What is Truth?

(these are notes from my summer Scripture class that I hadn't published)

Rather, 'Who is Truth'? An ancient Catholic idea related to ideas of Bible inerrancy is the idea that Truth is the very person of Jesus Christ as he declares in the gospel. For truth to be a living person, i.e. the Risen Lord, implies that Christian understanding encompasses a dynamic rather than static view.

"...Christian faith immerses human beings in the order of grace, which enables them to share in the mystery of Christ, which in turn offers them a true and coherent knowledge of the Triune God. In Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, faith recognizes the ultimate appeal to humanity, an appeal made in order that what we experience as desire and nostalgia may come to its fulfilment." ~ John Paul II encylical Fides et ratio (1998)

St Augustine "On Christian Doctrine, in Four Books"
' There are two things on which all interpretation of Scripture depends: the mode of ascertaining the proper meaning, and the mode of making known the meaning when it is ascertained.'


Leo XIII - Apostolic Letter Hierosolymae coenobio in 1892 established the Ecole Biblique & encyclical PROVIDENTISSIMUS DEUS ON THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE followed in (1893)
Preamble "...This supernatural revelation, according to the belief of the universal Church,is contained both in unwritten Tradition, and in written Books, which are therefore called sacred and canonical because, "being written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author and as such have been delivered to the Church."
4. And it is this peculiar and singular power of Holy Scripture, arising from the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, which gives authority to the sacred orator, fills him with apostolic liberty of speech, and communicates force and power to his eloquence.
18. "...There can never, indeed, be any real discrepancy between the theologian and the physicist, as long as each confines himself within his own lines, and both are careful, as St. Augustine warns us, "not to make rash assertions, or to assert what is not known as known."(51) If dissension should arise between them, here is the rule also laid down by St. Augustine, for the theologian: "Whatever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so."(52) To understand how just is the rule here formulated we must remember, first, that the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost "Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation."(53)
51. In Gen. op. imperf. ix., 30. 52. De Gen.ad litt. i. 21, 41. 53. St. Augustine, "De Genesi ad Litteram" 2, 9, 20
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DIVINO AFFLANTE SPIRITU - encyclical of Pius XII, 1943
(42)...For Catholic exegetes, by a right use of those same scientific arms, not infrequently abused by the adversaries, proposed such interpretations, which are in harmony with Catholic doctrine and the genuine current of tradition, and at the same time are seen to have proved equal to the difficulties, either raised by new explorations and discoveries, or bequeathed by antiquity for solution in our time.

43. Thus has it come about that confidence in the authority and historical value of the Bible, somewhat shaken in the case of some by so many attacks, today among Catholics is completely restored; moreover there are not wanting even non-Catholic writers, who by serious and calm inquiry have been led to abandon modern opinion and to return, at least in some points, to the more ancient ideas. ~

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Pius X's Lamentabili Sane Exitu ("with truly lamentable results") condemns 65 propositions in Bible exegesis, most of which were softened when less anti-intellectual and more learned heads defined proper methodology.

Pope Benedict XVI - speech to secular authorities at Regensburg, condemning literalism & fundamentalist fanatics, denying that 'People of the Book' is an apt description of Christians, and re-affirming the importance both of the Person of Jesus as the truth Himself, and the contribution the believing community's relationship to him makes to our Catholic Tradition:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

Benedict XV. Encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus (September 15, 1920) anniversary of the death of St. Jerome - "Since the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, had bestowed the Scriptures on the human race for their instruction in Divine things, He also raised up in successive ages saintly and learned men whose task it should be to develop that treasure and so provide for the faithful plenteous "consolation from the Scriptures." (emphasis mine)

"Therefore the Catechism of the Catholic Church can rightly say that Christianity does not simply represent a religion of the book in the classical sense (cf. par. 108). It perceives in the words the Word, the Logos itself, which spreads its mystery through this multiplicity and the reality of a human history. This particular structure of the Bible issues a constantly new challenge to every generation. It excludes by its nature everything that today is known as fundamentalism. In effect, the word of God can never simply be equated with the letter of the text. To attain to it involves a transcending and a process of understanding, led by the inner movement of the whole and hence it also has to become a process of living. Only within the dynamic unity of the whole are the many books one book."
Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI at Collège des Bernardins, Paris, 12 Sept 2008

Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum
#9 - "There exists a close connection and communication between Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end"
#10 - "It is clear, therefore, that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls"
#11 - "the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation. "
#12. However, since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words...(in addition to literary forms)... no less serious attention must be given to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture if the meaning of the sacred texts is to be correctly worked out. The living tradition of the whole Church must be taken into account along with the harmony which exists between elements of the faith.

Further study: Church Documents and Writings Related to Biblical Studies

http://catholic-resources.org/ChurchDocs/ - compiled by Felix Just, S.J., Ph.D.

http://www.hospeiron.com/mod/resource/view.php?id=3 FrPatrickBrady@hospeiron.com

Witherup, Ronald D. . "The Challenges of Biblical Translation."
In The Catholic Study Bible. Oxford Biblical Studies Online.

