DIVINE REVELATION
(Excerpted by Prof. W. Nierras, Ph.D from the Catechism for Filipino Catholics, 16 August 2021)
I. GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
A. In Creation 65. The first way God reveals Himself to us is through creation. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims His handiwork” (Ps 19:1). In creation, man holds a special place. God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gn 1:26). God even gives us a share in His own creativity: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gn 1:28). God creates the whole world for us, to support us in life and reveals Himself to us through His handiwork. “Since the creation of the world. . . God’s eternal power and divinity have become visible, recognized through the things He has made” (Rom 1:20). 66. Our Fourth Eucharistic Prayer clearly expresses this recognition of God’s Self-revelation through creation: Father in heaven, You are the one God, living and true . . . Source of life and goodness, You have created all things To fill Your creatures with every blessing And lead all men to the joyful vision of Your light . . . Father, we acknowledge Your greatness: All Your actions show Your wisdom and love, You formed man in Your own likeness, and set him over the whole world To serve You, his Creator, and to rule over all creatures. Natural Signs 67. For us Filipinos, then, the world and everything in it are natural signs of God - the initial way God makes Himself known to us. Yet in our everyday experience, we meet not only love, friendship, the good and the beautiful, but also suffering, temptation and evil. All creation has become affected by sin - “sin entered the world, and with sin death” (Rom 5:12). The “natural signs” of the Creator have thus become disfigured by pollution, exploitation, injustice, oppression and suffering. So God chose to reveal Himself in a second, more intimate way, by entering into the history of the human race He had created. B. In Scripture, through Salvation History 68. The Bible records God’s entering into a special covenant relationship with His chosen people, the race of Abraham, the people of Israel. “I will dwell in the midst of the Israelites and will be their God” (Ex 29:45). Again, we pray in the Eucharistic Prayer IV: Even when man disobeyed you and lost your friendship, You did not abandon him to the power of death, But helped all men to seek and find you. Again and again you offered a covenant to man, and through the prophets taught him to hope for salvation. Biblical Signs 69. God revealed Himself in stages. In the Old Testament, God revealed Himself through biblical signs made up of both deeds and words. He made covenants with Noah, with Abraham, and with Moses. He performed great works for His Chosen People, and proclaimed their saving power and truth through the prophets’ words (cf. DV 2; CCC 56-64). Through chosen men and women - kings, judges, prophets, priests and wisemen, God led, liberated, and corrected His people. He forgave their sins. He thus revealed Himself as Yahweh, He-who-is-with His people. He is “the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity” (Ex 34:6). Today, through His inspired word in the Old Testament, God still reveals Himself to us, and inspires us to respond to His covenant. 70. Yet, even God’s revelation in history was weakened by the infidelities and hardness of heart of His Chosen People. But God so loved the world, that in the fullness of time, He sent His only Son to be our Savior, like us in all things except sin (cf. Jn 3:16; Gal 4:4; Heb 4:15; CCC 65). Jesus Christ “completed and perfected God’s revelation by words and works, signs and miracles, but above all by his death and glorious resurrection from the dead” (DV 4). Thus the Risen Christ, prefigured in the Old Testament and proclaimed by the apostles, is the unique, irrevocable and definitive revelation of God. C. In the Church 71. But God’s definitive revelation in Jesus Christ did not stop with Christ’s ascension to his Father. Jesus himself had gathered around him a group of disciples who would form the nucleus of his Church. In this Church, the “Good News” of Jesus Christ would be proclaimed and spread to the ends of the earth by the power of the Holy Spirit, sent down upon the apostles at Pentecost (cf. Acts 1:8). “What was handed on by the apostles comprises everything that serves to make the People of God live their lives in holiness and increase their faith. In this way the Church in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes” (DV 8; cf. CCC 77-79). PCP II summarizes this by stating that Sacred Scripture and the living tradition of the Church transmit to us the teachings of Jesus” (PCP II 65). Liturgical/Ecclesial Signs 72. God continues to manifest Himself today through the Holy Spirit in the Church. He is present in the Church’s preaching the truth of Scripture, in its witness of loving service, and through the celebration of its Christ-given Sacraments. Christ’s revelation in the Church is “the new and definitive covenant [which] will never pass away. No new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord, Jesus Christ (1 Tim 6:14; Ti 2:13)” (DV 4). 