Scripture, Tradition, and the Response of Faith
Prayer
Lord God, in the new covenant you shed light on the miracles
you worked in ancient times: the Red Sea is the symbol of our baptism, and the nation you
freed from slavery is a sign of your Christian people. May every nation share the faith and
privilege of Israel
and come to new birth in the Holy Spirit.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
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| Scripture in its original language of Hebrew. |
Scripture Texts:
Exodus 3: 1-15
Luke 1: 45
Romans 16: 26
1 Timothy 2: 3-4
1 Cor. 10: 11
Hebrews 1: 1-2
Hebrews 11: 1
I.
The Revelation of God
a. Divine
Revelation is an order of knowledge through which God has revealed and given
Himself to us by making known the mystery, the plan of His good pleasure,
formed from all eternity in Christ on behalf of everyone (CCC #50)
i.
God’s gradual self-communication prepared humanity by
stages to accept the supernatural self-revelation that culminated in the person
of Jesus Christ (CCC #53)
ii.
God has fully revealed His plan by sending us His
beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and His Spirit (CCC
#53)
iii.
God’s revelation enables us to respond to Him, and to
know and love Him far beyond our native capacity (CCC
#52)
b. Revelation
in the Old Testament shows us the beautiful way through which God reveals
Himself
i.
God’s revelation began with creation and the
manifestation of Himself to Adam and Eve (CCC
#54)
ii.
God spoke to our first parents, inviting them to
intimate communication with Him and clothed them with grace and justice (CCC #54)
iii.
The eventual fall of Adam and Eve did not thwart God’s
revelation. After the fall, God lifted
them up with the hope of salvation and promised redemption (CCC #55)
iv.
The covenant with Noah after the flood exemplified the
divine economy towards people separated in their own lands, with their own
languages and families (CCC #56)
1. Covenant
is a solemn promise or ritualized agreement between two persons.
2. Economy
is the theological term used to refer to God’s activity in the world (Greek
origin of word – household)
v.
In order to gather the scattered human race, God called
Abram and chose him to be the father of faith.
Those descended from Abraham would be stewards of the promise made to
the patriarchs, the people chosen to prepare for that day when God should
gather all His children into the unity of the Church (CCC
#59)
vi.
God continued to form Israel as His people, freed them
from the slavery in Egypt
and established the covenant with them on Mount Sinai
(CCC #62)
vii.
Through the prophets God prepared the people to accept
the salvation intended for all humanity (CCC
#64)
c. Revelation
in the New Testament – The New Covenant
i.
In Jesus Christ, God has fully revealed Himself. Because the Christian economy is the new and
definitive covenant, it will never pass away nor will anything be added before
the glorious manifestation of Jesus Christ at the end of time (CCC #66)
ii.
Christ commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel as
the source of all saving truth and all moral discipline (CCC #75)
II.
The threefold dimension of revelation – the deposit of
faith
a. The
Holy Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, contain God’s Word and, because
they are inspired, truly are His word (CCC
#135).
i.
God is the author of sacred Scripture because He
inspired its human authors, acting in them and by means of them, and thus gives
assurance that their writings teach without error His saving truth (CCC #136)
ii.
The Catholic Church accepts and honors as inspired the
46 canonical books of the Old Testament and the 27 canonical books of the New
Testament (CCC #138)
iii.
“The unity of the two Testaments proceeds from the
unity of God’s plan and his revelation.
The Old Testament prepares for the new and the New Testament fulfills
the Old; the two shed light on each other; and both are the true Word of God” (CCC #140).
iv.
Some denominations do not accept all 73 of these books
as inspired. Compare the books in a King
James Bible with the books in the New American Bible: 39 books in Old Testament Protestant Bibles
(the Hebrew Canon); 46 in Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican Bibles
(Septuagint or Greek Canon). Additional
7 books called “deuterocanonical” and they are Sirach, Wisdom, 1 and 2
Maccabees, Tobit, and Judith. These
books were included in the Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures (250
B.C.), but excluded from the Hebrew Canon.
v.
The Church has always honored the sacred Scriptures and
is nourished by them, as she as the very Body of the Lord. Both nourish and govern the whole Christian
life (CCC #141).
b. Tradition
is the living communication of the Word brought about by the Holy Spirit.
i.
Through Tradition, the Church in her teaching, life,
and worship perpetuates and communicates to every generation all that she is
and all that she believes (CCC
#78).
ii.
Tradition is a life force and draws from almost 4,000
years of faith experience.
iii.
In Catholicism, Tradition and sacred Scripture are
bound closely together and communicate with each other. Both flow out of the same source, come
together in a way to form a single reality, and tend toward the same goal (CCC #80)
c. Magisterium
is the teaching authority of the Church expressed by the Pope and the bishops
who are in union with him.
i.
The Church’s magisterium is entrusted with the task of
authentically interpreting God’s word, whether written or handed down
orally. This teaching office exercises
authority in the name of Jesus Christ to the bishops in communion with the
successor of Peter, the bishop of Rome
(CCC #85).
ii.
The Church’s magisterium exercises the authority it
holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas.
1. Dogmas
are truths contained in Divine Revelation that oblige the Catholic people to an
irrevocable commitment of faith (CCC
#88). Belief in these truths is a
requirement of our faith and God’s help and grace is necessary for us to
believe.
2. Doctrine
is a generic term for a teaching of the Church regarding faith and morals (CCC #135)
iii.
