Pieces of Moral and Dogmatic Theology
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Being 58 allows me to say one of my mind’s favorite puzzles is now over 40 years old. Believe it or not, ever since I was a teenager, I’ve often wondered most intently in words similar to these: "How come I never see even so little as a magazine article marveling over how much religion knew about dinosaurs perhaps 3,000 years before scientists discovered the first dinosaur fossil?!" If I say that to a friend or acquaintance, the almost standard reaction is: "What do you mean religion knew about dinosaurs 3,000 years before science did?! Are you crazy or something?!" In my defense, I first point out that, according to the encyclopedias, there was no definite discovery of dinosaur fossils prior to about 1818 A.D. (Here follow 2 quotes from 2 different encyclopedias confirming that date.). Next, I ask my antagonist to turn to the third chapter of the book of Genesis in the Jewish and Christian bibles. It’s generally agreed the wording found there goes back at least a thousand years before Christ. Of necessity, then, if anything is said there about dinosaurs, then it was said about 3,000 years before scientists discovered the first dinosaur fossil. Does Genesis say anything about dinosaurs? In the fourteenth verse of chapter three of Genesis, we read: The Lord God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle and above all wild animals. Upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I remember a religion class in high school. Hearing the priest read that passage to us, I blurted out: "Hereafter the serpent will crawl on its belly???!!! What kind of a statement is that to make to a snake?!" He replied nonchalantly: "Well, I guess, up until the curse was levied, snakes walked upright like people." Right you are! That is the immediate implication common sense will usually read into Genesis’s statement. That being the case, one can hardly avoid the conclusion that, in the story of mankind’s fall from grace, Genesis is referring to a kind of animal which we of today would call a dinosaur. Do you disagree? Perhaps you will object: "Good grief, man! Prior to these words from you, no one ever interpreted Genesis to be describing something similar to what we now call a dinosaur. But, if what you say is true, then we ought to find that...from the earliest days, mind you!...Genesis’s devotees have depicted that most famous of serpents as something similar to a dinosaur." Come, come, my dear adversary! Have you lived all your life in total isolation from the rest of the human race? If not, how do you manage to be unaware of the fact that what you insist we should find is precisely what we do find? In other words...from the earliest days, mind you!...Genesis’s devotees have indeed depicted that most famous of serpents as something similar to a dinosaur. Or have you never heard of dragons, never read of how old and widespread is the legend of dragons, nor ever noticed how similar they are to dinosaurs?! Whether in The Old Testament or in The New Testament, the Judeo-Christian tradition is redolent with scenes in which Satan...the supreme proponent of evil and chief architect of humanity’s fall from grace...is represented as a dragon. Where did the widespread popularity of this image among the sacred writers come from, if not from the ease with which Genesis suggests the image of a serpent which has legs and can stand on its hind quarters? Which is more likely: that there is some connection between dragons and the Genesis story or that there is none? Here’s what two encyclopedias tell us about the age of the dragon image, its relationship to the snake, and its recurrence in the Judeo-Christian tradition (Here follow 2 quotes from 2 encyclopedias.): Notice the above reference to chapter 12 of Revelations (a/k/a The Apocalypse). Verse 4 of that chapter tells us the dragon stood before the woman. Some may contend the word means only that he came to a halt, but the Greek word used here clearly implies the act of standing upright on one’s two feet. For example, the same Greek word is used in verse 8 of the third chapter of the Acts Of The Apostles where we are told of a lame man who suddenly leaped up, stood and walked, and entered into the temple with the Apostles. Finally, let’s turn to The New Catholic Encyclopedia. In volume 13, there is an article entitled "Serpent In Paradise". In that article, the author admits both: (1) that the upright serpent is a possible assumption to be drawn from the Genesis story, and that (2) it’s an assumption supported by ancient illustrations. (Here follows the described quote.): Clearly, then, among the Bible’s devotees, there is a most ancient and very widespread tendency to associate Satan with the notion of a serpent which has legs and the capacity to stand upright on its hind quarters. It’s a notion further encouraged by something else Genesis says about the serpent. The story describes the serpent as speaking. It has, of course, been commonplace for millennia to look upon speech and the capacity to walk upright as the two most obvious of the truly profound differences between humans and all other animals. Genesis, therefore, could hardly have found a better way to suggest an upright serpent than to have made it speak. Actually, to be perfectly precise about it, it doesn’t make any difference whether or not you believe the third chapter of Genesis implies a dragon. After all, even without Genesis, there is more than enough evidence to say the notion of evil as a dragon was quite widespread long before the time of Jesus Christ. At the same time, it would be senseless to deny the ancient imagery of the dragon bears astonishing similarity to what we now call dinosaurs. With regard to that last statement, go back to the quote on page 4 in which Britannica tells us: The belief in these creatures apparently arose without the slightest knowledge on the part of the ancients of the gigantic, prehistoric, dragon-like reptiles. What moved the author of that article to write that particular sentence? Asked that question, I dare say most people would find the same, one answer virtually forcing its way across their minds...namely: One is saying, in one way or another: "So astonishing is the similarity between the ancient picture of the dragon and the modern image of the dinosaur, the author of the article could hardly have restrained himself from mentioning it." In case you missed it, take special care to note just how close that similarity runs. The quote on page 4 describes the dragon as: . . . a
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About the Book
