(Death, Heaven, Purgatory, Hell)
Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults
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Free From All Error:
Authorship, Inerrancy, Historicity of Scripture, Church Teaching, and Modern Scripture Scholars
Rev. William G. Most
Chapter 1: Inspiration and Authorship
The most remarkable face concerning Holy Scripture is that it is not only the Word of God but that God Himself, the Holy Spirit, is its chief author. This the Church tells us. At the same time, the Church also says that there is a human author, who remains free yet infallibly does what God wants him to do. How is all of this possible? What does it really mean to say that God is the author?
Before answering those questions, another important fact strikes us. A record from the fifth or sixth century of the Church states for the first time that God is the author of Holy Scripture. Ancient Statutes of the Church, a document from that period, says that a man who is to be ordained a bishop must first be asked, “if he believes that God is the one and same author of the New and Old Testament....”
There are earlier statements about Scripture, but there is none in which God is explicitly identified as their author. For example, about 95 AD, Pope St. Clement I wrote this to Corinth: “You have studied the sacred writings, which are true, which are through the Holy Spirit” (1:45). Athenagoras, a second century apologist, spoke of the Holy Spirit as using the human writers “as if a flutist breathed into his flute” (Legation 9). A bit later, about 181 AD, St. Theophilus of Antioch wrote, “Moses ... or rather, the Word of God, who used him as an instrument, said, ‘In the beginning God made heaven and earth”’ (To Autolycus 2:10). Around 200 AD St. Hippolytus said of the prophets that “like instruments, always having the Word as a plectrum (a pick), united with themselves, in themselves, when moved by Him, they announced what God willed” (On Antichrist 2). While not explicitly saying that God is the author of Holy Scripture, these texts present the concept of God’s authorship because He uses humans as instruments. It will be both interesting and helpful to investigate how it is that only after five or six centuries of existence did the Church clearly teach that God is the author of Holy Scripture. The key is found in the words of our Lord at the Last Supper: “The Holy Spirit ... will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all I have said to you” (John 14:26). This text does not mean that there would be new revelations. No, the great Deposit of Faith was complete when the last Apostle died and the New Testament was finished. After that point, we receive no new public revelation, though there are private revelations. (The word private is not very helpful, but it is standard; even Fatima, though addressed to the world, is technically a private revelation.)
Our Lord promised the Church, not new revelations, but an ever-deeper penetration into the Deposit of Faith. A striking instance is the teaching on the Immaculate Conception, which was defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854. Was the dogma of the Immaculate Conception so clearly present in Scripture so that without the help of the Church one could see it? Not really. But with the help of the Church, we know, thanks to Pius IX, that this dogma is implied in the words of God to the serpent in Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.” The dogma of the Immaculate Conception is similarly implied in the greeting of the archangel to the Virgin Mary: “Hail full of grace” (Luke 1:28). (It should be noted that there is debate about the interpretation of Genesis 3:15 and the translation of Luke 1:28.) So, if Mary was never under the dominion of Satan, being in a perpetual state of enmity with him, she must have been immaculately conceived. Similarly, her being “full of grace” implies the grace of the Immaculate Conception. Nonetheless we need the help of the Church to be sure of these implications.
What of the words of the Fathers of the first centuries? Teachings found in the early Fathers are thought to imply the Immaculate Conception. They often spoke in glowing, sweeping terms about Mary’s holiness. That could imply an Immaculate Conception. Again, the Fathers, practically all of them, speak of Mary as a New Eve. St. Paul had called our Lord “a New Adam”—the new head of the race, who reverses the damage resulting from the sin of the first Adam. The Fathers add that Mary shares in that work, in undoing the harm resulting from the sin of the first Eve. But then, one could argue: If Mary is the New Eve, and since the first Eve had no sin when she began her existence, Mary must have been conceived immaculate. The trouble here is that not one of the Fathers ever reasoned in this way about the Immaculate Conception.
Since both Scripture and the Fathers were unclear regarding Mary’s immaculateness, there was room for denial. And denial came from a surprising source: St. Bernard of Clairvaux. In the twelfth century, Bernard, who was so fond of devotion to Mary, clearly denied Mary’s Immaculate Conception. Beginning with St. Bernard. Then, most of the major theologians of the Middle Ages, including even St. Thomas Aquinas, denied the Immaculate Conception.
The tide began to turn with the help of Duns Scotus (c.12651308). Gradually the popes began siding with the arguments for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The result was that a century and a half before the definition of the Immaculate Conception, the whole Church had come to believe the doctrine.
Now we can see that the Immaculate Conception was quite unclear, even dim, in the first centuries of the Church. Yet later, under the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church was enabled to see it clearly, even to define it. Therefore, we need not be surprised to find, at a comparatively late date, a statement by the Church that God is the principal author of Holy Scripture.
Additional statements by the Church were to follow, after some centuries. For example, Peter, Bishop of Antioch, asked Pope Leo IX to send him a correct profession of faith. Leo complied. “I believe,” wrote the Pope, “ ... that there is one author of the New and Old Testament, of the law and Prophets and Apostles, God, and almighty Lord” (April 13, 1053). We find many similar statements later: in the Council of Florence (1441); in the Council of Trent (1546): in Leo XIII’s Proventissimus Deus (1893); in Benedict XV’s Spiritus Paraclitus (1920); in Pius XII’s Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943).
Vatican II, in its Constitution on Divine Revelation. n. 11, taught that “Holy Mother Church, from the apostolic faith, considers the entire books of the Old and New Testament, with all their parts, as sacred and canonical because, being written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author....” Having accepted the Church’s pronouncement, we still need to know what it means to say that God is the chief author of Scripture. In other words, precisely how does He interact with the human writer? A few authors suggest that God dictated the words of Scripture to the human writer, as a man might dictate to a secretary. But then the question arises as to how the human being could also be called an author? And what of the words of St. Paul in I Corinthians 1:14-18, where Paul’s memory wakes up, as it were, in stages?
First Paul says he is glad that he baptized only two persons, Crispus and Gaius, so those clique-loving Corinthians could not say that they had such a special attachment to St. Paul. Then he adds, as his memory awakens, that he also baptized the household of Stephanas. And, in a further awakening, he adds that he is not sure if he baptized any others. Such a gradual gathering of recollections hardly coincides with the idea that the omniscient God was dictating those words to Paul. Though the Church has never condemned it, this theory of dictation was generally given up by the end of the nineteenth century. In the sixteenth century, Sixtus of Siena suggested that Scripture was a merely human product that the Church later approved. In this view, of course, God would not be the author of Scripture at all. Hence Vatican Council I explicitly rejected this theory, saying, “The Church however considers them [the books of Scripture] sacred and canonical, not because they were written by mere human industry and were then approved by her authority, nor because they contain revelation without error, but because, since they were written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author” (EB 77). Vatican I also said that it would not be enough to say that the books of Scripture “contain revelation without error.” They do that, of course, but that point alone would not be enough to establish the fact that God is actually the author of Scripture. To contain revelation without error is largely negative. It is a protection against mistakes, which is different from divine authorship.
