By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 13
Luther claimed that all Christians can correctly interpret the Bible without the need of Popes, councils, or bishops, because the Holy Spirit Himself will guide the devout Christian in his Bible-reading.
It did sound nice in the beginning, but soon contradictory interpretations appeared and today we have tens of thousands of individual churches, sects, and denominations, all claiming to have the correct interpretation, Bible in hand.
Unless you accuse the Holy Spirit of suffering from a kind of schizophrenia, inspiring different people to reach different and contradictory conclusions, which is highly unlikely or rather impossible, then we must necessarily conclude that it is people who have interpreted the Bible according to their subjective ideas, whims, and preferences. Doctrinal and moral anarchy was and is the continuous result.
So, leaving aside the doctrinal chaos brought about by Luther, we ask ourselves what the Catholic teaching on this matter is. First of all, let us make it clear that no Pope or Church father or council has ever claimed to possess a complete knowledge and understanding of every verse of the Bible. St. Augustine himself, one of the greatest minds in human history and a stellar interpreter of Bible teachings, declared once that his ignorance was greater than his knowledge — and he did know a lot!
The fact is that there are quite a few passages that the Church has not given a complete interpretation. One can say that a great many things remain obscure, like the prophecies in the Apocalypse, for instance, and probably will be explained only in the Second Coming of Christ.
There are five kinds of difficulties in biblical interpretation. Let us consider them, one by one.
Textual difficulties: In the first place, we must understand that the only texts that were 100 percent inerrant were the original ones — which have been lost long since they were written. All of the other are copies of copies of copies. Even if you ignore the adulterated copies made by Luther and many of his followers, the fact remains that the best copies must be authenticated by the competent authority — in this case, as always, the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.
So, although our manuscripts are reliable, there have been some little inconsistencies here and there, and our Bible scholars have compared them diligently over the centuries to find the exact or at least the very best rendition.
The Catholic Church does admit this, and it only proves that the Bible alone would be radically insufficient to find the full truth, since Protestants today do depend on copies of copies of copies, without the Magisterium to guide them. Their scholars only issue their individual opinions, as they do not have the munus of the Magisterium.
Literary difficulties: Anyone with a good understanding of literary genres will immediately notice the enormous variety of writing styles in the Bible. This is because God did not dictate everything to the writers, but only inspired them. If He had dictated to them the books would have had the same style throughout the Bible, from Genesis to the Apocalypse.
But that is demonstrably not the case. The variety of styles makes it difficult even for good Catholic scholars to understand the difficult texts with the necessary accuracy. The original authors lived in different times and cultures, used different languages and modes of expression. That is why our scholars have studied ancient languages, history, archaeology, and literary genres of the past.
Sometimes we ask ourselves if a certain passage is to be taken literally or metaphorically, or if that other passage is the narrative of a historical event or an allegory or a parable. Or perhaps a combination of both history and allegory?
The method used by the Church is to investigate the intention of the writer, within his language, time, and culture — that is the literal sense — and never what it might mean to you individually today in the language of the translation you are reading it — that is the literalistic sense.
Difficulties in reconciling the Bible with other sources of knowledge: Apparent conflicts between the Bible and science do appear from time to time. More often than not, it is an attempt of faithless scientists or pseudo-scientists to disprove the biblical teaching and discredit the Church, rather than an honest attempt to solve a difficulty. Pius XII addressed the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and told the scientists that they were “the discoverers of the intentions of God.”
Again, more often than not a careful study of the authentic scientific discovery and the Bible teaching will show that either there has been no contradiction, or the scientific discovery is relevant only to science and in nothing affects the faith.
Difficulties in reconciling some texts with each other: Sometimes a scholar will find a text that appears to contradict another, or a text of the Old Testament that differs from the New, or an event that is described in two different ways. We owe it to the Early Fathers of the Church and the great theologians in history, like St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and a great many others, whose theological knowledge and understanding managed to reconcile the apparently differing texts.
Theological difficulties: The purpose of studying the texts and the literary genres of the Bible is to clarify the religious or theological meaning of the text, which was given to us for our salvation. The elevated nature of the matter is many times above our understanding, as we are dealing with realities that point to eternity. This mysterious aspect of certain passages spurs us to study Scripture, to clarify concepts and learn lessons for improving our knowledge, love, and service of God and neighbor — and we ought to thank God for these difficulties, as they help us to progress in the knowledge of His Word.
St. Augustine pointed out that such difficulties also help us understand the limitations of our minds and exercise humility before God our Lord.
Variety of types of books: Many people get confused as they try to take some historical passages as metaphorical and some metaphorical passages as historical, especially in certain portions of the Old Testament. Such difficulties would be reduced to little or next to nothing if they knew how the Church interprets texts, distinguishing between the literal and the literalistic modes of interpretation.
Under God’s inspiration, the authors wrote according to the modes of expression and the culture with which they were familiar. Every literary form has its own style, its own type of message to convey, and its own mode of expressing that message. That is why, once again, biblical interpretation is ultimately left to the Magisterium of the Church, and not to every Tom, Dick, or Harriet in the little or large man-made non-Catholic church across the street.
Jesus Himself used different literary genres. For instance, sometimes He spoke directly (love your enemies, woe to you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites); sometimes in short stories or parables (the Good Samaritan, the sower in the field), sometimes in illustrations (the Kingdom of Heaven is like….), sometimes in symbolic actions (cursing the fig tree), etc.
The very New Testament has historical books (Gospels, Acts), letters to certain communities about specific issues (the epistles), letters to Christians in general (the Catholic epistles), and a prophetic book (the Apocalypse). Different genres, different styles, different modes of expression.
Yes, we do need an authoritative and capable interpreter to solve the difficulties. That is why our Lord Jesus Christ established the Magisterium of His Church, sent the Holy Spirit to remind them of what He had taught, and promised to be with them till the end of times.
It’s great to be Catholic!
Next article: The historicity of the Old and the New Testaments.
+ + +
(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress