A young Catholic growing up in the years before the Second Vatican Council would find it very curious to find that biblical teaching is the “Soul of all theology” (Richard Gula’s Dei Verbum, p. 165, REASON INFORMED BY FAITH). My experience as a student in a Catholic elementary school during the years before the Second Vatican Council is that there was very little scriptural teaching at that time.

In fact, even though Vatican II brought about a renewed emphasis on Scripture, many non-Catholics still see the Catholic Church as devoid of a biblical basis. Chapter 12, “Scriptures in Moral Theology” (Gula, p165) contains an overview of the critical use of Scripture and the pre-critical use of Scripture and then engages in a discussion of Scripture as a basis for decision-making. moral decisions.

Today, Catholics almost universally understand the need for critical analysis in the use of Scripture. However, a contrary use of Scripture is to employ a method called proof text. To understand this method, one must first accept the fact that some place more emphasis on natural law than on Scripture.

Using this theory, after an issue is determined on the basis of natural law, a review of Scripture is conducted to substantiate the natural law position. Therefore, as Gula says, it is a kind of afterthought or an attempt to justify natural law. Furthermore, “While it gives the appearance of a biblical basis for moral theology, the prooftexts do not really allow Scripture to enter the fabric of moral theological reflection” (Gula, p.166).

While critical use of Scripture tends to discount the validity of prooftexts, Steven D. Cline, in his article, “In Defense of Prooftext,” argues that the problem is not the prooftext, but more well the misuse of the biblical text that should be in question. Says Mr. Cline, “Those among us who despise proof texts may not have in mind distorting Scripture. I have the idea that they mean that we should discard the honorable practice of giving book, chapter, and verse when we undertake to teach a biblical truth” (Crane, bible-infonet.org). He goes further and uses examples where Jesus used Old Testament passages to support his teaching and argue for the proof-text method. He also discusses Peter’s great sermon in Acts in which the Old Testament is cited as another proof-text validation. I am not sure if Mr. Cline is Catholic or not, but from some of his comments on denominationalism I get the impression that he is not. His arguments are not without merit despite this fact.

Critical use of Scripture requires analysis of passages from different perspectives. Gluttony draws on the analysis of Kenneth R. Himes to explain four related tasks a person must engage in to relate Scripture to moral theology. They are “… (1) the exegetical task: determining the meaning of the text in its original context; (2) the hermeneutical task: determining the meaning of the text for today; (3) the methodological task: using scripture in moral reflection ; (4) the theological task: to explain the relationship of Scripture to other sources of moral wisdom” (Gula, p.167).

Celia Brewer Marshall in her book, A Guide Through the New Testament, defines exegesis as, “…the term students of the New Testament use to describe what they are doing when they try to see what a New Testament passage meant.” when it was written. written for the first time” (Marshal, p. 15). Therefore, the criticism of passages, not as an exercise in finding fault, but as analysis is our effort to discover what the text meant at the time of writing because that has a profound influence on what that should mean for us today. Ms. Marshal links several areas of critical analysis. They are textual, source, form, redaction, and literary analysis.

The textual compares the language used in a particular passage in various translations. For example, you may find a different wording in the New American Bible than in the Revised Standard or King James Version. The second analysis is the source. Ms. Marshal says that, “Critical source theories are just that: hypotheses that may or may not be useful in comparing the Gospels” (Marshal, p. 15). She goes further by explaining that source analysis isn’t really a problem in the other books of the Bible, but only in the Gospels.

“Form criticism tries to go back to the written documents and see what the individual units might have been in their pre-literary form” (Marshal, p. 15). Ms. Marshal explains that editorial criticism views authors as editors and looks at the way stories in the Bible are “edited.” Literary how simply look at what can be learned from the text. Gula says that, “However limited, careful exegetical work is the crucial first step leading to the successful completion of the other tasks in the use of Scripture in moral theology” (Gula p.168).

