Content deleted Content added
Editor2020 (talk | contribs) →The Modern Catholic Discussion: lower case |
Editor2020 (talk | contribs) →Before Vatican II: links |
||
Line 216:
For Catholics as for Protestants, the challenge to inerrancy became serious when the Bible began to come into conflict with science, first astronomy (heliocentrism), then geology (the age of the earth) and finally biology (the evolution of species). By the 19th century, some Catholic thinkers were suggesting the same solution as some Protestants: inerrancy in the Bible is restricted to matters of doctrine and morality. ([[Galileo]] had already said something similar in the early 17th century when, quoting Cardinal [[Caesar Baronius]], he had said: "The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.")
The reaction came from pope [[Leo XIII]] in his 1893 encyclical ''[[Providentissimus Deus]]'':<ref>https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18111893_providentissimus-deus.html</ref>
<blockquote>20. [...] It is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. For the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of these difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond, [...] cannot be tolerated. For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and [...] that inspiration [...] is essentially incompatible with error. [...] This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church.</blockquote>
Fifty years later (1943), pope [[Pius XII]] in ''[[Divino afflante Spiritu]]''<ref>https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_30091943_divino-afflante-spiritu.html</ref> agreed:
<blockquote>1. [...] When [...] some Catholic writers [...] ventured to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture solely to matters of faith and morals, and to regard other matters, whether in the domain of physical science or history, as "obiter dicta" and - as they contended - in no wise connected with faith, Our Predecessor of immortal memory, Leo XIII in the Encyclical Letter 'Providentissimus Deus' [...] justly and rightly condemned these errors.</blockquote>
But Pius XII did allow that not everything in the Bible need be understood literally, since the Bible contained different literary ''genres'': in addition to the narration of events, there was poetry and metaphor and imagery, none of which needed be interpreted literally.
=== The Teaching of Vatican II ===
| |||