A beautiful piece of literature that is deeply rooted in the compassionate message of jesus. To know God, to know truth, to know love and life. It professes the attainment of knowledge - both temporal and eternal - so that we may live the most pure and happy lives possible.
The truth found in the old and new testaments is a mirror of the truth of God.
Without a doubt the Vatican II council played a part in changing the world in the 20th century whilst also being affected by other changes occurring during that same time. After two world wars the mentality of man had become synical and distrusting of faith - the Catholic Church and faith in general was perceived as incompatible with the occurences of the century and thus the beliefs of the people. Faith had been lost through tremendously horrible circumstances. As such, the Church slowly came to realise that it was necessary to reform itself to fit the glove that was now being promulgated by society. This was an immense challenge that was accepted by the fathers of the church with much wonder, interest and even some distaste. And to this day there are still arguments occuring that debate the importance, correctness and relevance of the changes that occurred during and after Vatican II. One of the documents that aided the changes is Dei Verbum, the word of God. It is a document that elaborates upon the Dogmatic Constituion on Divine Revelation through a contemporary modern perspective. The roots of sacred scripture and how one may interpret this are uncovered, explored and nutured. Dei Verbum attempts to clarify why scripture is important to the Church, to the people and to faith. It attempts to find a suitable place to put the scripture and a suitable way to explicate it so that it is understandable and pertinent to the modern mentality of man. The document tries to strengthen the foundations of scripture by reiterating the importance of tradition - investigating the shortcomings and the benefits of the application of critical historiography and speculates about the some of the new modern biblical movements. Dei Verbum, is without a doubt, an interesting document - not without controversy. The current Pope, who was once known as Ratzinger, expressed his doubts about the relevance and importance of the document due to several problems he noted in the aforementioned aspects of the document - the modern view of tradition - the problem of critical historiograph and its application to theological scripture and the modern biblical movement. Being a staunch traditionalist it is not surprising that Ratzinger found many of the new theories difficult to agree with. And this situation really sheds light on the problem that was at the heart of Vatican II - How can we make the Church relevant to modern man without losing the heart and soul that has been so powerful for so long? That was the question which was on everyone's mind - and it still is to this day. This essay will attempt to come to a logical and realistic understanding of the Vatican II document, Dei Verbum, in light of the context in which it was born and in light of the current issues of today.
In today's society the Catholic Church faces many problems with regards to defining the truth in divine revelation. One recurring question has is "How do we decide what is true and what is false?"
Ronald Witherup correctly explicates one of the main problems Catholics have encountered in finding the truth, he says "In the Middle Ages the primary way for Catholics to be exposed tot he Bible was not through texts but through stoned and stained glass." This statement alludes to the fact that scripture has been slowly coming more and more into the mainstream picture. And with Vatican II - it has almost exploded onto the scene. Whereas Catholics were once thought of as being completely immersed in sacramental worship, Vatican II has balanced that with an idea of the importance of scripture. Given that fact, it is natural that with the rise of scripture reading there comes with it the rise of scripture interpretation. This is the first issue that Dei Verbum addresses - where is the truth in the scriptures? And why?. Dei Verbum quickly asserts that the truth is found in the tradition and that it has always been found in the scriptures since the early days. If one is looking for the truth, than all one must do is start by looking at the new and old testaments for a foundational view. If one would like, one may follow the development of scriptural interpretation, and thus the dissemination of truth by following the history of the fathers of the church who developed the scriptured, expounding upon them and revealing the truth within the words. Dei Verbum asserts that the truth is found within the scriptures because the scriptures are inspired by God - through man. Man is a vessel of God's truth and knowledge. As such, as much as tradition is true, so are the scriptures because both come from God and both deserve equal veneration.
Furthermore, Dei Verbum explicates the importance of a critical approach to interpreting the scriptures attained via historiographical procedures. The need to properly understand the context of the scriptures and of the scripture writers is explicated and emphasised.
