Letters

Old Testament God (1)

Fr Brian Harrison OS

Contents - Aug 2012 - Buy a copy now Assumption homily: Mary: The true Ark of the Covenant - Pope Benedict XVI Benedict XVI sets up Anglican Ordinariate for Australia - Monsignor Harry Entwistle News: The Church Around the World Youth: Young adult Catholics peer ministry in WA and Queensland - Br Barry Coldrey Religious freedom: US Supreme Court upholds Obamacare - Babette Francis Vocations: Australian religious Sisters: 'In the true spirit of Vatican II' - Kate Cleary MGL Events: Equipping Christian leaders for the challenges of secularism - Philippa Le Feuvre Marriage: Archbishop Hickey: the Eucharist and the Christian family - Archbishop Barry Hickey The Virgin Mary's key role in our salvation history - Cedric Wright Parents' love for their children: finding the right balance - Andrew Kania Letters: Fact-filled article - Thomas and Patricia Watkin Letters: Caritas - Lance Eccles Letters: Old Testament God (1) - Fr Brian Harrison OS Letters: Old Testament God (2) - Frank Mobbs Letters: Emily's List - Maureen Federico Letters: Transubstantiation - John Young Letters: Real Presence - Theo Jorna Letters: Women priests - Francis Vrizmoed Letters: Marriage - Peter J. Young Books: LESSONS IN A ROSE-GARDEN: Reviving the Doctrinal Rosary, by Aidan Nichols O.P. - Peter Westmore (reviewer) Books: THE NEW EVANGELISATION: Issues and Challenges for Catholic Schools - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL IN THE PRIESTLY BREAST: Procedural Justice - Michael Thomas (reviewer) Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: The Pietà: the love of our heavenly Mother - Anne Lastman

On reading Frank Mobbs' rebuttal of the attack on the Bible aired by Richard Dawkins during his televised debate with Cardinal Pell, I am left wondering whether we are being offered a cure that is worse than the disease.

According to Dr Mobbs, "no one has ever believed" in the God depicted in Numbers 31:7, who ordered massacres, and who had a man put to death for gathering wood on the sabbath (Numbers 15:35). He has his facts egregiously wrong. I believe God did those things. So did the early Fathers (except perhaps Origen), St Thomas Aquinas, other holy Popes and Doctors of the Church, and countless millions of other orthodox Catholics over two millennia - not to mention Orthodox Jews.

We believe God did those things because the Church solemnly teaches that the books of the Old Testament as well as the New, "entire, with all their parts", were written "under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit" and so "have God as their author" ( Catechism of the Catholic Church (105), quoting Vatican II's Constitution on Divine Revelation and various New Testament teachings about biblical inspiration). God, of course, can neither deceive nor be deceived.

Dr Mobbs, however, thinks that even though the Old Testament's "dominant concept" of God is benign, it also presents God as giving "obviously immoral commands", so that "Christians can deny that these events [i.e., the giving of such commands] ever took place". This theory seems perilously akin to the ancient Marcionite heresy which, on similar grounds, rejected the divine inspiration of the Old Testament.

With friends like Mobbs, the Bible scarcely needs enemies like Dawkins.

FR BRIAN HARRISON OS
St Louis, Missouri, USA

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 25 No 7 (August 2012), p. 15