Guest
Monica Miller, Ph.D., is the Director of Citizens for a Pro-life Society. She holds a degree in Theatre Arts from Southern Illinois University and graduate degrees in Theology from Loyola University and Marquette University. She is the author of several books including In the Beginning: Crucial Lessons for Our World from the First Three Chapters of Genesis (Catholic Answers Press).
Link
Transcript
Eric Sammons:
The first three chapters of Genesis set the table, so to speak, for the rest of the Bible. But they also give us answers to the problems that plague us today if we understand what those chapters are saying. That’s what we’re going to talk about today on Crisis Point. Hello, I’m Eric Sammons, your host, editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. Before we get started I just want to encourage people to hit the like button, subscribe to our channel. Let other people know about our channel so we can continue to grow. Also, you can go to crisismagazine.com, put in your email address, and we will email you our articles every day. Usually two articles a day. We’ll send them straight to your email box every morning.
Also, you can follow us on social media at crisismag. I have a great guest today, Dr. Monica Miller. She is the director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society. She holds graduate degrees in theology from Loyola University and Marquette University. She’s also the author of many books, including, I think it was your most recent, In the Beginning- Crucial Lessons for Our World From the First Three Chapters of Genesis, which I have right here. It’s an excellent book from Catholic Answers. They published it. Thanks for coming on, Monica.
Monica Miller:
Yeah, so good to be with you, Eric. Thank you.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, we really appreciate all your articles. I know we’re going to talk about Genesis. We’re going to talk about the problems of the world. Let’s go ahead. I have to ask you though, we were talking about a little bit before we went on here, what’s the status of the various rescuers who have been jailed in recent months, past year, Will Goodman and others? You’re very much in tune with that. You’re one of them. I would like to know what’s the current status of the various people who are either in jail or looking at jail time? How’s that going?
Monica Miller:
Right. Well, over the last three to four years have been a series of rescues. Some of them have been Red Rose Rescues. Others have been what’s now termed traditional rescues that actually involve blocking the door or the hallway that leads to the abortion rooms and so on. Back in October 2020, there were 10 rescuers who did a rescue at the very late term, actually into the third trimester abortion center in Washington D.C., the San Angelo Washington Surgery Center, and they were convicted. I actually attended their trial. I was in DC for 10 whole days watching the debacle in Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s court, and actually wrote some articles for Crisis Magazine about those particular trials. One rescuer pled guilty. He did an eight-month prison term. A little complicated thing going on there with J. Smith, but nine others are presently in federal prison serving prison sentences ranging all the way from 4 years, 9 months to 21 months.
Then there were other rescuers in Tennessee, Mount Juliet. They did a rescue maybe two, three years ago. These are Protestant believers and they were also convicted under the FACE Act and the additional charges that this very weaponized Department of Justice is bringing completely unprecedented in the history of the pro-life movement to legalize abortion. And that’s this conspiracy to interfere with civil rights. That has a 10 year, $350,000 fine. We’re talking about people are essentially doing a sit-in and then they get slammed with this draconian penalties. In any case, the rescuers in Tennessee, thankfully the judge was far more lenient. Only one rescuer, Cal Zastrow, got six months. Everybody else got house supervision in three or four months. Court probation essentially.
Though one rescuer got a $10,000 fine. I’m really not sure why that happened for him. Then just this week, or actually… Was it this week? Yeah, this week. Many of the same rescuers that did that rescue in Tennessee did a rescue here in Michigan, August 27th, 2020 at the Northland Family Planning Abortion Center. That’s where we did our first Red Rose Rescue actually back in 2017. They were also convicted and now we’re waiting. Sentencing has not yet been scheduled. Some prayers could be raised up for them. That would be really good.
Eric Sammons:
I’m confused. Is Joan one of the rescuers on any of these?
Monica Miller:
Yes. Joan is presently in federal prison. Joan Andrews Bell, very well-known pro-life activist. Married to Chris Bell, who runs these crisis pregnancy centers or pregnancy health centers in New Jersey, the Good Counsel Homes. I think Joan had 24 months.
Eric Sammons:
Was that for the DC rescue?
Monica Miller:
Yes, the San Angelo Abortion Center. Right.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. Joan’s one of my heroes. Yeah, she’s just a saint.
