Sacred Scripture and the Church

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jhalchak

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Greetings…

I am of a protestant background and extremely close to joining Eastern Catholicism (most likely a greek/slavic rite). The reasons for which maybe I’ll discuss in another thread someday. I pride myself on my love of studying, philosophy, and philosophical theology (the reason I mention this is to give an idea of where I’m at intellectually). I find the majority of the teachings of the Catholic Church to be Biblically, logically, historically, philosophically, and theologically reasonable and true.

I’ve been using my cousin as a means to try to “keep me protestant” or play the devil’s advocate (if you will). In defending tradition and debunking sola scriptura recently, I’ve had some issue with how to properly express an issue. I want some insight here…

The problem I have could be stated as such:
*Scripture is basically a tradition of the Church. The Church is also claimed to submit to Sacred Scripture as the final authority. The discrepancy comes with the qualification of “Sola.” The Church is also the only infallible interpreter of said Scripture. It can also be said that the Church cannot teach in contradiction to the Scripture.

The problem is that if I am under the impression that the Church has taught something contrary to Scripture I have no validity in expressing that because it’s my ‘fallible’ interpretation I’m using as a comparison. Therefore the Church cannot teach something that is contrary to Scripture but it is also the only infallible interpreter of that Scripture.*

How can circular reasoning be avoided? It’s almost as if saying the Church is subject to Scripture need not be said because it’s not really saying too much. Is it only meant by this that the Father’s and Clergy are guided by the Holy Spirit and Sacred Scripture to interpret?

Thanks and God Bless!
 
sdtouchton:

Thanks for your reply. Honestly no offense meant by this but I have much at my disposal for learning about the Catholic faith. I’ll gladly check out that site sometime but any specific information regarding my issue above? I didn’t see anything dealing with this issue after skimming the site.
 
Its not a matter of the Church submitting to Scriptures as the final authority, rather the Church teaches in harmony with what is contained in both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. They all will be in agreement, because all come from the same source, God. It is more clear if you say that the Church uses Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition as her guides, they are two ways in which God communicates His Truths to us.

The Church has authority over the Scriptures its not the other way round, remember the Magisterium existed before the scriptures and it was the Magisterium that first gathered the Sacred Scriptures together and it was the Magisterium that decided what was and wasn’t divinely inspired. The Magisterium is Lord over the scriptures not the other way round, God gave His authority to the Church to teach not to the book of Scriptures.

The Church preserves the deposit of Faith which is found partly in the scriptures, and she does not teach anything contrary to the scriptures though she can teach things that are not in them.

Its like the Trinity, God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, al been equal and the Holy Trinity makes His revelation known also in a trinitarian way, through Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Living Magisterium, all three in harmony jsut as the three persons of God are in harmony.

The Church has the authority to teach, not you or I and yes she even has authority over the Scriptures as she always did, it was she who compiled the scriptures and declared them Sacred in the first place.

I feel like I have just been rambling and looking back I’m not sure if there is anything in there that will help you, I’ve probably just told you a heap of things you already knew, I hope I am wrong and sorry for wasting your time if I’m not.
 
This premise “The Church is also claimed to submit to Sacred Scripture as the final authority.” is wrong basicly.
 
For a serious treatment of the matters of revelation, the document to read, from modern times, is Dei Verbum, from Vatican II. This document can be downloaded from the www.ewtn.com website (go into the document library and search for Dei Verbum.

Paragraphs 51 through 141 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church are a more recent summary of the issues of inspiration, revelation, authority, etc.

In a nutshell, the Catholic Church accepts both Scripture and Sacred Tradition as Revelation. So many interpret the bible variously, that it takes both the Scripture Itself plus the Tradition of the Catholic Church to understand Divine Revelation.

One level up, Church teaching is based on Divine Revelation and Magisterium (the teaching authority of the Catholic Church).

This is very sophisticated analysis, but it is really what almost all Christian Churches and even the Jewish faith believes. (That is, they believe each in their OWN tradition and teaching authority.)

In Judaism, the Torah consists of the written Torah, the first five books of the Bible called also the Pentateuch. (Torah = teaching, direction, NOT “law”) But the Torah also consists of the oral Torah, the oral revelation by God on Mt. Sinai and the teachings of collective Judaism since. If there’s a difference between Judaism and the Catholic teaching on this, I’d like to know what it is (I’m not talking about the actual beliefs of each religion, but the overall organization and treatment of scripture, tradition, and the teaching authority of each. One exception must be acknowledged, that Catholicism focuses teaching authority in the pope, whereas Judaism is much more loosely organized. That said, there is still a lot of centralization of teaching authority in Judaism)

In a book about Jewish Bible commentary, called Everyman’s Talmud, Rabbi Abraham Cohen explains how a lot of teaching in Judaism is directed to distinguishing itself from Christianity, in the exposition of Hebrew and Aramaic texts. They both accept the texts of the Old Testament (to use the Catholic Term for the Hebrew Scriptures), but they interpret them quite differently, on many points.

