In this paper I will look at how the various senses of sacred scriptures interpenetrate each other, and how understanding the interrelationship existing between them helps the exegete to comprehend what the text is trying convey to man at the deepest level.  In order to do this I will first briefly define the different senses of scripture, and then, in the limited space available, describe the approach to biblical interpretation adopted by Ignace de la Potterie, which is the system I favor.  I will also utilize, when necessary, some of the ideas promoted by Fr. Francis Martin in his article.

          It is the literal sense of the sacred scriptures that is the foundation of all of the other senses, and so recourse to it is always necessary, because all the other senses must be based upon it. [1]  But what precisely is the literal sense of the scriptural text?  The Pontifical Biblical Commission defines the literal sense as follows:  “The literal sense of Scripture is that which has been expressed directly by the inspired human authors.  Since it is the fruit of inspiration, this sense is also intended by God, as principle author.” [2]  Clearly this definition emphasizes the historical character of the literal sense, and in doing this, it once again emphasizes the incarnational nature of divine revelation, which is fundamental to the Catholic view of how God condescends to reveal Himself to man. 

          Based on the definition given above, it is important to note the use by the PBC of the word “directly” in connection with the intention of the human author, for in using this term the PBC is limiting the meaning to the original understanding of the words used, and is in some sense warning against anachronistic readings that apply a later understanding of the text, based either in a canonical sense, or an interpretation founded upon the sensus plenior.  In other words, the meaning is tied to the author and his particular historical situation.  Moreover, it is the historical character of the sacred texts that opens them up to critical study, because since they are historical documents and since revelation itself is an historical process, it is vital that the exegete understand the authorial intention imbued within the texts.  To do this historical investigation it is important to understand the texts into their proper context, that is, it requires an understanding of the text in relation to the time in which it was composed, and this involves knowing the various literary conventions used at the time of composition.

          As far as the spiritual senses of the text are concerned, the Church normally has divided the spiritual sense into several different senses:  (1) the allegorical sense, which is used in order to see events in the light of the Paschal Mystery, and this sense also involves the use of typological interpretations; (2) the tropological or moral sense, which is meant to instruct man on how to live an upright life; and (3) the anagogical sense, which enables man to understand the eternal significance of the divine realities conveyed through scripture, that is, to understand his eternal destiny. [3]

          Moreover, the spiritual sense involves a recognition of the relationship that exists between the Old and the New Testaments, with a special emphasis upon the Christ event as the interpretative locus for grounding the fulfilled spiritual interpretations given to various Old Testament events.  But a note of caution should be mentioned here, for one must be careful when interpreting scripture at the level of the spiritual sense, because there is a danger that one could subjectivize the texts and give them fanciful meanings that have no foundation at all in the literal sense. [4]

          In recent years, as Fr. Francis Martin has noted, it has become “. . . increasingly obvious that the central issue in biblical studies is not method as such, . . . [instead], the core problem is that of developing a theology of human language as communication.” [5]  In other words, the exegete must move beyond merely a description of what is present in the text in order to understand the meaning conveyed by it.  Therefore he must discover its deeper meaning, which is not simply descriptive, but is experiential in nature.  This is not to belittle the historical critical methods of research, because they do have their proper place, [6] but one must not stop short simply at the historical level of the text; instead, the biblical exegete, and the reader in general, must be moved to understand the deeper reality present within the text.

          One could say that the description, what de la Potterie calls the “explication” of the sacred writings, and the understanding or “explicitation” of the text, are analogous to the interpenetration of the literal and spiritual senses of the Bible.  For one needs to be able to describe what the text is saying, before he can move on to the deeper meaning conveyed by the text.  Thus the diachronic and synchronic methods of research are a vital step in the exegete’s work of explaining the texts in order to come to an understanding of the divine and living reality revealed in scripture.

          In the system formulated by Fr. Ignace de la Potterie the unifying principle of biblical interpretation is the Holy Spirit, and this is perhaps the greatest strength of his system, for clearly it is the Spirit who inspires the biblical authors to write in the first place, and so it must be the same Spirit who assists the faithful in reading the text and helps them to understand the deeper meaning present within it. [7]  Fr. de la Potterie explains that the meaning intended by the human author corresponds to the meaning intended by God, and so the sensus divinus must be sought in the sensus humanus, but it must also be recognized that the sense intended by God can exceed the sense intended by the human author; in other words, the sense intended by God cannot be reduced to the sense intended by the human author. [8]

          The historical methods of research are indispensable to understanding the text, but in doing that type of research the exegete has not completed his task, for he must move on from the descriptive level to an understanding of the meaning intended by the human author and by God.  One must move beyond the simple explication of the text to its "explicitation," to use Fr. de la Potterie’s terms, that is, the interpreter must experience the mystery through an encounter with the divine reality communicated by the sacred text.

          As the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council indicated, it is a task of the Church, and not simply of the Magisterium, [9] to interpret sacred scripture, and she does this in order to actualize the biblical revelation in the life of the community of faith.  This activity is completed with the assistance of the Holy Spirit who inspired the human authors of the sacred texts in the first place.  As far as the interpretation of scripture by exegetes within the Church is concerned, Fr. de la Potterie explains that, the technical work of determining the intention of the sacred authors is not what the “. . . Council means by ‘interpretation’ of the sacred scriptures, but is simply presented as a means toward this end.” [10]  Therefore, the true goal of exegesis is to discover the deeper meaning of the text, that is, to discover and actualize the mystery contained within the Bible.

          This being said, Fr. de la Potterie next moves on in order to give a schematic understanding of the process and stages of interpretation; and he calls the first stage “subjective interiority,” while the second is called “objective interiority”; now I know from the class lecture that you do not care for his use of the term “objective interiority,” but I think I understand why he uses this terminology, because in the Aristotelian epistemological system the subjective element is that thing or quality which is passively possessed by an agent, while the objective element requires activity on the part of the agent. [11]  Let me give an example of what I mean:  if a man is sick and is running a fever, he subjectively has a temperature, and when the nurse comes in and takes his temperature with a thermometer, she, from the moment she reads the thermometer, objectively has his temperature.  In other words, she objectively has the patient’s temperature because she has actively obtained it from him through an act of intellection in reading the thermometer, and this knowledge becomes an interior aspect of her being.  In my opinion Fr. de la Potterie is using the terms “subjective” and “objective” in a way similar to what I have described above, although I admit that there is not an absolute correspondence between Aristotle’s epistemology and what de la Potterie is saying. 

          Nevertheless, in arguing for the “objective interiority” of the meaning of the texts, Fr. de la Potterie is concerned with two levels of reality; in other words, he is emphasizing that the exegete must actively pursue and discover the deeper meaning of the text, while he is also asserting that the scriptural text in question has a meaning that is independent of the exegetes apprehension.  This assertion safeguards the text against a reading that is relativistic in nature, because the text acts upon the reader, while the reader must at the same time actively seek out the meaning of the text. 

          On the other hand, “subjective interiority” deals with the sacred author, the reader, and the interpreter, who although living in different times, are all recipients of the Spirit’s activity, and this activity is unified because it is the “. . . same Spirit [who] dwells in them for the accomplishment of their task.” [12]  The subjects in question, that is, the inspired author, the reader, and the interpreter, are all indwelt with the same Spirit and so they have a common principle of understanding that unites them in spite of their different cultural and historical circumstances.  They are united but not through a type of inspiration, which was only active in the case of the sacred author; instead, they are united in the sense that they share one and the same faith through the power of the Spirit dwelling within them. [13]  Through this spiritual reading of the text, the person moves “. . . from the exteriority of the text to the interiority of the spiritual experience.” [14]

          As far as Fr. Francis Martin’s interpretative structure is concerned, it involves a twofold hermeneutical spiral, that is, it starts with “. . . the historical and philological disciplines in striving to understand the utterance of the text” [15] at a descriptive level, and then moves on in the second spiral to an ‘understanding’ of the text in the light of faith in Christ.  This second element within the hermeneutical spiral is meant to open up the deeper meaning, that is, the divine reality present within the sacred text.  Moreover, the analogy of faith in Martin’s system is not meant to function as an external norm, but is meant to be “. . . a directive principle of the mind.” [16]  In other words, it is a living reality, and that reality is in some sense Christ Himself, for the unifying principle within Fr. Martin’s system is Christ. 