Within the whole revelation of the Christian mystery
there is a “hierarchy of truths” in the Catholic teaching (CCC #90).
The Paschal Mystery and the revelation of God in Jesus are the central
core of Church doctrine. All Church
teachings are to be embraced because they are interdependent. However, certain truths are more intimately
related to the centrality of Christ and His revelation of God’s fullness.
III.
The Church as servant of revelation
a. Sacred
Tradition, sacred Scripture, and the Church’s magisterium are so interconnected
that none can stand without the others.
Working together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy
Spirit, they are sources of truth (CCC
#95).
b. So
that the full, living Gospel should always be preserved in the Church, the
apostles left the bishops as their successors, giving them their own teaching
authority (CCC #77).
c. All
the faithful fully initiated into the Church have received the Holy Spirit, who
instructs them and guides them into all truth.
They share in the understanding and handing on of revealed truth (CCC #91).
i.
“Throughout the ages, there have been so called
‘private revelations’, some of which have been recognized by the authority of
the Church. They do not belong, however,
to the deposit of faith. It is not their
role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive revelation, but to help live
more fully by it in a certain period of history” (CCC
#67).
ii.
‘Private’ or personal revelation cannot contradict
Christ’s revelation in the teachings of the Church.
Focus Questions:
·
How does God reveal Himself to you?
·
Which aspect of the deposit of faith (Scripture,
Tradition, and Magisterium) do you feel is least appreciated? Why is it important to have all three?
·
What has the Bible meant in your life up until
now?
·
How well do I know the Scriptures? Have I made reading the Bible an important
part of my daily life?
·
Has the Church taught things that I find hard to
accept? What can I do to reach a better
understanding of those teachings?
Resources:
·
Catechism of the Catholic Church #50-141
·
Vatican II
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum)
·
The Catholic
Way: Faith
for Living Today, Bishop Donald Wuerl, ch. 5-8, p. 17-33.
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The Response of Faith
I.
The nature of faith
a. Faith
is the assent given in trust and obedience to truth.
i.
By faith, humans submit themselves completely and give
their assent of intellect and will to God who reveals Himself (CCC #143).
1. Faith
is first a personal commitment to God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit (CCC #150)
2. Faith
is secondly a free assent, a saying ‘yes’ to the whole truth that God has
revealed (CCC #150)
3. Faith
is a relationship – a loving yes to God who has first loved us. Faith is our response to God’s love.
ii.
The obedience of faith (obedience meaning ‘to listen
to’) is a free submission to God’s spoken Word simply because its truth is
guaranteed by God, who is truth itself (CCC
#144).
b. Faith
is an act of the intellect.
i.
Even though faith is possible only by grace it is an
authentically human act. To trust in God
and to believe the truths He has revealed does not contradict either human
dignity or reason (CCC #154).
ii.
We believe because of the authority of God, who reveals
and who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
Therefore faith is certain. As
Cardinal Newman stated, “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt” (CCC #157).
1. It
is the nature of faith that, while it is firm because it comes from God’s
grace, it also contains an element of darkness and/or doubt.
2. Faith
is either growing or declining. It is
our responsibility to cooperate with God in the growth of faith.
iii.
“Faith seeks understanding (St. Anselm). The grace of faith opens the eyes of your
hearts to a lively understanding of the content of revelation (CCC #158).
Faith is our response to God’s revelation.
II.
The mystery of faith
a. Faith
is a gift of God.
i.
Faith is a gift from God, a supernatural virtue infused
by Him. Faith exists with the help of
grace (CCC #153). Grace is God’s presence in our lives.
ii.
Faith is God’s entire free gift. Faith must grow and be nurtured. We can lost this priceless gift through
carelessness or sin.
1. Faith
is under assault from without: sexual
permissiveness in our society, secularism, violence in the world and in the
media, etc.
2. Faith
is under assault from within ourselves.
We will struggle with doubt and temptations until we see God face to
face.
b. Faith
is a loving relationship with God.
i.
Faith is belief in God’s love.
ii.
The two dimensions of the covenant with God are:
1. God,
as the initiator of the covenant, promises steadfast love and absolute
fidelity.
2. The
human person responds to God through Jesus, all the time saying the ‘yes’ of
faith through the life of the Church.
iii.
Believing is an ecclesial act as well as personal. The Church’s faith precedes, engenders,
hears, and nourishes our faith. The
Church is the mother of all believers.
As St. Cyprian said, “No one can have God as Father who does not have
the Church as mother” (CCC
#180-181).
iv.
Faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation, since
without faith it is impossible to please God (CCC
#161).
1. Every
person who is ignorant of Christ in His Church, but seeks the truth and does
the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it can be saved (CCC #1260).
2. “It
may be supposed that such persons would have desired baptism explicitly if that
had known its necessity” (CCC #1260)
v.
Believing is a free and conscious human act,
corresponding to the dignity of the human person. No one can be forced to embrace the faith
unwillingly (CCC #1260).
vi.
Faith enables us to enjoy on earth the very life of
God. It is in a sense “eternity already
begun”. Faith on earth leads to vision
in the life to come. Faith in this life
is the beginning of vision in the next life.
Focus Questions:
·
“Ten thousand difficulties doe not make one
doubt.” Have you experienced what John
Newman describes as certain faith? How
do you deal with doubts?
·
What can be done to keep faith active and
growing?
·
What images of faith are helpful to you? Why?
Resources:
·
Catechism of the Catholic Church, #26-184, 1260.
·
Vatican II
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum)