73. In summary, then, Filipino Catholics experience God’s Self-revelation today. First, God shows Himself in the natural signs of the beauty and abundance of our natural resources and our rich Filipino culture. Second, the biblical signs in God’s inspired Word in Scripture, the book of the Church, reveal Him. Third, through the Church’s liturgical signs, we encounter the Risen Christ in the Sacraments. Finally, God makes Himself known to us through the ecclesial signs of the Church’s proclamation of the Creed and in her moral teachings and commitment to service. D. In Other Religions 74. But many Filipino Catholics ask if non-Christians receive God’s revelation. The Church, in her prophetic mission of “reading the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel” (GS 4), discerns the seeds of the Word in the history and culture of all men of good will. Thus, even non-Christians “who do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience, may achieve eternal salvation” (LG 16). 75. For whatever is true and holy in non-Christian cultures and religions is accepted by the Catholic Church since it “often reflect[s] a ray of that truth which enlightens all men.” Filipino Catholics, therefore, should “acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians, also their social life and culture” (NA 2). PCP II provides guidelines for this inter-religious dialogue. It must be based firmly on the fact that salvation in Jesus Christ is offered to all, and that the Church is the ordinary means of salvation since she possesses the fullness of the means to salvation (cf. UR 3). This makes possible “openness in understanding the religious convictions of others. [For] ‘dialogue based on hope and love will bear fruit in the Spirit’ (RMi 56)” [PCP II 112-13]. |
|
II. JESUS CHRIST: AGENT, CONTENT AND GOAL OF REVELATION
76. Nevertheless we Catholics must “witness to [our] own faith and way of life” in the Catholic Church which “proclaims, and is duty-bound to proclaim, without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth and the life” (NA 2). Jesus Christ is “himself both the mediator and the fullness of all Revelation” (DV 2; cf. CCC 65). PCP II puts it sharply: “We are followers of Christ, his disciples. We trace his footsteps in our times, to utter his word to others. To love with his love. To live with his life . . . To cease following him is to betray our very identity” (PCP II 34). Filipino Catholics, therefore, recognize in Jesus Christ the goal, the content, and the agent of God’s Self-revelation.
A. Goal
77. As goal, Jesus is “the key, the center and the purpose of the whole of man’s history” (GS 10), in whose image we all are to be conformed (cf. Rom 8:29). For it is through the Risen Christ that we shall share the Trinitarian divine life of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Therefore our present earthly life is a challenge to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” as St. Paul admonishes us (cf. Rm 13:14).
B. Content
78. But Christ is not only the goal of God’s revelation, He is also its content, the Revealed One. In himself, Jesus reveals both God and ourselves. “Christ, the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of His love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling” (GS 22). Our Faith centers on Christ precisely because we believe we “are called to union with him, who is the light of the world, from whom we go forth, through whom we live, and towards whom our whole life is directed” (LG 3).
C. Agent
79. Finally, besides being the goal and content of Revelation, Christ is also its agent, the mediator (cf. DV 2). “God is one. One also is the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:5-6). Christ is revealer through his part in creation, through his becoming man, through his hidden and public life, and especially through his passion, death and resurrection. After his resurrection, the Risen Christ continues his revelation by sending us his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth (cf. DV 4).
80. But how does the revealing Christ touch the Filipino Catholic today? Clearly, through his Church, the people of God, united in his name. “The one mediator, Christ, established and ever sustains here on earth his holy Church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as a visible organization through which he communicates truth and grace to all men” (LG 8). The Church herself receives Christ’s revelation. She regards “the Scriptures, taken together with sacred Tradition, as the supreme rule of her faith.” For they present “God’s own Word in an unalterable form, and make the voice of the Holy Spirit sound again and again in the words of the prophets and apostles” (DV 21).
76. Nevertheless we Catholics must “witness to [our] own faith and way of life” in the Catholic Church which “proclaims, and is duty-bound to proclaim, without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth and the life” (NA 2). Jesus Christ is “himself both the mediator and the fullness of all Revelation” (DV 2; cf. CCC 65). PCP II puts it sharply: “We are followers of Christ, his disciples. We trace his footsteps in our times, to utter his word to others. To love with his love. To live with his life . . . To cease following him is to betray our very identity” (PCP II 34). Filipino Catholics, therefore, recognize in Jesus Christ the goal, the content, and the agent of God’s Self-revelation.
