The Interpretation of Scripture

[LittleLes]

By 1745 it was realized that (1) It could not be denied that the church had interpreted scripture that loaning at any interest was always a sin (too many Church Councils had addressed this issue), and (2) Charging interest was a profitable and common business practice.

What to do. A ha! While the scriptural interpretation regarding the charging interest is still on the books as being a sin, if the interest charged was called something else, the Church could pretend it wasn't really interest and a sin after all.

So in Vix Pervenit, we find:

III " We do not deny that at times together with the loan contract CERTAIN OTHER TITLES - which are not at all intrinsice to the contract - may run parallel with it...entirely just and legitimate reasons."

"Not at all intrinsic" eh? Have you ever heard of someone paying interest on money they haven't been loaned?

So the fiction of charging "interest" becoming instead charging for"certain other titles" was born . But charging "interest" is still condemned as a sin. The Church just couldn't be seen as having made a mistake in its interpretation of scripture. After all, infallibility was involved.

LittleLes

[jasJis]

Hurry Les! Hurry, hurry, hurry! Place some more inane 'shotgun charge' posts without addressing where you are shown to be blatantly misguided, dishonest to the facts, and most probably, a purposeful liar.

[LittleLes]

Hi JasJis,

Have you ever noticed that apologists who have no rational refutation to an assertion's evidence "infallibly" revert to ad hominem attacks?

LittleLes

[jasJis]

Les,
It's [u]you[/u] who ignores rational refutation to your assertions. Can you rationally respond to my specific refutions that you mis-defined 'usury' and mislead with your edited excerpt? It's also you that posts 3 paragraphs statements that do NOTHING to address most of the refutions made.

[LittleLes]

Sorry JasJis

ANY AMOUNT that exceeds the amount loaned is usury and is sinful. Look at the words in VP, of if you like ,look up the Catholic Encyclopedia explanation under Usury.

Little Les

[jasJis]

[quote]Quote from Little Les:
Sorry JasJis

ANY AMOUNT that exceeds the amount loaned is usury and is sinful. Look at the words in VP, of if you like ,look up the Catholic Encyclopedia explanation under Usury.

Little Les [/quote]LittleLes,
AGAIN IT IS OBVIOUS THAT YOU DIDN'T READ THE ARTICLE AND AGAIN YOU ARE WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, AND YOU ARE PURPOSELY MISLEADING.
Here's a little excerpt from the article. If you are right, Les, then God Himself tells us to do Sin.
[quote]But just what is usury? This is the crux of the matter. First, let’s be clear about what usury is not. It is not, as many people think, exorbitant interest on a loan. All parties in this discussion are agreed that the rate of interest has nothing to do with whether a loan is usurious (Noonan, 56). So what is it? Noonan argues that usury is the taking of any interest on any sort of loan. He claims that the condemnation of usury, so defined, is the teaching of Scripture and that this biblical principle was taken up by the Church Fathers and later codified in the Church’s official teaching: "The teaching on usury of the Old Testament was explicitly confirmed by the New Testament. The text of the Vulgate was clear and phrased with legal exactness to condemn all profit on a loan: Mutuum date, nihil inde sperantes, ‘Lend hoping nothing thereby.’ The words were taken to be an express commandment. They were taken [by the early Church] as the words of the Lord himself. Absolutely, unequivocally, without exception, all return on a loan was condemned" (ibid., 57).

If this is the correct definition of usury, then we do have a contradiction in the Church’s teaching and practice. (The 1911 Code of Canon Law, for example, required Catholic institutions to keep operating funds on deposit at interest.) But is Noonan’s definition correct? Let’s do a bit of investigation.

In the Old Testament the injunctions against interest-taking fall generally into three classes.

First, passages such as Exodus 22:25 and Leviticus 25:35–38 command that the poor among the Israelites are to receive interest-free loans, out of compassion and mercy.

