Even a brood of vipers gets one right sometimes. I remember a friend who tried to convert me away from the Church by trying to spin me this tale of asking Jesus into one's heart. Fortunately for her, and for myself, I was just wise enough about Scripture to know that it wasn't that simple, that one is never "once saved, always saved."
Faith in Christ and being in the grace of God, by which we are saved, is not a one-time thing that forever seals us and sticks like good glue. It's something we do have to work at, something we have to constantly renew and remind ourselves of, through prayer and reconciliation.
Scripture and Tradition are inseparably united since they both come from the same source, says the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Cardinal William Levada, a delegate president of the synod on the word of God, affirmed this Monday when he addressed the 12th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.
"As the dogmatic constitution 'Dei Verbum' reminds us, there exists an indissoluble unity between sacred Scripture and Tradition since both flow from the same source," he said. "Only the living ecclesial tradition allows sacred Scripture to be understood as the authentic word of God that acts as guide, rule and law for the life of the Church and the spiritual growth of believers.
"This involves the rejection of any interpretation that is subjective or purely experiential or the fruit of a unilateral analysis, incapable of embracing the global sense that has guided the Tradition of the whole of God's people down through the centuries."
It is in this context, the cardinal said, that the "necessity and responsibility of the magisterium are born."
"And we individual bishops too know well how great our individual responsibilities are as legitimate successors of the apostles and what is expected of us by today's society to which we are duty-bound to transmit the truth that we, in turn, have received," he added.
Life with God
Noting Benedict XVI's stated hope that the synod will "help […] to rediscover the importance of God's word," the cardinal said the synod fathers wanted to "welcome this invitation with humility and responsibility since we know that the final end of divine revelation is the communion of life with the Lord."
"As we begin the work of this synodal assembly, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, let us turn our gaze to Christ, the light of the world and our only teacher," Cardinal Levada encouraged.
The prelate's point was further developed when Cardinal Marc Ouellet, archbishop of Quebec, took the floor to affirm that the Word is much more than the Bible. He clarified that Christianity is not a religion of the Book.
"The Word of God means before all else God himself who speaks, who expresses in himself the divine Word that belongs to his intimate mystery," he said.
This Word, he added during his Latin-language discourse, which he delivered seated beside the Pope, speaks in a particular and also dramatic way in the history of man, especially in the election of a people, in the Mosaic law and the prophets.
Accompanying his words with artistic images projected on a large screen, the Canadian cardinal explained that, after God had spoken in many ways, the Word "summarizes and crowns everything in a unique, perfect and definitive way in Jesus Christ."
(*)
…both because I support conservative film-making and think that Michael Moore could use a good jab in the arm, and because I have tended to enjoy David Zucker comedies in the past. Though it was a bit too raunchy in places, Top Secret was an inspired bit of comedy, and remains one of my favourites.
There's just one problem: the movie doesn't appear to be playing within 40 miles of where I live.
Which, I submit to the good Reader, sucks.
The problem with a book like Denis O. Lamoureux's Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution
Dr. Lamoureux's view is not simply a syncretic one, nor is he attempting to simply establish a synthesis between disparate concepts. His conjecture, rather, is that in looking at Scripture and then at science, we are looking at different forms of revelation of the same one God — science and religion, then, are not simply bridged by the idea of Evolutionary Creationism, but treated as a kind of unit whole, each effecting the revelation of the Lord by a different means.
Because this concept is above the grasp and reasoning of so many who are caught up in the unnecessary conflict that infests the origins "debate," Evolutionary Creation can't simply start by jumping in head-first into an explanation of its core philosophies and the justifications for them. Instead, Dr. Lamoureux must begin at the very beginning of reasoning itself, by discussing and establishing categories.
In a nutshell, categories are the foundations upon which we base how we look at the world, and how we think about the world. Evolutionary Creation uses the example of how our eyes are programmed to perceive the spectrum of colours in visible light to illustrate this point, noting that our brains are wired to perceive the issues which we face in a similar, ranging manner that is rarely ever "black and white." Yet at the same time, Dr. Lamoureux notes that many view the origins "debate" in a very "black and white" way. Even referring to it as a "debate" suggests a conflict model that pits a secular and godless science against a Christian, Biblical view of creation. This very limited category set thus forces people to make a choice between science and religion, "faith" and "reason,"
God or the various things which humanity has discovered about the nature of the world and the processes which formed it.
