The Ark was Not a Portal from Narnia, Mike Russell!

I saw Mark Harwood's response to your book's review by Akos Balogh. It was apparently double posted both to CMI and to The Daily Declaration. On the latter site, I saw Akos Balogh's review, and I think this review confirmed what I suspected when reading Mr. Harwood. You have posited that God created mankind in two separate worlds, and that the world of Genesis 1 to 9 is a different one from ours. In Genesis 6 to 9, the other world is destroyed and somehow Noah is even so watching waters recede around the mountains of Ararat (or Urartu or geographical Armenia) in our world.

There are three destructions of the world. The Flood. The Death of God on Calvary. The one schedualled for Apocalypse 21:1. If you want, the fall itself was also a destruction of the world, or perhaps it wasn't, because the destructions are meant to clean up, and the Fall absolutely didn't do that.

When people on Good Friday want to bed that night, they went to bed in a world that was destroyed. When they woke up two mornings later on Easter Sunday, they woke up in a new world. But this doesn't mean that they went through a portal, like the Wardrobe or the painting featuring the Dawn Treader or the door in the wall around Experiment House. It means that the outermost and therefore most surrounding and englobing layer of our space time, the Empyrean Heaven, changed constitution. A different Heaven looks down on us, one in which the pearly gates are opened to human souls and to glorified resurrected human flesh, which was not the case in the Old Covenant. Henoch and Elijah are certainly in some Heaven to which Earthly Paradise was transferred, but not in the throne room of God. They will only get there when they have been martyred in Apocalypse 11. Ezechiel saw this throne room, not by getting displaced there, but in a vision. In a tele-vision, arranged by good angels, just as much as Our Lord saw far off kingdoms in one arranged by Satan.

For the Flood and for the upcoming change in Apocalypse 21:1, there is also a change in quality of earth. In the Flood, Earthly Paradise was taken up into some kind of Heaven, below the Empyrean one. Earth got higher mountains and deeper deep sea trenches like the Mariana Trench. This will be reversed in Apocalypse 21:1. One of the better Lutherans of my country, far removed from the Deformers, though not a Catholic, Franzén, wrote a hymn for Advent season, in which he alludes to Isaiah 40, to these verses:

The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain
[Isaias (Isaiah) 40:3-4]

The exaltation of valleys and lowering of mountains was metaphorical in the first coming. It refers to minds. The humble were going to dare to approach God and the highly placed were going to be shown they needed to, as Our Lady stated in Luke 1:52. But in Apocalypse 21:1, the Mariana Trench will be exalted and dried (the sea was no more), and the Himalaya's will not be much higher than Newport Beach in California.

So, we are not dealing with portals, precisely as I Corinthians 15 is not speaking of metempsychosis, a removal of the soul from a material body and its placing in a different one, but of the change in quality that the material body will experience, if that of a person finally saved and glorified, when the tombs give up their dead. By the way "the crack of doom" doesn't mean tombs "cracking" open, but the noise that makes or that the trump of doom makes. The term "crack" is cognate with the German Krach, noise. Just as Irish-English and Irish Gaelic from English "craic" refers to the noise of festivity.

But to get to smaller matters than the doctrinal ones, how do you figure Tower of Babel in "our world" (on your view a very old one, with carbon 14 in the atmosphere presumably already close to 100 pmC) at a real date of 2370 BC? Here is a list of events that by carbon dating and similar have been dated to 24th C. BC, I'm excluding the last one, since Korean "mythology" is arguably more like into real dates than into carbon dates:

• c. 2900 BC–2334 BC: Mesopotamian wars of the Early Dynastic period continue.
• c. 2400 BC–2000 BC: large painted jar with birds in the border made in the Indus River Valley civilization and is now at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• 2400 BC–There is archaeological evidence that the site of Assur was occupied at around this time.
• c. 2360 BC: Hekla-4 eruption.
• c. 2350 BC: The 2350 BC Middle East Anomaly (apparent comet or asteroid impact) happened.
• c. 2350 BC: End of the Early Dynastic III period in Mesopotamia.
• c. 2350 BC: Lugal-Zage-Si of Umma conqueres Gu-Edin and unites Sumer as a single kingdom.
• c. 2350 BC: First destruction of the city of Mari.
• c. 2345 BC: End of Fifth Dynasty. Pharaoh Unas died.
• c. 2345 BC: Sixth Dynasty of Egypt starts (other date is 2460 BC).
• c. 2340 BC–2180 BC: Akkadian Empire.
• c. 2334 BC–2279 BC: Semitic chieftain Sargon of Akkad's conquest of Sumer and Mesopotamia.