The second group of texts is illustrated by Deuteronomy 23:19–21: "You shall not charge interest to your countrymen: interest on money, food, or anything that may be loaned at interest. You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your countryman you shall not charge interest, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess." Here the principle of interest-free loans is extended to embrace all of Israel (and would include those non-Jews who are living under Israel’s protection). But notice that the Scripture also says, "You may charge interest to a foreigner," indicating that interest-taking is not presented as inherently evil or sinful.

Finally, the third group of texts (Ezek. 18:13, 17, Jer. 15:10, Prov. 28:8) condemn the greed of the rich, who oppress the poor by, among other things, exacting interest which the unfortunate are unable to pay.

So in the Old Testament we have specific prohibitions against Israelites taking interest on loans to other, poor Israelites, or more generally to any Israelites, but this prohibition does not constitute an absolute prohibition against all interest-taking; in fact, we have explicit testimony that interest is not completely forbidden. The larger ethical issue of the morality of interest-taking is not addressed in the Old Testament. Rather, "interest was viewed only as a problem of social justice. The problem of commutative justice, i.e., of equivalence of value in an exchange of present for future goods, remained quite untouched" (Thomas F. Divine, S.J., Interest, 10).

In the New Testament the situation is much the same. The Lord urges compassion and generosity from his people in lending: "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you" (Matt 5:42). So too our Lord says, "And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men" (Luke 6:34).

Situated here, in the Sermon on the Mount, this passage is clearly an appeal for Christian generosity; but it says nothing of the intrinsic morality of interest-taking. In fact, in the Parable of the Talents, our Lord chides the lazy servant who failed to receive any return on his master’s money: "You ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest" (Matt 25:27; cf. Luke 19:23). The Lord Jesus himself is the "master" in this parable, and it is impossible that he would place in his own mouth an injunction for his servant to do something intrinsically immoral. So here, as in the Old Testament, the New Testament urges generosity and freedom in lending, especially to the poor, but fails to support the blanket condemnation of all interest posited by Noonan. Indeed Noonan passes over in silence the parts of Scripture that indicate that interest-taking is not inherently immoral.

The Church Fathers were concerned, as is Scripture, to protect the poor from the rapacity of the rich who oppressed them through interest-taking, but they stopped short of categorically labeling all taking of interest as intrinsically immoral. As the Jesuit Thomas F. Divine says, "In the writings of the early Fathers, we find only reiterations of the scriptural precepts that it is contrary to charity and mercy to exact usury of the poor, without any intimation that these precepts imply a universal prohibition" (Divine, 26).

The Catholic Encyclopedia says that until the fourth century all that can be inferred from the writings of the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers is that it is contrary to mercy and humanity to demand interest from a poor and needy man. The vehement denunciations of the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries were called forth by the moral decadence and avarice of the time, and we cannot find in them any expression of a general doctrine on this point; nor do the Fathers of the following centuries say anything remarkable on usury; they simply protest against the exploitation of misfortune and against transactions that, under the pretence of rendering service to the borrower, really threw him into great distress.

The Church Fathers, like the authors of Scripture, are not intent on presenting an analysis of the morality of interest taking. But there is an added development in the patristic writings: "Where the problem of commutative justice is touched, it is practically always with respect to conditions such as these in which money is ‘idle’ and unfruitful, and usury is defined as anything (whether of money or of any other commodity) in excess of the amount advanced to the borrower" (Divine, 33).

It is a bit hard for us to understand, but, during the greater portion of antiquity, economies were characterized by a lack of competitive markets and thus few opportunities for investment. Money itself was considered primarily a medium of private and not commercial exchange. As Joseph Rickaby says of the Middle Ages (and his comments apply to much of antiquity as well): "In those days land was hard to buy, agriculture backward, roads bad, seas unnavigable, carrying-trade precarious, messages slow, raids and marauders frequent, population sparse, commerce confined to a few centers, mines unworked, manufactures mostly domestic, capital as yet unformed. Men kept their money in their cellars or deposited it for safety in religious houses. . . . They took out coin as they wanted it to spend on housekeeping, or on war, or on feasting. It was very hard, next to impossible, to lay out money so as to make more money by it. Money was in those days really barren" (Moral Philosophy, 261).
[/quote]

Edited March 14, 2005 by jasJis

[LittleLes]

In sum, then:

(1) I've presented Vatican I's "infallible" teaching that one must accept as true the interpretation of scripture that which the Church holds and has held. This involves the infallibility of the council and constant teaching of the church.