Monica Miller:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
And the fact that she’s in jail tells us the stay of our country, which is going to just segue me into the topic, which is… You wrote this book, In the Beginning, and it’s about the first three chapters of Genesis, but it’s not a bible study. It’s not a discussion of creation versus evolution.
Monica Miller:
No.
Eric Sammons:
But instead it really is a discussion of, I understand, the message of those first three chapters, how we apply it to today’s world and against the problems of today’s world. Could you just start off and tell me what you think are the core issues, the core errors and whatnot that we’re facing in our society today?
Monica Miller:
Well, what I really wanted to do, Eric, maybe a couple of things, generally speaking. I’m not a biblical scholar, okay. Even though I do teach Bible classes and so on. But I’m a systematic theologian. I really wanted to provide exegesis on the first three chapters of Genesis from a systematic theological perspective, and to really provide in some ways the most fundamental apologetics. I want the believers, and maybe even, hopefully frankly, non-believers, to pick up the book to see how it is that Judeo-Christian tradition makes a difference in terms of human dignity, the defense of the dignity of the person more than any other religion, our relationship with God, and then our relationship with God and the world that he has created. Those three things coming together. I want the believer, and even like I say, non-believers, to say, “Okay, this is what this religion is about fundamentally.”
This is not apologetics in that more specific way of is Jesus the divine savior? What is the Eucharist, the resurrection of our Lord, and so on. That’s what I’m really trying to do, and I exploit the fundamental lessons that are embedded in the first three chapters of Genesis to get at these particular issues that we’re going to talk about. But one of the things I start out is to show how Genesis, those first three creation narratives, changed the ancient world. Right?
It blew apart this ancient pagan dualist pessimism that this world is corrupt, it’s evil. The world of matter needs to be abolished, and the only thing that is of importance, the only real thing is the world outside of time. The religion in the ancient world, I characterize it by two words, “Get out.” Right? Leave the corrupted material world. Leave your body because all of that is opposed to the spirit, and we want to get back into the deity, dissolve our unique identity because that’s an illusion anyway, and then everything is God, God alone, okay? Then everything is then perfect. I have a lot of fun actually also showing how radical and new and revolutionary are the lessons in particular in Genesis chapter one with a God who has no competitors, a God who creates the world out of complete tranquility. Everything is meaningful and has order in it, and that the human person is the climax, the masterpiece of everything that God created contrasted with that ancient pagan Babylonian creation story, the Enuma Elish, which is just wild.
That thing is totally wild. It’s full of violence, full of blood, and the world is created as the refuge of war and how completely… What kind of world do you want? As I start out in the introduction to the book, Eric, ideas matter. Okay? That’s what we want to get at. What do you believe is important in terms of your philosophy, your anthropology, your spirituality, your religious ideas, and those ideas matter. I want to move the reader to appreciate the beauty and the… Well, even dare I use the word, the progressiveness, if you will, of Judeo-Christian religion. I’m defending our faith in the most fundamental way.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I think that’s a good overview. Genesis 1-3, it’s always been… Christians have always considered it as the foundation. I tell when I’m teaching maybe a young people catechism or my kids like that, I always say, “Genesis 1-3 sets the table and says, ‘Okay, what’s the problem?'” And then the rest of the Bible is about how God solves it. How we got into this mess is the first three chapters. It started off great, ends up terrible, then all of a sudden okay, and then it takes a long time, of course, to fix it. But what does the first three chapters… You touched on it there, but what does it tell us about God that is different from not just how the ancients treated God, but even how moderns treat God? What does Genesis 1-3 specifically tell us about God that we really need to cling to and know?
Monica Miller:
That God, first of all, is very proximate to the world that he has created. He’s involved. One of the big themes of this book is that time and history and the world of matter is the arena of God saving action. That God is not threatened by the presence of another will. Our God invites us. He wishes us to actually partner with him in the accomplishment of his redemptive plan. We are not getting in God’s way. Again, that’s that ancient pagan pessimism that human beings are in the way of the deity. This is so different in Judeo-Christian religion and in particular Christianity. Maybe I could even go so far as to say Catholicism itself. I do make the statement in this book that of all religions, it’s Catholicism that takes this world seriously. That we have a sacramental order.