This is not surprising given the fact that both the study of science and study of historiography both underwent massive changes during the 20th century. Whilst these changes were occuring nothing of the same sort was taking place in the Catholic church. As such, it came to a point where the scientific and historiographical advancements were undermining the Catholic faith due to the imbalance between the three faculties of knowledge. Soon enough, the Catholic church seemed outdated in the eyes of society. This opinion largely grew out of scientific and historiographical interpretations of theological subjects. The Church did not respond to the challenges put forward by science and history until it was almost too late. However, when the changes did occur they came about at a time when the human mentality was undergoing a massive foundational change. Reality had been challenged, and society was willing to put forward their own beliefs and ideologies. Many people within the Catholic church noticed this and thus they pushed for the second Vatican council to occur. Given that so much had changed in such a short time within the western world, it is not surprising that some aspects of the second Vatican council deviate from previous councils. For example, Vatican II is almost completely lacking in comdemnatory material. This is probably the case due to the position in which the Church was in - it certainly was not in a position to make harsh judgements - it needed to extend a compassionate and understanding hand - rather than a judgemental and stern fist. Furthermore, the treatment of the topic at hand is totally new. Witherup states, "[the treatment] was independent and not part of a larger topic... it attempted to address multiple, complex aspects of the topic". This groundbreaking treatment, never before seen in the councils, shows just how seriously the topic was to the Church. There could be no mistakes. They devoted large amounts of effort to making sure that they did their best to fix the very real problems the Church was facing.
Even so, the council does retain some recurring and typical characteristics. For example, revelation is ultimately a mystery of how God relates to human beings, God is the trinity - mysteriously three persons and yet one, the Scriptures have multiple layers of interpretation and all layers are important, and there are approximately ten other characteristics that show the continuity between the second vatican council and those that preceeded it. (p.44, Dei Verbum, Witherup)
As such, given the nature of the document. Dei Verbum was highly acclaimed by many scholars due to the "modern and refreshing" character of the document, and Vatican II in general (p59, Witherup). Dei Verbum was received well due to the way it approached and dealt with modern perspectives and ideas. Instead of promulgating traditional notions that were obviously outdated the document breathed new life into the dusty halls of the Catholic Church. This however, did not occur without criticism. Certainly there were some hardcore traditionalists who viewed the Vatican II as a council that knelt at the feet of modernism and begged to be accepted. These traditionalists saw the Vatican II as giving up important aspects of the Church that had made the Church so tremendously unique and powerful. What these traditionalists could not see is that these unique and powerful aspects had lost their charm and their influence due to the rise of science, historiography and a more discerning and intellectually critical mentality prevalent in the modern society. As such, Vatican II has made good out of a very bad situation. Dei Verbum aided the Church in fitting in with modern society whilst also retaining the basic foundational beliefs that make the Church what it is. Whilst also doing this the document went on to emphasise the importance of tradition - a thoroughly antithetical to the professed beliefs of the contemporary society at that stage. Dei Verbum did this in such a way that not only did tradition change in the eyes of many in society from being something old and outdated, but it went on to become something interesting, important and thoroughly captivating. This new interest in tradition saw another rise in biblical scriptural development. Whilst the Dei Verbum did outline the correct way to interpret the scriptures there are still many people out there interpreting the scriptures incorrectly, however, this is far better than a "slow loss of awareness, by a displacement of interest" which is what led to up the problems that the Vatican II addressed. (De Lubac's critique, p.405). Many scholars, such as Avery Dulles found that Dei Verbum refreshes the image of the Church. Some scholars, like Carroll Stuhlmueller found the way Dei Verbum understood and dealt with science very welcoming and impressive. A small amount of scholars, like Donald Senior, found the absence of criticism towards the misinterpretatio of scripture very detrimental to the Church.
In retrospect, it is easy to see just how Dei Verbum has affected the world in areas of theology and academia. In our modern times there are more scholars developing biblical studies, commentaries and other academic developments. Bible studies have become prevalent in parishes, with more and more texts becoming available for this study. This all goes to show that there has been a wide-spread rejuvenation of interest in the scriptures. And due to the guiding nature of Dei Verbum, much of this interest is properly structured.
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