This dichotomy, incidentally, is seen on both sides of the debate, and it's almost impossible to ferret out who fired the first shots in the war. Atheists who promote the dichotomy present atheism as the bastion of reason and wisdom, and portray Christians as mental dullards and uninformed fundamentalists. Christians who promote the dichotomy denounce evolutionary theory as misguided or, worse, Satanic, and discard the substantial body of evidence in support of an old Earth as "circumstantial" whilst simultaneously clinging to threadbare evidence which purportedly justifies their own positions.
Even worse, both sides turn on like-minded folk who dare to step outside the conflict model. Atheists or skeptics who step outside the model and propose that empiricism and research are not a sufficient basis upon which to base a rejection of the existence of God, or who themselves admit to even weak agnosticism, are derided as being senile or simply in error. Christians who afford even a handful of scientific discoveries are denounced as liberals, heretics, cafeteria Christians, or proto-secularists.
At the same time, however, these two warring sides actually agree on at least one thing: whatever the exact nature of the origins of the world, human Morality and ethics are intimately connected with the view of origins one is informed by. This gives the origins "debate" special relevance, because our beliefs about who we are and where we come from directly influence and inform our believes about how we should relate to one another, and how we should order the societies in which we live. Christianity and secular humanism alike concede this point…and for as wrong as both sides may be about the topic of origins, both sides are at least correct in noting this important connection.
The key contributors to the false dichotomy (Greek: dicha - "in two", temno - "to cut") are, in Dr. Lamoureux's opinion, two related factor. The first is what is that both sides tend to adopt "popular" understandings of terms like "evolution," "creation," and "theory." This logical error is compounded by the second contributing factor: conflation. When a Christian hears the word "evolution," she immediately associates the term with atheism, with a worldview that postulates a godless, chance-driven reality. When a secularist hears the word "creation," he immediately associates the term with the (false) notion that the world was formed in six 24-hour days. And whether both sides realize it or not, this immediately prohibits any progress in the dialogue between them; both sides are trapped in their thinking.
So the question must be asked: is their thinking accurate?
EvolutionDr. Lamoureux begins his analysis by looking at the popular categories and conflations involved in how both sides view "evolution." He begins by unpacking the term a bit, and by moving past the conflation: he proposes that the idea of evolution must be re-categorized thusly:
↑
Evolution
↓
The Greek term telos indicates the presence of an end or a goal; dysteleology is a term coined first in German which was intended to refer to the absence of said same. The two terms refer as much to the actual nature of the evolutionary process as they do to the views each of us has concerning it: we either view evolution as a process which was set in motion — and which may be reflective of some influence of — a designer or creator, or we view it as a the result of purposeless, random chance.
It should be noted that the teleological category actually can be broken down into a few different sub-categories, which roughly correspond to the range of religious opinions evident in the world today (theism, deism, paganism, etc.). This is an important point to keep in mind in light of what follows its articulation in the book.
The most powerful argument that Dr. Lamoureux makes in this section is based on a survey done about a decade ago that, taken to its logical conclusion, deals a death blow to the idea many Christians have that scientific researchers are predominantly atheistic and trying to impose a godless worldview upon millions of hapless schoolchildren.
In 1997, Karry Witham and Edward Larson issued a report called "Scientists Are Still Keeping the Faith," in Nature (a prominent scientific journal). To a large sample group of scientists and other researchers, the following question was posed:
I believe in a God in intellectual and affective communication with humankind, i.e. a God to whom one may pray in expectation of receiving an answer. By 'answer' I mean more than the subjective, psychological effect of prayer.
40% of those polled expressed belief in God as defined above, 45% expressed that they did not believe in God so defined, and 15% expressed no definite belief.