Many people over the centuries have studied the faith of the Early Church Fathers, and they have found that faith to be that of the Roman Catholic Church. Of course you can find other beliefs, but that is often based on gnostic and other unapproved writings.
 
You’re awesome crumpy… thanks for the reading material. I’ll have to look into that jewish commentary too. Some good points. 👍
 
First, blessings to you in your discernment, and thank you for asking a deep and important question here. I hope you find satisfying answers.

You phrased this interestingly, and I wonder if your question encapsulates the entirety of your concern. I’ll try to address from a different direction.

Your concern seems to be how to resolve apparant contradictions between Church and Scripture. My protestant friends (among them both learned and armchair theologians) argue that Scripture is the final authority, and often chafe at any sort of insinuation that a group of human beings should be the final authority. I’d submit that the Spirit alone is the final authority, and its authority is seen in both Scripture and in Church (Magisterium - literally “The Teachers”). The Word is the Word, no doubt, but it has never been its own final interpreter. God has always used humans to represent His authority to interpret and apply the Word, starting with Moses (who was, by legend, the first inspired author of Scripture), then the Judges, Prophets, and finally Jesus Himself became the Word made Flesh. In this light, our understanding of Church as the Body of Christ takes on perhaps a new dimension in that the successors to the Apostolic offices act in imitation of Christ by continuing to bring the Word into Life. Hence we are the Church Militant - the living (flesh-covered) Church.

If the Church is to act as final earthly interpreter of Scripture, can the Church make an error? We know of Jesus’ promise that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against His Church (and when Catholics say this, we generally imply that it is specifically the Catholic Church), but what of lesser errors? Clearly we’ve made mistakes in the past - allowing the abuse of indulgences to become profit-making activity, for instance. But that error was corrected, and it did not endure for a long time in the Church’s history. Consider that the Church, with human ministers, can err but God does not allow it to remain in error for long. Consider the forebears of the Magisterium in Scripture who fell into error and were rebuked - Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah, Peter (famously) - but continued in their authority after the rebuke. So we would expect to see an error in the Church corrected in the Church.

Now this is assuming that the error exists objectively by God’s standards. If you or I wish to point out what we see as an error in the Church, we must first look to be sure that (1) we are understanding Scripture correctly and (2) we are understanding the Church’s position correctly. As humans (and for those of us who are armchair theologians especially) there is a tendency to screw up. We do not have omniscience nor perfect knowledge. But we should discern, we should pray, we should question. Truth should not fear honest questions. Likewise, we should be vigilant for errors and work to improve our understanding of our faith, among laypeople and leadership (ordained or not) especially among ourselves.

It may very well be that an error has been taught, and in such instance I’d suggest bringing it up with the one making the error. For instance, there used to be a show on EWTN with two Jesuits who would take callers’ questions. As friendly as these guys were, they weren’t always the best theologians. One caller asked how long she should wait after Eucharist to have a cigarette, knowing that smoking is a sin. Without addressing the root problem with the question (if she sees smoking as a sin she should quit) the Jesuit simply answered “Fifteen minutes.”

More seriously, I used to have major difficulties with Marian veneration. I had trouble finding it in Scripture. It didn’t help that I couldn’t find some of it (Immaculate Conception, Assumption of Mary) at all in Scripture, and even when I looked into the Early Fathers I had to dig to the 6th century to find it. I felt at the time that this was a grave error, and maybe even leading many astray. I brought my concerns to a deacon who had converted from Pentecostalism and was extraordinarily well-versed in Scripture. He ran through a staggering detail of the parallels between Mary and Eve stemming from Jesus as the New Adam. He pointed out the imagery of the Nativity in Revelation. And then he pointed out that any Marian celebration is really a celebration of God’s Grace, simply exemplified in Mary. And he walked me through Marian devotions to see that each was not in praise of Mary so much of in praise of God, with Mary as a friend and ally in prayer. It was really stunning, and much-needed to correct my perspective.

I do hope this helps. Please keep asking questions.

Lastly, to alleviate your cousin’s concerns, ask your cousin what it really takes to be “saved”, and what we are saved from and for what we are saved. Your cousin may find that his or her definition cannot exclude one from the Catholic Church without bending rules of logic.
 
jhalchak said:
Greetings…

How can circular reasoning be avoided?
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I know what you mean. “Scripture is true because the Church says so, and the Church is true because Scripture says so.” My very intelligent daughter asked me this same question when she was in high school. She said her religion teacher didn’t have a good answer. I thought about it a lot and this is what I came up with.

