My Friend the Friar
A podcast where we learn about our faith and share what it takes to live a Catholic Christian life through conversations and contemplations with my friend the friar, a Discalced Carmelite Priest.
My Friend the Friar
Understanding Typology in Sacred Scripture
In this episode, Father Sanchez emphasizes the necessity of understanding the sacred authors' intentions in their historical and cultural contexts, and we explore how metaphors like the good shepherd or parables like the sower and the seed reveal deeper spiritual insights. Drawing on guidance from the Catechism, we highlight how these interpretations remain relevant and vital for contemporary believers.
The conversation dives deep into the historical and theological development of scriptural interpretation, from allegorical to typological methods. Through examples such as Jonah's story prefiguring Christ, we see how Old Testament events foreshadow New Testament revelations. Father Sanchez explains the balance between allegorical and literal meanings, touching upon historical shifts and the renewed interest in typology within the Catholic tradition. Join us as we enrich our understanding of both Testaments and deepen our appreciation for Scripture's timeless wisdom.
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Speaker 2:Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me and my friend the friar, father Stephen Sanchez, a Discalced Carmelite Priest. Good morning, father. Good morning. How are you? I am sleepies because Bertha woke me up at it was almost 5 o'clock in the morning and she was meowing and meowing and meowing and whenever I, eventually I got out of bed because I was going to murder her and she scampered away but then stopped and turned to look back at me and meowed more, like in Lassie, you remember back. Yeah, it's like the little dog's trying to to take you to the well where billy fell in or something. Yeah, and so I was. I'm half asleep. I'm like, oh my gosh, what's going on bertha, what is it? And she's like me. I'm down the hallway so I follow her. She stops, turns, looks back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I follow her her water bowl her food bowl was empty and I just thought you'd like to know yeah, I was. I was trying to be calm about it and I was just like you know what, if I fight it, I'm never going back to sleep. So I fed her, but by the time I was done putting food in the bowl, it was over.
Speaker 1:I was up Too late.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, but she was very happy and she was very thankful that I fed her when she was starving to death at five in the morning.
Speaker 1:Because they never eat poor things.
Speaker 2:Oh man, so I'm all right. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm well. Thank you, I'm well.
Speaker 2:You've been busy, man, yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. God is good. Can you imagine what kind of worthless human you'd be if you were just bored all the time?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but sometimes it's worth considering, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness. Okay, so you wanted to talk about typology because it was something we had brought up in one of our previous episodes the whole storm and Jonah and the garden full of weeds and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Right and I'm very excited about this and I don't know if we maybe we'll have time at the end we can kind of get into it or maybe it'll be another episode that we'll write down and forget that we wrote down. But on a similar kind of topic, betty was asking me the other day about the symbolic nature of numbers in the Bible like three and seven and six and twelve and yeah, all that, and so with that, I guess very roughly, is that a typology as well, no, that wouldn't be typology.
Speaker 1:No, that'd be another kind of like uh, that'd be more in terms of symbols, like what is the number seven, right? So what is number three, number four, uh, six, those things that they're, that they. And in jewish mysticism and jewish, there is a little sidetrack there that within Judaism there is this whole thing that's kind of obsessed with numbers, right, and so whatever, I mean, I'm not studied in that, so I don't want to say anything other than that. But yeah, this typology is different. The reason I wanted to bring it up was because the last time we were talking say anything other than that. But yeah, this typology is different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the reason I wanted to bring it up was because the last time we were talking, as you mentioned, you had brought up that Bishop Barron had stirred up some of your considerations and ponderings. And going back to that, like you mentioned the idea of the storm in the Book of Jonah, how Bishop Barron presented the idea or the suggestion that maybe the storm was a corrective to Jonah's refusal to obey God's word.
Speaker 1:Right, and so the last time, as we were going through that and you were presenting your reflections or your ideas on that, I was thinking like hmm, maybe we should do a little bit on the senses of scripture, because we had talked before a little bit about typology, right, A little bit and we've touched on that. So I thought, maybe, following up on that last episode, to do something on the four senses of scripture and open up the Pandora's box on typology.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I'm glad that you want to, because it is really easy. We've talked about this before. It is really easy with when you are your own magisterium. It is really easy to kind of go off into left field and people are like how did you get there?
