Posted on 05/14/2010 11:03:45 AM PDT by NYer
Holy Scripture, despite all appearances, will not always be easy to interpret. We can be lulled into thinking our “common sense” and “by the letter” interpretation of a text is what God intends us to get out of it. However, if this is the case, there would be little to no debates about its meaning; there would be little confusion as to its purpose and how it applies to us today. St. Peter would not have needed to tell us that no prophecy of Scripture is to be interpreted privately, because all interpretations of Scripture would end up the same. We need to understand and heed the warning of St. Mark the Ascetic: “Do not let your heart become conceited about your interpretations of Scripture, lest your intellect fall afoul for the spirit of blasphemy.” [1] Why would he be warning us of this? Because Scripture, in its most external, simplistic level, could easily lead people to a perverted understanding of God and the Christian faith.
For an interpretation of Scripture to be acceptable (which does not mean it is necessarily correct), it must at least conform to the basic dogmatic teachings of the Church. If God is love, this must be manifest from one’s understanding of Scripture. If one’s interpretation of a text would lead to God doing or commanding something which runs against the law of love, the law by which God himself acts, then one has indeed committed blasphemy. If one really believes God commands some intrinsic evil, such as genocide, one has abandoned the God who is love, and has at least committed unintentional blasphemy by something evil about him. One cannot get out of this by saying, “whatever God wills, is now good,” or that “the very nature of right and wrong has changed through time,” because both would contradict not only the fundamental character of love, but also the fact God has provided us a positive means by which we can understand something of him via analogy; we know what love is, we know what the good is, and therefore we know something about God when we see he is love or that he is good. While we must understand our concepts are limited in relation to God, it is not because God is less than our concepts, but more and their foundation. Thus, Pope Benedict wisely says:
In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God’s voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God’s freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazm and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which – as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated – unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, “transcends” knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul – “λογικη λατρεία”, worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).[2]
Christianity affirms both the transcendence and immanence of God. The second allows us to say something positive and true about God, while the first reminds us that positive assertions are limited, that they are at best analogous pointers to something beyond the statements themselves. Our teachings truly say something about God. They must be used as the guideline by which we read Scripture. Moreover, as the Church makes abundantly clear, Scripture is itself an ecclesial document, to be interpreted in and by the Church. It must be interpreted in such a way that dogmatic teachings about God (such as his unchanging goodness) are in accord with our understanding of Scriptural text. If reason suggests a disconnect between an interpretation and dogma, we must follow dogma and dismiss the interpretation. Richard Gaillardetz explains this well:
The apostolic witness would be preserved both in the canonical Scriptures and in the ongoing paradosis or handing on of the apostolic faith in the Christian community. The unity of Scripture and tradition is grounded then in the one word whose presence in human history comes to its unsurpassable actualization in Jesus Christ. Scripture and tradition must be viewed as interrelated witnesses to that word. Furthermore, neither Scripture nor tradition can be separated from the Church. The unity of Scripture, tradition and the living communion of the Church itself is fundamental.[3]
Revelation, therefore, is centered upon Jesus Christ – and through Christ, the whole of the Holy Trinity:
The principal purpose to which the plan of the old covenant was directed was to prepare for the coming of Christ, the redeemer of all and of the messianic kingdom, to announce this coming by prophecy (see Luke 24:44; John 5:39; 1 Peter 1:10), and to indicate its meaning through various types (see 1 Cor. 10:12). Now the books of the Old Testament, in accordance with the state of mankind before the time of salvation established by Christ, reveal to all men the knowledge of God and of man and the ways in which God, just and merciful, deals with men. These books, though they also contain some things which are incomplete and temporary, nevertheless show us true divine pedagogy.[4]
If the vision of God that one gets out of Scripture is not one which reveals his justice and mercy, the reader of the text has missed something about the text itself. Perhaps the mistake lies in their interpretive scheme, where they assume the text follows the contours of modern historical writings. This is not the case; indeed Christians since the beginning of Church history have understood a very different scheme for the Biblical text: one which presents a kind of history but uses that history to present a deeper, more fundamental understanding of the world. Texts which are seen as impossible, if interpreted as history, nonetheless must be accepted, not because they are historical, but because they reveal something theological. St. Neilos the Ascetic, for example, takes 2 Samuel 4:5-8[5] as being historically absurd. This, he thinks, should be obvious. But if this is the case, does it make the text meaningless? By no means:
