Have there been any attempt in Christianity to draw a set of rules or principles on how the Bible must be interpreted? Have there been any attempt in Christianity to draw a set of rules or principles on how the Bible must be interpreted? For example, I know some Christians take the words of the Lord literally that He spoke of the loaf of bread during the supper: "This is my body", however, they don't go as far as to take His other similar words literally like "I am the door of the sheep", "I am the bread which came down from heaven" or "I am the vine, ye are the branches". So, there must be some rule or at least some explanation on why some words in the Bible should be taken literally and others not.

There are also some similar words that seem to be meant to be taken only literally: "I am the Son of God", "I am the resurrection, and the life", "I am the way, the truth, and the life".

So, have there been any set of rules established anywhere in Christianity? Have such an attempt been made? I guess, the answer is yes. Then, if the answer is positive, is it possible to present such rules here in general? If they really differ greatly depending on the branch of Christianity, please, specify on behave of which such branch you are saying.

There have been many attempts in Christianity to draw a catholic (catholic literally means "universal") set of rules or principles on how the Bible must be interpreted. This is called the field of biblical hermeneutics (and there is an entire Stack Exchange devoted to this field/art). Hermeneutics is not exclusive to scripture, it is also applied to other texts. The goal of hermeneutics is to determine the objective meaning of the text, which may include attempts to understand authorial intent, historical/cultural context, and the grammatical and linguistic meaning of the words and phrases themselves. Many church councils were centered on disputes on how various texts should be interpreted, and creeds were developed to clarify the Church's position on various issues.

Brief History

The field of hermeneutics has been applied to the Old and New Testament by both Jews and Christians throughout history. Early Jewish hermeneutics include the seven rules of Hillel which were passed down orally before being transcribed shortly before the birth of Christ, and Rabbi Ishmael's Baraita (13 rules) from the late first or early second century.

Seven ecumenical councils occurred throughout church history where specific interpretations of scripture were rejected or accepted. The goal of these councils was Church unity, thus it could be said that hermeneutics were being formulated through these decisions. I only reference seven because these were considered to be ecumenical and thus the decisions made at these councils are generally accepted by most major Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant traditions today.

Nicea I (325) - The first part of the Nicene Creed was formulated which defined the divinity of the Son of God, refuting Arius.
Constantinople I (381) - The second part of the Nicene Creed was formulated which defined the divinity of the Holy Spirit and refuted Apollinarism. The creed is sometimes called the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed because it was formulated in councils in both Nicea and Constantinople.
Ephesus (431) - Christ was defined as the Incarnate Word of God, refuting Nestorianism; and Mary was affirmed as Theotokos (God-bearer). The Nicene Creed was declared as being authoritative and it became unlawful to hold to a different faith than that as defined by the creed (the creed defined the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic faith).
Chalcedon (451) - Christ was defined as perfect God and perfect man in one person (Hypostatic Union), refuting Eutyches and monophysitism. Those who rejected the decisions of this council include the present-day 'Oriental Orthodox,' which includes the Coptic Church, Armenian Orthodox Church, and the Syrian Orthodox Church.
Constantinople II (553) - The Church reaffirmed the doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ, further refuting Nestorianism.
Constantinople III (680) - The Church affirmed the true humanity of Jesus by insisting upon the reality of His human will and action, refuting monothelitism.
Nicea II (787) - The Church affirmed the propriety of icons as genuine expressions of the Christian faith, restoring the veneration of icons and ending the first iconoclasm.

From then on, the Church interpreted the scriptures in light of these councils' decisions, notably the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic faith as defined in the Nicene Creed. Various factions within Christianity have accepted or rejected additional councils and decisions, which further affects how they interpret scripture. It should also be noted that many modern Christian leaders do not consider any church councils to be infallible, to include the first Church council held in Jerusalem which is recorded in Acts 15. I bring all of this up because everyone interprets scripture in light of Church history and their historical and cultural context. Some groups insist that their sole authority is "scripture alone," but even these groups hold specific interpretations that have come about due to historical events. This is true whether or not these groups are aware of their biases. Clearly the Church has attempted to come to universal agreement on biblical interpretation, but numerous schisms and divisions have made this virtually impossible.

Prior to the Enlightenment, most Christians treated the bible as a special class of literature (sacred revelation), and thus did not apply textual criticism methods to its study. But during the Enlightenment it became common to read the bible as any other piece of literature, and historical-critical methods of interpretation began to be employed.

In general (painting with a broad brush), most conservative Christian groups now employ some form of historical-grammatical interpretation, while most liberal groups employ historical-critical methods. Another recent trend is trajectory hermeneutics, which asserts that since revelation is progressive, there is a "redemptive movement" or interpretive trajectory to the text that must be determined.

General Hermeneutical Principles

I will now attempt to answer the second part of your question: "is it possible to present such rules here in general?" I would not go so far as to call these rules, but they are general hermeneutical principles that guide most Christians today as they seek to understand and apply the scriptures.

The original text (and the best text) must be used for interpretation.
There can be but one sense of a Biblical word or sentence (i.e., the plain grammatical sense). Thus no interpretation is correct unless it is grammatically correct, that is, according to the grammar and syntax of the language in which it was originally written.
The meaning of any phrase or word must be sought in its own context.
Jesus Christ is the center of all scripture.

From this point on various Christian groups differ significantly (and some may not even accept those listed above, although most would). Most conservative Protestants assert that "Scripture interprets scripture," while Roman Catholics would include the authority of the Church and the Pope as having the ultimate right to interpret scripture. Many others have specific principles to avoid the misinterpretation of specific genres of literature within the bible (allegorical, prose, apocalyptic, poetry, etc.), although these principles are not technically restricted to biblical interpretation.

I tried to give a thorough answer that steers clear of taking the sole view of any specific branch of Christianity. For additional hermeneutical principles specific to your Christian tradition, I would recommend speaking to your priest/pastor and/or taking a course in biblical studies.


What were the topics of discussion which Jesus had at the Temple? (Catholic perspective) Luke 2:42-47 (RSVCE) has this narrative:

" And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom;  and when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it,  but supposing him to be in the company they went a day’s journey, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances;  and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking him.  After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions;  and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. "

I would like to know what were the possible topics of discussion which Jesus had with the teachers. Has the Catholic Church ever come out with a speculative list of topics of the discussion of young Jesus at the temple ?

No.

Any list would be purely speculative, but boy-oh-boy does the mind and heart soar with the possibilities.  One imagines the boy Jesus getting in touch with his devine nature and the questions his man-nature would have formed.

I hope that heaven allows for exploring these questions.  One could imagine seeking out one of those temple teachers that were there and getting a first-hand account of that conversation.


Does the Eastern Orthodox Church consider belief in the existence of Jesus' soul before the incarnation a heresy? Does the Eastern Orthodox Church consider belief in the existence of Jesus' soul before the incarnation a heresy?

The question is imprecise. It can be read as asking the existence of Christ before His incarnation (which is about the divine person) or about the existence of His human soul before incarnation (which is about His human nature). If it's the former the answer is definitively no. Even Arius of Alexandria while denying the Son is of the same essence with the Father he never questioned that the Logos is exist prior to His incarnation. If it's the later the answer is affirmatively yes. At the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (553) the heresy of eternal humanity of Christ is condemned:

  If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall
  assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be
  anathema.

  First Anathema Against Origenism, Second Constantinople 553.

The confusion regarding the difference between what constitute a person and a nature. Jesus' human soul came into existence at the moment of His conception by Theotokos. Human soul is assumed by the Logos in His incarnation not prior. Why this is not the case? Because His humanity is not the proto-type of Adam, it's the other way around. His humanity was taken from Adam. He healed our humanity by assuming it. If He has His own humanity then our humanity is not healed because the fallen nature of Adam has not been assumed. This is why His human soul began to exist only after the conception not prior as argued by Origen.


What is the Catholic theological basis for the Munificentissimus Deus? If you are looking for direct scriptural proof of this dogma, you will not find any. Mary’s Assumption was not explicitly recorded in Scripture. However, Pope Pius XII formally defined the dogma of the Assumption in his apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus on November 1, 1950: "The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory" (source)

My Question:

What is the Catholic theological basis for the Munificentissimus Deus?

If it wasn't recorded in Scripture, and we don't have any archaeological evidence to support it, then what did Pope Pius XII use as a basis?

In order to understand this, it is necessary to understand the possible bases for Catholic a theological belief.
My answer here discusses the role of Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture in the Church; and my answer here begins a discussion of the Magisterium of the Church. These three are the grounds on which the Catholic Church can declare something to be a belief to be held by the entire Church.
Briefly, the Church holds Sacred Tradition to be passed down from the apostles, just as the scriptures were:

The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus' teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit.

(Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 83)
The Magisterium is the authority the Church claims, which it holds to be passed down from the apostles, to interpret Scripture and Tradition so as to guide the Church unerringly in her beliefs:

The apostles entrusted the "Sacred deposit" of the faith (the depositum fidei), contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole of the Church. "By adhering to [this heritage] the entire holy people, united to its pastors, remains always faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."  ... "The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

(Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 84–85)
One thing I did not discuss in either of the above answers is what is called the sensus fidei, or "sense of the faithful". Under certain conditions, when it appears that all of the Church holds a particular belief, the Church may declare that the belief is a truth to be held as dogma:

All the faithful share in understanding and handing on revealed truth. They have received the anointing of the Holy Spirit, who instructs them and guides them into all truth."
"The whole body of the faithful... cannot err in matters of belief. This characteristic is shown in the supernatural appreciation of faith (sensus fidei) on the part of the whole people, when, 'from the bishops to the last of the faithful,' they manifest a universal consent in matters of faith and morals."
"By this appreciation of the faith, aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth, the People of God, guided by the sacred teaching authority (Magisterium),... receives... the faith, once for all delivered to the saints.... The People unfailingly adheres to this faith, penetrates it more deeply with right judgment, and applies it more fully in daily life."

(Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 91–93; the quotes are from the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium.)
Thus, the Magisterium can be exercised by the People of God in its entirety (under certain conditions), by the entire College of Bishops, and by the Pope. When Pope Pius wrote Munificentissimus Deus, he invoked all three. A few years earlier, he had written a letter to the bishops titled Deiparae Virginis Mariae, in which he reviewed the fact that many people, religious and lay, had asked various Popes over the previous hundred years to make the belief in the Assumption into a matter of dogma. He asked the bishops what they and their dioceses thought:

We earnestly beg you to inform us about the devotion of your clergy and people (taking into account their faith and piety) toward the Assumption of the most Blessed Virgin Mary. More especially We wish to know if you, Venerable Brethren, with your learning and prudence consider that the bodily Assumption of the Immaculate Blessed Virgin can be proposed and defined as a dogma of faith, and whether in addition to your own wishes this is desired by your clergy and people.

Apparently, this was answered with a strong "Yes"; in Munificentissimus Deus the Pope reports:

those whom "the Holy Spirit has placed as bishops to rule the Church of God"(4) gave an almost unanimous affirmative response to both these questions. This "outstanding agreement of the Catholic prelates and the faithful,"(5) affirming that the bodily Assumption of God's Mother into heaven can be defined as a dogma of faith, since it shows us the concordant teaching of the Church's ordinary doctrinal authority and the concordant faith of the Christian people which the same doctrinal authority sustains and directs, thus by itself and in an entirely certain and infallible way, manifests this privilege as a truth revealed by God and contained in that divine deposit which Christ has delivered to his Spouse to be guarded faithfully and to be taught infallibly.

In other words, because essentially all the bishops and all the faithful agreed that it was the truth, the Pope declared that it must be truth (since the Church as a whole could not err in matters of faith), and should be taught infallibly, as a truth to which all the faithful must adhere.
Some of the support that Pope Pius gives comes from the celebration of the Dormition of Mary from ancient times; for example:

the fact that a holy fast had been ordered from ancient times for the day prior to the feast is made very evident by what our predecessor St. Nicholas I testifies in treating of the principal fasts which "the Holy Roman Church has observed for a long time, and still observes."

(Munificentissimus Deus, paragraph 19; citing the "Responsa Nicolai ad consulta Bulgarorum" ["Response of Nicholas to the actions of the Bulgars"], a letter sent by Pope St. Nicholas I to Boris, king of the Bulgars, in the late 9th century)
He further cites a sermon of St. John Damascene ("In Praise of the Dormition of Mary, the Mother of God [Theotokos] and Ever-Virgin"), which states:

It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine mansions.

After following this up with a discussion of how other saints and theologians have agreed with these ideas, Pope Pius concluded:

Since our Redeemer is the Son of Mary, he could not do otherwise, as the perfect observer of God's law, than to honor, not only his eternal Father, but also his most beloved Mother. And, since it was within his power to grant her this great honor, to preserve her from the corruption of the tomb, we must believe that he really acted in this way. ...
Since the universal Church, within which dwells the Spirit of Truth who infallibly directs it toward an ever more perfect knowledge of the revealed truths, has expressed its own belief many times over the course of the centuries, and since the bishops of the entire world are almost unanimously petitioning that the truth of the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven should be defined as a dogma of divine and Catholic faith ... we believe that the moment appointed in the plan of divine providence for the solemn proclamation of this outstanding privilege of the Virgin Mary has already arrived.
For which reason, ...  we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.
Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.


What is the Biblical basis for the special mediatorial position of the Pope, Cardinals, etc in the Catholic church? Following-up a previous question, what Biblical basis does the Catholic church claim for the special role of Priests, Cardinals, and Popes in the structure of the church?

The Pope

The Pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth, the direct successor of Peter who was handed the Keys to the Kingdom by Jesus. (Matthew 16:19)  This makes his role a mediator for consciences, or an arbiter of what is right and wrong, true and false in terms of faith and morals, but not science and logic. (ccc 891)

Bishops

Catholics claim apostolic succession, meaning that what Jesus said the His apostles applies specifically to the episcopate, the Bishops especially.

So, when Jesus says:

  Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

(Matt 28:18-20 NAB)

He is commissioning the Apostles and their successors to act in His name.  Not baptizing like John baptized, but baptizing like Christ baptized.

Jesus established or sanctified all 7 sacraments in his short ministry and expects His priests to carry them out.

Baptism (John 3:1-5)
Confirmation (Acts 8:5-17 and Acts 1)
The Eucharist (John 6:48-58, and institution narratives in synoptics)
Holy Orders (Everything Jesus tells the apostles to do)
Marriage (Mark 10:1-12, Eph 5)
Reconciliation (John 20:19-23)
Anointing of the Sick (Mark 6:7, 12-13)

Biblical Sources for sacraments

Priests

Priests (as well as the Pope and the Bishops) act 'in persona Christi'.  They forgive sins ,through God, because Jesus forgave sins and told the apostles to act accordingly (John 20:23).  The very definition of priests is one who offers sacrifices for the people.  You don't have to poke very far into Leviticus to find a biblical basis for priests acting like priests.  Priests in the new covenant 'do this in remembrance of me', and they say this, not 'do this in remembrance of Jesus' during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Eucharistic prayer before communion.

Cardinals

One thing to point out is, not all cardinals are currently Bishops (and historically there have been lay cardinals, so it's an error to conflate their position with Bishops, they do not act as cardinals as mediators in any way.


What would be a good counter arguments to this idea? Sex Before Marriage Is Not A Sin

I found this article that says that sex outside marriage is not a sin.

Some samples are

  Ruth and Boaz

  Really? Where does the Bible give a green light to premarital sex?
  Perhaps the most striking example is in the story of Ruth, though
  there are other examples as well. According to the Book of Ruth, when
  the recently widowed Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi were faced with
  a famine in Ruth’s homeland Moab, they returned to Israel impoverished
  and with little hope of survival. Ruth took to gleaning in the fields
  to find food for herself and Naomi. The owner of the fields, a
  relative of Naomi named Boaz, saw Ruth and was pleased by her. When
  Naomi heard about it, she encouraged Ruth to adorn herself and
  approach Boaz at night while he was sleeping to see what would happen.
  Ruth took this advice, resting with him until morning after first
  “uncovering his feet” (in Hebrew, “feet” can be a euphemism for male
  genitals). The next day, Boaz goes to town to find out whether he can
  marry her, and, luckily, another man with a claim to Ruth agrees to
  release her. They do marry and together they produce Obed, the
  grandfather of King David.

  None of this would have been possible if Ruth had not set out to
  seduce Boaz in a field, without the benefit of marriage.

The Bible’s Contradictions About Sex

Another is David and Betsheba. It's not a sin because Batsheba is not technically married.

David and Bathsheba says it's not sin at all.

Yet, not having sex outside marriage seems like the most talked about rules in christianity second only to believing Jesus is God.

So what would be a good counter-argument?

Also is there reasonable reason to say that this is very open to interpretation and that the bible is simply not clear about the idea? Is it okay to say that, yes it's sin and no it's not a sin is well within possible interpretation?

Where does the Bible give a green light to premarital sex?

First of all, the original word used in the Greek Bible, πορνεία porneia, and the Hebrew Bible, zanah, does not exactly mean premarital sex. The word has broad meanings, which may or may not include premarital sex:

  πορνεία: properly, of illicit sexual intercourse in general.

Second, there are verses in the Bible that explicitly refer to premarital sex, and even the monetary price to be paid for doing so, because the issue was dealt with from the perspective of property crime because virginity was considered valuable in Hebrew culture.

Exodus 22:16-17

  16 And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her,
  he shall surely endow her to be his wife.

  17 If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay
  money according to the dowry of virgins.

Deuteronomy 22 states that if a man and woman commit adultery, they are punished by stoning. And if man rapes a woman who is pledged to be married, he is punished by death. The woman is “pledged to be married”, pointing towards the woman already being the property of another man. So rape, as shown in Deuteronomy 22, is not a violation of someone’s dignity, but a property crime, which can be monetarily compensated.