Late in the nineteenth century, Cardinal Franzelin developed a different theory of inspiration, which enjoyed much popularity for a while. He thought that divine inspiration affected the human writer only as far as the content of Scripture was concerned. The composition and verbal expression, Franzelin thought, were contributed by the human writer.
This theory was an improvement over the earlier attempts, but it, too, was insufficient. It made an artificial division, and did not adequately explain how God can really be called the author. The view of Cardinal Franzelin, accordingly, has been abandoned.
M. J. Lagrange, a great Scripture scholar closer to our time, suggested that inspiration is primarily a divine illumination of the mind of the human writer, making him able to judge in a higher, clearer, and more certain light. But again, this seems more like assistance on the part of God, not authorship by God.
Pierre Benoit, in 1965, suggested that God’s influence on the speculative mind of the human writer was a revelation. That is, it gave the writer new content, new material, while God’s influence on the practical working of the man’s mind, in composition and communication, would be called inspiration. But inspiration does not always or necessarily include revelation of facts not previously known to the human author.
Drawing on some of the more recent statements of the Church, let us attempt to go beyond these theories. Pope Pius XII, in his great Encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943), wrote this: “The sacred writer in producing the sacred book is the organon, that is, the instrument of the Holy Spirit, an instrument living and endowed with reason.... He, working under inspiration, still uses his own faculties and powers in such a way that all can easily gather from the book he produces ‘the proper character, and, as it were, the individual lines and characteristics”’ of the human writer.
Pius XII was quoting, in part, from the Spiritus Paraclitus of Pope Benedict XV (1920). He wanted to draw the lines in such a way that both God and the human writer would be true authors, even though God would be the principal author, really in control of the situation. To bring out the role of God, the Pope spoke of God as the principal cause, the human as the instrumental cause. Yet, to show that the human was not like a lifeless instrument—a pen or a typewriter— he added that the human writer did utilize his own talents and powers so that his distinctive style and character became apparent. Hence we see how it is that not all things in Scripture are in magnificent literary style. If God alone had produced them, of course, they would be. But the human writer retains his own characteristics, even under inspiration. How is such a combination as this possible? God is transcendent, completely above and beyond our categories and classifications. His knowing is unlike ours. Human beings have both an active and a passive way of knowing things. When we know in a passive way, we take on an impression from outside ourselves, much as a tablet of wax takes on the impression of a signet ring. But this cannot be the way in which God knows. He would then be receiving something He did not have before. He cannot receive for He lacks nothing. When a human knows actively, he knows something is happening simply because he is causing it. A blind man pushing a chair knows the chair is moving because he is pushing it. But while the blind man is limited, God is not. The active way is not a complete explanation, but it is a small part of the answer. Therefore, God’s way of knowing is unlike any knowing we can imagine. It is simply transcendent. Similarly, God can use a human as an instrument, insuring that the human writes all God wants, as He wants, yet leaving the human writer free to utilize his own human skills and characteristics.
A comparison may be helpful. We want to consider two modes, or manners, in which God affects people by his grace, even outside of inspiration. First, through ordinary actual graces, God guides and moves a person to reach the right thought and decision in a process that is commonly done step-by-step. This is a discursive process. In this mode, God works mostly through the human faculties, causing them, as it were, to churn out the needed effect in such a way that the human being is active too, while receiving all the power to act from God.
But there is a higher manner in which God moves souls. It is by way of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. (The Gifts are not confined to moving a man to decide and act; they do other things too. But here we are considering only one kind of effect of the Gifts.) When God moves a man via the Gifts, the man does not need any step-by-step process to reach the right idea and decision. The answer is, as it were, dropped ready-made into the hopper of his mind. The man’s human faculties have little to do with generating the thought. The man’s cooperation consists largely in consenting to be moved in this way.
Something comparable happens when God inspires a human writer. The human writer’s faculties and powers are indeed somewhat active (not as active as in the first mode), and somewhat passive (as in the case of a man being moved by the Gifts). In this way, God has full control, fully produces the sacred book; yet the human puts his imprint on the style and expression as much as even a lifeless instrument would do when handled by an artist.
So we can see how two things can be
said in the book of the prophet Amos. In chapter one, we see that we are about
to read “the words of Amos.” Yet at the end of the same short book, we find:
“Says the Lord your God.”
Chapter 2: Which Books Are Inspired?
We saw in chapter 1 that Holy Scripture has God for its author. But how do we know just which books are inspired and have God as author? If someone were to reply that we just accept the decision of the Church, the answer would not be incorrect. But there would still seem to be a danger of reasoning in a vicious circle, in which we say that we believe that these books are inspired because the Church tells us they are inspired and that we believe the Church because inspired Scripture shows that Christ gave the Church the mandate to teach. There is a way out of this circle. To find it, it will help if we review some attempts that simply do not work. Long ago, in 1910, Professor Gerald Birney Smith, of the University of Chicago, gave a paper to the 28th annual Baptist Congress. The next year it was published, somewhat revised, in The Biblical World 37 (pp. 19-29). Smith’s frankness was really remarkable. He reviewed every way he knew to determine which books are or are not inspired. (In the first centuries, many works were circulating as Gospels, with the names of various apostles on them, yet those books are not accepted as inspired today. Hence our question.) Professor Smith said: “The exact determination of the Canon of Scripture [list of inspired books] was never a burning issue until after the Reformation.... It was only when Luther denied the authority of the Church and appealed to the Word of God alone that there was felt to be any pressing need for defining the exact list of authoritative books.” Before Luther, of course, people accepted the teaching of the Catholic Church. But once he and his associates rejected the Church’s authority and tried to appeal to Scripture alone, it became necessary to ask which books are inspired. Professor Smith then explains how Luther worked. “Luther proposed a practical test.... The distinction which he actually had in mind was between those writings which have the power to bring to men the assurance of forgiveness through Christ and those which have no such power.” Luther believed in justification - getting right with God - by faith alone. Now, St. Paul does teach justification by faith, but the key question is: What did St. Paul mean by the word faith? Luther thought it meant the confidence that the merits of Christ have been applied to one’s personal account, or taking Christ as one’s personal Savior. From then on, so long as a man continued to believe that point, he would be saved.
