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Author Topic: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?  (Read 47218 times)

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Offline Jaynek

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Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
« Reply #150 on: November 29, 2017, 08:20:56 PM »
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  • Even the Google translator shows St Thomas isn't saying earth was round but that people believed it was round. But besides that, I've provided many quotes yet you have not responded. I explained a lot of things, but you never addressed any of them with so much as a why or how. Then you send me this passing reference that doesn't apply. What do you have against flat earth? How can you learn what the Church is teaching of your so dead set against it? Shouldn't you delve a little deeper before making up your mind?
    Google translate produces something incomprehensible.  One cannot base any conclusions on it.

    Your quotes from the Early Church Fathers show that, as I have said, opinion among Catholics was split during that time.  Your quotes from Scripture show that you do not take a Catholic approach to Scripture.  Is there any reason for me to go through them one by one.

    What I have against flat earth is that it goes against what Catholics have believed for most of our history.  You are the one who needs to learn what the Church is teaching and is dead set against it.

    Offline happenby

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #151 on: November 29, 2017, 08:23:53 PM »
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  • I am not sure what better term to use to express that you believe in a flat earth and you are ignoring the Church teaching on Scripture.  In Providentissimus Deus Pope Leo XIII wrote:
    This encyclical is a magisterial teaching.  We do not get to ignore it because of something written by St. Thomas.  I have the greatest respect for him, but he does not replace the magisterial teaching that Scripture is not intended to teach matters of natural science.  You pay no attention at all to this teaching and write things like:
    Any Catholic who thinks that Scripture is a flat earth book must be unaware of the teaching in Providentissimus Deus.  Here is the link so you can read it and think about it: http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/docuмents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18111893_providentissimus-deus.html

    I see that you quoted Pius XII's Divino Afflante Spiritu to justify your literal interpretation of these passages.  You have badly misunderstood what was meant by his exhortation to "discern and define clearly that sense of the biblical words which is called literal."  It was written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Providentissimus Deus and reiterates the teaching about not using Scripture for natural science:
    I suggest that you read the entire encyclical since your misunderstanding may be due to lack of context: http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/docuмents/hf_p-xii_enc_30091943_divino-afflante-spiritu.html
    Scripture has ALREADY been interpreted by Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Ancients and they agree it is saying earth is flat.  As I said before, St. John Chrysostom, Bishop Severian, Lactanctius, Methodius, St. Jerome, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Methodius, Enoch, Moses and many great Fathers and Doctors of the Church have already not only weighed in, but detailed so much on the subject, yet you ignore the quotes I've provided only to say that my literal interpretation is the problem.  My interpretation is based on the greats that have written so beautifully on the subject.  Further, the Church has been clear about Copernicanism which She soundly condemned in 1633.    


    Offline Ladislaus

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #152 on: November 29, 2017, 08:24:09 PM »
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  • That's good.  But why do you believe it is a ball?  Scripture has descriptions of earth being flat, covered by a dome above earth, with water above the dome.  It describes earth as having pillars on which it is founded, never to be moved.  That earth has four corners.

    Could you please cite the Scripture that says the earth is flat?  As for the dome over the earth, that could be understood as the atmosphere, taken metaphorically, or else some (typically Protestant) scientists posit the existence of a water canopy above the atmosphere that, when it collapsed, led to the Great Flood.  With regard to the "four corners", does this mean your vision of Flat Earth is rectangular (vs. round)?

    So far, as I understand it, the math of planetary movement, the movement of the sun and moon, and the change of seasons makes more sense as a sphere vs. flat.  But I'm still studying.


    Offline Ladislaus

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #153 on: November 29, 2017, 08:27:01 PM »
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  • What in scripture suggests earth is a ball, let alone moving?

    When did I say that I believed the earth was moving?  Even then, if Scripture says that the "sun moved", well, movement is a relative term.  So, indeed, from our perspective, the sun moved.  Movement is relative to a specific frame of reference.

    Offline Ladislaus

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #154 on: November 29, 2017, 08:32:13 PM »
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  • There are no scientific errors in Scripture.  Nevertheless, as I just mentioned with movement, words and phrases need to be understood properly and other words and phrases could be used metaphorically for lack of a precise scientific vocabulary.  Even in the New Testament you start to see certain common words (such as "presbyter") become technical theological words.  Same thing in the Old Testament, and it's certain that some common words were used in lieu of scientific concepts.  So you have to be very careful in what you mean by "literal" interpretation of Scripture.


    Offline Jaynek

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #155 on: November 29, 2017, 08:33:19 PM »
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  • Scripture has ALREADY been interpreted by Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Ancients and they agree it is saying earth is flat.  As I said before, St. John Chrysostom, Bishop Severian, Lactanctius, Methodius, St. Jerome, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Methodius, Enoch, Moses and many great Fathers and Doctors of the Church have already not only weighed in, but detailed so much on the subject, yet you ignore the quotes I've provided only to say that my literal interpretation is the problem.  My interpretation is based on the greats that have written so beautifully on the subject.  Further, the Church has been clear about Copernicanism which She soundly condemned in 1633.    
    No they do not agree.  You have created an illusion of agreement by cherry picking quotes. It was at first a matter under debate and then, after the first few centuries, virtually all Catholics accepted that the earth is spherical.  This is a tradition that is more than a thousand years old.