By the way, I think this is actually one of our biggest problems right now is a reversion back to that ancient pessimism that the world of matter has no meaning. We have to impose a meaning upon it according to our intellect and our spirit. And we see this in that the whole incredibly new transgenderism movement, that my body has no inherent objective ontological value. That I have to change it, alter it, manipulate it to fit the soul, to fit my mind. And all of that is so corrupted in terms of the good creation that God has put here for us, and that we are here to discover that beauty, to honor that beauty, and to develop that beauty. Not to exploit it, to damage it, to ruin it, to manipulate it, to alter it to the effect that it has no meaning.
I also make the statement in the book, if I had to identify, in terms of ethics, what’s our deepest problem, is a lack of appreciation for natural law. It’s out the window. We don’t even know what it is anymore. It doesn’t matter. These are the things we need to understand and we need to recultivate an appreciation for the world that God has created is a sacramental world, that it reveals as Saint Paul taught in chapters 1-2 of his letter to the Romans, “This world reveals the invisible mysteries of God.” We need to get back to that. And I am hoping that the reader, when they read the book, they’re going to say, “Yes, this author’s onto something.” So there it is.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, we see that God, when he creates the world, in Genesis 1 particularly, there’s the six days of creation, a seventh day arrest, and each time he creates something says, “And God saw that it was good.”
Monica Miller:
Right? Seven times.
Eric Sammons:
Right. This is a tricky theological subject, I think. Because we know everything around us is, let’s be honest, screwed up. That’s my theological statement. I had to get a degree to be able to say that. But if God created good, what is that relationship? Obviously, we’re going to get to Genesis three, which is the Fall. But what does it mean that creation is good when we know, for example, we’re fallen right now. We know all of creation has fallen, but yet it’s inherently good. What is that tension there and how should Catholics look at it?
Monica Miller:
Well, Catholics certainly should look at the world. I spend several pages explaining the natural law theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas. When we talk about the world as good, it is kind of audacious in Judaism and Christianity that something that is not God is also good. That there’s something good that is not the deity. This automatically sets up then a relationship between the good God and his good creation. If I had to identify perhaps the most essential element theologically and ontologically, if you will, the insight of Judaism that just smashed the ancient world to bits, yes, there is a distinction. We will honor that there is a distinction. A difference between what is divine and what is not divine. God and the world of nature, they’re not the same thing. Perfect. True.
Now for the ancients, that presented a problem, a conflict, a hostility. But the insight of Judaism says, “No, there is an inherent harmony and unity between God and the world that he has made and that changes everything. We need not flee the world of matter. We discover who we are in relation to the world that God has made.” Going back to Thomas Aquinas, Thomas teaches that there’s this thing called eternal law. What’s in the divine mind? The wisdom of God. The wisdom of God is imprinted on the world that he has made, and that’s natural law. What is the end of things? Discover that and you discover the wisdom of God. The intention of the divine mind imprinted on the world that he has made, even though the distinction has to remain honored. We still have to honor the distinction, but it changes everything and it’s so beautiful.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, absolutely. We talk about creation and the distinctions of that. Obviously, the highest creation is man. That’s the last thing God creates and it is good, but there’s something unique about it. I feel like this is where we’ve gotten into so many of our modern problems. I was just listening to a podcast, I think it was a Joe Rogan podcast with somebody recently. And I could see it here, is the lack of distinction between man and animal. Yes, we are animals, we’re part of that kingdom in one sense, but we’re not. And many people, like you see materialists, scientists, we’re just like glorified apes and not even glorified all the time. What do we see from Genesis 1-3 and, just in general, from what God tells us. What is man and why does it matter? And how does it impact us today when we’re dealing with issues like transgenderism and all these other issues that we talk about today?
Monica Miller:
Well, the most fundamental ethical principle is found in Genesis 1, that the human being is made in the image and likeness of God, that there’s something about us that’s on the side of the deity that, in fact, does separate the human being from the animal kingdom, the animal world. We have intellect and will, the components of the soul, so that like God, the human being as an immortal creature who can actually be in the presence eternally within the deity and have that eternal relationship. We can, like God, know by our intellect what is a thing for, and then by our will, like God, we can perfect it. We can change it and make it more than what it was.
