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“Ask a Priest: Why Do We Accept Scripture as Divinely Inspired?”

August 2, 2024 / Ask a Priest, Bible

Q: Why do we as Catholics believe that the letters and writings found in the Bible are divinely inspired? Clearly they are very important documents because of the time, but what sets them apart and makes them 100% true and infallible? -D.B.

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC

A: The basic reason we accept Scripture as divinely inspired is because the Church teaches us to. That might seem simplistic, but it’s not. Let me explain.

We accept the Old Testament because Christ himself esteemed it. “Scripture cannot be set aside” (John 10:35). In his day “Scripture” meant what we came to call the Old Testament. Now, our believing that the Old Testament is inspired is based on Jesus’ esteem for it. And the evidence for this is the New Testament. Which leads to an obvious question: So why accept the New Testament texts? Well, again, we accept them because the early Church accepted them.

A key criterion for texts being accepted into the canon, or list, of New Testament books was their apostolic origins. They were either written by apostles (who had personal contact with Jesus) or people closely connected to the apostles. Beyond that, we don’t know a lot about the way early Christians made their choice of the New Testament books. Some texts seem obvious (such as the Gospels), others less so (think of the Letter to Philemon). The process of formalizing a list of the books in the New Testament was slow and complex. The list wasn’t recognized in an official way until the Church councils of Hippo and Carthage in the late fourth century. This doesn’t mean the Church “invented” the list at that time; it simply took time to discern what was and wasn’t inspired text.

The notion that Scripture is “100% true and infallible” needs qualification. The Second Vatican Council’s constitution Dei Verbum says, “Since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation” (No. 11).

Note that the phrase “without error” refers to salvific truths, those that help us reach salvation. The Bible, then, might get something wrong regarding a date or historic event, but that isn’t its main purpose. It is communicating something deeper from God, to help us reach heaven.

Who helps us understand and interpret the Bible correctly? The Church. “The task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on,” says Dei Verbum in No. 10, “has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit.”

So the Church’s authority concerning Scripture is based on the authority it receives from Christ. I hope this helps.

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“Ask a Priest: Why is there not a Second Reading at daily Mass?”

September 20, 2023 / Ask a Priest, Mass, the Eucharist and Priests

Q: Why is there a Second Reading only at Sunday and holy day Masses but not at regular weekday Masses? Thanks! -A.

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC

A: Before the Second Vatican Council there normally used to be only one reading at Sunday Mass. This was known as the epistle. The epistle came from one of the Apostles’ letters in the New Testament.

Vatican II moved to promote the liturgical renewal that had already been under way. It aimed to immerse the faithful more fully in the Scriptures, in order to nourish our spiritual lives even more on the sacred Word.

The result was that Sunday Masses and holy days had a First Reading (from the Old Testament) and a Second Reading (from the New Testament). Adding an Old Testament reading helped to show the unity of both Testaments within salvation history (see No. 57 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal).

The Church also started a three-year cycle for Sunday Mass readings, which means that a faithful Catholic will go through the whole history of salvation every three years. A two-year cycle for daily Mass readings affords the faithful another tour. The cycle of readings before Vatican II did not permit such broad exposure to the Scriptures during the Eucharistic liturgies.

The Church probably didn’t add an additional reading to the daily Masses for practical reasons – in part, to keep the celebrations shorter, especially for people who might need to get to work or school right away.

The three Readings (including the Gospel) are on days that most people come to Mass. Moreover, the daily and Sunday cycles are independent of each other during Ordinary Time. (For more reading on the Readings at Mass, click here.) I hope this helps. God bless.

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“Ask a Priest: Couldn’t the New Testament Be Made Up?”