These, mostly carbon dated, events need to be after Babel, since they show the earth was already divided into different languages and cultures. Take a look at this* Korean Neolithic pot:

As it is carbon dated to 3500 BC (misspelled BCE in the attribution details), this is from a time, in our world, when the atmosphere was such and which was so far back in time, that taken together, this today yields a carbon age of 5500 years or in other words, we today observe a level of 51.411 pmC.

As it is in a culture different from other cultures at the same time, it is post-Babel.

On my recalibration of carbon 14, this is not a problem. In a cave near En Geddi, Israeli archaeologists have found treasures dated (through the reed mats) to 3500 BC, and this fits the Biblical narrative of Genesis 14. However, if this happened 3900 years ago, and if the original carbon 14 level was 100 pmC, we'd find a level of 62.389 pmC in the samples, which clearly we don't.

However, if carbon 14 was low back then so as to account for 1565 extra years, the original content in the sample and therefore in the back then atmosphere (all over earth, presumably) would have been 82.753 pmC. Now watch this:

82.753 pmC * 62.389 % of original content / 100 (since % is counted twice) = 51.629 pmC left in the sample today.

This is close enough to the 51.411 pmC or around that acually found.

But if the atmosphere in our world was 4.5 billion years old, there is no way that the carbon level 3900 years ago would have been as low as 82.753 pmC all over the atmosphere.

I've already written elsewhere on the impossibility of Evolutionary origins of Man, for instance as to Human language.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Leonhard of Limouges
6.XI.2024

Lemovicis, in Aquitania, sancti Leonardi Confessoris, qui fuit beati Remigii Episcopi discipulus. Hic, nobili genere ortus, solitariam vitam delegit, et sanctitate ac miraculis claruit; ejusque virtus praecipue in liberandis captivis enituit.

The article by Balogh:

Does the Bible Speak of Two Worlds? A Fascinating Rethink of Genesis
Akos Balogh | 23 October 2024 | BIBLICAL | The Daily Declaration
https://dailydeclaration.org.au/2024/10/23/two-worlds-genesis/

* A Korean Neolithic pot found in Busan, 3500 BCE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_art#/media/File:Korea-Neolithic.age-Pot-01.jpg

Good friend100 at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons. Korean neolithic pot, found in Busan. Taken from the Korea National Museum.

Public Domain File:Korea-Neolithic.age-Pot-01.jpg Created: 21 July 2007 Uploaded: 12 December 2007

What About Providentissimus Deus?

Creation vs. Evolution: Dishonesty at St Nicolas du Chardonnet? · What About Providentissimus Deus? · HGL's F.B. writings: Treason of the SSPX? I Think So.

What can we really gather from the following paragraph or* semi-paragraph ?

There can never, indeed, be any real discrepancy between the theologian and the physicist, as long as each confines himself within his own lines, and both are careful, as St. Augustine warns us, "not to make rash assertions, or to assert what is not known as known."(51) If dissension should arise between them, here is the rule also laid down by St. Augustine, for the theologian: "Whatever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so."(52) To understand how just is the rule here formulated we must remember, first, that the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost "Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation."(53) Hence they did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers-as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us - `went by what sensibly appeared,"(54) or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.

PROVIDENTISSIMUS DEUS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE
https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18111893_providentissimus-deus.html

This one is very clear and clearly** binding:

If dissension should arise between them, here is the rule also laid down by St. Augustine, for the theologian: "Whatever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so."

But what about this one? I'll mark two phrases, for further study.

we must remember, first, that the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost "Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation."

Let's recall the Latin here, same phrases marked, also for further study:

primum, scriptores sacros, seu verius « Spiritum Dei, qui per ipsos loquebatur, noluisse ista (videlicet intimam adspectabilium rerum constitutionem) docere homines, nulli saluti profutura (S. Aug., ib.***,II, 9, 20)

What is the Latin saying? It is not talking of "things of the visible universe" but of "things that can be seen" and it is not saying "essential nature" but "intimate constitution" and "intima" is superlative of "intus" meaning inside. One can without fault translate innermost. This will be important later on.

What exactly is St. Augustine and Pope Leo XIII saying?

Is he saying
a) the Holy Ghost did not want to give scientific information WHEN it was of no use at all to the salvation of souls, as is often the case?
b) the Holy Ghost did not want to give scientific information SINCE that is never of any use at all to the salvation of souls?

To begin with, saying matter is never of any use to the salvation of souls rings Gnostic to me. Or Manichaeic. But it will get worse.

Despite the English translation saying sth else, the thing usually not spoken of in the Holy Scriptures, since usually indeed useless for salvation, like division of firmaments into solid crystalline spheres° can be ignored and the Bible say "firmament", can be classified as inner or innermost constitution of any visible thing.

