Identity of the Resurrected Body

The main question concerns the identity of the individual raised (either a person or a body) with the individual who died. Why is the resurrected individual the very same individual who died, rather than a mere replica or facsimile of the original?

...

It seems to me that the doctrine of the soul and the intermediate state between physical death and resurrection goes a long way towards solving the problem because in that case, the person never actually ceases to exist when he dies physically.

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But while this solution suffices to guarantee personal identity, it does not solve the problem of the identity between the resurrection body and the pre-mortem body.

Quotes from Bill & Jan Craig on

Reasonable Faith, Newsletter May 2026
http://pages.reasonablefaith.org/pages/1787618/57390

William Lane Craig then speaks of the Jewish view about "bones", but forgets, what I find in St. Thomas:

others held that souls are reunited to heavenly bodies, or again to bodies subtle as the wind, as Gregory relates of a certain Bishop of Constantinople, in his exposition of Job 19:26, "In my flesh I shall see my God," etc.

Supplement, Question 79. The conditions of those who rise again, and first of their identity
Article 1. Whether in the resurrection the soul will be reunited to the same identical body?
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/5079.htm#article1

The Old Testament belief is, thus, not just tied to the bones, but also to the flesh.

The Fourth Council of the Lateran decreed that (Denzinger 801 / 429*) we need to believe:

venturus in fine saeculi, iudicaturus vivos et mortuos, et redditurus singulis secundum opera sua, tam reprobis quam electis: qui omnes cum suis propriis resurgent corporibus, quae nunc gestant, ut recipiant secundum opera sua, sive bona fuerint sive mala, illi cum diabolo poenam perpetuam, et isti cum Christo gloriam sempiternam.

[I translate] and He will be returning at the end of the age, to judge the quick and the dead, and be giving back to each according to his works, both reprobate and elect: who all will rise with the own bodies, which now they carry, to receive according to their works, whether good or bad, the ones with the devil the unending punishment and the others with Christ the everlasting glory

So, does St. Thomas deal with the problem in the same article? Yes:

Objection 3. Further, after death, as stated above (Supplement:78:3), the human body is dissolved into the elements. Now these elemental parts into which the human body has been dissolved do not agree with the human body dissolved into them, except in primary matter, even as any other elemental parts agree with that same body. But if the body were to be formed from those other elemental parts, it would not be described as identically the same. Therefore neither will it be the self-same body if it be restored from these parts.

Reply to Objection 3. That which is understood as though it were in matter before its form remains in matter after corruption, because when that which comes afterwards is removed that which came before may yet remain. Now, as the Commentator observes on the First Book of Physics and in De Substantia Orbis, in the matter of things subject to generation and corruption, we must presuppose undeterminate dimensions, by reason of which matter is divisible, so as to be able to receive various forms in its various parts. Wherefore after the separation of the substantial form from matter, these dimensions still remain the same: and consequently the matter existing under those dimensions, whatever form it receive, is more identified with that which was generated from it, than any other part of matter existing under any form whatever. Thus the matter that will be brought back to restore the human body will be the same as that body's previous matter.

To cut the Scholastic jargon, he's saying, even if the corpse is not identical to the body that was alive, because it's a corpse, it's more identical than any other thing, for instance than the linen the corpse is lying on or the coffin it is lying in.

Here is another article, dealing with it, and I cite the corpus:

I answer that, In this question it makes a difference whether we ask what can be done without prejudice to identity, and what will be done for the sake of congruity. As regards the first it must be observed that in man we may speak of parts in two ways: first as of the various parts of a homogeneous whole, for instance the various parts of flesh, or the various parts of bone; secondly, as of various parts of various species of a heterogeneous whole, for instance bone and flesh. Accordingly if it be said that one part of matter will return to another part of the same species, this causes no change except in the position of the parts: and change of position of parts does not change the species in homogeneous wholes: and so if the matter of one part return to another part, this is nowise prejudicial to the identity of the whole. Thus is it in the example given in the text (Sent. iv, D, 44), because a statue, after being remade, is identically the same, not as to its form, but as to its matter, in respect of which it is a particular substance, and in this way a statue is homogeneous, although it is not according to its artificial form. But if it be said that the matter of one part returns to another part of another species, it follows of necessity that there is a change not only in the position of parts, but also in their identity: yet so that the whole matter, or something belonging to the truth of human nature in one is transferred to another. but not if what was superfluous in one part is transferred to another. Now the identity of parts being taken away, the identity of the whole is removed, if we speak of essential parts, but not if we speak of accidental parts, such as hair and nails, to which apparently Augustine refers (De Civ. Dei xxii). It is thus clear how the transference of matter from one part of another destroys the identity, and how it does not.

But speaking of the congruity, it is more probable that even the parts will retain their position at the resurrection, especially as regards the essential and organic parts, although perhaps not as regards the accidental parts, such as nails and hair.

But the crux of the matter is in the previous question:

Question 78. The term "wherefrom" of the resurrection
Article 2. Whether all will rise again from ashes?**
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/5078.htm#article2

And especially the following article, which I quote:

I answer that, Opinion is threefold on this point. For some say that the human body is never dissolved into its very elements; and so there always remains in the ashes a certain force besides the elements, which gives a natural inclination to the same soul. But this assertion is in contradiction with the authority of Augustine quoted above, as well as with the senses and reason: since whatever is composed of contraries can be dissolved into its component parts. Wherefore others say that these parts of the elements into which the human body is dissolved retain more light, through having been united to the soul, and for this reason have a natural inclination to human souls. But this again is nonsensical, since the parts of the elements are of the same nature and have an equal share of light and darkness. Hence we must say differently that in those ashes there is no natural inclination to resurrection, but only by the ordering of Divine providence, which decreed that those ashes should be reunited to the soul: it is on this account that those parts of the elements shall be reunited and not others.

Article 3. Whether the ashes from which the human body will be restored have any natural inclination towards the soul which will be united to them?
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/5078.htm#article3

So, the solution is, God's Providence keeps record and restores particles of matter. Presumably William Lane Craig believes that carbon atoms in Cain are still around as carbon atoms, nearer or further from his corpse or where it was. So, whether Abel was already raised in that Earthquake from Calvary and his tomb is empty, Cain (or if you think he repented, some other evil man from back then) still has the particles of his body on earth.

Have you ever solved a Rubik's Cube? Compare the six sides to six bodies, like half of the sons of Jacob. Whether they already rose on Good Friday or will rise, before they rose, or will have risen, presumably their constituent molecules were jumbled. Inside each and with the outside. Like the colours are jumbled on a Rubik's Cube. But God doesn't need to solve the problem by guess work, He has kept perfect track of each square of the nine squares of a colour or each molecule and each atom of each molecule of each human body.

That's part of what we mean by God being Omniscient.

Now, C. S. Lewis, once, in a book that has bad sides, said "there wouldn't be enough matter to go around" ... this is because CSL while writing this believed in Deep Time. If William Lane Craig believes in an Adam who was created 750 000 years ago, he may have the same problem.

I do not believe that, but that God created the world in 5200 or 5220 BC. Or not far off.*** So, there would be enough matter to go around. Did St. Thomas state more? Yes:

Question 77. The time and manner of the resurrection
Article 4. Whether the resurrection will happen suddenly or by degrees?
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/5077.htm#article4

And the problem (or one of them) is, God is not teleporting the individual parts with no time between.

Objection 4. Further, no local movement can be sudden as stated in De Sensu et Sensato vii. Now the resurrection requires local movement in the gathering of the ashes. Therefore it will not happen suddenly.

Reply to Objection 4. The gathering of the ashes which cannot be without local movement will be done by the ministry of the angels. Hence it will be in time though imperceptible on account of the facility of operation which is competent to the angels.

So, the angels will actually be gathering bits and pieces, down to the size of individual atoms, presumably, of each person to resurrect the body of. But when these have been gathered, God does the actual resurrecting.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen
24.IV.2026

Sevisii, in Rhaetia, sancti Fidelis a Sigmaringa, Sacerdotis ex Ordine Minorum Capuccinorum et Martyris; qui, illuc ad praedicandam catholicam fidem missus, ibidem, ab haereticis interemptus, martyrium consummavit; et a Benedicto Decimo quarto, Pontifice Maximo, inter sanctos Martyres relatus est.

* My source is this site: http://catho.org/9.php?d=bxw and I suppose that fat numbers are one and italics numbers another edition of Denzinger. ** Q78 A1 is beside our question, but more germaine to the debate on the Rapture. *** Jesus is born 5199 after Creation. But since He's born 752 after Rome was founded, presumably that puts Creation in 5200 BC. Again, a pre-Flood world of 2242 years is arguably a misreading of a pre-Flood world of 2262 years, Genesis 5:25 (LXX) And Mathusala lived an hundred and sixty and seven years, and begot Lamech. Should read: an hundred and eighty and seven years etc. The sixty being a contamination from info on Henoch. The Roman Martyrology has the Exodus so that Christ was born 1510 after the Exodus, if there is a readjustment to Exodus in 1446, but things before that as given, this would place Creation to 5155 BC.

Census Complaints, as Per a Video by Testify, Answers, Comparing His View with My Previous One

Nativity Narrative Revisited · Census Complaints, as Per a Video by Testify, Answers, Comparing His View with My Previous One

If you want to check Erik Manning's answer, it's on the video

Did Luke Botch the Census?
Testify | 22 Dec. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6fLnijaBWQ

Now, I've halted it to copy the list of complaints, to which I will respond.

