The Bible, Knowledge of God and Dei Verbum

Abstract

How may an inquiring person fittingly look upon the Bible? In what manner can a person's attention to the Bible assist them to knowledge? For a Catholic Christian analysis, what ideas are suitable about the place of the Bible in relations between God and humans, and in appropriation by a person today of whatever divine disclosure or revelation is at hand? This article outlines reflections on these matters. Links are apparent with key points in Vatican II’s Dei Verbum.The first of four sections concerns a fundamentalist outlook. Section II has to do with certain limited but significant ways in which a person may look on the Bible: ways similar to ways in which a person may look on other texts.Section III pauses on inquiries into ‘deep, inner’ matters of life where the person inquiring does not proceed from a perspective of Catholic Christian faith.Section IV surveys a broad range of thoughts that may aptly be endorsed from within a perspective of Catholic Christian faith. The thoughts concern the nature of the situation by which a Catholic Christian person today can advance in knowledge of God: in appropriation of divine disclosure. Ways in which a person may look on the Bible that go beyond those exhibited earlier are now made explicit. (The article fully allows that numerous views held by one or another follower of Jesus who does not adhere to Roman Catholicism may, in respects at stake, harmonize with a Catholic Christian faith‐perspective.)