In completing my Master's degree at Franciscan University of Steubenville, I have arrived at my last semester now. It has been a busy, albeit good, four years, and part of the final stretch of getting the degree I have been working toward is taking a comprehensive examination of several courses I have had in the course of the program. The questions on the exam are LONG, and they require a LOT of writing, as they are all essays. But, in doing this, I see the potential to share with you some of the content I have learned, as it is very sound and much of it is also extremely practical.
In the process of preparing for the comps, which many of us are taking at different times (mine is in January), my classmates and I have embarked on a cooperative study effort that consists of each of us taking one of the nine questions, and then creating an outline for it for study purposes. The credit for this idea goes to Patti Christensen, one of my classmates who truly orchestrated the organization in this valuable effort. The particular subject matter I am sharing here today has to do with a class called Biblical Foundations, and the outline that is providing the skeleton for this article is the creation of another of my classmates, Jen Arnold. Jen did an amazing job with the outline for this question, and I am going to use her outline to build my article here.
The discipline of Bibical studies in a Catholic context can be one of interest, as it is a little more complex than either the simple
Sola Scriptura approach of the Protestant or the demythologizing tendencies of the secularist who studies Scripture as an outsider. At the fundamental level, the understanding of divine Revelation from a Catholic perspective comes from an interaction of three realities - Magisterium, Tradition, and Liturgy. I want to examine each of these individually, as they are also of vital importance in their own right as well.
First, we start with Tradition. The document
Dei Verbum gives an idea of how Scripture and Tradition are related when it states that "
sacred Scripture and sacred Tradition form one sacred deposit of the Word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of bread and in prayers, so that holding to, practicing, and professing the heritage of the faith, it becomes on the part of the bishops and the people a common effort." (Pope Paul VI,
Dei Verbum. 18 November 1965, published at http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html - accessed 6 October 2017. paragraph 10). In the previous paragraph in this document, Paul VI notes that regarding Holy Scripture and Tradition, they are "
flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end (DV 9)" So, what is Tradition? The
Catechism of the Catholic Church defines it as coming from the Apostles, being distinct from Scripture yet in close connection to it (CCC 78, 83), and that it is
living transmission. It is also entrusted by the Apostles to the whole of the Church (CCC 84) as the "Deposit of Faith." There are also two things it communicates specifically with Scripture. First is what is called the
Kerygma, which is the central legacy of the divine economy of salvation in human history. The
Kerygma is perfectly embodied particularly in the Gospels. The second is called
dogma, which entails teachings that have been passed on "in a mystery" by Tradition. Tradition is more specifically that which has been handed down by the Apostles through their successors as well under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and this means that the Church needs both Scripture
and Tradition. This presents a big dilemma for Protestants, who often treat the "T word" as if it were the F-bomb, and later here we will see where that came from. Tradition also precedes the canon of the New Testament as we know it, as many aspects of it were transmitted orally before the canon of the New Testament was even written down - much of it precedes as well the official establishment of our current New Testament canon, as that took place at the Council of Carthage in AD 397. Tradition is also interconnected with liturgy as well, as that is where many of our liturgical traditions come from. To simplify the differentiation between Scripture and Tradition, late Orthodox priest (and former Evangelical) Fr. Peter Gillquist notes that in reality
both of these embodied Tradition, but in two forms. The first is what the Apostles
said and taught, and the second that Scripture represents is what they
wrote - Scripture then is the inspired, written Tradition (Peter Gillquist,
Becoming Orthodox. Ben Lomond, CA: Conciliar Press, 1992. p. 64). This is also affirmed by Scripture itself, citing passages such as II Thessalonians 2:15, which says
"Stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or letter." Liturgy, of course, is the proclamation of the Gospel message by both word and action, as the actions are an essential part of the transmission, but they are conveyed through Tradition. This transmission of the Tradition is then animated and given life by the Holy Spirit, and it lives in its fullest in the liturgy of the Church. In
Verbum Domini, this is expressed in this way: "
