"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Have you ever heard a game called “Punch buggy”?
It’s game which typically involves two people. While you’re out and about, the first person who spots a Volkswagen Beatle (a “bug”) gets to punch the other person on the arm and, if it’s blue, gets to do it twice! It’s like a violent version of “Eye Spy”. Horrible, right?!
1 Punch
2 Punches
Today I’m going to be looking at a longer chapters of the Qur’an: Surah 36.
Surah 36 – “Ya Sin” (Ya-Sin)
This chapter covers the usual material. Muhammad’s commission by God is, of course, reaffirmed. He is told that some people to whom he speaks will not listen to him, but his job is to warn them anyway.
This chapter describes a pair of missionaries arriving at a city. It is not clear if this is an historic story or not. Either way, the message of the missionaries is rejected, but then a man comes from the city and pleads with his fellow inhabitants to listen to these men. He draws particular attention to the fact that they do not ask for money. For his own part, the man testifies that Allah made him, he will return to Him and thus Allah is worthy of worship and the intercession of the city’s false gods is worthless. The text abruptly switches to speaking about Paradise so my footnotes suggest that this means that the man was killed for his faith. While I can understand this explanation, the Qur’an seems to me to jump randomly from topic-to-topic without warning on a regular basis.
Allah then identifies various “signs” to be submitted for consideration:
I’m not 100% sure, but it seems that these signs are all meant to point to new life and Allah’s saving help.
If any of you have watched or listened to debates on atheism, you will have, no doubt, come across William Lane Craig. He is an analytic philosopher, Christian apologist and the driving force behind ReasonableFaith.org.
If you’ve ever heard him debate, you’ll know that he’s very clear, calm and persuasive. In fact, noted Atheist Sam Harris described him as “the one Christian apologist who seems to have put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists”.
It was therefore with great curiosity that I listened to an interview where he discusses Catholicism:
The interview was rather interesting. Catholics were praised for seeming to read the Bible more these days, and Craig spoke about Catholic liturgy in exalted terms. On the whole he was pretty positive about Catholicism, although he of course still disagrees on certain points, otherwise he wouldn’t still belong to a Protestant denomination.
In the interview he raises two objections to Catholicism. The first is a classic, Justification. When speaking about this topic, Craig fails to understand how Catholics can speak about the involvement of works in salvation, yet at the same time assert that we are justified by grace.
The other issue raised was another old favourite, the Blessed Virgin. The interviewer, Kevin Harris, tripped up early on, saying “There was a move a while back to really elevate Mary, to almost equality with Christ, co-redemtrix. I don’t think that ever got off the ground in the Catholic Church, but there was a move there…”. This is misleading on two points. Firstly, although it’s not dogma, you’ll still find that title used a lot in reference to Mary, even although it isn’t as established as other titles, such as Mother Of God. Secondly, co-redemtrix does not indicate equality with Christ, simply that Mary has a role in redemption, much in the same way a pastor who leads a person to Christ participates in that person’s redemption.
On both of these issues, Craig seems to find a gap between official Church teaching and the belief of the Catholic faithful, some of which I find understandable.
I’d invite you to have a listen. What do you think of the interview?
A few people have recently asked me where I get the material for my “Lectionary Notes” posts. Here’s the process I go through each week:
1. After we conclude our Bible Study in the JP2 Group, we all go to the church next door for adoration. In the presence of the Blessed Sacrament I read the Lectionary Scriptures for the following week and spend a little bit of time praying through them.
2. When I next have some time, I read through the texts again using my NIV Study Bible.
Regarding Bible translations, translators have to make a choice between translating from the original language word-for-word (“formal equivalence”) or providing a looser translation but which attempts to better convey the thought expressed by the original writer (“dynamic equivalence”). This essentially results in a trade-off between readability and fidelity to the original words of the text. I quite like the NIV in that it falls somewhere between formal and dynamic equivalence, but with a leaning more towards dynamic equivalence.
