Introduction: Senses Of Scripture And Tradition

Abstract

Abstract It is a distinctive Roman Catholic teaching that, in the words of the Second Vatican Council’s “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation,” sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God, which is entrusted to the Church.”1 In this one divine Word, God speaks the promise of salvation. Catholic Christians believe that one finds this Word of promise both in the writings of biblical scripture and in tradition in the ways that scripture informs and is informed by the authentic teachings of the Church; age-old Christian practice; liturgical devotion; the compelling lives of the saints; the writings of great Catholic thinkers; and God’s recognized sacramental presence to holy times, places, and events. This Word is one, issuing as it does from the one divine Speaker and conveying the message of the one Word, unique Son, spoken by God before the saved world was created (John 1:1). And yet because this one divine Word is communicated in both scripture and tradition, it is communicated in a mediated plurality that extends further still to scripture’s many words and to tradition’s many more words, actions, persons, times, places, and happenings. Certainly, this teaching of the Church is among its most important, for it articulates where and how the Christian community encounters the truthful promise of eternal life and the ecclesially embraced narrative of how God has gracefully brought this promise to fulfillment. A doctrine so basic to the claims of the faith that it professes both the source and means of God’s revelation to humanity cannot help but shape the understanding of every other Catholic belief, doctrine, and practice.