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Yeah, like David Koresh in Waco.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there is the church in its wisdom knows how and I guess, how to interpret everything, and we need to be careful that we are mindful of this and it's it's not bad per se to explore these thoughts on your own, but we want to make sure that we are.
Speaker 1:Um, we go home every time right, we don't just keep wandering off right, right. And so what I want to do is I wanted to touch a little bit on that kind of stuff because there is that danger, right, and then there's, you know, later on we'll probably do so write this down and then forget that. We write it down on Lectio Divina when we start talking about prayer, right?
Speaker 2:So this is a little bit different from that.
Speaker 1:But before I talk on the four senses of Scripture and a little intro to typology, I want to recall the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on the Constitution on Divine Revelation, which was entitled De Verbum of God's Word, right God's Word.
Speaker 1:So in chapter 3 of that document, chapter 3 is entitled Sacred Scripture, its Inspiration and Divine Interpretation. Number 12 of chapter 3 states, however, since God speaks in sacred Scripture through men, in human fashion, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wants to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words. And I think it's important for us to remember this, because just the other day we were at lunch and Father Jim says you'll never believe what they asked me during Bible studying, like what Father he says so in the Bible you know where are dinosaurs and did dinosaurs? And did Adam name dinosaurs or something Like okay, so yeah, we talked a little bit about how we're trying to explain that the Bible is not a chronological history but sacred history and the differences between that and so anyway, and then after we had you and I had talked about the Bishop Barron thing, like I think we should probably say something about the four senses of scripture.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, getting back to this constitution, so it's a matter of what did the person, what did the sacred author intend to communicate? Right? And since this is a divine inspiration and he or God, I should say God is inspiring a human instrument, then the human instrument only has human realities that he can use to try to understand what it is that God is saying or trying to say. Right, and only has those limited human realities by which the author can communicate the inspiration. So, humanity, today, in our century, our knowledge and understanding of the world is very, very, very, very different from the first century, and so the human reality has changed, understanding has changed, so we have other ways of explaining or using our understanding of the world in a different way. Right? So that's part of the understanding too, that there is this idea of what is it that the script, the sacred author, was trying to communicate to us and what were the tools he had available. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Is this? I guess a good example would be like when we covered the book of Revelation. He's speaking very it's like I don't know what the word I'm looking for. It's culturally and historically relevant things that are going on in his time at that time. But then there's also more right.
Speaker 1:Because, it's.
Speaker 2:Inspired. Or maybe the way people would try to describe angels with like a million eyeballs or something like that they're using what they understand to try to describe something.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, so this is part of it, right? So in the Catechism Numbers 115 through 119, the Catechism touches on these senses of Scripture. Senses of scripture. So first, really quick, overall, in sacred scripture we see that there's a literal sense and a spiritual sense, right, so the spiritual sense itself then can be subdivided into three other senses. So the four senses of scripture then are literal what is written down, and then the spiritual sense then would be senses, would be allegorical, moral and anagogical. Okay, we'll talk about that in just a minute.
Speaker 1:So literal, what the sacred author wrote and what he intended to convey to us in that writing, including the metaphors that he used to convey his message, for example, I am the good shepherd. So the literal sense, then, is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis. Exegesis is the study of the word structure and the content, the historical content. Who was writing it? What were they trying to convey? That's part of the whole exegesis of Scripture, right, following the rules of sound interpretation, all other senses of sacred Scripture are based on the literal.
Speaker 1:So when Jesus says I am the good shepherd, does that mean that Jesus was an actual shepherd? No, wait, a minute. Wasn't he a carpenter. So was he a carpenter and a shepherd? No, he's using a metaphor, right, and so that's part of literary expression, that's part of human expression, and so trying to understand that there is the use of metaphor. So sometimes the literal is different from, I guess, what we would call strictly fundamental the letter of the written word. Right, this actually means what it says. There is no sign or symbol or metaphors being used, right?
