Ibrey

In your video "Misreading Genesis", you said of Adam, the first human being, "don't read it literally. We're not talking about a literal figure, we're talking in theological poetry." Do you mean by this that although Adam is really a historical individual, the events of his life are narrated in a poetic style, or do you mean that Adam himself is only a kind of symbol or metaphor, and there is no such historical individual at all?

The majority of theologians qualify the origin of the whole human race from one first ancestor as de fide (though some such as Ludwig Ott and Karl Rahner prefer to call it "at least theologically certain"), and the First Vatican Council was preparing an explicit dogmatic definition of this at the time it was interrupted by the outbreak of war, which Joseph Kleutgen anticipated no question about whatsoever, passing it over in his relatio to the Council Fathers in the single sentence, "the third dogma which is established is the unity of the human race, about which there is no difficulty." As Pope Pius XII writes in Humani generis, "the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own." In a footnote, Pius particularly cited the teaching of Saint Paul that "through one person sin entered the world ... through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners," and the dogmas of the Council of Trent predicated on the doctrine that "the first man, Adam, transgressed the commandment of God in paradise."

Again, St John Paul II, in a 1986 audience, quoted St Paul VI describing theories of original sin which start from "the unproved premise of polygenism" and "deny more or less clearly that the sin from which such a mass of evils has derived in humanity was, above all, the disobedience of Adam, the first man" as "irreconciliable with genuine Catholic teaching." If you deny that the Adam spoken of in the Book of Genesis signifies a real historical individual, how do you reconcile this with the Church's teaching on original sin?

What do you think of the eternal fate of Judas Iscariot? There seems to have been a strong consensus throughout the history of the Church that his damnation is divinely revealed by such biblical statements as Christ's own words "it would be better for this man if he had never been born" and his prayer to his Father stating that none of his disciples has been lost "except the son of perdition," and St Peter's declaration that Judas had gone "to his own place." It is clearly asserted in several places in the Roman Catechism that Judas was damned, and Abbé Guy Pagès has even argued in his book Judas est-il en enfer? that it is a dogma that Judas is in hell. If this is so, how can we reasonably hope that all will be saved, as you hold, when this already has not happened?

When this joke became the top comment on his first AMA, he came back after the AMA was over and answered it.

Good morning, Your Excellency. In your controversial interview with Ben Shapiro, you said that some people can be saved "outside the explicit Christian faith," "even an atheist," but also explained that the grace of God needs to be accepted in faith for there to be supernatural charity, implying the need for implicit faith. If you meant by this that an atheist might already be living the life of sanctifying grace, can you explain how it is possible to make the act of divine faith (that is, "a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed") without believing in the existence of divine revelation or any of its objective supernatural content, and how you reconcile this with Hebrews 11:6?

In the same answer, you also gave scandal to many people by characterising the teaching of the Second Vatican Council as, "Christ is the privileged route to salvation." Indeed, you repeated, "the privileged route, and the route that God has offered to humanity, is the route of His Son." What Vatican II in fact said was, "Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation." Do you regret formulating the doctrine of Christ's unique mediation in this novel way rather than sticking more closely to the language of Scripture as well as Vatican II and the other ecumenical councils, making it sound as if there is salvation without Jesus Christ, and even a route to salvation not offered to us by God but found by man's own efforts?

What biblical book or story would you say is in the most pressing need of adaptation as a major motion picture?

Follow-up question: why is it Maccabees?