June 24, 2008
-
Question 80 - Instrumentum Laboris re: Scripture's inerrancy
Question 80 - Instrumentum Laboris re: Scripture's inerrancy
Good evening Dr. Sungenis,
I was reading the May 11, 2008, Instrumentum Laboris for the XII Synod of Bishops and it says that “the following can be said with certainty: with regards to what might be inspired in the many parts of Sacred Scripture, inerrancy applies only to ‘that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation’ (DV 11)” [emphasis added].
My heart sank when I read this and, although I’ve been seriously considering being reconciled to the Catholic Church, this makes me very apprehensive. I was wondering if you could help prevent this – what I think is false teaching – from spreading any further.
I’ve also sent similar emails to Monsignor McCarthy of the Roman Theological Forum and the office of Scott Hahn. I’ve also started a thread on Catholic Answers Forums. Do you have any other suggestions for action that I could take?
With the Love of Christ,
Pete
R. Sungenis: Pete, I'm ashamed to have to tell you this, but one thing you'll have to understand in coming back to the Catholic Church is that most Catholics, including a high percentage of its bishops, have lost the traditional faith of our fathers. The bishops today, in belief and in numbers, are about the same as the bishops were in the days of St. Athanasius. At that time, most of the bishops of the world had accepted the Arian heresy, and today, most of the bishops of the world have accepted the demotion of Holy Scripture's inerrancy. The two false gods that rule Catholicism today are Scientism and Zionism, and both of them have caused Catholics to reinterpret the Bible to their own liking, against the Tradition of the Church. The distortion of Dei Verbum 11's clause "that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation" is one of the most serious and insidious heresies ever to face the Church, for it gets right to the core of the Christian faith -- the revelation of God.
There are three ways to deal with the above synod's statement:
1) It doesn't matter what a bishops' synod says. If it goes against traditional and dogmatic Church teaching, we are not required to give our assent to it, and, in fact, we have an obligation to both condemn it and write to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to voice our objections (Canon 212.2-3).
2) If the bishops want to interpret Dei Verbum 11 to read that "inerrancy applies only to ‘that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation" then this just begs the question, for they must first prove that not everything in Scripture was written for the sake of our salvation. Suffice it to say, there is no statement in Scripture, no tradition from the Fathers, and no magisterial decree that says that any statement in Scripture was not written for the sake of our salvation. That there is some division in Scripture between things that were written for the sake of our salvation and things that were not, is a false dichotomy perpetuated by the wayward Catholic liberals, such as Fr. Raymond Brown, and all the theologians that follow him, including most Catholic seminaries in the world today. It is a virtual sea of heresy in regards to Scripture.
3) It is a fact that Dei Verbum 11 and its surrounding context said absolutely nothing to the effect that Scripture's inerrancy is limited. There is not one word in all of Dei Verbum, or in the other 15 documents of Vatican II, that even suggests that Scripture's inerrancy is limited. To base a conclusion, a conclusion that goes against all other previous Catholic teaching on inerrancy, on one ambiguous phrase ("for the sake of our salvation") is the most irresponsible action ever taken by theologians of the Catholic Church. The clause "for the sake of our salvation" was added precisely to counter the very idea of limited innerancy. A simple and unbiased reading of the context reaveals this. It says:
"...we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scripture. Thus 'all Scripture is inspired by God..."
How much clearer could it be? It clearly says that:
(a) "the books of Scripture" are "without error."
(b) the "truth" was "confided to the sacred Scripture."
(c) "all Scripture is inspired."
Do we see in any of those statements a dichotomy between what Scritpure says about salvation and what is not about salvation? No! It simply refers to Scripture at large, the whole of Scripture, with no separations or divisions into salvific or non-salvific portions.
Hence, if we read the statement of Dei Verbum in light of both its context and the traditional teaching of the Church, we understand that, all of Scripture was inspired to be without error so that it could serve as a firm foundation upon which we can know the truths of salvation. It's very simple. In other words, Scripture is inspired and inerrant for the sake of our salvation. Everytime we open Scripture and read it we can be sure that its words are trustworthy, and each passage will relate, in one way or another, to our salvation, for we need all of Scripture to know all the truths about our salvation. The veracity of one passage is dependent on the veracity of another, and so on and so on.
May God be with you. Let me say that this shouldn't stop you from coming into the Church. We need strong warriors such as yourself to help fight this behemoth of heresy. God may have called you for such a time as this.
Robert Sungenis
