(Special notes for class discussions taken from ReEd-1 book “Initium Fidei”)
Lesson Three: The Sources of the Faith 1. Sacred Scripture 2. Sacred Tradition 3. Human Experience
Revelation, the divine self-gift of God, is communicated in different ways. Primarily, it is communicated in two ways: through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Secondarily, it also manifests in the human experience of people, in the Christian witness and culture that exist among human beings. Together, these three sources (Scripture, Tradition and human experience) come from the same origin (God) and unite in one goal: the proclamation of revelation in Christ. The Church looks to God’s revelation in the Scripture and Tradition as the only authentic and complete source for our knowledge about God and God’s will for the whole human race. This in turn dialogues hand in hand with the human experience of the believing community and the world. It is the responsibility of the whole Church, through her teaching ( doctrine ), her sacraments ( worship ) and her ministries ( morals ), to transmit to every new generation all that God has revealed.
Sacred Scripture
Sacred Scripture, collected in the Bible, is the inspired record of how God dealt with His people, and how they responded to, remembered and interpreted that experience. The Scriptures arose as an expression of the people’s experience of God, and as a response to their needs. The Bible was written by persons from the people of God, for the people of God, about the experience of the people of God. Thus, collectively, the Scriptures form “The Book of the People of God, the Church.”
form “The Book of the People of God, the Church.” To further understand the Sacred Scripture as a source of the faith and of theology, we must examine some important characteristics of Scripture, namely that Scripture is: divinely inspired; 2) inerrant, or free from error; and 3) defined by a canon.
namely that Scripture is:
Biblical Inspiration
Biblical inspiration is a special gift given to the authors of the sacred text. Inspiration here does not simply mean being roused and encouraged into creating a text the way some artists or authors may be “inspired” to paint or compose some piece of art. Inspiration here refers to a charism, a special grace or gift given by the Holy Spirit, for the purpose of building up the Christian community.
Therefore, the entirety of the Bible was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. God chose certain human authors (not just authors, but even editors, compilers and communities), who made full use of their human faculties, guided by the Holy Spirit who enlightened their minds, to put into writing what God wanted written.
Biblical Inerrancy
Biblical inerrancy is often times understood as “freedom from error.” As such, the “books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings.”
The Canon of Scripture
The Biblical canon refers to the definitive list of books of the Bible that are divinely inspired, and whose content contains the norms of the faith. The word canon comes from the Greek kanon , which means “measuring rod” or “standard,” similar to modern day measuring devices like the ruler.
In a way, the canon is the measure which we use to gauge whether something is considered sacred text or not.
After a lengthy process of development and study, the Council of Trent, after its fourth session in 1546, determined the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament that are now found in a Catholic Bible.
How did the early Church community set about determining which texts would be part of the canon of Scripture?
Though not exhaustive, the following are some of the criteria that helped the early Church come up with what would eventually be part of the canon:
Apostolicity – Is the text connected with a known apostle of Christ? Although for the most part, apostolicity has been more a matter of legend, and there is no sure way to prove apostolicity beyond the “claim” that a text is related to an apostle.
Source Community – What is the community from which the text emerged? For example, the disruption of early Palestinian Christianity may explain why no strictly Palestinian text ever found its way into the canon. Compare this with the fact that several texts from Syria (Matthew, James and Jude) were accepted as part of the canon.
Coherence with the Essential Gospel Message - It is the text consistent with the general understanding of the Christian message? This was a way to prevent text that had Gnostic undertones from being added to the canon. - Here we affirm the wise words of Hugh of Saint Victor, a member of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine, “All divine Scripture is one book, and this one book is Christ, speaks of Christ and finds its fulfilment in Christ.”
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Liturgical Use - Liturgical Use – is the text used in liturgy, like the Eucharist? “In saying Scripture is liturgical, we do not mean to say merely that liturgy is scriptural; but moreover that what was originally liturgy became Scripture. Scripture had its emergence and continued
teaching contains all that Scripture can teach. The living Tradition reminds us of the signs of the times, especially in matters of exegesis.
Analogy of Faith. Finally, Catholics must pay attention to the “analogy of faith,” that is, the coherence of truths that are contained in God’s revelation. All aspects of the faith are essentially connected with one another. Just as there is unity within the Bible (OT and NT), and there is unity in the primary sources (Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition), there must also be a unity of all the sources together in faith (the primary sources and the secondary source of human experience), where the Biblical meaning truly finds authentic interpretation.
Therefore, the faithful interpretation of Scripture invites and presupposes participation in the community brought into being by God’s redemptive action—the Church. In essence, this is what is called actualization.
Actualization is the living out of the Scriptural message in both personal and communal practice. “Actualization is infinitely more than a private act of piety. It is transformative not just of the believer, but of the world. ” It is not just piety. It requires a true living out of Scripture.
Therefore, actualization can also be understood as the “performance” of Scripture.