A. Goal
77. As goal, Jesus is “the key, the center and the purpose of the whole of man’s history” (GS 10), in whose image we all are to be conformed (cf. Rom 8:29). For it is through the Risen Christ that we shall share the Trinitarian divine life of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Therefore our present earthly life is a challenge to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” as St. Paul admonishes us (cf. Rm 13:14).
B. Content
78. But Christ is not only the goal of God’s revelation, He is also its content, the Revealed One. In himself, Jesus reveals both God and ourselves. “Christ, the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of His love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling” (GS 22). Our Faith centers on Christ precisely because we believe we “are called to union with him, who is the light of the world, from whom we go forth, through whom we live, and towards whom our whole life is directed” (LG 3).
C. Agent
79. Finally, besides being the goal and content of Revelation, Christ is also its agent, the mediator (cf. DV 2). “God is one. One also is the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:5-6). Christ is revealer through his part in creation, through his becoming man, through his hidden and public life, and especially through his passion, death and resurrection. After his resurrection, the Risen Christ continues his revelation by sending us his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth (cf. DV 4).
80. But how does the revealing Christ touch the Filipino Catholic today? Clearly, through his Church, the people of God, united in his name. “The one mediator, Christ, established and ever sustains here on earth his holy Church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as a visible organization through which he communicates truth and grace to all men” (LG 8). The Church herself receives Christ’s revelation. She regards “the Scriptures, taken together with sacred Tradition, as the supreme rule of her faith.” For they present “God’s own Word in an unalterable form, and make the voice of the Holy Spirit sound again and again in the words of the prophets and apostles” (DV 21).
III. WHERE WE FIND GOD’S REVELATION
A. Scripture and Tradition
81. The Sacred Scriptures, collected in the Bible, are the inspired record of how God dealt with His people, and how they responded to, remembered, and interpreted that experience. The Scriptures arose, then, as the expression of the people’s experience of God, and as a response to their needs. Collectively, the Scriptures form “The Book of the People of God” - the book of the Church. The Bible was written by persons from the people of God, for the people of God, about the God-experience of the people of God” (NCDP 131).
82. The Scriptures, then, are never to be separated from the people of God whose life and history (Tradition) formed the context of their writing and development. This is best shown in the three stages of how the Gospels were formed.
First stage, the life and teaching of Jesus — what Jesus, while he lived among us, really did and taught for our eternal salvation, until the day he was taken up.
Second stage, oral tradition. After Jesus’ Ascension, the apostles handed on to their hearers what Jesus had said and done.
Third stage, the written Gospels. “The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain elements that had been handed on orally or already in written form, others they synthesized or explained in view of the situation of their churches, while preserving the form of proclamation. But always in such a way that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus” (DV 19; cf. CCC 126).
This shows how the written Gospels grew out of oral tradition, and were composed in view of the concrete “people of God” of the early Christian communities. Through His inspired Word in Scripture, God continues to reveal Himself to us today.
83. Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together. . . flowing out from the same divine well spring, moving towards the same goal and making up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God (cf. DV 9, 10). Tradition can be taken either as the process by which divine revelation, coming from Jesus Christ through the apostles, is communicated and unfolded in the community of the Church, or as the content of the revelation so communicated. Thus the living Tradition of the Church, which includes the inspired word of God in Sacred Scripture, is the channel through which God’s self-revelation comes to us.
84. As Sacred Scripture grew from Tradition, so it is interpreted by Tradition - the life, worship, and teaching of the Church. Tradition depends on Scripture as its normative record of Christian origins and identity, while Scripture requires the living Tradition of the Church to bring its Scriptural message to the fresh challenges and changing contexts confronting Christians in every age.
Biblical Inspiration
85. The Sacred Scriptures are said to be “inspired” in a special sense - not just as some artist or author may be “inspired” to paint or compose. Rather, biblical inspiration means that the sacred and canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, whole and entire, were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so that we can call God their “author” and the Bible “the Word of God” (cf. DV 11; CCC 105-6). God chose certain human authors, who as true authors made full use of their human powers and faculties, yet were so guided by the Holy Spirit who so enlightened their minds and moved their wills, that they put down in writing what God wanted written.