The Living Tradition is essential in enabling the Church to grow through time in the understanding of the truth revealed in the Scriptures" (VD 17). Also, the following paragraph notes the importance of the people of God (the Church) being taught and trained to approach the sacred Scriptures in relation to the Church's living Tradition, as this is really the only place where it can be fully understood (VD 18). Many Protestants and postmodern secularists today cannot come to terms with this reality simply because of the individualist mindset they possess - to them, we are to "find our own path," and when we start to do that with Scripture by divorcing it from the Church, it opens the door for heresy. Archbishop Mark Haverland, who serves as Primate and Metropolitan Archbishop of the Original Province of the Anglican Catholic Church, makes a sober observation of this when he notes that when private conscience, or the mind of the individual, starts radicalizing Protestant hermeneutics, it results in a confusion because the idea of
Sola Scriptura is not clear, and therefore the private whims of the individual are prone to moral relativism (Mark Haverland,
Anglican Catholic Faith and Practice. Athens, GA: Anglican Parishes Association, 2011. p. 57). Over time, the Archbishop further notes, this mentality will produce secularization - it has been seen in "mainline" Protestant denominations, and now is starting to affect Evangelicals as well in recent decades (Haverland, p. 63). As we will see later, the earliest manifestations of this among certain key individuals has created a very negative impact on Western civilization, and it is mostly because of this aversion to and eschewal of Tradition as the Church has historically understood it. Tradition is integral to the Church of Christ, and it constitutes its memory - that memory is nourished by the liturgy, and without it, Christians suffer what Dr. John Bergsma calls a type of "spiritual amnesia." That is what makes Tradition as it relates to Scripture an important reality.
The second reality we want to touch upon is called the
Magisterium. Defined, the Magisterium is an authority invested in the Pope and bishops of the Church to establish the authentic teachings of the Church. In other words, it is the Church's vehicle for safeguarding and transmitting Holy Tradition to her faithful. The Magisterium likewise then has a vested interest and relationship to Holy Scripture, in that it has established criteria for its interpretation. First, the text of Scripture must be interpreted with attention to the unity of the whole of Scripture, also known as
canonical exegesis. In other words, to put it in language our Protestant brethren would understand, it means this - Scripture interprets Scripture. Although Scripture is a library rather than a single volume, it has a certain flow and continuity within it that must be understood together - cherrypicking passages because they "sound good" to us, in other words, is not in itself Scriptural. Secondly, when attempting to interpret Scripture, account is to be taken of the living Tradition of the whole Church. What that means is that in reading a given passage in Scripture, we must ask ourselves "how has the Church traditionally seen this passage?" And by the
whole Church, it means just that - East and West. Reading Orthodox Church Fathers and writings is integral also for the Catholic student of the Bible, in that many of their Fathers and writers concur with the living Tradition. It is fine, therefore, to read what an Orthodox scholar such as Lev Gillet or Alexander Schmemann has to say. Thirdly, there is a respect to be shown for the
analogy of faith. So, what
is the analogy of faith? The Church Father Tertullian has the best definition of it in his writings when he notes that it is linked to core Christian teachings - it is the authoritative standard of faith as contained in both Holy Scripture and Tradition. The respect shown to it by one's hermeneutic would be that it would be necessary for it to concur with that standard of faith, and can in no way contradict it. This is why the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers testified to the need for "office bearers" (bishops, presbyters, deacons) of the Church who can authoritatively transmit the Tradition, and they discern the standards for interpreting Scripture. As Pope Leo XIII points out in
Providentissimus Deus, it is foolish and false when a false disagreement is injected into interpretation, and if it seeks to divide the sacred writers of Scripture contradict one another, or if they deny or go against the authority of the Church (PD 14). That is why in the same document, Leo XIII establishes three infallible guides for the study of Scripture. The first is the Magisterium, which infallibly judges true sense of Scripture due to the gift of Apostolic succession. The second is unanimous agreement of the Fathers themselves. Here however, there is an important point to make. On the
major doctrines and core Tradition, the Fathers do all agree, but on lesser issues they did at times vary in observation (good example is interpretations of Genesis 6). The things on which they do vary are not things upon which salvation depends, but are just legitimate areas of difference that the Church on those issues leaves up to the individual. The third guide is the analogy of faith itself - it is vital to consult established doctrines of the Church when reading unfamiliar passages in Scripture, and as God is author of both doctrine and Scripture, there can be no contradiction. One proper place for the exposition of these obscure passages is the homily, and it is in the context of the liturgy that the mystagogical aspect of conversion is lived out and often those obscurities are illumined by the Apostolic authority of the Church. Bottom line, Scripture is not totally self-interpreting - some parts of it can shed light on others, but the counsel of the Church and its authority is vital in the process. As we will see later, the further one strays from the Church, the less reliable one's interpretation becomes.
