“The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, it doesn’t tell us how the heavens go.”
Pope Leo Xlll

My atheist friend asked me how I could believe genesis and I sent him this video. I am now one step further in my diabolical plot to turn him into a priest.

cackles maniacally

Science is merely man’s discovery of God’s creation.

My religion teacher said that genesis does not teach us scientific truth but only the things we need to know for our salvation made simpler for people back then to understand

@VibrantNTingling This is why you have to read the Bible within the context of a community of interpretation.  How do you know what Hamlet means?  By reading it utterly on your own?  No, you enter into a centuries-long community of conversation.  What I'm driving at is the Catholic position that the Bible must be read within the Church.  

I'd much prefer cogent counter-argument to "facepalms."

I'm facilitating a Bible Study on Genesis right now at my parish. It's unfortunate that many people read it too literally. I agree: there is a tremendous amount of theology that echoes all the way into the New Testament. With so much unity in the Bible in terms of prophetic imagery and thematic resonance, it's easy to see the hand of the Holy Spirit moving even from the very beginning. People who claim that it was just men who wrote the Bible have not properly studied what it is that they criticize.

Fundamentalists and Militant Atheists who think there is a clash between religion and science just show both their ignorance of Biblical interpretation, History, etc so I will address a couple of the things always mentioned.

(i)Genesis has always been read by the greatest theologians in history as being primarily allegorical. St Augustine in his Commentary on Genesis speaks about how it is foolish to read Genesis as a scientific account. St Jerome talks about how Genesis is written in the style of "myth". Origen of Alexandria in his commentary on Genesis speaks about how it would foolish to presume there was a literal Garden. St Thomas Aquinas warns against reading the Bible or Genesis in a way that contradicts reason or natural philosophy.

(ii). Affirming Genesis is a "myth" does not compromise Biblical authority. The Bible is an entire library of Books with different genres and styles of writing such as myth, legend, epic, saga, wisdom literature, philosophy, poetry, biographies, ancient historiography, etc. Different books have different genres and styles of writing to them. As well when we study the historical context and original intention of the authors we clearly see that it is written in the style of a creation myth. As such it is not telling us how God created the Universe but why God created the universe and what the purpose of human beings are.

(iii)The Fundamentalist reading of the Bible is a Modern innovation. Fundamentalism originated in the 19th century in particular Conservative, American Evangelical schools of theology and got popularized in the 20th century with the publication of the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith in 20th century. So it's actually a recent phenomenon in Christian history.

(iv)The idea that Science and Religion have been in this eternal cosmic struggle is largely myth(pun intended). The origin of this myth goes back to Andrew Dickson White and William Draper who developed a view called the "conflict thesis" based on selective interpretations of history.  Since the 1960s and 70s though this view has largely been debunked by historians of Science. They view it as being a form of Pseodo-history the same way Scientists view creationism as a form of Pseodo-science.

When properly studied we see in many instance religion not obstructing science but even being complementary to developments in Science. So in the West for instance the Church built the University system which created the intellectual environment for the Sciences to emerge. Many of the people who founded some of the most important theories in Science were members of the clergy. Nicolaus Copernicus, the man who initiated the Scientific Revolution, was a Catholic priest and he was actually encouraged to publish his works by the Cardinals in Rome who read drafts of it in the 1530's and were amazed by it. Hence why he dedicated his work to Pope Paul III when he published his Heliocentric theory in 1543. The man who invented Modern Genetics, Gregor Mendel, was a Catholic Monk. The man who invented the Big Bang theory, George Lemaitre, was a Jesuit Priest who became the head of the Vatican Observatory of Science in the 1960's, an institution that in modern times in the last 50 years has produced over 50 nobel prize winners in Chemistry and Physics. Heck the Pope himself is a scientists. So this idea of religion having to be dragged kicking and screaming by Scientific evidence is bunk. In many cases religious people have been at the cutting edge of Science.

Moreover the "conflict thesis" takes selective incidents in history such as Galileo and Darwin, leaves facts out, and props them up as signs of the ultimate clash between religion and science. In the case of Darwin Militant Atheists and Fundamentalists will have you believe this was the ultimate clash that undermined belief in God and the Bible. The fail to bring up some inconvenient facts to this narrative. 1) Darwin didn't invent evolution. Evolution was already established as a theory decades before he published Origin of Species and many of the people who contributed were actually members of the Anglican Church(including clergymen). Darwin simply gave the mechanism for explaining it. 2)Darwin himself was buried at Westminister Abbey by the Anglican Church for his contributions to Science. 3) Much of the opposition wasn't to the science of evolution, but the ethical/cultural implications of natural selection. At the time you had both the rise of Industrial Capitalism and Imperialism and so in that context the word "survival of the fittest" arouse people's fears of the ethical implications of Darwinism. Samuel Wilberforce, Anglican clergyman and son of William Wilberforce who lead the abolition against the slave trade, opposed the concept of natural selection on ethical grounds. Karl Marx, while supporting the Science, called it a bitter satire.

In the case of Galileo it's the same thing. People repeat the tired narrative of the Church locking up Galileo for preaching scientific theories that opposed their dogma. They here too leave out important facts as well. 1)Heliocentric was taught in Church institutions for 70 years prior to Galileo.  As mentioned Copernicus was encouraged to publish his theory by members of the Church. The Church at the time just said Galileo could say it was a fact because there was no scientific consensus yet(Cardinal Robert Bellarmine said these words). 2) The reason Galileo was brought before the Inquisition in 1616 the first time was because a group of Intellectuals known as the "pigeon league" where jealous of Galileo's successes because he was giving lectures in Rome and being funded by the Medici family. So they whipped up a false rumor that Galileo was attacking the Bible with his theories and got a fanatical monk Tommasco Caccini to preach this false rumor in 1614. 3)Some of Galileo's strongest defenders where Church people themselves. Benedetto Castelli, Benedictine Abbot who helped him discover the Sun Spots was a huge defender of his. The Dominican Monk who was the Abbot of Caccinni's monastery apologized to Galileo and disciplined Caccinni. 4) When Galileo was placed under House arrest in 1632 it wasn't because of a clash between religion and science but a personal dispute between him and the Pope. He and Pope Urban VIII where actually friends and Urban defended Galileo the first time he was brought before the Inquisition in 1616. He allowed Galileo to give 8 lectures to him personally in Rome and he urged Galileo to publish the pros and cons of his recent discoveries. Galileo did so, but in the form of a satire that made the Pope sound stupid. He took personal offense to this....and placed him under House arrest.

So it's facts like these that are inconvenient for those that perpetuate the religion v science argument

As an atheist, I find this amazing. Love the Catholic theology although I don't necessarily believe it.

Way to go Father!! I really enjoy your teaching. God bless

This is the best interpretation of Genesis I've heard to date

You should debate Ken Ham!

So so spiritually educated! Thank you Bishop Robert Barron.

This was so beautiful, and really helped my understanding, thank you <3

I still regularly find myself confronted with this "Bible vs. science" stuff. It's so annoying.

This is a beautiful and instructive video, Bishop Barron. Thank you.

You could say that the Book of Genesis is like a table of contents, giving a basic outline of the world, and science is the actual contents of the book of human knowledge.
The more I learn from science, the more I admire and love God as the Poet of the world!

Thank you, Bishop Baron.  Your logical and intelligent position gives me hope!

Just going to be straight forward with you, Father Barron. I love your videos.

God willing, may you be blessed with many years Bishop ! Thank you for another great video.