1) There's a 10 year* gap between the timelines of Matthew and Luke;**
2) There was no census during the time of Jesus' birth;
3) Quirinius was not in charge of any earlier census;
4) Rome would have never conducted a census under a client king;
5) Nobody would have travalled to their 1000-year ancestral home to register;
6) Luke was just making stuff up to have Jesus born in Bethlehem to fulfill the Micheas 5:2 prophecy.***

To 1 and 6, I say, wrong. I'll return to why on 1, about the census creating the gap, and as to 6, Matthew also presupposed Jesus was born in Bethlehem, since the Holy Innocents only makes sense in that setting.

To 2 and 5, I give a modification. There was no direct tax census at the time recalled outside the Gospel, and a provincial under Rome typically wouldn't have returned to a 1000-year ancestral home to register.

To 3, I claim agnosticism. Quirinius was in Syria part time doing the functions of a governor, while the governor in title was Saturninus. Whether the earlier census was under him or Galilee had a separate set of Roman administrators, I don't know. St. Luke says the timing was the same.

To 4, I agree. The US Internal Revenue Service will not conduct a census on Puerto Rico, on Guam or in the Philippines. That was kind of the point of why Joseph chose to go to Bethlehem. Under Herod there was no Roman census. There may very well have been a census for the temple tax. Herod may very well have posed as a patriot, flirting with Essenians (whom Damien Mackey considers to have been Herodians). To me, Luke 2:5 strongly suggests St. Joseph enrolled with the Temple to pay temple tax, as a good Hebrew patriot.

Back to 5. A Roman official certainly would have preferred people to enroll in their own city. This was not automatically the city where they were residing for the moment. A citizen of Rome and of Pompeii would not have paid taxes at this point in the first place, but whatever official duties he could have that were not tied to being in Rome, he could only fulfill by being in Pompeii. While Provincials weren't citizens, Rome was used from its own backyard to citizens being so of a city state.

So, if the Roman official knew that there was no census going on in Judaea, why did he allow Joseph to leave with his fiancée?

There was another Bethlehem, and that one was in Galilee. The Roman official may have known that and thought that was the Bethlehem that Joseph meant.

Or, even supposing he knew Joseph was going to Judaea, he can have been unaware of Judaea being a vassal kingdom rather than a province. After, all, while Galilee was in a province, Herod was recognised as king there too. I'm presuming St. Joseph was only up with a centurion, not with a governor.

So, when Quirinius was later on in charge, personally being named as governor, not just stepping in, in AD 6, and a census in Judaea was held and caused a rebellion, that census was remembered, while the one in Galilee, which had sparked no rebellion, was not. And that's not the census that St. Luke is talking about. Here. (Erik Manning thinks he's briefly referencing it, with "πρώτη" translated as "before the one"). Either way, he does mention the rebellion, in Acts (thank's Erik! Also for Tacitus Annal's 3.48 confirming Quirinius had a governor like role before actually being governor.)

Now, I'll admit, I may have constructed a fake solution, because the solution of Erik Manning had already been presented to me, but as I recall, without the support in Josephus.

The solution of Erik Manning is, the census was first a census of loyalty, only later involved taxation, and then sparked a revolt. That was also the solution of a FB acquaintance known sometimes as "de Aulia" ... but the latter didn't mention this, quoting from Manning's video:

Therefore it is very [4:29] possible that the registration began in [4:32] 6 BC and there was actually a oil uh a [4:35] loyalty a oath of loyalty to Caesar uh [4:39] during this time. Josephus notes this in [4:42] antiquities, right? [ref. on screen to Ant. 17.2.4]

Now, that FB friend never gave the reference to Antiquities 17.2.4, which is a longish sub chapter or paragraph, but the reference would be here:

For there was a certain sect of men that were Jews, who valued themselves highly upon the exact skill they had in the law of their fathers, and made men believe they were highly favoured by God, by whom this set of women were inveagled. These are those that are called the sect of the Pharisees: who were in a capacity of greatly opposing Kings. A cunning sect they were; and soon elevated to a pitch of open fighting, and doing mischief. Accordingly when all the people of the Jews gave assurance of their good will to Cæsar, and to the King’s government; these very men did not swear: being above six thousand. (2)

So, the census when Jesus was born, in Judaea, would have involved "goodwill to Caear [Augustus] and to the King's [Herod's] goverment", which sounds like a less heavy strain on the absolute claims of God than loyalty to Caesar. At this census, Jews were not yet saying "we have no King but Caesar" ...

Again, as with taxes, the options may have been less patriotic in Galilee. So, Joseph could have still had a patriotic and law abiding motivation for preferring the census in Judaea, even if it wasn't for the temple tax.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Onesimus
16.II.2026

Romae beati Onesimi, de quo sanctus Paulus Apostolus ad Philemonem scribit; quem etiam, post sanctum Timotheum, Ephesiorum Episcopum ordinavit, praedicationisque verbum illi commisit. Ipse autem Onesimus, vinctus Romam perductus ac pro fide Christi lapidatus, primo ibidem sepultus fuit; inde ad locum ubi Episcopus fuerat ordinatus, corpus ejus delatum est.

* Copyist mistake number 1: "10 year" for "10-year"
** Copyist mistake number 2: "the timelines of Matthew and Luke" for "Matthew and Luke's timelines"
*** Copyist mistake number 3: "the Micheas 5:2 prophecy" for "the Micah 5:2 prophecy"

Did Josephus Believe Hercules Was Historic?

Let's check Antiquities.

Here is about Hercules as a false god:

BOOK VIII. Containing The Interval Of One Hundred And Sixty-Three Years.—From The Death Of David To The Death Of Ahab.
CHAPTER 5. How Solomon Built Himself A Royal Palace, Very Costly And Splendid; And How He Solved The Riddles Which Were Sent Him By Hiram.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2848/2848-h/2848-h.htm#link82HCH0005

3. When Solomon had completed all this in twenty years' time, because Hiram king of Tyre had contributed a great deal of gold, and more silver to these buildings, as also cedar wood and pine wood, he also rewarded Hiram with rich presents; corn he sent him also year by year, and wine and oil, which were the principal things that he stood in need of, because he inhabited an island, as we have already said. And besides these, he granted him certain cities of Galilee, twenty in number, that lay not far from Tyre; which, when Hiram went to, and viewed, and did not like the gift, he sent word to Solomon that he did not want such cities as they were; and after that time these cities were called the land of Cabul; which name, if it be interpreted according to the language of the Phoenicians, denotes what does not please. Moreover, the king of Tyre sent sophisms and enigmatical sayings to Solomon, and desired he would solve them, and free them from the ambiguity that was in them. Now so sagacious and understanding was Solomon, that none of these problems were too hard for him; but he conquered them all by his reasonings, and discovered their hidden meaning, and brought it to light. Menander also, one who translated the Tyrian archives out of the dialect of the Phoenicians into the Greek language, makes mention of these two kings, where he says thus: "When Abibalus was dead, his son Hiram received the kingdom from him, who, when he had lived fifty-three years, reigned thirty-four. He raised a bank in the large place, and dedicated the golden pillar which is in Jupiter's temple. He also went and cut down materials of timber out of the mountain called Libanus, for the roof of temples; and when he had pulled down the ancient temples, he both built the temple of Hercules and that of Astarte; and he first set up the temple of Hercules in the month Peritius; he also made an expedition against the Euchii, or Titii, who did not pay their tribute, and when he had subdued them to himself he returned. Under this king there was Abdemon, a very youth in age, who always conquered the difficult problems which Solomon, king of Jerusalem, commanded him to explain. Dius also makes mention of him, where he says thus: 'When Abibalus was dead, his son Hiram reigned. He raised the eastern parts of the city higher, and made the city itself larger. He also joined the temple of Jupiter, which before stood by itself, to the city, by raising a bank in the middle between them; and he adorned it with donations of gold. Moreover, he went up to Mount Libanus, and cut down materials of wood for the building of the temples.' He says also, that Solomon, who was then king of Jerusalem, sent riddles to Hiram, and desired to receive the like from him, but that he who could not solve them should pay money to them that did solve them, and that Hiram accepted the conditions; and when he was not able to solve the riddles proposed by Solomon, he paid a great deal of money for his fine; but that he afterward did solve the proposed riddles by means of Abdemon, a man of Tyre; and that Hiram proposed other riddles, which, when Solomon could not solve, he paid back a great deal of money to Hiram." This it is which Dius wrote.

Josephus is clearly buying into the narrative that Hercules in Phœnician is Baal.

But what about Hercules as a real man? Yes:

BOOK I. Containing The Interval Of Three Thousand Eight Hundred And Thirty-Three Years. — From The Creation To The Death Of Isaac.
CHAPTER 15. How The Nation Of The Troglodytes Were Derived From Abraham By Keturah.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2848/2848-h/2848-h.htm#link2HCH0015

Abraham after this married Keturah, by whom six sons were born to him, men of courage, and of sagacious minds: Zambran, and Jazar, and Madan, and Madian, and Josabak, and Sous. Now the sons of Sous were Sabathan and Dadan. The sons of Dadan were Latusim, and Assur, and Luom. The sons of Madian were Ephas, and Ophren, and Anoch, and Ebidas, and Eldas. Now, for all these sons and grandsons, Abraham contrived to settle them in colonies; and they took possession of Troglodytis, and the country of Arabia the Happy, as far as it reaches to the Red Sea. It is related of this Ophren, that he made war against Libya, and took it, and that his grandchildren, when they inhabited it, called it [from his name] Africa. And indeed Alexander Polyhistor gives his attestation to what I here say; who speaks thus: "Cleodemus the prophet, who was also called Malchus, who wrote a History of the Jews, in agreement with the History of Moses, their legislator, relates, that there were many sons born to Abraham by Keturah: nay, he names three of them, Apher, and Surim, and Japhran. That from Surim was the land of Assyria denominated; and that from the other two [Apher and Japbran] the country of Africa took its name, because these men were auxiliaries to Hercules, when he fought against Libya and Antaeus; and that Hercules married Aphra's daughter, and of her he begat a son, Diodorus; and that Sophon was his son, from whom that barbarous people called Sophacians were denominated."

