Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
We hope you enjoy your visit!
You're currently viewing Catholic CyberForum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our online cyberparish, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.
Join our community!
Messages posted to this board must be polite and free of abuse, personal attacks, blasphemy, racism, threats, harrassment, and crude or sexually-explicit language.
If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
The Battle of Milvian Bridge
Topic Started: Sunday, 28. October 2012, 11:34 (271 Views)
Josephine
Member Avatar

I think it is not so much God's will, as humankind's interpretation of it.

We are limited in our understanding .....and flawed.


God is none of these.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Rose of York
Member Avatar
Administrator
I think people in the Old Testament viewed a proposed slaughter of invaders, including their wives and children, as the moral thing to do. Because they thought it was right they imagined it was what God wanted and the thought had been put into yheir leaders' minds by God.

If we who live in the third millenium, now that there is population shift between continents, had the same attitude, we would say "the people who worship false Gods have occupied our temples (former chapels and churches). God tells us to slaughter their men, women and children. They might say "our God directed us to come here. These people worship a false God. They eat unclean food. Their attitude towards women is at variance with the laws of our God. He has spoken to us. The genocide must now commence."

To sum up, people THOUGHT God had told them to destroy whole races and tribes. I do not understand whether we are expected to accept as literal truth what it written in some parts of the Old Testament. Even after the Ten Commandments had been given, they made exceptions to Thou Shalt not Kill. Did they think they must not kill their own people, the chosen ones, but they could kill outsiders?
Keep the Faith!

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Gerard

OsullivanB
Monday, 29. October 2012, 09:45
human behaviour which we now see as appalling, and, as is clear from the OT itself, was thought so by at least some at the time.
And therein lies one of the keys.

I know one Bible scholar who teaches that the Bible has an inbuilt "lie detector test". This is a bit of humour with a serious point. And you have identified the "lie detector".

One of the phrases I hear again and again at the Catholic Bible School is that a passage needs to be read in the context of the whole Bible. So these attrocities are sandwiched between condemnations of killing in the Pentateuch and in the New testament.

Catholic teaching is that understanding of the nature of God is revealed/understood progressively through the Bible with its culmination in Jesus and the Law of love. That God revealed himself through human authors with their limited understanding and, as their understanding grew, so God could reveal more of His nature.

You find all this in Dei Verbum. But I admit it is buried in academic language. It is a bit clearer in "The Gift of Scripture". A teaching document from the Bishops of England and Wales.

http://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Resources/Scripture/index.shtml

The whole document is here:

http://www.cbcew.org.uk/document.doc?id=41

And I would recomend this short and simple book, "Alive and Active" by Fr Adrian Graffy (who largely wrote the Bishops' document)

Aliuve and Active

I do not have the book immediately to hand but when dealing with "the Ban" Fr Graffy says this (or something essentially the same)

"this was clearly a concept of God that needed correcting later"

I have the book by Charpentier but I didnt find it useful until after I had grasped this sort of thinking.

Gerry


Edited by Gerard, Monday, 29. October 2012, 15:56.
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
CARLO
Member Avatar

I am on the road so have no sources to hand but I do recall reading that some of the behaviour of the recently ordained priests sent to Britain from overseas during times of persecution was so reckless that it can only be indicative of a yearning for martyrdom.

Pax

CARLO

:betterLatin:
Judica me Deus
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Derekap
Member Avatar

But they made themselves unavailable to travel around and encourage Catholics covertly!
Derekap
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
CARLO
Member Avatar

Derekap
Monday, 29. October 2012, 22:20
But they made themselves unavailable to travel around and encourage Catholics covertly!
I think you mean 'available' and not 'unavailable' Derek, but yes I agree.

Some were a little less covert than others though and were captured and martyred very soon after arriving in Britain.

Pax

CARLO

:betterLatin:
Judica me Deus
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · General Catholic Discussion · Next Topic »
Add Reply