Actually, as scholarly Protestants today admit, this is not what St. Paul meant by faith. St. Paul meant by faith a total adherence of a man to God, so that if God speaks a truth, he believes; if God makes a promise, he is confident God will fulfill it; if God commands, he obeys. In this sense, the standard Protestant reference book Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, in its article “faith” in the latest supplementary volume (1976), says: “Paul uses pistis/pisteuein [Greek for “faith/believe] to mean, above all, belief in the Christ kerygma “preaching, proclamation], knowledge, obedience, trust in the Lord Jesus. It comes by hearing with faith the gospel message ... by responding with a confession about Christ ... and by the ‘obedience of faith’ ... ‘the obedience which faith is.”’
Luther thought a book that intensely preaches this doctrine was inspired, otherwise not. Of course, he never provided proof for such a standard. Nor could it be a standard, for Luther, or any good writer, could compose a book that would preach according to Luther’s requirements; yet that book need not on that account be inspired.
So Luther’s attempt failed. Professor Smith adds that Luther “never applied this test minutely or critically.” Such an application really could not be made.
John Calvin, in his Institutes, book 1, chapter vii, as cited by Professor Smith, offers a different test: “The word will never gain credit [belief] in the hearts of men till it be confirmed by the internal testimony of the Spirit....” But Calvin’s claim was too open to imagination and could never strictly prove anything. Smith’s comment is devastating: “The application of this test ... would eliminate the existing distinction between canonical and non-canonical [inspired and non-inspired] writings more completely than would the most radical conclusions of biblical criticism.” Smith goes on to point out parts of Scripture that do not seem very spiritually uplifting to us today.
At this point, Professor Smith is about ready to give up and admit that there is no way to determine which books are inspired. “What about other tests...?” he asks. “Can we, for example, say that the Bible is infallible, while other books are fallible? Nothing is more noticeable than the gradual disappearance of that word ‘infallible’ from present-day theologies.” And he goes on to point out what he considers errors in Scripture.
What Professor Smith demonstrates is that for a Protestant there simply is no way to know which books are inspired. That means, in practice, that a Protestant, if he is logical, should not appeal to Scripture to prove anything; he has no sure means of knowing which books are part of Scripture!
Smith’s article appeared in 1911. A much more recent Protestant attempt really ends up in a vicious circle. Gerhard Maier, in The End of the Historical-Critical Method, 1 writes, “only Scripture itself can say in a binding way what authority it claims and has.... We must let revelation determine its own limits. Consequently revelation defines itself.... Scripture considers itself as revelation” (pp. 61 and 63). In other words, inspired Scripture is inspired because inspired Scripture says it is inspired Scripture.
There is really only one way to accomplish what we are asking for: let the Church decide which books are inspired. Professor Smith dismisses that approach as one that holds only if one believes in the authority of the Catholic Church. Of course, he did not.
Let us pursue this method, taking great pains lest we, too, find ourselves in the vicious circle of proving the authority of the Church by inspired Scripture, and proving the inspiration of Scripture by the Church.
Let us use the method of looking upon the Gospels, not as inspired books, but simply as documents from ancient times, works on a par with those of writers such as Caesar, Tacitus, Thucydides, and others.
First, with the help of the science of textual criticism, we check to see if our copies are at least substantially the same as the originals. This is needed since our oldest manuscripts are separated from the originals by about three centuries. But that is no great problem. There is a gap of nine hundred to a thousand years between Caesar’s original and our earliest manuscripts. Further, we can partly bridge the gap in the case of the Gospels by using translations that go back to within about a hundred years of the originals. These translations were made Independently of each other, into several languages, in different parts of the Mediterranean world. Still further, the variants-differences in readings in different manuscripts-that we find are mostly trifling, and do not affect at all the six points that will be discussed shortly.
What literary pattern did the Gospel writers intend to use? It is clear that they intended to give facts about Jesus as a basis for faith. They had access to the facts, even if we take the latest dates proposed today for the first three Gospels 80-90 AD Many people in their sixties who had seen and heard Jesus himself would have been alive at that time. And Quadratus, an early apologist writing about 123 AD, tells us that in his day there were still persons around who had been cured or raised from the dead by Jesus-prime witnesses!2 The Gospel writers had the opportunity to get the facts. And we know that they would be careful and honest, for their own eternity depended on facts, not on fancy. As St. Paul told the Corinthians, “If Christ is not risen, your faith is vain” (1, 15:17). Or think of St. Ignatius of Antioch, who was eaten alive by beasts in Rome in about 107 AD He wanted to be eaten, to be more like Christ! If anyone thinks that he was indulging in fantasies, let him take a copy of the letter of Ignatius to the Romans and stand by the lion cage in a zoo and read it!
We need to examine the first three Gospels, the Synoptics, for just six facts-facts that are not entangled with ancient cultural patterns, which would make it necessary for us to reconstruct those patterns. No, what we need are things the original onlookers could easily observe and accurately report.
FACT 1: There was a man called Jesus.
FACT 2: He claimed to be a messenger sent by God.
FACT 3: He did enough to prove that He was such a messenger.
Now the mere fact of working miracles would not prove that Jesus was a messenger sent from God. It is probable that God at times worked miracles even for good pagans. But Jesus often appealed to His miracles as proof of His mission and teaching (see, among these, Matthew 11:2-5, Luke 7:20-22, Mark 2:9-11). Now God is the ultimate source of the miraculous power; but He, being Truth, cannot provide such power as proof of a falsehood. So Jesus’ claims were proved true. In fact, He proved that He could even forgive sins. A most remarkable messenger!
Many of Jesus’ miracles could not be explained away as being the result of suggestion. No suggestion will multiply loaves and fishes or cure a man who was born blind. There is a hysterical kind of blindness that can come on later in life, which can be cured by suggestion. Nor would suggestion call out from the tomb a man dead for four days. And there have been many modern miracles, for example at Lourdes, that have been checked to the hilt by science. These miracles are in continuity with His miracles. Often they occur during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament, thus showing His Real Presence there. The Real Presence is proclaimed only by the Catholic Church, through continuity of ordination, going all the way back to Jesus Himself.
FACT 4: Crowds followed Christ. But He had an inner circle to whom He spoke more intimately. This is merely what we would expect.
FACT 5: He told His followers to continue His teaching.
FACT 6: Jesus gave the message that God would protect that teaching: “He who hears you hears me; he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16).
