Victor R. Claveau, MJ
Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church
“To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind.”
—Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae
Scripture is more than true history, it is the inerrant, inspired word of God, which is authentically interpreted by the ecclesiastical teaching magisterium.
The essence of the Church is reflected in the various terms which are expressly applied to the Church in the revealed sources or are approved implicitly by the magisterium.
The most honorable name is the one that Jesus gave her. He named her “Qahal,” which the Apostolic Church translated ἐκκλησία, ecclesia. Hence, the Church is the people assembled by God; the new people of God that took the place of Israel and bears within it the promised fulfilment of its ancient model. Elevated above all earthly societies, the Church must belong entirely to God. She is the kingdom of God on earth.[1]
The spirit of the Catholic Church, the one true Church of Jesus Christ, rests on a unified network of Divine Source, much like the Trinitarian Godhead, which, should it suffer separation, would yield to error and spiritual disease. None of these three essences of Christianity can stand alone and still retain their fullness of potency. Rather, they work in concert to provide the intensity, richness, vibrancy and the original translucency of God’s Truth. These structures are harmonious and indissolubly connected, each providing critical information divinely revealed, which together enable Mother Church to discern with accuracy the meaning of the Word of God. In order to better understand Catholic belief, it is necessary to analyze this infrastructure—the tri-fold foundation of Church teachings—Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium (the teaching authority of the Catholic Church).
Before we begin, let us engage our imagination in envisioning an intricate jigsaw puzzle, one which consists of thousands of pieces unassembled. We have never before seen a puzzle, nor do we understand how these various shapes and cutting designs, which appear at first glance incompatible with one another, lock together; however, we can see bits of a picture within each separate piece, even though alone they are unrecognizable. Once completed, what could this brain-teaser actually be? Is it a landscape? A seascape? Could it be a portrait?
Now, let us further hypothesize that this assembled jigsaw puzzle represents the entire sum of God’s revelation to His creatures, and that every teaching we have received from God through Jesus and His Apostles is contained solidly within the framework of this paradoxical lesson, which has the capacity to catapult us into heaven (if heeded) or hell (if disregarded). What’s more, it is comprised of two components—Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Knowing in advance that your eternal destiny rests on how well you observe the truth of this puzzle, would you trust yourself—a novice—to tackle this conundrum independently, would you follow after an odd maverick with prideful and bombastic ideas, or would you rather seek the authority and wisdom of a reputable mastermind puzzler?
Together, Tradition and Scripture constitute the fullness of Divine Revelation—the Sacred Deposit of Faith (puzzle). The Magisterium (mastermind puzzler) teaches by utilizing Tradition, Scripture, and also natural law, which is found within the setting of both; therefore, every doctrine of the Magisterium has its origin in Tradition or Scripture. These two elements of the spiritual puzzle are equally indispensable, like a pair of hands, one washing the other, and the Magisterium alone has the God-given authority to interpret them infallibly. It was Peter, the first pope, who enacted this Petrine privilege when he convened the prototypical Council in Jerusalem to settle the question of Gentile circumcision and dietary laws.[2]
Since non-Catholic Christians habitually reject Sacred Tradition and they recognize as valid an incomplete collection of Sacred Scripture with seven-plus books omitted, they naturally render themselves handicapped in visualizing and in comprehending the complete Divine puzzle picture of God’s revelation to His people.
In the United States alone there are tens of thousands of religious groups, each of them eager to convince their members or potential converts that they have the one-and-only truth, whereas, in fact, what they have is merely a portion of the truth, consisting largely of guesswork in its analysis. When the Bible is dissected and re-written in part and when it is not interpreted in concert with Sacred Tradition and by the authority of the Magisterium, then the Bible’s interpretation will be undoubtedly subject to a cascade of human error.
Protestant ministers obtain their learning at the feet of unwittingly heretical instructors, who, in turn—although their intent is wholesome when praying to the Holy Spirit for guidance—cannot be blessed with accuracy because of their disobedience to Jesus’ direct command to observe Peter (and his successors) as head of His Church. Yet Protestant ministers continue to encourage their congregations to stake the salvation of their immortal souls on the unfortunate fallibility of altered teachings.
Regardless, it is a moral imperative that each person take responsibility for their own faithful understanding of God’s revelation, as handed down by Him and entrusted to Peter and his progeny of popes. This can be accomplished only when there is a sincere and persistent desire to seek God and to serve His truth, not a humanly crafted quasi-truth, and to follow Him wherever His truth leads, beginning with the teachings of the Catholic Church and ending with the leading of an authentically Christian life of sainthood—including martyrdom, if need be.
Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason)
In Catholicism, faith in God is demonstrated by our untempered acceptance of Sacred Scripture, and reason is exemplified by our diligent understanding of tradition. As humans who possess reason and knowledge, we perceive that there are truths which we can know by natural reason and that there are truths that can be known through faith and reason together, without conflict. There are also deeper truths that can be known only through Divine Revelation.
Martin Luther, with his Three Solas (scripture over tradition, faith over works, and grace over merit), superseded the Catholic Church’s teachings. The term Fides et Ratio is only an apparent oxymoron, which can be proven otherwise because the existence of one principle does not exclude the other. It is an authentically sound rationale to believe that faith and reason must coexist in the hearts of all Christians. As Catholics, we live by faith and reason—not by faith alone, not by reason alone.
On September 14, 1998, Saint Pope John Paul II issued an encyclical entitled just that.[3] The encyclical posits that faith and reason are not only compatible but essential together in order to achieve spiritual and intellectual maturity. Faith without reason, he states, leads to superstition. Reason, without faith, he attests, leads to nihilism[4] and relativism[5].
As the first words of his encyclical, he writes: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”[6]
How can we reconcile faith and reason within ourselves? Can we believe in something that we have no proof exists? Moreover, if we cannot fully understand something, even if it does exist, how can we believe in it?
It is true that many scientists fail to grasp quantum physics in its entirety, understanding it only to the level of their individual capacity for awareness. In other words, they can know something but not all about this branch of science. Does this inhibit them from coining the phrase and declaring it as an area of scientific discipline?
There are innumerable realms of understanding, mysteries, that remain beyond our perception and with which we grapple to find meaning—such as the motives behind the actions of our loved ones, or the reason for our existence, and countless other enigmas harboring secrets that our logic cannot crack—but we do not reject these ideations on the basis of their mysticality, nor because their innermost essence is unfathomable to our finite minds.
God gave us brains, and He expects us to use them to discern the mysteries of our faith to the extent that such an understanding is attainable. There exists no real but only a supposed opposition between the truths of faith and reason.
When scientists overestimate an unsubstantiated hypothesis as fact, or when theologians mistake their personal perspectives as articles of divine revelation, such incidents hint at conflict between faith and reason rather than harmony, but this is not truly the case. Faith persuades us to go the extra mile when exercising reason, whereas reason provides us with the balance not to go too far or to create our own novel beliefs; however, faith cannot contradict reason, nor vice versa, when employed properly. Reason can be our ally to better understand our faith. What better definition for theology is there than this? —Faith using reason to seek an understanding of God.
Reason alone should be enough to convince us that God exists. It is inescapable that the universe is well-ordered. Order demands intelligence; therefore, inevitably, there is a Supreme Intelligence responsible for the magnificent order and design that synchronizes the universe. That Intelligence—we call God. God became man in Jesus Christ and He came to make Himself known to the world, proving His Divinity by demonstrating His perfection through His miracles and in His doctrines.
The Old Testament reveals to us God’s interactions with men prior to the coming of Jesus. The New Testament unveils Jesus as God, the fulfillment of prophecy, salvation through His Crucifixion, and the teachings he bequeathed to us through His Apostles. The Bible, however, is incomplete in its revelation as the sole rule of faith.
As it is known today in its pristine form (Catholic edition), the Bible evolved over the course of many years. The New Testament was not completed until sixty years or more after the death of Christ, and its books were not distinguished from apocryphal (false) works and assembled into an approved canon until the end of the fourth century. Printing was not invented until the middle of the fifteenth century. Before that, hand-copying sharply limited the number of Bibles.
The Bible is also “incomplete” in the regard that the books of the New Testament do not contain the entire teachings of Jesus. Saint John, for example, states at the end of his Gospel: “There are, however, many other things that Jesus did; but if every one of these should be written, not even the world itself, I think, could hold the books that would have to be written.”[7]
The Bible is not clearly intelligible to hoi polloi. Many things in the Bible are quite clear, but this is not true of every passage. Saint Peter himself tells us that, in the Epistles of Saint Paul, there are, “certain things difficult to understand, which the unlearned and the unstable distort, just as they do the rest of the Scriptures also, to their own destruction.”[8]
Not only does the Bible have serious drawbacks as the sole means of conveying revelation, but an investigation readily discloses that Christ never suggested that the Bible should be written. On the contrary, in accordance with the prophecies of the Old Testament, He established a religious society to carry on His work (His Church)[9]. He frequently speaks of this society under the Messianic titles of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God. In other places He calls it a sheepfold, a field, a net, a grain of mustard seed. And again, He calls it His Church.
