Jesus Christ as the Center of Scripture
Posted by Andrew Haines in Biblical Commentary, Church Doctrine, Theology on 12.16.2007
Sorry I haven't been around as of late. Much thanks to my colleagues for keeping up the posts in my absence.
I haven't had much time to do 'fun writing' lately, but I have been writing for other purposes. Although what you're about to read was originally part of a paper I'm doing on Catholic scriptural interpretation, I thought that this particular snippet would be a good conversation-starter. The title of the paper is, "Jesus Christ as the Fullness of Time: An Essential Foundation for Authentic Scriptural Hermeneutic," and it deals with Christ's fundamental role as the basis of true and accurate scriptural interpretation.
The following section, specifically, is concerned with the nature of scripture as God's revelation, and man's nature as always predisposed toward discovering the truth. In the end, Christ alone is that Truth...
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Since the ultimate coherence of Sacred Scripture comes only from an integrally contextual read of all individual pericopes (i.e. by considering all other scriptural texts as either prefacing or relating subsequently to any given passage), there must naturally be a standard by which to measure objectively this innate unity of revealed truths. In fact, it would seem that unless this archetype of unanimity exists independent of any practical application within scripture itself, there really is no hope for an authentic and accurate scriptural hermeneutic; to this end, the Second Vatican Council writes that, “holy scripture requires to be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit through whom it was written [emphasis mine].” This does not come as a surprise for two reasons, in particular. First, revelation—as a self-communication of the Divine Absolute, to use somewhat Hegelian terminology—cannot be self-contradicting, since God’s very being is itself objectively unified and thus must be communicated as such. Secondly, since the human person is naturally disposed toward reason’s proper functionality, which consists of an initially analytical process rightly aimed at reconstructing, synthetically and as a whole, various components of individual reflection, a truly ‘human’ read of scripture will naturally implement profound contextualization.
What then is this intensely human yet completely divine principle, which enables scripture to be read with an unparalleled depth of understanding? Quite certainly enough it is the Person of Jesus Christ: full God made full man, communicator of the divine Logic and inapproachably perfect Mediator of divine revelation in the fullest sense. Only in the Deus homo is the message of God able to be transmitted and, likewise, able to be interpreted; the logoV functions both actively and passively, as it were, in the speaking of the Word and in its being heard. This full range of Christ’s presence in his role as Dei Verbum is also, quite noticeably, entirely ‘Incarnational’: not only does he send forth the “Spirit through whom [scripture] was written,” but he also embodies the message of all scripture in his own Precious and crucified Body. In short, it is nothing less than necessary that Jesus Christ was made man for our sakes, not only to save us from the Fall we incurred in Original Sin, but then to remake again our human nature in his own perfect humanity.
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I'm still finishing the paper, so any thoughts or comments would be appreciated!
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