Let us come back to the teleological sub-categories mentioned above, because something important must be noted about the respondents who answered in the negative to the given question. Deists, pantheists, and other pagans — despite not being atheists — would have been caught up in the negative-responding group, despite the fact that all accept teleology to one degree or another. Deists are, as I understand it, given to believing that God is not intimately involved in the day-to-day function and structure of creation…but still generally accept that He had something to do with it, and that He may have had an eye toward its design. Pagans believe in various divine forces, or pantheons of gods, who exert varying degrees of control over the course and shape of creation. Pantheists believe that creation is itself divine, and thus reflective of a will and a design.
And of course, 15% of the respondends expressed an agnostic view. Here again, categorization is important: agnosticism and dysteleology are not synonymous. As such, an interesting conclusion emerges from the results of this admittedly limited survey: a majority of scientists are probably teleologists, or at least are not dysteleologists.
Which is more than a bit of a shot in the arm to the notion that scientsts are part of some atheistic cabal or conspiracy seeking to undermine the good faith of the world's youth.
This brings us to the end of the first part of my review of Chapter 1. It should be noted that the above all comes out within the first 7 pages of the book, which, overall, starts slowly and yet covers much ground as it goes. Thus far, Dr. Lamoureux's presentation is written in an engaging and accessible manner, but readers will nevertheless likely be surprised at the steady stream of information coming at them as they progress up to, and past, even this early point in the book.
Stay tuned for Part 2, which looks at — and debunks — popular notions concerning creation.
Charles Tysoe writes in with a follow-up to my response to a few of his comments from a while back. I'm going to break up his message a bit and respond to it in a more inter-linear fashion, although the good Reader can rest assured that the entirety of what Charles' message will be included in this post. He covers a few different topics, however, which I would prefer to address as they arise.
[7] But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
[8] or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
[9] Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
[10] In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of all mankind.Thanks for responding.
I thought after I sent that email that I should have looked up "message-incident" again to make sure I had the phrase right; thanks for clarifying and that is indeed the one I did in fact search for.
Would I find it, for instance in the Poetics of Aristotle?
Is not Aristotle essentially a heathen philospher? Was it not Aristotelian methodology that plagued Catholic Middle Ages Scholarship and led in part to the controversy involving Galilei Galileo's works?
I wish you and/or DOL would make clear the source and rationale for "message incident" since it seems of murky pedigree and since DOL hangs such great weights from this small wire. He claims to be an Evangelical, and is a member of ETS. Can he point to other present or past members of this association and specific examples of this principle in action? Otherwise we have just you and DOL (and perhaps Aristotle) as advocating this system. That's a very small sample space.
Aristotle was indeed a pagan philosopher, but I don't think he had as much to do with the Galileo affair as did Ptolemy, all things considered. Also, I feel I should caution both the Reader, in general, and Charles in particular, against the automatic dismissal of non-Christian philosophers. Even in the Bible, God imparts blessings and wisdom to His chosen people through pagans and non-believers. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament give us examples of this. It should also be noted that St. Paul often quotes from non-Jewish and non-Christian poetic or philosophical sources.
In the end, what matters is what is true (Philippians 4:8). Whether we arrive at this by a source from within Christendom or without, what ultimately matters is what is true. And if there is in Aristotelean philosophy something that is true, or which enables us to better understand some aspect of the truth of the Lord, then we ought to pursue that thing.
I mentioned, previously, that the "message-incident" principle draws heavily, I think, upon Aristotle. That was a comment made out of personal opinion rather than out of specific knowledge of the fact on my part; it may well be that there is absolutely no Aristotelean influence in the principle itself. I was remarking on what seemed to be a similarity to me between the Message-Incident Principle and the notion of accidentals that inform the Catholic understanding of Eucharist.
In the Eucharist, we have the host, which at a glance appears to be a thin wafer of unleavened bread. However, this is not the sum total of its nature, nor is this an accurate picture of its nature. A separation needs to take place in our understanding of it, for it is actually the Real Presence of Christ Jesus, and retains only the accidentals (shape, taste, etc.) of the bread which it formerly was. The Message-Incident Principle doesn't exactly mirror this understanding, but the idea is similar: a separation has to take place in our understanding of the text of the Bible, in that we need to be able to look at the message of faith conveyed by the text separate from the incidental events or details given by the text.
