Well I'm not expert on the Bible and all the stuff that goes with it. But with all the books and novels outside the Bible that teach the same message about God, could it be that God intends those books to be taught as his Sacred Word as well? I mean maybe Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are the new (and i use that term loosely) Mathwew and Mark. Maybe Frankenstien was meant to warn us against cloning and all that. Thoughts anyone?

Nope. The Bible is as it is, and I don't ever see it changing.

The messages are the same as what we find already in the Bible, so basically they are illustrating the Bible.

I believe it was St. John of the Cross who said that to seek additional information outside of Church & Scripture, was to insult God, who has spoken definitively and finally. Now he was speaking of seeking extrordinary things in prayer, but it applies as well to other books.


You might want to read the definitive works on divine revelation, starting with Dei Verbum (Vatican II), and
Divino Afflante Spiritu (Pius XII), and Providentissimus Deus (Leo XIII).

Once you've read these, you'll understand why you question, good in itself, is answered in the negative, and why religions based on a positive answer (Islam, Mormonism, Christian Scientist, etc) are based on false revelations.

God bless,
Mark

I think that's a very good way of putting it. All of those authors knew something about truth, but they really weren't proposing any new truth. What an author like Lewis was really good at was taking some of the truths that were already in Sacred Scripture, putting them in terms that the general reader could understand, and applying them to our lives. A good sermon does something like this in brief, but that doesn't make the homilist a Prophet. Even the Ancient Fathers (like St. Augustine) weren't proposing new Revelation, but were instead working out the logical conclusions of what had already been revealed.

Mary Shelley was reacting against a Romantic movement that glorified (if not outright deified) the Ego, substituting not just mankind, but the Self, for God. Her novel is an illustration of what happens when man gains all knowlegde of heaven and earth, but has not Love. She expressed that truth admirably, but she was certainly not divinely inspired, and there is plenty in Frankenstein that does not jibe with the Faith (it implicitly denies Original Sin, for one thing).

Where your instincts are very good, however, is in recognizing that good literature (indeed, all good art) proclaims to us and reminds us of truths that have new applications as time progresses. The hallmark of good writing, as Alexander Pope said, is that it renders "what oft was said, yet ne'er expressed so well."

Ok thanks. So lets say that the Bible is as is, it cannot be changed, except maybe for translation perposes. What if we were to make a digest or compilation of books and even letters and what not that could maybe help people better understand the message of the Bible. I'm not talking about making a "new" Bible, just something that people can understand. For example you could have The Lord of The Rings, and all the letters John Paul II wrote. Would that be I a good idea? Its just I look at some books, and other forms of literature and I would almost think that God was speaking through that author. I dunno though just a thought really, besides people should read more anyway, but thats my two cents.