CONSCIENCE

CONSCIENCE

The Final Arbiter

People’s Expressions
What do people mean when they say:

 “If conscience is your friend, it doesn’t matter who is your enemy; if conscience is your enemy, it doesn’t matter who is your friend.”
 “He is a conscientious teacher”?
 “She is a prisoner of her conscience”?
 “My conscience is clear?”
 “You have a guilty conscience?

Popular Understanding of
Conscience

 A sense of right and wrong
 A kind of inner voice (tingog gikan sa kinahiladman) which guides us in our moral life
 God’s voice inside us telling us what to do. It makes us feel bad when we’ve done something wrong.

Guilt Feelings?
 The experience of conscience often is associated with guilt feelings: “Nakonsensya ko bay” (“My conscience is bothering me”). “Wala ko makatulog kay nahasol ko sa akong konsensya” (“I have sleepless nights because my conscience tells me what I did was wrong”).
 In the moral development of a person, guilt feelings are important. However, we need to be careful because some guilt feelings are not healthy.

Psychological Conscience?
 PC is related to feelings of moral approval or disapproval. Practically, all of us experience at times either the security of some inner approval of one’s decision/action, or the anxiety of a condemnation within the depths of our being.
 Guilt feelings stirred up by the inner mechanism of psychological conscience are widely discussed by psychiatrists. For example, Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychoanalysis, explained the reality of the “superego” in the person’s psyche.
 The long period of childhood during which the growing human being lives in dependence on his parents leaves behind it a precipitate, which forms within his ego a special agency in which this parental influence is prolonged. It has received the name of superego…
 …The parents’ influence naturally includes not only the personalities of the parents themselves but also the racial, national, and family traditions handed on through them, as well as the demands of the immediate social milieu which they represent”
 -Sigmund Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis-
 Freud identified conscience with the superego, as if conscience were merely an externally imposed set of moral rules which made us feel guilty when we disobeyed them. The superego, which is the result of a process of psychological conditioning, would serve as the policeman of the personal life, the agent of enforced socialization.
 Psychological Conscience may be either realistic and healthy or illusory and pathological. It might happen that guilt feelings will call our attention to a situation or an action for which we are and ought to be truly guilty. And if so, they are helpful guides for moral human living.
 But the exact opposite may also be the case. For whatever reason, the person might feel guilty about something that he should not repent. For example, a woman who had been trained from childhood to be submissive might feel that she is being immoral if she does not do just what her husband desires.
 Therefore, guilt feelings do not make an accurate barometer of the personal moral life. In fact, some people would even participate in wide scale graft and corruption without feeling guilty.
 Oftentimes, the commands and prohibitions of the superego do not arise from the perception of the intrinsic goodness or badness of a contemplated action. Rather, it comes from the need to maintain the approval of authority figures, like parents or teachers.
 Psychological conscience is largely influenced by non-rational factors, and it is not unusual for a conscience like this to condemn what is not wrong or to approve what is not right.

Holy Scripture on Conscience

The word conscience, in Greek syneidesis, is of Hellenistic origin and has no Hebrew counterpart. Thus, we should not be surprise if the word conscience does not occur in the Old Testament, except for 1 Sam 25:31 and Wisdom 17:11. But the idea of conscience (if not the term) receives generous attention in the pages of the Hebrew Scripture.

• 1 Sam 25:31 “Then your conscience will not be bothered for having killed without cause or for having taken your own revenge.”
• Wisdom 17:11 “Wickedness is cowardly in itself and stands self-condemned. Someone with a guilty conscience will always imagine things to be worse than they really are.”
• The OT usually employs the word ‘heart’, but also occasionally ‘spirit’, to indicate the inner sanctum where man is alone with his Maker, where his desires and decisions flow:

“Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps 50).
“O, that today you would hear his voice: harden not your hearts” (Ps 95:7f).
“God probes the heart” (Jer 11:20; Prov 21:2; Ps 26:2).

“I will put my law within them, I will write it on their hearts” (Jer 31:33).