The "ownership" of a woman's virginity is also illustrated in Genesis 19:8:

  Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me
  bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But
  don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the
  protection of my roof."

In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes to Corinthians who had practiced unlawful sexual relations as stated in Leviticus 18.

1 Corinthians 7:10-11

  10 τοῖς δὲ γεγαμηκόσιν παραγγέλλω, οὐκ ἐγὼ ἀλλὰ ὁ Κύριος, γυναῖκα ἀπὸ
  ἀνδρὸς μὴ χωρισθῆναι. 11 ἐὰν δὲ καὶ χωρισθῇ, μενέτω ἄγαμος ἢ τῷ ἀνδρὶ
  καταλλαγήτω,— καὶ ἄνδρα γυναῖκα μὴ ἀφιέναι.

  10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife
  must not separate from her husband. 11 But if she does, she must
  remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband
  must not divorce his wife.

The problem is that the term  ἄγαμος (agamos), “unmarried” means widowed men (ἄγαμος is used for men, ἄνανδρος (anandros, lit. without man) for women.

From 1 Corinthians: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture.

Widows, widowers, and divorced people weren’t allowed another marriage because of the transactional nature of marriage. “Unmarried” didn’t mean people who never married, but people who were married and are no longer married. Although the widows and widowers wanted to marry, they couldn’t because it was illegal.

So here Paul is talking about marriage. There’s nothing to indicate that Paul is talking about sex here. And certainly nothing to indicate the Paul is talking about sex in the way it is seen today — two consenting, loving adults in a committed relationship that may or may not be bound by the covenant of marriage.


According to Protestantism, why God did not inspire New Testament writers to explicitly assert Sola Scriptura? I think it is a fairly uncontroversial claim that the Bible (and particularly the NT) does not explicitly assert Sola Scriptura (e.g. here, here).

Now, if God fully inspired the Bible (even to the point of inerrancy), it is fair to ask, from a Protestant point of view, why God did not inspire biblical authors to explicitly assert Sola Scriptura?

Although the answer "only God knows" is surely valid, theologically speaking, it is uninteresting. There must be several Protestant theologians (and perhaps early Reformers themselves) who have addressed this question, perhaps as an attempt to respond the obvious rebut "but Sola Scriptura is not in the Bible".

Protestantism, as understood by the reformers and their legacy, were fully comfortable with a systematic theology that proceeds from exegesis. They did not consider it necessary to be able to point to a specific text for every single doctrine if they observed that the Bible as a whole taught a particular doctrine. It actually makes the affirmations weaker if they are taught on a proof-text basis since it implies that the doctrine rises or falls on the interpretation of a single text, which hardly any biblical doctrine really does. It is relatively easy for heretics to create plausible (though invalid) arguments to poke holes in any of the common proof-texts that threaten their views. The systematic theologies of the Reformation tended to uses texts for evidence, but not in an exact text-to-doctrine fashion that misses the big picture in the details.

The doctrine of "sola scriptura" is a pithy formulation to fit into the "five sola" scheme, but to address it more technically they were really addressing the fact that God is only known via his divine accommodation of the creator to the creature through general and special revelation. They would then parse out some clarifications and make their case for the primacy of special revelation above general revelation.

The foundations for sola scriptura come down to the belief that God's revelation is the only way to reliably know about God and how he wishes to be pleased and what he desires from us, and therefore what constitutes a reliable source of divine revelation, which leads to scripture alone.

The problem with questions of the form, "Why didn't God X" is that all of them are speculative. Unless God tells us his motivations, we don't know them and we would be fools to guess or to think that we can draw conclusions from them. There are boundless examples of things that we would think God would have done or not done if he really is this way or that, but those are not the ways that he did it.

Nevertheless, the reformers did not think they lacked a biblical basis for their sola scriptura beliefs. They didn't require explicit biblical statements to draw theological conclusions from the content of the Bible.


What is the basis for saying that B. B. Warfield believed in theistic evolution? B. B. Warfield is commonly cited as a leading conservative Reformed theologian during the period leading up to the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy of the early 20th century. One of the issues of dispute was the origin of the earth – if Darwin's relatively new theory of evolution could be reconciled with the Genesis account of Creation.

Warfield's predecessor Charles Hodge had attacked Darwinism early on, but, according to Wikipedia, Warfield's views were different:

  [B. B. Warfield] came to endorse the ideas now described as theistic evolution (source)

Because of the respect afforded Warfield in conservative circles, his views on this subject are frequently mentioned in the ongoing debate in denominations like the PCA over acceptable interpretations of Genesis 1–3.  Thus, I'd like to better understand the basis for Wikipedia's statement.  In Warfield's writings, did he endorse views often associated with theistic evolution, like:

Adam not a historic, individual person
Adam a historic individual, but a product of evolution from a lesser mammal
Death of mammals prior to the Fall
The Fall not a discrete historical event

What is the best case that can be made for calling Warfield a theistic evolutionist?

Most who claim Warfield as a theistic evolutionist owe their position to the analysis of Mark Noll and David Livingstone, who together published a selection of Warfield's writings on the subject in a compendium called Evolution, Science, and Scripture. Noll wrote his analysis in a portion of his book Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, reprinted at BioLogos, and Livingstone did so within his book Darwin's Forgotten Defenders. So it would serve us well to examine the writings of Warfield that they themselves cite. Fred Zaspel, while critical of the "Livingstone-Noll thesis," nonetheless says in a Themelios article that the compendium "collects virtually all of [Warfield's] creation-evolution writings."
If you want to examine the evidence yourself, the best primary sources are those in Evolution, Science, and Scripture, and the best secondary sources would probably be Noll's and Livingstone's writings in favor of their thesis and Zaspel's against.
It's important to note that Noll and Livingstone claim development within Warfield's thought. The following appears both in the Noll link above and in their joint introduction to the compendium:

In the course of his career, both Warfield’s positions and his vocabulary did shift on the question of evolution. But they shifted only within a fairly narrow range. What remained constant was his adherence to a broad Calvinistic conception of the natural world — of a world that, even in its most physical aspects, reflected the wisdom and glory of God—and his commitment to the goal of harmonizing a sophisticated conservative theology and the most securely verified conclusions of modern science.

The nuance is best picked up on by reading their editorial comments throughout the compendium, but for our purposes the development is not extremely important, except to note the following. There is no documentation of Warfield's views before his first published work on the subject in 1888, other than his 1916 personal recollections on undergraduate life at Princeton, speaking of one of his teachers:

He did not make me a Darwinian, as it was his pride to believe he ordinarily made his pupils. But that was doubtless because I was already a Darwinian of the purest water before I came into his hands [in 1868], and knew my Origin of Species and Animals and Plants under Domestication, almost from A to Izard. In later years I fell away from this, his orthodoxy. He was a little nettled about it and used to inform me with some vigor—I am speaking of a time thirty years agone!—that all biologists under thirty years of age were Darwinians. I was never quite sure that he understood what I was driving at when I replied that I was the last man in the world to wonder at that, since I was about that old myself [early 1880s] before I outgrew it.

So it would seem that he accepted Darwin's theory for much of his young life, "outgrowing" his pure acceptance of it sometime around the early 1880s, but never fully rejecting its possibility in his published works post-1888. Phrased in this careful way, I don't think even Zaspel would disagree.
In an effort to present the strongest case for Warfield as a theistic evolutionist, I'll arrange this answer topically, using your bullet points as a guide, with two additions of my own:

Acceptance of the usefulness of the term "evolution"
Antiquity of the universe and/or of the human race
Adam not a historic, individual person
Adam a historic individual, but a product of evolution from a lesser mammal
Death of mammals prior to the Fall
The Fall not a discrete historical event

We'll examine one at a time whether he affirmed these ideas.
Warfield on "evolution"
Warfield's 1895 article "The Present-Day Conception of Evolution," a two-part essay which is largely a reworking of his 1888 lecture "Evolution or Development," says the following at the opening of part two:

There are three general positions which may be taken up with reference to the doctrine of evolution, which has so deeply affected modern thought as to the origin of the universe and all that it contains.

We may look upon this doctrine as supplying an obviously true and adequate philosophy of being, and treat it as furnishing a complete account of the origin and present state of the universe. ...

We may consider the doctrine of evolution as a discovery by science of the process through which this ordered world in which we live has, as a matter of fact, come into existence; we may treat evolution merely as an account of the manner in which the universe, considered as a cosmos, has been produced, and all the forms of being which constitute it have been brought into being. In this form, evolution ... is made a second cause and implies a first cause working by and through it. ...

We may look upon the doctrine of evolution as a more or less probable, or more or less improbable, conjecture of scientific workers as to the method of creation; and thus we may treat it as only a working hypothesis suggested to account for the manner in which the universe has come into being, and seeking now to try itself by the facts. This has always been the attitude of the more cautious thinkers.