86. Biblical inspiration, then, is a charism referring to the special divine activity, communicated to individual authors, editors, and compilers belonging to the community, for the sake of the community. It produced the sacred texts both of the Old Testament and the New. These texts ground the apostolic Church which remains uniquely authoritative for us and for all generations of Christians.
87. But the Holy Spirit’s work in Scripture touches more than its human authors: in some fashion it also touches both the proclaimers and the hearers of the word. “In the sacred books the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet His children, and talks with them” (DV 21). Scripture thus supports and invigorates the Church (cf. CCC 131-33). It strengthens our faith, offers food for our souls, and remains a pure and lasting fount for our spiritual lives. Through the Spirit “God’s word is living and effective” (Heb 4:12). But we realize that what was written in the Spirit must be proclaimed and heard in the Spirit.
The Canon of Scripture
88. Because of disputes, the Church found it necessary to make a definitive list, a “canon” of the books which have been truly inspired by God and thus have God for their author (cf. CCC 120). The Canon of Scripture is divided into the books written before Jesus’ life (the Old Testament) and those written after (the New Testament). Guided by the Holy Spirit, the Church determined the inspired and normative NT books in terms of their apostolic origin, coherence with the essential Gospel message, and constant use in the Church’s liturgy. After a long development, the Church finally accepted as inspired, sacred, and canonical, the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament that we find in our Catholic Bible.
Inerrant Saving Truth
89. Since all of Scripture was written, compiled and edited under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures” (DV 11; cf. CCC 107). In recognizing the Bible as normative, the Church confesses that when properly used, Scripture imparts saving truth that can be relied upon to bring us into deeper communion with God.
90. But we must recognize that the Bible is a collection of historical accounts, doctrinal teachings, poems, parables, ethical exhortations, apocalyptic visions and many other forms. It was written over a period of more than a thousand years, separated from us by almost twenty centuries. Therefore, it is not easy to determine precisely what is the “saving truth” which God wills to impart to us through a particular book or text of Scripture. In addition, the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that the Christian Faith is not a ‘religion of the Book.’ Christianity is the religion of the Word of God, ‘not a written word unable to speak, but the incarnate and living Word.’ So that the Scriptures do not remain a dead letter, it is necessary that Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, by the Holy Spirit, opens our minds to understand them (CCC 108).
B. Interpreting Scripture
91. St. Paul tells us that “all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching - for reproof, correction, and training in holiness so that the man of God may be fully competent and equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17). But the problem, of course, is how to faithfully and accurately interpret Scripture. For the Filipino Catholic, the answer is clear. “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone” (DV 10).
Four Factors
92. At least four factors play a significant part in interpreting Scripture: (1) the inspired human author’s intention; (2) the text itself; (3) the reader of the text; and (4) the common horizon connecting the original community context of the text with our Christian community reading it today.
93. First, the human author. Common sense tells us to find out what the inspired human author had in mind when interpreting a text. This involves some basic idea of the social, economic, and religious conditions of the authors in their particular historical situations (cf. DV 12; CCC 110).
94. Second, the text itself. We have to look at its literary form (e.g., historical narratives, prophetic oracles, poems or parables) which the author is using (cf. DV 12.) In addition, the text must be viewed within the unity of the whole Bible (cf. CCC 112). Both Old and New Testaments are read by Christians in the light of the Risen Crucified Christ. The New Testament’s own use of Old Testament events, persons and things as “types” foreshadowing its own, exemplifies this dynamic unity of the two Testaments. For example, Adam and Melchisedek are types of Christ (cf. Heb 6:20-28); the flood foreshadows Baptism (cf. 1 Pt 3:20-21); manna in the desert is the “type” of the Eucharist (cf. Jn 6:48-51, CCC 128-30). Something of the history of the text’s interpretations, especially its use in the Church’s liturgy, can be very helpful.*
95. Third, the readers/hearers. We are constantly asking Scripture new questions and problems, drawn from our own experience. Every Filipino Catholic wants to know what the Scripture means “to me/us.” At the same time we recognize that the Bible brings its own culture of meanings and framework of attitudes that help form, reform and transform us, the readers, into the image of Christ. We must let the Bible “form” us, even while conscious that we are reading it in the light of our own contemporary experience. In seeking what the Scripture text means “for me/us,” we need to consider the witness offered in the lives of holy men and women in the Church through the centuries. Any authentic interpretation of the text for the Christian community today must be in continuity and harmonize with this tradition of meaning that has grown out of the text’s impact on Christian communities through the ages (cf. DV 21; CCC 131-33).