We have this mission, if you will, given by God, and I talk about this in the book because this is one of the areas that’s very, very much misunderstood, both positively and negatively. What does it mean for man to have dominion, like God, over creation? We are not just on the side of the world of matter or the side of the world of animals, and that is why it is a radical sacrilege to kill an innocent person, because you’re killing something that’s on the side of God as if you are killing him.
If we don’t get back to that ethic, we’re lost. And sad to say we’ve overturned it, with legalized abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia and so on, forced abortion in certain countries. The human being has no ontological status that separates us out as something sacred to God. We should tremble. We should absolutely tremble. We should be absolutely horrified that we would violate this special and sacred character of what it means to be human.
Eric Sammons:
There’s almost an inversion today in that you have people who will freak out if you kill a dog or kill a cat or something like that. But if you kill an unborn baby, that’s like a right. That’s even good. That’s what’s insane. You’ve been around longer than I have even, but it’s like they’re not even pretending anymore. Remember in the ’90s, it was Bill Clinton. Those are the good old days where it was just safe, legal and rare. Now it’s like, “Let’s have the bus outside the convention center.” Which is horrific, but isn’t that like an inversion of the true… The true aura of man having dominion over all of the earth and… Yeah, it seems like understanding that basic hierarchy, that there really is a hierarchy in nature that God created that we’re just missing.
Monica Miller:
The whole thing has pretty much reverted to the Nietzschean perspective, the will to power. Everything is about power and the imposition of one’s will over another. Essentially… And I talk about abortion in my book, of course. Abortion is about power. It’s about power over others. And the other is in my way. And in order to practice self-determination and to fulfill myself, I have to rid myself of the other. That’s pretty much the abortion ethic in one pithy explanation.
Eric Sammons:
Right.
Monica Miller:
I don’t know what else you can call it. Get rid of the person who’s in my way so that I can be free. You even see this, it’s incredible where you’ve got actresses getting up there after they win their Golden Globe Award or whatever. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the freedom to choose.”
Eric Sammons:
Right.
Monica Miller:
What are you saying? You’re saying that you had to kill something in order to succeed. That is what they’re saying. They’re also saying… These women are saying that feminine nature, dare I say God-given nature, is hostile to who they are. They have to overcome it by art. And the art is abortion and contraception. It is an assault on the true self of what it means to be male and what it means to be female. And that gets us back to, of course, the whole natural law ethic.
Eric Sammons:
Right.
Monica Miller:
I did talk about abortion in the book and contraception, homosexuality and transgenderism, and what’s the proper meaning of dominion, care for the planet. All of this coming out, unbelievable, just from the first three chapters of Genesis.
Eric Sammons:
One of the things that we talk about, how man is created the height of creation, has dominion over the world. But there’s also very important in Genesis 1-3, and we see it actually throughout all three chapters, is that relationship between man and woman. That there is a relationship between the two. And there is a distinction between the two. I think this is where we really get into a lot of our problems today. Everything with the sexual revolution, with the idea of basically feminism trying to turn women into men and men into women, and who knows what? It’s so confusing anymore. But what does Genesis tell us about that relationship and distinction between man and woman that really can help us today to see through all the lies we’re getting?
Monica Miller:
Right. I do my exegesis there, of course, in Genesis 2, and we have that incredible statement made regarding the problem borrowing language from John Paul II, the problem of original solitude. And it is not good. Wow, something’s not good. After Genesis 1 where everything that God created, all of a sudden something’s not good. Well, we have this anthropological statement. It is not good for the man to be alone. We know then that in order to be human is to be in communion with others. This is fundamental. This is not a take it or leave it proposition. This is essential to human flourishing to the very meaning of human nature. The solution to the problem of that original isolation of the man is to create another in relationship to him, but not just a carbon copy. Okay?