Warfield counts himself one of the "cautious thinkers" who consider evolution a "conjecture" and "working hypothesis." After describing the three possible positions, he first dismisses the first position, as he had already spent part one doing, as "the old problem of the atheistic philosophy" in "a new dress." Then he breezily says that, were evolution proven true, "the old faith will be able" to "assimilate to itself all facts," concluding thus:

The only living question with regard to evolution is whether it is true. And the only reasonable reply which can be given to this question today is that it is sub judice [before the court].

He similarly concludes his 1888 lecture by stating that one can be Biblically faithful and accept evolution:

I do not think that there is any general statement in the Bible or any part of the account of creation, either as given in Genesis 1 and 2 or elsewhere alluded to, that need be opposed to evolution. ... There is no necessary antagonism of Christianity to evolution, provided that we do not hold to too extreme a form of evolution. To adopt any form that does not permit God freely to work apart from law and which does not allow miraculous intervention (in the giving of the soul, in creating Eve, etc.) will entail a great reconstruction of Christian doctrine, and a very great lowering of the detailed authority of the Bible. But if we condition the theory by allowing the constant oversight of God in the whole process, and his occasional supernatural interference for the production of new beginnings by an actual output of creative force, producing something new, i.e., something not included even in posse [potentially] in the preceding conditions, we may hold to the modified theory of evolution and be Christians in the ordinary orthodox sense.

Note his caveats, that even if one accepts evolution, one must accept God's miraculous intervention in order to still accept the Genesis account. In his 1911 article "On the Antiquity and the Unity of the Human Race," he goes further and implies that, not only does a purely evolutionary (non-miraculous) account of human origins defy the Bible, it also defies common sense:

Men seemed to imagine that, if only time enough were given for it, effects, for which no adequate cause could be assigned, might be supposed to come gradually of themselves. Aimless movement was supposed, if time enough were allowed for it, to produce an ordered world. It might as well be supposed that if a box full of printers' types were stirred up long enough with a stick, they could be counted on to arrange themselves in the order in which they stand, say, in Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." They will never do so, though they be stirred to eternity.

These threads come together in the conclusion to his 1901 essay "Creation, Evolution, and Mediate Creation":

What, then, is to be the attitude of the Christian man toward the modern doctrine of evolution? He is certainly to deny with all the energy given to him that the conception of evolution can take the place of creation as an account of the origin of the universe. Evolution offers no solution of the question of origins. For its operation it presupposes not only already existent material which can unroll into fresh forms, but material within which all that is subsequently evolved already potentially exists.
And he is to deny with equal strenuousness that the conception of evolution can take the place of that of mediate creation, as an account of the origination of new things in the course of the divine government of the world. Things have come into being since the first origin of the world which did not lie potentially within the primal world-stuff, needing only to be deduced from it. If nothing else, the God-Man has come into being; and that not as a product of the precedent conditions in the world, but as an intrusion from without and above. And with him, the whole series of events that constitute the supernatural order of the Kingdom of God. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the same intrusion of purely creative force, productive of something absolutely new, may have occurred also in the natural order of the first creation — say at the origin of self-conscious, immortal beings in the complex of nature.
On the other hand, the Christian man has as such no quarrel with evolution when confined to its own sphere as a suggested account of the method of the Divine Providence. What he needs to insist on is merely that Providence cannot do the work of creation, and is not to be permitted to intrude itself into the sphere of creation, much less to crowd creation out of the recognition of man, merely because it puts itself forward under the new name of evolution.

Age of the universe and humanity
Warfield, in his 1911 article "On the Antiquity and the Unity of the Human Race," says that the Ussher chronology and similar attempts to discern the age of creation or humanity are misguided. He argues at length that the genealogies are not meant to be any sort of clue about how much time elapsed between Adam and Abraham. He concludes that the Bible does not tell us the age of mankind, and says thus:

The question of the antiquity of man is accordingly a purely scientific one, in which the theologian as such has no concern. As an interested spectator, however, he looks on as the various schools of scientific speculation debate the question among themselves.

He goes on to state that there is considerable debate between the sciences of geology, biology, and physics over the age of the creation, while granting that for the age of the earth the question regards how many millions of years.
The same general argument is traced out in his 1903 article "The Manner and Time of Man's Origin."
Individuality of Adam
Warfield argues in "On the Antiquity and the Unity of the Human Race" that, contrary to the ideas of racists, Scripture and science are united in claiming a singular origin point for humanity rather than multiple origins for different races. In my reading, he heavily implies Adam as the single origin.
In his review of James Orr's book God's Image in Man, Warfield explains his view this way:

We partake in Adam's sin because he was our representative. ... He was constituted our representative because he was our father and as such was naturally indicated for that office.

Animal ancestry for humanity
Warfield seems to accept the theoretical possibility of pre-Adam "brutish" proto-humans without too much fuss. In his review of Orr's book, he invokes what we now call "punctuated equilibrium" to reject Orr's argument that the body and mind must have evolved together if evolution is true:

Body and mind must go together [argues Orr], and a great brain with a little mind is just as unthinkable as a little brain with a great mind. The argument does not seem to be available, however, as against a theory of evolution per saltum [by leaps]. If under the directing hand of God a human body is formed at a leap by propagation from brutish parents, it would be quite consonant with the fitness of things that it should be provided by his creative energy with a truly human soul.

Similarly, in his article "Creation, Evolution, and Mediate Creation," he admits the possibility that "Adam's body was formed (not created) from the lower animals," while insisting that each human being's soul, Adam's included, is a special creation of God.
Death before the Fall
Warfield speaks about pre-Fall death strangely little, but perhaps my wish for him to have addressed it more is anachronistic. The only mentions in the index of Evolution, Science, and Scripture of "death" occur in his review of Orr's book. All he says regarding the issue in question is this:

Perhaps also a query may be placed over against the strong statement to the effect that "there is not a word in Scripture to suggest that animals ... came under the law of death for man's sin." The problem of the reign of death in that creation which was cursed for man's sake and which is to be with man delivered from the bondage of corruption, presses on some with a somewhat greater weight than seems here to be recognized.

It's ironic that the only statement Warfield makes on this subject is a complaint that another author doesn't deal with it adequately.
The nature of the Fall
In both "Evolution or Development" and in his review of Orr's book, Warfield decries a common (even today) evolutionary depiction of the Fall as representing awareness of sin. He argues in both places that Scripture depicts the Fall as a fall from morality into immorality, and that the idea of the Fall as a development of a "moral sense" within humanity or of human beings from "nonmoral beings" into "moral beings" reverses the Scriptural picture. As far as I can tell, he never directly addresses allegorization of the Eden account, instead always treating it straightforwardly.
Conclusion
Warfield believed that the theory of evolution was neither proven nor disproven in his time and that it was permissible for Christians to believe a limited form of it. Like modern theistic evolutionists, he believed that the age of the universe was an open question and that it was possible that Adam had evolved from "lower animals," though he affirmed Adam's historicity and the special creation of his soul. His thoughts on the Fall and on death before the Fall are less clear, but he doesn't seem to give credence to views that make the Fall less than historical, and he's cautious about accepting pre-Fall animal death.


Do you have to have a certain amount of intelligence to get into heaven? Is there a certain level of intelligence required to get into heaven?  I would expect someone to be able to understand at least some of scripture to be saved, but how much intelligence is needed to understand what you need to be saved?

No intelligence is required.

The Bible assures us that even a fool won't go astray on the Way.

  Isaiah 35:8 (ESV)
  And a highway shall be there,
      and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;
  the unclean shall not pass over it.
      It shall belong to those who walk on the way;
      even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

What is this Way, then?

  John 14:6 (ESV)
  Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So even a fool following Jesus will be saved.

Jesus also states that the kingdom of God belongs to those such as children. Now, children can be intelligent at times, but certainly this doesn't sound like there's an intelligence requirement.

  Mark 10:14 (ESV)
  But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.


Is the receipt of the Sacrament of Confirmation a requirement before receiving the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony? I'm contemplating of getting married. However, I haven't been confirmed yet.

I need to know if it's actual Catholic law or if it's simply tradition to receive Confirmation before getting married.

Thanks!

While it is not an absolute requirement that Catholics be confirmed before they are married in the Church, confirmation before marriage is something the Church strongly urges. The Code of Canon Law states:

  Catholics who have not yet received the sacrament of confirmation are
  to receive it before being admitted to marriage if this can be done
  without grave inconvenience. (CIC 1065)

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P3W.HTM

Term

  GRAVE INCONVENIENCE

Definition

  In moral theology a sufficient reason to excuse a person from
  fulfilling certain positive precepts of the Church, not of themselves
  binding by the natural or revealed law. Also sufficient reason for
  delaying or even not performing certain actions, otherwise obligatory,
  provided there is a sincere desire to do so.


What did God mean when He said 'lest they live forever'? I was talking to a Jehovah's witness who did not believe in the immortality of soul and he pointed out a scripture to me.

  Genesis 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold ... lest he put forth his
  hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever

If the soul is already immortal what was God afraid of? Did he mean to say:

  Lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and his
  soul shall stick to his body forever.