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Sacred Tradition
Tradition (from the Latin verb tradere , meaning “to pass or hand something on”) refers to both:
The living heritage, the content that is handed on from one generation of the Church to another. This may refer to individual doctrine, accounts or customs transmitted within the Church. Thus, we can claim this understanding to be the what of tradition. Some examples of the content of tradition include the custom of Jesus being born on December 25, as well as the account of a pious woman washing the face of Jesus on the road to Calvary. The actual process of handing on the faith. Tradition, thus, also refers to the organ or mode of transmission of said doctrine, accounts or customs. This is the how of tradition. The official organ of tradition is known as the magisterium , the teaching authority or the teaching office of the Church. Tradition includes the various teachings of the Church. Tradition also includes all the Catholic Christian practices—the study, preaching and social action, witness and life of the Church in her belief and in her prayer.
Tradition is concerned with the continuity of the Church. Tradition is the preservation of the essential identity and mission of the Church. However, Tradition is living and growing, making progress in the Church through insight and deeper interiorization within the heart of the faithful. Tradition is not static or simply preservative. It develops dynamically. If we are to accept the dynamic character of Tradition, we must see it as more than simply the preservation or development of the “old” but also the openness to what appears as novel, provocative and prophetic. Authentic Catholic Tradition is never merely concerned with memory; it is also oriented towards the future. There is place in Tradition for new insights, practices and perspectives for as long as they serve to continue reinvigorating and reorienting the faith to novel ways towards the constant goal of bringing the Kingdom of God on earth.
Magisterium as Teaching Office - One of the most important tasks of the Church’s leadership is to keep the Church in the truth of the Gospel by proclaiming sound doctrine and condemning doctrinal deviations. In this function, the hierarchy constitutes the Church’s magisterium. - The word magisterium means, literally, the authority of the master ( magister) or teacher. In the modern church, the term refers both to 1) the unique teaching authority of the bishops, and 2) the bishops themselves, which consists of College of Bishops, under the headship of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. - The Church’s teaching is not determined by individual preferences, but by divine revelation. The Church’s decisions are not governed by opinion, but by a commitment and fidelity to the Gospel message and vision. An elaborate set of distinctions regarding the exercise of the magisterium has emerged out of the two-thousand year history of the Catholic Church. At the most general level we can distinguish between two distinct ways in which the Church’s teaching office exercises its authority: 1. The ORDINARY MAGISTERIUM refers to the more common exercises of the pope and bishops’ teaching authority when they teach either individually or in groups. 2. The EXTRAORDINARY MAGISTERIUM refers to the binding exercise of the Church’s teaching office in the form of a solemn definition by either the pope or an ecumenical council. (written Declaration) - One of the most controversial, and frankly, misunderstood teaching in Roman Catholicism is its teaching on infallibility. - In order to grasp this exercise of authority, we need to go all the way back to Jesus’ parting promise to his followers that “I am always with you, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:30).
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Three most direct human experience that Christians can use in relation to their faith. 1. Human Culture One important source of human experience is the rich resource of human culture. According to Fr. Joseph Roche: “The religious message must be inculturated, contextualized— to be authentically Filipino. Otherwise, the catechized will not understand, assimilate, and live out the Faith in their daily lives.” Inculturation is the process of contextualization and dialogue that allows for the engagement between faith and culture. 2. Beauty and the Arts “Beauty attracts us, evokes our wonder and joy, and arouses a flood of delight and inconsolable longing. We fall in love with beauty, sing it praises, and want to stay in its presence.” However, there are many things in this world that appear initially to be beautiful, but actually bring people further away from goodness and truth. Many young people today face the challenge of finding meaning in a pluralistic world, where many things attract them, evoke their wonder and bring them joy. Some of these seemingly beautiful things are merely noise mimicking beauty.
What then becomes the standard of beauty? The standard then, in matters of Christian spirituality, is the standard of Christ’s beauty.
This concept of beauty—one that not only goes beyond bodily beauty but also consists in inner beauty—is not unfamiliar to Filipinos. Filipinos have a concept of kagandahang- loob, conventionally understood as benevolence, kindness or simply goodness, which uses the Filipino word for beauty, which is ganda :
While ganda on one level of meaning refers to the beautiful, on another it means “what is good” or simply what is ethical, proper or humane. It is in fact common practice on this level of meaning to simply use the adjectives maganda (the beautiful) and mabuti (the good) interchangeably [.. .] Perhaps, one can speak here of the aesthetics of ethics, or if you please, the ethics of aesthetics. 3. Human Witness The call of Christ for radical conversion is facilitated by the service and witness of his disciples in the Christian community. By living a truly moral life, “especially our works of charity, our faith becomes a confession, a witness before God and our neighbors of our gift of self, like that of Jesus.” Witness refers to bearing testimony to the world, proclaiming and making known that Jesus Christ is the liberator of all humankind and God’s creation.
Authentic Christian witness today is marked by the mission to engage various marginalized communities. Looking at today’s world, there is much that needs to be done in relation to the abuse of the environment, the hunger of millions, the exploitation of labor, the violation of human rights, the misuse of power by world leaders, and the manipulation of wealth by society’s elite. One important resource is the witness of the saints. Through the lives of saints, we gain an understanding of what it means to live an authentically Christian life. Their knowledge, moral life and prayer life all help illuminate for us ways in which we too can live lives of sanctity in the present time.
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