Why God can tell you what will happen, but your astrological sign can’t
The Bible is full of prophecies about future events, which usually come from God through angels or prophets. In the book of Isaiah, the prophet foretells the coming of the Messiah when he tells King Ahaz: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Is 7:14). In the New Testament, the angel appears to Joseph in a dream to tell him of God’s plans for Mary and Jesus, and tells him that Jesus “will save his people from their sins”. But while God uses prophets and angels to announce future events, he rejects false prophets and anything to do with humans predicting the future. Throughout the Bible a strong rejection of such things can be found, especially in chapter 18 of Deuteronomy: “There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practises divination, a soothsayer, an augur or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium or a wizard, or one who consults the dead. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.” The Catholic Church has rejected again and again, through the teaching of the Church Fathers and other saints, the use of any means such as magic or astrology to predict the future. Even so, a recent Pew Research Center survey found that 33% of Catholics in the United States said they believe in astrology, while 46% said they believe in psychics.
But if God can use prophets and angels to predict future events, why can’t Catholics read their daily horoscopes or consult psychics about the future? The question of predicting the future, especially through astrology, is one constantly faced by Brother Guy Consolmagno, an American research astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory. Consolmagno told CNA: “The first problem is the one identified in many places in Scripture: putting your faith in these spiritual powers means not putting your faith in God. If you think the positions of the planets control your fate, you are ultimately denying the power of God and denying human free will, both of which are bad theology.” He pointed out that the Church does not reject the study of the universe, but recognizes that everything in the created universe is subject to God’s will. Likewise, the Church rejects false prophets such as psychics because they try to rely on their own power rather than God’s. Denise Gustafson, an instructor at the Denver Catholic Biblical School, told CNA: “Remember, prophets are chosen by God to speak the word of God. Prophecy is a gift, a divine grace, a gift from God that gives human beings what we cannot achieve by our own power. Psychics, on the other hand, are part of the occult, and never speak the word of God. I would say they are tools of the devil. Scripture is very clear on such matters.” Daniel Campbell, another instructor at the Denver Catholic school, told CNA that the Jewish people were forbidden to consult psychics in order to set themselves apart from pagans who believed in demonic powers. “It is demonic,” he said. “A psychic may tell you something true, but its source is demonic (whether or not the psychic realizes it or wants demonic influence). This is the root of all the pagan religions of which these practices are a part: behind every idol is a demon, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10. That is why all exorcists say that dabbling in New Age things is a sure way to expose yourself to demonic influence.”
The second problem with wanting to predict the future is Gnosticism, or the desire for “secret knowledge” to gain an advantage over others, Consolmagno said. “There’s something fundamentally un-Christian about seeing the world as a competition between you and me, where anything goes, including cheating by using secret knowledge that no one else can access.” The third problem is that astrology is wrong,
Consolmagno noted: “Astrology is wrong in the sense that it is a lie: it promises what it cannot deliver. People who sell you their knowledge are lying, and relying on it is like relying on snake-oil medicine: by putting your hopes in a lie, you can keep yourself from using the medicine that is true.” Saint Augustine rejected astrology as “a ridiculous waste of time” and plainly false, partly because twins born under the same sign can have very different personalities and behaviours. The sky has also shifted considerably since the astrological signs first appeared, and they have never been updated to allow for these shifts, Consolmagno pointed out. He added that astrologers and psychics often prey on the poor and the vulnerable.
“If astrology were actually true, all the fortune tellers and astrologers would be rich, or at least controlled by the rich. Instead you find them preying on the poor, offering easy but wrong answers.” Gustafson says: “The bottom line is that those who put their trust in occult means are putting their trust in something other than God. We trust in God alone; he tells us so.”
Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/why-god-can-tell-you-what-will-happen-but-your-astrological-sign-cannot-97215
