ASK FR BITAJU | KAIROS GLOBAL | NOVEMBER 2022

Author: Fr Bitaju Mathew

Q56. How did Noah fit the millions of species of animals into his ark? It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to realise the physical impossibility of this.

Jerin Vakayil, Bangalore, India

Thanks for your important question on whether the vast species of animals did actually fit into Noah’s ark. I would like to respond to your question by delineating the Catholic understanding and teaching of the Holy Bible, more specifically, the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis. 

In the first place, the Catholic Church teaches that the Bible contains reliable scientific, historical, and cultural data, but at the same time, it is not primarily a science book or a history book.  It is primarily a book authored by God through the instrumentality of a number of divinely inspired human authors for the purposes of communicating to us the truths of our salvation. The dogmatic constitution of ‘Dei Verbum’ (1965) of the II Vatican Council states that ‘the books of the Old Testament, … reveal to all men the knowledge of God and of man and the ways in which God, just and merciful, deals with men’ (#15). 

Secondly, it is important to understand the Catholic view on the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis. Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), delineating the book of Genesis states that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are not written in the same way as modern histories. These chapters use metaphorical language to describe truths fundamental for our salvation. We can admit that these chapters borrow material from non-biblical sources, however, these first eleven chapters of Genesis do record history in some real sense; exactly how these chapters record history is a matter that experts need to define further. None of these facts should be understood as undermining our belief that Scripture is inspired by God and therefore free from all error (#38).  

This would mean that a Catholic is not bound to hold to a literalistic interpretation of the narrative on the ark of Noah. Rather we must hold to the idea that the ancient author was certainly affirming historical truths, but he does it in a manner that is unique to the mode of writing and the literary genre of the ancient authors at his time. The Catechism gives us a beautiful summary of how these passages in the book of Genesis should be understood: ‘The inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the truths of creation – its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation.  Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the “beginning”: creation, fall, and promise of salvation’ (CCC #289). 

Therefore, for a Catholic, what is important from the narrative on the ark of Noah are the truths of creation and salvation, that is, how the human race fell out of the relationship with God and his plan of salvation, rather than the number of animals and how they fit into Noah’s ark. 

You Cat13

 Can the Church err in questions of faith?

The faithful as a whole cannot err in faith, because Jesus promised his disciples that he would send them the Spirit of truth and keep them in the truth (Jn 14:17). [80-82, 85-87, 92, 100] 

Just as the disciples believed Jesus with their whole heart, a Christian can rely completely on the Church when he asks about the way to life. Since Jesus Christ himself gave his apostles the commission to teach, the Church has a teaching authority (the Magisterium) and must not remain silent. Although individual members of the Church can err and even make serious mistakes, the Church as a whole can never fall away from God’s truth. The Church carries through the ages a living truth that is greater than herself. We speak about a depositum fidei, a deposit of faith that is to be preserved. If such a truth is publicly disputed or distorted, the Church is called upon to clarify again ‘what has always and everywhere been believed by all’ (St. Vincent of Lerins, d. 450).