The third reality of note is the liturgy. As noted in my earlier articles, liturgy comes from two Greek words, one being
laos, meaning "people," and the other being
ergon, meaning "work" or "effort." Depending on how one translates the Greek connector
tou, the translation of this can be either "a work
of the people" or " a work
for the people." Many writers are beginning to opt for the second translation, as it also explains the role of the "office bearers" as well. As Fr. Jeremy Driscoll notes, "
The Scriptures are heard rightly when they are read in the heart of the Church, and this happens at the heart of the liturgy." (Jeremy Driscoll, O.S.B., "Forward," in Scott Hahn,
Letter and Spirit. New York: Doubleday, 2005. p. xi). The one area we look at in Scripture regarding in particular the Eucharistic liturgy is a passage in Luke 24:13-34. It was after the Resurrection, and some of the Apostles were traveling en route to a small village called Emmaus. All of a sudden, they understood someone else was walking along with them, and was also engaging in conversation. They didn't realize at first that Jesus Himself was with them but by verse 30 He was in the town "breaking bread" with them, and when they partook, it says "their eyes were opened." What Jesus did there is a picture for us of the Eucharist, and the passage gives a pattern for the Mass that is followed faithfully to this day - the proclamation of Scripture, followed by the breaking of bread. It connects the Eucharistic table in a real way to the pulpit, in that the proclamation and the sacramental act are integral and together. It is also of note that St. Athanasios (my own patron) in his biography of St. Antony of the Desert shows us that the proper place for Biblical interpretation then was the Church, as it should be as well now. It is more specifically within the context of the liturgy as well. Dr. Hahn notes that this was a continuity that early Christians carried over from the worship of Israel, which also proclaimed and chanted the Scriptures within the context of the worship of both the Temple and later the synagogue (Hahn, p. 9-10). Biblical religion, therefore,
was liturgical! The Bible was, as Dr. Hahn also points out, made for liturgical use (Hahn, p. 46). However, Scripture is also proclaimed in liturgy, as well as being canonized by it (Hahn, p. 51). In a cursory reading of the Old Testament, for instance, we see liturgical terminology and contextualization in the various ceremonial aspects of the Pentateuch, where it is even explicitly stated in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. In the individual households of the ancient Israelites, the father took the role of a priest, and he also offered sacrifice on the household's behalf and passed on that same authority to his sons. Jesus also honored the Jewish liturgical rituals in the New Testament, which warrants a brief discussion. When Protestant Fundamentalists in particular read the Gospels, they wrongly assume that when Jesus spoke out against the religious leaders He was condemning their worship and traditions, but that is incorrect and also doesn't make sense. Jesus is part of the Trinity, and as God Incarnate He was also involved in the creation of the world and the establishment of the Jewish liturgical rites. To say He totally condemned them is to call God fickle, which is foolish. If one
truly reads Scripture the way the Church has taught, you begin to see that it wasn't the
rituals Jesus came against when He rebuked religious leaders, but their
attitudes in approaching those rituals. The rituals themselves were good, but they were often abused or wrongly practiced by some who didn't have their hearts or minds in the right place, and
