Catholic Scripture Interpretation

Resting on Fundamentals, Resisting Fundamentalism

CONCLUSION

As the inspired Word of God, the Scriptures possess a unique position within the plan of revelation and in the Church. In order for man to obtain the relationship with God that He desires, it is imperative to understand what God is revealing to His children through these written words. Also, with the rise in various, and often contradictory, methods of interpreting the Bible in the past 100 years, including Biblical Fundamentalism, the Catholic Church has sought to explain more fully what she believes are the proper fundamentals of interpretation. The true Catholic interpretation takes into account the entirety of Scripture: its purpose, the process of its creation, its development, the intention of its writers, the translation of its books into today’s languages, and the literary and cultural differences between its writers and today’s society(27). Without the Catholic fundamentals of interpretation to accomplish this, God’s desire to be revealed to man is hindered. The holistic approach to the Bible of the Catholic Church resists and contradicts the simplistic and literalistic interpretation that Fundamentalists are apt to employ. The Catholic Church desires that the Scriptures be understood so that the Lord might be revealed to man, and man, due to this revelation, in return might fulfill his reason for existence: to know, love, and serve God in this life and be happy with Him forever in the next.