In summary then, we see a group that is commissioned to teach by a messenger sent by God, and promised God’s protection for that teaching. These observations are made without treating the Scriptures as inspired. Now we not only intellectually may but are intellectually driven to believe what the body teaches. That body can then assure us that those ancient documents, used without knowing they are inspired, really have God as their author. And that body, the Church, can also tell us that the messenger sent by God is really God Himself. And, of course, it can guarantee countless other truths for us. It is true, the Gospels seldom use the word church. But the reality is important, not the word. We have seen that there is a body commissioned to teach, and that is all we need.
We should add this: As we will see in chapters 20-23, many critics think there is a gap between what Jesus was (Jesus of history) and what the early Church said He was (Christ of faith). They say it is not possible to know much on the early side of that gap. We reply: First, they ignore the fact that information was available on Jesus, as we saw in the above sketch, and that getting the basic facts right was vital to the eternity of each one. Hence the assumption of neither care nor knowledge is false. Secondly, we have a bypass in the six facts we have just sketched. We need to establish only the above six points, all very simple and obvious. Then we can let that body, commissioned by God’s messenger, tell us all we need to know about who Jesus really was.
So now we can fulfill what the First Epistle of St. Peter asks of us (I Peter 3:15): “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you.”
END NOTES
1 Translated by E. W. Leverenz and R. Norden, published by the major Lutheran house Concordia in 1977.
2 Eusebius, Church History, 4.3,
1.2.
Chapter 3: Multiple Authors
A problem arises from the special kinds of ideas people of the ancient Near East had about literary authorship. We today are very conscious of the rights of the author to his own work. No one would dare to change it and publish it under that author’s name. Not so in the ancient Near East. Someone later might make modifications, and still later, more and more modifications might be made-all leaving the name of the original author in place. Hence the question: Can this fit with the doctrine of inspiration? And if so, how?
It is often charged that the Pontifical Biblical Commission’ in its early decrees, was excessively restrictive and narrow. Not in this instance! The Commission was asked about this sort of point. The question was whether in the first five books of the Old Testament we absolutely must hold that Moses either wrote each and every thing with his own hand or dictated them to scribes. The Commission’s answer, given on June 27, 1906, was no.
The Commission also examined the theory that says “that the work, conceived by [Moses] under divine inspiration, was entrusted to another or to several to be written ... and that finally the work done in this way and approved by the same Moses as the leader and inspired author was published.” The Commission found this theory was permissible.
So it is not necessary to hold that Moses himself wrote all of the first five books.
He could have commissioned others to do the work, checking and approving it after they had finished. After all, the Pope today sometimes works in this way, assigning some writer to prepare a document for him according to his own instructions. Later the Pope will publish it as his own. He might not even find any need for revisions.
The Commission also raised this question: “Can it be admitted ... that in so long a course of ages, some modification happened to [the Pentateuch], such as additions after the death of Moses by an inspired author or glosses and explanations injected into the text, or that certain words and forms were changed from an ancient form of the language into more recent language; and that defective readings can be attributed to the hands of scribes, about which we may investigate and judge according to the norms of criticism?” The reply was: “Yes, subject to the judgment of the Church.”
There is all the latitude one might desire. In dealing with the specific case of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, it is legitimate to think that Moses had others do part of the work, subject to his approval. We may also say that long after his death some other inspired author changed things that Moses had written or approved. The final touches would, obviously, have to have been done by an inspired author.
The Pontifical Biblical Commission also admits that some later person, not necessarily inspired, might have updated the forms of the language. For every language, while it is living and spoken, changes. After some time persons who use that language may no longer understand easily some older expressions. That could have happened to the Pentateuch, and someone might later have put the same ideas into more current language.
Behind all of these questions, lies the belief that Moses is in some way the author of the Pentateuch. That view can still be honestly maintained today. A highly respected recent Scripture scholar, Eugene Maly, writing in Jerome Biblical Commentary, said: “Moses ... is at the heart of the Pentateuch and can, in accord with the common acceptance of the ancient period, correctly be called its author” (1, p.5, par.24). In speaking of the “common acceptance of the ancient period,” Father Maly has in mind precisely that, later on, persons often felt free to modify earlier writings while leaving the name of the original author on them.
So, in the case of many hands or authors, there could be several inspired authors; that is, each one who worked on a book could be inspired. But it is obviously also possible that in some cases only the final writer was inspired. In that case, one needs to approach the problem by way of literary genres to determine what to say about authors other than the final author. That approach will be explained in chapter 9.
But what about the sources that Moses might have used? The Pontifical Biblical Commission raised this question: “Can it be admitted, without prejudice to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, that Moses, in producing his work, used sources, that is, written documents or oral traditions, out of which, according to the special purpose he had in mind and under divine inspiration, he took some things and inserted them in his work word for word, or else substantially, while either enlarging or shortening them?” The answer was yes.
Behind this question lies the documentary theory of the Pentateuch. Really, the theory applies largely to the first four books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Deuteronomy is, to simplify a bit, still another source. For the first four books, it is usual to speak of three sources: J, for Yahwist; E, for Elohist; and P, for Priestly Code. It is customary to use the letter J to reflect the German spelling of Yahweh. Later hands, according to many scholars, modified the earlier work of Moses, utilizing these sources, some of which of course could stem from Moses himself or from different writers employed by him. J, the Yahwist, is so-called because of his fondness for using the word Yahweh for God, while the Elohist prefers Elohim. It is thought by many that the Yahwist furnished the outline and much of the content of those first four books. The Yahwist stresses events after the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) as the fulfillment of the promises God had made to these men. In a sense then, this could be called redemptive history.
The Elohist document is hard to separate from that of J, for both are early and primitive. E may have been a narrative from the Patriarchs to the generation that wandered in the Sinai Peninsula after receiving the Ten Commandments, while J is apt to use human terms-anthropomorphisms. For example, J speaks of God as angry and regretting that He had made man, or as coming down to see the tower of Babel. The Elohist is much less inclined to the use of anthropomorphisms. The third document, P, the Priestly Code, is noted for its concern for cultic things and religious laws. Thus the Book of Leviticus is entirely P. Most scholars once agreed on the existence of these sources. Today that consensus has been seriously damaged, though very many do continue to hold the theory. Distinguished among those who do is Pope John Paul II, who in several of his many conferences on Genesis, speaks in a matter-of-fact way about these sources.1 In speaking as he does, the Pope was obviously not intending to impose this theory authoritatively on the whole Church. First, because it was only something he said in passing; second, because a question of authorship of books of Scripture is not a matter of revelation but of history. This is true even when the text of Scripture seems to identify an author. In that case, it should be recalled that the ancient concept of authorship differed from ours. Not only would later hands feel free to change things, but also a person might write a book using a pen name. And the pen name might be that of a famous personage. The Gospels of Mark and Luke, incidentally, are really by those men precisely because their names were not famous enough to tempt others to use them as pen names.
