tones safe, from a Spiritual standpoint? Does the Church have anything to say on these?
- 48:15 - What may the existence of the Holy Grail mean for the faith?
- 50:42 - If Limbo does exist as the afterlife of unbaptized infants, are they aware of their status of being outside of heaven?
- 53:00 - Can you debunk the flat earth theory?
Here are my own answers, before hearing even a second of his audio:
- 01:36 - In the Swedish New Testament, we use Lukas for Luke, Matteus for Mathew, Markus for Mark and Johannes for John. What were the names in the original language?
Greek : Loukas, Matthaios, Markos, Ioannes.
Latin : Lucas, Matthaeus, Marcus, Iohannes
Now, English gets its names from older French pronunciations of them, and possibly Sweden might have had a similar system in which one Gospel was "Sankt Mats Evangelium" and another "Sankt Hans Evangelium". If this ever was so (probably not, but I'd need to check) this was ended because of how Reformation brought Renaissance Humanism to Sweden (the Petri brothers were disciples of Luther, who had at one time been disciple or admirer of Erasmus), and one of the perks or pains in the asses of Renaissance Humanism, depending on where you stand (I'm 50% / 50 %) is bringing back the old pronunciation and old spelling. Hence someone having either of the two or three John's of the new Testament would since then equally be called "Hans" or "Jan" or "Johan" or "Johannes" depending in style register parents were aiming for. A bit like a Russian might equally be known as Ivan (that form seems Ukrainean in origin) or as Ioan (the Church Slavonic form).
- 08:40 - If teleportation is ever invented, would a teleported Eucharist still be the body of Christ?
Probably it cannot ever be invented.
The answer would depend on how the probably impossible invention would be working in a way that is probably impossible for natural causes to achieve.
- 14:20 - Is there a parallel universe?
As far as we know, there is not.
However, God could have created one, or several, as easy as that. Narnia is not a fact, but it is not impossible for God. Parallel incarnation of the Son as Aslan probably is, since the incarnations would be valid in heaven, which according to the premiss is common to all parallel worlds, but that can be fixed by considering God the Son as Incarnate Man is in Narnia present under the accidents of a lion. However, that would need some speculations on what actually happened when in the book Aslan tickled Bree's ear and said "I am a true beast".
- 21:40 - If we discovered extraterrestrial life, would we evangelize them or only teach the cardinal virtues?
We won't.
If the universe is small, the stars are probably too small to have habitable planets around them. Even if it is not much larger than so far proven, travel would take too much time. I mean, the radius from Earth in the centre is at least one light day out, and in 40 years a fairly small probe as Voyager 1 has only come as far as 18 light hours out, about.
Other question, if we discovered hitherto undiscovered populations, and they seemed to be human rather than angelic or demonic, we should evangelise them if they did not already know the Gospel. And sorting out whether human, angelic or demonic would take some doing. Also, supposing a race of very longeval men had lived underground since a fourth son of Noah (the three sons are fathers of all populations above ground, so if a fourth son ever was born, either he has no descendants or his descendants live under ground, or they form no speparate population, unlike the ones descended from sons and grandsons of the three sons) and had what seemed like magic powers to us, they could do fairly roundabout manoeuvers to avoid us asking many questions or give them any tips.
Narnia is in this respect somewhat ... a mixed bag, theologically. On the one hand, men in Narnia are adamites, descended from Frank and Helen or from pirates in the south sea or other people in our world. On the other side, there are humanoids of whom it is implied they are not true men.
Giants, dwarfs, centaurs, fauns and marshwiggles are on the one hand bodies with rational souls, and therefore men, corresponding to "homo est animal rationale" and on the other hand created separately from Frank and Helen and therefore presumably not Adamites, therefore not partaking in Adam's fall and therefore not eligible to Christ's redemption. A bit like some view Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals as pre-Adamites. This is impossible.
- 29:02 - What is the Church’s stance on Ghosts, specters, and hauntings? Can a soul that’s departed this life stick around to “haunt” things or can these be interpreted as demons trying to “trick” us?
Both occur, but demonic frauds are more common. First, apparitions of saints from heaven do not count here, as they are visibly different from ghosts by being glorious.
Second, demonic frauds definitely abound (including some false apparitions, that is why it is important to see what the Church said about an apparition, like Shiluva and Lourdes are approved Marian ones and the time when St James personally walked back to the parish his statue had been stolen from is at least not disapproved).
Third, souls from Hell or Purgatory could be given permission to appear for two purposes, I'll give the best-knonw literary examples:
- Scrooge could really see the ghost of Marley warning him against joining him in Hell for sins of greed and incompassion (or any other mortal sins, but those were the besetting ones of Scrooge, except on Chesterton's analysis of the work - he had secretly been giving away Turkeys all his life);
- the Ghost of Canterville could really appear in order to ask intercessionary prayer to get him from Purgatory (however, the other parts of the story seem to colour, excuse the pun, this story with motives borrowed from Poltergeists who are usually demonic).
The more serious magisterial motive for accepting these two cases are St Gregory the Great saying so in Dialogues.
- 30:34 - How can we square scientific discoveries of early human life and the creation story?
No problem - once we see the limits of science.
Göbekli Tepe was built by men. One could imagine it built by giants and men only coming in as unlucky involuntary guest, we do know about human guests in Göbekli Tepe. Who did not enjoy the end of their stay, presumably. They are skulls with holes in them and cut off from their bodies, and the skulls were put on a rope, one above another.
Bottom layers of Göbekli Tepe are carbon dated to, I think, calibrated 9600 BC. Top layer is similarily dated to 8600 BC.
If we accept the dates, we are left with pre-Adamites, which is theologically impossible.
If we accept they were fallen men, descended from Adam, and Adam was really created 5199 or 5500 years (some would even try 4004 years) before Christ, then we must conclude something has been pushing the carbon dating to a mis-dating.
The very simple solution is, carbon 14 levels were rising, Göbekli Tepe is Babel, and so the carbon level at the start after the death of Noah in 2607 BC was such as to give an "instant age" of an extra 6993 years. And at the end, in the time when Peleg was born, as Julius Africanus specifically allows us to calculate 401 years after the Flood, 2556 BC, the carbon level had risen so as to give only an "instant age" of 6044 years. One could match the levels a bit more narrowly to each other, so as to make Babel last only 40 years, rather than 51, but I enjoy remaking calculations on this one and similar ones. This example would imply carbon level in 2607 was 42.916 percent of modern carbon 14 (percent modern Carbon, and abbreviated pmC, in French pCm since adjective is turned about), and in 2556 it has risen to 48.136 pmC. I use the carbon date calculator for this one, link below under the calculations.
Now, how much faster was carbon 14 being produced than now in this case?
2607 carbon level was 42.916 pmC. How much would be left of that 51 years later?
99.385 pmC is what a 51 year old organic object has these start out with 100 pmC. So, 99.385 % of 42.916 pmC = 42.6520666 pmC (the last three digits are appropriate for Nimrod's work ... giving calculation to make under link to the calculator).
How much new carbon is now formed in 51 years? Well, atmosphere unlike 51 year old dead organic objects has access to new carbon. And atmosphere now as then is 100 pmC.
100 pmC - 99.385 pmC = 0.6149999999999949 or 0.615 pmC.
If you add that, that is, if you suppose carbon 14 was forming at present speed back then, what do you get?
42.6520666 + 0.6149999999999949 = 43.2670665999999949 or 43.267 pmC. What do we want?
48.136 pmC. How much carbon 14 was in fact added?
48.136 pmC - 42.6520666 pmC = 5.483933400000005 or 5.4839334 or 5.484 pmC.
Now, how much faster was carbon 14 produced? Added carbon 14 = added pmC, so we compare theoretic and actual outcome:
5.483933400000005 / 0.6149999999999949 = 8.9169648780488625634
Carbon 14 was in Babel forming 8.917 times faster than now.
What do I suppose carbon level to have been back at the Flood, and why?