Speaker 2:So… yeah, so I can see that being tricky for some people who interpret things only literally. Think of certain Christian groups. Where it's the Bible, it is literal, only Right.
Speaker 1:For example, there's two creation stories in Genesis, so does that mean that there's two parallel universes?
Speaker 2:I mean is that what that?
Speaker 1:means.
Speaker 2:And this is also did I hear you right, or did I understand you right, that everything else has to be based off of the literal meaning first, yeah, what is the author attempting to say?
Speaker 1:What is the audience that the author is addressing? Right, those are the literal, that's the literal basis, and then from there we have the spiritual understanding, because God's Word is life-giving and there is a truth there. There is an absolute truth in the Scripture that we're attempting to understand. In the scripture that we're attempting to understand, how is that abiding truth applicable to our life today as a believing community? So that's part of that whole literal sense. First, I have to understand who's talking to what, and okay, so then how does that apply? What is the truth there that's still applicable to us in the present day that we find ourselves in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, would this be the same way, not just with Scripture, but the same way you should learn from Jesus' parables?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So a parable, again, is a literary device, right? So what is Jesus trying to teach us through this literary device? There's something here that he's trying to get across to us, for example, the whole idea of the seed that is cast on stony ground, the thorns, the good soil, the shallow soil right. Ground the thorns, the good soil, the shallow soil right. Is it really a lesson on gardening? Or what is it that he's trying to get across to us, right? And so there's this whole idea, then, that there is this device, this literary device that the Lord is trying to explain to us. One, I think, for example, in that parable, is God's generosity. Generosity meaning he's generous, he doesn't measure Himself out, right? If you would think about that, to sow the seed, you would go and prepare, because you'd prepare the soil, because you want to make sure that every seed has the real, the great opportunity, or a greater opportunity to germinate. And here in the parables, like.
Speaker 1:God is so generous, he's just continuously scattering his mercy, his love, his inspiration. So again, that's part of that literary device of the parable.
Speaker 2:All right, so that makes sense. What's the allegorical then?
Speaker 1:So the allegorical in the Catechism number 117,. The Catechism tells us we can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ. Thus the crossing of the Red Sea, when Israel comes out of Egypt, right, the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian baptism. Okay, so we have to be careful here. The allegory is not arbitrary, so that each reader can attempt to apply whatever value or interpretation that they want to the Scripture verse, right, but that the allegory is something that is inspired or illuminated by faith and discovers Christ in all of Scripture. That is so in allegory. I'm always looking for something that connects to Christ, something that points to Christ. I'm always looking for that. That is the allegory. So, for example, crossing the Red Sea, it's like well, okay, the Red Sea, red River. So if we cross the Red River we go into Oklahoma or from Oklahoma to Texas.
Speaker 1:No, that's not it, because it has to point back to the literal interpretation it points back to the literal interpretation, and the allegorical is always looking for some connection to Christ, right? So then crossing the Red Sea, right? So it'd be like, okay, that'd be like. The allegory would be that that is like baptism, in that, just as Israel came out of Egypt from slavery, for us baptism is coming away from the slavery to sin, from that death of slavery to the life of the new people, right, the people that God is redeeming. So we would see, then, the crossing of the Red Sea as a type—I'm going to go a little bit—I'm going to jump ahead a little bit a type of baptism, right? So, okay, we'll touch back on that in a minute. So that's the allegorical, so the moral sense.
Speaker 1:The catechism tells us again in number 117, the events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. So that's the moral sense. How does this help me to live a moral life? How does this help me in my morality? As St Paul says, they are written for our instruction. So if we have found the allegorical sense of the scripture, the consequence should be that I commit to living what I have discovered. That is what is the moral consequence of the allegorical sense. It is the life that flows forth from the life itself. So, in the allegory of crossing the Red Sea and it is the allegory of baptism going from death, enslavement to sin, to new life in Christ, then the moral sense would be what is the moral implication then of living the new life? How do I free myself from the slavery of sin now that I am enjoying the freedom of the sons of God, or I've been adopted in Jesus Christ through baptism? Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the moral life is not a subjective set of morals, depending on our culture and circumstance or whatever it is the objective truth of following Jesus.