So, Madian's [Midian's] son Ophren was a contemoporary of Hercules.

That places Hercules far earlier than a generation or two before the Trojan war.

I think this would have to be a different person from the one in the tomb of Tiryns, arguably at the origin of a more Greek worship of Hercules. And then, the two got confused.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
II L.D. after Christmas
4.I.2026

What Are Pagan Gods, Specifically Greek and Norse and Hindu?

Charlie Kirk got this question, and he gave a brilliant response about how the early Christians turned down the offer to get Jesus into the Roman Pantheon.

I don't know the details about when this offer was made, and it is possible that Charlie overestimated someone else's competence in history, but it is not impossible they got it, it is certain that if they did, they turned it down. And rightly so. Once a certain name is an altar not of the true God, and you are sacrificing there, there are only demons left. Yes, even with persons alive the same time. When Tiberius was alive, people who spoke to him spoke to a man, but people who sacrificed to him or to his genius sacrificed to a demon. Even if it was just one grain of incense.

But when a Pagan thinks of his gods, he will sometimes think of things that aren't as object of his reflection demonic.

So, I'd give five six levels of objects, and note, they are not always distinct in names of gods, remember "Tiberius" can be both a man and a demon, and ... i'm giving one away, straight on spot ... Apollo can be both a man (father of Asklepios), a demon of destruction, Apollyon, and a demon of divination, or a pythonic spirit. Nevertheless, these are distinct things. Just because the pagans confused them as one "divine" person doesn't mean the remote founder of St. Luke's order of physicians, the pythonic spirit that St. Luke's friend St. Paul exorcised and the King of the Bottomless pit are one and the same person. Or one and the same thing.

So, here are the levels, if you ask me.

• partial views on the true God
• partial views on angelic beings, meaning also good angels
• bad guesses about what else there might be there
• human people whom people took to be god for bad reasons
• traits of people or societies
• direct demonic manifestations, like pythonic spirits or supernatural mayhem.

As Christians, we do not believe Roman Mars or Greek Zeus exist. Nor should we. This doesn't mean that Romulus, reputed to be son of Mars didn't exist, or Herakles, reputed to be son of Zeus.

It just means, someone was wrong about Romulus and Herakles and gave them a wrong origin story.

As Christians, we don't believe any demon is omniscient or even aware of the future. How does this relate to demonic oracles, like the Pythia of Delphi?

Reply to Objection 5. The demons know a truth in three ways: first of all by the subtlety of their nature; for although they are darkened by privation of the light of grace, yet they are enlightened by the light of their intellectual nature: secondly, by revelation from the holy angels; for while not agreeing with them in conformity of will, they do agree, nevertheless, by their likeness of intellectual nature, according to which they can accept what is manifested by others: thirdly, they know by long experience; not as deriving it from the senses; but when the similitude of their innate intelligible species is completed in individual things, they know some things as present, which they previously did not know would come to pass, as we said when dealing with the knowledge of the angels (I:57:3 ad 3).

S. Th. I P. Question 64. The punishment of the demons : Article 1. Whether the demons' intellect is darkened by privation of the knowledge of all truth?
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1064.htm#article1

I answer that, As stated above (II-II:171:1), prophecy denotes knowledge far removed from human knowledge. Now it is evident that an intellect of a higher order can know some things that are far removed from the knowledge of an inferior intellect. Again, above the human intellect there is not only the Divine intellect, but also the intellects of good and bad angels according to the order of nature. Hence the demons, even by their natural knowledge, know certain things remote from men's knowledge, which they can reveal to men: although those things which God alone knows are remote simply and most of all.

Accordingly prophecy, properly and simply, is conveyed by Divine revelations alone; yet the revelation which is made by the demons may be called prophecy in a restricted sense. Wherefore those men to whom something is revealed by the demons are styled in the Scriptures as prophets, not simply, but with an addition, for instance as "false prophets," or "prophets of idols." Hence Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii, 19): "When the evil spirit lays hold of a man for such purposes as these," namely visions, "he makes him either devilish, or possessed, or a false prophet."

S. Th. II-II, Question 172. The cause of prophecy: Article 5. Whether any prophecy comes from the demons?
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3172.htm#article5

The demons can however pretend to know the future in such ways as to provoke the disasters they foresee. This is what I think happened in the case of Oedipus. Because, precisely, Apollo of Delphi, manifesting in the restless trance states of the Pythias, did this kind of manipulation in self fulfilling prophecies. I don't think a false reading of the Apocalypse could do this, because it is not from demons, but from Holy God. Nevertheless, false readings of the Apocalypse can bring about some disasters that are in the true reading, like saying "Antichrist cannot be here yet" can help him to seize power or "the mark of the beast cannot be here yet" can help a code of conduct amounting to this evil to gain such acceptance that those rightly opposing it can neither buy nor sell.

So, I'll give one example of each, from each of the three highly mythological religions I mentioned.

• partial views on the true God
  
  
  • Greek: Josephus says that the earliest worship of Zeus, that of Zeus Ennyalion, was a worship of the true God. Doesn't mean it remained so.
  • Norse: Odin is a false god, but takes on some attributes of the true God, like creating, sending a flood, being a father of all, and with his brothers, being Three in One.
  • Hindu: Of the Hindu "trinity" Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, it would seem that only the third is diabolic as a concept, while the first two correctly reflect that God pre-existed and created the universe and upholds the universe.
  
  
  
• partial views on angelic beings, meaning also good angels
  
  
  • Greek: Helios, as long as not mixed with Apollo, Selene as long as not mixed with Hecate or Artemis. Hermes seems once to have meant a guardian angel trying to tell a sinner (Aegistus) to repent.
  • Norse: In Norse myth, Sol and Mani are actually not worshipped gods. When the songs about Sigurd and Brunhild say, they worshipped Sol and Mani to get powers of healing and obstretician skill, I suppose this refers in historic fact to invoking the Roman or Greek Apollo and Artemis / Diana, nothing to do with Norse gods. Sigfried / Sigurd and Brunhild had access to remnants of Roman paganism. So, on this level angelology remains angelology.
  • Hindu: Surya and Chandra.
  • In Greek and Hindu, also leave out Sun (and Moon?) having children. That's not partial, but erroneous, as statement about good angels.
  
  
  
• bad guesses about what else there might be there
  
  
  • Greek: Okeanos. Nope, the sea doesn't need one specific spirit.
  • Norse: Jotunheim. Nope, Giants don't survive on an earth disc that's lower than and bigger than our earth disc.
  • Hindu: Rahu. Nope, Solar and Lunar eclipses don't need a third body beyond the Earth (as observing or causing eclipse), but would do so if Earth were a disc.
  
  
  
• human people whom people took to be some kind of god for bad reasons
  
  
  • Greek: Herakles.
  • Roman: Romulus. Venus mater.*
  • Japanese: Amaterasu as ancestor of Jimmu.*
  • Norse: Odin and Yngwe-Frey, when they appeared in Norse lands, founding the Yngling dynasty, may involve Tyr and Thor as well.
  • Hindu: Krishna and Rama.
  
  
  
• traits of people or societies
  
  
  • Greek: Aphrodite (Roman Venus) as goddess of love (may at times have been demons too). Ares (Roman Mars) as god of war.
  • Norse: I don't know an example.
  • Hindu: I don't know an example.
  
  
  
• direct demonic manifestations, like pythonic spirits or supernatural mayhem.
  
  
  • Greek: Apollo of Delphi, Apollo the Plague sender. Helios as father of Aeetes, grandfather of Medea. Hekate, if appearing. Poseidon in the Hippolytus tragedy, possibly Aphrodite in the Hippolytus tragedy.
  • Norse: Odin and Thor appearing to Pagans appealing to them to avoid Christianity.
  • Hindu: Shiva. Is called the Destroyer, and when Arjuna made a deal with him, he became a wonderful warrior, but awful husband.**

When a hero with a human life is said to have a god as a father, it sometimes is a sign of the father being for some reason unknown, or not worth mentioning (Minos being called son of Zeus to the analysis of Leaf simply meant he was a self made man, came much higher in society than his actual father). But sometimes it could mean a demonic entity interfering in the conception (Romulus) or pregnancy (Herakles).

BUT, whichever it is, once someone worships this instead of the true God, they worship the devil or his minions, demons. It's not because Krishna was an actual man that worshipping him becomes a kind of veneration of saints, he is unfortunately worshipped as an actual god and avatar of Vishnu. He is obviously not THE one and only Incarnation of the True God. Therefore, worshipping him as Hindus do is illicit and is demon worship. Though, not as directly, not as intentionally, as if you worshipped Shiva or Apollo or Hecate or ... some Canaanean things I left out of this altogether.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Bridget of Sweden
8.X.2025

23 Jul. Romae natalis sanctae Birgittae Viduae, quae, post multas sanctarum locorum peregrinationes, divino afflata Spiritu, quievit. Ipsius autem festivitas octavo Idus Octobris celebratur.
7 Oct. In Suecia Translatio corporis sanctae Birgittae Viduae.
8 Oct. Sanctae Birgittae Viduae, cujus dies natalis decimo Kalendas Augusti, ac Translatio Nonis Octobris recensetur.

