Are Some Catholics Being Taught That Young Earth Creationism Involves the Heresy "Sola Scriptura"

French Catholics Usually NOT Young Earth Creationist - Why? · Are Normal French People Allowed to Look? · To French Fans of San Antonio · Are Some Catholics Being Taught That Young Earth Creationism Involves the Heresy "Sola Scriptura" [?] · Dear Dr. Sarfati, what does Scripture and Tradition Actually Mean?

As a Catholic, and as a former Lutheran, prior to that as a child independent and unbaptised believer in Christianity, I am no fan of the five solas.

And obviously, some Protestant organisations of Creation apologetics have tacked the question on to the first of the five solas, the sola Scriptura.

But this does not mean, Protestant "sola Scriptura" involved in Creationism adequately equals the Protestant Heresy "sola Scriptura" as condemned by the Council of Trent.

The thing is, when a Protestant affirms "sola Scriptura" only parts of what he affirms is what the Council of Trent condemned.

The Protestant affirms:

• The Bible is God's word. It cannot involve any error, at least not in the original autographs, arguably not even in all the now remaining text versions.*
• The Bible is usually clear.

We agree.

They also add:

• Nothing BUT the Bible text remains of Christ's teaching ... unless it can be confirmed fairly directly from the Bible.
• Therefore no line of tradition, and no lineage of magisterial authority can have any similar authority as the Bible, anything that purports to this needs to be carefully tested by the Bible and rejected if it doesn't fits.
• Where the Bible is not immediately clear it usually - as it would need as per previous - involves clues for those really learned people who pursue the question, and when not, we are not meant to understand, and no tradition or magisterium can foist an understanding on us, they cannot oblige as the Bible can oblige.

This is the part that we condemn. Instead we affirm:

• The Bible tells us, Christ founded a Church with a well organised hierarchy and magisterium. It is also through this Church we have access to the Bible.
• He promised to remain with His Church to Doomsday, specifically as She fulfils the Great Commission.
• The things said over the centuries, repeated again and again, by the Church, constitute a Tradition from the Apostles to which we are bound.
• This remains binding even when the Bible text as such would be unclear or open to two or three different interpretations.
• It also remains binding for the very few things that are not directly found in the Bible - like Sunday worship, sign of the Cross, words of absolution, images being licit in the New Covenant, Christ and Mary providing first examples (Shroud of Turin, Icon by St. Luke)

This is how I understand the condemnation, now let's check if the wording of the council of Trent matches my understanding.

The most pertinent part of Second Decree of Session IV is:

Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,--in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, --wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,--whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,--hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established.

Session IV, CONCERNING THE EDITION AND USE OF THE SACRED BOOKS, SECOND DECREE
Celebrated on the eighth day of the month of April, in the year 1546.
http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch4.htm

Is there anywhere that says that it is wrong to say "the Bible is usually clear"?

Not even "relying on his own skill" or "to his own senses" since an added condition for condemning the action is, when the interpretation conflicts with that of the Church. And the action is qualified as "wresting" ... not the same thing as a natural reading. There are indeed Protestant traditions of men, notably denial of the Holy Mass, where "wresting" is the right verb, and the natural sense of the Scripture does not warrant the interpretation of any Protestant where it conflicts with this or other Catholic dogmas.

But nevertheless, some seem to have concluded that saying "Genesis 5 and 11 are no-brainers, the first man was created 2000 to 3000 years prior to the birth of Abraham, depending on text" falls under the heading "relying on his own skill" since II Peter 3:15, f. reads:

And account the longsuffering of our Lord, salvation; as also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you: As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.

So, if St. Paul was somewhat hard to understand in Romans 3 and Tyndale wrested it to his own destruction** (unless he repented in the earthly flames, before arriving to eternal ones), does that mean Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 have to be unclear as well? No, of course not. Biblical history may contain a few snags, but not as many as that.

After all, a manual of Biblical history, the Historia Scholastica, was translated into popular languages, both French and Flemish, and was diffused among the people. By the Catholic Church. The tradition from back then, the magisterium from back then clearly thought that Biblical history was an edification and not a trap for the unlearned.

Cardinal St. Robert Bellarmine not only thought the miracle in Joshua 10 happened, but also that the Biblical description of it was a valid key to cosmology. Dr. Robert Sungenis has gone over those aspects of the process of Galileo, so St. Robert having or at least claiming to have Biblical support is not doubtful. It is also not doubtful that Galileo at times had expressed the theory that the Bible is only inerrant where it touches on salvation, not where it touches on science - a theory not exactly that of Fundies, and part of what he was suspected of, though neither process seems to have taken up his correspondence with Christine, Duchess of Lorraine, where he expressed that.

So, no, being a Fundie about Biblical history is simply not what the Council of Trent intended to condemn or worded the condemnation as extending to.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Octave of Epiphany
13.I.2022

* There are two views on Emmaus that are possible : it really was sixty furlongs or stades (12 km) but was rebuilt around the tombs of Cleophas and the other disciple at a distance of hundred sixty furlongs (32 km), or, the correct text of Luke 24:13 is in fact "hundred sixty furlongs" or "stades" as one extant Syriac manuscript has. Amwaz is 32 km from Jerusalem. As you walk, you walk c. 5 km / h, and this means 12 km would take a bit more than two hours and 32 km a bit more than 6 hours at that pace.

** Latomus did not just sentence Tyndale to the stake, he also debated him fairly thoroughly previous to that:

Jacob Latomus His Three Books of Confutations Against William Tyndale
|On Web archive, page taken down by Tyndale Society, which still exists|
https://web.archive.org/web/20080517104730/http://www.tyndale.org/Reformation/1/latomus1.html