60 Years After Vatican II: The Word of God

There were three types of documents issued from the Second Vatican Council: constitutions (4), declarations (3), and decrees (9). While all of these documents are exercises of the extraordinary universal magisterium of the Church – and, hence, contain authoritative Church teaching – it is generally considered that those of highest authority are constitutions, then declarations and, finally, decrees. Ironically, the document we will address today was issued in the final year of the Council, and yet may be the most theologically important. In fact, when I teach the documents of Vatican II, I always begin with this document; i.e., the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation or Dei Verbum.

I do not plan on giving an exhaustive exegesis of this or any of the Vatican II documents we might treat in this series. Rather, I would like to highlight a small number of points that are of import in order to understand each document as a whole. In relation to Dei Verbum, first, it is worth noting how Christocentric the document is. In fact, a former mentor of mine has identified Christocentricity as the key leitmotif stretching across all of the Vatican II documents (see, e.g., here). Why did God reveal Himself to the world? Because “His will was that human beings should have access to the Father, through Christ, the Word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit, and thus become sharers in the divine nature (cf. Eph 2:18; 2 Pet 1:4)” (DV 2). Echoing – though not quoting – the very beginning of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae (ST I.1.1), Dei Verbum affirms that God reveals Himself in time, space, and history “from the fullness of His love,” in order to bring men and women into “His own fellowship” (DV 2; cf. 6). From the beginning of creation, which was through the Word (cf. Jn 1:3), and throughout all of salvation history, God has been calling mankind to himself. The apex of this revelation “shines forth in Christ, who is at the same time both the mediator and the complete fullness of Revelation” (DV 2). Thus, when one speaks of Revelation, in Christian terms, one is not referring primarily to a book or set of texts. Rather, Revelation in the Christian sense, first and foremost, refers to a person – Jesus Christ – God’s definitive Revelation to humankind.

Second, how is the Revelation of the person of Jesus Christ transmitted to others? Christ himself commanded the apostles to preach the good news and they, in turn, handed on to others what they had received “whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or whether they had learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit.” “In order that the full and living gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors” (7). It is through apostolic succession that the transmission of the gospel and the passing down of sacred Tradition are preserved for the good of the entire Church; the latter of which I have addressed in a previous blog post. It was in and through this sacred Tradition that the books of the New Testament – with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – were composed and added to the canon of Scripture; so that the “apostolic preaching [..] was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time” (8). These two means of communicating God’s divine Revelation, i.e., sacred Scripture and sacred Tradition, therefore, “are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other” (9). Together, they make up “a single sacred deposit of the Word of God” (10) and “must be accepted and honored with equal feelings of devotion and reverence” (9). Thus, our second point, that God reveals Himself to us through both Scripture and Tradition and that, together, they form one deposit of faith.

Lastly, the question remains of who interprets Scripture and Tradition. “[T]he task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone […] this magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant.” (DV 10). The magisterium, of course, refers to the teaching office of bishops who, by virtue of their episcopal ordination, have received “the fullness of the sacrament of Orders” and are thereby called to teach, govern, and sanctify in and for the Church (LG 21). As a Catholic theologian, part of my vocation is to teach the Catholic faith. However, it is the bishops who are the authoritative interpreters of the faith as passed down through Scripture and Tradition.

What Dei Verbum has done – in only two chapters!!! – is to articulate Catholic Theology 101. As I’m constantly reminding my students, whenever someone should ask about the nature of Theology, always have at the ready: Scripture, Tradition, and the teaching Church (one never knows if magisterium might be too fancy a word for one’s audience). “It is clear,” chapter two of Dei Verbum concludes, “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” (DV 10).