Answering Freeman

His essay is long, I am nibbling. It's title says, here:

The Contradictions of Scripture
June 29, 2016 · Fr. Stephen Freeman
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2016/06/29/the-contradictions-of-scripture/

But so far, I haven't seen it deal with a single real or supposed either contradiction or even paradox.

// Alexander Campbell, one of the founders of the Protestant Restoration Movement, is said to have carried a Bible and the writings of John Locke. The “common sense” of Scottish rationalism has deeply affected the popular treatment of the Scriptures in the contemporary world. //

I already suspected that John Locke was "Father of the Fundies", here it is historically confirmed. Except, if Alexander Cambell was their father, arguably Locke was their grandpa.

Hence the type of philosophical and scientific ideal which discards angelic movers. Even before someone suggests them.

// There seems to be a general sense that the New Testament, however it arrived at its conclusions, is now the rational guide for reading the Old Testament. The Apostolic Church wrote by a miracle and we read with our reason. There is a rational paradigm that has risen in this context. It is rooted in the notion of the “authority” of Scripture (and its infallibility). How do I know that Christ is the truth? Because it’s in the Bible. How do I know that the Bible is true? Well, it says so in this verse here. That circular reasoning is actually as nonsensical as it sounds. //

In the Fundie circles I look out at or even debate with, it is also as strawmanly as one can suppose.

I saw a non-believer bring this up as a strawman against Christians, and I challenged him. He did not back it up. I was supported by a probably Evangelical Christian (unless he was Orthodox and discreet) and here is the dialogue:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Debate on Christianity and Evidence
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2019/02/debate-on-christianity-and-evidence.html

// This also creates an anxiety of reliability. //

Shrinkish psychoanalysis. Reminds of the kind of inaccurate biographies for which A. N. Wilson's on C. S. Lewis is an example, if we look at the errata list of Kathryn Lindskoog:

A. N. Wilson Errata
Kathryn Lindskoog (bef. 2000 on Into the Wardrobe – a C. S. Lewis website)
http://cslewis.drzeus.net/papers/wilson-errata/

This was noticed by someone having to deal with A. N. Wilson again:

A.N. Wilson’s C.S. Lewis: A Mythology
Posted on February 11, 2019 on A Pilgrim in Narnia
https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2019/02/11/a-n-wilsons-c-s-lewis-a-mythology/

Which, in turn, led to this debate:

HGL's F.B. writings : Comparing Inaccuracies : A. N. Wilson on CSL / Shrinks on Patients
https://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2019/02/comparing-inaccuracies-n-wilson-on-csl.html

TL;DR : I don't care for shrinkish psychoanalysis. Especially in the predictive form.

// Every questioning of historical accuracy, every example of internal contradiction is met with rational explanations of how the Scriptures must be true. //

Or how they can be true, and therefore, given qui loquutus est per prophetas also are so.

// Extreme examples are those who insist on “Young Earth Creationism,” //

Fine. Since I suppose Fr Freeman is of either Russian Orthodox jurisdiction or an OCA (Orthodox Church of America) close to it, this gives one clue on how Putin's henchmen may be interpreting "extremism" which in Russia seems to be an offense in itself, irrespective of acts. Unlike heresy in Spain (back in the times between Torquemada and 1820) not only is it irrespective of acts, but also irrespective of objective and verifiable criteria.

A Spanish Inquisitor went schismatic, impatient at all the guys he had to be releasing as unduly suspect ("no, I am not crypto-Judaising, I just like shrimps more than porc and I had already eaten a lot, that's why I said no thanks to the heavy chorizo plate yesterday" - "you are free").

So, after going impatient and schismatic, he goes to Russia, gets drunk on plenty of vodka and can be as happy as the day is long in modern Russia.

Crypto-Judaism is not forbidden, but "extremism" is! And anyone who has a loud voice can determine what it means, because the word has no meaning in itself.

// even suggesting that God created a universe that appeared old, but really isn’t. //

It so happens, this hypothesis is not very popular among Fundies, except those who actually only have heard the Uniformitarian, Deep Time, version of the evidence and what it reasonably looks like.

One can say "God created a universe that looks old to YOU even if it isn't" though, precisely as one can say to a Daltonist, God created rose petals that look green to him or grass that looks red to him, whichever it be. Difference, Daltonism is sth you are born with, this "age blindness" to possibilities of an age being much younger than supposed is acquired and therefore often voluntary.

// In Orthodox circles, this same approach is defended by citing any treatment within a Church Father that supports a literalist understanding. //

Can you cite even one Church Father that supports dissing (not momentarily ignoring in order to seek another purpose, but dissing) the literal understanding as literal history?

It so happens, I haven't. Seen. A. Single. One.

I am not patristcially* illiterate, and I am aware of the "it sometimes happens" quote in St Augustine**, but it is not what you want. It suggests looking carefully at literal sense, not discarding it.