How do Protestants explain this?

One possible interpretation is that the tree of life would have given them eternal physical life.  After the Fall, this would have been in a state of separation from God.  So, God prevented them from living forever in this state of separation.

God's purpose was that they live forever in communion with Him.


How is love greater than faith? 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)

  13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Sola-fide states that faith alone brings salvation. In this oft-quoted verse, Paul is clearly saying that love is greater than faith.

How can any attribute be greater than that which is necessary for salvation?

According to Christ, the greatest command is to "love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul, mind, and strength" and the second like is to "love your neighbor as yourself".

Also according to Christ, He is "the way, the truth, and the life" - NO one comes to the Father except through Him.

Paul expands on Jesus' statements through his writings - never in contradiction of our Lord, but always in congruence with Him.

By telling the Corinthians that "the greatest of these is love", he has not excluded faith and hope. Rather, he has pointed the way higher than "mere" faith. Higher than "mere" hope. Paul is telling the Corinthians that faith and hope are only the beginning of the journey - the culmination is in completely fulfilling Christ's own command to "love one another".


How can we apply relying on Jesus in situations where it appears we have to rely on ourselves? I ask the question for a real reason. I would like to make more money to support my family and live in better conditions. I feel I have to rely on myself to go back to school, work hard and then get a great job. However, I hear something different at Church, rely on Jesus for our needs.

How can we apply relying on Jesus in situations where it appears we have to rely on ourselves?

Do you have specific real life examples of how you do this?

How do you define this and where do you draw the line?

EDIT
Marc in his comment below brought up a good topic of: "do what you were going to do anyway" vs (what I interpret as) completely leaning back on Jesus....

Let me flip the question around a little bit:  Is there anything about going back to school, working hard, and interviewing for (notice I didn't say "getting") a great job that is inherently not relying on God?

There's two sides to this coin: Using the talents God has given you, and being faithful to use them for his glory.

God made you a certain way, and make no bones about it, he is the one who gave you the talents you have.  So when it comes to relying on God in that sense, you already are.  In fact, it takes God to even allow you to breathe.  Everything you have, and everything you are is from God, so in that sense, you're always relying on him.

And there comes a point when we have to realize that working is part of God's will for us.  I am a programmer, but if I sit behind my computer, never write a line of code, and trust Jesus to write it for me, I'll probably get fired, and Paul would say, I'm worse than an infidel for not providing for my family.  Work is still relying on God.  It's the means he's given us that he uses to provide us with the things we need.

Also, in each of our lives, we will each have several opportunities to make bad decisions.  As you go back to school, you have the opportunity to either learn what they're teaching properly, or you'll have the opportunity to cheat on your tests.  Cheat, and you're not relying on God.  Do the best you can, and you are.

You'll also have the opportunity to overwork yourself and neglect your family.  Work so hard that they never see you, and your wife and kids forget who you are, and you're probably not relying on God.  Work as hard as you can without neglecting the roles and responsibilities God has given you, and you probably are.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 says:

  Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no
  work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are
  going.

Whatever your hand finds to do.  In whatever roles you find yourself in, do them well.  If you find yourself in the role of father, do that well.  Of husband, do that well.  Of student, do that well.  Of employee, do that well.

Ultimately, it takes wisdom.  Ask Jesus: Should I take on this role of student?  If you feel you can without irreparably damaging your other roles, and you're open and honest about that, then I think you're in a good place.

I wouldn't over-think the whole "relying on God" thing.  He's given you certain characteristics because he wants you to use them to his glory.  Do the best you can, and trust him with the results.


Famous Pre Reformation Christian Pastors (Non Catholic) After the Splintering of the Protestant Revolt, there have been many men who are famous as Pastors and Preachers even up to the present day, the Billy Grahams the Joel Olstiens, John McArthurs, an Ellen G. White and so on.

My questions is, are there any famous Biblical Pastors before the 15th century that were not Catholic or Catholic-Orthodox priests or bishops or members of the Catholic or Catholic Orthodox Churches?  Someone who for example, did not celebrate the traditional sacrament of the Mass?

Famous Pre Reformation Christian Pastors (Non Catholic and Non Orthodox)

Just how far back does one desire to go? Here is one example from the second century:

Marcion of Sinope  (c. 85 – c. 160) was an important figure in early Christianity. His theology rejected the deity described in the Hebrew Scriptures and in distinction affirmed the Father of Christ as the true God. The Church Fathers denounced Marcion, and he was excommunicated from the proto-orthodox Church. He published his own list of New Testament books, making him a catalyst in speeding up the process of development of the New Testament canon by forcing the early Church to respond to his claims. His movement was known as Marcionism

All in all, I believe what you are looking for is to be more informed about Proto-Protestant leaders and preachers.

  Proto-Protestantism, also called  pre-Protestantism, refers to individuals and movements that propagated ideas similar to Protestantism before 1517, which is usually considered the starting year for the Reformation era. Major representatives were Peter Waldo (c. 1140 – c. 1205), John Wycliffe (1320s–1384), Jan Hus (c.  1369–1415) and the movements they started.

  Peter Waldo and the Waldensians

  In the early 1170s, Peter Waldo founded the Waldensians. He preached for strict adherence to the Bible, for simplicity and poverty, against Catholic dogmas, like the purgatory and transubstantiation which led to conflicts with the Roman Catholic Church. He initiated, and contributed to, a translation of the New Testament into the vernacular, the Arpitan (Franco-Provençal) language.

  The Waldensians had adopted ideas that in the late 1130s, Arnold of Brescia, an Italian canon regular, had developed in an first attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church. His teachings on apostolic poverty gained currency among Arnoldists. By 1215, the Waldensians were declared heretical and subject to persecution.

  John Wycliffe and the Lollards

  John Wycliffe (1320s – 1384) was an English theologian and professor at the University of Oxford who developed many ideas similar to those later promoted in the Reformation. He rejected papal authority over secular power, translated the Bible into vernacular English, and preached anticlerical and biblically-centred reforms. Wycliffe's teachings were spread by his followers, known as Lollards.

  Jan Hus and the Hussites

  Beginning in the first decade of the 15th century, Jan Hus, a Czech Catholic priest and professor who was influenced by John Wycliffe's writings, founded the Hussite movement. He was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1415 by secular authorities. After his execution, a revolt erupted. Hussites defeated five continuous crusades proclaimed against them by the Pope.

  Later on, theological disputes caused a split within the Hussite movement. Utraquists maintained that both the bread and the wine should be administered to the people during the Eucharist. Another major faction were the Taborites, who opposed the Utraquists in the Battle of Lipany during the Hussite Wars. There were two separate parties among the Hussites: moderate and radical movements. Other smaller regional Hussite branches in Bohemia included Adamites, Orebites, Orphans and Praguers.

  Less influential early reformers

  Throughout the Middle Ages, there were many Christian sects, cults and movements whose teachings foreshadowed later Protestant movements. Some of the main groups were:

  Paulicians – an Armenian group (6th to 9th centuries) who sought a return to the purity of the church at the time of Paul the Apostle.
  Tondrakians - an Armenian group (9th to 11th centuries) who advocated the abolition of the Church along with all its traditional rites.
  Bogomils – a group arising in the 10th century in Bulgaria, Macedonia[citation needed]and the Balkans who sought a return to the spirituality of the early Christians and opposed established forms of government and church.
  Arnoldists – a 12th century group from Lombardy who criticized the wealth of the Catholic Church and preached against baptism and the Eucharist. Named after Arnold of Brescia (c. 1090 – June 1155).
  Petrobrusians were 12th century followers of Peter of Bruys in southeastern France who rejected the authority of the Church Fathers and of the Catholic Church, opposing clerical celibacy, infant baptism, prayers for the dead and organ music.
  Henricans were 12th century followers of Henry of Lausanne in France. They rejected the doctrinal and disciplinary authority of the church, did not recognize any form of worship or liturgy and denied the sacraments.
  Brethren of the Free Spirit – a term applied in the 13th century to those, primarily in the Low Countries, Germany, France, Bohemia and northern Italy, who believed that the sacraments were unnecessary for salvation, that the soul could be perfected through imitating the life of Christ, and that the perfected soul was free of sin and beyond all ecclesiastical, moral and secular law.
  Apostolic Brethren (later known as Dulcinians) – a 13th to 14th century sect from northern Italy founded by Gerard Segarelli and continued by Fra Dolcino of Novara. The Apostolic Brethren rejected the worldliness of the church and sought a life of perfect sanctity, in complete poverty, with no fixed domicile, no care for the morrow, and no vows.
  Neo-Adamites – a term applied in the 13th to 15th century to those, including Taborites, Picards and some Beghards, who wished to return to the purity of the life of Adam by living communally, practicing social and religious nudity, embracing free love and rejecting marriage and individual ownership of property.


Has the world always been imperfect? Through the scriptures we know that God created the world and the species and saw that it was good.

He also created us and we were good in the beginning. Before Adam and Eve ate from the tree, we were not capable of doing evil. We were in some way, perfect beings as well.