that's what Jesus was addressing in those circumstances, not the rituals themselves. Knowing that, it should give us a renewed interest in the Mass and how we really should approach the Lord's house and table - meaning, we should check our attitudes at the door of the Church, and center the worship demonstrated in the liturgy on Him. The Apostles also followed these same rituals in Acts, and St. Paul models them in his epistles as well when he assumed that these were to be read in the assembly of the Church and therefore he employed obvious liturgical language in writing them. Having dealt with these material contexts, we also look at formal context as well. As mentioned, Scripture was canonized for liturgy, and is derived from liturgical tradition by none other than its Author, God Himself. This is self-evident in many of the Psalms, which were in essence a liturgical hymnal, but also in the intent for public reading of the Scriptures as opposed to private study. Now, that being said, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with studying Scripture as a part of private devotional practice; as a matter of fact, the Church encourages it. However, the Scriptures are primarily a liturgical book, and not merely a private devotional, although it can be used for private devotion. That is important to understand as we learn about the truths Scripture contains.
The major binding factor in Scripture and liturgy is the concept of
covenant. Scripture serves the primary purpose of fostering and maintaining, as well as establishing, covenant relationship. It is the concept of covenant that helps to understand the interrelationship between Scripture and liturgy. A covenant relationship is essentially a family bond (Hahn, p. 55). The patterns of covenants often involved intense rituals which presaged liturgical worship, and the monumental import of covenant oaths gives a sacramental dimension to salvation history. The sacramental act signifies the mystery of a covenant oath, and these covenants are ratified in the proclamation of the canon of Scripture. This proclamation is not merely a recital or reading, but is in reality a type of recommitment, and they are celebrated regularly (weekly, annually, etc.) to renew and recommit the covenant-holders to the promise and its implications. The writing down of Scripture is a ratification, but it is also only for the sake of liturgical proclamation that it is written - the word must be heard to be fulfilled, in other words. The truth they contain is for the sake of our salvation (DV 11) and the traditions of kissing Gospel books, enthroning them, and surrounding them with lights and incense are ancient practices that date back to the earliest days of the Church, illustrating the inerrancy of Scripture as the Word of God. The sacraments then give a mystagogical revelation of the mysteries of Christ, therefore allowing us to participate in Christ's mystical body in a real and personal way. Reading of the Scriptures in liturgy is also a way of making present the memories of the Apostles in a real way too. And, the more we hear them, the more likely we recall them, so repetition is integral. In the sacramental context as well, there is the idea of
anamnesis (a recalling of salvific events in a mystical way, as a type of "time travel") which recalls the event by
making it present. Does this mean that we Catholics "re-crucify Jesus" every time we celebrate the Mass? Not at all! On the contrary - we don't have to anyway, because in the Mass Christ brings us to
Him by a mystery of faith that puts us at the foot of the Cross, and therefore it is not God that needs to remember anything, but us. We remember as a source of self-identity as well, and the liturgy (in particular the Eucharist) is the Church's living memory. Reading the Scriptures publicly in the liturgical context is a provision of the Church of a living interpretation of the Scriptures, which is sanctified and protected by the Holy Spirit. The fallibility of private interpretation is also false, and leads to heresy. Apart from the Church, there are many things in Scripture we cannot just figure out for ourselves, as it can lead to a disaster. Therefore, according to
Verbum Domini, the liturgy is the privileged setting for Biblical hermeneutics, reminding us that the people of God were used by God to write the Word of God for the people of God, and therefore by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we have the Word of God and the Church endowed with the authority to help us avoid the confusion of private interpretation.