Impressive evidence against the documentary theory would appear if the claims of Giovanni Pettinato about discoveries in the buried City of Ebla can be substantiated. He claims that the divine names El and Yahweh were both known and used around 2500 BC, and that he has found a creation account at Ebla very similar to that of Genesis. At present, there is immense controversy over these matters. Ebla was discovered in 1974-1975, in Syria. Over fifteen thousand clay tablets were found there, dating to around 2500 BC
Another remarkable case against the theory comes from a computer study made at the Technion Institute in Israel. The twenty thousand words of Genesis, in Hebrew, were fed into a computer programmed to make a thorough linguistic analysis of words, phrases, and passages in the text. The project coordinator, Yehuda Radday, reached a controversial conclusion: “It is most probable that the Book of Genesis was written by one person” (Newsweek, September 28, 1981, p.59).
The debate is apt to rage for a long time before general agreement is reached. Meanwhile, we know that such a theory is possible, and that it will not conflict with the doctrine of inspiration, or even with Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.
END NOTES
1 See Pope John Paul II, Original
Unity of Man and Woman, Catechesis on the Book of Genesis (Boston: St. Paul
Editions, 1981), the audiences of September 12, 1979, September 19, 1979,
January 2, 1980.
Chapter 4: The Plural Senses of Scripture
As we saw, there can be more than one author of a book of Scripture. Can there be more than one literal sense of a scriptural passage? While we have no clear statement of the Church to guide us on this, it is quite possible according to very many scholars.
First, we need to clarify the expression “literal sense.” It is not a crude, fundamentalistic way of understanding that treats the ancient writer as if he were a twentieth century American—as if one were to say: “Genesis speaks of six days. That means six times twenty-four hours.” No, the literal sense is what the ancient writer really meant to convey. (More about such matters in chapter 9.) To find what the ancient writer meant to convey, we must take into account differences of language. For example, our Lord tells us that we must hate our parents (Luke 14:26). Sadly, some cult leaders take this, unintelligently, as really meaning hate. Still more sadly, some, of their duped young followers are even pleased to carry that hatred out. The truth is that our Lord would have been speaking either Aramaic or Hebrew—more likely the former. In either language, the degrees of comparison were missing. Where in English one would say, “Love me more, and them less,” the Aramaic and Hebrew, lacking the right words, might say, “Love me and hate them.”
We must also take into account the genre of literature the writer intends to produce. One writes differently in poetry for example, than in prose.
There is also a typical sense, one in which there is what might be called a prophecy through actions instead of through words. For example, Isaac carrying the wood on which he was to be sacrificed is a forecast, a type, of Jesus carrying His cross. Since the existence of types depends on the will of God, we can be sure of that will only when a later part of Scripture tells us that about an earlier part, or when the Fathers or the Church tell us.
Sometimes scholars also speak of an accommodative sense. This is not really something intended by Scripture at all. It occurs when a speaker or writer applies the words of Scripture to something that they could fit but that was not intended by God or by the human author of Scripture.
There is no entirely clear statement by the Church on the possibility of more than one literal sense, which is called “fuller sense.” or, using a Latin phrase, sensus plenior. We have only one text from Pope Leo XIII: “Since the author is the Holy Spirit, many things come under the words which far surpass the keen power of human reason, that is, divine mysteries, and many other things contained along with these. This [happens] sometimes with a fuller and more hidden meaning than that which the letter, and the laws of interpretation, seem to indicate” (Providentissimus Deus, 1893).
Yet, if we reflect that the Holy Spirit is the principal author of Scripture, it becomes obvious that He could intend to convey more by the words than the human author may have realized. Yes, the human author is sometimes described as an instrument that the transcendence of God uses. Yet that relationship should not bar God from intending more if He should so will. That additional meaning can become clear with the help of later parts of Scripture, or with the help of the Church. Matthew 1:22-23 seems to be a case in point: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.”’ St. Matthew is quoting Isaiah 7:14.
The text of Isaiah has been discussed much by scholars. They have asked: Who is the child’? What is the proper translation of almah here, which St. Matthew translates as “virgin”?
We first look at the setting. In 735 BC, Syria (Aram) and Israel (the northern kingdom) invaded the southern kingdom of Judah to force King Achaz to join a coalition against Assyria. They really wanted to depose Achaz and set up a king of their own choosing. Achaz was tempted to join Assyria instead. Isaiah met the king, told him he must not do that, that he must have faith. Isaiah promised him any sign he might ask for, but Achaz refused to ask. Isaiah was especially disturbed because to submit to Assyria would mean recognition of the gods of Assyria (see 2 Kings 16). Isaiah promised the sign of the child to be born of the almah. Most scholars today try to see this child as Hezekiah, son of Achaz. His birth would have been a sign within the lifetime of Achaz—an important point. The child would be a sign of one to continue the Davidic line. In favor of this view, it is pointed out that almah in Hebrew means simply “a young woman,” presumably unmarried. It does not mean “a virgin.” So the almah would be the wife of Achaz in this view.
But there are strong reasons for the view that the Holy Spirit, and perhaps also Isaiah, intended the virgin birth of Jesus. It is admitted that the child in Isaiah 7:14 is the same as the marvelous child of Isaiah 9:6 who is to be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.” Such a description hardly fits Hezekiah, even though he was a good king. Further, almah in the Hebrew text has the article the—which would be strange if it refers to the wife of Achaz. And again, that word is not very apt for a wife. Still further, the old Greek translation of the Old Testament, made in the third and second centuries BC, uses parthenos (“virgin”) for almah.
We can get some help, too, from the Targum on Isaiah 9:5-6. The Targums are ancient Aramaic translations, plus comments, of the Old Testament. Their date is uncertain. Some think the Targum Jonathan on the prophets very early, pre-Christian; others would make it later. Whatever its date, it gives us an ancient Jewish understanding of the text, an understanding not helped by the hindsight of seeing it fulfilled in Jesus.
Now the Targum on Isaiah 9:5-6 sees the child as the Messiah. The same Targum on Isaiah 7:14 does not speak of that verse as Messianic, yet since it is generally admitted that the child of 9:5 is the same as the child of 7:14, the Targum implicitly recognizes the child of 7:14 as the Messiah and, therefore, not as Hezekiah.