Previously, I gave the example of Ephesians 5, and how when we interpret this passage it is necessary to separate the "incident"al aspects of the text — some of which can seem sexist at first — from the theological "message" that St. Paul is attempting to convey, by illustrating the relationship of Christ to the Church through the imagery of the relationship between husband and wife. The purpose of the passage is not to convey a somewhat sexist message, nor is the purpose of this passage to present an improper model of the relationship between husband and wife; it is to present a model of the way we relate to Christ, and Christ to the community of His faithful. But to understand as much, we need to separate, categorically, the teaching from the imagery used to present it.
I will cover this in greater detail when I get to that part of my review of Denis O. Lamoureux's Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution
How would this method, if laid out in parallel, compare to the current evangelical standard, the "Grammatical-Historical" method?
Let's see if we can establish a comparison here. As I understand it, the Grammatical-Historical Method is structured as follows:
"This approach contends that in order to reveal spiritual truths as effectively as possible to the ancient peoples, the Holy Spirit used their ancient phenomenological perspective of nature. That is, instead of confusing or distracting the biblical writers and their readers with modern scientific concepts, God descended to their level and employed the science-of-the-day. Similar to the central message in the Kenotic Hymn, the Creator humbled Himself through the use of ancient human ideas about nature in the revelatory process. Therefore, passages in the Bible referring to the physical world feature both a Message of Faith and an incidental ancient science. According to this interpretive principle, Biblical inerrancy and infallibility rest in the Divine Theology, and not in statements referring to nature. Wualifying ancient science as "incidental" does not imply that it is unimportant. The science in Scripture is vital for transporting spiritual truths. It acts as a vessel similar to a cup that delivers "living waters" (John 4:10). However, the word "incidental" carries meanings of "that which happens to be alongside" and "happening in connection with something more important." In other words, the ancient science in Scripture is "alongside" the "more important" Message of Faith." (Denis O. Lamoureux, Evolutionary Creation, pp. 110-111)
Now, how do these two things compare?
For starters, I want to comment on something tangential. It has always struck me as a point of some curiosity that evangelicals, who profess to be true "Biblical Christians," tend also to not be Eucharistic Christians. Indeed, evangelicals tend to set themselves very much against Eucharistic Theology. Which is, I content, very odd for an element of Christianity which purports to interpret the Bible according to the maxim: "if the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense."
With all due respect to my evangelical bretheren, the plain sense of e.g. John 6, Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and 1 Corinthians 11 is that the bread we break in the meal at the altar is meant to be, and become, the literal and true Precious Body and Blood of Christ. He gives us His own flesh to eat, and His own blood to drink, in memory of Him and of His sacrifice for our sins…and we fail to discern Him in the bread and wine at our eternal peril. That is the plain meaning of the text, and yet evangelicals do not seem to interpret it thusly. This suggests to me that perhaps the default hermeneutic that evangelicals employ, the Grammatical-Historical Method, is somewhat subjective and arbitrary.
Thus, the problem with insisting on the use of literal-ish hermeneutics, and with insisting that Scripture be taken at its "plain meaning", is that nobody really does that with any kind of consistency. Let me put that more plainly: no Christian ever takes Scripture at its plain meaning at every opportunity — indeed, many of us are often guilty of a certain hypocrisy when we insist upon just such an approach. More often than not, what we really mean when we insist on taking things at their plain meaning is: "let us use my interpretation of Scripture; let us take it at what I say its meaning is." A similar fault exists with the evangelical concept of letting Scripture "self-interpret." And for this reason, the grammatical aspect of the method actually exists in contradiction of the historical aspect.
There's really no two ways about it: if our hermeneutic is to always take Scripture at its most obvious meaning, on a passage-by-passage basis, then we should all be Eucharistic Christians in light of John 6. That we are not all Eucharistic Christians means that we do not always take Scripture at its plain meaning; we only do so when it is convenient to the point we are making.