Was the world (and I guess therefore the universe as well) perfect in the beginning? Didn't it suffer from any natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes, storms...?

The earth was indeed perfect at creation. In fact, the Hebrew word for good (towb) used to describe God's creation pre-sin is the same word used to describe the goodness of God in the Psalms:

Gen 1:31 ESV And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Psalm 25:8 NIV Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way

The first creation was perfect, but when Adam sinned, everything died. The ground became cursed:

Gen 3: 17-18 ESV And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

Thorns and thistles came when there were none. Pain and death came. Before sin there was no death, but climate and storms are another matter. Is a tornado or storm that causes no pain still a natural disaster? I'd think it'd just be weather.


According to Catholicism, does the Old Law justify? According to Catholicism, does the Old Law justify? Or is Christ, faith, and the New Law necessary to justify even those who lived before Christ?

Those who lived before Christ waited for Christ in "Abraham's Bosom"—also called the "Limbo of hell or of the Patriarchs" (limbus inferni seu patrum), and Christ conducted them to heaven at His Ascension.

The Council of Trent was convened in order to combat the errors and heresies of Protestantism. The Council's Sixth Session (13 Jan. 1547) was on justification. It affirms that not even the Old Law could justify (ch. 1):

  The holy Synod declares first, that, for the correct and sound understanding of the doctrine of Justification, it is necessary that each one recognize and confess, that, whereas all men had lost their innocence in the prevarication of Adam,—having become unclean [Isa. lxiv. 6] and as the apostle says, by nature children of wrath, [Ephes. ii. 3] as (this Synod) has set forth in the decree on original sin,—they were so far the servants of sin, [Rom. vi. 17, 20] and under the power of the devil and of death, that not the Gentiles only by the force of nature, but not even the Jews by the very letter itself of the law of Moses, were able to be liberated, or to arise, therefrom; although freewill, attenuated as it was in its powers, and bent down, was by no means extinguished in them.

but Christ is necessary (ch. 2):

  Whence it came to pass, that the heavenly Father, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, [2Cor. i. 3.] when that blessed fullness of the time was come, [Gal. iv. 4] sent unto men, Jesus Christ, his own Son—who had been, both before the Law, and during the time of the Law, to many of the holy fathers announced and promised—that he might both redeem the Jews who were under the Law, [Gal. v. 4] and that the Gentiles, who followed not after justice, might attain to justice, [Rom. ix. 30] and that all men might receive the adoption of sons. Him God hath proposed as a propitiator, through faith in his blood, [Rom. iii. 25] for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for those of the whole world. [1 John ii. 2.]

The Council of Trent in this session famously condemns Protestants' sola fide ("faith only") teaching on justification:

  CANON IX.—If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified, in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will: let him be anathema.

Thus, the Old Law did not justify.

Christ, faith (cf. Heb. 11:6 quoted in ch. 8), and works (cf. James 2:24 quoted in ch. 10) are necessary for justification.


Quote about judging "a man by his post" from the City of God, according to Alain de Botton A few years ago, the philosopher Alain de Botton gave a TED talk on "A kinder, gentler philosophy of success" where he quotes St. Augustine supposedly having written in the City of God that "It's a sin to judge any man by his post" though he declares himself to be a "secular" person.

I have just finished my year-long reading the City of God and found no explicit statement about judging someone by their profession.  I did find Augustine listing what he means by sin close to the end of the reading (eg. books 20 and 22) but I became curious how Alain de Botton came to this interpretation.

Could this be a misattribution?

The Ox lists honoring a man (as opposed to God) as one of his objections to honoring those in places of dignity , but I don't know what he's talking about in book 10 of City of God maybe someone else can find it.
But here's what Aquinas says about it in the Summa

Objection 1.
It seems that it does not belong to observance to pay worship and honor to persons in positions of dignity. For according to Augustine (De Civ. Dei x), we are said to worship those persons whom we hold in honor, so that worship and honor would seem to be the same. Therefore it is unfitting to define observance as paying worship and honor to persons in positions of dignity.

and then

Reply to Objection 1.
Worship includes not only honor, but also whatever other suitable actions are connected with the relations between man and man.

Persons of dignity, would be those who "have a post". So, somewhere in there Augustine probably said that it's not right to judge a person by their post.

I hope this helps, but if you've actually read all of City of God, you'll probably know more about it than me with my perfunctory google site search of NewAdvent.org for all things Augustine that pop up on this site.


What is the biblical basis that Noah died just before the birth of Abraham? In its article on the decline of human life spans, CreationWiki states,

  Interestingly, Noah died only two years before Abraham was born.

Unfortunately for readers they provide no biblical support. What is the biblical basis for this claim?

Noah lived 350 years after the Flood (Gen 9:28).
Arphaxad was born 2 years after the Flood (Gen 11:10)
Salah    was born 2 + 35 after Flood (verse 12)
Eber was born 2 + 35 + 30 after Flood (v14)
Peleg   2 + 35 + 30 + 34  (v16)
Reu   2 + 35 + 30 + 34 + 30 (v18)
Serug etc, etc (v20)
Nahor (v22)
Terah (v24)
Abraham was born 2 + 35 + 30 + 34 + 30 + 32 + 30 + 29 + 70 (v26) = 292 years after the Flood.  However, Abraham was actually born not in Terah's 70th year but in his 130th year (see below), meaning Abraham was born 352 years after the Flood which was 2 years after the death of Noah (Gen 9:28).  However, as I try to show below, even that is probably not correct.
(Most of this post is heavily reliant on Appendix 2 of Dr John Whitcomb and Henry Morris's book "The Genesis Flood" from which I quote:- )
The genealogy in Genesis 11 and probably Genesis 5 also is not what we would expect.  Genesis 11:26 says:
"And Terah lived seventy years and begat Abram, Nahor and Haran."

Taking this statement at face value, one might well conclude that Terah became
the father of triplets in his seventieth year (even as his grandson Isaac
became the father of twins in his sixtieth year), Abram being the firstborn of
the triplets.  We are somewhat astonished, however, to discover upon further
investigation that Abram was not the firstborn of the three and that Terah was
not seventy, but rather one hundred and thirty years old when Abram was born!
In Genesis 11:32 we read that “the days of Terah were two hundred and five
years: and Terah died in Haran”; while in 12:4 we find that Abram was seventy
five years old when he departed out of Haran.”  Thus, if Abram left Haran to go
to Canaan after Terah’s death, Abram must have been born when his father was
130 years old.  The possibility of Abram’s leaving Terah in Haran sixty years
before Terah finally died is excluded by Stephen’s statement that “from thence,
when his (Abraham's) father was dead, God removed him into this land, wherein
ye now dwell” (Acts 7:4).  In the light of these considerations, we may
paraphrase Genesis 11:26 as follows: “And Terah lived seventy years and begat
the first of three sons, the most important of whom (not because of age but
because of the Messianic line) was Abram.”

So seeing Terah was 130 when he begat Abram then this would mean that Noah died two years before the birth of Abram.  This would mean that CreationWiki is correct.
However, to further quote from the same source:-

It is quite possible that only a small number of the patriarchs listed in
Genesis 11 were firstborn sons.  A comparison of 11:10 with 5:32 and 8:13
suggests that Shem was not.  A comparison of 11:10 with 10:22 suggests that
Arphachshad was not.  And we have already seen that Abram was not.  Actually,
not one of the Messianic ancestors in Genesis, whose family background is known
in any detail such as Seth, Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and Perez, was a
firstborn son.  The year of begetting a first son, known in the Old Testament
as “the beginning of strength”, was an important year in the life of the
Israelite (Gen. 49.3, Deut. 21:17, Psa. 78:51, and Psa. 105:36).  It is this
year, then, and not necessarily the year of the birth of the Messianic link,
that is given in each case in Genesis 11.  Thus we have clear evidence for the
possible addition of a limited number of years from the lives of some of these
patriarchs to the total of years from the Flood to Abraham."