* I consider both Venus Mater and Amaterasu are in history known as Puduhepa. Before becoming a Hittite empress, she was priestess of the Sungoddess of Arinna (confer Amaterasu) whom she identified with the love goddess (Venus mater).
** I haven't read the original Mahabharata in Sanskrit. However a girl who was daughter of an ambassador of India (perhaps to France) made a prose retelling, and she really felt sorry for his wife, poor Draupadi. So do I. I think this took place, not in post-Flood India, but in pre-Flood Nod East of Eden (to which post-Flood India, via Rama / Regma, has a nostalgic attachment.)

Why Is There Hell?

One deconstructor had this idea of the disproportion between the short life we have to make a decision and the hugely long and neverending eternity of ... well, he didn't look on the alternative Heaven, he looked on the alternative Hell. Plus all the reasons we could have for flunking that.

Here was my response:

OK, Heaven and Hell are first and foremost dependent on total firmness of loyalty, to God or to self.

That's why they are eternal, because God is simply rewarding or punishing what will always remain there.

Now, the goal is for all to have this firm loyalty and have it to God. And spend eternity with Him.

If the period of one's trial were extended to an eternity, the eternity of actual Heaven couldn't even begin, because one would have to finish another eternity first and in fact it won't finish.

The idea that people who could get it right should go to heaven, but those who couldn't should get another, another, another trial, would in the end be a coercion to Heaven. So, Heaven would for that reason not be one's loyalty by choice.

The idea that those who fail would be annihilated runs into two problems. No one wants to be annihilated. From the outside, the annihilation might seem merciful, for the one facing it, it wouldn't be. And why would God destroy His creation, but apart of that leave alone the choice of the one disloyal to Him? It makes more sense to punish the choice and leave the existence alone.

So, what about making the person realise he's done wrong? In a paedagogic way? Well, in a paedagogic way, so the chance of change could be extended once more, that would again be coercion to Heaven.

OK, in a non-paedagogic way, then? Exactly what God does. Plus gives some physical pain as distraction from that horror.

I didn't add, but I add now: how about getting to Heaven instead? There is the Blessed Virgin and Her Blessed Son to help on the way.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Vth Sunday after Pentecost
13.VII.2025

Weaker Vessel and Stronger Vessel

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Responding to Nicholas Bowling · somewhere else: Weaker Vessel and Stronger Vessel · Great Bishop of Geneva! Did Jesus Obey Leviticus 20:10?

This is a part of Nicholas Bowling's argument I didn't respond to:

the 15:26 immaculate conception where for Jesus to 15:28 come into the world without sin Mary 15:31 also had to be without sin which I would 15:33 disagree with if he had to be born 15:35 through someone who had never sinned for 15:38 him to be without sin right that would 15:41 mean Mary for her to be without sin she 15:44 would have to be also born through 15:46 someone without sin

Sounds logical, right?

Until you consider that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, as Maria von Trapp said on the Charismatic Conference in Kansas City (my mother loved to quote it).

Part of this is, a man is (usually, and typically, and according to God's general plan, and therefore to be followed in the case of the woman and her seed) the stronger vessel. A woman is (same qualifications) the weaker vessel.

Now, likeness between parents and children produces harmony. Unlikeness instability, disharmony. And harmony in childhood is essential for strength, disharmony produces weakness.

Jesus did not just have to be sinless, He had to be this as an active and a confident male adult. AND as fully human.

Mary grew up with a certain disconnect by being sinless. She was sensitive to sins all around her, she was happily surprised at being sinless. I e, before the angel's greeting puzzled her and the cousin's greeting set her straight, she was anxious she might have committed a sin. Even a slight one would have been a horror to her. While the sin of the first parents was proportionally to their state (and to hers, had she known it) much worse than even mortal sins are in us, in its own kind, it was a very slight one. She hated, just as Adam and Eve should have hated, the sin that was so slight compared to most, but which was damning to them (and would have been damning to her).

This created a weakness, a need to get confidence from others. She could be sinless with this weakness, while having a parent who had had original sin, and most of whom, though not her parents, retained fomes peccati, a surrounding which every day committed venial sins. And she was meant to be weak, even as she is shown in the Apocalypse 12, because she was a woman. God was her strength, everywhere else she looked, she saw a disastrous weakness that could (until Elisabeth explained that Gabriel had told her otherwise) be a trap for her as well.

Jesus was male. That's why we have male only priesthood. He needed to provide strength, in His ministry. Humanly, He only could do that by growing up in perfect harmony with "the parents." At least one of them had to be perfectly sinless. And it couldn't be Joseph, because he wasn't His real father, through the flesh, it had to be the mother, Mary.

There were only two ways in which this could happen.

He could have divine and miraculous force in staying harmonious, obedient to parents, while sinless and neither of them fully so. Or He could have a sinless mother. A fully sinless mother. So that He could have this strength as a sinless person, humanly.

The former option is kind of if not totally negating, at least minimising, the Incarnation. Hence, if He is fully God and also fully Man, He needed to grow up in full harmony with a sinless mother. Mary as being the weaker vessel did not need this harmony in growing up.

A similar reason is also why God couldn't have allowed that Adam be born as a fully human baby to parents of human anatomy but no real human mind. That would have been cruel to the first Adam, and to him before he sinned. I think that should settle the debate that Humani Generis very cautiously allows for, in favour of the traditional doctrine. So also, for the Last Adam, for Jesus. Hence, the sinlessness of Mary.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
VIth Sunday after Easter
1.VI.2025

PS, normally, I would have taken an issue about the differences between Catholic and Protestant onto another blog, but I'm happy for the oversight, since it may help some to grasp how one of their difficulties about the Incarnation is solved.

The other blog is:

Great Bishop of Geneva!
https://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/

Deaths of Apostles and Deacons — "See Church History"

How many of the very first Christians died as martyrs? The question is asked, including by Sean McDowell, in response to for instance Paulogia claiming only St. Peter and St. James died as martyrs in a way we can document. Let's consult the Roman Martyrology. Yes, I know, the text is basically from 1583, not very old ... I'll return to that, just humour me for now.

