A Catholic Approach to Scripture

Catholics are often accused of being anti-Bible by Protestant types, and lumped in with Bible-literalists by the non-religious types. As usual, the Catholic Church strikes a balance between two crazies, one that is sometimes described as a "moderate" view but is more like a "transcendent" view.

So it's pretty normal for a faithful Catholic to hear about how it's insane to believe that the world is 5,000 years old, because that's apparently what it says in the Bible... to which Catholics respond, "but that's only one way of interpreting the Bible; you don't have to interpret it that way." That begs the question, "Well, how do you interpret the Bible?" To which Catholics are like, "Ummm, well, not like that, anyway." Which is really not a good answer, and also begs the question, if you don't believe what it says, how can you believe it's true? It's a legitimate question, and was part of the reason I wanted to take this class.

So let's begin.

The Purpose of Scripture

First, what is the point of Scripture? Let's pull a quote from Dei Verbum. Actually, let's pull the whole preface. Emphasis mine.

Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith, the sacred synod takes its direction from these words of St. John: "We announce to you the eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you, so that you may have fellowship with us and our common fellowship be with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:2-3). Therefore, following in the footsteps of the Council of Trent and of the First Vatican Council, this present council wishes to set forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation and how it is handed on, so that by hearing the message of salvation the whole world may believe, by believing it may hope, and by hoping it may love.

There you have it, folks. Scripture is about love. Scripture is about inspiring the whole world to love. Love is at the center of our understanding of everything -- including Scripture -- because that's who God is and how God works. (Is anyone surprised?)

The Bible is not a shipbuilding manual, self-help book, or collection of medically-peer-reviewed dietary advice.

The Inerrancy of Scripture, and What "Inerrant" Actually Means

Scripture does not contain errors -- that's pretty straightforward, right? If it's in the Bible, it's true. Period. Right? So it shouldn't be that hard to see what it means, right?

Not exactly. Catholics believe that Scripture is error-free, but Catholics do not believe that human interpretations are necessarily error-free. Let's take a look at this.

In Scripture, God makes genuine use of human faculties, culture, etc. So when God inspires the Biblical authors, they aren't writing in a vacuum -- they're writing in the context of their own culture and time in history, and using some things from their cultures to make the point God wants made. So it's important to do some historical research into the culture if you want to really understand what the Biblical authors are saying.

For example, let's look at the story of Cinderella. It's a nice story and we can draw some moral lessons from it: the importance of being kind, that good triumphs over evil in the end, things like that. Assuming this was the author's intent in composing the story, the author didn't make any errors.

When we 21st century Americans hear the story, we take literary cues -- "Once upon a time, there was..." -- and can pretty easily figure out that this is a fairy tale, and that nobody is expecting you to believe it as a matter of historic fact. The author has conveyed the moral lesson he was trying to convey, without making any errors.

Someone from another culture might not know these literary cues, and might read the story thinking the author intended it as history. That person might write an essay about how people who share the story of Cinderella are completely ignorant of history. There is no evidence that the story of Cinderella ever happened! But in reality, that person is completely ignorant of our cultural and literary conventions, and doesn't realize that nobody is intending this to be history.

This is not a problem with the story of Cinderella, but a problem with the person trying to interpret the story of Cinderella.

For an example more relevant to our actual faith, I'll tell you about a documentary I watched the beginning of. It was about the life of Jesus, who -- gasp! (cue dramatic music) -- might not have been born on December 25. As if that completely undermined Christianity.

Sorry, folks. That does not shake my faith.

We celebrate my birthday on [date] because that was the day I was born. We celebrate Jesus's birthday on December 25 for a different reason. We are not saying "Jesus was born on December 25, so let's celebrate on that day," as is the case for my birthday. We are saying "Jesus's birth is worth celebrating, and we don't know the date exactly, but for a variety of reasons, December 25 is a good day to do that."

Let's say the Church is inerrant in her decision to celebrate Jesus's birth on December 25. The documentary-makers think this means the Church teaches that Jesus was born on December 25. If they did some research into the cultural and theological reasons the Church considered when deciding the date, they would have come to a better understanding of what we mean when we celebrate Jesus's birth on December 25.

The Church is error-free, but the interpreter is not.

This is why we need historians, archaeologists, literary scholars, linguists, and theologians helping us to interpret Scripture. They are the ones who put together the footnotes in your Bible. And thank goodness for them.

So, then, did nothing in the Bible actually happen? Is it all fairly tales with helpful moral lessons?

The Bible is not a book, properly speaking, but a collection of books in a bunch of different genres from a bunch of different historical periods.

Some of the Bible is written as history, and should be understood as history. The Bible also has poetry, wisdom, proverbs, songs, prophecy, and other types of literature. So here's the answer to the "did it actually happen?" question: If it's history, it's history. If it's not history, it's not history. But it still teaches us about love and salvation in an error-free way. (Not an error freeway.)