And — this is the key point, I think — it allows us to do so with greater consistency. The key flaw of the grammatical aspect of the Grammatical-Historical Method is that it assumes that the Spirit necessarily intended for all of Scripture to be taken at its plain meaning. There is little to no support for this conjecture within Scripture itself, and little to no support for it in the writings of the early theologians and Doctors of the Church. Because of this lack of support, the notion of "plain meaning" in evangelical grammatical interpretation tends to take on the form, as previously noted, of subjective personal opinion about the text, even if this opinion is actually contradicted by other parts of the Bible.
In contrast, the Message-Incident Principle proposes that our focus in interpreting the Biblical text should be on the message of faith conveyed in the text. This seems reasonable, since the principal intent of the Bible is to bring to humanity a message of faith, revelation, and salvation. Notably, however, this interpretive method does not attempt to shoehorn the text of Scripture into a literal or "plain meaning" framework that it may not necessarily belong in. The priority is not on the raw text itself, which contains a mixture of divine revelation and ancient human understanding, but on the revelation proper.
Of course, this opens up the question of how we sort out those passages meant to be taken literally from those which are not meant to be taken as such. That's an interesting discussion in and of itself, though not one I will verge into at this time. After all, I have just gone into the Message-Incident Principle more than I intended to, and I want to retain something unique for my review of Denis' book's fourth chapter.
As to other examples of the principle "in action," I cannot say: it may be a newer thing. But it should also be noted that a newer thing, if it is a correct thing, is a correct thing first and foremost, regardless of its age or lack thereof.
What is the warrant for privelging the scientific method as the hermeneutical sieve for Genesis?
I feel I should correct Charles on one point here: science is not priveleged above Scripture in Evolutionary Creationism. If anything, the "Two Books" — God's Words and God's Works — are regarded as equals, at least as far as their capacity for revelation is concerned. Also, what each Book reveals to us is different: the Bible reveals God directly, and Jesus, and the promise and hope of salvation. Creation, and by extension science, reveals the natural works which the Lord has made, which tell and proclaim His glory (Psalm 19:1) and impart, to those who ask it of them, wisdom and truth about the one whose design is reflected in every aspect of the world and all the Universe (Job 12:7-9).
But as it is, there are two principal "warrants" from which we derive a sense of the importance of being able to understand the harmony which must exist between the discoveries of science and the revelations of Scripture.
The first "warrant" is an old teaching indeed, from St. Augustine of Hippo. In his book The City of God
The saint adds additional warnings later in the book. He cautions, for instance, that we should let "no one think that, because the Psalmist says, He established the Earth above the uater, we must use this testimony of Holy Scripture against these people who engage in learned discussions about the weight of the elements. They are not bound by the authority of our Bible; and, ignorant of the sense of these words, they will more readily scorn our sacred books than disavow the knowledge they have acquired by unassailable arguments or proved by the evidence of experience." (Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, pp. 47-48)
He likewise notes, in what seems almost a prophetic vision of the scientific ignorance of Young Earth Creationsts today, that "someone may ask: 'Is not Scripture opposed to those who hold that heaven is spherical, when it says, who stretches out heaven like a skin?' Let it be opposed indeed if their statement is false…. But if they are able to establish their doctrine with proofs that cannot be denied, we must show that this statement of Scripture about the skin is not opposed to the truth of their conclusions." (Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, p. 59)
Augustine is not attempting here to undermine the validity of Scripture, but is rather attempting to warn would-be evangelists that there is more to know than what is taught within its pages. The Bible does not discuss every aspect of the physical world, nor should it: it is not a book of science, but is instead a book of faith. And it is not a bludgeon to be used to shout down the reasonable discoveries of researchers and scientists either; it is a revelation of truth, but there are other things not contained within its pages which are likewise true, and known to be true either from demonstration or experience.
Which brings us to the second "warrant," a more modern writing: Truth Cannot Contradict Truth, an address given by Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In a way, the name says it all: the revealed truth of Scripture and the discovered truths that are the fruits of scientific research do not and cannot contradict each other. If both are true, then they must be compatible and even complementary.