There are, then, powerful reasons for saying that the understanding given us by St. Matthew is not just an accommodative sense but a fuller sense. Or, we could consider it as an instance of multiple fulfillment of a prophecy.
This situation is similar to Matthew 2:15: “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son.”’ St. Matthew is making Hosea 11:1 refer to the return of the infant Jesus from Egypt. Yet, and St. Matthew would know it even better than we, Hosea 11:1 seems to speak of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt under Moses; the son is the whole people of Israel But again, we’ do not think St. Matthew meant this as a mere accommodative sense. It is a fuller sense or, alternatively, another case of multiple fulfillment of a prophecy. (These two possibilities often coincide.)
Genesis 3:15 is much discussed. In it God, after the fall of Adam and Eve, says to the tempter serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.” Some wish to argue that the only woman on the scene is Eve. Yet this view cannot explain how there is a permanent enmity between Eve and the tempter, to whom she has just fallen. And that her offspring is to conquer the serpent is hardly true of the descendants of Eve in general.
Some would retort that the Hebrew shuf is used to mean both that the serpent will “strike at” her heel and that the offspring of the woman will “strike at” the serpent’s head. However, here again those three Targums help us. The ancient Targumists, knowing full well the meaning of the Hebrew, still not only made the verse Messianic but also saw in it a victory for the sons of the woman. The result is that we too can see a fuller sense in Genesis 3:15. It predicts the victory of the offspring of the woman. The woman is Mary; her offspring, Jesus. A note on this verse in the New American Bible seems to understand this interpretation as at least possible. Far more important, Pope Pius XII, in the Encyclical Fulgens Corona Gloriae (September 8, 1953), wrote: “The foundation [of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception] is seen in the very Sacred Scripture in which God... after the wretched fall of Adam, addressed the ... serpent in these words..., ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman.”’ Now if the Immaculate Conception can be found in Genesis 3:15, so can Mary, the Immaculate one.
There are, of course, many other instances of the fuller sense. The topic of our next chapter, multiple fulfillment, will provide instances that can be considered fuller sense at the same time. Let us round off this chapter with a fascinating case of what seems to be a fuller sense in a work of a Father of the Church, St. Irenaeus, the martyr-bishop of Lyons, who died around 200 AD In his work Against Heresies (3.22.4), St. Irenaeus brings out the parallel, in reverse, between Mary and the old Eve. Vatican II quotes it this way: “Rightly then do the Holy Fathers look on Mary as not just passively employed by God but as freely cooperating in faith and obedience in human salvation. For she, as St. Irenaeus says, ‘by obeying, became a cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race”’ (Constitution on the Church, par. 56).
Further on in the same section, St. Irenaeus adds this remarkable comparison: “For in no other way can that which is tied be untied, unless the very windings of the knot are gone through in reverse: so that the first joints are loosed through the second, and the second in turn free the first.... Thus then, the knot of the disobedience of Eve was untied through the obedience of Mary.”
Now St. Irenaeus, in context, seems to be thinking of Mary’s obedience on the day of the Annunciation. This was, of course, a cooperation in the Redemption. The Second Person of the Trinity could not die without a human nature. Mary, in furnishing that humanity, did share in the Redemption.
But did her cooperation cease there? Or did it extend even to taking part in the great sacrifice itself? The comparison of the knot implies that she shared even in Calvary; for it was only then, and not earlier, that the knot really was untied.
Did St. Irenaeus see all the implications of his own words? If he did, he did not show it. But Vatican 11, as we saw, quoted St. Irenaeus, adding: “In suffering with Him as He died on the cross, she cooperated in the work of the Savior, in an altogether singular way, by obedience, faith, hope, and burning love, to restore
supernatural life to souls. As a result, she is our Mother in the order of grace” (par. 61).
St. Irenaeus probably did not see the full implication. Yet he. a Father of the Church, was an instrument in the hand of Divine Providence. That same Divine Providence led Vatican II to see what St. Irenaeus had not seen in his own words.
Similarly, the human writers of Scripture may not have seen all that the Holy Spirit intended through their words. The Church later would see these things.
Chapter 5:
Multiple Fulfillment
A remarkable phenomenon appears in a number of places in Scripture. Oddly, it has been little noticed by scholars. It seems that prophecies can have more than one fulfillment. Second Timothy 3 opens by saying: “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce....” And the dreadful litany continues. (Incidentally, the picture given here of the time just before the end is as opposite as it can be to the dreams of Teilhard de Chardin, who taught that just before the return of Christ, most of the world would be bound together in close love, and perhaps also telepathy. Compare also Luke 18:8, Matthew 24:12, and 2 Thessalonians 2:3.)
The Jerome Biblical Commentary, on that passage in 2 Timothy, observes: “In the last days: in the Messianic period, but with special emphasis here on the final days before the Parousia [the return of Christ at the end].” “The last days” has a double meaning: it refers to all the time between the Ascension and the return of Jesus, and also to the time just before that return. Notice that the whole time from Ascension to end is called “the last days.” The reason is that we are now in the final period of God’s dealings with men. There is to be no other arrangement or regime to supplant Christianity. (On this, compare Vatican II, Constitution on Divine Revelation, par. 4.) This helps us understand some otherwise puzzling words in Scripture, in which we are told that the time is short (including I Corinthians 7:29, Revelation 1:3, and 2 Peter 3:8, wherein we read that “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”).
Another fascinating instance is found in the prophet Daniel 12:7. The man clothed in linen who has appeared to Daniel raises his right hand and his left to the sky and swears by Him who lives forever “that it would be for a time, two times, and half a time; and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be accomplished.” A note in the New American Bible on Daniel 12:7 explains the three and a half years as either a symbol of evil (half of seven, the perfect number) or as the total approximate duration of the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria. “The author’s perspective,” the note adds, “is the end of Antiochus, and beyond, the final consummation of all things.” Again it is shown that a prophecy may have more than one fulfillment.
Incidentally, the translation of the words of Daniel 12:7 saying that the things will happen “when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end” is much debated. Some commentators have even gone so far as to suggest that we are here dealing with a mistranslation into Hebrew from an Aramaic original (see Anchor Bible, p. 274). In the next verse, Daniel 12:8, Daniel himself is also puzzled: “I heard, but I did not understand.” Most scholars seem not to have noted another possible translation of the Hebrew ukekalloth in verse 7. The expression would then read that these things will happen—in the final fulfillment of the prophecy—“when He has brought to an end (completed) the scattering of the power of the holy people.” This could conceivably refer to the final reunion of the scattered Israelites from the dispersion.