    Your literal interpretation is directly opposed to two papal encyclicals on how to understand Scripture, no matter who you think you are getting it from.

    Offline Jaynek

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #156 on: November 29, 2017, 08:34:49 PM »
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  • There are no scientific errors in Scripture.  Nevertheless, as I just mentioned with movement, words and phrases need to be understood properly and other words and phrases could be used metaphorically for lack of a precise scientific vocabulary.  Even in the New Testament you start to see certain common words (such as "presbyter") become technical theological words.  Same thing in the Old Testament, and it's certain that some common words were used in lieu of scientific concepts.  So you have to be very careful in what you mean by "literal" interpretation of Scripture.
    See!  This is how a Catholic understands Scripture, following the magisterial teaching on the subject.

    Offline happenby

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #157 on: November 29, 2017, 08:36:51 PM »
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  • Google translate produces something incomprehensible.  One cannot base any conclusions on it.

    Your quotes from the Early Church Fathers show that, as I have said, opinion among Catholics was split during that time.  Your quotes from Scripture show that you do not take a Catholic approach to Scripture.  Is there any reason for me to go through them one by one.

    What I have against flat earth is that it goes against what Catholics have believed for most of our history.  You are the one who needs to learn what the Church is teaching and is dead set against it.
    Opinions of some Catholics might have been split, but the teachings of the ancient Catholic authorities were not split.  There are exactly zero teachings on the ball earth from any ancient Catholic authority.  Literally zero teachings or explanations about a ball earth. Conversely, there are plenty of teachings from them regarding flat earth.  It has always been against Church teaching to believe there are anti-podes, people walking around on the opposite side of the earth.  The Church (based on the book of Ezekiel) also teaches that Jerusalem is in the middle of the earth. St. Jerome, the greatest authority of the early Church upon the Bible, declared, on the strength of this utterance of the prophet, that Jerusalem could be nowhere but at the earth's center; in the ninth century Archbishop Rabanus Maurus reiterated the same argument; in the eleventh century Hugh of St. Victor gave to the doctrine another scriptural demonstration; and Poe Urban, in his great sermon at Clermont urging the Franks to the crusade, declared, "Jerusalem is the middle point of the earth"; in the thirteenth century and ecclesiastical writer much in vogue, the monk Caesarious of Heisterbach declared, "As the heart in the midst of the body, so is Jerusalem situated in the midst of our in habited earth,--so it was that Christ was crucified at the center of the earth."  Dante accepted this view of Jerusalem as a certainty, wedding it to immortal verse: and in the pious book of ascribed to Sir John Mandeville, so widely read in the Middle Ages, it is declared that Jerusalem is at the center of the world, and that a spear standing erect at the Holy Sepulchre casts no shadow at the equinox.

    As you can see, they were not split.  Only those who refused to believe Church teaching split.   


    Offline happenby

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #158 on: November 29, 2017, 08:38:11 PM »
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  • Could you please cite the Scripture that says the earth is flat?  As for the dome over the earth, that could be understood as the atmosphere, taken metaphorically, or else some (typically Protestant) scientists posit the existence of a water canopy above the atmosphere that, when it collapsed, led to the Great Flood.  With regard to the "four corners", does this mean your vision of Flat Earth is rectangular (vs. round)?

    So far, as I understand it, the math of planetary movement, the movement of the sun and moon, and the change of seasons makes more sense as a sphere vs. flat.  But I'm still studying.
    There is no passage that says earth is flat.  But neither are there passages that say Mary was conceived Immaculate.  That doesn't mean it isn't there.

    Offline happenby

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #159 on: November 29, 2017, 09:07:21 PM »
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  • Could you please cite the Scripture that says the earth is flat?  As for the dome over the earth, that could be understood as the atmosphere, taken metaphorically, or else some (typically Protestant) scientists posit the existence of a water canopy above the atmosphere that, when it collapsed, led to the Great Flood.  With regard to the "four corners", does this mean your vision of Flat Earth is rectangular (vs. round)?

    So far, as I understand it, the math of planetary movement, the movement of the sun and moon, and the change of seasons makes more sense as a sphere vs. flat.  But I'm still studying.
    It is unlikely that the Genesis passage could be understood metaphorically.  It reads:
    And God said: Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters: and let it divide the waters from the waters.
    And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament, and it was so.
    And God called the firmament, Heaven; and the evening and morning were the second day.

    Also:

    14 And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years:
    15 To shine in the firmament of heaven, and to give light upon the earth. And it was so done.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    God separated water under the firmament from water above the firmament, and called it heaven.  The saints actually expound on this at great length. But for one short citation, St. Cyril of Jerusalem followed Basil’s teaching and was a flat earther, using quotes from the Bible portraying earth with firmament floating on water using Gen. i. 6.  He wrote in his Catechetical Lectures: Lecture IX: “Him who reared the sky as a dome, who out of the fluid nature of the waters formed the stable substance of the heaven. For God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water. God spake once for all, and it stands fast, and falls not.

