Here is a link to
Dei Verbum, which is the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation; this means that
this is what the Church definitively and for all times believes about “the Word of God”.
Excerpt:
Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully
and **without error **that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation. Therefore “all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind” (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Greek text).
Scripture is
inerrent. There are no “mistakes”.
However, this must be tempered with the understanding that we are not literal-ists. If it says “it was raining cats and dogs”, we don’t necessarily believe that felines and canines were falling from the sky. As the Catechism states:
115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two *senses *of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.
116 The
literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."83
117 The
spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.
- The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.84
- The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.85
- The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.86
So there are
ways to read the Bible that go beyond the literal-ist sense; that said, the literal sense has predominence in textual interpretation.
Does the Church insist that we believe in a literal 6-day creation? Nope. That might be allegorical, and we should believe what truths science can demonstrate - for all truth leads us to the One Truth, which is Christ. There can be no contradiction between faith and reason (
Fides et Ratio).
So there are places where our understanding of the Sacred Scriptures may have been in error, and we must seek the truth of what they teach; it is not a question of the Scriptures containing error, it is a question of our erronious understanding of the truth they teach.
Can we be certain about the truths taught by the Church? We may be entirely certain about the Dogmatic truths pronounced by Holy Mother Church, and may (must!) believe all that she teaches to be true (even if not dogmatically defined). One is absolutely certain, the other is true but less-well-defined (though true, nonetheless).
…cont’d…