The interpretations of St. Matthew’s Gospel of Isaiah 7:14 and Hosea 11:1, which we offered as probable instances of a fuller or multiple literal sense, can also, obviously, be taken as instances of multiple fulfillment of prophecies.
A specially interesting probable case of multiple fulfillment comes in the mysterious chapter 24 of St. Matthew. At the start, the disciples ask Jesus for the signs of two things: the fall of Jerusalem, and of the end of the world.
Commentators are far from agreement on interpreting the rest of the chapter. Some have tried to divide it so as to have some parts refer to one question, others to the other. But a careful analysis reveals that practically all of the signs given were actually fulfilled before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
Jesus first warns: “For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.” There were false Messiahs before 70 AD. The Acts of the Apostles 5:36-37 tells of revolts led by self-proclaimed Messiahs named Theudas and Judas of Galilee. (There is a problem as to the dates of these Messiahs. Judas seems to belong to 6-7 AD, but his followers were probably active long after that. Gamaliel is represented in Acts as saying that Theudas was recent, that is, in the 30s, while Josephus, a later Jewish historian, places Theudas in the 40s. But Josephus is not always accurate, and Luke may be using the Greek genre of speeches within history. (See chapter 9.) Acts 21:38 speaks of another such leader from Egypt without giving his name.
Of course there will be false Messiahs before the end: the great Antichrist himself, and lesser figures claiming to be Christ. Jesus continued: “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.... There will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the sufferings.” There were many wars before 70 AD Besides the smaller struggles over false Messiahs, there was the great Jewish revolt that began in 66 AD Further, in 69 AD the Roman empire suffered, after the fall of Nero, from what is called the year of the four emperors: Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. The first three held power only for a few months each. There were famines in the time of Emperor Claudius, who ruled from 41-54 AD The Acts of the Apostles 11:28 says that a prophet, Agabus, predicted a severe famine.
There were pestilences too. The Roman historian Tacitus, in Annals 16:13, says of the year 65 AD: “A year of shame and of so many evil deeds, heaven also marked by storms and pestilence. Campania was devastated by a hurricane, which destroyed everywhere country houses, plantations and crops, and carried its rage to the neighborhood of Rome, where a dreadful plague was sweeping away all classes of human beings ... the houses were filled with lifeless bodies, and the streets with funerals. No age or sex was spared. Slaves and freeborn were cut off alike .... Knights and senators died indiscriminately.”
Tacitus also reports many earthquakes in various places in the empire: in the province of Asia in 53 AD (Annals 12:58), frequent shocks in Rome itself in 51 AD (Annals 12:43), in Campania and especially Pompeii in 62 AD (Annals 15:22). The Roman philosopher Seneca and the Jewish historian Josephus also report earthquakes.
Jesus also foretold persecutions: “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another” (Matthew 24:9-10).
There is no need to cite the documentation for persecutions before 70 AD The facts are too well known. The Second Epistle to Timothy adds: “Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (3:12). Before the final end, “Also it [the Beast, the Antichrist] causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead’ so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast, or the number of its name” (Revelation 13: 16; 17).
The next words of Jesus in Matthew are frightening: “And because wickedness is multiplied most men’s love will grow cold” (24:12). None of the usual translations really brings out fully the complete force of the Greek for the first words of this line, for English does not have the needed structure. Freely, it means: “Because sin will go the limit, the love of most people will grow cold.” (What a contrast to the dream of Teilhard de Chardin!)
We think too of the terrible warning given by Jesus in Luke: “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (18:8). We do not have a record of so great an apostasy before 70 AD But there was immense sin. Perhaps we should just say that the multiple fulfillment is not total in all details.
Matthew predicts that “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come” (24:14). The language is well adapted to multiple fulfillment, for the Gospel was indeed preached throughout most of the Mediterranean world before the fall of Jerusalem. St. Paul himself told the Romans (15:23) that he no longer had a place to preach in the eastern Mediterranean. Before the ultimate end, the Gospel will reach absolutely all parts of the globe.
A difficult line follows in the next verse of Matthew: “So when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place ... then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (24:15).
Daniel referred to the desecration of the Temple in the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes (167-165 BC). The Roman Emperor Caligula, in 40 AD, ordered that a statue be placed in the Jerusalem Temple. It seems that his subordinates had the good judgment to ignore the command. However, as the earliest Church historian, Eusebius, tell us (Histories, 3.5), many Christians in Jerusalem did see something that led them to flee the city of Pella before the fall of Jerusalem. Did they merely see the course of events developing? Or did they actually see the eagles atop the standards of Roman soldiers in the outer temple area? The soldiers actually worshiped those eagles, so they were literally idols. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days,” Matthew warns, “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken; then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven” (24:29-31).
We might say that these words apply only to the final end. Yet they seem to be an odd pattern of writing, called apocalyptic, that arose in Judaism around the second century BC and had a run of about four centuries. This kind of writing uses extremely colorful imagery, much stronger than a sober description would call for. Thus in Isaiah, referring to the fall of Babylon, we find: “Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation .... For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light (13:9-10). (Compare Isaiah 34:4, on the fall of Edom, and Ezekiel 32:7-8, on the distress coming to Egypt.) Finally, Jesus Himself warns us that the signs are not so clear that most people will read them: “As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man” (Matthew 24:37). People will be eating, drinking, marrying—business as usual. And suddenly it will be there, the visitation (the concept of the Hebrew paqad: God coming to “visit” for weal or woe). Hence St. Paul told the Thessalonians that the day would come “like a thief in the night” (1, 5:2-3; compare also 2 Peter 3:10 and Matthew 24:36-44). What of the words “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place” (Matthew 24:34)? These words came true most clearly in that many of the original hearers of Jesus were alive in 70 AD But the words can also refer to the final end. As Vatican II tells us, Christianity is the final stage of God’s dealings with man. It will not be supplanted by another regime. So the Christian dispensation, the Messianic Age, will not pass away before the end (On Divine Revelation, par. 4). Interestingly, St. Augustine often makes use of the technique similar to our multiple-fulfillment idea in his great City of God. He studies minutely an Old Testament prophecy, such as that in 2 Samuel 7:8-16 or Psalm 72. Following a translation that matches the Vulgate. St. Augustine noted that the promise to David that his successor would build a Temple was not entirely fulfilled in
Solomon, since verse 16, as St. Augustine read it, said: “His house will be faithful.” But Solomon was not faithful; he fell into idolatry. So the prophecy, which partly fits Solomon, completely fits Christ. He and His house. the Church, will always be faithful, will last forever. (Other examples in St. Augustine’s City of God are 17:13 and 18:45.)