 The word “conscience” does not appear in the Gospels. Nevertheless, Jesus warns against the obscuring of conscience when he says: “If the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness” (Mt. 6:23). Conversely, “If your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light” (Lk. 11:36).
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus condemns the righteous Pharisees by quoting Isaiah, “This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”

 And then there is the classic description of conscience (kardia) provided by the writer of John’s letter. He declares:
“This is our way of knowing we are committed to the truth and are at peace before him no matter what our consciences may charge us with; for God is greater than our hearts and all is known to him. Beloved, if our consciences have nothing to charge us with, we can be sure that God is with us” (1 John 3:19-21).
 In his understanding of conscience (syneidesis), Paul insists that even the Gentiles are said to have this awareness of right and wrong, though they lack divine revelation:
“When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all” (Rom 2: 14-16).

Church Documents on Conscience
In the documents of the Church, there are different levels of awareness of moral truth to which conscience refers. John Macquarrie identifies and explains the various levels:

1st Level: Particular Moral Conscience
2nd Level: General Moral Conscience
3rd Level: Transcendental Conscience

1st Level
Particular Moral Conscience

PMC refers to a practical judgment terminating a process of moral deliberation. For Saint Thomas, conscience is a judgment of the practical reason, closely connected with the virtue of prudence. It applies the moral law to specific situations. As a practical judgment concerning concrete situations, conscience would tell us: “Do this, shun that” (GS 16).

Note here that conscience is not a matter of feelings of approval or disapproval, but of a reflective moral judgment reached after a process of moral deliberation.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed” (1778).

Similarly in Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II writes: “The judgment of conscience is a practical judgment which makes known what man must do or not do, or which assesses an act already performed by him. It is a judgment which applies to a concrete situation the conviction that one must love and do good and avoid evil” (59).

For example, a man comes to see me and beg for help. He does not seem to be incapable of working, and I choose to give him food and something to drink, but not money. This is a practical judgment. My intellect assesses the situation, my conscience tells me that it would be wrong to refuse him help, but unwise to give him money which he might spend on alcohol.

Here, conscience formulates a moral obligation in the light of the natural law of generosity to the needy. “Whereas the natural law discloses the objective and universal demands of the moral good, conscience is the application of the law to a particular case” (VS 59). It reveals what ought to be done in practice here and now. It is the proximate [subjective] norm of personal morality.

2nd Level
General Moral Conscience

GMC refers to a “broader, more generalized knowledge of right and wrong, of good and bad.” It is a personal awareness of basic moral principles or truths which assist a person in making moral decisions.

“Do good, avoid evil”
“Do to others what you want others do unto you”
“Love God and neighbor”
“Give another person his or her due”

This awareness may easily include the norms that immediately follow from the most basic principles or what we call “secondary norms” such as those of the Ten Commandments.

Vatican II refers to conscience of this level when it affirms that it is through the mediation of conscience that man comes to perceive ever increasingly the unchanging truth and comes to recognize the demands of God’s divine and eternal law (DH 3).

Moreover, it affirms that the voice of God’s law, made known through conscience, calls upon to “love and to do what is good and to avoid evil” (GS 16). It is in this sense of the term that one’s conscience can be said to be an awareness of the law of God written in the human heart.

It is very important to note that conscience does not decide good and evil; it discerns them, more or less accurately. It is not the source of moral law, but a detector. In analogy to radio, it is a receiving set, not the transmitting station.

John Paul II explained: “Conscience is not an independent and exclusive capacity to decide what is good and what is evil. Rather there is profoundly imprinted upon it a principle of obedience vis-à-vis the objective norm which establishes and conditions the correspondence of its decisions with the commands and prohibitions which are at the basis of human behavior” (Veritatis Splendor 60).

3rd Level
Transcendental Conscience

Conscience also is understood as a special and very fundamental mode of self-awareness whereby persons are conscious of themselves as moral beings, called to fulfill their dignity as intelligent and free beings.
“Conscience in this sense is the summons, deep within our being, to be fully the beings God wills us to be and to make ourselves to be, by our own choices and actions, lovers of the true and the good” (William May). This inner drive of the person to seek the truth is what theologians call Transcendental Conscience.

Vatican II refers to this level of conscience when it says:

“In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of this law can when necessary speak to his heart more specifically: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God. To obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged” (Gaudium et Spes 16).

In a nutshell, the three levels of conscience are:

PMC: Conscience as a practical judgment about the morality of given acts.
GMC: Conscience as an awareness of the basic principles of morality.
TC: Conscience as an interior summons to fulfill God’s design for the human person.

