The Divine Authority of Scripture vs. the “Hermeneutic of Suspicion”

[whosebob]

Adoremus Bulletin
Online Edition - November 2005
Vol. XI, No. 8

Dei Verbum:
The Divine Authority of Scripture vs. the “Hermeneutic of Suspicion”

by James Hitchcock
The impression that the Second Vatican Council marked a radical break with the Catholic past is a cliché that dies hard. It is kept alive, ironically, both by liberals who wish it were so, and by certain traditionalists with an interest in minimizing, if not altogether discrediting, the Council’s authority.

Thus, if asked, most Catholics would probably say that the Council gave wholesale approval to modern biblical scholarship and justified for Catholics the “demythologizing” approach to the Bible that has long been in use among liberal Protestants. Some Catholics – even some bishops – never tire of insisting that “Catholics are not fundamentalists”.

But to the degree that Catholics are not fundamentalists, in the sense of accepting the historical truth of the Bible, the Council gave them little encouragement. If liberals read the conciliar decree on Scripture, Dei Verbum, with complete objectivity, they have to admit that it makes them uncomfortable . . .

read the rest of this article: adoremus.org/1105Hitchcock_DeiVerbum.html

 

[mspencer]

I particularly appreciate the line in Vatican II’s Dei Verbum, “Holy mother church has firmly and constantly held, and continues to hold and unhesitatingly assert, that the four gospels are historical documents…” This goes against views that events seen in the Gospels never happened or that Jesus never taught what he is shown teaching