Finally the monks of Qumran,
writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, seem to have had similar ideas, as can be seen
in their pesher commentary on the prophet Habakkuk. They “update” the message to
refer to their own community.
Chapter 6: Inspiration and Inerrancy-General
Since God is the principal author of Holy Scripture, it follows that Scripture can contain absolutely no error of any kind. Yet today there are numerous charges of error in Scripture, even from Catholics. They often begin by confusing the issue with terminology. They say that there are two ways of looking at the question, a priori, and a posteriori. If we look a priori, that is in advance of checking the text of Scripture, we say, “God is the author; therefore no error is possible.” But these people say, “Let us look a posterior), that is, let us consider the question after looking at the text.” When they do that, they say, in effect: “Look at all the errors we found in Scripture! Since there are errors, of course there can be errors!”
A strong example of this new position is provided by Thomas A. Hoffman, SJ.1 As essential for the sacred character of Scripture, Hoffman requires that the writings be: “(1) inspired, that is originating from and communicating the Spirit of God; (2) in some sense normative for the community; and (3) canonical, having official and unique authoritative status.” At first sight, Hoffman’s criteria seem to be in accord with the Church. But we need a closer look. As to inspiration, Hoffman says, “I maintain that what they meant was simply a writing in which they experienced the power. truth, etc., of the Spirit of Christ ....” But this is really subjective and does not at all imply freedom from error. Hence. Father Hoffman adds, “The term inerrancy is dropped in this paper as having no positive theological contribution to make.” Father Hoffman says this because he uses the a posteriori approach. He looks at the text and judges it to be so full of errors that to try to explain them away is “basically patching holes on a sinking ship.”
To try to defend Scripture against charges of error, Father Hoffman adds, shows a lack of faith. “What is at work here is a search for a security that is not only non-existent but incompatible with the total dependence upon the faith-covenant that is at the heart of Judeo-Christian religion, a kind of idolatry that gives a certitude that trespasses upon the true Christian faith-relationship with God.”
At first sight, these words may seem a strong expression of faith. Actually, they deprive faith of its basis. “Believe because you will to believe.” is what they are saying. Neither the Catholic Church nor Holy Scripture takes such an attitude.
Thus the First Epistle of St. Peter admonishes us: “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you ...” (3:15). As we saw in chapter 2, there is a solid, rational process that starts by regarding the Gospels merely as ancient documents and moves forward to prove the teaching commission of the Church, given to it by a Messenger sent by God, who has promised it His protection.
The situation becomes clearer when we compare the proposal of Father Hoffman to that of Rudolph Bultmann, father of “form criticism.”2 Bultmann’s contention is that faith cannot be logically proven. “The man who wishes to believe in God as his God,” says Bultmann, “must realize that he has nothing in his hand on which to base his faith. He is suspended in mid-air, and cannot demand a proof of the word which addresses him .... Security can be found only by abandoning all security.”
If Bultmann meant that we should first arrive at the divinity of Jesus, the Divine Word, and then without further question believe Him, that would be splendid. But he does not mean that at all. Thinking that we can know hardly anything with certitude about Jesus, Bultmann reinterprets the Gospels to make them mean the same as a bizarre modern German existentialist, Martin Heidegger.3 Bultmann says that his “demythologizing” of the New Testament (making it mean the same as Heidegger and removing the myths) is “in fact a perfect parallel to St. Paul’s and Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone .... It destroys every false security,” of trying to work to a rational preliminary to faith. Just as in justification by faith, we have no basis in works, so in faith we have no basis in rational preliminaries. Bultmann goes still further: “The old quest for visible security, the hankering after tangible realities ... is sin .... Faith means turning our backs on self and abandoning all security.”4
In short, the proposals of Father Hoffman and Bultmann remind us of the desire of the Danish existentialist Kierkegaard to make faith just “a leap.” We, as it were, jump up to Cloud 9, and believe because we decide to believe. We must not be prepared, as St. Peter wishes, to “have an answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope you have.” We are reminded-of St. Paul’s warning in 2 Corinthians 11:13-14: “Such men are false apostles. They practice deceit in their disguise as apostles of Christ. And little wonder! For even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”
Raymond E. Brown speaks much like Father Hoffman. He writes: “If one has an a priori view of inerrancy that forbids a religious error, one will have to argue insistently that Job (14:13-22) did not mean what he seems to say.”5 Father Brown means that Job 14:13-22, denies the afterlife. Brown describes the efforts of those who seek to show Job did not do that as “an unmitigated disaster.” One almost wonders whether Father Brown has a sort of faith in reverse that assures him of the presence of error in Scripture. For, as we shall see, it is easily possible to answer this charge, which Brown considers his strongest case.
Before getting into the specifics, we should see on the positive side and in general what the Catholic Church teaches about inerrancy in Scripture. We already saw that Vatican Council I taught that the books of Scripture are sacred, not only because “they contain revelation without error, but because, since they were written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author.”
Now it is completely obvious that if God is the author, there can be no error. Pius XII, in his encyclical on Scripture, Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943), after quoting this statement of Vatican I, commented: “In our age, the Vatican Council, to reject false teachings about inspiration, declared that these same books [of Scripture] must be considered ‘as sacred and canonical’ by the Church, ‘not only because they contain revelation without error, but because, being written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and as such have been handed down to the Church.’”
“But then,” Pius XII adds, “when certain Catholic authors, contrary to this solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, in which authority of this kind is claimed which enjoys immunity from any error whatsoever, for these books ‘whole and entire, with all their parts’-when these authors had dared to restrict the truth of Holy Scripture to matters of faith and morals ... our Predecessor of Immortal memory, Leo XIII, in an encyclical, Providentissimus Deus.... rightly and properly refuted those errors....”
Some writers had said that matters of natural science or history, or things said in passing, are not protected by inerrancy. Only things pertaining to faith and morals, they said, are so protected. Pius XII pointed out the obvious: that if God is the author, there can be no error whatsoever, of any kind. And he spoke of the teaching of Vatican I on this point as “a solemn definition.” Raymond Brown, however, insists there can be errors, even in religious matters! The next chapter will consider these charges.
Correct method is vital in studying any matter. Failure to use proper method in science resulted in such scant progress, mixed with manifold errors, until rather recent times. When scientists switched to the right method, the result was the splendid explosion of progress that has not yet subsided.
The point concerning method to be made here is this: one must distinguish the fact from the how. The fact that there is no error in Scripture, we know from the te