Summary: The Three Stages of the Formation of the Gospels

Summary: The Three Stages of the Formation of the Gospels

We have traced the three stages of the formation of the Gospels. If we were to assign chronological perimeters to these stages, we can date stage one, Jesus and the Disciples to the 1st 3rd of the first century (30 AD), stage two, the Disciples and the Early Church to the 2nd 3rd of the first century (roughly to 100 AD), and stage 3, the Early Church and the Evangelist to the last 3rd of the 1st century (65AD-100AD).

Jesus (30 AD)

Oral Transmission of the memory of Jesus (30AD-100AD)

And Written Sources (65AD-100AD)

Luke (80-90AD) ------------------------------------------------------------------Theophilus
(Gentile Believers
(80-90AD)

In this schema, we can see that it is Jesus with whom Theophilus is being brought face to face, but Jesus mediated through the memory of the early church and through Luke.

Notice the difference with the Epistles:

Paul (54 AD) ------------ Corinth (54 AD)

The Epistles have basically a one-dimensional historical and literary context. The author, Paul himself is presenting his own message, even when he draws on traditional material, speaks directly to the situation of the recipients.

The Gospels in contrast have 2- or 3-dimensional historical context. They are handing on, now in the permanent form of writing, the sayings of and narratives about Jesus (stage one) that are available to them as they have been preserved in the church’s tradition (stage 2). The Gospel writer’s own contribution (stage 3) is that of selectivity, arrangement, and adaptation according to the spiritual needs of their respective communities.

Having traced the three stages of the formation of the Gospels, let us spell out some important insights.

The first has something to do with the relationship between the four Gospels and the Church. The four Gospels were not presented to the early church as heavenly blueprints to guide them as it stepped out into the world. Rather it was the other way around. The church came first, a community of believers empowered by their faith in Jesus as their risen Lord and by the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit. The Gospels, in a real sense, were the product of the life of the church: The church maintained the memory of Jesus and his mission. The church selected and preserved those moments of Jesus’ life that meant the most to a believer. And from the church came the evangelists, to whom we are indebted for the Gospels. Thus, the Gospels, and the entire NT for that matter, are truly a “book of the church.” The evangelists were not depending simply on their memory but on the faith experience of generations of Christians when they wrote the Gospels.

Second is on Inspiration, that is, the guidance of the Spirit. The focus of Inspiration must not only be the individual but the church itself. The power of the Spirit was present in the preaching, worship and teaching of the church. The power of the Spirit guided the young Christian church as it moved forward toward the future. The power of the Spirit, above all, helped maintain in the church the living memory of Jesus’ words and deeds (WE HAVE SEEN THAT THIS HAPPENED EVEN AMIDST THE TURMOIL AND PERSECUTION OF VARIOUS COMMUNITIES IN DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS AND CULTURES). The power of the Spirit gave the church the authority to keep in mind Jesus’ words and deeds not as a touching memory from the past but as a living presence, a presence that allowed the community to find new relevance in the ministry of Jesus as the church faced new situations.

The power of the Spirit enables the Gospels to present a portrait of Jesus that reveals him as the Risen Lord who is with his church for all times and in all places!

The third insight springs from the 2nd. If we want to know more about Jesus, we must turn to the Gospels. They are the privileged source for the life of Jesus. Anything the church or the individual Christian asserts about Jesus must be authenticated in the light of the Gospels. If a Christian longs to deepen his love for Jesus by knowing more about him, then he must turn finally to the Gospels. There is no other portrait worthy of our faith.

This third insight leads us to the final one. The Gospels have the power to enrich our faith because that precisely is their purpose. As we have noted, the Gospels draw the bulk of their content from the very life of the church. The church preserved those words and deeds of Jesus powerful enough to reach into the heart of the believer so as to give life. As St John aptly puts it, “These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

So when a believer picks up a Gospel and reads it with a searching faith, he is duplicating the very process by which it came to be written. The Gospels are written “from faith to faith.” “From faith” in the sense that it was the faith of the church that maintained the genuine portrait of who Jesus was and what he was about. “To faith” in the sense that the Gospels were written so that the belief of Christians might intensify as they came face to face with the words and deeds of the Risen Lord.