Speaker 1:Right, so.
Speaker 1:And the moral virtues? Right, and you can look that up in the catechism as well. So then, the fourth sense of the scripture. So you have the literal. Then you have the allegorical, which is looking for some connection to Christ or Christ's life, the Christ event. And then you have the moral, which is, somehow, how does that Christ event, how does that truth of Christ reflect in my moral life, how do I grow in virtue, how do I live a good life? And then you have what is known as the anagogical sense, and in number 117, again, of the Catechism.
Speaker 1:The Catechism tells us we can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true home. Thus, the church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem. In other words, another way of looking at the anagogical is how does this point me towards the eschaton, towards the end times, right to that final fulfillment, right, so then? Okay, so, living a moral life because of my baptism. But now that means that living a moral life or living a virtuous life, that this is pointing me beyond the temporal reality, to that heavenly Jerusalem, to glory, to heaven whichever word you want to use to the beatific vision that it helps me to see that there is a life beyond the temporal reality that I perceive right, that there is eternal life that I am striving for, right. So that's the anagogical. How does this help me then achieve or move or work towards that eschatological reality?
Speaker 1:Right, excuse me, in the number 118 of the Catechism this is the way that the Catechism kind of summarizes this the letter, or the literal sense. The letter speaks of deeds. Allegory speaks of or speaks to faith. The moral speaks to action. How do I act? The anagogy speaks to our destiny as God's children.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting. That's something worth chewing on. Can you just repeat that? I think you could take the Eucharist and look at it like this right, you could take lots of things, but you got to follow this kind of formula, right, right.
Speaker 1:And so, like the catechism says and this is kind of like the way the catechism summarizes these four senses, right. So the catechism says the letter speaks of deeds, allegory to faith, the moral, how to act, anagaji, our destiny. In other words, okay. So what is the literal, the letter, what is the literal thing that we are reading? What is it that the sacred author is communicating to us? So how does this help me in my faith? What is the faith lesson that I can take from this sacred scripture? Then, how do I act? After I understand what I'm reading, after I understand the faith aspect of it? How do I act? That's the moral sense, right? And then how does this help me achieve my destiny, which is to come to eternal life with Jesus Christ, in communion with Father, son and Spirit?
Speaker 2:Can you take this now and break down, jonah Okay.
Speaker 1:So Jonah it depends what part of Jonah we're talking about, but since Bishop Barron had brought this up, okay, so the overall teaching need to appease the gods. And then Jonah says, oh, it's my fault because I'm running from God and he's like what? And so then they said that's it. And they say we're sorry, but we have to throw you overboard. And he goes I understand, go ahead, throw me overboard. They throw him overboard and the sea's calm, the ship is saved, the sea's calm, the ship is saved, the people don't die. And then Jonah's swallowed by a whale. Okay, so let's look at that. So that is the deed.
Speaker 1:So the deed is what that, as Bishop Barron had brought up, that the possibility of this being corrective, that, as Jonah is running from God, refusing to do or refusing to accept his vocation, right, his call, that is the letter. So, and then the allegory, or how does this, how does this point to Christ? Because again, it has to be point to Christ and to faith Point to Christ? Because again, it has to be point to Christ and to faith. So we say then, if the storm is the corrective, then can we say that Christ's incarnation is the corrective. And so then is Jonah a type of here we're going to typology. Is Jonah a type of the fallen Adam or the disobedient Adam? And so, to correct the disobedient Adam, god sends his word into the world. Which is this corrective storm, right, that's the faith. Storm, right, that's the faith.
Speaker 1:And then the morality is then well, does that mean that I should do my best to not resist God's Word, not resist what God is asking of me? That is the morality, right. And so, then, that would lead me to my destiny as a faithful covenant person, or person being faithful to the covenant that we have in Israel or the covenant that we have in Jesus Christ, right? So there's different ways of being able to apply that, then, to that particular aspect of the story of Jonah. Okay, I see wheels turning. What's going on?
