Hi Lunamoth — welcome aboard!
If you take theology as "faith seeking understanding" (as we do, following St Anselm), then sacred Scripture is the data of that which we seek to understand. It is axiomatic of our faith that the data in question, the knowledge of God and his will for mankind, comprises a Divine Revelation: "In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will" (see Eph. 1:9) (DV 2.1). If it were not Divine Revelation, but 'just' theology, Scripture in its entirely would be subject to the rule of human error.
Chapter 3 of Dei Verbum opens:
"Sacred Scripture, Its Inspiration and Divine Interpretation
Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in Sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit ... written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author ... In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted."
(I have edited out comments on how the Church views Herself in relation to Revelation)
That's about as close to a nutshell as we can make it. Scripture is the object of theological investigation, but it is not a theological object — it contains theologies as a means of access to its interior. Every book of the New Testament offers a theological path to the same object — Jesus Christ — thus we can talk of a Matthaen (the Coming of the Kingdom), a Marcan (the Messianic Secret), a Lucan (Sophiology) and a Johannine (Pneumatology) theology, a Pauline (Mystici Corporis Christi) and even a Hebraen (Ecclesial) theology ... but what it reveals speaks unerringly of God become Incarnate in the Son.
Scripture is, in that sense, sacramental. Augustine spoke of sacraments as a "visible word" (verbum visibile), and of the word as an "audible sacrament" (sacramentum audible — remember people read out aloud until quite recently — reading in silence is something relatively new).
In the last generation, theologians such as Lucien Deiss and F.X. Durrwell saw the "real presence" of Christ in the Scriptures. Aimé Georges Martimort made this distinction: “While the Word of God is not a sacrament in the strict sense (the Seven Sacraments), its proclamation in the liturgy has a special and unmatched authority and power. Moreover, it is the power exerted by this Word in the saving actions of Christ that founds the efficacy of the Church’s (seven) sacramental actions."
Scripture conveys the Divine Word in an immediate way, in a way that is analogous to sacramental efficacy. That is why the Church has traditionally understood the Scriptures to be without error. Yet "without error" does not 'cover' every word: "Through Divine Revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate Himself and the eternal decisions of His will regarding the salvation of men. That is to say, He chose to share with them those divine treasures which totally transcend the understanding of the human mind."
"Free from error" does not adequately describe the extent of the Bible’s sacramentality. Other books can be free of error— a well-edited textbook, for example — but no other book has God as its author, and so no other text conveys God’s saving power so purely: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (Jn. 6:63).
Nor, by the way, does "free from error" cover the reader, were that so, then such would require the suspension of man's will and intellect in the process, and the reader would then be the equivalent of an idiot savant — they are 'true authors' in the sense that Scripture is not revealed as an exercise in 'automatic writing' — I would call the sacred scribe an apostle, rather than a theologian.
Thomas
If you take theology as "faith seeking understanding" (as we do, following St Anselm), then sacred Scripture is the data of that which we seek to understand. It is axiomatic of our faith that the data in question, the knowledge of God and his will for mankind, comprises a Divine Revelation: "In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will" (see Eph. 1:9) (DV 2.1). If it were not Divine Revelation, but 'just' theology, Scripture in its entirely would be subject to the rule of human error.
Chapter 3 of Dei Verbum opens:
"Sacred Scripture, Its Inspiration and Divine Interpretation
Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in Sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit ... written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author ... In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted."
(I have edited out comments on how the Church views Herself in relation to Revelation)
That's about as close to a nutshell as we can make it. Scripture is the object of theological investigation, but it is not a theological object — it contains theologies as a means of access to its interior. Every book of the New Testament offers a theological path to the same object — Jesus Christ — thus we can talk of a Matthaen (the Coming of the Kingdom), a Marcan (the Messianic Secret), a Lucan (Sophiology) and a Johannine (Pneumatology) theology, a Pauline (Mystici Corporis Christi) and even a Hebraen (Ecclesial) theology ... but what it reveals speaks unerringly of God become Incarnate in the Son.
Scripture is, in that sense, sacramental. Augustine spoke of sacraments as a "visible word" (verbum visibile), and of the word as an "audible sacrament" (sacramentum audible — remember people read out aloud until quite recently — reading in silence is something relatively new).
In the last generation, theologians such as Lucien Deiss and F.X. Durrwell saw the "real presence" of Christ in the Scriptures. Aimé Georges Martimort made this distinction: “While the Word of God is not a sacrament in the strict sense (the Seven Sacraments), its proclamation in the liturgy has a special and unmatched authority and power. Moreover, it is the power exerted by this Word in the saving actions of Christ that founds the efficacy of the Church’s (seven) sacramental actions."
Scripture conveys the Divine Word in an immediate way, in a way that is analogous to sacramental efficacy. That is why the Church has traditionally understood the Scriptures to be without error. Yet "without error" does not 'cover' every word: "Through Divine Revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate Himself and the eternal decisions of His will regarding the salvation of men. That is to say, He chose to share with them those divine treasures which totally transcend the understanding of the human mind."
"Free from error" does not adequately describe the extent of the Bible’s sacramentality. Other books can be free of error— a well-edited textbook, for example — but no other book has God as its author, and so no other text conveys God’s saving power so purely: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (Jn. 6:63).
Nor, by the way, does "free from error" cover the reader, were that so, then such would require the suspension of man's will and intellect in the process, and the reader would then be the equivalent of an idiot savant — they are 'true authors' in the sense that Scripture is not revealed as an exercise in 'automatic writing' — I would call the sacred scribe an apostle, rather than a theologian.
Thomas