Thus, to read the Gospels as it was meant to be read involves the very elements that produced it. There are three of them:

1. A CHURCH THAT GIVES MEANING AND CONTEXT FOR WHAT WE READ
2. FAITH THAT FINDS THERE NOURISHMENT AND LIFE
3. THE SPIRIT WHO BREATHES MEANING INTO OUR CHRISTIAN

EXISTENCE.

SYNTHESIS: PENTATEUCHAL STUDIES

SYNTHESIS: PENTATEUCHAL STUDIES

A. The Theme of the Pentateuch
“The theme of the Pentateuch is the PARTIAL FULFILLMENT—which implies also the partial non-fulfillment—of the promise to or blessing of the patriarchs. The promise or blessing is both the divine initiative in a world where human initiatives always lead to disaster and a re-affirmation of the primal intentions for man.”

B. The Primal Divine Intention for Man
Where do we find the “primal divine intention for man”? Where is it stated? In:

Gen. 1:26—Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."

Gen. 1:28—And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

Hence, God’s intention for man is that he is of the image and likeness of God and God has blessed him. The blessing consists in “becoming fruitful” and “multiplying” and “filling the earth” and “having dominion over it.”

C. Man’s Betrayal
But we know from our study of Gen. 2-11 that this divine intention for man was repeatedly betrayed by man. “No matter how drastic man’s sin becomes, destroying what God has made good and bringing the world to the brink of uncreation, God’s grace never fails to deliver man from the consequences of his sin. Even when man responds to a fresh start with the old pattern of sin, God’s commitment to this world remains firm, and sinful man experiences the favor of God as well as his righteous judgment.”

Thus,

In Gen. 2-3—it is the story of the man and the woman—they eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (fall); then, they are sent out of the garden (righteous judgment); but, they are clothed (God’s favor).

In Gen. 4—it is the story of Cain and Abel—Cain murders Abel (sin); then, Cain is cursed and made to be a wanderer and fugitive (righteous judgment); but, he is given a mark (‘ot) of protection (God’s favor).

In Gen. 6-9—it is the story of the sons of God—they do violence (sin); then, the flood occurs (righteous judgment); but, Noah and his family are saved through the ark; a new covenant is negotiated; a rainbow is placed in the sky (all signs of God’s favor).

In Gen. 11—it is the story of people who wish to remain united—but they also wish to go up to heaven by making a tower and so make a name for themselves (sin); then, the tower is destroyed and they are scattered (righteous judgment); but, in Gen. 12, Abram is called by God to start a new beginning (God’s grace).

D. God’s Primal Intention for Man Specified in the Promise to Abram

With Gen. 11, the primal divine intention therefore of “becoming fruitful” and “multiplying” and “filling the earth” and “having dominion over it” now becomes more specific, more concrete, as found in the promise to Abram. The promise is nothing then but the blessing given by God to man in Gen. 1, but only more specific, made concrete to one man, Abram, and whose goal is universal—as universal as Gen. 1. God says to Abram: “And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.”

E. The Three Elements of the Promise or Blessing

God’s promise or blessing to Abram is a re-affirmation of the divine intention for man. This promise or blessing has three elements: POSTERITY, DIVINE-HUMAN RELATIONSHIP and LAND. The posterity or descendant-element of the promise is dominant in Gen. 12-50, the relationship-element of the promise is dominant in Exodus and Leviticus, the land-element in Numbers and Deuteronomy.

1. Gen. 12-50

We need not have to rehearse the Abraham story, the Jacob story and the Joseph story, but certainly the focus was on posterity. We recall the barrenness of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and the fraternal rivalries that endangered the life of one or more of the heirs of the promise, and the various famines of Canaan. These threatened the survival of the patriarchal family of their fruitfulness, of their multiplying and increasing; these prevented the rapid growth of the Abrahamic family, but never negating the fulfillment of the promise, the promise of posterity.

Here, the thematic elements of the land and of divine-human relationship take a subsidiary role.

The land that is to be “given” to the Abrahamic family is indeed “shown” to Abraham, and explored (12:5-9; 13:7) and lived in by the patriarchs, but it remains the property of the Canaanites. On the whole, the patriarchal narratives take place outside the promised land almost as much as inside it (Abram goes to Egypt; Jacob goes to Haran; Jacob and Joseph in Egypt). The heirs of the promise at the end of the Book of Genesis are firmly outside the land. The promise is repeatedly affirmed, but except in the slightest degree (one burial plot—23:17-20 and a piece of land for the building of an altar—33:19ff.) it remains no more than a promise.