(How can you tell what genre a book is in? If you aren't going to become a scholar, find scholars you trust. The Navarre Bible is awesome, as is Fr. Robert Barron.)

The role of time

God revealed himself over the course of human history, an idea which is unique to Judaism and Christianity. It wasn't somebody having a mystical experience and founding a new religion based off it, which is how a lot of religions get started.

Our professor defined "divine revelation" (for the purposes of our Old Testament class) as God speaking through men over centuries in Israel. There's four parts: (1) God speaking (2) through men (3) over centuries (4) in Israel.

We already talked about the first two.

As for over centuries: There's a progress to the revelation.

Some trivia: Mit Brennender Sorge is the only papal encyclical not first published in Latin. It was sent to all the German bishops in 1937 because Pope Pius XI wanted to make absolutely clear that Nazisim was incompatible with Catholicism. Speaking against anti-Semitism, the pope wrote:

The sacred books of the Old Testament ... constitute a substantial part of his revelation; they are penetrated by a subdued light, harmonizing with the slow development of revelation, the dawn of the bright day of the redemption. 

For the Israelites, faith in God was often expressed as a hope that God will do what he promised -- because he hadn't done it yet. Later Israelites knew stuff the earlier Israelites didn't know; later Israelites could refer to God bringing them out of Egypt, but Abraham couldn't.

For example, Moses famously said in Deuteronomy 6:4, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord." It takes a long time for God to convince the Israelites that they're supposed to be monotheists. The Old Testament is chock full of the Israelites worhipping pagan gods, then the real God is like -- guys, no. Just one.

In some of the wisdom literature, some of the latest Old Testament books, there are meditations on God maybe not being quite as simple as "one." Baruch 3:29ff hints at a wisdom that's eternal and known by the Creator, who becomes incarnate, and is identified with the book of the commandments. This is a hint at the Trinity... at the incarnation of Christ who is the Word of God... but not something Israel could have tolerated before they were pretty solid in their monotheism. (If you want something not from the deuterocanonicals, or some development of the understanding of the afterlife, let me know.)

The Assembly

The last bit of that four-part understanding of divine revelation is in Israel. I don't have a lot to say here, but what I do have is important. Scripture came to use through human means, and God used people (the Biblical authors) to save other people (us). There's a kind of communion among humanity.

There's always been a community sustaining the Scriptures, a community of salvation, keeping the voice of teaching alive. The Assembly of Israel had been a custodian of the Scripture and Tradition anyway, and it made sense just to continue that after the whole Incarnation thing.

That's what the Church is. The Greek Ekklesia katolika, which we now translate Catholic Church, just means the assembly of the whole.

Some keys to interpreting Scripture

There is no "trick" to interpreting Scripture, but there are some keys that are hugely important.

1. Scripture is Christocentric. The entire Old Testament points forward to Christ and should be read that way. The stories of Abraham and Noah, the prophecies of Isaiah -- all of these reach their fullest meaning when read in light of Christ. For historical and fictional events, what does this mean in relation to Christ? How does this help prepare Israel -- and me -- for Christ?

2. The rule of charity means that if you're not growing in love of God and neighbor through this interpretation, you're reading it wrong. Remember, the whole point of Scripture is salvation and love. So if you read one of St. Paul's famous letters, then tell your wife to make you a sandwich -- wives, be subject, and all that -- because you're watching football and can't be bothered to make your own sandwich, you're reading it wrong.

3. The rule of faith means that if your interpretation contradicts something the Church teaches, you're reading it wrong. This is generally a bad thing to bring up when explaining the faith to Protestants, and if you spend a lot of time in Protestant apologetics, it can seem circular. But remember, while the Bible can be good common ground for helping non-Catholic Christians understand Catholicism, that's not the main purpose of the Bible.

Ideally, you don't come to the Church through the Bible, but come to the Bible through the Church. Or something like that. I think it's Dei Verbum that sets up this famous "tripod" by which we understand the deposit of faith: Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium. The Magisterium is not itself a source of revelation, it doesn't add anything, but it clarifies and expounds on what we received through Scripture and Tradition. And that, guided by the Holy Spirit, isn't going to make errors. Since the whole point of the Magisterium is to clarify Scripture and Tradition, if we know the Magisterium has said something, we know Scripture can't mean something else.

I hope that made sense. I want to end this one with the Road to Emmaus story. A couple apostles meet this man (Jesus in disguise), and they tell him they don't understand what this whole Jesus thing was about. All this stuff happened, and the women are saying he rose from the dead, and what does it all mean? Then St. Luke tells us (Luke 24:25-27):

And he said to them, "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Elephant in the room: What did he say????

St. Luke doesn't tell us. He doesn't need to. Jesus told the apostles, and they -- the Magisterium (=teaching authority) of the Church -- pass it to us. If the Bible alone were sufficient, St. Luke would have told us what Jesus said here... or he would be saying that Jesus's explanation of the Old Testament isn't important. The former obviously didn't happen, and I'm seriously uncomfortable believing the latter.