December 11, 2015 / Ask a Priest, Bible

Q: I was brought up Jewish but I was never religious. I used to believe in God, but when I was about 15 (I’m 18 now) I turned to deism, and then atheism/agnosticism. Recently I have felt God’s presence, and so I’m trying to figure out my beliefs and what is right. However, sometimes I wonder if I am just trying to convince myself that God exists, out of comfort and fitting in. I’ve recently been looking into Christianity, but I’m having a lot of trouble. First, the evidence of Jesus performing miracles. I know it is stated in the Bible, but wouldn’t what the writers say be biased? Perhaps they wrote about Jesus performing miracles and rising from the dead because they wanted to keep people interested and believing in Jesus. (I don’t mean to be offensive, sorry if I have offended you.) Second, some Christian beliefs confuse me. For starters, do Christians believe Jesus is the son of God? This confuses me, as monotheistic religions believe there is one God; would God having a son be a contradiction of this? And worshipping Jesus, like a statue of Jesus, isn’t that worshipping idols? I thought that was also against Christian beliefs. Furthermore, what does the phrase “Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins” mean? Christians, and people of other religions, still sin today? So, let’s say a Christian murdered someone. Wouldn’t he still go to hell? Or would he not, because Jesus died? Finally, why don’t Christians do Jewish festivals? Christianity grew out of Judaism, half the Bible is the Old Testament, and Jesus himself was Jewish. Sorry for this really long e-mail, I would really appreciate any help. -E.D.

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC

A: Thanks for your note. It sounds as if God is giving you some great graces, as he tries to nudge you closer to his embrace. You are a beloved daughter of God, and he only wants the best for you.

Your questions show that you are thinking deeply about Our Lord. That is a good sign. It is good, too, that you are asking questions; Our Lord wants you to use both your intellect and your heart to find him.

Permit me to try to answer your questions succinctly.

Regarding the biblical account of Jesus’ miracles (and don’t worry, your question doesn’t offend me!), a proper answer could fill a book. Suffice it to offer a few observations.

First, it is good to remember that the New Testament is the product of a believing community. The texts had credibility in antiquity because there were a lot of eyewitnesses still running around. Hence there were folks who could corroborate the stories of the miracles and the resurrection.

Now, there are other religions and cultures that have produced texts that speak of extraordinary things – so what makes the New Testament credible? One big reason might be this: Many of the folks who believed in the miracles of Jesus and his resurrection were willing to die for their beliefs. Most of the apostles were martyred. Peter was crucified upside down. Bartholomew reportedly was skinned alive. Paul was beheaded. You get the idea. This doesn’t prove the New Testament stories, but it does indicate that many folks sincerely believed in the events, enough to accept martyrdom.

Another key point, at least for the resurrection, was that no one ever produced the body of Jesus. All we had was the empty tomb. Without the resurrection of Jesus, the whole edifice of Christianity collapses.

You raise questions about specific Christian beliefs. The core mystery of Christianity is the Trinity, or triune God. There is only one God – the same God of the Jews and Muslims. What God revealed in the New Testament is that he is three divine Persons in one God.

“Persons” is a word that philosophers and theologians had to invent in order to explain the Trinity. A “Person” in God is, in theological terms, a subsistent relation. Each relation is something real, it is not what (in philosophical terms) an accident. Your best friend, say, is Susan. Today Susan has blond hair; tomorrow she dyes it and ends up with black hair. Her hair color is an accident, but her essence (her “Susan-ness”) remains the same.

Now, the relations within God are not mere accidents; they are Persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. All three Persons have the same divine nature, which is why there is only one God.

Don’t worry if you can’t get your mind around this – no one really can. It is a mystery beyond our comprehension. And that in itself is one reason to believe it isn’t a human invention – even the sharpest philosopher would have never dreamt up something like the Trinity.

Closely linked to this mystery is the Incarnation, that is, the Second Person of the Trinity (the Son of God) took on human nature and walked among us. This is Jesus.

We make use of images to help remind us of Jesus. We don’t worship the image, we worship Jesus. It is akin to a man who has a photo of his wife and children on his desk. He loves his wife and kids – he doesn’t love the photo. But the photo reminds him of the ones he loves. Our use of images doesn’t violate the commandment against worshipping idols, since we don’t worship the image. Moreover, Jesus himself is a living icon or image of the invisible God. So there’s no problem with images of Jesus.

Regarding sin: To sin means to offend an infinitely good God. We are finite creatures. This means we finite creatures can never really make up for our offenses against an infinitely good God. Only God could make up for an offense against God. That is why the Son of God came into the world – he suffered and died for our redemption, to make up for our sins.