Critical analysis allows us to get to the original meaning of a text and hermeneutics allows us to bridge the cultural gap between the culture of the writers and the culture of the readers. Dr. Brian Allison says, “Biblical hermeneutics is critical and foundational to the entire theological (and apologetic) enterprise” (Allison, Biblical Hermeneutics: An Alternative Paradigm). Gula states that this analysis is very important and uses some examples to illustrate his position. Allison, on the other hand, seems to say in his article that cultural-historical differences are not that important. It is an interesting analysis and I attach it here for your interest. I agree with Gula that he points out in his example that the eschatological environment of the first century puts some of the proclamations made by Jesus in a different perspective. Once a person has done an analysis of the text, he is in a position to use it in the decision-making process.

The methodological task is to put writing to use in moral reflection and decision making. Gula relies on Gustafson to explain that there are two ways to view the direction given in Scripture. Revealed morality is seeing the text as a guideline for action. He breaks revealed morality down into four subsections, law, ideals, analogies, and great variety. For me it’s a kind of hierarchy where the law is the fundamentalist view where the Word is the law and that’s it. From there, he moves to a view that the Word is a set of ideals and not simply rules to be followed. Third, by analogy, one can compare biblical stories and apply them by analogy to current situations. The great variety, as described by Gula, is a kind of middle ground between revealed morality and revealed reality, which regards Scripture only as informative and not as specifically determining morality. A wide variety seems to say that Scripture is important but not all-inclusive. It allows for intellectual reflection and other sources as a basis for moral reflection as does the revealed reality approach.

In his analysis of the revealed reality approach, Gula discusses the covenant and the kingdom of God. The covenant according to Gula is the response we give to God’s offer of love. God calls us and gives us some structure for the relationship. This structure is found in the rules and commandments and, as Gula says, they are “… presumptions and burdens of proof for the moral life” (Gula, p.173). In a covenant relationship, we join our God by accepting his love and his way of life. Gluttony then discusses the kingdom of God as another way of looking at revealed reality. “The kingdom of God is not a place, but a community-building activity in which each person experiences a strong sense of solidarity with others. The alliance with God allows us to move on to relate to others; likewise, the alliance with him allows us to experience the “shalom” kind of peace. We find Jesus giving us direction in Scripture on how to move into this kind of existence. It is more than just rules to follow. It is a step toward a life of hope lived through reverence. , conversion and responsibility Hope “… always points to the love of God as the basis for the realization of new possibilities of human well-being, hope is the source of our energy to respond creatively to the new possibilities of recreating society” (Gluttony, p. 177).

Contrast revealed reality with revealed morality and you will find that the latter focuses on the “black and white” of everything. But if one believes that the Scriptures are given to us as a set of laws to blindly follow, then what are we to make of the radical sayings of Jesus? Are they just figures of speech? Gluttony considers Jesus’ message to gouge out your eye if he causes you to sin. Jesus came to save us. He came to offer forgiveness. “Gouge out an eye” is contrary to his message. Therefore, she would suggest that they are not directives like the great commandment, but rather are attempts to get our attention and make us think about the relevance of the message. Blindly following all the passages of Scripture leaves no room for the stimulation of our creativity and imagination. It seems to me that there are some rules to follow and there are passages in the Scriptures that give us those rules. In addition, there are stories, exaggerations, and other literary devices that allow us to creatively interpret the “rules” and apply them.

In a final attempt to reconcile the difference between revealed reality and revealed morality, Gluttony discusses the Great Commandment. There would seem to be little room to dispute what Jesus tells us when he answers the Pharisees’ question in Matthew 22. “He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your soul.’ your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is similar: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40). Here is a good illustration of the difference between revealed morality and revealed reality. In a sense of revealed morality, you take this literally and love everyone. However, what is love and how should we live in love? Requires critical analysis to understand what Jesus means by His directive to love your neighbor. What is a neighbor? Is it the person next door? Is it the person on our block? What is a neighbor? And what is love. If our neighbor is of the opposite sex, should we “love” that person in a male-female way? Certainly, taking J Jesus is literally not as easy as it seems at first. Therefore, we look at the reality behind the statement and take direction from it and then create the reality that we are going to live in from that analysis.

There are many different opinions about the use of Scripture in the development of moral theology. The search for an absolute can be noble, however, the best search for me would be to educate myself not only in the words of the Bible but also about the Bible. By learning about the Bible, we can gain an understanding of its place in our lives and use the messages it provides to help us in our attempts to make moral decisions that allow us to live our lives according to God’s will.