The NIV is not a Catholic Bible and unfortunately therefore is missing the books of Wisdom, Sirach etc. Some of the study notes also have a non-Catholic skew, but on the whole it has excellent cross-references and always at least offers an interesting point of view.
3. The next book I reach for is my Ignatius New Testament Study Bible. I can’t say how much I love this book. It’s the RSV translation, which follows the “formal equivalence” approach. I would not-so-humbly suggest that it is a far superior translation to the NAB which is used in the Lectionary. Ignatius Press have produced a superb resource here, with excellent notes, maps and word studies. Every Christian should own a copy – it’s a bargain at $16. I will wait here while you click on the link and go and order a copy from Amazon. Seriously, I’ll wait…Done? Okay, let’s continue!
Last week my friend Anh at Mod31 posted an article entitled Doing Nothing and True Silence. It really resonated in me:
“Really, who has time to waste these days, in the hustle and bustle of work, projects, and various activities? In fact, I don’t think I know how to NOT multi-task anymore. At work I tend to have 5-10 windows and who knows how many tabs are open simultaneously, allowing me to jump from one task to the next, with a quick Facebook breather in between. I work through my lunches, text coworkers my latte order while driving…, call my friends and family while walking from one place to another, mentally going over my weekly schedule while at the gym, and omigosh when can I squeeze in that much needed haircut? You get the idea. Instead of being present at one event, I am already planning my next hour/day’s activities. Heck, I’m reading three different books right now and am not more than halfway through each one”
This describes me to an absolute tee! Recently Anh has been trying to change her behaviour:
“I’ve been trying to set aside a couple of hours every now and then to be truly alone and to just be present. I mean turning my phone off to go for a walk around my neighborhood, enjoying the Farmer’s Market, making a Holy Hour (time set out solely for prayer), and allowing myself to reflect on various aspects of my life, without the anxiousness of feeling lonely or as though precious time is being wasted“
On my way back from work earlier this week, inspired by her example, I pulled off the freeway by Mission Bay and took a long walk:
It’s quite crazy that I’ve lived in San Diego for over two years and have driven past Mission Bay every day…and this is the first time I’ve stopped off on my way home to simply drink in the view.
This post is one of those which has languished in my “Drafts” folder for far too long. Fortunately, a recent article by Joe at Shameless Popery reminded me of this topic and prompted me to finish what I had begun…
I had been preparing a couple of apologetics posts and, to save me some typing, I had been digging through my past correspondence with Protestant friends and acquaintances.
A while ago I mentioned an email exchange I had with a chap called Jay. I was looking through some of our early correspondence and I came across something I had written to him which I thought deserved its own blog entry.
I had asked Jay a series of questions to which he had not responded. Rather than answer my questions about his own worldview, he wanted to jump right in and debate topics such as Mary, Purgatory and Papal Infallibility. Because every Protestant group has a different set of beliefs, I had to understand Jay’s worldview in order to meaningfully interact with it. Here’s what I wrote:
“[Jay,] please address my questions so I can understand where you’re coming from. If you want to know what I believe you can just crack open the Catechism. [This will concretely tell you what I believe and give you a good idea as to why I believe it].
[I can’t do the same for you. Your particular matrix of beliefs is your own]. I don’t have such a simple way of finding out how your theology hangs together and exactly what you believe (“Once Saved Always Saved”? Understanding of Sola Scriptura? Sola Fide? etc.)“
Now that I’ve built a preliminary glossary of Islamic terms, it’s time to read some more chapters of the Qur’an! Today I’m reading suwar 106, 101, 75, 104, 77, 50 and 90.
Surah 106 – “Winter” (Quraish)
This chapter addresses the Quraysh the tribe who dwell in Mecca. Allah says that because of the blessing He has given them, they should worship Him.
Questions
Q1. In what sense is the Ka’bah Allah’s “House”? Does he dwell there in any special sense as Yahweh did in the Jerusalem Temple?