God creates the woman putting the man into a deep sleep. He built up into the woman the rib that he had taken from the man. And this is so important. One of the most fun things I did in writing this book, was to give the true meaning of what it means for God to have created that woman. We have the translations from the original Hebrew. For example, a lot of times it’ll be, “I will create the helpmate.” In the Elizabethan English, the help meet or the suitable partner. The helper fit for him. We’re all over the map in terms of what word? What’s the original Hebrew word? The ezer, okay? I will create the ezer, E-Z-E-R. Okay, in Semitic languages, the ezer is a savior figure. Somebody who rescues somebody who’s in serious trouble, okay? For example, if you were in a car wreck on the expressway and the Good Samaritan comes along, yeah, you would call that person somebody who came to help me.
Okay, but what’s the deeper context of the person who stopped and helped you in the car wreck? Somebody who probably saved your life. Called 911, got you out of a burning wreck, or whatever. That’s what the woman is doing for Adam. She is rescuing him, saving him from the problem of his original isolation. Then you have this fantastic eruption of, basically, the first human speech. The first human speech is about unity and communion between persons. This one at last, it’s a celebration of the other. This one at last is bone of my bone, in flesh of my flesh. Then we get the ultimate meaning of what it means to be human. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. I argue in this book, and it goes to the whole issue of contraception and abortion as well, the woman is the center of human communion.
Women draw men into the orbit of human communion where he is now male power, if you want to use that word, male initiative, a male creativity, is put to the service of his wife and his family. The family unit, the center of that unit is the woman who ends the deadly isolation of the man. I argue in my book, this leads me to my interpretation of Roe v. Wade. I say Roe v. Wade is not just a legal supreme court decision, Roe v. Wade is a philosophy. It’s a philosophy about what it means for human beings to be in relation to each other. And essentially, Roe v. Wade says, its philosophy is that we are not in communion. What does it mean to be human according to Roe v. Wade? Radical individualism. And ironically, the most radically isolated and individualistic person is a female, is a woman.
As Roe v. Wade puts her into that bubble zone of her own isolation, the right to privacy. The right to privacy is another name for isolation. She isolates herself from her husband with whom she has a covenant or the boyfriend, the father of the baby, her parents, and then ultimately from her own unborn child. Roe v. Wade severs human communion. It’s not just about killing unborn children, it’s about what does it mean for us to have moral responsibility one to another? And Roe v. Wade says there isn’t any. It’s deeper than just the right to life, even as important as that is.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I think this idea of isolation, I think we see it a lot today because you see so many people, especially young people, they’re just staring at their phone and they’re not really… That’s the crazy thing about social media is how anti-social it is, but just the idea of isolation, I really feel like that’s driving a lot of depression, mental illness, suicide, things like that in younger people. Here we go, Genesis again, especially chapter 2, this idea, “It’s not good for man to be alone.” Now I’m an introvert, so I admit I don’t always agree with that.
Monica Miller:
I like to be alone sometimes too.
Eric Sammons:
There are many times I think I’d be happy up on the mountain by myself. But I do know I need other people just like everybody does. But I do think that this is something we need to recognize because you have such a high divorce rate, you have… Then there’s this false communions where you have… Ultimately, if you talk to people, and I’m sure you have too, who have same sex attraction, and maybe have now escaped from the sins that associate with that and live chaste lives. The thing I hear over and over again when they talk about them going into relationships with a man with another man, and things like that, is their loneliness.
Because typically it’s at a very early time in teenage years. They start to realize they’re different, so to speak. They have these… Desires are different. And the biggest fear is, “I’m not going to be able to get married and have that completeness that God intended for me.” And this is why a lot of them turn against God. Because they like, “Hey, it’s God’s fault that this happened.” I think though, this is where I really feel like we have to present what true communion is, what true marriage is and things like that, while recognizing the deep desires of people with same sex attraction that they might go unfulfilled in a lot of ways. Does that make sense what I saying?
Monica Miller:
Right. Then there’s the whole question of how to cultivate friendship, which would go quite a ways to… What’s the word I want? Providing a sort of comfort and healing in those types of relationships. But you always have to be… This is true even for heterosexuals. How free am I to cultivate close friendships with other men, now that I’m a married woman? We have to have our certain boundaries, but yet be able to cultivate friendships. I think maybe some real thinking and some examination needs to go in that direction.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I think one of the devil’s works in our time is how he has sexualized all relationships in that… Two guys who are good friends, it automatically, there’s this like, “Okay, it’s not gay.” Or they try and make it like that. I saw not that long ago, people were trying to make Saint John Henry Newman’s close friendships he had with other… Saint John, I can’t remember his first name, but a good friend of his, they tried to sexualize it, and it’s just horrific because it’s just this idea that two people can’t be friends without being sexualized at some time. But it’s part of that relationship.