// I have seen Fr. Thomas Hopko, of blessed memory, decried as a heretic because he suggested that Adam may not be a historical figure! //

Well, he should be. C. S. Lewis was touting heresy when writing that chapter in The Problem of Pain. You know the one in which he says (if I recall correctly) "we aren't Fundamentalists" or "we are not Fundamentalists" and claims the modern world to have knowledge that Genesis 1 - 3 is not literally true.

This position has been condemned by the Catholic Church. Hope CSL left it before dying.

// There is some version of a “house of cards” in all of this. //

Here I'll give you a nice "house of cards" : this letter exists, because the computer where I sit exists and functions, the computer functions because electrons are going through certain types of wiring and circuits, the electrons are going through them because they are electrons that move when subjected to electronic charges. But if that isn't true, none of this is happening ... sorry, but in fact, I am seeing the computer screen and can conclude the letter exists even if there were no such things as electrons, electricity would simply be something else.

// If this isn’t literally true, if this isn’t utterly reliable on a rational level, then that may not be true, nor this, nor…until faith itself collapses. //

I would not try to build a faith or anything else on eschewing the question of literal truth where answers are available.

X claims to have seen an alien. One from Pleiades, so as to avoid the obviously demonic appearance of grey ones, leading conclusions in one single direction.

The nice Pleiadean alien - was it a demon, an angel, a fairy (and what are they, if so), a hallucination, or a lie by X?

We don't know. For a Grey One, as they are described, good angel from God can be excluded. For an honest X, lie by him can be excluded. If his body was healthy close after witnessing, hallucination should be excluded.

On certain grounds of perspective and speed, actual aliens from Pleiades are to be excluded. If these are close enough to be reachable, they are too small for life to evolve there (I'll be back to another alternative). If they are big enough for inhabited planets like ours, they are too far off for rockets to bring them with the speed required for them to survive.

If they are blessed souls from Heaven, or angels, well, then they would be God's choice, but if they speak heresy, and denying a real historic Adam is so, they are not from God. If they promote sin, they are also not from God. If an angel from Heaven ... [Galatians 1:8]

Now, any thing can be excluded if there is a rational reason to exclude it. This doesn't mean all certainty can be excluded. There cannot be fully rational reasons to exclude everything. Because something necessarily is true, even if it is only that I made this up as an example.

Similarily, certainty of faith cannot crumble to nothing, it can only change allegiance. To some this goes from Fundamentalist to Unbeliever. To some it goes from Unbeliever to Fundamentalist.

Supposing that the Fundamentalist who became an unbeliever actually was tricked by Fundamentalism, why does that also allow conversion to happen?

Your myth about the Fundie who became an Atheist (not saying that bare fact is always fictional, I know at least four examples on youtube) says sth which would predict Fundamentalism cannot work conversions.

I can only give you the story of my own, starting at age 9, from Evolution believer and otherwise agnostic about most not directly given.

A historical Adam cemented my conversion, just as scholastic distinctions between mind and matter did. It is obvious language does not arise from animal sounds. It is obvious that mind is not a byproduct of matter.

And it is also obvious, if Jesus Christ was God, as He was, is, and ever shall be, He knew what He was talking about.

You know, rationality, unlike a certain school of rationalism, doesn't start with John Locke.

// In the Greek, it does not say “He opened their understanding.” Rather, it says, “He opened their nous.” The Scriptures are noetically understood. The nous and the heart are synonymous in many of the Fathers. It is by no means a synonym for discursive reason. //

Understanding is not per se discursive. In man, it is often reached discursively, but discursivity is not its essence, it's a byproduct. Freeman plays fast and loose with the kind of "bad Pleiadean message" that too often attacks St Thomas Aquinas as father of Luther, Locke, Holbach, Enlightenment philosophers and Revolutions.

Noetical does not rationally speaking mean irrationally. And Old Testament meaning MORE than its literal history, is sth quite other than Old Testament NOT meaning ALL it tells as history.

I suppose "noetic" is not in Nicene Creed, but "qui loquutus est per prophetas" is, whether it comes after "qui ex patre" or after "qui ex patre filioque procedit". Men were not ignorant of the category rational or the category actually true just because they were living before Locke, and the Holy Ghost was not lying to them that seeked*** that.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Georgia of Clermont
15.II.2019

* Patristically. ** I meant the quote:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics;

There are many other quotes involving "it sometimes happens", not this one, and it does NOT recommend discarding literalism, see here in extenso.

That page has another quote giving a good example of what St Augustine meant, and here I have quoted it, with comment:

Creation vs. Evolution : Was St Augustine against Literalism?
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2013/10/was-st-augustine-against-literalism.html

*** Sought, I was forced to leave a place where I could otherwise have fallen asleep reasonably soon, and this after eating too much the evening, bc I was offered prepared meals after already starting a meal. I think I need another coffee, and could do with some eating again ... a bit lighter.