Unfortunately, over the years, in particular since the Enlightenment gained hold in Europe and later North America, some "mainstreaming" of Biblical interpretation has had disastrous consequences due to the fact some figures who were prominent in philosophy, theology, and other disciplines attempted to separate Scripture from the Magisterium, Tradition, and liturgy. It is some of these individuals that we want to look at now.
William of Ockham (1287-1347)
The first figure we want to look at is William of Ockham, an English Franciscan friar and philosopher. In his basic approach to Scripture, Ockham inadvertently placed the Bible out of the Church where it rightly belonged into the hands of the state. His views, particularly his rejection of universals in favor of a philosophy called nominalism, which he was said to have pioneered, paved the way of the via moderna (Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker, Politicizing the Bible. New York: Herder and Herder, 2013. p. 47), and this would later impact postmodernist philosophers such as Merold Westphal. This also paved the way for both materialism and the rise of Charles Darwin and the religion of evolutionism. This position of Ockhams also denies the metaphysical idea of first principle, which as Fr. Ripperger notes is a thing from which something in some way follows, and is a cause in itself. That means a first principle is self-evident, true, necessary, and immediate. And, it applies as God as the first principle of all Creation then (Chad Ripperger, FSSP. The Metaphysics of Evolution. Norderstedt, Germany: Books on Demand, undated. p. 13). Ockham's rejection of this universal truth in favor of the particular divorced from the first principle is a stepping-stone to the heresy of evolution. This also means that Ockham rejected the analogy of being, which undermines the typology and typological reading of Scripture. Ockham would have believed then that nature doesn't say anything about God (which would put him at odds with the great Doctors of the Church like St. Thomas Aquinas, who taught that Nature was a "book" authored by God and perfected by God's Revelation via supernatural grace), and therefore only a literal sense of hermeneutics is left when reading Scripture. In addition to undermining Scripture, Ockham also sought to remove temporal power of Papacy and appeals to giving that power in the Church to "experts" in regard to Biblical interpretation (Hahn and Wiker, p. 44-46). And, although Apostolic authority affirms that their successors receive their authority on matters of faith, Ockham wanted to give "veto power' to those who would disagree, and thus undermine authority of the Church. In that regard, he also bore a lot of influence, at least indirectly, over the Reformation later on. And, he was by no means the only one.
Marsilus of Padua (1275-1342)
The next figure we look at is Marsilus of Padua, who was an interdisciplinary scholar who was a contemporary of William of Ockham. Marsilus's basic approach to Scripture was known as the Averroist philosophy, a term derived from a Muslim philosopher named Averroes (1126-1198) who was from Spain. Although influenced by Aristotle and Plato, he used their philosophy to question the authority of the Quran (not necessarily a bad thing in itself), but the consequence was the elevation of reason over Revelation, which of course presaged the Enlightenment (Hahn and Wiker, p. 23). Marsilus adopted this Averroist approach in a "Christian" context to advocate the subordination of the Church to the state, citing reasons that because Jesus didn't claim to possess temporal power, then He didn't intend the Church to exercise it either. It led to an interpretation of Scripture in a purely secular way. His impact on Biblical studies was felt in later theologians, who in their haste to serve the crown would sacrifice their loyalty to the Church - we see this later in the Reformation, when many theologians in England validated Henry VIII's break with Rome over marrying any woman he pleased. Naturally, this would espouse for him and his successors a hermeneutic of suspicion toward religion, viewing it as merely an invention of "philosophers" to control the masses. His conviction on this sounds eerily similar to Karl Marx some centuries later, who notoriously declared "religion is an opiate of the people" based on similar reasoning. Unfortunately, these attitudes were later incorporated into the systems of some theologians as well as philosophers and politicians, and none more evident than the next figure we will discuss.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