It is clear that this story in Scripture should not be taken literally. For how could a king have a woman as door-keeper, when he ought properly to be guarded by a troop of soldiers, and to have round him a large body of attendants? Or how could he be so poor as to use her to winnow the wheat? But improbable details are often included in a story because of the deeper truths they signify. Thus the intellect in each of us resides within like a king, while the reason acts as door-keeper of the senses. When the reason occupies itself with bodily things – and to winnow wheat is something bodily – he enemy without difficulty slips past unnoticed and slays the intellect.[6]
This scheme was in accord with what Origen taught. Indeed, he believed that the writers were inspired to put in statements which were absurd so as to remind us not to take the text so simply, but to look for the deeper, spiritual nourishment we can get from them, even for those texts which also have a real historical basis:
But since, if the usefulness of the legislation, and the sequence and beauty of the history, were universally evident of itself, we should not believe that any other thing could be understood in the Scriptures save what was obvious, the word of God has arranged that certain stumbling-blocks, as it were, and offenses, and impossibilities, should be introduced into the midst of the law and the history, in order that we may not, through being drawn away in all directions by the merely attractive nature of the language, either altogether fall away from the (true) doctrines, as learning nothing worthy of God, or, by not departing from the letter, come to the knowledge of nothing more divine. And this also we must know, that the principal aim being to announce the spiritual connection in those things that are done, and that ought to be done, where the Word found that things done according to the history could be adapted to these mystical senses, He made use of them, concealing from the multitude the deeper meaning; but where, in the narrative of the development of super-sensual things, there did not follow the performance of those certain events, which was already indicated by the mystical meaning, the Scripture interwove in the history (the account of) some event that did not take place, sometimes what could not have happened; sometimes what could, but did not. And sometimes a few words are interpolated which are not true in their literal acceptation, and sometimes a larger number.[7]
Scripture, of course, was written by various people. While they were inspired by God to write what they wrote, and God inspired the Church to collect the texts it did, in the form it did, we must also understand that the people behind the texts are not mere puppets being forced by God to write as they did. Thus, when patristic authors, or the Church, asserts God as the author of the text, we must not take this as fundamentalists do, but rather recognize that God works with authors based upon their ability and through their cooperation with his intended purposes: “The fathers look upon the Bible above all as the Book of God, the single work of a single author. This does not mean, however, that they reduce the human authors to nothing more than passive instruments; they are quite capable, also, of according to a particular book its own specific purpose.”[8] Indeed, God can inspires people to reveal something about him without their knowing of it, or knowing the meaning behind their words, as St Edith Stein masterfully explains:
Must the inspired person who is the instrument of a divine revelation be aware of the fact? Must he know that he has been illuminated, must he himself have received a revelation? We may well imagine cases where none of this is true. It is not impossible that someone utter a revelation without realizing it, without having received a revelation from God, without even being aware that he is speaking in God’s name or feeling supported by God’s Spirit in what he says and how he says it. He may think he is only voicing his own insight and in the words of his choosing.
Thus Caiphas says in the Sanhedrin : ‘You know nothing and do not consider that it is better for you that one man die for the people and not the whole people parish.’ And John adds: ‘but his he said not of himself but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the people…’ Hence Caiphas spoke in God’s name and followed divine instructions without either knowing it or wishing to do so. John, however, knows that Caiphas was speaking God’s word and perhaps that he was himself enlightened by God as he wrote this. Does John know the prophetic meaning of Caiphas’ words through a revelation accorded him? Quite possibly. But it may also be that the fulfillment of those words in the death of Jesus and John’s view of the overall work of salvation made him realize their prophetic nature.[9]
Now this is not to say it is the norm, nor common, but, as we see, a person inspired by God does not have to understand the meaning of their words, nor that they are actually saying something that will be collected together as being inspired by God. The intention of God as the inspired author of Scripture does not have to be one with the intended meaning of the human author, and indeed, could be one which runs contrary to what such a human might have thought (as, for example, we find in the case of Jonah).