As for divine-human relationship, it remains variable and provisional. Gen. 17’s covenant is essentially a “covenant to be God to you and to your descendants.” Elsewhere, the relationship is expressed as a “being with” (26:3,28; 28:15,20; 31:5; 35:3; 39:2,21). In brief, the nature of the divine-human relationship has not been set, although it has begun to take effect.

2. Exodus and Leviticus
It is in these books that the promise of God’s relationship with Abraham’s descendants is most clearly brought out. In the Exodus event and the Sinai revelation, it becomes plain what the promise meant by its words, “I will bless you,” “I will make my covenant between me and you,” and “I will be your God.”

In the Book of Exodus, the going out of Egypt, the Exodus event, is initiated by acts that spring from the divine-human relationship. It is the God whose name is “I am who am,” who hears the cry of the Hebrews in Egypt. It is the God whose name is “I am who am” who commissions Moses, who will be with Moses in bringing forth “my people” out of Egypt “to serve God upon the mountain” (3:10ff). Likewise, the divine-human relationship is seen when God reveals himself and says “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob…I will deliver you, and I will take my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God who brought you out” (6:2-8). Throughout the confrontation with Pharaoh, Israel is described as “my people” who is destined to serve (worship) Yahweh: “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” Even in the transition materials, Exo 16-19, the relationship is questioned and affirmed. See Exo. 17:1-7—“Is Yahweh among us or not?”
In the Sinai event, God says to Israel, “You shall be my own possession among all peoples” (19:5). The people shall be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” to Yahweh. And in the Decalogue, the relationship is expressed by “I am Yahweh you God who brought you out of Egypt, out of bondage” (20:2).

The Book of Leviticus “spells out in detail the means by which the relationship now established is to be maintained. The regulation of ritual worship is its almost exclusive interest; its presuppositions are that men will wish to offer gifts to God, will sin against God, will want to know the will of God for everyday life. That is to say, Leviticus depicts a community exploring its relationship with God.”

The preservation of divine-human relationship is expressed best in Leviticus’s exhortation: “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them…I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people. I am Yahweh you God” (Lev.26:3,12ff.).

The promise of progeny is found only in Chapter one of Exodus, but thereafter the promise is only implicitly alluded to. The promise of land though more prominent, nevertheless appears only in scattered allusions throughout Exodus and Leviticus.

3. Numbers and Deuteronomy
In these books, the patriarchal promise most in evidence is land. Their orientation and movement is towards the land, the promise that is partly fulfilled, but to a large extent unfulfilled. The Book of Numbers depicts this orientation and movement toward the land.

As far as Deuteronomy is concerned, it goes without saying that everything focuses upon the land. Among its most characteristic phrases are “the land/ground/gates/cities/and the like” which Yahweh your/our God gives you” occurs 34 time. Deuteronomy’s common expression, “Yahweh your/our God,” 300 times, emphasizes the permanency of the relationship, the constant reference to “commandments,” “statutes,” “judgments” along with exhortations to “love” God (11 times) and “covenant” (23 times) designate the character of the relationship.

“So even at the point of the imminent fulfillment of the promise of land, the promise as a whole, in all its other elements (progeny/relationship) has not become an inalienable possession of Israel’s, but as much a challenge as a promise, a promise that can threatened and even thwarted by its recipients. Only the fact that it is Yahweh’s promise can create any confidence in its continuing fulfillment.”

F. Summary
In summary, the divine promise or blessing to the patriarchs, while frequently alluded to in each of its form throughout the Pentateuch, presents one or other of its elements more prominently in various books.

But remember that the promise is partly fulfilled. There remains the future where the promise will be all the more fulfilled. It is good to repeat and emphasize what was said in the beginning: that in the face of human initiatives that always lead to disaster, God’s initiative is presented over and over again. The story of the Pentateuch may well be the story of man who often remains sinful and of God who changes his mind and so forgives man and restores him to grace and freedom. For God is “I am who am”—the name of God whose meaning is the God over all other gods who is active and helping, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

THE MEANING OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURES

THE MEANING OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURES

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCH, The Pontifical Biblical Commission (1993)



The Literal Sense
 It is necessary in Biblical Interpretation
 It is that which is directly expressed by the inspired human authors. Hence, it is also called author-meaning.
 How does one arrive at the author’s intended meaning? One has to ask the right questions in order to get at the author-meaning.