(2) We have shown that scriptural passages claimed that God founded the earth so it could not be moved (faith), but it does, so that interpretation was wrong.

(3) We've reviewed scripture and church pronouncements regarding the moral legitimacy of chattel slavery (morals). Since reversed.

(4) We reviewed the scripture involved, and church teachings on the sinfulness of charging interest on anything loaned (morals). The term "interest" was changed.

(5) If there is any question regarding the documents cited, in most cases they can be read in their entirety on the web or at your library. Search under the major nouns.

Conclusion: The Church does not always interpret scripture correctly. Therefore, the church has been in error when it claimed infallibility.

LittleLes

[LittleLes]

Hi Jas,

You have assussed me of "conveniently" excerpting two paragraphs of Vix Pervenit with the implication that I am lying.

I generally restrict my quotation to the pertainent material rather than cutting and pasting a lengthy reading or article from the web. One suspects that when that is done the poster really can't grasp the central concept.

I'll quote the two paragraphs of concern to you in their entirety with brackets around the sentences I originally quoted:

I (The nature of the sin called usury has its proper place and origin in a loan contract). This financial contract between consenting parties demands, by its very nature, that one return to another only as much as he has received. The sin rests on the fact that sometimes the creditor desires more than he has given. Therefore he contends some gain is owed him beyond that what he has loaned, (but any gain which exceed the amount he gave is illicit and usurious).

II (One cannot condone the sin or usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but, but rather moderate or small); neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich, nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one's fortune, to purchase new estates, or to engage in business transaction. The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned, once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan. Therefore if one receives interest, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice; its function in human contracts is to assure equality for each one. (This law is to observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made).

The sentences I quoted evidence from a papal teaching that :

(1)The sin called usury originates in the loan contract.
(2)Any gain beyond the amount loaned is usury.
(3)One cannot condone usury by claiming the amount of interest is small.
(4)Reparation must be made if usury is practiced (ie interest is charged).

Those were the points I was making.

A saving of many words. What are you claiming I lied about or misrepresented?

I usally just pass over meritless objections. But based on C-Mothers demands, perhaps I should revisit allegations such as the ones you and others have made, and review them in the light of day. I consider this largely a waste of time. I think most readers realize what they are dealing with. But some of these posts are amusing.

But for posts that cut and paste for three or more pages( especially like those of CAM 42), I'll have to break them up into smaller responses. And I promise not to respond in Latin. Nor in "ecclesiastical Greek" since any Greek involved in koine Greek.

Little Les

Edited March 14, 2005 by LittleLes

[jasJis]

Again, Les, you take things out of context. Read the whole Vix Pervenit letter (available on Catholic Encyclopedia).
For example, Les' statement above: "(2)Any gain beyond the amount loaned is usury."
But if one were to read on in Vix Pervenit, you read:
"9. [u]In the third place, those who desire to [b]keep themselve[/b]s free and untouched by the contamination of usury [b]and to give their money to another in such a manner that they may receive only legitimate g[/b]ain should be admonished to make a contract beforehand. In the contract they should explain the conditions and [b]what gain they expect from their money[/b].[/u] This will not only greatly help to avoid concern and anxiety, but will also confirm the contract in the realm of public business. This approach also closes the door on controversies-which have arisen more than once-since it clarifies whether the money, which has been loaned without apparent interest, may actually contain concealed usury."
Hmmm. Now read the excerpt I included in my previous post and one definitely gets the idea that usury and intrest are two different things. If you had read my post with the artcile excerpt, Les, you would know that you should be addressing the question why it's okay for God to tell the Iseralites to charge interest to foreigners and why Jesus, in his parable about the talents, had the master claim interest for his loan.
Or you could ignore the inconvenient 'rest of the story'.