Thus, it is important to discuss inspiration, but as the Pontifical Biblical Commission warns us, we must not follow the simplistic interpretation found within fundamentalism:
Fundamentalism is right to insist on the divine inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy of the word of God and other biblical truths included in its five fundamental points. But its way of presenting these truths is rooted in an ideology which is not biblical, whatever the proponents of this approach might say. For it demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.[10]
And, it is especially when people take the Bible as history where this becomes the problem. “Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth.”[11] It creates a false, blasphemous view of God through its simplistic understanding of the text, and demand adherence to that simplistic view, with the explanation that if one denies this scheme, one must reject Scripture itself. There is no basis by which one can understand the deeper, spiritual value of revelation. And it is for this reason it ends up creating an evil-looking God, and promotes the acceptance of intrinsic evils such as racism or genocide as being good if and when God commanded them. “Fundamentalism likewise tends to adopt very narrow points of view. It accepts the literal reality of an ancient, out-of-date cosmology simply because it is found expressed in the Bible; this blocks any dialogue with a broader way of seeing the relationship between culture and faith. Its relying upon a non-critical reading of certain texts of the Bible serves to reinforce political ideas and social attitudes that are marked by prejudices—racism, for example—quite contrary to the Christian Gospel.”[12] While simple, it is this simplicity which leads to a letter that kills, because it requires a denial of reason when engaging the faith, and leading to “intellectual suicide”:
The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem. Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations.[13]
No wonder St Mark the Ascetic warned us to be careful when we interpreted Scripture. He understood how people would confuse the human side of Scripture with its divine meaning, and how that would end up creating a false, humanly constructed, image of God. A God presented in the image of fallen humanity can only be a monster, the monster which we see proclaimed by fundamentalists the world over.
Footnotes
[1] Mark the Monk, “On the Spiritual Law” in Counsels on the Spiritual Life. Trans. Tim Vivian and Augustine Casiday (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 93.
[2] Pope Benedict, Regensburg Lecture, Sept 12, 2006.
[3] Richard R. Gaillardetz, Teaching with Authority: A Theology of the Magisterium of the Church (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1997), 84.
[4] Dei Verbum 15 (Vatican Translation).
[5]“ Now the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, set out, and about the heat of the day they came to the house of Ishbosheth, as he was taking his noonday rest. And behold, the doorkeeper of the house had been cleaning wheat, but she grew drowsy and slept; so Rechab and Baanah his brother slipped in. When they came into the house, as he lay on his bed in his bedchamber, they smote him, and slew him, and beheaded him. They took his head, and went by the way of the Arabah all night, and brought the head of Ishbosheth to David at Hebron. And they said to the king, ‘Here is the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life; the LORD has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring’” (2 Sam 4:5-8 RSV).
[6] St Neilos the Ascetic, “Ascetic Discourse” in The Philokalia. Volume I. Trans. And ed. By G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1983), 210.
[7] Origen, “On First Principles” in ANF(4), 364.
[8] Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (March 18, 1994), III-B.2
[9] St Edith Stein, “Ways to know God” in Knowledge and Faith. Trans. Walter Redmond (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2000), 103.
[10] Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, I-F.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
LOL
Certainly!
Thats because there is none, but when you are as completely wrong as Uri so often is you have to bend and distort the date to fit the model....kind of like theological globull warming.
I find it difficult to understand. This is why I really want a complete Summa with facing page Latin and English.
The Ascended Christ has a "resurrection" body. Paul uses the phrase "spiritual body" which I think is shorthand for "I have no clue; there is something we must call a 'body' which the resurrected have; but it is different from the "natural" body we currently enjoy and endure; you figure it out."
Other thoughts related to the question: The hypostatic union persists in Heaven. It is a man seated at the right hand of the Father, as well as the Son. Men seem to be essentially corporeal. (For: if not, why go to all the trouble of raising the body if we don't need one to be who/what we are.)
The witness of Genesis 2:7, with which Aquinas has no disagreement, is that the "living being" or "living soul" is what you get when God blows His Spirit into a human body.
With Aquinas's Aristotelian thought, I have tried to suggest that human soul : human body :: burning : fire. I'm not sure this is right, but work with me: If there's no burning all you have is combustible materials, not fire. And if there are no combustible materials, you have no burning.
A dead body is not a human, it's just a human body -- a thing that was human, but not anymore. But without a body, do we have a human?
So between now and the general resurrection (except for Mary and IHS) the "souls"in purgatory, hell, and heaven persist by a special activity of God's. At the general resurrection the delights of heaven and the torments of Hell will be exacerbated by the restoration of the fullness of human being, even though the body then will not be a "natural"(strange word) body.
AND, thebody whose substance is "really" in the sacrament is the risen body of our lord. The "sacrum convivivium" is truly "futurae gloriae nobis pignus" (a pledge to us of future glory.)