Monica Miller:
Yeah, interesting that you should mention that. The first time I went to Italy, which was a number of decades ago. What do you see in Italy? I don’t know what it’s like so much now. This would’ve been back in the ’80s, but men walking arm in arm, and women also walking arm in arm. The men walking arm in arm, they are not a gay couple. This is their custom. It’s not an indication that they have a homosexual relationship. It was stunning. It had something to get used to. Yeah.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, and I think this is something we really need to cultivate. I do think… This is one of my hobbyhorses I know, but the whole internet and social media phenomenon has made it more difficult to build these real relationships with people, both in order to find a spouse but also just to have solid healthy friendships. People that you can talk to and know and things like that. It’s a real issue. We see in Genesis 2 though, it’s not good in the biblical language.
Monica Miller:
And here’s the real distinction, social media, internet interactions. This is the virtual world, rather than really getting back to the principles of Catholic religion. We have an incarnational world. That means friendships that are close and proximate and not done between screens or emails and text messages. Oh my gosh, texting is the lowest form of human communication. Okay, I’ve said it. There it is. Okay, deal with it.
Eric Sammons:
It is pretty bad. You know what I hate? Okay, I know this is a tangent, I don’t care. What I hate about text messaging is the obligations people have put on it that if you text somebody, you’re somehow obligated to get back to them within two hours or something. Even if a random person who you barely know texts you, everybody feels like, “oh, I have to get back to them soon.” But why?
Monica Miller:
We also could mention the master curve, the English language.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, that’s true. My young adult kids, especially one of them, gives me a hard time because I always put a period at end of a sentence in my texts, and they don’t ever do that. They don’t have as much punctuation. I always put a period and they’re just like, “You don’t need to have a period at the end.” I’m like, “Yes, I do. I must. I’m not an editor and writer for no reason, so I have to do.”
Monica Miller:
There you go. I like that. Very good. Right.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah. Okay, I want to skip forward to the bad news, Genesis 3, and we’ve been talking about it.
Monica Miller:
Right.
Eric Sammons:
What does Genesis 3 tell us about the place of sin in this world? Its origins. Obviously, it’s going to tell its solution because we’re all surrounded… I think this impacts Catholics as much as anybody, is the place of suffering in the world, the place of sin. We all struggle with it because, for example, in our current time, a lot of us struggle with it. It’s so prevalent inside the church and among the church hierarchy, for example. How does Genesis 3 tell us, okay, where’d this come from and what can we do about it?
Monica Miller:
Well, Genesis 3, every major religion that’s worth anything grapples with the issue of where does evil come from? Now in Buddhism, Siddhartha posed the question somewhat differently. “Why is man unhappy?” Maybe have more psychological point of view. But Genesis 3 consistent with Judeo-Christian religion has a new different radical revolutionary answer. Because in the ancient world the source of evil was everything outside of the deity, so you blamed the world of matter. And if you get rid of that and you get rid of the self, you resolve the tension. You get back to the original unity of all things, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Genesis 3 says that we had a perfect world that God created. Everything is good, and the climax of God’s creation is marriage. The world is created, I argue, for the one flesh unity of man and woman and to serve it, to cause it to flourish, and then the family is there to advance social justice in this world and so on.
But Genesis 3 says that the cause of evil is the human will badly employed, desiring what was not meant for the human will. And it’s so incredibly instructive and so radically deep, “You shall become like Gods.” Then there’s a definition cryptically, I’ll admit, but a definition there in Genesis 3 with the words of Satan, “You shall become like Gods.” Definition, “Knowing what is good and what is evil.” That is a divine knowledge, and you’ve crossed that boundary. And really what the first sin is saying is, “I’m going to forfeit God’s world in which God has designed what is good and what is not good.” The contradiction. And we’ll call it evil, the absence of the good, “And I’m going to design my own moral universe. I’m going to put myself there in God’s place.” If that isn’t the ultimate power, then I don’t know what is.
