Catholic Biblical Interpretation

A Bible-only Protestant made a remark to this effect: "Your Catholic theorising is all very well, but I prefer the sacred text for more clarity."

My reply: This does bring us to the nub of the issue, which is worth considering before returning to specific points – 

From a Catholic point of view, we are not committed to the position that every word of the Bible is to be taken literally, in fact nobody — Catholic or Protestant — actually does. "Bible-only" Christians are presumably forced into this position because they have rejected the authority of the Church to interpret the Bible. In the 16th Century several groups did attempt this, but none of them was fully consistent. For example, none of them eat a roast lamb with head and entrails on the night of the Passover, despite the instruction "Ye shall keep this Feast throughout your generations forever". All except the 7th-day Adventists celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday, not Saturday, following not the Bible but Catholic tradition. All of them address their father as "Father" or “Dad” or “Papa” or “Pop” – which is only short for “Pater, Father” – despite Our Lord saying "Call no man your father". 

Yet none of them take Our Lord literally when He says "This is My Body". It seems to me that each "Bible-only" group is following a tradition of interpretation, yet simply denies this, alleging that they are following the plain words from God. Yet they still differ. So what is going wrong? Luther made this painful discovery a mere ten years after he had launched his novel idea of private individual inspiration, which was directed more against the hierarchy than towards the Word of God.

Returning to the Sacred text, the tradition of interpretation of the Scriptures has for the most part been allegorical: the Ark "is" the Catholic Church; the Journey throught the Red Sea "is" the purification of Baptism, etc etc. This method is taken to very elaborate lengths by the Fathers of the Church. It leaves to one side the question of whether the narrative is, in addition to its allegorical value, factual on the literal level. In general, as against the redical Protestant interpreters of the 19th Century, the Catholic Church has maintained that the "adventures of the Chosen Race" were indeed historical events that were chosen by God to drive home the lessons of Salvation in a deep way. But an open mind is still kept on what is nowadays called the precise literary genre of the text. This "Form Criticism" was given a bad name by the efforts of Bultmann and others in the 19th century, who tried to apply methods to the New Testament Narrative that were completely inappropriate to a narrative that was written within the actual living memory of the persons involved. Nonetheless it has not been ruled out as a legitimate line of enquiry.

It seems that the compilation called "The Books" (Ta Biblia) constitutes "The Scrapbook of the People of God". The Catholic church teaches that these are accounts of real events. Yes, they are all inspired by God, but what is it that is inspired? Some facts are inspired 'per se' – in themselves – but other parts are inspired 'per accidens' – indirectly.  They are background details inserted to round off the narrative. Catholics are not bound to believe that every single detail is literally true in the way that a modern history book would present it. When we look at the circumstantial details of the reign of King David as set out in the Books of Kings, and then compare it with the first dozen chapters of Genesis, we see at once the difference of atmosphere. The Book of Job is written in a highly stylised manner suitable for oral recitation, and includes detailed quotations about conversations in Heaven. Job's dialogues with God are filled with supernatural wisdom such that it seems plain they were inspired. Yet I do not see that we are committed to the proposition that there actually was a man named Job who acted out the events of the narrative. The intention of the book is not to tell us about a man named Job but to instruct us in the mysteries of Divine Providence.

St Thomas, in his usual common-sense fashion, states the we ought to assume that a passage is literally true unless there is good reason to believe otherwise, but that if the literal interpretation conflicts with other incontrovertible facts, it should be assumed that the Biblical text is there allegorical rather than literal. There are two problems: (1) the text of the Bible itself makes few concessions to the reader - although certain books, such as 2 Macchabees, John & the Apocalypse break off to assure the reader that the facts are as stated; (2) the entire question is so fraught that exaggerated claims are made on both sides. As for the "Prevailing Orthodoxy" of school textbook science, that is in much deeper trouble than is generally reported in textbooks and most newspapers; there has been some fascinating reporting in New Scientist magazine, which would surprise the naive "Science wins over religion" advocate.

Against this background it is the Catholic Church, and not a pre-supposed literal sense, that are the safe guide for the Catholic.

Returning briefly to the specific issues, I ask myself the following question: Granted that there is no a priori reason why God the Father could not have created the Universe over billions of years, let us ask ourselves the following hypothetical question: If the Universe and the Earth really is billions of years old, produced by the will of God according to physical and supernatural forces far beyond the contemporary understanding of the human race in 3000 BC, and if He wanted to instruct His chosen people to save their souls, how would He do so? Would He send them a textbook of astronomy and geology concerning the structure of the Solar System? Again, there is no a priori reason why He could not, but in fact He very seldom contributes data of this kind, leaving it to Man to discover these things for himself. In fact, the actual narrative at the beginning of Genesis appears an eminently suitable method, even if (ex hypothesi) the Universe were billions of years old, if that were God's intention.

It is from this angle that I approach the question of the origins of the Earth and of the human race.