Common Objections

Catholic Outlook

Catholic Outlook

Catholic Outlook

Common Objections

Catholic Outlook

__________ The Bible __________

“The Catholic Church denies that the Bible is the inerrant, inspired Word of God.”

Gary Hoge

On the contrary, this is one of the many points we have in common with Protestants. Both sides agree that every word of the Bible was authored by God. Consider this statement from the Second Vatican Council document Dei Verbum:

Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For [the Church] … holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself. 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.

Therefore 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 the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation.¹

Because Scripture is the word of God himself, “the force and power in the word of God is so great that it stands as the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her sons, the food of the soul, the pure and everlasting source of spiritual life.”²

That’s why, just like Protestants, the Church believes that “easy access to Sacred Scripture should be provided for all the Christian faithful.”³ And, “The Church forcefully and specially exhorts all the Christian faithful . . . to learn 'the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ' (Phil 3:8) by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures.”⁴ 

The inspiration of Scripture is one of those happy areas where Catholics and Protestants are in complete agreement!