You put yourself in the place of the deity, which by the way Eve can no longer trust because Satan says, “You shall not die. No, God knows well. The moment you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you shall become like Gods.” Right? He basically says, “God is a liar.” Well, if God is a liar, then that’s not a deity that I can trust. Eve is thrown back on her own resources. So you design your own moral universe. Come on. Isn’t that what Adolf Hitler does? Isn’t that what the abortionist, San Angelo, is doing?
We will decide. I also find it interesting and maybe a little fun, that Eve gave the fruit to her husband who was with her and he ate it. When was he with her? Well, I argue he was with her right then and there. He heard the dialogue. I think I’m on good theological ground there, Eric, because it’s interesting that the text identify… It doesn’t say the man was with her. By the way, with is a relational term. Whenever you use it’s combining one thing with another thing. How is the man identified in relationship to the woman, husband. Gave it to her husband who was with her? They rise or fall as a couple. I also argue that… There has been a lot of ink spilt on why Satan goes after the woman first.
Eric Sammons:
Right.
Monica Miller:
I think it’s a wrong theological perspective. He goes after her because she’s weaker. Well, that’s the Aristotelian philosophy, okay? I think that the Genesis text coming right off of Genesis 2 is actually in some ways saying she’s the stronger party. In other words, if I get her, I get the whole thing. The whole of human communion that began with her creation, the ezer, is unraveled. Look at the immediate effects. They are flung back into human isolation. Adam blames her for what happened, okay? And then she blames nothing, okay? This power that was bigger than me. They’re both very good pagans at that point. They revert back to that pagan pessimism. Women are the problem, okay, according to Aristotle and Plato. What do we do with them? The world would be perfect if everybody was male.
This is the thing that has to be resolved. We’re back into the world of human isolation, and it’s also so fantastic that God… Well, we have the assignment of the punishments, okay? The first assignment are God’s words to Satan, to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers.” “He.” The offspring of the woman, “Will strike at your head while you strike at his heel.” Okay? Now, in Christianity, that’s called the protoevangelium, right? The first good news. It’s the first prophecy that God is going to resolve this fallen world that the misuse of human will has created.
I think it’s so important that word enmity. I will put enmity between you and the woman. In other words, Eve is not forever marked by her having sided with him. This enmity is good, good news, that there will be this radical contempt and hostility between the force of evil identified with the serpent and the woman, and then her offspring will come. By the way, that projects the human race into the future. The virtue of hope comes with Judeo-Christianity. Don’t stay embedded in this bad day. This is a bad day. Genesis 3, that’s a bad, bad day.
Eric Sammons:
Right.
Monica Miller:
Look forward. That also tells us that history and time is the medium of God’s redemption. It’s not that we have to escape time to be saved, we have to use it as God’s mechanism for the salvation of the world. And the offspring of the woman, of course, will be the savior who will, in fact, crush the head of the serpent. But this is not just a slam dunk thing. The Savior will be wounded. This is battle, this is combat. This is serious blood sport, if you will, between Jesus and the serpent. We have then, of course… The original Eve is the prototype for Mary. Mary will bring us the savior of the world. So redemption is beautifully announced on the very day in which everything went wrong. And that is the kind of God we have.
Eric Sammons:
And it really is that idea of struggle and the conflict between them is interesting. An important point about the idea of suffering and sin, that, yes, there is suffering and that suffering is caused by our enmity with God basically, caused by the break with him. But he doesn’t just leave us alone. He gives us a Savior who suffers with us and as well as our lady who suffers in the Seven Sorrows of Mary. And her enmity between her and Satan as the woman par excellence, of course. And I think that’s an important thing to remember when we see all this stuff going on is that our Lord entered into the suffering. Because, like you said, any religion worth a salt is going to address the problem of evil, the problem of suffering.
Monica Miller:
Right. And unlike every other religion, really… And I could even go so far as to say Catholicism, we have crucifixes in our churches, okay? Ironically, perhaps God is saving us through suffering, as our Lord suffered on the Cross. So the human suffering is never a waste. It’s redemptive and can be put to the use of good. It’s not just something to escape or it’s not just something to curse. It’s not just something to resolve by doing evil things to resolve it ironically. This is, in some ways, maybe the ultimate lesson of redemption.