There cannot be a society without an organization, and Jesus decidedly gave organization to His Church. From of a number of disciples He chose twelve men in this manner: “He summoned His disciples; and from these he chose twelve, whom He also named apostles, and who served as the governing body of His Church (and their successors are the Magisterium).”[10] These were the leaders of Christ’s choosing, and He promised and conferred upon them the sanction, ability, and the potency for the execution of their mission, which in turn included discretionary naming of their own successors.
A society is powerless unless its leaders possess a trustworthy ruling authority. Jesus promised such authority to His Apostles. “Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”[11] He instructed His Apostles in a detailed way concerning His teaching both before and after His resurrection, for they were to be His authoritative teachers. “And you also bear witness, because from the beginning you are with me.”[12] The ultimate aim of the Catholic Church with its ruling and teaching authority is to bring men into union with God. For this purpose, Jesus gave to His Church in the Apostles various means of sanctification (e.g., the Sacraments).
Just prior to His death and resurrection, Jesus conferred on the Apostles the powers He had promised. Their Divine commission was— “As the Father has sent me, I also send you”[13] “Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all days, even to the end of the world.”[14]
Although He was not to live with them in the Flesh until the end of time, He willed to live on in the world through the Apostles and their successors. This is what the Apostles understood Him to mean, which is the reason they conferred upon their inheritors those same powers and privileges that they themselves had received. To some, they gave the fullness of these powers, to others, a share in that fullness.
Early in Christian history the bishops received the fullness and the priests and deacons received a share. Biblically, there are many examples of this bestowal of power. Matthias was elected by the Apostles to take the place of Judas.[15] Paul and Barnabas were empowered by the Apostles.[16] And Paul, by the imposition of hands, ordained Timothy and Titus as bishops and charged them to choose others likewise and to ordain them to the ministry.[17]
It is also the testimony of ancient writers; for example, Clement—a companion of Saint Paul—wrote that the Apostles “from among their earliest converts appointed men whom they had tested by the Spirit to act as bishops and deacons for the future believers.” And he continued to explain that they had laid down a law stating, “when these men die, other approved men shall succeed to their sacred ministry.” [18]
In light of these explanations, it is clear to see that the Bible, unaccompanied by Sacred Tradition, does not—historically or currently—stand as the sole rule of Faith. Jesus established the Catholic Church and He vested in her the sole authority to preach and teach the unadulterated truth of God’s revelation.
Understanding Our Faith
From the Archives of Fr John A. Hardon, S.J., he observed that, “To grow in our understanding of the faith means to make it more meaningful, more deeply grasped, more real in our lives.”
If we do not continue to grow in our faith by reading Catholic literature, studying Sacred Tradition, and keeping abreast of papal encyclicals, etc., we might lose it. Fr Hardon also qualifies the term “lose the faith,” as such:
“To lose something is to be deprived of something you possess without intending the loss. We use the expression ‘losing the faith’ only as a loose expression for something which never really takes place.
“What then do we mean when we say that persons lose their faith? We mean that they have abandoned their faith. You do not lose anything deliberately. It is the Church’s infallible teaching that once a person was baptized in the Catholic Church and had even basic instruction in the true faith, he does not lose the Catholic faith. We have to say he abandons it.
“What does this mean? It means that Catholics who abandon their faith do so culpably. They are responsible before God for giving up the treasure of their commitment to the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ.
“There must be a reason for this sobering judgment. There are two reasons. The first is that there are no rational grounds for giving up one’s belief in the truths revealed by God and taught by the Catholic Church for two thousand years. The second reason is that God will never be wanting with His grace to sustain a professed believer in the Catholic religion. All of this was a prelude to our principal focus in this conference, namely that we must understand our Catholic faith or risk the prospect of losing it.
Recall the parable of the sower as described by Our Lord in the Gospel of Saint Matthew. The sower went out to sow his seed. It was all good seed. But it was not all good ground on which the seed fell. There were four kinds of ground, and only the last soil produced any yield.
“The first ground on which the seed fell was the pathway. It was hard ground and the seed remained on the surface, just long enough for the birds of the air to come along and eat up all the seed that had been sown.
When the disciples asked Jesus to explain the parable, He told them, ‘When anyone hears the words of the Kingdom without understanding, the evil one comes and carries off what was sown in his heart.’[19]
“There we have it! It is both that simple and that tragic. The revealed truth has been sown into our hearts at baptism. But that was only the beginning. We must do everything in our power to understand what we believe. Otherwise, the devil will come along and steal the faith from our hearts.
“What do we mean by understanding the faith? We mean growing in our grasp of what we believe…. The core of God’s revelation is the mysteries which He has shared with the human race. By definition a Christian mystery is something which cannot be rationally conceived before revelation, or fully comprehended even after being revealed.