 Two basic categories of good exegetical questions:
a) questions of content (what is said)
b) questions of context (why it is said)

 The questions of context are two kinds
a) Historical—has to do both with:
1. the historical setting of a document (e.g., the city of Corinth, its geography, people, economic and socio-political situation),
2. the specific occasion of the document (i.e., why it was written, e.g., Gal. 2:11-14)
b) The literary context—has to do with why a given thing was said at a given point in the narrative. For example, the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple (Lk. 2:41-52)

One key question for interpretation is: Why did Luke place this account between the infancy and public ministry accounts? An exegete can perceive that by placing the episode of the Finding of the Child Jesus at this point of the narrative, Luke has constructed a very persuasive Christological sequence. In the Annunciation, an angel proclaims that Jesus is God’s Son (Lk. 1:35); at age 12 Jesus, when speaking for the first time, makes clear that God is His Father (Lk. 2:29); at age 30 at the beginning of His public ministry, God’s own voice from heaven says, “You are my beloved Son” (Lk. 3:22-23).

 The questions of content are basically four kinds:
a) Textual criticism—the determination of the actual wording of the author
b) Lexical data—vocabulary and meaning of words (e.g., Gen. 2:20)
c) Grammatical data—the relationship of words to one another (e.g., Gen. 2:20)
d) Historical-cultural background—the relationship of words and ideas to the background and culture of the author and his readers (e.g., Gen. 2:23)

Thus, the aim to exegesis is to come up with a clear understanding of the author’s original intention.
Two Elements: the author and his readers

The Spiritual Sense
 The Spiritual Sense is the meaning expressed by the biblical texts when read:
1. under the influence of the Holy Spirit,
2. in the context of the paschal mystery of Christ
3. and of the new life in the Spirit

Thus, one can discover another meaning of the text more than what the human author originally intended.
For example, 2 Sam. 7:12-13 speaks of God’s promise to David through the prophet Nathan that his son shall sit on his throne and his reign shall be everlasting. Originally, this would refer to the succeeding sons of David to seat on his throne.

But in the light of Jesus event, this would refer to Christ who rules forever, not only on the earthly throne of David. This was not intended by the original author of 2 Samuel.

There is a profound element of continuity as well as a move to a different level.

This Spiritual Sense is also seen in the typologies like Adam as the figure of Christ (Rom. 5:14), the flood as the figure of baptism (1 Pet. 3:20-21), etc.

The Fuller Sense
 The Fuller Sense (sensus plenior) is defined as a deeper meaning of the text, intended by God but not clearly expressed by the human author. The Fuller Sense can be found in the biblical text when one studies the text in light of:
1. other biblical texts
2. the authentic doctrinal tradition (official teachings of the Magisterium)

Examples:
1. The context of Mt. 1:23 gives a Fuller Sense to the prophecy of Isa. 7:14 in regard to the virgin who will conceive.
2. The Patristic and conciliar teaching about the Trinity expresses the Fuller Sense of the teaching of the New Testament regarding God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
3. The definition of original sin by the Council of Trent provided the Fuller Sense of Paul’s teaching in Rom. 5:12-21.

This affirms our belief that through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, given the new context of our times and the succeeding generation, the text will bring our fresh meanings that had lain hidden in the original context. In this way the Bible continues to speak through all generations at different periods of history.

The Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation

(Intro to Scripture class with Fr. Manol SJ)

It is an apocalyptic literature that was present from 200 BC to 200 AD. Apocalyptic in Greek means ‘disclosure’ or ‘revelation’. This genre came out at the period when the believers were suffering terrible persecutions under the hands of the great world empire (Jews under the Greeks and the Christians under the Romans). So it was a response to this challenge encountered by God’s people. Its purpose was to encourage and support those undergoing persecution and suffering because of their faith.

Apocalyptic literature used a good deal of imagery and symbols to convey the message of encouragement and hope.

