I'm Reading the Catholic Encyclopedia


Over time, however, I came to wonder how the Catholic Church could put its name on institutions which make legitimate efforts to find scientific and philosophical truths, Notre-Dame University for example, but still make pronouncements that are clearly Medieval in origin and absurd today.

I read about the Noah Flood in the Catholic Encyclopedia and wrote about what I found in an earlier blog. The Catholic Encyclopedia has many pages about why the flood is a myth. Interspersed, however, are sentences like, "The Church's position is that the flood is a historical fact." Following that is more reasons why it is not a historical fact.

I began to wonder if that writing technique, stating the fact of the Church's position and also the facts as they are known in the secular sphere, was used elsewhere. I found that, yes, it is. Today I looked up "abortion" in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Sure enough, there is was again. In this case it was more carefully buried.

The discussion was about the Church's position that the soul enters the one cell at conception. For, though the opinion of Aristotle, or similar speculation, regarding the time when a rational soul is infused into the embryo, were practically accepted for many centuries, it has been held by the Church always (the soul enters at conception). Decoding this we would read, the Church claims it has always had the same position on the soul but it has not. It was a replay of the Noah essay.

There was no reason the writer(s) in the Catholic Encyclopedia had to mention Aristotle (C. 400 BCE). It could have just repeated the current Church's position. Perhaps someone said, "We can't be completely dishonest here, only a little."

In Aristotle's view there was no soul until a person or animal could think and move about by itself. The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us Aristotle's views were "accepted as the rational exposition of Christian dogma." That was the case until over a thousand years later, the Renaissance (1300-1600), when Aristotle was determined to be too humanistic.

Comments to this blog have told me, "The faith never changes." It does not change, until it does.

Comments

  1. tsmApril 28, 2020 at 7:07 PM

    as usual, you are in way over your head on this one. as to the Noah thing, one of your causae celebre. I think that we can be sure that the myth arose from some well remembered and highly anomalous geological and/or meteorological event(s). so both a reality and a myth. as to Aristotle (and Aquinas) they thought that a rational soul didn't enter into a fetus until about 40 days (or perhaps 90 days for a female). obviously one would change one's mind on that point in the light of our modern understanding of human reproduction. when you assert that "x" is clearly medieval and absurd today, I am assuming that you are referring to Aristotle's cosmology. or are you writing every medieval accomplishment/idea off as absurd? if you are, you are the one being absurd: we owe a lot to the middle ages. moreover, I don't think that the church still believes in Aristotle's cosmology: it is Aristotle's ethics that have had greatly influenced Catholic moral thinking. and, in that regard, it was the Protestant reformers who often dismissed Aristotle as being, as you say, too humanistic. finally, I was amused by your complaint saying that I use you as a "punching bag". to which I say: when you are in a fight, you had better know how to throw a punch.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jon LindgrenApril 28, 2020 at 7:25 PM

    Unknown "As to Aristotle (and Aquinas) the thought the rational soul didn't enter the fetus until about 40 days...."

    I was only quoting Aristotle. Maybe he did not know what he said.

    ReplyDelete

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