The Catholic Church and the Bible

Continuing the question Rick and I have discussed over whether a Catholic (like Prof. Hochschild) can subscribe to an evangelical Protestant school's (i.e. Wheaton's) statement of faith re. Scripture:  There's a comment over at Open Book by "Thomas Aquinas" (scroll down 2/3 of the way through the comments) that lays out some statements from Vatican II's Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation.  First, let me quote Wheaton's statement of faith concerning Scripture and then the quoted passages from Dei Verbum.  (Thanks to Notre Dame's John O'Callaghan for the pointer to the commenter.)

1.  From Wheaton's statement of faith:

[T]he Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writing, so that they are fully trustworthy and of supreme and final authority in all they say.

2.  From Dei Verbum:

On the inerrancy of Scripture Dei verbum #11: "Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in Sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles (see John 20:31; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-20, 3:15-16), holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself.(1) In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him (2) they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, (3) they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted. (4)

Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and WITHOUT ERROR that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation. Therefore "all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind" (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Greek text)."

On the relation of Sacred Scripture to the Word of God, Dei verbum #10: "Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church."

On the relation of the teaching authority of the Church to the Word of God which is a unity of Sacred Tradtion and Sacred Scripture, again Dei verbum #10: "But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, (8) has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, (9) whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. THIS TEACHING OFFICE IS NOT ABOVE THE WORD OF GOD, BUT SERVES IT, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed."

On the Church claiming to be the final authority in judging INTERPRETATIONS of the Sacred Scripture and the Word of God, Dei verbum #12: "For all of what has been said about the way of interpreting Scripture is subject finally to the judgment of the Church, which carries out the divine commission and ministry of guarding and interpreting the word of God."

The commenter "Thomas Aquinas" concludes that the Church

claims the authority to judge INTERPRETATIONS of Sacred Scripture and the Word of God. In conjunction with the former, I don't see that any claim is made that the authority of the Church is in fact a higher authority than the Word of God itself, which Word of God is constitued by a unity of Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture.

Based on these passages, "Thomas Aquinas" is "not convinced that a Roman Catholic faithful to the teaching authority of the Church cannot affirm the statement."

My comments:  This is very helpful, although it may not answer everything.  (At the outset, it certainly doesn't show that Catholics consult the hierachy "only as Protestants consult their ministers"; but we must remember that's the WSJ's paraphrase, not Prof. Hochschild's words.)  A clear question is the assertion of the Word of God as a "unity of Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture."  Certainly evangelical Protestants have some problems with the claims (logically implicit, I think) that "Sacred Tradition" has equal status with Scripture and that the two never conflict.  Protestants have problems both with the methodological propositions and with some of the substantive results to which they have led (such as, we Protestants would say, Purgatory).  Can someone who affirms Sacred Tradition as a "unity" with Scripture fully affirm Wheaton's statement that Scriptures are "of supreme and final authority in all they say"?  I think that it is possible to do so, depending on the interpretation that one gives to the Wheaton and Catholic statements.  But Wheaton should get some deference (not only in questions of law, but in questions of theological judgment) as to whether someone who affirms an equal status for tradition can treat Scriptures as "supreme and final authority in all they say."

This is not to say that Wheaton's interpretation is right -- let alone that it should be decisive even in the face of the many intellectual and Christian theological virtues that someone like Prof. Hochschild seems to bring.  But there do remain unresolved Catholic-Protestant theological issues:  to paraphrase the title of Mark Noll's latest book, the Reformation may be mostly over, but it's not entirely so.

Tom