Examples: Daniel, IV Ezra, II Baruch (contemporary of Rev)

John Randall: “The Book of Rev is at least 95% concerned with the events of the 1st and 2nd centuries. So instead of being [a book for our times that outlines what the future will be], it is a book mostly about past history where we might see applications and parallels and learn a good deal for ourselves.”

Rev as a book has a prophetic element in the sense that it is speaking for God rather than predicting the future. It is written to console and encourage. The author in symbolism and imagery presents God as vindicator, as savior who will ultimately lead the persecuted and those who suffer to the freedom of a new life.

Rev are reflections on events of the times when believers were undergoing thru persecution and suffering because of their faith. Like any apocalyptic literature Rev makes use of end-of-time symbolism to describe what was taking place during Christianity’s 1st century existence. This called attention to now God will ultimately redeem His people who were unjustly persecuted.

The persecutors are described in symbols (usually fearful symbols) and so once they are understood properly, the book can be seen in its true light.

In Rev the persecutor is the pagan Roman empire that caused havoc to the young Church. The events and symbols described in the book happened for the most part in the 1st 200 years of Christianity. The ‘future’ predictions are actually the future in a very broad sense: evil and good will always be at war, but good will eventually conquer.

Unfortunately, many readers have forgotten the 1st century addressees and not knowing the nature of apocalyptic literature, they think that Rev is an exact prediction of the future, especially of the end of the world. Indeed, there will be an end to our present world somewhere in God’s plan (‘transformation is a better world). But the point is, no detailed outline can be found in Scripture, not in Rev.

Symbolism pervades the Bible; it is one of the media through which God conveys truth. Symbols serve as a vehicle for expressing depth of insight into realities difficult to describe in a more literal way (Good Shepherd to express God’s patient tender compassion and care).

Just about everything in life can be given a symbolic meaning, and that is just what the bible authors did. Throughout the Bible symbols are used to convey truth. Today, in order to understand the author’s meaning, readers must translate the symbols back into the mind of the author. Sometimes it is difficult to grasp the meaning of the symbol. The key to unlock the meaning of symbols lies most often in human understanding of the historical situation at the time the author wrote. Part of this understanding lies in grasping the common symbols used by people of Jewish times.

Numbers

One type of symbol that is common in the Bible is numbers. Scholars have discovered that numbers had a special meaning for the Jews: 7 meant totality or perfection; 6 meant imperfection; 12 meant Israel; 1000 meant immensity; 4 meant the world; 40 meant something like “sufficient for the purpose,” as in Acts 1,3 where 40-day period before Jesus’ ascension meant that he spent the ‘time needed’ to instruct his followers before his appearances stopped.

Another use the Israelites made of numbers is called Gematria—adding the numerical value of the letters that make up a name: e.g., a=1, b=2, etc. (AD 79 Pompeii, the lover hid the name of his loved one by giving the numerical value of the letters of her name. We will see how this Gematria helps us to understand the mysterious ‘666’ image of Rev 13,18.

The apocalyptic book of Daniel was written to encourage the Jewish people, who were on the verge of despair because of Antiochus IV. The 3 ½ years of persecution they underwent under this man caused them to use this number (3 ½ years, 1260 days, or 42 months) again and again as a symbol of any period of crisis.

Cosmic Imagery

Rev 6,12-17 is a dramatized portrayal of the end of the persecution. This is not the end of the world being described here. It is simply another example of what can be termed apocalyptic imagery: symbolic and colorful descriptions that are tools (not to be taken literally) used by the biblical author to dramatize the end of the persecution and the victory that will come over Rome itself.

In a sense it is the end of a world, i.e., the world of Rome and its misused of power and unjust persecution. The reference is only indirectly to the end of the world as we understand the world now. Additionally, these verses are to be taken only in the broad sense: at the end of time God will be clearly shown in His sovereignty and power as the forces of evil are finally silenced/overcome (Unfortunate misinterpretations).

Mark 13,32.

The Millennium

In Rev 20,1-6 John speaks of a thousand-year period or millennium. For some this is a precise period of time in the future in preparation for or immediately following the 2nd coming of Christ (Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that it was inaugurated with the ‘invisible’ return of Jesus to earth in 1914).

For us Catholics, we follow the meaning biblical scholars find in John’s own thoughts (literal meaning). For him, it was symbolic—not literal—period. Thousand in Scripture means fullness, completeness. It is the indefinite length of time that began with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and continues until his 2nd coming and the final judgment of humanity. It is synonymous with Christianity, that faith-experience that stretches through history and is now in its 2000th year.

