Q’s from the Pews: Documents of Vatican II (Snippets –Vol 4/9): September 1, 2025

Dei Verbum (DV), the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, “(sets) forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation and how it is handed on.” This follows the Council of Trent declaring the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura – which states Scripture is the sole means of revelation of God – to be a heresy.

DV reminded us “(His existence) can be known with certainty from created reality by the light of human reason.” One can know there is a God by reason alone, however God’s “plan of revelation is (also) realized by deeds and words (that have) an inner unity.” “The deepest…fullness of all revelation,” and “truth about God shine out for our sake in (the person of) Christ.”

“God (wished that His full revelation in Jesus) would abide perpetually in its full integrity and be handed on to all generations.” Nothing was to be left out. Both the words and deeds of Christ were to be handed on. “Therefore, Christ… the full revelation of the supreme God… commissioned the Apostles to preach,” and keep “the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church.”

Vatican I affirmed this authority to preach “in the matters of faith and morals” was vested in “Holy Mother Church.” DV defined this further: “the Apostles left bishops as their successors, “handing over” to them “the authority to teach in their own place.” The teaching of the Apostles, what they “handed over” about Jesus, is our Tradition. “This sacred tradition, therefore, and Sacred Scripture are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God.” The Church, through its teaching office of Bishops (the Magisterium) instituted by Christ, holds both Scripture and Tradition together as the means of God’s revelation.