Apostles:
24 Februarii / 24 aut 25 in anno Bissextili.		24 February (25th in Leap years)
In Judaea natalis sancti Matthiae Apostoli, qui, post Ascensionem Domini ab Apostolis in Judae proditoris locum sorte electus, pro Evangelii praedicatione martyrium passus est.		In Judaea, the birthday of St. Matthias Apostle, who, after the Ascension of the Lord, elected by the Apostles in place of Judas the traitor by lots, was martyred for the preaching of the Gospel.
29 Junii		29 June
Romae natalis sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, qui eodem anno eodemque die passi sunt, sub Nerone Imperatore. Horum prior, in eadem Urbe, capite ad terram verso cruci affixus, et in Vaticano juxta viam Triumphalem sepultus, totius Orbis veneratione celebratur; posterior autem, gladio animadversus, et via Ostiensi sepultus, pari honore habetur.		In Rome, the birthday of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, who, same year and same day, suffered, under the Emperor Nero. The former of these, in the same City, was fixed to the cross with the head turned towards the earth, and was buried in the Vatican Hill close to the Via Triumphalis, he is celebrated by the veneration of all Earth; but the latter, executed by sword, buried in Via Ostiensi, is held in equal honour.
25 Julii		25 July
Sancti Jacobi Apostoli, qui exstitit beati Joannis Evangelistae frater; et, prope festum Paschae ab Herode Agrippa decollatus, primus ex Apostolis coronam martyrii percepit. Ejus sacra ossa, ab Hierosolymis ad Hispanias hoc die translata, et in ultimis earum finibus apud Gallaeciam recondita, celeberrima illarum gentium veneratione, et frequenti Christianorum concursu, religionis et voti causa illuc adeuntium, pie coluntur.		Saint James Apostle, who was brother of the Blessed John the Gospeller; and, close to the Paschal feat, was decapitated by Herod Agrippa, and first among Apostles received the crown of martyrdom. His holy bones, transferred from Jerusalem to the Spains this day, and buried in the furthest ends of them in Galicia, are venerated piously by the veneration of those peoples, and by the frequent arrival of Christians going there for the cause of religion and of a vows / wish.
24 Augusti		24 August
Sancti Bartholomaei Apostoli, qui Christi Evangelium in India praedicavit; inde in majorem Armeniam profectus, ibi, cum plurimos ad fidem convertisset, vivus a barbaris decoriatus est, atque, Astyagis Regis jussu, capitis decollatione martyrium complevit. Ipsius sacrum corpus, primo ad Liparam insulam, deinde Beneventum, postremo Romam ad Tiberinam translatiun insulam, ibi pia fidelium veneratione honoratur.		Saint Bartholomew Apostle, who preached the Gospel of Christ in India; from there, gotten on his way into larger Armenia, was there, as he had converted very many to the faith, skinned alive, and, on the orders of King Astyages, fulfilled his martyrdom by beheading. His holy body, transferred first to the isle of Lipara, then to Benevent and lastly to the Tiber isle in Rome, is there honoured by the pious veneration of the faithful.
21 Septembris		21 September
In Aethiopia natalis sancti Matthaei, Apostoli et Evangelistae; qui, in ea regione praedicans, martyrium passus est. Hujus Evangelium, Hebraeo sermone conscriptum, ipso Matthaeo revelante, inventum est, una cum corpore beati Barnabae Apostoli, tempore Zenonis Imperatoris.		In Aethiopia, birthday of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Gospeller; who, preaching in this region, suffered martyrdom. His Gospel, written in Hebrew language, by revelation of the same Matthew, was found together with the body of the Blessed Apostle Barnabas, in the time of Emperor Zeno.
28 Octobris		28 October
In Perside natalis beatorum Apostolorum Simonis Chananaei, et Thaddaei, qui et Judas dicitur. Ex ipsis autem Simon in Aegypto, Thaddaeus in Mesopotamia Evangelium praedicavit; deinde, in Persidem simul ingressi, ibi, cum innumeram gentis illius multitudinem Christo subdidissent, martyrium consummarunt.		In Persia, the birthday of the Blessed Apostles Simon the Chanaanean and Thaddeus, who also is called Jude. Of the same however Simon preached the Gospel in Egypt and Thaddeus in Mesopotamia; from there, entering Persia at the same time, after subduing a countless multitude of that people under Christ, they consummated martyrdom.
30 Novembris		30 November
Apud Patras, in Achaja, natalis sancti Andreae Apostoli, qui in Thracia et Scythia sacrum Christi Evangelium praedicavit. Is, ab Aegea[e] Proconsule comprehensus, primum in carcere clausus est, deinde gravissime caesus, ad ultimum suspensus in cruce, in ea populum docens biduo supervixit; et, rogato Domino ne eum sineret de cruce deponi, circumdatus est magno splendore de caelo, et, abscedente postmodum lumine, emisit spiritum.		At Patras, in Achaia, the birthday of Saint Andrew the Apostle, who preached the sacred Gospel of Christ in Thracia and Scythia. He, taken by the Aegean Procunsol, first was locked up in prison, then beaten most grievously, and finally hung on a cross, in this, he tought the people and survived for two days; and having asked the Lord that He not allow him to be taken down from the cross, was surrounded by a huge brightness from heaven, and, when the light then departed, he breathed his last.
21 Decembris		21 December
Calaminae natalis beati Thomae Apostoli, qui Parthis, Medis, Persis et Hyrcanis Evangelium praedicavit; ac demum in Indiam pervenit, ibique, cum eos populos in Christiana religione instituisset, Regis jussu lanceis transfixus occubuit. Ipsius reliquiae primo ad urbem Edessam, in Mesopotamia, deinde Ortonam, apud Frentanos, translatae sunt.		In Calamina (??) the birthday of the blessed Apostle Thomas, who preached the Gospel to the Parths, Medes, Hyrcans, and finally arrived in India, and there, when he had established the peoples in the Christian religion, by order of the king was stabbed by spears and died. His relics were first transferred to the city of Edessa in Mesopotamia (Şanlıurfa is in Shinar!), then to Ortona, to the (Italic people of the Frentani).
Deacons:
9 Aprilis		9 April
Antiochiae sancti Prochori, qui fuit unus de septem primis Diaconis; et, fide ac miraculis clarus, martyrio coronatus est.		In Antioch saint Prochor, who was one of the seven first Deacons; and, bright through faith and miracles, was crowned with martyrdom.
26 Decembris		26 December
Hierosolymis natalis sancti Stephani Protomartyris, qui a Judaeis, non longe post Ascensionem Domini, lapidatus est.		In Jerusalem the birthday of Saint Stephen Protomartyr, who by the Jews, not long after the Ascension of the Lord, was stoned to death.

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: The Answer I Tried to Add

The Martyrologium Hieronymianum (meaning "martyrology of Jerome") or Martyrologium sancti Hieronymi (meaning "martyrology of Saint Jerome") is an ancient martyrology or list of Christian martyrs in calendar order, one of the most used and influential of the Middle Ages. It is the oldest surviving general or "universal" martyrology, and the precursor of all later Western martyrologies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrologium_Hieronymianum

Despite its early date, the Martyrology of 411 does not stand at the head of the eastern martyrological tradition. Rather, it is related to the western tradition as represented in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum.[1] It is a translation of a Greek martyrology of about 362, which was also used as a source for the Martyrologium Hieronymianum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrology_of_411

Now, the question is, the Greek martyrology "of about 362" ... was it compiled about 362? Or was it updated to about 362, before being used by both St. Jerome and some unspecified actor in the East in 411?

The latter is a very much easier point to prove. And if we don't have the martyrology itself, it means that the dating is based on this type of proof. So, was Book of Foxe written after 1762, because it includes the case of Jean Calas? Or was that particular online edition based on an edition that had been updated to 1762? I think the latter. I also think Jean Calas very likely did kill his son, he was not simply put to death for townspeople considering his son as martyr for Catholicism, he was convicted of actually having killed him. In a court of law. But the point isn't Book of Martyrs being less reliable, the point is, the original edition of the Protestant Martyrology (which it is) was in 1563. About 2 C. prior to the latest update.

We don't know the origin of the Greek partyrology in question. Stephan Borgehammar (in a paper I thought I had commented on in my blog posts, but I apparently hadn't?) considers liturgic development only came to use of martyrologies after Constantine. But perhaps this martyrology "from 362" had been ongoing as a simple collection of (at least supposed) facts, way earlier, in a private collection, not unlike the "place in life" of the site of Carlo Acutis. Only later getting actual Church approval, through St. Jerome and this 411 martyrology.

So, my point about the texts I just cited and made amateur translations of, this is not an ad hoc imposition in 1583, that Roman Martyrology was based on the Late Medieval updates of Usuard, which like most others of the Latin rite, excepting those of orders, namely by Bede, Rhaban Maur, and a few more, was written by a monk of Carolingian times, based on the martyrology of St. Jerome, which itself is best known from Gallican manuscripts. Now, as said, the Martyrology from 362 served St. Jerome.

Actually, the French wiki is better equipped on the matter of martyrologies than then English one. The article on the martyrology of St. Jerome is longer, and we are offered insights about the sources that the English wiki already cited does not give.

À l'origine, selon la reconstitution de Louis Duchesne, il y a la compilation de trois documents antérieurs :		At its origin, according to the reconstruction by Louis Duchesne, there is a compilation of three earlier documents.
1) un martyrologe oriental, spécialement consacré aux martyrs des Églises de l'Empire d'Orient (Illyricum oriental et occidental compris), établi sans doute à Nicomédie vers le milieu du IVe siècle (avec des indications éventuellement ajoutées allant jusqu'au règne de Julien) ;		1) an oriental martyrology, specially consecrated to the martyrs of the Churches of the Eastern Empire (including both Eastern and Western Illyricum), established no doubt in Nicomedia around the middle of the IVth C. (possibly with later added information going on to the reign of Julian);
2) un calendrier liturgique romain, constitué au temps de l'empereur Constantin (et qui a servi aussi pour le Chronographe de 354), avec adjonction de quelques martyrs des églises voisines de Rome ;		2) a Roman litirgic calendar, constituted at the time of Emperor Constantine (and which served also for the Chronograph of 354) with addition of some martyrs from Churches bordering on Rome;
3) un calendrier liturgique de la province d'Afrique, antérieur en tout cas à la persécution d'Hunéric (476 - 484) qui n'est pas prise en compte.		3) a liturgic calendar from the Province of Africa, anterior at the very least to the persecution of Huneric (476 — 484) which is not taken into account.
Le document oriental est extrait en partie des œuvres martyrologiques d'Eusèbe de Césarée, à savoir un gros recueil d'anciens martyria qu'il avait constitué pour les temps d'avant Dioclétien, et son De martyribus Palestinæ (appendice du livre VIII de l'Histoire ecclésiastique) consacré aux victimes de la persécution de Dioclétien en Palestine. Selon Louis Duchesne, on peut déceler la trace d'une origine arienne. Une version syriaque abrégée de ce martyrologe oriental (avec ajout de martyrs de Babylonie et de Perse) a été trouvée dans un manuscrit (Add. 12150) datant de l'an 412 de la Nitrian Collection du British Museum[7].		The oriental document is a partial extract from the martyrological works by Eusebius of Caesarea, that is, from a large collection of old martyrdoms which he had constituted for times prior to Diocletian, and his De martyribus Palestinæ (appendix to book VIII of History of the Church), which is consecrated to the victims of Diocletian in Palestine. According to Louis Duchesne, one can find the trace of an Arian origin. A Syriac and abriged version of this oriental martyrology (with additions for the martyrs of Babylonia and of Persia) has been found in a Manuscript (Add. 12150) dating from the year 412 of the Nitrian Collection of the British Museum.

Let's also check The Chronograph, Chronography, or Calendar of 354.

So, Martyrologies are at least a thing since Constantine. And material for them has been available since at least the time before Diocletian. But in fact, the earliest entries, chronologically of the timeline of the martyrs, must have been taken over from lots of earlier Church historians, like St. Hippolytus. And such would have had privately accessible written accounts as well as accounts publically in the Church accessible orally. Sometimes the older accounts contradict the entries of the martyrology. The origin of "Calamina" is cleared up by St. Hippolytus:

8. And Thomas preached to the Parthians, Medes, Persians, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and Margians, and was thrust through in the four members of his body with a pine spears at Calamene, the city of India, and was buried there.