“Such are the mysteries of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation of the Son of God, the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the Seven Sacraments. Such too are the mysteries of God’s creating the world out of nothing, His infinite love even to dying on the Cross for our salvation, His teaching on the indissolubility of Christian matrimony, His command that we love one another as a condition for a heavenly destiny, His prohibition of sexual experience outside of marriage, His promise of heavenly beatitude if we serve Him faithfully and His threat of everlasting loss of happiness if we reject His merciful love.
“It is one thing to believe these mysteries. It is something else to grasp them. Concretely this can be expressed in several words. We grow in our faith by making our faith: more intelligible (even an eternity in heaven will not give us a complete grasp of these revealed truths. However, it is one thing to say that we cannot comprehend, which means fully understand; it is something else to say that we cannot understand what we believe), more clear (growing in our faith also means growing in the clearness of our understanding of the mysteries that we believe), more certain (to be sure that something [faith]is true), more effective (Our faith is not only a virtue in the mind. [It] is the assent of the intellect to everything which God has revealed. But that is not enough. We are to put our faith into practice. It requires humility of mind to believe and humility of will to do what we believe is the will of God. As a culture becomes more academically sophisticated, Catholic believers must become more spiritually childlike. Either we grow in this child likeness, which Christ told us is a condition for reaching heaven, or we may advertise ourselves as Catholics but we become Catholics only in name), more apostolic (nothing that we receive from God is to be kept just to ourselves. We are to share God’s gifts with those whom He places into our lives. Is there anything more precious that we can share with others than this gift of faith? It is the foundation of everything the human heart can hope for. It is the proof that everything in this world is only a means to reach that eternal home where Christ and His Mother are waiting for us), and more sacrificial (I have saved this quality of growing in our faith for last because, in a sense, it includes all the rest. Sacrifice is the surrender of something precious out of love for God. Unless it is precious to me, I cannot really make a sacrifice). Each of these six qualities is part of what we are calling growth in understanding the faith we profess.
“Our Lord could not have been more plain when He told us that we are His disciples if we take up our daily cross and follow Him. What is this cross? It is the will of God crossing our wills. We have urges and desires that are contrary to the will of God. We have dislikes, even dreads, that God wants us to accept. Our faith, therefore, is only as sacrificial as we are ready to choose what God wants, whether we like it or not.”[20]
[1] Koesters, Ludwig, The Church and Its Divine Authority. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book CO., 1938), p. 275-276.
[2] Acts 15.
[3] Encyclical Letter. Fides Et Ratio, of the Supreme Pontiff. John Paul II, to The Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Relationship Between Faith and Reason.
[4] The term was first used by Turgeniev in his novel, Fathers and Sons (in “Russkij Vestnik”, Feb., 1862): a Nihilist is one who bows to no authority and accepts no doctrine, however widespread, that is not supported by proof. Palmieri, A. (1911). Nihilism. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
[5] Moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others.
[6] cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2.
[7] John 21:25.
[8] 2 Peter 3:16.
[9] Matthew 16: 18: “I will build my Church and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.”
[10] Luke 6:13.
[11] Matthew 18:18.
[12] John. 15:27.
[13] John 20:21.
[14] Matthew 28:19.
[15] Acts 1:15 ff.
[16] Ibid. 13:1 ff.
[17] Saint Paul’s Epistles to Timothy and Titus.
[18] Saint Clement of Rome, Epistle to the Corinthians, 42.
[19] Matthew 13:19.
[20] Hardon, John A., S.J., Understand Your Catholic Faith or Lose It, The Real Presence Association.
[21] The dispersion of Jews among the Gentiles after the Babylonian Exile; or the aggregate of Jews or Jewish communities scattered “in exile” outside Palestine or present-day Israel.
[22] Note: The Greek word Kanon, ha-middah in Hebrew, mekhilta in Aramaic–signified a rod or bar, and so came to mean a measuring rod, a standard of excellence or a collection of exemplary objects. Similarly, the rules, decisions and decrees, enacted by the Church to be the standard of doctrine, discipline and worship, are called canons, and for like reason, men talked about the “Canon of Scripture” or the “Canonical Scriptures,” because they contained the rule or standard of faith and morals. The word is first attested in the fourth century when Bishop Athanasius used the word Kanon in reference to the list of books the Church authorized as divinely inspired and hence, canonical.
[23] Daniel. 9:2.
[24] Acts 8:32; Galatians 3:22.
[25] Matthew 21:42; Luke 24:27.
[26] 2 Timothy 3:15.
[27] 2 Corinthians 3:14.