The Dogmatic Constitution of the Second Vatican Council on Divine Revelation (no. 11) states that “the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully, and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation (“nostrae salutis causa”) wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures” (Dei Verbum 11). The meaning of the words “for the sake of our salvation” was discussed by the Fathers of the Council, and, in order to give fuller assurance that these words in no way limited the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture to statements pertaining to its salvific purpose, they added footnotes referring to St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Council of Trent, the encyclical letter Providentissimus Deus of Pope Leo XII, and the encyclical letter Divino afflante Spiritu of Pope Pius XII. The reference to Providentissimus Deus declares that “it is absolutely wrong and forbidden either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. As to the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of these difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond, because, as they wrongly think, in a question of the truth or falsehood of a passage, we should consider, not so much what God has said, as the reason and purpose which he had in mind in saying it – this system cannot be tolerated” (EB 124). Some say that this teaching of Pope Leo XIII was changed by Pope Pius XII, but the reference to Divino afflante Spiritu included in Dei Verbum by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council restates the teaching of Pope Leo XIII in the following words: “The first and greatest care of Leo XIII was to set forth the teaching on the truth of the sacred Books and to defend it from attack. Hence, with grave words did he proclaim that there is no error whatsoever if the sacred writer, speaking of things of the physical order ‘went by what sensibly appeared,’ as the Angelic Doctor says, speaking either ‘in figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even among the most eminent men of science.’ For ‘the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately – the words are St. Augustine’s – the Holy Spirit, who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things of the universe – things in no way profitable to salvation’; which principle ‘will apply to cognate sciences, and especially to history,’ that is, by refuting, ‘in a somewhat similar way the fallacies of the adversaries and defending the historical truth of Sacred Scripture from their attacks.’ Nor is the sacred writer to be taxed with error, if ‘copyists have made mistakes in the text of the Bible,’ or, ‘if the real meaning of a passage remains ambiguous.’ Finally, it is absolutely wrong and forbidden ‘either to narrow inspiration to certain passages of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred,’ since divine inspiration ‘not only is essentially incompatible with error but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and constant faith of the Church” (Divino afflante Spiritu 4 – EB 539).4<