Neanderthals and Denisovans seem to be pre-Flood races, and they both seem to have died out in 40 000 BP. You may have heard of a survival to "ten thousand years later" in Gibraltar, but the Gibraltar cave has dates after 40 000 BP for Mousterian tools, not for carbon dated Neanderthal body parts. All the first 8 post-Flood people had been pre-Flood people and therefore some of them would have known Mousterian ware and how to use it, perhaps also how to produce it.
Let's remake the calculations for 2957 BC vs 38 000 BC (under the link to calculator). We'd need to have the carbon level for 35043 years to know the one for number of "instant years". 1.442 pmC.
Let's remake the calculation of buildup speed too. 1.442 pmC would in 350 years degrade to ... 1.442 pmC * 95.854 % (calculation under links), meaning 1.382 pmC. Meanwhile, normal speed of carbon 14 addition is now in 350 years ...
100 pmC - 95.854 pmC = 4.146 pmC.
And 1.382 pmC + 4.146 pmC = 5.528 pmC, but that is not what we find. For reasons stated we find 42.916 pmC.
42.916 pmC - 1.382 pmC = 41.534 pmC. That is how much carbon was produced net in 350 years.
41.534 pmC / 4.146 pmC = 10.01784852870236 ... let's say 10 times faster. This is compatible with levels of cosmic radiation being sustainable without gross damage to the body. Probably living at the equator back then was a bad idea. Probably living in caves was a good one. And probably this helped to shorten lifespans. AND ... yes, cosmic radiation is higher at times when it also gets colder, more probable (and a mechanism is proposed) cosmic radiation is affecting weather, and so, this also helped to produce the one single post-Flood glaciation.
Now, there are more methods of dating than just carbon 14, but this is the more reliable one. A potassium argon date probably says how cold the water was during the Flood, when lava cooled how much quicker than it would in air and affecting how much more argon was trapped. Note also, the peopling of Australia has as oldest organic and dated remains Mungo man, for whom carbon dates are post-Flood in this scheme.
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- 35:00 - Will those who have died and been buried on Mars miss out on the final Resurrection?
If that ever happens, as far as I know it hasn't, no, they will by angels be brought to the right spot.
- 44:25 - Can angels appear as dogs and cats?
Good angels usually would not take that appearance, though they could, but angels definitely can have some control over behaviour of cats and dogs, so guardian angels can use cats and dogs to save lives (just saw a great video about top tenz how cats saved lives, well, the guardian angels of the people concerned were not inactive and cats were not insensible or rebellious to them).
- 45:51 - Are binaural and isochronic tones safe, from a Spiritual standpoint? Does the Church have anything to say on these?
I would consider it depends partly on how deep you go, but even more what the "message" is. In case there are verbal messages in a meditation for inducing a trance, obviously one should check there are no suggestions contrary to the faith in it, nothing about "out of body experiences" or "astral journeys", nothing about previous lives, nothing about Hindoo gods.
But as binaural and isochronic tones, that would normally be non-verbal, and that would more depend on what it does to you.
- 48:15 - What may the existence of the Holy Grail mean for the faith?
That all relics are not accounted for by the Church. There was a time before St Helen discovered the Holy Cross when True Cross was not found and even Holy Grave was covered by a Venus temple.
- 50:42 - If Limbo does exist as the afterlife of unbaptized infants, are they aware of their status of being outside of heaven?
Yes, and that would be their one sorrow, with no physical suffering to worsen it, and with the consolation they can thank God for physical comforts and therefore have a natural and non-saving love of God.
- 53:00 - Can you debunk the flat earth theory?
Bible says FOUR corners, and if we project continents from a globe we do get four corners of land. With the projection presupposing North Pole as centre of a disc and South Rim as circumference of it, you get either three corners or have to let Australia count for two corners. Not very impressive match to the Biblical verses. Especially the one where "four points of the compass" is NOT an acceptable interpretation.
After these things, I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that they should not blow upon the earth, nor upon the sea, nor on any tree. (Apocalypse 7:1)
As to observations, I think flight times over large stretches of the globe as well as how the heavens look from Southern hemisphere are, with Magellan's and Elcano's journey, a fairly final scientific proof.
Thus I have answered, tu autem Dne msre nob9!
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