Dei Verbum I

In an earlier post, I had mentioned that one of my goals was to comment on Dei Verbum, one of the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

Why DV? I tend to like, it is the least Catholic of the Vatican II documents in that scripture is its focus. What I mean by that is the Catholic church, in light of Protestantism, seems quite uncomfortable with scripture. This document seems to acknowledge and promise a new direction, but history will record DV as a magnificent failure. Anoter case of all talk, no action, Catholic hierarchy.

Okay, on to the good stuff:

PREFACE

1. Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith, the sacred synod takes its direction from these words of St. John: "We announce to you the eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you, so that you may have fellowship with us and our common fellowship be with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:2-3). Therefore, following in the footsteps of the Council of Trent and of the First Vatican Council, this present council wishes to set forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation and how it is handed on, so that by hearing the message of salvation the whole world may believe, by believing it may hope, and by hoping it may love.

The brilliant thing about this document is the context. There is an insistence that before we even talk about Scripture, the ultimate context is necessary. First that a certain disposition of mind is required to profit from the Gospel of Christ and secondly, Jesus is the revelation of God and ultimately it is about seeing his face and less about texts and parsing traditions.

The Scripture quote, 1 John 1:2-3 is one of my favorite. John is saying, we heard the Word of God speak, we touched it, we saw it, so we know it and that which we have seen and heard is what we proclaim to you. Basically John is trying to let us into the same relationship they had with the Word. The key here is relationship and with a person. Thus the multifacetedness of a regular human relationship applies to our relationship with the Word. Note the first line is that we hear with reverence and proclaim with faith. This automatically precludes unbelievers from forging an authentic relationship with the Word. Also the teleology of our relationship with the Word is clear: "so that by hearing the message of salvation the whole world may believe, by believing it may hope, and by hoping it may love."

The relationship is for a reason. God defines our existence in that he ultimately is the goal of our lives. We come from God and return to him, or as Augustine puts it, "You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

So the context for delving into scripture is found in a relationship with Christ, the true Word of God: it has a faith and worship context and has a purpose union with God. Absent of this relationship, Scriptural study is no better than study of poetry of literature or mythology.

Other quick points. This document is about divine revelation and how it is "handed on" (tradere-tradition). There is a story here about the relationship to Vatican I which I am not quite qualified to delve into, but suffice it to say that it was clear more needed to be said about the transmission and content of doctrine. A few things, the Council of Trent in the 16th century was when the Church last spoke comprehensively to the issues. Much had happened in the secular world since Trent. Vatican I was not a complete council due to circumstances, thus its attempts at addressing issues fell short. Most importantly, there was Darwin to deal with and literary and historical criticism, which threatened to undermine scripture. Thus, Vatican II had no choice but to address divine revelation in light of 400 years of developments and update the Church's (how do we say this) . . . articulation of its belief. For instance, Pius XII had opened the door to textual criticism and the issue of evolution, but still more needed to be done to give the lay of the land regarding divine revelation.

Next installment would begin with DV I.