I do not say this with any great certainty. But this is where my thinking is now.
I find it difficult to understand. This is why I really want a complete Summa with facing page Latin and English.
It would be helpful, but would not our separated friends accuse us of creating new doctrines?
The Ascended Christ has a "resurrection" body. Paul uses the phrase "spiritual body" which I think is shorthand for "I have no clue; there is something we must call a 'body' which the resurrected have; but it is different from the "natural" body we currently enjoy and endure; you figure it out."
Admirably put. You have some interesting thoughts; I have not turned my small attention to that area. Have you shared them with anyone in the Church?
Seems to me that the scientists of the day determined that the sun rotated around the earth...
Eventually they revised their theory to line up with Scripture...
So Jesus is not sitting at the right hand of the Father...Interesting...So that means that Mary is sitting in that seat next to the Father...Very interesting picture...
Nope.
The inference (I have not found any definitive statement) is that His Body remained here and is present in the Eucharist, whilst He Ascended and is fully God Almighty without a human body. But I have no definitive statement, as I said.
What is all this about Mary?
I'll assemble my cardinals right away.
[Yells:] Hey! Get the gang in stenography over here! I've feel an encyclical comin'on.
Yeah. The whole soul body thing and the uniqueness of our view as compared to the Platonic/Gnostic view is important.
In just a small way,if one thinks of the (or 'a') body as not essential to being what we are,it's hard to view bodily stuff, like sex as anything better than a pleasurable distraction.
And I went over to FB and put up my analogy (in 2 versions) about soul and body.
I'm pretty confident (though it's been more than 35 years) that I'm right about the Sacrament and the Resurrected Body -- in Aquinas. And my junque about the body in heaven is pretty garden variety.
Is the question, "Whether the risen body of IHS subsists in any mode other than in the Eucharist?" or would you want to put it another way?
... as YOU do THIS....
YOU = Jews
THIS = Passover meal
Hint: the Jews STILL have this meal every year.
Catholics claim that Mary currently sits at the right hand of Jesus in Heaven, Who sits at the right hand of the Father...
But now we learn that your religion infers Jesus' body is NOT sitting at the right hand of the Father...And THAT inference brings up some interesting issues...
Like, is there a seemingly empty chair between Mary and God???
And, when our body loses it's soul, the body drops dead...But yet we have a soul-less, mindless body of Jesus running around on earth to all the Catholic churches???
The Disciple Stephen saw Jesus sitting, then standing in Heaven...When did Jesus' body get up and leave Heaven??? Does it operate by remote control???
And of course the best one is still; where is the command for your religion to get Jesus' body into a piece of bread, and where are the instructions on how to do such???
The majority of the Christian world, pre Copernicus, believed the Sun was in orbit around the Earth, and they based this not via utilization of the scientific method, but clearly they based it upon Scriptural justification. Their arguments at the time are filled with such scriptural justifications for an immobile and central Earth.
The majority of the Christian world abandoned Geocentrism, not based upon a better understanding of Scripture, but upon a better understanding of and observations of the natural world that INFORMED their interpretation of scripture.
The crux of the matter comes down to this, do you consider physical reality subordinate to your interpretation of scripture; or are you willing to accept in the face of reproducibly demonstrated reality that your assumptions and interpretations as to the meaning of Scripture might be in error.
The majority of the Christian world, post Copernicus, accepted that their assumption and interpretation as to the meaning of Scripture that made them think the Earth was central and immobile were in error. Do you think they were wrong to do so?
Very interesting observation, DrewsMum! Yes, prophecy is given to us in symbols; also the parables of Jesus.
In both cases, God chose to use symbols rather than "plain" narrative language to communicate His Truth. We can wonder why.
My spiritual leading in this matter FWIW: These truths are so vast and "radical" (because truly universal and eternal, referring to a Kingdom of which no human being had ever had any direct experience before whatsoever) that they cannot be articulated in ordinary denotative speech.
By denotative speech I mean a one-to-one correspondence between a noun and (in most cases) a single "external referrent" in the world of direct human observation and experience. Of such are definitions made.
English is relentlessly denotative in this sense as compared, say, to ancient Greek, German, or French. These languages are based on words that have, more than a simple definition, cultural and historical associations that the speakers of these languages know; i.e., they are not strictly denotative, but also carry, e.g., historical allusions, cultural and moral understandings, and the like.
I understand that translating German literature into English can be a daunting task, due to the non-denotative to denotative conversion involved.
