Comments for The Key that Fits the Lock, Part Four at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 14 out of 14 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Sat, 25 May 2013 16:50:23 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13263 to Melanie B and MJ Anderson - scroll down below the area to add your own comment and you will find an entire list of all articles written by the author of the post you are reading. you can also go into the Archives on the site and search the author's name. - debby Sun, 02 Sep 2012 14:08:19 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13223 May I echo Melanie B? Links to the prior essays in any series would be much appreciated. This entry from Anthony Esolen is excellent. - mj anderson Fri, 31 Aug 2012 11:14:51 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13222 Dear Grump, To the contrary my friend, if you think you are aware of contradictions in the Bible, and you point them out and they are successfully refuted or substantiated, then everyone has had a chance to see how another thinks and be strengthened in their righteous thinking or disabused of falsehood. No one I know on the Catholic thing would wish to continue to think in error. Most here are much less interested in being right than knowing what is true. I don’t pray for you because it makes me feel good and I am not Catholic because it works for me. God has graced me, a former unbeliever as obstinate, prideful, stubborn, willful and narrow as you are if not more, with a faith that would not have entered my wildest dreams 5 years ago. What you choose to believe is an act of will, faith is a grace from God. My prayer is that God will grace you with faith. If it doesn’t happen now it will someday. It saddens me to hear you speak with a death wish. This world was made good. Satan is evil, we are fallen and our ability to hurt one another seems endless. But God is good. Good luck Grump - Achilles Fri, 31 Aug 2012 10:58:17 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13220 It would be really nice if this page contained links to parts 1-3. I arrived here via a link from another place on the web and haven't been following this series. I'd love to catch up; but nowI have to go hunting for the first three parts. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has found this frustrating. - Melanie B Fri, 31 Aug 2012 04:47:48 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13216 @Achilles. I promised TCT's editors I would refrain from commenting for awhile as I need a hiatus and all of you do, too. However, I feel compelled to respond. First, I do no wish to clutter up this forum with the countless contradictions in the Bible, for which no doubt you will be able to refute or defend. It serves no useful purpose because neither of us will be persuaded. Secondly, I am glad you found what you believe is the truth and thank you for your prayers if it makes you feel better to pray. As for me, I no longer pray and never will again as previous countless prayers have gone unanswered. Lastly, as long as we're on Genesis, "God saw that it was good" after his creation. As George Bernard Shaw put it, "I wonder what he would think now." Sorry, Achilles. But to me the world is largely evil and an ugly place and the sooner I am on to either a better world or no other world at all, the better. - Grump Fri, 31 Aug 2012 03:24:12 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13212 Dearest Grump, I have read your comments here for a long time and each time I am moved to pity. Perhaps in this case it is your own intelligence that is tripping you up. Thomas Edison said “we can not know one millionth of one percent of what there is to know.” And Grump, if you were to really think about it you would have to admit that less than one percent of what you actually know, you know from personal experience. For the other 99% you have to rely on authority just like everybody else. Our choice is not about how much we are going to experience but who we choose as our authority. If we choose ourselves, we have chosen poorly. If we take the facts as they are we have every reason to be humble about our own powers of intellect. Choose Jesus Christ as your source, who else has the “words of eternal life?” Then back that up with those who know like the Church Doctors. St. Augustine said “believe it and then you will see it.” You have demonstrated such utter confusion in your refutations to Dr. Esolen. You speak of contradictions in the Bible but have failed to show even one real contradiction. The one example from this article, that St. Paul says “God is no respecter of persons” and making a false connection for God accepting Abel’s and no Cain’s sacrifice is very instructive if you have any interest in untangling the skein of confusion that has knotted up your will. God’s rejection of Cain’s sacrifice had nothing to do with persons as such, but rather the disposition of Cain’s heart, as was the acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice a sacrifice given with a glad heart and that of first fruits. God will not judge us for our accidentals, but for those things that we choose by our will. He sees our hearts Grump. Belief is an act of the will, a root cause, not a fruit of empirical study. IF you see it as such you have truncated your human person. You are in my prayers Grump, please pray for me, your brother, Achilles. - Achilles Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:27:19 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13201 Debby, you may have the biggest heart among all our readers. Thank you for your loyalty and encouragement. The Management - Robert Royal Wed, 29 Aug 2012 17:20:37 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13196 @Grump, if Genesis is so full of contradictions and has God asking "silly" questions like "Where is Abel?" and if this is so "obvious" then don't you think it would have been obvious to the writer of Genesis too? Do you really think so many millions of believers have been so dumb as to miss this over the centuries? Or has it occured to you that maybe YOU'RE missing something? - Randall Wed, 29 Aug 2012 11:15:56 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13195 on the day the Church as re-named The Passion of St. John the Baptist, the one who didn't have all the answers but offered all of himself, i just want to say again: I LOVE THIS SITE! i've said it so many times before and the older i get, the less i feel the need to constantly "express" myself in "comments" - especially when we are not looking at one another, being "together" in conversation. but, I LOVE THE WRITERS HERE and most of the people making comments truly enrich my life. you are all in my prayers and my heart longs for Heaven all the more knowing we will one day (hopefully, all of us!)be in Union with The God Who Loves Us and Made Us for HIMSELF. - debby Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:46:04 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13192 "Grump" - I am not a theologian, however I will attempt to address your questions, and would appreciate the added comments of any more scholarly readers. I believe the question, "Where is your brother Abel?" is similar to the question addressed to Adam and Eve earlier. It was not a "trick question", but a question meant to elicit a confession and (perhaps) repentance from Cain. We see in the rabbinical tradition a teaching style in which questions are asked, rather than statements being made. The intent is to make the listener think and reflect. Abel gave a sacrifice, Cain an offering. The person was not rejected, but Cain showed his reverence and respect for God to be less than Abel's. When I wake up in the morning, I feel death working in my body. The older I get, the more this is so. Adam began to die from the moment he disobeyed God. We are all dying from the day we are born. If we are honest with ourselves, we know this is our fate. - Rhoda Wed, 29 Aug 2012 08:22:05 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13191 Grump, someday your combination of literalism and perfectionism is going to get you in real trouble. In the meantime, I would love to hear your preferred story of how we got here and how we are. You must have one or are you a floater? - Other Joe Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:54:56 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13187 Tony, I've enjoyed your interpretations of Genesis, as much as I find them fanciful and, forgive me, somewhat ludicrous. For example, if God sees and knows everything, as we are told many times elsewhere in the Bible, how is it he didn't know where Abel was? "Where is your Abel thy brother?" Or was that just a trick question? Likewise, if he preferred Abel's offering to Cain's, how is it it that he is "no respecter of persons"? (Romans 2:11) (Acts 10:34), etc. If Adam was to die the "very day" he ate the forbidden fruit (Gen. 2:17), how is it that he went on to live 930 years? (Gen. 5-5) Perhaps these and a myriad of other inconsistencies and contradictions in Scripture can be conveniently explained by resorting to allegory or metaphor rather than at face value. But when taken literally, Tony, and when dozens of conflicting passages are juxtaposed, then one is left trying to make coherent sense of it all. By contrast, Darwin's "Origin of the Species," while wanting in many respects, nonetheless provides a more rationale basis for how Man came to be. All in all, however, you've done a splendid job at attempting to square the circle by your elegant and poetical prose. When the other day I quoted Lord Byron in response to Fr. Bramwell's article, "What is Man?" he labeled it "a nice piece of poetry" but "more sentimental than factual." May I respectfully submit that the story of Genesis may fit this category as well? - Grump Wed, 29 Aug 2012 04:35:40 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13185 Brilliant. I will say that the first rule of thumb for any American man is to blame a woman, so it's helpful to know where we get that trait from. If only Catholics waded into the murky waters of these intellectual forces which animate modern paganism more often, as Christian heroes did in the past, when they were victorious and not completely routed as we are now. No one ever talks seriously about these things. Do we as Christians, for instance, believe that God directly controls the winds? Or do we think that he has created some perhaps unaccountable force which dictates their movements? Did God rouse the earthquake that killed all those people in that tsunami? Who controls these planetary forces? They don't seem to rejoice in death and suffering the way Satan does, with intellectual relishment, but, obviously, they do seem utterly indifferent to the huge amount of human suffering they cause. Perhaps people wouldn't lose their faith so easily if we, collectively, did not avoid these issues our entire lives. Forgive the crude and unoriginal metaphors, but strengthening one's faith, I think, must hurt like strengthening one's muscles and frighten like going on a sea voyage in a sail boat with no motor or climbing a tall mountain with no ropes. When people stay safe in their easy beliefs, their beliefs stay weak. - Jacob R Wed, 29 Aug 2012 01:45:02 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-key-that-fits-the-lock-part-four.html#comment-13184 Excellent! - Othe Joe Wed, 29 Aug 2012 01:37:15 +0100