After due consideration, I think it would be confusing to my reader if I did not comment on every possible meaning, and confusion is always in favor of the Moose.
The Bad Meaning. Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. If you take “in matters of science and history” as referring to passages in Scripture that talk about science and history—that’s taking the words “materially” for those of you who speak Aristotle—then we can put this little syllogism together:
Scripture is inerrant in matters of faith (and morals);In other words, let’s say that all the matters of faith are in this room. This is the room of things where Scripture is inerrant. All the matters of science and history are outside the room, out there where Scripture is not inerrant. Faith never has to do with science or history.
Scripture is not inerrant in matters of science and history;
Therefore, no matters of science or history are matters of faith.
So, for example, Jesus’ resurrection is not a “historical” event, and that the world has not been around for an infinite length of time is not in any way related to “science”.
To put it more generally, Scripture is inerrant about the “squishy” subjects like our interior convictions or how we should behave, but not inerrant about the “hard” subjects like history or science. If it is subject to objective verification, then it is not one of the things that Scripture has authority about.
Some folks do think this way. Some are intimidated by the idea that modern discoveries in history or science could disprove the Catholic faith, and find it more comfortable to separate the faith out into its own little, inaccessible box. Others think that all religions arise from an interior human impulse and have no objective truth about them. Either way, it’s handy to bifurcate the brain into the “religious” side and the “factual” side.
Hard to argue with the bad folks. Once a man has performed this intellectual lobotomy on himself, there is not much to say beyond “please” and “thank you”.
The Stupid Meaning. If you take the words “in matters of science and history” as referring not to particular passages but to the reason why Scripture is or isn’t inerrant—taking the words “formally” for you Aristotle buffs—then there is no need to dial 134. [That’s the number for the Inquisition, by the way, 134—only call if there is a true emergency.]
In other words, it may well be that Scripture speaks authoritatively about something historical, but the reason Scripture has authority in that case is because the historical event in question is related to faith. Scripture does not speak authoritatively about historical events considered as historical events, but only insofar as they are matters of faith.
Confused? Perfect.
The bottom line is that we are right back at the absurdity I talked about in Part I. If you want to know whether we should believe what Scripture says about historical event X, then you need to have a list of all the things we are supposed to believe; you check the list, and if historical event X is on that list then you should believe Scripture. In other words, you have to know whether you should believe it in order to find out whether you should believe it.
As vicious as this circle may be, the folks who believe it are not usually vicious. They’re more like the wimpy guy in a bad neighborhood who keeps a pit bull in the yard because he’s scared of criminals. Otherwise nice people buy into this nasty circle not because they are nasty but because they are scared.
Big, bad scientists or even meaner historians could come along at any second and disprove something Scripture says! No need to worry: if somebody proves that X is not historical, we can just delete that from our list of “matters of faith” and then we’re not committed to saying that Scripture is right about it. After all, no scientist or historian can say what should be on our list of things to believe. What would they appeal to?
Scripture?
Other folks are scared in a better way, but still scared. They see that there are some BIG problems with saying that Scripture is completely inerrant, and they are afraid that if they say Scripture is inerrant then people will be scandalized by the problems and go away. They don’t want to be unfaithful to the Church or a scandal to the faithful, so they get as close as they can to affirming the inerrancy of Scripture without either compromising their intellectual integrity or causing scandal to others.
I have a lotta lotta sympathy for this last group. They are genuinely good people. This is just the Ignoramus Blog and no place for hashing out the subtle difficulties they see in Scripture, but I hope this series of posts has at least shown that they should not buy into Ray Moose’s disastrous theorem.
The Moose solution is to take all authority away from Scripture. To say that Scripture is authoritative in a given place, we have to have our list of “matters of faith”, but Scripture itself cannot tell us what to put on that list. It has no real authority, ultimately. And that is not what this last, good group of scholars wants.
Please, gang—I know I haven’t offered a fix for all your problems, but I beg you, for the sake of everything you are really trying to achieve:
IGNORE RAY MOOSE!
2 comments:
Um....I think Ray has been breeding.
Somewhere there is female Moose, for I have been meeting ALOT of other Moose on the internet, and at work, and at Church, and at.... ok, where ever humans congregate....
How true this is! So often well-meaning Catholics separate faith from reason and "scientific truth" from Scripture.
Just yesterday I heard a radio show on Ave Maria radio with an interview of a scientist who converted to the Catholic Faith from modernistic athiesm through C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity". For a long time his responses and ideas were right on the money, and I was thoroughly enjoying the interview, until he uttered an all-too common, fatal phrase, "But science and reason can't tell us anything about the soul at all. Faith is the only thing which can give us any knowledge of that."
De Anima, anyone?
I'm thoroughly enjoying this blog, my good sir.
-Miss H.
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