    Severian Bishop of Gabala taught the same thing Cosmas did regarding the earth.  Earth is seen by them as a "tabernacle", a house, or a Church. (So in answer to your question, it seems to me, that it probably is somewhat rectangle overall, with a circle of land circuмscribed within it as scripture says; it has a dome, pillars, a foundation, and appears that it may look something like a Cathedral.) 

    Bishop Severian says
    He made the upper heavens about which David sang: "The heaven of the heavens is the Lord's."6 This heaven forms in a certain way the upper stage of the firmament. As in any two-story house, there is an intermediate stage; well in this building which is the world, the Creator has prepared the sky as an intermediate level, and he has put it over the waters; from where this passage of David: "It is you who covered with water its upper part.“

    Cosmas is a little clearer:

    Moses, likewise, in describing the table in the Tabernacle, which is an image of the earth, ordered its length to be of two cubits, and its breadth of one cubit. So then in the same way as Isaiah spoke, so do we also speak of the figure of the first heaven made on the first day, made along with the earth, and comprising along with the earth the universe, and say that its figure is vaultlike… and God [130] having then stretched it out extended it throughout the whole space in the direction of its breadth, like an intermediate roof, and bound together the firmament with the highest heaven, separating and disparting the remainder of the waters, leaving some above the firmament, and others on the earth below the firmament, as the divine Moses explains to us, and so makes the one area or house two houses----an upper and a lower story.


    One more thing:  God put sun, moon and stars "in" the firmament.  How can the sun, a million miles in diameter, 93,000,000 miles away, sit "in" the firmament? Under the dome? Above which, is water?



    Offline RoughAshlar

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #160 on: November 29, 2017, 09:45:10 PM »
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  • It is unlikely that the Genesis passage could be understood metaphorically.
    Footnote from the Douay Rheims:

    [6] "A firmament": By this name is here understood the whole space between the earth, and the highest stars. The lower part of which divideth the waters that are upon the earth, from those that are above in the clouds.


    Offline happenby

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #161 on: November 29, 2017, 09:56:49 PM »
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  • No they do not agree.  You have created an illusion of agreement by cherry picking quotes. It was at first a matter under debate and then, after the first few centuries, virtually all Catholics accepted that the earth is spherical.  This is a tradition that is more than a thousand years old.

    Your literal interpretation is directly opposed to two papal encyclicals on how to understand Scripture, no matter who you think you are getting it from.
    Prove Catholic authorities accepted earth was spherical. The laity too. Not that they count.

    Offline happenby

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #162 on: November 29, 2017, 10:02:56 PM »
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  • Footnote from the Douay Rheims:

    [6] "A firmament": By this name is here understood the whole space between the earth, and the highest stars. The lower part of which divideth the waters that are upon the earth, from those that are above in the clouds.
    Yes, the footnotes agree yet do not fully explain that the firmament is the hard glass like divider that separates the water above from the water below

    Offline happenby

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #163 on: November 29, 2017, 11:04:35 PM »
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  • When did I say that I believed the earth was moving?  Even then, if Scripture says that the "sun moved", well, movement is a relative term.  So, indeed, from our perspective, the sun moved.  Movement is relative to a specific frame of reference.
    You didn't say the earth was moving.  I added it because it is part of the heliocentric model.  As far as the sun moving being relative, you make my case about relativity.  You're saying: either it does, or it doesn't, or it kind of does, but we're not sure, everything's relative, frame of reference, etc. You're not being precise but relative, so there is no answer.  Does the sun move or not?  Either it does or it doesn't, despite frame of reference or any other convoluted nonsense pagan science has forced us to imbibe.  Thankfully, we can be sure the sun moves because the Church has spoken through the Holy Office in 1633:
    The proposition that the Sun is the centre of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture.

     
    The proposition that the Earth is not the centre of the world and immovable but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically and theologically considered at least erroneous in faith.

    Offline happenby

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    Re: Did Catholics before the "Reformation" believe in FE?
    « Reply #164 on: November 29, 2017, 11:12:05 PM »
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  • There are no scientific errors in Scripture.  Nevertheless, as I just mentioned with movement, words and phrases need to be understood properly and other words and phrases could be used metaphorically for lack of a precise scientific vocabulary.  Even in the New Testament you start to see certain common words (such as "presbyter") become technical theological words.  Same thing in the Old Testament, and it's certain that some common words were used in lieu of scientific concepts.  So you have to be very careful in what you mean by "literal" interpretation of Scripture.
    I agree.  I am always careful with scripture.  As I've stated before, the Popes, Fathers and saints precede me in force regarding this matter.  But further, it is isn't really possible to correctly interpret scripture contrary to the literal interpretation. While its heights soar beyond all human understanding,  it does not contradict itself, nor is it absurdly contrary, which is what it would be if its descriptions of earth were superimposed on a ball.