Eric Sammons:
Right, in that we live in a time that’s difficult. Let’s just say that’d be my understatement for the day. Difficult has issues, but it is the means by which we can be saved and which we can grow in holiness. Just to take it all the way back to beginning, the example of those brave men and women who are in jail right now for the rescues, they’re undergoing… This is one thing, I know you hear it all the time. You’ve heard it for decades, and I heard too was the idea, it’s a waste of time to be in jail. You could be doing so much good…
Monica Miller:
Even good pro-lifers have told me that.
Eric Sammons:
Absolutely. That’s where you usually hear it from. And I think it’s sincere. It’s well-intentioned. I get that, usually. But the idea that somehow it’s just a waste of time, but of course, it’s not because that time in jail is more time that you can offer up to sufferings, but also you can be with people who need Jesus and evangelize them. And there’s so much… We all know… You know probably many stories of just the good that comes out of it when good people, good pro-lifers are put in jail. It’s obviously wrong. It’s not like we don’t fight against the wrong of them being jailed, but we know God can work through that as well.
Monica Miller:
Well, I can mention my book, Abandoned: The Untold Story of the Abortion Wars, TAN Books, Saint Benedict Press. I talked about how-
Eric Sammons:
I love that book, by the way.
Monica Miller:
Thank you.
Eric Sammons:
I think my wife bought that for about 400 people. I feel like she just kept on getting more copies and handing them out to people.
Monica Miller:
You’re making the publisher very happy.
Eric Sammons:
Yes. It was hilarious how often we bought that book and gave it to people.
Monica Miller:
Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. That’s edifying. Thank you so much for that.
Eric Sammons:
We were involved in it somewhat back in the day especially, and just to see somebody like you telling the story. Let’s end on this because it has nothing to do with counter discussion, but it does. You mentioned before we went on air that you went down to Democratic National Convention on Monday.
Monica Miller:
Yeah, I was there on Monday.
Eric Sammons:
Yes. Until you were outside near the abortion truck or whatever it’s called. I don’t know. Can you just tell us what happened there? What was going on there? It’s just horrible. So many people were just scandalized by it. What was going on?
Monica Miller:
The Planned Parenthood… Well, I will have to say, frankly, not a whole lot. We were there for about an hour. We had our abortion victim images. We had literature with abortion pill reversal information, local pregnancy health center information that we were giving out. We only saw one person go into the van, and honestly, we couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman, okay? But apparently he/she had been there for quite a while. That person probably had some kind of medical procedure, whatever it was. The staff tried to ignore us as best they could. They had security guards who tried to ignore us, but I could tell that one African American security guard, he looked at our pictures. At least we had a presence there. They were parked at some weird place. It was surrounded by a black fence. I mean a nice fence, not just a chain link thing. It was a nice fence, but there was a taco truck right next to it. It was so absurd. Yes, it was absolutely absurd.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, isn’t that America right there? You have a taco truck and an abortion truck right next to each other.
Monica Miller:
Listen, don’t get me started. Years ago there was… Well, there still is an abortion clinic in West Bloomfield, Michigan, the Women’s Center and a Starbucks, I am not exaggerating. A Starbucks shared the same building, not just that these were two buildings next to each other, the same building. The Starbucks in the front, the abortion mill in the back. We actually did a Red Rose Rescue there back in 2017.
Eric Sammons:
You had very nice coffee beforehand, right?
Monica Miller:
This says everything. You go get your latte and your cappuccino while they’re doing second trimester abortions in the very same building. Oh, it’s just insanity.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, it is insanity. Well, the solutions are in Genesis. I just want to recommend people In the Beginning- Crucial Lessons for Our World From the First Three Chapters of Genesis, from Catholic Answers by Monica Miller. It’s very good. Like I said, it’s not a strict Bible study. It’s not talking about the creation versus evolution, but it’s talking about the real issues that those chapters are addressing and then applying it to today’s world. I highly recommend it for people, and I’ll make sure I put a link to Catholic Answers website where you can buy it. Well, thank you, Monica.
Monica Miller:
Thank you, Eric.
Eric Sammons:
Yes, I appreciate you being on the program. Till next time, everybody. God love you.
Monica Miller:
Thank you. God bless.