[LittleLes]

Hi Jas,

I covered that in paragraph III of the VP. VP does a 180 degree turn and allows charging interest if one calls it a "parallel contract," but not "interest" which it condemns. Its a convenient fiction! But by 1745, not too many people were taking the earlier prohibition seriously. And if you read further, you will see that a number of the early Church councils condemned usury as well.

I'm wondering if we change the term "adultery" to "loving thy neighbor (provided her husband doesn't object)" if adultery will no longer be a sin either.

And no. Look up the origin of the word. "Usury" was originally the monetary gain on money loaned, also called interest.

LittleLes

[Archangel]

Sheesh, is LittleLes still whining about usury?

Here's some info I found to help him out:


Usury and interest taking aren’t the same thing. That the Church didn’t always distinguish the two as it does today is due to the fact that the medieval concept (and use) of money was different from ours today.

Usury involves interest taken on a non-productive loan. (Example: a loan to a friend so he can have an operation.) Since medievals believed money as such to be non-productive and sterile (which in fact it generally was in the Middle Ages), they thought any interest taken immoral. (It’s still immoral to take interest on a non-productive loan, since such a loan violates the virtue of charity.) Only things which were productive could be loaned out with the expectation of compensation for the loss of productivity. For example, it would not have been usurious for a medieval farmer to loan out his cow and expect compensation for the milk lost during the time of the loan.

When the understanding (and reality) of money as a largely inert, non-productive thing changed as a result of economic changes in European society, the principle that interest taken on money was per se inordinate, was abandoned as well.

[Cam42]

Hey everyone.....

The topic of usury has NOTHING to do with this thread.....how about we get back on topic.

Let's see.....if we go back to my post from Mar 13 2005, 04:35 PM then we can start discussing the topic at hand again. I'll repost.

[quote]I think the thread deals with the interpretation of scripture and C-Mother gets upset if we get off topic.[/quote]

Oh, it is more than c-mom. Does this mean that you are, finally, going to address the statements posed to you on this thread?

[quote]Christ was an first century itinerant preacher who advocated reform of Judaism and believed in, as did many during this period, the imminance of end times.[/quote]

Way to provide a half Arian answer. Are you denying the divine nature of Christ with that definition of Jesus Christ?

Cam

------------------------

I would hope that we can get back to discussing the situation at hand, however, since Littleles seems to avoid topics like a cat avoiding water....it might be pretty hard.

Cam

[LittleLes]

I'm afraid the Church's teaching on the moral legitimacy of slavery, its condemnation of usury, and its claim that the earth cannot move are all based on it misinterpretation of scripture and so clearly have probative value on this thread.

But I can see why you'd want to avoid this evidence.

LittleLes

[Cam42]

[quote]Christ was an first century itinerant preacher who advocated reform of Judaism and believed in, as did many during this period, the imminance of end times.[/quote]

Are you denying the hypostatic union?

Cam

[LittleLes]

CAM: "Are you denying the Hypostatic Union"?

Let's review that one. Over four hundred years after the death of Christ (ie 451 A.D), a ecumenical council was held at Chalcedon, a city in Asia minor. It defined that Jesus' divine and human natures are united in one divine person, without confusion, change, division, or separation.

But this teaching is overlooked by apologists who try to explain away Jesus' lack of knowledge about the nearness of end times and the parousia by claiming that he didn't know "in his human nature." But there's no separation according to Chalcedon.

And the Gospels offer abundant testimony that Jesus taught that before his generation or those standing there had passed away, the sun would be darkened, the stars would fall from the sky, and the Son of Man would come on the clouds, etc. Matt 24:28, 24:34, 16:27, Luke 9:27, 21:32, Mark 9.1.

Even Paul claimed that Jesus told him the same thing 1 Thes 4:15. Yet it failed to happen.

Question: How can a divine person without division in his nature be lacking in knowledge about the future?

I'm sure we'll get an apologetic tap dance on this one, probably running into many pages of cut and paste.

LittleLes

Edited March 16, 2005 by LittleLes