The very name "Machiavelli" rightly raises some negative connotations, and even this old painting of his likeness depicts a sinister demeanor in his facial expressions. Although primarily remembered as a politician, it is odd that he also had a lot of influence over some aspects of Biblical studies as well, albeit possibly more indirect than direct. Machiavelli saw Scripture as something to exploit - he had little use for it himself, but he used it at his whim to construct a philosophical and political framework by viewing it totally in a secular context. Machiavelli was antagonistic toward tradition, the Church and its attributes, and toward anything in general that would impede his own ambitions (Hahn and Wiker, p. 13). He viewed Moses, for instance, as a prototypical leader who used religion/Scripture to control people (Hahn and Wiker, p. 144-145). In this way, he is not much different from the self-proclaimed "Liberation theologians" such as James Cone and others who use personal soapboxes as ways to justify the Bible for their own ambitions. Then there is his subscription to the "hermeneutic of suspicion" which is cause for concern. Machiavelli had a purely utilitarian motivation for using Scripture when it met his needs - he was more interested in what works rather than what is true. He also was a master at using his own ulterior motives to deconstruct text. And, naturally, miracles were not real to him either, as the natural and temporal were more important than the supernatural and eternal. So, how did he impact Biblical studies? For one, he saw religion as false but politically necessary as a powerful tool for irreligious leaders to control their subjects (Hahn and Wiker, p. 122, 129). In this way, he also echoes to some degree some "career politicians" in our own time who use the "God and Country" platform to get votes, and when they succeed, often their real colors are exposed. Definitely something to be learned as an important lesson. So, to Machiavelli, the writers of the Bible were masters of political survival, and not to be trusted for faith.
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
The inclusion of the Reformer Martin Luther in this list may be a shock to some, but in reality it isn't as shocking as it may initially seem. Although almost having a saint-like status among some Protestants, Luther was no saint - he was a notorious anti-Semite, and he was also ruthless against his enemies (even other Protestant factions, such as the Anabaptists). In a lot of ways, he also shared that with his fellow Reformer John Calvin, who could also be included. The paradox of Luther, however, is that he didn't deny Christianity at all as did many of the people in this study, but still his negative impact on Biblical studies is worth noting. Luther was one of the first to champion the Protestant battle cries of Sola Scriptura (Scripture as sole authority, nothing else), and Sole Fide. Although I wouldn't go as far as to say Luther rejected Tradition, there is little doubt that he did have a pivotal role in redefining it. This naturally meant that Luther cherry-picked which aspects of Tradition he would keep and which he would discard, and that even extended to the Bible - Luther's legendary rejection of the book of James as an "epistle of straw" is well-known, and it has a lot to do with his rejection of aspects of Tradition he didn't like. In addition, he also made the sacrament of Baptism the only requirement to interpret Scripture - therefore, if you could read and were validly baptized, you could interpret the Bible for yourself independent of the Church (Hahn and Wiker, p. 170). His embrace of what was called the dialectical mode of exegesis - seeing the Old Testament in a negative light rather than typologically and wholistically with the rest of Scripture - led to his rejection of the traditional "Fourfold Hermeneutic of Scripture" (literal, allegorical, moral, anagogical) which also obscured a lot of things in Scripture as well (Hahn and Wiker, p. 175). As far as the significance this all had to Biblical studies, Luther began (perhaps unintentionally) a desacramentalization - he began a process that was fully realized later in Protestant Evangelical traditions of the mentality that "Jesus and me we don't need three" in that sacramental mediation was not necessary (the basis as well of the whole "priesthood of the believer" emphasis in Protestantism as well). To that degree, Luther also began to remove books he didn't like personally from Scripture or that didn't agree with his views, including the Deuterocanonicals. His Sola Scriptura cry though would have the uninhibited consequence of endless debates, disputes, and schisms among his spiritual descendants, and therefore today we have in the United States in particular over 35,000 denominations, fellowships, and independent church bodies, and new ones forming every day over what an Orthodox priest eloquently observed once as "a coffeepot and a disagreement." Also, the state-sanctioned "experts," many of whom had no form of conversion whatsoever, became the prime Biblical "interpreters."
