But evolution is turning out. IF the Darwinists are right,you got your grandma the lemur and she gets zapped with cosmic rays, and then Paw gets too close to something he should have stayed away from, and, blammo, a NEW thing evolves, the human you! (I don't care WHAT they say about you....)
So when I hear somebody talking about dogma "evolving" I slam on the brakes.
I wouldn't say the Obama-loving, baby-aborting, contracepting, women-ordaining (as IF), homosexual-act-approving Catholic aren't Catholics. They're just really bad Catholics, worse even than I! And they're the ones that talk about "evolving." Literally. I confronted someone who was preparing for confirmation because she was on Facebook supporting "gay marriage." Before I got far at all she went off in an eight-cylinder huff yapping about how she thought the Church was more "evolved."
Gag me.
Oh my yes I remember the wheat and weeds, Therefore I pray that I "wholesome grain and pure may be," and I tolerate a lot because I am waiting for the Lord of the harvest to give the command.
(Sorry to be so scatter-fire. I'm working down your post.) I read the notes in the NAB and consider them thoughtfully. I owe the bishops that much obedience and docility. But I don't take them (or too much of "the assured results of modern scientific criticism") as fixed truths.
True, but what standard shall we use in deciding which change is acceptable?
Well, I do want to catch my breath a little over reaching agreement that not all change is bad before I go trying to say how I evaluate stuff.
I think this is related to what "the fathers" mean to us. I see them making the rough cuts in doctrine, while later writers try to refine and organize and systematize. And it interests me that while some of what is written early on is very "technical," a lot is more poetic -- in the way that the writings of John are poetic, though not to the same mind-bogglingly lovely degree.
Oh darn, suddenly I'm tired. I'll think about this and try to say something coherent tomorrow PM. Thanks for sticking with the conversation.
Then how are we to evaluate their reasonings and conclusions? Were these men inspired with holy spirit as Peter was when he wrote? They don't claim so.
Were they free from error, somehow always led by holy spirit when they wrote? Acts 20:29,30, Paul warns that wolves would arise from those Christians and speak perverted things to draw disciples after themselves.
Just as he had warned the Thessalonians (2 Thess. 2:7) that the apostasy was already at work.
That a writer lived close to the time of the apostles or claimed to be a disciple of an apostle cannot be given mush weight. Even Judas could fit that description.
So just what do “the fathers” mean to us? and to what standard to measure their writing against?