96. Fourth, is the common horizon which first unites all the books of the Bible into a basic unity, and second, links together the context of the Scriptural text and its tradition with our present reading context today. This horizon is the new and eternal covenant God has established with us in His Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. In interpreting Scripture, we seek the truth that God wishes to communicate to us today, through Scripture. In this we are guided by the living teaching office of the Church which “exercises its authority in the name of Jesus Christ, not as superior to the Word of God, but as its servant” (DV 10).
97. Thus we see that “in the supremely wise arrangement of God, Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching office (Magisterium) of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to our salvation” (DV 10).
A. Scripture and Tradition
81. The Sacred Scriptures, collected in the Bible, are the inspired record of how God dealt with His people, and how they responded to, remembered, and interpreted that experience. The Scriptures arose, then, as the expression of the people’s experience of God, and as a response to their needs. Collectively, the Scriptures form “The Book of the People of God” - the book of the Church. The Bible was written by persons from the people of God, for the people of God, about the God-experience of the people of God” (NCDP 131).
82. The Scriptures, then, are never to be separated from the people of God whose life and history (Tradition) formed the context of their writing and development. This is best shown in the three stages of how the Gospels were formed.
First stage, the life and teaching of Jesus — what Jesus, while he lived among us, really did and taught for our eternal salvation, until the day he was taken up.
Second stage, oral tradition. After Jesus’ Ascension, the apostles handed on to their hearers what Jesus had said and done.
Third stage, the written Gospels. “The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain elements that had been handed on orally or already in written form, others they synthesized or explained in view of the situation of their churches, while preserving the form of proclamation. But always in such a way that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus” (DV 19; cf. CCC 126).
This shows how the written Gospels grew out of oral tradition, and were composed in view of the concrete “people of God” of the early Christian communities. Through His inspired Word in Scripture, God continues to reveal Himself to us today.
83. Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together. . . flowing out from the same divine well spring, moving towards the same goal and making up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God (cf. DV 9, 10). Tradition can be taken either as the process by which divine revelation, coming from Jesus Christ through the apostles, is communicated and unfolded in the community of the Church, or as the content of the revelation so communicated. Thus the living Tradition of the Church, which includes the inspired word of God in Sacred Scripture, is the channel through which God’s self-revelation comes to us.
84. As Sacred Scripture grew from Tradition, so it is interpreted by Tradition - the life, worship, and teaching of the Church. Tradition depends on Scripture as its normative record of Christian origins and identity, while Scripture requires the living Tradition of the Church to bring its Scriptural message to the fresh challenges and changing contexts confronting Christians in every age.
Biblical Inspiration
85. The Sacred Scriptures are said to be “inspired” in a special sense - not just as some artist or author may be “inspired” to paint or compose. Rather, biblical inspiration means that the sacred and canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, whole and entire, were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so that we can call God their “author” and the Bible “the Word of God” (cf. DV 11; CCC 105-6). God chose certain human authors, who as true authors made full use of their human powers and faculties, yet were so guided by the Holy Spirit who so enlightened their minds and moved their wills, that they put down in writing what God wanted written.
86. Biblical inspiration, then, is a charism referring to the special divine activity, communicated to individual authors, editors, and compilers belonging to the community, for the sake of the community. It produced the sacred texts both of the Old Testament and the New. These texts ground the apostolic Church which remains uniquely authoritative for us and for all generations of Christians.
87. But the Holy Spirit’s work in Scripture touches more than its human authors: in some fashion it also touches both the proclaimers and the hearers of the word. “In the sacred books the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet His children, and talks with them” (DV 21). Scripture thus supports and invigorates the Church (cf. CCC 131-33). It strengthens our faith, offers food for our souls, and remains a pure and lasting fount for our spiritual lives. Through the Spirit “God’s word is living and effective” (Heb 4:12). But we realize that what was written in the Spirit must be proclaimed and heard in the Spirit.