End times and eschatology relate to the same period. History is perceived by Christians as a series of events leading eventually to the final event, the eschaton in which Parousia or 2nd coming of Christ will take place ‘to judge the living and the dead.’

The ‘end times’ are thus a combination of ‘already’ and ‘not yet’. ‘Already’ because the decisive victory over evil has already been accomplished by Christ; ‘not yet’ because its full realization in our lives and in creation is still not arrived yet.

With this scriptural understanding of ‘end times’ as something already upon us today, we can better understand many images in Revelation such as ‘Satan chained and released,’ ‘Gog and Magog’, ‘666 Beast,’ ‘Antichrist,’ and ‘Armageddon.’

Satan Chained and Released (20,7)

What does John mean when he says that at the end of the thousand years, Satan will be released after being chained for that time? Are we to believe that God will allow evil to run rampant again after Jesus conquered evil by his death and resurrection?

Perhaps the best answer we can give is to say that evil is stubborn and persistent. Evil still remains in our midst even though Jesus overcame it (Satan chained). It’s something like war: even after victory, there is still mopping up to be done. The same is true in our own lives. Although we’ve been converted to the Lord and really changed our former selves, we’re not perfect! Many effects of the evil we and others have done still remain. And if we’re not careful, evil can still pop up its ugly head, especially when our defenses are down.

Satan released is John’s way of describing this reality. He is not telling his readers that at some distant period in history God will set Satan free to mislead us on a grand scale. Rather, he is reminding us that evil can spring up once again in our lives if we’re not careful, and that despite all that Jesus has done for us, we can still finally be lost.

Gog and Magog (20,8)

John says that after one thousand years Gog and Magog will be permitted to attack the people of God. There was a time it was claimed by Hal Lindsey that Gog and Magog refer to the Soviet Union. However, scholars see them as simply ‘mythical summaries’ of evil.

The names come from the OT prophet Ezekiel 38-39. Genesis 10,2 lists Magog as a northern nation. They are for Ezekiel not really historical but personifications whose features are drawn from the kings who conquered Israel, often coming from the north. John simply borrows these images. They remind us, as above, that we must never let our spiritual defenses down. For the forces of evil will again play havoc in our lives just as they have done in the past.

The 666 Beast (13)

The beast and its 666 number have been in the past destructive of church unity. Critics of the Catholic Church tried to show how Italika Ecclesia (in Greek) meaning Italian Church, comes to 666 when the numerical value of all the letters (gematria) is added together. Catholics counter argued by showing the Greek for Luther, Loutherana and Saxoneios (Saxon, meaning Luther) also equals 666. Futhermore, Maometis (Mohammed) and Nabonaparti (Napoleon or Hitler) show the same result.

Going back to the historical setting of the book of Rev, one needs to identify the person referred to by the number 666 and must look to the contemporary time of the author. Who best summarizes in the late 1st century the evil reflected in the image of the beast? Who was responsible for the persecution of the Christians with which the book of Rev deals? As special person now comes to the fore: Emperor Nero!

In July 64 AD, a terrible fire broke out in Rome. It is said that Nero, seemingly a madman, started the fire. He blamed the Christians and a persecution began. During this 1st persecution of the Church, both Peter and Paul were executed. Bishop Eusebius, the 1st serious Christian historian, in his History of the Early Church (early 400’s) tells us: ‘It is recorded that in Nero’s reign Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and that Peter likewise was crucified, and the record is confirmed…by a churchman named Gaius.’

The name of Nero totals 666. Cesar Nero is written in Hebrew KSR NRWN. Giving the proper gematria to these Hebrew letters (K=100, S=60, R=200, N=50, R=200, W=6, N=50) a total of 666. In his person, Nero represents all the evil of the Roman empire (the beast). He together with the pagan Rome is the infamous Antichrist!

Why does the author of Revelation speak in such hidden symbolism? It was not because he was referring to some mysterious person centuries away in history, but, according to one explanation, because of his fear of being accused of treason. If the material happened to fall into Roman hands, even sterner measures might be taken against the Church. However, recent scholarship suggests that hidden symbolism was not used to avoid persecution and detection, but that it was just part of the literary genre.