Which is what St. Augustine was getting at in The City of God. It is ludicrous to assume that the saint thought, for one minute, that Scripture was diminished, supplanted, or rendered invalid or untruthful by the discoveries of scientists. At the same time, it is obvious that Augustine could see, plainly, that it was obvious that those same researchers could and would discover things about the nature of the world which were truthful. Augustine understood that humanity is constantly learning new things about the world in which it lives, and that Scripture was written by men less learned about such things, who necessarily wrote with within the framework of their own limited understandings.
And he knew that the truth of revelation could not and would not be contradicted by the truths discovered by continuing inquiry into the nature and shape of the world…but he also understood that if Christians who were ignorant about the sciences and too eager to present Scripture as the sole source of truth attempted to evangelize to those who were wiser about nature, two things would happen: souls would be lost, and Christ would be ridiculed.
Let us look at the various things which Augustine warned would happen to "reckless and incompetent [and scientifically ignorant] expounders of Holy Scripture" and see if his predictions came true at all:
I submit that the answers to these predictions are as follows:
So while it is important to not prioritize science above Scripture, it is likewise important to refrain from taking the Answers In Genesis approach of using Scripture as a bludgeon against the legitimate discoveries of science. To do the former is at once heretical and near-blasphemous. To do the latter, I submit, imperils not only the souls of those who hear a foolishly-given message and reject it, but also the souls of the foolish evangelists themselves.
Regarding the Scripture from Job (and also, for instance, the nineteenth Psalm); there is no reference there about the so-called "fossil record" teaching us about the mind or the ways of God; or the "Big Bang" theory about unobserved events in the pat; or about "homology" or any other so-called "proofs" of evolution. Evolution consists primarily of speculations about the unobserved past; morever, death and suffering and disease are the method, by Darwin's own confession, by which the Creator perfects his creation. This is contrary to the character of God and also to the Bible teaching that God finished from his work of creating, a rest that persists until now, and that his completed creation was "very good".
Actually — and here we are getting into the topic of another article I was meaning to write — Charles is quite incorrect about evolutionary theory and about the nature of God in relation to death and suffering. A paper I wrote a couple of years ago kind of hints at this, and I'm not inclined to go into too much additional detail here because it would, of course, spoil what is yet to come.
But let us at least consider one quick point. Christ Jesus is the Word (c.f. John 1), and in that understanding we must likewise understand that the entirety of the Word of God — the Bible — points to Christ. From the first word of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, to the last word of the last book of the last chapter, all of Scripture points to Jesus and His salvific promise. Which means, in turn, that all of Scripture points to the sacrifice of Christ, and His death on the cross for our sins. Which in turn means that all of the Bible, even from the very opening of the Book of Genesis, points to the death of Christ on the Cross and His glorious resurrection and ascension into Heaven.
Which means that from the very beginning, death was a part of God's plan for His Son, who came to Earth and was born of Mary as a human being. Which must mean that from the very beginning, death — the death of the physical body — was a part of God's plan. Were it not a part of His plan, we could not say that all of Scripture points to Christ; we could only say that almost all of Scripture points to Him. And since He is Scripture — the Word, the Logos — "almost all" just doesn't cut it.
The fact of the matter is: God did perfect His creations through suffering and death. Or, perhaps more accurately, God assured the eternal perfection of His creation, though we who yet live have not been perfected yet, through the suffering and death of His son, Jesus, whose sacrifice had both a temporal and eternal component to it. And from the very first moments of creation, this was God's intent for His creation.
As to Charles' assertion about how evolutionary theory is mostly just speculation, that is almost a comment which is not worth responding to. Anyone who cares to see it will find that there is actually quite a lot of evidence for evolution (that hyperlink offers but a small and cursory sampling) — but with Christians who promote a false dichotomy between science and Scripture, no evidence is sufficient. It's rather the same phenomenon as one sees in atheists: evidence is demanded, God obliges with…say…a miraculous healing, and the atheist(s) in question shrug and say that were God truly extant, He would not have healed just one person. Some would call this "moving the goalposts."
It should also be noted that modern evolutionary science has largely abandoned Darwin's initial conjectures; Darwin today is little more than a straw-man for Young Earthers to attack in lieu of attempting to contravene solid evidence for sound theories.
I apppreciate you are going to review the book chapter by chapter, but if you answer please don't repeat the book because I am doing the same thing myself.