This doesn’t mean that we are guaranteed heaven. We still have to do our part. People indeed sin today; we see the results all around us. A Christian who murdered someone and was unrepentant would risk going to hell. If he repents, then he can be saved. But even there, his redemption depends on the redemptive work of Jesus.

Now, why don’t Christians “do Jewish festivals”?

The answer could be something like this. Jesus fulfills the Old Testament. He is the messiah that the Old Testament pointed to and awaited.

Christianity fulfills Judaism, in part by elevating the Old Testament signs and practices and feasts. Baptism, for instance, is prefigured by the Flood in the account of Noah, and in the crossing of the Red Sea. The death that was brought by the Flood and the parting of the Red Sea prefigures the death to sin that baptism brings about. (“Death to sin” means it takes away original sin and any actual sins that a person has on her soul.)

Besides, Jesus himself said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17).

Many of the Old Testament festivals no longer needed to be observed because a new set of liturgical practices, etc., replaced them.

For more reading you might check out Salvation Is From the Jews. For an overview on philosophy of religion, Peter Kreeft has an insightful audio course, “Faith and Reason“. You might be able to get the CD’s through your local library system.

I hope some of this helps. Count on being included in my prayers.

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“Ask a Priest: Did Jesus Only Release the Just Souls After His Death?”

September 1, 2015 / Ask a Priest, Doctrine

Q: When Jesus died, he went to “the place of the dead to release the just.” Were there “unjust” in the place of the dead at the time of the Crucifixion? Did Jesus only release the just? And if so, what happened to them? Did they then go to purgatory? Also, did purgatory begin after the Crucifixion? Did purgatory begin when hell began? Thank you for your answers. -D.F.

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC

A: When Jesus “descended into hell” (as the Apostles’ Creed says) he went to the abode of the dead, to release the just souls who needed him to open the gates of heaven for them. This abode could be thought of as a kind of purgatory. The unjust were those already suffering eternal damnation. Jesus did not release them.

The Catechism in No. 633 says, “Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, ‘hell’ — Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek — because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into ‘Abraham’s bosom’: ‘It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.’ Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.”

As to what happened, and when, to all the just is hard to say. Some of the just could have entered heaven immediately. Whether others lingered longer, in a purgatorial state, is harder to tell. Suffice it to say that all of the just souls eventually get to heaven. Certainly the unjust remained in hell, the state of eternal damnation.

Some scholars apparently hold that the Sheol or Gehenna of the Old Testament could be equated with purgatory in the New Testament. The problem is that terms are sometimes a bit vague, with different connotations, in the Old Testament.

It seems reasonable to think that souls from the Old Testament who were basically just but who had flaws would have suffered something after death and before the opening of the gates of heaven. In that sense, purgatory could be akin to the Sheol of the Old Testament. So purgatory wasn’t a totally new phenomenon after the Crucifixion. (For more reading see the EWTN piece.)

In the Old Testament we see evidence for the belief in what we call purgatory. 2 Maccabees 12:43-46 says: “He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection in mind; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be absolved from their sin.”

This need for offering sacrifice and making atonement for the dead would support the idea that the souls were suffering something and somehow needed the prayers and intercession of the living to help them.

Though Judaism has not included the books of Maccabees in its canon of Scripture, some Jews have embraced a belief in a process of purification after death (see this article).

Did purgatory begin when hell began? This is an intriguing question, because the things of the spirit world are outside of time as we know it.

Nevertheless, it seems as if some of the angels fell first, among them the one we now call Satan. He, in turn, tried to turn men away from God. If we accept that sequence of events, then it seems reasonable to say hell existed first, since it was the punishment of the fallen angels.

Purgatory, or Sheol, or Gehenna — however we want to label the abode of the just who can’t enter heaven yet — would have started with the death of the first humans.

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New Testament

“Ask a Priest: Why Do We Accept Scripture as Divinely Inspired?”

Got a question? Need an answer?

“Ask a Priest: Why is there not a Second Reading at daily Mass?”

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“Ask a Priest: Couldn’t the New Testament Be Made Up?”

“Ask a Priest: Did Jesus Only Release the Just Souls After His Death?”

Alex Kucera

Atlanta