An example of a non-denotative word in this sense is the Greek word logos, which carried multiple meanings — e.g., word, story, truth. There is no single definition. But a Greek immersed in his own cultural heritage and history would know which meaning was called for in the given context.
In modern English, interpreting a text is far, far easier. Words tend to have only one meaning ("definition"). For instance, WRT the word "logos": in modern English, "logos" is the plural of the noun denoting "a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises."
Obviously, the Holy Bible would need to protect its truths from this sort of "misappropriation," even corruption, of the meaning of words over time. So it employs symbolic language.
The further benefit of symbolic language would be, because it is not strictly denotative, it requires an act of the human mind and spirit for its understanding. Human subjectivity is drawn into play, in an encounter with the Word of God.
In a certain sense, this may be the entire point of the exercise: God seeks relation with His human children, and they are drawn to Him in the measure of the light and grace they have received from Him.
It seems to me this "process" can only be facilitated by the use of symbolic language. Since the emphasis is really on the relationship aspect, one wonders (at least I do) whether "wrong" interpretations are even possible — on my belief that the eternal human soul is a work-in-progress in the hands of an eternally just, loving, and merciful Father, I AM THAT AM....
In that case, I'd be reluctant to be the judge of the alleged "wrongness" of anybody's interpretation of prophecy and Jesus' parables.
Though I wouldn't mind pointing out to any non-Christian engaging in "biblical criticism" (read: atheist) why HIS interpretation is "wrong."
In the end, there is only One Truth — God's Truth. It is the eternal foundation and order of heaven and earth — first, last, and of everything in-between.
To God be the glory!!!
I probably haven't explained these ideas very well, DrewsMum. I struggle to find the language....
Thank you for your kind attention, and oh so very much for your excellent essay/post!
p.s.: This might seem a little off-track; but — In human history, symbolic language has also been used to conceal and protect "divine truths" from those unworthy to receive them.
There's been a recent illustration of this, which I find rather funny. The rock diva Madonna decided to embrace Kaballah, an "esoteric" Jewish speculation of great antiquity and dignity regarding the fundamental roots of divine reality.
Evidently her interest caused great unease and heartburn among well-recognized and esteemed Kaballah scholars, for fear that she might misappropriate the great symbols of Kaballah for her own purposes. Which evidently she quickly did, taking the symbol Shekinah and converting it into something akin to Gaia — the mother goddess.
I am not a student of Kaballah; but somehow I suspect that to regard the symbol Shekinah as the mother goddess probably signifies an attempt to corrupt the symbol, wittingly or unwittingly....
Whatever. Though Madonna may possibly have misread the symbol, and has been promoting her "interpretation" far and wide, the truths of Kaballah are still safe in the symbols for the person who can approach them in the spirit of truth.
Copernicus still didn't "save the appearances" very well. We had to drop "regular circular motion" before we had a system that elegantly accounted for planetary motion. And we had to be able to measure stellar parallax before heliocentrism could really stand.
And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, and [their] ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with [their] eyes, and hear with [their] ears, and should understand with [their] heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed [are] your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. – Matthew 13:14-16
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper [in the thing] whereto I sent it. - Isaiah 55:11
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. - Matthew 5:18
So, in your view, when Acts says, “They continued in the Apostle’s teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers,” the phrase “the breaking of bread” does not refer to the Eucharist?
And a superior model need not be 100% accurate to be a superior model. Copernicus’ model was far superior in every respect to the Geocentric model.
It was an increased knowledge of physical reality that informed the interpretation of Scripture such that the vast majority of the Christian world no longer interprets Scripture to mean that the Earth is either central or immobile.
So how is adjusting interpretation of Scripture in light of Astronomical scientific knowledge any different philosophically from adjusting interpretation of Scripture in light of Physics or Biology?
Should the Christian world have rejected the Copernican model because it conflicted with what they thought to be “God's teaching”?
I take an Occam's Razor approach to Scripture. Jesus' message was pure and simple and was intended for the poor, the uneducated, the outcast and the disenfranchised. He told us to approach it like a child would. Everything in the Old Testament was in preparation for the two Greatest Commandments and the eight Beatitudes. Everything else in the New Testament was to explain and reinforce this.
I was just quibbling around the edges.
Creationists always seem to be on the lookout for the next “epicycles within epicycles” that will rescue their apologetic models from the grip of cold hard conflicting data. Intellectual suicide indeed.
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