History.

Ours is not a religion of the book. We belong to the Church founded by Christ. He lived–no question. He died–no question. Then, there are these writings (Gospels, Acts, Letters, Revelation) that are unmistakably dated to the generation immediately following this historical figure’s life and death. These writings testify to the Resurrection. Now, this is a wild claim. How can we know it is true. I think the easiest thing to know is that the authors and the characters portrayed in the writings believed it to be true. In fact they, all of them except John, went to their death rather than deny it. Did they have anything to gain by this–from a worldly perspective? Could it have been an elaborate conspiracy to foist this false belief on the world? No way. They had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Could they have been mistaken? All of them? All at once? All in the same way? Not likely. The most obvious explanation of the evidence we have is that it’s true.

What’s true? That Jesus Christ lived, died and rose just as the gospels tell us. That when he lived he established the Church–in infant form–that continues to this day. The mission (the Great Commission) of this Church is to convert the world. The apostles set off to do that starting in Jerusalem and in ever-widening circles, did so. At some point in the lifetime of that first generation some of them decided to capture SOME OF the teachings to save them for posterity and so the Gospels were written, and the letters were preserved. After the persecutions stopped hundreds of writings surfaced that all laid some claim of authority for the Church. They were being read at liturgy and so it was important that they be authentic. It was known that some were forgeries. Many gave conflicting accounts of the events of the first century. How was the Church to decide which of the writings to endorse and which to forbid for official public consumption by the Churches? They held councils and decided based on three criteria: 1) Apostolic authorship, 2) Widespread use in the Churches, 3) Agreement with the established teaching of the Church. The Church didn’t make them inspired, she only identified which writings were inspired by using the criteria. (There’s a lot to be said here, but that’s another thread.)

So, no circular reasoning. The scripture is true because the Church tells us it is. The Church is true–not because of scripture–but because it comes out of the events of history. The history is independently verifiable by sources not affiliated with the church or scripture. That would be enough to base our intellectual assent to the Church on. But we have so much more. We have the evidence of the Saints who were capable of heroic virtue because they lived the life taught by the Church. We have miracles like the Eucharistic miracles, the Shroud of Turin, Lourdes, Fatima, etc. We have the raw historical fact of the Church: the fact that this institution has outlasted all man-made institutions. And finally, we have the evidence of our own lives. We know the difference pre- and post-conversion. How much better are you with Christ than when you were trying to do it without Him?

St. Maximilian,
pray for us.

Jeff
 
jhalchak said:
Is it only meant by this that the Father’s and Clergy are guided by the Holy Spirit and Sacred Scripture to interpret?

Thanks and God Bless!
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You are very close to grasping the truth in the above sentence. (Try dropping the word “only” from your above sentence - and then you’re really close. :))

It is more than just the ordinary guidance of the Holy Spirit experienced by all Christians. It is a guidance that oversees and absolutely ensures (exercises control) that what the Church officially proclaims (Scripture, Tradition, Doctrines) is the truth.

Don’t think in terms of putting your trust in particular men (magisterium). For it is not human knowledge and wisdom we’re putting our trust in when we believe in infallibility. Rather, think in terms of putting your trust in the God/Holy Spirit. Eg. “Do I believe the Holy Spirit is powerful enough to ensure that those who have the authority to speak for the Church will not teach falsehood?” "Do I believe that Jesus is powerful enough to uphold His words and promises? (eg Lk 10:16; Mt. 16:18-19; John 16:13)
For one who has a firm belief in God’s omnipotence, accepting infallibility is no problem. And there is no circular reasoning. Scripture is true and the Church’s interpretation/teaching is true because it is overseen and controlled by the power of God the Holy Spirit.

Infallibility is such a great gift from Our Lord - established by Jesus, who is Truth, to be the tangible source of truth for those living on earth. How can one have an assurance of faith without an assurance of truth?

Nita
 
An analogy I find helpful is the Constitution for the United States of America. It’s a document that was committed to writing by the “founding fathers” who “established” the United States. So, it had a finite origin; yet it articulated and expressed ideas and ideals…and experiences…that transcended the finite circumstances. Subsequently, it serves as a foundational guide for the ongoing life of the community that authored it.

The people/community existed first, yet once the document was promulgated it served as the basis for the community’s ongoing life.

Leonius’ brief, cryptic comment I find unhelpful at best and erroneous at worst (given that Vatican II taught the the Church is the servant of the Word of God, see CCC 86.

Cheers.
 
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