This is a compilation in which ten works--each too small to be a book on its own--have been gathered together to form jointly the book no one of them can be individually. As the title of the whole suggests, each of the ten works deals with topics of interest to anyone interested in religious things, which is to say the things which connect us to, or disconnect us from, God. When the human mind leans toward religious things, it mostly goes in one or both of two directions--namely: moral theology and dogmatic theology. From one point of view, moral theology deals with the way we think, talk, and act with regard to self and other humans; whereas, dogmatic theology deals with the way we think, talk, and act with regard to God--particularly with regard to the way He relates to His creatures. For example, whether or not abortion is murder is a question for moral theology; whereas, whether or not Jesus Christ was truly God and man is a question for dogmatic theology. Dealing with the way we think, talk, and act, both moral and dogmatic theology first tell us what thoughts, words, and deeds are--according to God’s infinitely informed truth as divinely revealed to us--gravely irrational. To say they are gravely irrational is to say their presence in us leads to extremely irrational results, the most devastating of which is an eternally and indescribably obstinate hatred for God’s infinitely informed truth. For that reason, we must try to avoid them far more diligently than we try to avoid anything else. Theology next tries to tell us what thoughts, words, and deeds are--according to God’s infinitely informed truth as divinely revealed to us--gravely important. To say they are gravely important is to say that their absence in us leads to extremely irrational results, the most devastating of which is an eternally and indescribably obstinate hatred for God’s infinitely informed truth. For that reason, we must try to acquire them far more diligently than we try to acquire anything else. Those, then, are the parameters within which the communications of book are meant to fit. For that reason, some of its passages seek to explain what thoughts, words, and deeds God’s divinely revealed moral teaching tells us either to avoid or to incorporate into our lives; whereas, other passages seek to clarify what thoughts, words, and deeds God’s divinely revealed dogmatic teaching tells us either to avoid or to incorporate into our lives. Notice the repeated references to God’s divinely revealed teaching. That’s because this book’s communications always seek only to extract by analysis, and to clarify, what is already contained in God’s revealed word; never do this book’s communications seek to introduce a new revelation in no way contained in what was said of old. By way of example, you might say this book is merely a microscope and/or a telescope trying to make it easier for weak eyes to get a better and more instructive view of what is already in front of them. By no means is it an attempt to put in front of others something, which God Himself had not already put there. To be sure, in the piece about dinosaurs in Genesis and in the piece about the Apocalypse, very cryptic passages from scripture are given very concrete meanings no one could have imagined without the benefit of recent discoveries and recent historical events. So what?! Just because those words were too cryptic to convey their actual meaning until now, that does not deny that they were indeed revealed a long time ago. On the contrary, once it is seen how neatly words thousands of years old fit events only recently realized, it is clear those ancient words have to be a case of divine revelation. Granted, the meanings herein read into the first and last books of the Bible are so startling and fit the words so neatly, it strongly implies this: In so far as divine revelation is sensible (We are not here talking about the Divine Revelation which goes on in the innermost depths of the individual’s soul and just beyond the veil of consciousness.), it often involves no more than symbols whose critical meaning cannot be grasped without much personal and collective effort. Isn’t that what we ought to imply? After all, does not divine revelation itself assure us that we humans must earn our bread by the sweat of our brows (cf.: Genesis 3:19)? Come, then, dear reader, and let’s see if perhaps this book can serve as the microscope and/or telescope which makes it much easier for you to become a master of moral and dogmatic theology. Then shall the critical meaning of the symbols be much clearer to you and, hopefully without nearly as much sweat as it cost its author’s brow.
About the Author
Born April 13, 1936, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the author graduated from Jesuit high school, in New Orleans, in 1953. A single fruitless semester studying music at Loyola University of the South in New Orleans was followed by almost two years of floundering in a sea of confusion, and the author then joined the U. S. Air Force on Dec. 7, 1955. Honorably discharged in April of 1960, the author underwent another two and a half years of floundering so severe, he came extremely close to a mental breakdown. In desperation, he gave away everything he owned and, for thirteen years, took to the life of a wandering hermit. In search of as much time and energy as possible for inner reflection upon self, God, and the nature and purpose of reality, he criss-crossed the United States on foot four times. At first, he lived off of whatever food and clothing he could beg; but, after learning how to live on a dollar a day or less, he turned to working at various monasteries in the winter time in exchange for the two to three hundred dollars required to feed and to clothe himself during the next spring, summer, and fall of walking. The monasteries also provided access to libraries in which he could read, and extract notes from, the great writings of the Catholic Church. In the course of that thirteen-year odyssey, there was a four year period during which he refused to speak to anyone (except on very rare occasions) and communicated only by means of written notes. In August of 1975, the author’s father lost his mind, and the author’s siblings insisted he was the only one in the family with the time and ability to tend to their father in his hour of need. Thus, after thirteen years, the author’s preferred lifestyle came to an end. Dire poverty then gave way to economic independence, and total seclusion gave way to what little privacy can be enjoyed by bachelors who prefer to avoid partying and to stay home and--as much as possible--to bury themselves in as much reading and writing as the world around them will allow. After his father’s death in 1981, the author took care of his mother until her death in 1996. In this book, the self-educated author of dozens of mostly unpublished books and pamphlets seeks to share with others the avenues of thought down which his mind was lead by thirteen years of heroically intense inner concentration followed by twenty-two years of moderately intense inner concentration.