Essays in biblical interpretation

In my class response on the Chicago Statement, I referenced Living Tradition by James D.G. Dunn, a Methodist, in What is it that the Scripture says?: essays in biblical interpretation ...By Philip McCosker, Henry Wansbrough, 2006, T&T Clark - New York.
The whole book is pretty good, so I'm posting the Google Book copy here. To read other articles in the book, hit the "contents" button.

The volume is a tribute to Dom Henry Wansbrough, the General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. I particularly like His Excellency Murphy-O'Connor's Foreward to the volume. Father Venard's essay in the book gives us some very nice background not only on the process of completing that particular Bible translation, but of the general issues involved.

What is it that the Scripture says?
Essays in biblical interpretation

To Dream, Perchance to Speak

When I was learning the Spanish language in high school, I had a 'leg up' because both of my parents had studied Latin as a required subject in high school. Neither could read or speak Latin, except for the responses at mass. No, I wasn't aided by any knowledge they had gained but by the fact that they both still kept their old Latin textbooks on a bookshelf in our home.

When I found myself bored because I'd read all of my library books, I was in the habit of taking a volume of the encyclopedia or any random book from their shelves into the bathroom when I bathed. The bathroom was the only quiet place in a house with six younger siblings, so sometimes I liked to take a bath just to have some privacy. I never learned Latin, but from this reading I certainly did learn more about grammar than most at a very young age. I also was blessed in seventh grade with one of the meanest English teachers ever: Mrs. Gittings of the Infant Jesus of Prague School, who had the audacity to insist that children learn to diagram sentences even though that was no longer the educational fad. I just loved Mrs. Gittings...even though she made me read David Copperfield, one of the most insipid novels ever.

First studying a foreign language formally in high school, my original approach was to view it as a study in cryptology. Grammar was part of the code; vocabulary the other. I just loved secret codes, and enjoyed solving cryptograms and word-related puzzles. I just knew that someday, I'd find the master key and the whole language would be revealed to me. Nope, this allegorical philosophy and method tanked. I was getting an 'A', so it was OK in that regard, but I knew that I wasn't learning to speak the language.

The next approach was musical: keep the rhythm and conversational tonal pitches and don't worry so much about the words. When I actually started listening to the language, I could feel that I was learning much better. In public places, I knew what language people were speaking even though I spoke none of them from the song that the language made* from the groups of people talking together. The Mexicans sounded different from the Cubans, but it was obvious the song was in the same genre. I learned to say "como se dice" a lot to my teacher, who would give me the words I didn't know. By this time, I'd finally started to study the past tenses, which I think was my major stumbling block and the source of my frustration. They teach only present tense in the first year of study, and I don't know anyone who actually speaks in the present tense.

The approach that finally worked for me was to work and work and work until I developed the ability to think rationally without using any language at all. Little children think like that, it is only when they are around four years old that they have a running verbal interior dialogue. My thoughts when I was doing this correctly were exactly the same as my thoughts when I was sleeping and having a dream. So, I started trying to deliberately dream in Spanish. That worked. I didn't think in English and translate it into Spanish anymore: I started to think and speak in Spanish because I made room for it in my thoughts instead of clinging to the more comfortable ways of thinking in English.

When I hear of people now who struggle with learning languages, I suggest that they try to dream in the language. Nearly everyone I suggest that to thinks I'm crazy. The idea never occurs to anyone, but some actually try it. Many more people than I had thought can learn to do it. Those who do learn to do it have always told me that was their turning point in overcoming their difficulties and eventually they master the spoken language.

The best ESOL teachers (English as a Second Language) that I substituted or served under in Collier County, FL knew all of this intuitively. When Sister Lorraine in Immokalee taught her tutors, the approaches and techniques that she taught encouraged the natural learning of language, especially by absolutely denying the use of the written word. Speech is a verbal skill, and the written word unwittingly short-circuits in favor of the translation mode that gets in the way of actually learning the language. My friends at our Literacy Society and the immersion classes in the elementary schools foster the right attitudes in the students and their results are very impressive.

All of the books designed to teach American children to speak foreign languages seem structured to learn and memorize individual words. Maybe we should play them foreign language TV and try an immersion system instead? We have the technology!

* A funny story about language as song: Once at the Calistoga coffeehouse, I heard a group of people speaking in Italian at a table in the outdoor garden. They were obviously tourists, as there were maps and folders from the hotel all over the table. So, as a good Neapolitan anxious to keep our good reputation as a friendly place and also as a good Sicilian/Markejan, I walked over to welcome them, babbling in Italian. We all had a good laugh: they looked at me like I had two heads, since the music that I took for Italian was actually Spanish with the Argentine accent of Buenos Aires! (I was doubly embarassed, since I should have remembered that, since when my grandfather 'Joe' fled Italy by emigrating to the United States, his brother went instead to South America.)