Position B is that this is NEVER of any use.

Well, if that is what Pope Leo XIII was saying, he just disqualified Trent Session XIII on Transsubstantiation. He's be far easier doing that than saying Geocentrism and Heliocentrism are useless for salvation. Because the relation of substance to accident, notably of substance of bread no longer there after consecration and accidents of bread connected to the substance of the Body of Christ by the transsubstantiation, the turning of the whole one substance into the other one, and the accidents first inbeing in the substance of bread and then so to speak subsisting in the dimensive quantity (the 3 cm of the Host) by divine omnipotence, that very definitely is about the inner (and unseen) constitution of the Host, which is a thing that can be seen.

Note, this is more immediately under the scope of his words than Geocentrism. A Geocentric doesn't typically say that the intimate constitution of the Sun forces it to go around the Earth each day from East to West or that the intimate constitution of the Sun forces it to go around the Zodiac each year from West to East. No, a Geocentric like St. Thomas is more likely to say that a force external to the Sun moves it West each day (I'd say that God is moving all of a firmament constituted of aether, which is the substance of locality as well as medium of electromagnetic waves), and a force external to the Sun moves it (at least comparative to the stars) East each year (I'd say an actual angel moves it East through the aether). This is no more a statement about the inner constiution of the Sun, than stating what letter or word I write is a statement about the inner constitution of the pen I use. So, if the innermost constitution of seen things is NEVER useful for salvation, Transsubstantiation would be less of a candidate for revelation than Geocentrism.

But Trent Session XIII is binding dogma. If this is what Pope Leo XIII did, he pronounced dogma as not revealed and as useless to salvation. He autodeposed himself.

We cannot do that, we must presume he was Pope, and so, this reading is ruled out. Therefore, the incorrect reading is:
b) "the Holy Ghost did not want to give scientific information SINCE that is never of any use at all to the salvation of souls" (false!)

So, the correct reading is,
a) the Holy Ghost did not want to give scientific information WHEN it was of no use at all to the salvation of souls, as is often the case!

But if the Holy Ghost could reveal (in Christ's use of the word "this", Matthew 26:26, as we know from St. Thomas) that the substance of bread is turned into the Body of Christ, while the accidents of bread are not turned into the accidents of the Body of Christ (notably, the Host of 3 cm doesn't suddenly get close to 1 m 80 cm), then there are cases and could be other cases when the intimate consitution of visible things is indeed salvific to have the right view about.

Why could Geocentrism, revealed in Joshua 10:12 not be one of them? Because Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus somehow defined the matter as outside the scope of Scripture? He didn't. An F-search on "Sun" gives " and she has strictly commanded that her children shall be fed with the saving words of the Gospel at least on Sundays and solemn feasts." Similarily an F-search on "Earth" gives "for it is impossible to attain to the profitable understanding thereof unless the arrogance of 'earthly' science be laid aside, and there be excited in the heart the holy desire for that wisdom 'which is from above.'" Each as sole hit.

Pope Leo XIII was probably by some episcopates (that would include the French) approached on this matter specifically. Instead he gave a more general answer.

If dissension should arise between them, here is the rule also laid down by St. Augustine, for the theologian: "Whatever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so."

As to the next sentence, it means "we don't always need to know scientific facts for our salvation" and that is up to the individual reader to decide. Obviously, a bishop could decide it for his flock, since an encyclical is primarily directed to bishops, but any bishop who ventured to pretend Heliocentrism could be true and useless for our salvation as well as Geocentrism also being so, even if it had been true, would be on a very slippery slope. Was he saying so because he thought the inner constitution of visible things never was useful for salvation? Well, as seen, that would involve heresy.

When will we all get our heads around that Leo XIII simply refused to directly adress the idea that Biblical expressions of Geocentrism are in apparent conflict with Science Institutional affirmations of Heliocentrism?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Sts. Zacharias and Elisabeth
5.XI.2024

Sancti Zachariae, Sacerdotis et Prophetae, qui pater exstitit beati Joannis Baptistae, Praecursoris Domini.

Item sanctae Elisabeth, ejusdem sanctissimi Praecursoris matris.

* In the English official translation, it is the latter part of § 18.
** Not because an encyclical is ipso facto infallible, it is authentic, however, it would be infallible if all and everyone among the bishops, including the Pope himself taught the same thing. And this principle has been authentic teaching since St. Augustine and furthermore upheld by both St. Thomas and Bishop Tempier against Averroism.
*** The previous reference is (S. Aug., De Gen. ad litt., I, 21, 41)
° Refuted by Tycho Brahe's observations of a comet. It passed through space at levels where solid spheres would have stopped it if they had existed.