A careful comparison of Exodus 6:20 with 1 Chronicles 6:1-4, Numbers 3:27-28, and Numbers 26:59-62 calls into question the whole premise of the CreationWiki view that the genealogy in Genesis 11 is a literal father to literal son genealogy.  Exodus 6:20 says:
"And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years."
On the face of it it is abundantly clear that Amram and Jochebed were the parents of Aaron, Moses and Miriam.
And the similarity of structure between this verse and verses in Genesis 11 should be noted.
But here is a big problem: in Number 3:27,28 we learn that in the days of Moses, the number of males who were grandchildren of Kohath, Moses's supposed grandfather, were 8,600.  Assuming the same number of females would make 17,200 grandchildren of Kohath: dividing this by the four sons of Kohath would give over 4,000 children each to Amram, Izehar, Hebron and Uzziel.  Such a number is surely impossible and we must conclude, as Exodus 6:16-20 implies, that Amram and Jochebed were distant ancestors of Moses and Aaron, not their parents.
[It might be suggested that there were the ancestors Amram and Jochebed, and the immediate parents by the same name.  But a reading of Exodus 6:16-20 does not suggest this.  And if that is what is intended in Exodus 6:16-20 then we are left with precisely the same possible interpretation for the verses similar to Exodus 6:20 in Genesis 11 (and maybe Genesis 5 also).  The Genesis 11 genealogy need still not be literal fathers and sons.  Besides this, even if Amram fathered Moses when he was as old as 55 years old then he would have been still alive, at 135 years of age, when Moses returned to Egypt at 80 years of age.  And yet we do not read of Moses going to pay his respects to his parent(s) when he returned to Egypt; we only hear of Miriam and Aaron.  The clear impression given is that his parents have both died. Could Amram, Moses literal father, have married late and fathered Moses beyond 55 years of age?  It is possible, but the explosive birth rate of the Israelites in Egypt for 400 years argues quite strongly against it.  The population at the time of the Exodus is only possible if the Israelites married and started families, virtually en masse, in their early twenties at the latest.  For these reasons it seems to me very unlikely that Moses's literal father is referred to at all in Exodus 6:20.]
There are many reasons for doubting the premise of CreationWiki of literal fathers/sons in Genesis 11. A fuller description of the peculiarities of genealogies in Scripture can be found in the online article by Dr John Millam: "The Genesis Genealogies - Are they complete?" which you can read at https://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/genesis_genealogies.html
(Dr Millam is a theistic evolutionist.  I believe in a literal 6 day creation, nor do I hold to the Gap Theory (of billions of years between the creation of Matter and the first day of the 7 days), I believe in Genesis literally: even so I agree with Dr Millam's very carefully argued article here that the genealogy after the Flood in Genesis 11:10-32 (and quite possibly that before the Flood in Genesis 5) do not contain every generation... so, you cannot produce a chronology from them.)
What then is Genesis 11 actually demonstrating?  Genesis 11:26 shows us what is very important in the chapter: seeing as Abram is named first and yet is not the firstborn of Terah, it follows that the writer of Genesis 11 wants to stress God's preservation and protection of the Messianic Line through all the troubles, difficulties, sins and rebellions of the human race.  The chapter also highlights the increasing grip of the Edenic Curse through the succeeding generations, with the age at death steadily declining.  Genesis 5 and 11 together show that the curse pronounced on Adam and Eve is transmitted to the whole human race, no one is excluded, not even Abraham and his descendants.  And so it shows that being under the curse is not the last word - there is a way (John 14:6) to get out from under the curse (Galatians 3:13, etc), because Abraham found that way (John 8:56).  In essence, Abraham was one of us, and yet he was blessed - so we can be too.
So Genesis 11:10 could mean "Shem was a hundred years old and begat an ancestor of Arphaxad two years after the flood."  To appreciate this seemingly unlikely construct as a possibility it would be important to read all the examples in scripture of such a construct as revealed in John Millam's article.
(Summarising Whitcomb and Morris) a literal father to son genealogy in Genesis 11 raises serious objections:-

Why did Sarah laugh in unbelief at being told she would have a child at her age when, upon the literal father-son interpretation of Gen 11, there were many around her who had had children at much older ages than her?
Abram's fathers are said to have been idolaters, yet many of the postdiluvian patriarchs would have been still alive (on the premise Gen 11 is a literal father-son genealogy).  It is hardly conceivable that the likes of Noah would have fallen into idolatry, or even that idolatry would have spread amongst his descendants while Noah was still alive.  The premise, then, that Gen 11 is recounting father-son descent is struck down.
On Abram's journey into Canaan he bumps into scores of different tribes, language groups and cities.  There is not enough time for the population to arise, and the implication of the story of Abraham is that the Tower of Babel was long before his time.  This is further implied by Abraham bumping into Philistines in Canaan: yet these had not come direct from the Babel in the plain of Shinar in the east, but via Caphtor, supposedly Crete, in the west (Jeremiah 47:4, Amos 9:7).
The Flood would have happened in the middle of recorded history, with the Great Pyramid of Egypt having been built before the Flood.  And attempts to re-date Egyptian history, such as by David Rohl, do not agree with scripture on other grounds.  (David Rohl puts insufficient years between Moses and Joseph, disagreeing with Exodus 12:40, and furthermore making the Biblical accounts of the Israelite population at the time of the Exodus entirely impossible.)
The number of years from the Flood to Abraham are not totalled.  When it comes to the patriarchs before the Flood, Moses totals them for each individual patriarch (in Genesis 5).  It would have been straightforward for Moses to have given the total number of years just as he does in Exodus 12:40.  Does he not total them because they are not intended to be totalled, because such a totalling would be meaningless?
It is said of Peleg that he lived in the days when the earth was divided (Gen 10:25).  Many hold that this is referring to the division of languages at the Tower of Babel, there being no other Biblical possibility.  But if the literal father-son is intended in Genesis 11 then Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah and Eber all outlived Peleg and thus all of them lived during the time of judgement at the Tower of Babel.  Why then does Scripture say only Peleg lived at this time?
The great fall in life expectancy at the time of Peleg is indicative of a large difference in the era in which Peleg and the post-Peleg patriarchs lived compared to the pre-Peleg patriarchs.


What is the argument AGAINST the position that only Paul's writings are applicable to the church today? In mid-Acts dispensationalism (a form of hyperdispensationalism), it is taught that only Paul's writings (from Romans to Philemon) are applicable to the church today and that the other parts of the Bible are informational only.

What is the logical and biblical argument against this position?  I'm interested in an argument that emphasizes Paul's writings themselves.

This was actually the Marcionite position - namely that the Gospel of "grace" as revealed by Paul, superceded everything else.
Marcion's Canon consisted of 10 books - 9 of which were Pauline Epistles and the remaining of which was the Euangelion, a "Gospel" of sorts that rejected the bodily incarnation of Christ and understood the Hebrew Bible to be the result of the demiurge - an evil counterpart to the God who was strictly one of grace.  Indeed, Marcion is often considered one of the first heretics - precisely for believing that only Paul's words were inspired.  (On the bright side, it was his canon that eventually led the church to form a consensus on what the full canon was.)
That early Gnostic tendencies are being rediscovered by moderns who have innovative views of Scripture is not overly remarkable.
The answer, of course, is that Paul himself rejected the later Marcionite position. His warnings against false teachers who taught things other than what Jesus and the Dsiciples did.  He writes in 2 Thessalonians:

But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because God chose you as first fruits to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14 He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
15 So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings[c] we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

Paul's message shows God's grace, but reminds us as well that God's justice is also a part of his nature.  Indeed, the role of the law is not to be discounted. He writes in Galatians 3:24

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

That isn't a rejection of the law at all.  Grace may be greater than Law, but law is still there!


Are there any texts that mention viruses or dinosaurs or black holes or electricity or chromosomes or explain that the stars are suns etc? From what I've understood, there's a lot more literature than just the Bible. So does anyone know if there are texts that mention anything about viruses, dinosaurs, electricity, magnetism or life on other planets or rainbows or the function of the heart (which even 16th century medicos didn't know) or anything about the universe as we know of it today? The Old Testament mentions a lot of people who had access to God. Theoretically, any heavenly interaction with God or angels should have revealed more about the universe. Since it is believed that statements from the Bible were misinterpreted, leading to Galileo's words not being accepted, perhaps there would be texts that could have contained more information.
People talk about dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible (behemoth and leviathan), but we know that humans didn't exist at the same time as dinosaurs.
Some people point to yeast etc. to say that the Bible does mention microbes, but it does not actually explain anything about the microbes or viruses or bacteria or amoeba etc. It just describes phenomena that were commonly known, without understanding the reason behind it.
I know the scriptures are not meant to be scientific texts, but are for a more spiritual connection to God. All I'm asking is, whether there are any texts that mention any specific details (not general details, even if the wording does not match the words we use today) that God or any heavenly being who visited Earth, told humans? I'm pretty sure that curiosity would've been there. Every conversation won't have been about "how can I reach heaven?".
For example, an answer to a question could have been as simple as:

"...that person is sick because there are creatures so tiny that we
cannot see them. Those creatures attack the body internally and the
body raises its temperature to try and kill those creatures"

... or while looking toward the sea, people could've been told about how the moon exerts a force on the water, causing the tides...or an explanation about just the basics of how volcanoes or earthquakes happen...or at least the basic explanation that the sun is a star...which if it was explained, we wouldn't have had the nursery rhyme "Twinkle twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are?".