But the end of Matthew is seen as peaceful:

7. And Matthew wrote the Gospel in the Hebrew tongue, and published it at Jerusalem, and fell asleep at Hierees, a town of Parthia.

Kudos to Sean McDowell for noting this. What he didn't note is that St. Hippolytus' On the Apostles and Disciples is seen by some as a spurious work, those someones including the New Advent site or its admin.

So, what are the chances that a work centuries after the facts, but tracing more recent facts in a usually accepted as basically factual (according to some perhaps too sensational) way is totally out of touch with what happened? Errors of transmission or of apprehension do occur, and so do lies. But I would say such errors are a thing to be argued on their own merits, not the default until confirmations are found. The opposite approach actually has some merits in history more recent, like since the 12th or 13th C. which saw an explosion in literacy and in the number of documents preserved.

But for ancient history, this is not worse than accepting Alexander was from Greece (larger sense, including Macedon) and conquered Persia, while our sources are centuries later, the oldest of them actually being:

Now it came to pass, after that Alexander the son of Philip the Macedonian, who first reigned in Greece, coming out of the land of Cethim, had overthrown Darius king of the Persians and Medes 2 He fought many battles, and took the strong holds of all, and slew the kings of the earth 3 And he went through even to the ends of the earth, and took the spoils of many nations: and the earth was quiet before him 4 And he gathered a power, and a very strong army: and his heart was exalted and lifted up 5 And he subdued countries of nations, and princes: and they became tributaries to him 6 And after these things, he fell down upon his bed, and knew that he should die 7 And he called his servants the nobles that were brought up with him from his youth: and he divided his kingdom among them, while he was yet alive 8 And Alexander reigned twelve years, and he died 9 And his servants made themselves kings every one in his place 10 And they all put crowns upon themselves after his death, and their sons after them many years, and evils were multiplied in the earth [1 Machabees 1:1-10]

But Alexander died in 323 BC, and First Maccabees was redacted around 100 BC, at the earliest possible 135 BC, since it covers events up to then, so, this source is at least 188 years after the facts. Our most detailed and used source in continuous narrative would be Arrian, a bit older than Appian, see next, born a bit before the Apocalypse, and dead after 145/146 AD, so, perhaps 15 years before Appian.

Or for Hannibal, we have only fragments of Polybius, we rely mainly on Appian, whom I just mentioned, Livy and Cassius Dio. While Hannibal died in 183 BC, Appian was born around the time the Apocalypse was written and died after the birth of Irenaeus, Livy was the earliest of the three, dying in 17 AD, and Cassius Dio was born when Appian had hardly died, and himself died in AD 235. If we go by death years, the least timespan from sources other than Polybius would be to Livy, 200 years, then Appian, 343 years after the fact, and Cassius Dio, 418 years to Cassius Dio.

But we have Polybius, right? Yes, in fragments. And a fragmentary account of above would be there in Acts, which is a First Century source, includes the actual martyrdom of St. Stephen and also the beginnings of St. Paul's martyrdom in Rome.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Easter Monday
21.IV.2025

See also Feet and Martyrologies — and for Sean McDowell's work, his video on David Wood's channel: Did Jesus’ Apostles Die for Their Faith? (New Historical Evidence)

Matthew 28:11—15

... and this word was spread abroad among the Jews even unto this day.

So, this is obviously not the case if "this day" means 6.II.2025. You'll hear a few things from Jews, but not this one. If St. Matthew spoke the truth, as he did, this was obviously some time ago. I'm OK with that, as I hold to Matthew being the first Gospel. But, was this ever spread among Jews?

The Nazareth Inscription: Rumor and Reaction to the Resurrection of Jesus
APXAIOC Research / Uncategorized / By Archae27
https://apxaioc.com/?p=16

Hat tip to Christians for Truth for the article

Nazareth Decree May Prove That Jews Plotted to Deny the Resurrection of Christ
March 31, 2024 By CFT Team
https://christiansfortruth.com/nazareth-decree-may-prove-that-jews-plotted-to-deny-the-resurrection-of-christ/

A View on Evolutionist Explanations of Reason

I am of course familiar with this kind of argument:

Monkey minds / How evolution undercuts reason and science
by Keaton Halley
https://creation.com/monkey-minds

Can evolution produce rational minds?
Answering some critics of the argument from reason
https://creation.com/evolution-rational-minds

So, I did not read the former a few days ago, but today's article has arguments from atheists.

1. They said that even though some of our thoughts/reasoning might be unreliable, evolution (and natural selection) would tend to produce beliefs that were accurate over time, since natural selection has been “working” on it for a long time.

2. Didn’t quite understand what they meant by this, but they also said that using the scientific method overcomes any difficulty in interpreting data (or information), therefore any false beliefs/thoughts that we had would be nullified.

3. The other one I couldn’t answer well was that they said just because we can’t prove that our thoughts are reliable doesn’t mean they aren’t, and that it’s no different than saying that we as Christians trusting God.

Let's not discourage anyone from reading Keaton Halley on this one, I've linked, but I'm fond of taking the objections and giving own, parallel, answers.

1. They said that even though some of our thoughts/reasoning might be unreliable, evolution (and natural selection) would tend to produce beliefs that were accurate over time, since natural selection has been “working” on it for a long time.

Apart from the fact that Evolution can neither explain beliefs or even notions, as it cannot explain language, the Evolution process as depicted is supposed to priorise correct (or useful) reactions, not true beliefs.

Quicker turning around and slower shooting (but not too much slower) is the kind of good reactions that evolution could promote. Beliefs as such are perfectly irrelevant to the process. Obviously, if you want to train yourself in that kind of reaction pattern, given you are some kind of thing that has beliefs, it helps if you correctly also believe this kind of reaction is useful. But if you weren't, evolution, as portrayed, would hone this kind of reaction and not do a damn thing to produce beliefs or make true beliefs standard of anything.

If Evolution did create beliefs, which is impossible, the kind of beliefs it would inculcate are things like "it pays to be curious when in need or when it's calm" and "it doesn't pay to be curious when it's very risky and one has no need for it" ... or the kind of more concrete beliefs that could be derived from that. NOT beliefs about the cosmos or the nature of reality.

2. Didn’t quite understand what they meant by this, but they also said that using the scientific method overcomes any difficulty in interpreting data (or information), therefore any false beliefs/thoughts that we had would be nullified.

It seems quite a lot of the modern day use of the term "scientific method" boils down to:

• Identifying reactions that are useful for survival in certain settings, but not logically valid ways to search out truth
• nullifying them by making an opposite reaction the intellectual knee-jerk
• and considering one has improved on Evolution as author of reason.

Obviously, such a discipline cannot be upheld by a person on his own, and therefore requires collectivist approaches.

The irony is, logically, a collective due to group pressure is less likely to be logical than an individual person, and on top of that, inculcating the kind of reaction pattern roughly equivalent to "all swans are black" (because "all swans are white" is a bias) is not doing good logic.

But apart from that, there is some futility in believing one can outgrow one's origin, acquire powers not inherent, and produce logic while having no such thing. But obviously, behind Neo-Darwinian Evolution belief, there is a real Lamarckian bias, like a giraffe ancestor producing long necks by stretching up, while itself being shortnecked.

3. The other one I couldn’t answer well was that they said just because we can’t prove that our thoughts are reliable doesn’t mean they aren’t, and that it’s no different than saying that we as Christians trusting God.

We need to treat our thoughts as reliable. And the most reliable way to do so is to skip some of the "scientific method" drill, and instead trust one's thoughts, presuming an origin that can explain (not prove) their reliability.

From an Atheist, the reference to Christians trusting God is obviously meant as an insult.

What Christians do in this connexion is more typically trust logic and work backwards from the phenomenon of logic to what kind of thing could have produced it. You know like heat and light galore could be traced to a really big and self luminous body, or a fire, that was very big ... (we tend to call it the Sun), logic can be traced to what? Well, to an eternal logic, not a logic produced by evolution (there can be no such thing), which then further can be analysed. Richard Carrier has somewhat agreed to a concept somewhat like an eternal logic, namely in presuming natural laws of absolute necessity governed something coming from (materially) nothing. But a more logical way to trace an eternal logic would be an eternal mind that's eternally perfectly logical. And, since logical minds tend to have some domination over matter, eternally has perfect dominion over matter. Does that begin to sound like something we have heard of? I think so. If St. Thomas had called this "sexta via" or "septima via" he would have rounded off with "which all men call God" ...

To the prima via ... heat and light are traceable to the nature of the Sun as a kind of fire. But we see this fire moving every day from East to West. Now, fires don't usually perform circular movements. Something else is either moving or giving the impression of moving the Sun. Now, Heliocentrics would say, it's Earth giving the impression of the Sun moving. But when debating them, and saying God moves the whole shebang (as far up as it is visible) from East to West and the Sun along with it, I usually get answers on the lines "there is no God, so that couldn't happen" ... they presume a universal negative, and opt for the illusory explanation. However, if we can already make a case for an eternal reason having perfect dominion over matter, this would obviously be counterfactual.

Sometimes the rebuttal takes the form "first prove there is a God, before you use Him as explanation" ... this bypasses that explanations that are invisible are always proven only by what they explain. Therein, they are unlike explanations that are visible. These can be proven to exist by direct observation. You know, for water, the explanation "two small atoms along a bigger atom" is kind of observable in electronic microscopy, but below the level of atom, all explanations are invisible. Like God, if they can be proven at all, it's because of what they explain.

