worldwide flood heresy

[linate]

shouldnt the catholic church say it is heresy to say that noah lived during a worldwide flood? there's obviously no evidence for it, with a continuous line of people from every society living and making no note of any flood. if we are suppose to reach for the truth no matter what, that should include not suspending your intellect to promote a man made doctrine of a worldwide flood

[chrysostom]

If the Catholic Church started to promulgate the Syllabus of Errors again, I highly doubt it would start with that...

[PhuturePriest]

Well, this is an odd accusation that seems to misunderstand the point.

Firstly, from a merely cursory response, there is in fact evidence for a flood. The Smithsonian certainly seems to think so. There's also interesting evidence from the man who discovered the Titanic, according to my quick Google search.

Also, there are numerous accounts from many societies which have a flood story. Even the Native Americans had one.

With that out of the way, the Church, as per the Patristics (Origen, for instance), believes the books of the Bible, having multiple types of literature, should not be read strictly historically in every case. For instance, the Psalms are poetry and thus shouldn't be read as historical, though they certainly reference historical events.

As such, Catholics are free to believe that the story of Noah did not literally happen. Or, free to believe that "flooding the world" means flooding all of the known world to them, which would be the area of the Black Sea. Or, free to believe that the entire earth really was covered with water for forty days. Or that this is based in some historical fact, with certain things (like the number forty) used as a theological device.

It's certainly not a heresy to believe any of these things, unless one were to go so far as to say the entire Bible is nothing more than a moral storybook not based in historical fact, or that certain really integral things are true (Jesus existed) but not everything about those certain really integral things are true (Jesus did not actually perform miracles or rise from the dead).

The Church takes a very measured approach to these things. So long as extremes are avoided in this particular case, we're pretty much free to believe whatever we find compelling within those guidelines.

Given that Christians are the most persecuted group in the world, a "silent apostasy" (John Paul II's words) currently ravaging the faithful, and pressing questions on who can or cannot receive communion (the source and summit of the Faith), we really do have far more important things to be addressed at the current moment than whether the entire earth really was covered in water for forty literal days. That work is for the scientists to figure out, should they so desire.

So will the Church make a statement on whether it's "heretical" (a word in itself we should probably define in order to figure out why you would use such a word in the first place) to believe in something that no one really cares about and is not threatening or building anyone's faith? I'm of the opinion the answer is no, and that weighing in on something like that would be a breach in the guided freedom we've always been granted in biblical exegesis.

Edited November 22, 2017 by PhuturePriest

[linate]

i asked elsewhere and they said the flood isn't an essential doctrine so it's not something that requires a proclamation. that is fair i s'pose. it makes no sense to actually entertain much the idea of a flood, or that he got literally two of every animal, including kangaroos from an island etc, so i'll just leave that at that. 

[mortiphy]

Virtually every culture has a story of a global flood sparked by Divine justice wherein a righteous man and his family survive in a boat. Some argue that this points to a distant memory of a clamity that affected mankind early in our history. Perhaps the lack of evidence is due to assuming a young earth and therefore digging within a few thousand years of represented layers.

[Jubilate Deo]

I can't recall which mountain this man climbed (it may have been Everest), but I heard about a mountain climber who found all sorts of seashells as he scaled a mountain. How do seashells end up on mountains? A flood.

[Era Might]

9 minutes ago, Jubilate Deo said:

I can't recall which mountain this man climbed (it may have been Everest), but I heard about a mountain climber who found all sorts of seashells as he scaled a mountain. How do seashells end up on mountains? A flood.

Or the wind. There's a great documentary on Netflix about the Pacific islands which are literally in the middle of nowhere, yet they have all kinds of life on them, including humans. How did stuff end up there? All kinds of bizarre ways. Just one freak ride across the ocean could on a coconut or something like that could lead life there.

[Anastasia13]

I've heard of evidence in multiple continents for a major flood a long time ago. I always thought that was the flood.

On 11/22/2017 at 5:40 AM, linate said:

i asked elsewhere and they said the flood isn't an essential doctrine so it's not something that requires a proclamation. that is fair i s'pose. it makes no sense to actually entertain much the idea of a flood, or that he got literally two of every animal, including kangaroos from an island etc, so i'll just leave that at that. 

If there is scientific evidence suggesting this is true, it makes sense to entertain it. Noah going to Islands to get them? This is a god who separated waters and brought plagues.  If God can create the universe and bring shepherds to Christ, he can do other strange things.

[A Yearning Heart]

We studied this at uni a bit and had all sorts of ideas come up in the discussion: worldwide flood, a local flood that affected a large region (at least to the horizon so as to appear worldwide), elements of multiple floods that have merged into one flood story.... 

I find the early Genesis stories really difficult if looking only at the literal/historical side of things - a talking snake, God walking with men, Noah being hundreds of years old, every animal from around the world being saved....

People really struggle with those points as they don't seem make sense, so it seems to undermine the more important points of the story.  Many non-Christians I know have lots of 'Ah Ha!' moments when coming across these and having a discussion with me, as it seems to justify their disbelief.  However, the key points we were taught are to focus on the relationship between God and people, the effects of living in a way that helps that relationship grow or in a way that doesn't.  Yes, there probably was a flood of some sort. Is the type of flood important? Not really.  Was Noah hundreds of years old? I don't know-probably an ancient way of saying he was pretty elderly or wise. Was every type of animal saved? Who knows.  Is the relationship between God and people the key focus? Yes.

  

[linate]

i think there's a lot of cognitive dissonance going on. people hear about a flood here or there and jump to the conclusion that there was a world wide flood. if there truly was a world wide flood, there would be evidence, and the chinese people wouldn't even be there any more for instance, it'd be one type of people considering how recent the flood supposedly happened. and it's far fetched to think God somehow got kangaroos from an island etc and got literally every anima on a boat, and erased all the evidence of everything. that is getting into desperation arguments. i dont even know why people are so keen to want to defend the story if it's not required for one's faith. it seems more like people want to defend something they were taught as true even if that's probably not the case. 
plus it's weird given catholics believe in evolution so they won't be one to say dinosaurs must of been on the ark, like fundamentalists teach, yet catholics want to believe every other ridiculous point about the story. it's more like a cultural thing than a systematic rational approach to it all.