Are there any texts that mention viruses or dinosaurs or black holes or electricity or chromosomes or explain that the stars are suns etc?
Science and religion are supposed to be antagonists. History tells a more complicated story.
The Bible does not teach how the heavens go, but rather how to go to Heaven!
That is a huge difference.
To back up new scientific research biblically is not a new subject matter. It plagued both Cardinal Bellarmine and Galileo alike:

Certainly Bellarmine used all the subjunctive reservation of which the Italian language was capable, that if some day it could be proved irrefutably that Copernicus was right, then one would have to go back and interpret the relevant biblical passages again. But he excluded the possibility of such proof.33 The doctrine that the Earth was in motion not only went against common sense, the Book of Joshua and the Psalms of David, but against Solomon himself; Solomon who had gained all his wisdom from God. For was not this ascribed to Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes: "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." (Eccles. 1,5).
The other reason for Galileo's strong stand, was that he believed he had just the indisputable, physical proof that Bellarmine required.
But before he went public with his new proof he wanted to make certain of his home ground. Galileo decided to combine a theological and theoretical account with a courtly tribute and write an open letter to the Dowager Grand Duchess. The "Letter to Christina" ran to over forty pages, and circulated only in manuscript copies, as any attempt to publish it would have risked an open confrontation with the censor.
In the letter he makes his position clear. Truth is one and indivisible. There can therefore be no conflict between the words of the Bible and natural revelations, but the Bible is written in a different language and has a different object: it teaches us "how to go to heaven, and not how the heavens go." (Non come va il cielo, ma come si va in cielo.) This implies that the Bible's words must be explained and interpreted.

This implies that the Bible’s words must be explained and interpreted. And some interpretations seems simply to go sideways. We must also keep in mind the for such terms as viruses, black holes, chromosomes, dinosaurs and electricity did not exist in ancient Hebrew or Aramaic. In fact electricity did not exist as a modern element of usage until Benjamin Franklin showed up on the scene.
As I have already mentioned, many scientific words simply did not exist in ancient Hebrew and thus will not be found in the Bible. However certain glimmers of the subject at hand might be able to be found here and there. Please remember that not all will be in agreement here and interpretation in always that an interpretation.
Let us start with viruses and bacteria. There seems to be no explicit information on these phrases in Holy Writ, but some of the symptoms of these possibly seem to be written about.
Plagues are mentioned in the Scriptures one some occasions, yet what caused them remained unknown to the Ancient people of the Bible. Microscopes did not exactly exist in the good old days!
The sixth plague of Egypt bears an uncanny resemblance to the Black Death in the fact that the plague affecting Europe in the Middle Ages often produced boils caused by a bacteria called Yersinia pestis

The Sixth Plague

Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Take handfuls of soot from a furnace and have Moses toss it into the air in the presence of Pharaoh. It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land." — Exodus 9:8–9

Since the Ancients had no usage of microscopes, they know want divers plagues were. But they could not understand what caused them, be it a virus or a bacteria. The same logic goes for chromosomes.
The question of dinosaurs is a little more speculative, in that some interpretations of Scripture seems to possibly shed light on this subject. Not only are we dealing with interpretations here; we different translations come into play here too. We should keep in mind, paleontologists did not dig up the first dinosaur until 1819.

Are Dinosaurs in the Bible?
Some scholars say yes, others no. This article takes the stance of the affirmative.
Two instances in the Bible could possibly describe a dinosaur, or at least, a dinosaur-like creature. Some theologians will argue the author could have used hyperbole or metaphorical imagery, but if he chose to do so, he picked some rather odd images to describe mundane creatures.

Behemoth (Job 40:15-24)

In Job, this creature is described as having a tail like a cedar and an herbivore diet. It also says this colossal beast had large bones like beams of bronze.
From the portrayal in those verses, it seems as though the passage indicates a creature similar to a diplodocus. Some commentators try to say God had described a hippopotamus in this passage, but the depiction doesn’t seem to match up. Hippos, for instance, don’t have tails like cedars.

Leviathan (Job 41)

By the next chapter, another creature is reported which some theologians have labeled a crocodile. However, once one hears the features of the leviathan, it doesn’t appear to add up.

The leviathan seems to have armor-plated skin that no hook can pierce. Like the behemoth, the author makes note of the strong limbs this animal possesses.

Psalm 104:26 indicates the leviathan lived in water, which could point to why some people say it’s a crocodile. And Isaiah 27:1 describes the leviathan as a twisting serpent.
These may align with a crocodile, but Job (Job 41:18-19) seem to indicate this creature literally breathed fire. Crocodiles and other similar reptiles have not been known to breathe fire. This may indicate a dragon-like species existed during Job’s time.

Interpretation and diverse translation weigh into one’s perspective. Two points here to illustrate my meaning here. Some versions state that unicorns existed. Oh, yes the Bible says so. But the word in English versions vary from unicorn to water buffaloes or an ox.

Re'em
Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?

Some Tibetan missionaries proposed the this mysterious creature is non other than the Tibetan antelope because of the numerous legends surrounding this animal.
Another interesting story from the Bible is that of Tobias and the fish that wanted to eat him.

Tobias Catches a Fish
6 So Tobias and the angel started out toward Media, taking Tobias' dog along with them. They walked on until sunset, then camped by the Tigris River. 2 Tobias had gone down to wash his feet in the river, when suddenly a huge fish jumped up out of the water and tried to swallow one of his feet. Tobias let out a yell, 3 and the angel called to him,
Grab that fish! Don't let it get away.
Then Tobias grabbed the fish and dragged it up on the bank.
4 Cut the fish open, the angel instructed,
and take out its gall bladder, heart, and liver. Keep these with you; they can be used for medicine, but throw away the guts.
5 Tobias did as the angel had told him. Then he cooked the fish, ate part of it, and salted the rest to take along with him.

To this date I am unable to locate any local legends as to what species of fish this might have been. Both Bible and legendary works come up black.
As for the existence of black holes and that stars are suns is irrelevant to God’s word in the Holy Bible as the inspired authors of God’s Word did not have telescopes and they wrote as they were inspired to do so.
The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, and not how the heavens go. (Non come va il cielo, ma come si va in cielo.)


How are the soul and the body related to each other according to the RCC? Humans have a mind (or soul) and body, but they are not separately divided substances (as Descartes would suggest). So one could say we have a soul and body. But according to the Roman Catholic Church, how are they constructed/connected philosophically together to get one person. Is it allowed to say that the soul is in the body?

The Council of Vienne (1311-1312), under the authority of Clement V, defined the dogma that the soul is the form of the human body (Denzinger 481):

Moreover, with the approval of the said council, we reject as erroneous and contrary to the truth of the catholic faith every doctrine or proposition rashly asserting that the substance of the rational or intellectual soul is not of itself and essentially the form of the human body, or casting doubt on this matter. In order that all may know the truth of the faith in its purity and all error may be excluded, we define that anyone who presumes henceforth to assert defend or hold stubbornly that the rational or intellectual soul is not the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be considered a heretic.

"Form" is "the actualizing principle that makes a thing to be what it is." Thus, a body without the substantial form of a human being (a soul) is a corpse.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines form as:

In the Scholastic philosophy: The essential determinant principle of a thing; that which makes anything (matter) a determinate species or kind of being; the essential creative quality.
This use of form (Aristotle's μορϕή or εἶδος) and matter (ὕλη) is a metaphorical extension of their popular use. In ordinary speech, a portion of matter, stuff, or material, becomes a ‘thing’ by virtue of having a particular ‘form’ or shape; by altering the form, the matter remaining unchanged, we make a new ‘thing’. This language, primarily applied only to objects of sense, was in philosophical use extended to objects of thought: every ‘thing’ or entity was viewed as consisting of two elements, its form by virtue of which it was different from, and its matter which it had in common with, others.

Read St. Thomas Aquina's short work On the Principles of Nature (De principiis naturæ) for more information on matter and form (hylemorphism).
St. Thomas Aquinas also addresses the question of the union of a human's intellectual soul with the human's body in Summa Theologica I q. 76.


What is Church of England's doctrine on unbaptised dead infants and how was it formed? The penultimate rubric in the Book of Common Prayer Public Baptism Service reads: "It is certain by God's Word, that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved." Clearly this statement refers only to baptised children.

My understanding (which could be wrong) is that throughout Western Christianity the traditional belief has been that, although we may have some hope in the case of unbaptised infants we do not have certainty.

However in the Book of Common Worship, note 2 to the Emergency Baptism Service reads "[parents] should be assured that questions of ultimate salvation or of the provision of a Christian funeral for an infant who dies
do not depend upon whether or not the child has been baptized." This seems to say baptism is not needed.

Taking the two together it appears that the Church of England now teaches universal infant salvation regardless of baptism.

My question is, am I right in thinking this is now Church of England official doctrine, and if so is it a change and, again if so, how, by whom, and with what authority was this doctrine changed?

The Church of England is a wide-ranging denomination, and different parts of it hold different view on the nature of baptism. Many members prefer to delay baptism of children until they are old enough to decide for themselves. Others will see baptism as purely symbolic. I would be confident in asserting that there is no universally held opinion about the salvation of infants.

In your question you make a false assumption about the logic of the Church's statement on unbaptized infants. Stating that 'salvation [does] not depend upon whether or not the child has been baptized.' is not to state that all infants are saved. Salvation may depend on other facts, such as the faith of the parents, or on their intention to baptize (even if not carried out).

Significant numbers of Anglicans might well believe that God would not condemn an infant killed before they had a chance to understand and receive the message of salvation.