At another twist of irony, God moving the Sun, the Moon and the Stars around us is the kind of explanation Evolution would tend to favour, if any at all. In that sense, the Bible is more "true to Evolution" (if that were the origin, but it isn't, see above), than the Scientific Method is. That's probably why a certain kind of modern mind despises that kind of explanation, much like a certain type of feminism despises normal motherhood, also a presumed result of Evolution.

If those guys are so anti-God, so anti-Nature, so anti-everything, perhaps they are on occasion anti-knowledge too?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Lucan, martyr
30.X.2024

When Dan Barker Was a Christian, He was in Control of His Own Mind, He Says

How a Christian Fundamentalist Became a Leading Atheist | The Story of Dan Barker
A Dose of Reason | 20 Sept. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFs8DG8tfIE

Here is a piece of his dialogue with Oprah Winfrey.

Oprah

do you feel you're better off now 15:38 that you've rejected religion in your 15:39 life

Dan

well I'm in control of my own mind 15:41 now I'm not receiving orders from some 15:44 mind that I don't even know what

Oprah

who was 15:45 in control of it before

Dan

I was 15:48 basically I was living a delusion

So, basically, whether or not he was actually living a delusion, on his view, he was not really oppressed by an alien mind. It was his own mind.

Certainly tying itself into some kind of knot, if that's true, but still, it was not making his life dysfunctional.

Apart from the fact that he got no answers on certain themes (like God a God of order, not of confusion vs Bible and Protestant confusion, he didn't look into Catholicism, and timing of the parousia) the supposed delusion was not hurting him. It was just not giving him everything he had hoped for, intellectually. Also, it was probably deluded (normal sense, not psychological one) on some moral issues, that's what I'd say about certain Puritan views, whether they think they have the views from Bible reading or the voice of God.

Does he find this roundabout way so unsatisfying today?

and I would get goosebumps 1:56 when I was talking to Jesus and all that 1:58 and in fact I can do that right now as 2:01 an atheist I can go back somewhere quiet 2:03 and speak in tongues and all those 2:05 feelings come back

So, basically, he doesn't want freedom from religion, he wants freedom from obedience. Not feeling bad if he's disobeying something God tells him, but he still likes hearing the voice. Or perhaps he's not even disobeying, perhaps God is guiding him through atheism. I don't claim to know, Dan gave too little detail.

Well, in that case, I'd say, he is somewhat disingenious in wanting to "disabuse" others of it. A Commie might believe, you only get those types of experiences, if you have been heavily abused by a pastor shouting about as much as Steven Anderson, I think Dan Barker could testify, this is not the case.

For my own part, I have plenty of other reasons to believe there is a God (like human language can't evolve from ape*). I have plenty of other reasons to believe the Bible is intelligible, to the actual Church that Jesus founded, the one which was given it, the Catholic Church.** I have plenty of reason to believe in tradition (even if "inadequately" documented in writings and therefore to us basically oral) is clue to understanding the past. I apply that to Pagan legends as well.

I have recently argued again, in a youtube comment, as previously in comments reposted as blog posts, the timing question of the Church refutes the idea of it being fake.

This being so, there are alternatives to myself being the one doing the talking, when I feel Jesus is talking to me. For instance, God could be giving me a good hint. Or, worst scenario, the devil could. As far as I can see, my situation is not getting worse through decisions I make, this way. If anything, when I neglect obeying. I cannot blame the devil for having deluded me to a bad decision, when I see all of my good decisions taken away from me, and "dismantled" ... so, I have no reason to consider I'd need an actual cure.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Hedwig of Poland
16.X.2024

(15.X) Cracoviae, in Polonia, natalis sanctae Hedwigis Viduae, Polonorum Ducissse, quae, pauperum obsequio dedita, etiam miraculis claruit; et a Clemente Quarto, Pontifice Maximo, Sanctorum numero adscripta est. Ipsius autem festivitas sequenti die celebratur.
(16.X) Sanctae Hedwigis Viduae, Polonorum Ducissae, quae pridie hujus diei obdormivit in Domino.

* See here: Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl: Tomasello Not Answering · New blog on the kid: How did human language "evolve from non-human"? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Adam Reisman's Response, Mr. Flibble's Debate · Andrew Winkler's Response and Debate · Creation vs. Evolution: Odd Perfect Numbers? Less Impossible than Abiogenesis or Evolutionary Origin of Human Language! and also here: Human Language Revisited · Elves and Adam · Back to Picq · Off the Bat

See also: Scientists Discuss Music and the Origins of Language, which is great on health benefits of music, and great on mnemonic benefits of music to an already existing language, and already existing text, at 43:06 in the overall 51:18, Daniel Levitin hasn't really given a beginning of an explanation on how language originated./HGL

** Question on Epistemology

*** See here: What Did Thor Heyderdahl Say, Again? · What did I say about Troy, Again? or here: I Have Some Audience in India or (in French) here: Quelle discrépance de critères entre Buican et Bloch ... and also here: Venus Mater = Puduhepa?

Sennacherib, IV Kings vs Prism

And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians departing went away, and he returned and abode in Ninive And as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch his god, Adramelech and Sarasar his sons slew him with the sword, and they fled into the land of the Armenians, and Asarhaddon his son reigned in his stead
[4 Kings (2 Kings) 19:35-37]

FB: "The Sennacherib Prism, also referred to as the Taylor Prism"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ancientsecrets/permalink/865282729066998/

Wiki cites this portion:

As for the king of Judah, Hezekiah, who had not submitted to my authority, I besieged and captured forty-six of his fortified cities, along with many smaller towns, taken in battle with my battering rams. ... I took as plunder 200,150 people, both small and great, male and female, along with a great number of animals including horses, mules, donkeys, camels, oxen, and sheep. As for Hezekiah, I shut him up like a caged bird in his royal city of Jerusalem. I then constructed a series of fortresses around him, and I did not allow anyone to come out of the city gates. His towns which I captured I gave to Mitinti, king of Ashdod; Padi, ruler of Ekron; and Silli-bel, king of Gaza.

DV

JL Sennacherib didn't siege Jerusalem and never lost 185,000. How so? Read his chronicles - next years he marched with his army to new wars.

JL

DV ,Sennacherib never had the opportunity to siege Jerusalem, his army was defeated by one angel before he had a chance! 2 Chronicles 32:21 provides the account. Isaiah 37:33-37 gives more details of the same account, verse 36:” And the angel of Jehovah proceeded to go forth and strike down a hundred and eighty- five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people rose up early in the morning, why ,there all of them were dead carcasses.” 2 Kings 19:35 provides a parallel account of the same event. Sennacherib was killed by his own son upon returning to Nineveh ,2 King 19: 36,37,Read it for yourself!

GA

JL : You are aware that the Bible is about 90% fiction/fantasy, aren't you?

First problem with the objection against the reliability of the Bible is, are we speaking of the same event, or were there two attacks?

Could Sennacherib have won round one not mentioned in the Bible and lost round two as per the Bible and not mentioned in his annals?

Second problem is presuming that secular rulers are honest and down to earth and just because Sennacherib was neither a Christian nor a Jew, that makes him a secular ruler. Rulers in this time, when writing of far-off exploits (far off from the capital) were capable of horrible bragging and lying to keep their populace (specifically in the capital) happy.

In politics and economics, a Potemkin village[a] is a construction (literal or figurative) whose purpose is to provide an external façade to a situation, to make people believe that the situation is better than it actually is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village

Pretty blatant example from Ancient Near East history is the Battle of Kadesh. Hittite and Egyptian rulers both claimed a decisive victory.

The battle is considered to have ended in a stalemate.

The wikipedian article Battle of Kadesh at this point cites Weir, William (2009). History's Greatest Lies. Fair Winds Press. In other words, it's modern scholars who conclude for a stalemate. Because they do not believe these ancient official accounts.

Third problem, as C. S. Lewis points out, Herodotus gives as general confirmation that Sennacherib suffered an inexplicable defeat, while giving an explanation that doesn't explain. C. S. Lewis comments* "mice don't behave that way" even if in poetry and fiction he went on to explore a vision of "what if they did?"

Fourth problem, DV seems to hail from the former East Bloc, which was quite as good at Potemkin villages as the previous Czarist régimes. I'm anonymising the names, but JL and GA both have English names, DV a Slavic one. In other words, the attacks on Biblical reliability are part of the Communist propaganda, and they are kind of a Potemkin village, as admitting the Bible was reliable could have entrained admitting Communism (in the political sense) was the Scarlet Beast.

Fifth problem, it is usually assumed that Assyrian chronology is fairly good, but it is not over the top to imagine a king could add years (for instance two after the campaign in Judah) in order to make his reign seem longer. Or in this case to make the situation of Hezechias in a cage seem longer. You see, they had no epoch, in the chronological sense. An epoch is an event you date from. Christians have dated Anno Mundi (before replacing it with BC) and with Anno Domini, creation and Christ serving as epochs. Greeks have dated since the Trojan War and then more systematically since the First Olympiad. Romans have dated since Rome founded the City. Egyptians and Babylonians had no such thing, and neither, I think, Hittites, Mycenaeans or Cretans of the Bronze age. He was free to lie, because no one was able to check against the number of the year.

On top of this, we do not know if he wrote it himself or it was written in his name.