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Descartes is one I have read extensively in the course of my graduate studies, and turns out he was probably a very negative influence on both Western civilization and the Church. Although known as a philosopher (noted primarily for his "Wax Experiment" as seen in his Meditations) he held some sway over Biblical interpretation in some circles as well. In his approach to Scripture, Descartes wanted to banish any evidence of the supernatural from reading of the Scriptures, and thus he aided in the birth of modernity and its problems later (Hahn and Wiker, p. 14). This was a natural extension of his approach to metaphysics as well, as he believed only mathematical equations could explain the universe. As a result, for him, revealed truths were beyond our understanding and the truths of faith were completely unknowable by reason (Hahn and Wiker, p. 165). Doubt, rather than faith, was the starting-point for Descartes in regard to Biblical interpretation, and this also meant that Tradition was of no use and needed to be divorced from reason. And, as he was a committed rationalist, supernatural miracles were to be disregarded as natural reason could not explain them. Like Machiavelli then, the significance of this is the embrace of a secularized version of salvation that cast aside Christ and instead embraced temporal authority (Hahn and Wiker, p. 273). It also meant that revealed truths for Descartes were to be set aside because they were non-rational, and thus the Bible and its traditional interpreters were ignorant and prone to what he called "nonrational fideism" (Hahn and Wiker, p. 275). The will of the interpreter then, for Descartes, takes precedence over the text itself, and this leads to a radically monistic outlook. The result was, for the first time, religion and philosophy were divorced from each other, as were faith and reason. The self-deification of the individual took precedence over a supernatural God, and mathematical reductionism as well as rationalism took precedence over Revelation. Like so many though, a look at Descartes' personal life reveals a lot as well, as he was not the most morally responsible individual and to me it looks as if he was doing away with things in the Bible he was uncomfortable with to justify his own indulgences.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher whose heritage was Converso (his forebears were Jews who converted to Catholicism during the Inquisition). As Rabbi Ben Isaacson and Deborah Wigoder note in their International Jewish Encyclopedia (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973), although Spinoza did receive a traditional Jewish education, his own philosophical positions were opposed to many basic principles of Judaism (Isaacson and Wigoder, p. 285). For one thing, he advocated a thoroughgoing pantheism, rejecting a transcendent God who is apart from nature - God becomes nature for Spinoza. He also adopted a very critical attitude toward the Bible, and was in many respects a forerunner of modern Biblical criticism. As I come from a similar heritage as Spinoza personally, I can understand some of his animosity toward religion - he had been persecuted for being Jewish, and then more or less rejected for his folks accepting Catholicism, but he took it to some unnecessary extremes. His view of the miraculous as documented in Scripture for instance was that miracles were not real events, but only misunderstood - as God was the same as nature to him, it was only par for course that he would reject the supernatural aspects of faith. Although in class Dr. Bergsma identified Spinoza as essentially atheistic and materialist, I would concur more with Isaacson and Wigoder that he was more of a pantheist, as to him, God was the sum total of material reality. This led Spinoza to problemize the Biblical text as much as possible, which he made an easy task by denying the existence of a transcendant, supernatural Godhead. Denying the supernatural then for Spinoza meant a radical reshaping of rational criticism. He ended up then taking the literal interpretation further than the Reformation by identifying literal with temporal and profane understanding. For him, then, the Bible was too difficult to take the effort to understand. As far as Biblical studies were impacted, dogmatic Christianity (and also Judaism) must be overcome by reason. It would have some dire consequences in centuries to come for both Jewish and Christian Biblical scholarship.
Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860)
As we approach the modern era, the first person that stands out, according to Hahn and Wiker's text, is F.C. Baur. Starting out as a theologian/historian wanting to originally embark on a comprehensive study of the origins of Christianity, Baur turned Biblical critic and his "research" was bold in challenging the verbal inspiration of Scripture (Roy Harrisville and Walter Sunburg, The Bible in Modern Culture. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2002. p. 106). Of the Gospels, for Baur only Matthew was genuine, which at this point now shows Baur as "demythologizing" and dissecting Scripture (Harrisville and Sunburg, p. 109). There is also a doubt on Baur's part regarding the divinity of Jesus as well, as Baur sees Jesus as a self-conscious moral Messiah who for him may not have been God the Son (Harrisville and Sunburg, p. 109). As far as significance for Biblical studies is concerned, Baur made the writers of the New Testament to be in conflict (Petrine vs. Pauline) and thus cast doubt on Pauline authorship due to lack of reliable dates, etc. Also, because the New Testament tradition is "composed of fragments," for Baur it presented a problem - total reality of its content was debatable because of only fragments (Harrisville and Sunburg, p. 121). These type of "insights that Baur expressed would be a pivotal influence upon others who would succeed him, such as Bultman, Jurgen Moltmann, Paul Tillich, and Stanley Hauerwas.
David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874)
Of the theologically liberal Tubingen School that owed its roots to early theological liberals such as Friedrich Schleiermacher, Strauss's claim to fame was the denigration of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Like Spinoza, he denied the miraculous (Hahn and Wiker, p. 281) and he also reduced Jesus to a "mere consciousness" of the Church, a Church which to him objectified Jesus as divine. The Gospels, for Strauss, had to be "demythologized" and so did Jesus. In a quasi-Nestorian fashion, for Strauss, the Incarnation was an impossibility as the God-Man could not make its home in a solitary individual (Harrisville and Sunburg, p. 98).
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
The figure of unrepentant Nazi-sympathizing philosopher Martin Heidegger deserves discussion too, as he was a sort of synthesis in his thought of many of the others. Like Machiavelli, Heidegger thought of nature as a sort of "standing reserve" for human purposes, and there was no room for God in Heidegger's cosmology. Human existence is always for Heidegger a "becoming," echoing in some aspects Descartes and his assertion that revealed truth was beyond our understanding - Heidegger took that one step further by asserting that revelation was not important, but "becoming" was, thus also making room for a sort of theistic evolutionism as embraced by his contemporary, Tielhard de Chardin. It was these attributes of Heidegger's views that made them at variance with Scripture as well - if man was still "becoming," then revelation cannot be final, and thus open interpretation was necessary to "update" views on Scripture. Although Heidegger never claimed to be a Biblical scholar, his influence on people such as Jurgen Moltmann and Rudolf Bultmann cannot be underestimated. And, he also has a big role in the development of postmodern attitudes toward Tradition and the role of the Church as well. And, it is often reflected in many people who were influenced by him.
In concluding these thoughts, we now turn away from negative influences on Biblical studies and back to the task of reintegrating Scripture back with Tradition, the Magisterium, and the liturgy. Again the true way to study Scripture is as a threefold method - literary sense, historical truth, and divine meaning. This reading corresponds then to the threefold themes in the Kerygma of economy, typology, and mystagogy. It also is important, as Dei Verbum emphasizes, to examine what the authors (or writers) of Scripture intended as well. We do that by reading Scripture within the living Tradition of the whole Church (CCC 113) and within the context of Tradition, salvation history, and typology. And, attentiveness to the analogy of faith is also vital (CCC 114). Applying these principles will help one avoid the errors of these people we have talked about, and also both extreme literalism and allegorism. Tradition therefore insists upon a literal-historica sense of Scripture that seeks to exalt the historical literary integrity of the Old Testament. And, it is symbiotic with liturgy in dependence upon the historical concepts of anamnesis, covenant, and rituals. Scripture orients us toward communion, as it is the place for partaking in the divine nature. Those sacramental rituals then impart the holiness of God to us. As it does so, it is reflexive in our behavior, as it reflects supernatural grace in us. This is why sacred Scripture must be studied in the context of the liturgy, as it prevents flawed reasoning from corrupting our reverence for God's Word and for His Church, and ultimately our worship of Him.