What are the illustrations you contributed to the book?
Chuck Tysoe
Well, I did throw in one reference from the book, good Reader, so I do hope that Chuck will forgive me that much. As to which illustrations I contributed, there are three of them (and all of them are attributed in the book). They are on pages 108, 116, and 362.
One was of the "three-tiered universe," the cosmological model presented in the Bible. Another was a line-art rendering of an ancient Babylonian "map of the world," which demonstrates what the authors of Scripture are talking about when they refer to the "circle of the Earth."
The last one was a demonstration of evolutionary mutations in chicken wings caused my augmentations in certain enzymes in the chick embryo. Some augmentations caused rather absurd and unfortunate deformities to the wings, while others resulted in the chickens being hatched with "arms," complete with wrists and fingers.
Fascinating stuff.
Let me know if it's any good:
The Lesser Light hung lazily in the firmament above the sky, casting a diffuse glow over the Thiar Tir's valleys and rolling hills, its radiant white form contrasting sharply with the deep blue of the world at night. This was especially true in the Thiar Tir, where the dark green pines and spruce took on an almost black colour in the absence of the Greater Light of day. Many in the region feared the night for this reason alone; it was, for them, an evil time of the day, if in fact it could be called a part of the day at all.
Dara Trynas-inion -- Dara, daughter of Trynas -- thought it beautiful, however, and had on this particular evening taken the opportunity to slip out for an evening walk. And -- God willing -- an evening hunt.
As bright as the Lesser Light was this evening, however, the sky itself was, in many places, covered by clouds. The dome of the heavens, spread out across the world and hard as the formed glass of a mirror, would on any other evening have been filled with stars; on this evening, the jewels dotting the firmament were visible only in small patches here and there.
The Thiar Tir was a narrow strip of land bisected by a short river which connected a much larger river to the south with a long lake to the north that bent in the middle and then disappeared up into the mountains still further north. The principal city of the region, and Dara's home -- Chonaithe -- was located in the northern half of the region, nestled in between a single mountain that rested on the lake shore and a large mountain range that continued westward all the way to a vast ocean. The southern part of the Thiar Tir was filled with farms that produced all manners of grains, or across which all manner of livestock roamed and grazed. It was a small region, almost entirely cut off from the affairs of the outside world. And for its people, that was just as well; they were more than self-sufficient, and did not care at all to become caught up in the affairs of "outsiders."
Further to the south, past the last farm, was a region Dara had only ever seen from the mountain ridges bordering it. Riddled with deep pits and unsteady terrain, it was a region that none of the Tiri -- the people of the Thiar Tir -- dared to go, for it was (at best) extremely treacherous to navigate effectively. Rumour -- the sort that sprung up and festered in pubs -- held that at one time, a great and mighty city had occupied what was now just an empty and uneven land covered in trees and grasslands, but none had attempted to explore the area thoroughly enough to prove -- or disprove -- the claim. The wilder rumours, no doubt fueled by many pints of ale, even suggested that some or all of the inhabitants of that ancient city had managed to slip free of the bonds of the world, ascending into the sky and perhaps even going beyond the great dome in which the Lesser Light and all the stars were fixed. Perhaps, Dara thought, they had seen or touched the face of God as they had gone. Then again, perhaps their end had not been so favourable, if in fact they had ever existed at all.
She glanced up again at the Lesser Light, and smiled as she noticed the thin, shadowy crescent of black that had appeared at its edge. The Lesser Light had begun to wane, which meant that within a handful of days, The Solas would be visible.
Dara had no idea what The Solas were; she only knew that they could only be seen during the times when the Lesser Light had otherwise fallen into darkness, that they dotted the surface of its darkened husk.
This is something I've been meaning to jot down for years, but it's only been in recent weeks that the exact structure and shape of things has really begun to coalesce in mind for me.
Just a reminder! Get your answers in within the next three hours!
Update: okay, so nobody took up the first weekly challenge. Pity, too, because it was an easy one. Could this possibly mean that there is nothing within Catholic doctrine (as expressed in the Catechism and the Code of Canon Law) which directly contradicts the Bible?
Log in to comment