On top of that, the cylinder is just six paragraphs long. And passionate brags at that.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
XXth LD after Pentecost
6.X.2024

* In Miracles, a Preliminary Study, if my memory serves right.

"God is Being Itself, Creationism Portrays Him as a Cause Among Others"

Great Bishop of Geneva! Can a Catholic Say the Bible is Infallible? · Creation vs. Evolution: Would Tuas Libenter Condemn Geocentrism and Young Earth Creationism Because of the Theologians who were Fine with Heliocentrism and Deep Time? · somewhere else: "God is Being Itself, Creationism Portrays Him as a Cause Among Others"

Modern Scholastics have a certain way of preferring Tertia Via over Prima Via. Here are Trent Horn and Pat Flynn explaining how the God of the Tertia Via, by the fact of being Being Itself and by the fact that Being and Goodness are convertible, is Goodness Itself, like a certain Iridium bar* in France was THE meter itself. They have oversimplified more than one parts of the argument, but they kind of have a point, as far as that goes:

Why the "medieval God" beats the "modern God" (with Pat Flynn)
The Counsel of Trent | 31 March 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO05XXXxZok

Here is, for one, how they speak of the Eutyphro dilemma, which is a very correct way of seing it:

So so the way we we split the dilemma using Plato's language 25:09 it's not we don't have only two choices to say [...] 25:14 is something good because God wills it is it good because he says so or does 25:20 God will it because it's good that goodness is outside of Him. The way 25:25 you split the dilemma is : God wills it because He is good or He is goodness 25:32 itself right and so naturally what He wills automatically will be good.

To be fair, in the video, I'm four minutes from the end, they have not mentioned Young Earth Creationists, they have mentioned William Lane Craig who isn't YEC, they have mentioned an Orthodox philosopher called Swinburne, perhaps he isn't either. They have not said anything against Kent Hovind or against Ken Ham or against Jonathan Sarfati. But other men have done so. If not every creation act followed from already existing natural laws, note the plural, and as physicists understand "natural laws", then God would have been "arbitrary" and therefore not the God Who's the Eternal Law, of which a human participation is the Natural Law (singular, as lawyers adhering to some theories of law understand the word).

Now, let's check what the Creation dot com has to say of the Eutyphro dilemma. Jonathan Sarfati** in a feedback:

Thus the dilemma can be shown to be a false one. God indeed commands things which are good, but the reason they are good is because they reflect God’s own nature. So the goodness does not come ultimately from God’s commandments, but from His nature, which then results in good commandments. As Steve Lovell concluded in ‘C.S. Lewis and the Euthyphro Dilemma’ (2002):

‘The commands of an omniscient, loving, generous, merciful, patient and truthful Being would not be issued without reason, and that since these characteristics are essential to God, His commands possess a strong modal status. It was also observed that God’s possession of these attributes is sufficient to give significant content to God’s goodness.’

In substance, Jonathan Sarfati has said exactly the same thing as Pat Flynn. So, believing in an all powerful God Who can do any miracle He wants and Who had a possibility to create or not create the world He created does not lead to believing in an all powerful tyrant who for no reason except his whim decrees something to be good or evil.

But back to the metaphysics of being, created and uncreated.

The idea of some critics of Young Earth Creationism (I'm reminded of my second Father Confessor, a Dominican Tertiary, I think the French former Dominican Jacques Arnould said so in a book, maybe Dieu n'a pas besoin de "preuves") goes a bit like this:

If you say that God created rather than that mutations and natural selection produced for instance mammals or for instance man, is "putting God and mutations and natural selection" in an either or relationship. It's like saying I either have to exist because I consist of atoms or because God gives me being, it cannot be both, which is false. Atoms*** are a created and non-ultimate basis of my existence, which should not be confused with the non-created and ultimate basis of my existence, namely God. Both are "the basis of my existence" but on two very different levels.

I'd perfectly agree that we should not confuse the levels. However, I would definitely NOT agree that any statement of the form "God and not X" is doing so. It would only be the case for all statements where X is the created and non-ultimate reason for something, and is actually the reason for something.

If I said "God, and not spacemen who try to elevate our spirituality and failed to do so with Atlantis, raised Jesus from the grave" I would not be committing this kind of fault. No Christian would agree such spacemen° even exist, or that they raised Jesus from the grave, or for that matter that they tried and failed with Atlantis and then judged it. As the spacemen are not the correct explanation, the denial of them raising Jesus from the grave would not be putting ultimate cause and created cause in alternation, they would be putting the ultimate cause acting miraculously against a fake cause supposedly acting by only better (material and spiritual) technology.

The one question that would really confuse the issues would be "was He raised by God or by the reunion of His human Soul and human Body?" or "was He raised by God or by His Heart starting to beat again and His lungs starting to breathe again?" ... God acted through the reunion of a soul with a body, and this reunion by definition, unless hampered, produces a renewed heartbeat and spiration.

So, likewise, about Adam speaking, denying he evolved is not automatically a question of pitting created against ultimate cause, in both cases actual cause. It may simply be to get rid of a fake explanation of Adam speaking.

And another thing. St. Thomas did not put Tertia Via first among the proofs of God. If you know Latin, it means "the third way" ... what is the "first way"?

The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

In a parallel text, or a parallel edition of this text°°, it doesn't go "It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion." But it goes "It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion, like for instance the Sun" (utputa sol). So, Riccioli understood the First Way to correspond to the proposition "God turns the visible parts of the universe around Earth each day" ...

In other words, God could stop day and night by simply stopping to provide, by divine fiat, this motion. Here I am skipping ahead into the philosophical discussion as much as Pat Flynn was in the parts not quoted, but basically, if God is the ultimate cause why the Sun moves around earth, there is at each point of moving causation a natural previous cause and mover, except the caused cause which immediately comes after the uncaused cause, so, for St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed in crystalline spheres, that would be the sphere of the fix stars, which would be contiguous to inferior spheres, and then move them. To me, that would be the aether, a substance which is not in space,°°° but which rather is the substance of space or spacetime itself. Also identic to the aether that light is waves in. But God Himself would not be caused to provide this movement by some even mightier physical mover, God would rather be "moved" in another sense by the necessity we have for a certain amount of light, warmth, and not ten times more, and hence also for moderation, and therefore also for night but one that has no sufficient time to freeze to zero Kelvin, more like perhaps to -5 or -15°C when it gets really cold. And even in the order of purpose rather than of physical application of force, He would be the ultimate mover, since we exist for His glory.

But either way, He was perfectly free to not create us. It's not God, it's we who are arbitrary, since our existance is arbitrary. But it's arbitered by a decision by God. God's goodness isn't. We are.

When we speak of God's goodness, sometimes Fundies do get heat for in practical morals not believing God is goodness and incapable of ordering the evil. I'll hand the word to Jonathan Sarfati:

Some animals only suffer during their short, innocent, miserable lives, but they will never be compensated for this. If innocents suffer but never get compensated, that’s not righteousness, not by my definition at least. Of course you can say that God is the one who decides what’s right and what’s wrong, and that I shouldn’t be arrogant.

Yes, one could, because your knowledge is fallible and your conscience imperfectly informed. After all, you cannot prove that God hasn’t a good reason for allowing the suffering of animals, e.g. to achieve a greater good. See also the discussion in The problem of evil.

But that makes the word ‘right’ meaningless, because even the cruellest things can then be ‘right’.

Indeed, given our imperfect knowledge, you are in a sense right. Consider how a tribesperson from a low-tech culture might view the removal of an eye in a child after a minor injury that seems to have healed. The specialist knows that the patient has ‘sympathetic ophthalmia’, and if the injured eye is not removed, the patient will go totally blind in both eyes, as happened to Louis Braille. Removal of the eye (without anaesthetic, if none is available) seems ‘cruel’, but is definitely ‘right’ given the greater knowledge. God’s knowledge relative to ours is infinitely greater than the disparity between the knowledge of the eye surgeon and the tribesperson.

In other words, certain people who want to use the phrase "God is goodness itself, and some have a mistaken idea that God arbitrarily decides what is good" are simply after validating their own conception of good against God's revelation. St. Thomas certainly didn't go that route.

But even less, if possible, did He go the route of stating "the prime mover moves by secondary movers" (quotation from him, so he would agree with this part), "however this or that model posits a secondary mover is not moved by another secondary mover but bby the prime mover only, therefore this or that mmodel is wrong'" ... whether it be Biblical Creation account of Adam, or the Scholastic and Geocentric view of why we have night and day.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus
3.X.2024

Sanctae Teresiae a Jesu Infante, ex Ordine Carmelitarum Excalceatorum, Virginis, peculiaris omnium Missionum Patronae; cujus dies natalis pridie Kalendas Octobris recensetur.

* Actually, the alloy is 90 % platinum and only 10 % iridium.

** CMI : Feedback archive → Feedback 2007
What is ‘good’? (Answering the Euthyphro Dilemma)
https://creation.com/is-good-what-god-commands-or-does-he-command-what-is-good

*** The ones observed in electronic microscopy are presumably real.

° Even Jimmy Akin, pretty well known for being rather favourable to spacemen, would not accept that they are our spiritual guides or that they are the main agents in wreaking judgement over iniquity.

°° First Part, Question 2. The existence of God
Article 3. Whether God exists?
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article3

°°° It would be in space as Newton and Riccioli understood it, but not as Aristotle, Aquinas and Einstein understood it, where it would be identic to the fabric (Einstein) and be one instance of "the surrounding body" (Aristotle's definition of space).