          Both Fr. de la Potterie’s and Fr. Martin’s systems have a theological unifying principle, in the case of the former it is the Holy Spirit, while in the case of the latter it is the person of Christ Himself. [17]  Of course both systems have their merits, and both have their weaknesses, but they can be connected, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, and so although they differ, they share a common goal, which is to bring the faith of the community back into the work of scriptural exegesis as a living force, that is, as a true and vital actualization of the texts within the life of the Church.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rene Latourelle (Editor).  Vatican II Assessment and Perspectives.  (New York:  Paulist Press, 1988).

Francis Martin.  “Literary Theory, Philosophy of History and Exegesis.”  The Thomist 52 (1988):  pages 575-604.

Catechism of the Catholic Church.  (New York:  Catholic Book Publishing Company, 1994).

Pontifical Biblical Commission Document.  The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church.  (Boston:  Pauline Books and Media, 1993). 

Second Vatican Council.  Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum.  (Boston:  Pauline Books and Media, 1965).

The Interpretation of the Senses of Scripture

by Steven Todd Kaster

Franciscan University of Steubenville

Biblical Foundations

Dr. Minto

14 December 2004

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End Notes:

[1] See the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 116; “The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: ‘All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.’”  This definition would tend to favor a synchronic approach to the scriptures, but it must be balanced out with other statements by the Magisterium of the Church, which approve of the historical-critical methods.

[2] Pontifical Biblical Commission Document, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, (Boston:  Pauline Books and Media, 1993), page 82. 

[3] See CCC, nos. 116 and 117.

[4] The Epistle of Barnabas, as you noted in class, is an example of fanciful allegorical interpretation.

[5] Francis Martin, “Literary Theory, Philosophy of History and Exegesis,” The Thomist 52 (1988):  pages 575-576.

[6] See Martin, page 587; in his article he uses the historical critical and literary methodologies in order to explain the text of Mark 13:32-42, and calls this explanation “commentary,” but then goes on to say, “There is, however, another step necessary in a total reading of the text.  We may term this ‘interpretation’:  it attempts to understand what the text is talking about.”  In other words, what is the deeper meaning, what is the reality that the text is meant to convey to the reader?  If the exegete stops at the descriptive level, he has not completed his work.

[7] See 2nd Peter 1:17-21; “For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,’ we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.  And we have the prophetic word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

[8] See Rene Latourelle (Editor), Vatican II Assessment and Perspectives, (New York:  Paulist Press, 1988), page 234.  In saying this Fr. de la Potterie is criticizing J. Gnilka, who holds that the divine sense and the human sense are identical, and “. . . that the only scientific way of understanding Scripture is to extract its theological sense by the use of the historical-critical method, and that it would not be ‘scientific’ to go any further than this.”  As Fr. de la Potterie goes on to explain, “This position seems untenable to us, for it implies that theological science can only be an historical science.”

[9] See Dei Verbum, no. 10; this section deals with the authority of the Magisterium in interpreting scripture.  See also Dei Verbum, no. 12; this section concerns the interpretation of the text within the broader community of the Church.  See also Latourelle, page 238.

[10] Latourelle, page 239.

[11] See Latourelle, page 242; when dealing with ‘subjective interiority’ Fr. de la Potterie emphasizes the fact that in Dei Verbum the Council used the passive form verbs describing inspiration, reading, and interpreting in their Christian context.

[12] Latourelle, page 243.

[13] See Latourelle, page 245.

[14] Latourelle, page 246.

[15] Martin, pages 594-595.

[16] Martin, page 595.

[17] Martin, page 604; as Fr. Martin puts it, “In the historical terms in which we pose the problem today, Jesus Christ is at one and the same time the member of a past generation whose history reaches us through the witness of the text and a person present to us now.”  Fr. de la Potterie’s system is pneumatological while Fr. Martin’s is christological, but both systems bring about the same result, a unification of faith and reason in interpreting the scriptural texts.

Copyright © 2004-2025 Steven Todd Kaster