Teachings of the Catholic Church

1. In class, I suggested some reasons why it might not be advisable to think of the Genesis creation story as narrative history in the usual sense.  If we consider the story with a view to the human author, why would it be strange to think of this story as narrative history?  What about divine inspiration?  What reasons might suggest that the text is also not meant to be a recounting of an ecstatic vision from God of specific events?

2. List and discuss briefly four (of the six) similarities between the Genesis creation story and the Babylonian myths Enuma
Elish and Gilgamesh that have led scholars to conclude that these texts are related.

3. What are some of the differences between the two creation accounts. (You need at least five out of the six we discussed in
class.)

4. What things are created on each of the six days of the Genesis creation narrative?  What literary significance might there be
to this order of events?

5. What significance does Cardinal Ratzinger find in the fact that all of creation is accomplished in ten divine statements -- ten
"And God said's"?

6. What significance does Cardinal Ratzinger find in the fact that all of creation is accomplished in seven days?

7. What would the Genesis author's answer to Robert Frost's poem "The Most of It" be?

8. What does it mean to say that the world is a "sacrament"?  What ramifications would such a view have upon our ideas
about the purpose of all the things in the world?  What does it mean, for example, about our bodies?  about our institutions?
about the world's resources?

9. According to Thomas Merton, there are in the Christian tradition a theology of light and a theology of darkness.  Describe
each.  Describe in particular how the Christian notion of the relationship between God and His creation informs each.

10. According to Thomas Merton, when the Christian mystic speaks of the created world as "illusion" and "nothingness," he or
she is only speaking figuratively;  the words are not to be taken literally, he says, and they are not ontological.  What does
Merton mean?

11. What is required, according to Josef Pieper, for true leisure?

12. Cardinal Ratzinger suggests in his commentary on Genesis that "Creation is for the sake of worship."  Though Ratzinger
agrees with this statement, what is the false sense of that notion he identifies?  What ought the statement to mean?
 
13. In the Table of Contents to your Reader, you will see the following heading for nos. 6 and 7:  "The kind of world you think you live in will determine the way you live your life."  Discuss what this means, by comparing the world views and value systems described by Paul Johnson in Modern Times and David Blumenthal in The Banality of Good and Evil with the world view and value system embodied in the first creation account in Genesis.