The Canon of Scripture
88. Because of disputes, the Church found it necessary to make a definitive list, a “canon” of the books which have been truly inspired by God and thus have God for their author (cf. CCC 120). The Canon of Scripture is divided into the books written before Jesus’ life (the Old Testament) and those written after (the New Testament). Guided by the Holy Spirit, the Church determined the inspired and normative NT books in terms of their apostolic origin, coherence with the essential Gospel message, and constant use in the Church’s liturgy. After a long development, the Church finally accepted as inspired, sacred, and canonical, the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament that we find in our Catholic Bible.
Inerrant Saving Truth
89. Since all of Scripture was written, compiled and edited under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures” (DV 11; cf. CCC 107). In recognizing the Bible as normative, the Church confesses that when properly used, Scripture imparts saving truth that can be relied upon to bring us into deeper communion with God.
90. But we must recognize that the Bible is a collection of historical accounts, doctrinal teachings, poems, parables, ethical exhortations, apocalyptic visions and many other forms. It was written over a period of more than a thousand years, separated from us by almost twenty centuries. Therefore, it is not easy to determine precisely what is the “saving truth” which God wills to impart to us through a particular book or text of Scripture. In addition, the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that the Christian Faith is not a ‘religion of the Book.’ Christianity is the religion of the Word of God, ‘not a written word unable to speak, but the incarnate and living Word.’ So that the Scriptures do not remain a dead letter, it is necessary that Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, by the Holy Spirit, opens our minds to understand them (CCC 108).
B. Interpreting Scripture
91. St. Paul tells us that “all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching - for reproof, correction, and training in holiness so that the man of God may be fully competent and equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17). But the problem, of course, is how to faithfully and accurately interpret Scripture. For the Filipino Catholic, the answer is clear. “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone” (DV 10).
Four Factors
92. At least four factors play a significant part in interpreting Scripture: (1) the inspired human author’s intention; (2) the text itself; (3) the reader of the text; and (4) the common horizon connecting the original community context of the text with our Christian community reading it today.
93. First, the human author. Common sense tells us to find out what the inspired human author had in mind when interpreting a text. This involves some basic idea of the social, economic, and religious conditions of the authors in their particular historical situations (cf. DV 12; CCC 110).
94. Second, the text itself. We have to look at its literary form (e.g., historical narratives, prophetic oracles, poems or parables) which the author is using (cf. DV 12.) In addition, the text must be viewed within the unity of the whole Bible (cf. CCC 112). Both Old and New Testaments are read by Christians in the light of the Risen Crucified Christ. The New Testament’s own use of Old Testament events, persons and things as “types” foreshadowing its own, exemplifies this dynamic unity of the two Testaments. For example, Adam and Melchisedek are types of Christ (cf. Heb 6:20-28); the flood foreshadows Baptism (cf. 1 Pt 3:20-21); manna in the desert is the “type” of the Eucharist (cf. Jn 6:48-51, CCC 128-30). Something of the history of the text’s interpretations, especially its use in the Church’s liturgy, can be very helpful.*
95. Third, the readers/hearers. We are constantly asking Scripture new questions and problems, drawn from our own experience. Every Filipino Catholic wants to know what the Scripture means “to me/us.” At the same time we recognize that the Bible brings its own culture of meanings and framework of attitudes that help form, reform and transform us, the readers, into the image of Christ. We must let the Bible “form” us, even while conscious that we are reading it in the light of our own contemporary experience. In seeking what the Scripture text means “for me/us,” we need to consider the witness offered in the lives of holy men and women in the Church through the centuries. Any authentic interpretation of the text for the Christian community today must be in continuity and harmonize with this tradition of meaning that has grown out of the text’s impact on Christian communities through the ages (cf. DV 21; CCC 131-33).
96. Fourth, is the common horizon which first unites all the books of the Bible into a basic unity, and second, links together the context of the Scriptural text and its tradition with our present reading context today. This horizon is the new and eternal covenant God has established with us in His Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. In interpreting Scripture, we seek the truth that God wishes to communicate to us today, through Scripture. In this we are guided by the living teaching office of the Church which “exercises its authority in the name of Jesus Christ, not as superior to the Word of God, but as its servant” (DV 10).
97. Thus we see that “in the supremely wise arrangement of God, Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching office (Magisterium) of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to our salvation” (DV 10).