Speaker 2:No, no, it's good, it's good. This is a really good formula. I'm surprised surprised that the church has some good stuff in helping you to understand what's going on in all these stories, Because some of these stories are especially the Old Testament ones are wild, right, Like the book of Job. It's like bananas. But if you take this formula and you go back and read it, you probably end up going oh, Algo asi, yes, so going back to the allegorical sense of scripture and the storm in the book of Jonah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, just as I just did that, right now there is also what is known as typology. This is where we open Pandora's box, in both biblical interpretations and therefore in theology as well. We can say that typology, this idea of typology, goes back to the apostles' encounter with the risen Lord. We are told that Jesus opened their minds to the Scriptures. It's not like they didn't know the Scriptures. They knew the Scriptures, but obviously there's something in the Scriptures that they didn't understand. There's some meaning in the Scriptures that he needed to open their minds to, to understand who he was as Messiah. Right, he was able to point out to them those parts of the Scripture that apply to him as Messiah and the connection to the Paschal Mystery. Then we can say that typology is the doctrine or the theory that connects the Old and the New Testaments.
Speaker 1:So we as Catholic Christians, we as a church, we profess that the Old Testament was a preparation for the New Testament, was a preparation for the New Testament, and that the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament and that they are inseparable. Right, so we need both. So in typology. So we've already talked about the senses, the four senses of Scripture. So now in typology, which is then that other layer that you can add to the four senses. So in typology, situations, events, persons found in the Old Testament are understood to be types that prefigure and are superseded by antitypes that are the events or aspects of Christ or Christ's revelation as described in the New Testament. So the antitype would be the fulfillment of the type right. So Jonah. Going back to Jonah, the person of Jonah could be seen as a type of Christ. When Jonah emerges from the belly of the whale, he would appear to rise from the dead, or death right from the whale's belly as is definitively seen in Christ's resurrection after being in the belly of the earth or the belly of death.
Speaker 1:So that is how Jonah, then, could be a type of Christ, and Christ would be the anti-type right, the fulfillment of the type right, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, because it was three days and three days too, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so other common typological allegories entail the four major Old Testament prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, and the typology is that they prefigure, or they're types of, the anti-types, which are the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, or type again, the 12 tribes of Israel were the type of the foreshadowing of the 12 apostles and they're therefore the new Israel. So commentators could find countless analogies between stories of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Modern typologists prefer to limit themselves to considering typological relationships that they find between the New Testament itself, not outside of the scriptures. Right, the sacred scriptures, for example Jonah. Right, Because sometimes people get caught up in typologies and so all of a sudden, like I said earlier, you become David Koresh in Waco and you've got all sorts of stuff going on that has nothing to do with Jesus, right, yeah, or the scriptures.
Speaker 1:So then this way of approaching the scripture was seen in the early church. The early church, Paul himself, in his letter to the Romans, calls Adam a type of the one who was to come, and that's in Romans 5.14. The early church fathers see in the passion of Christ the antitype, or the fulfillment of several Old Testament events or persons. Adam is a type of Christ Eve is a type of the church. The tree of knowledge points to the tree of life, which is the cross. Eve was taken from Adam's side during his sleep. The church is born from the sight of Christ, while he sleeps in death.
Speaker 2:So all those are different Because, yeah, because everything's got to point back to Jesus. Correct In the allegory part. Correct.
Speaker 1:Correct, correct, correct, correct, okay, for example, another one is in the Gospel of John, mary Magdalene encounters Jesus in the garden. So it goes back to it's the first day of the week. It goes back to the garden, so it goes back to day one of Genesis. This is now the new creation, and Jesus is in the garden and Jesus is the gardener. And so now, we have. All that is part of that typology, right?
Speaker 2:so that's how that, that's yeah, that's really well, it's really creative, it's really imaginative. Right, it's gripping, because anytime you connect dots somewhere, your little light bulb turns on over your head, right, you're like oh, oh yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So that's part of the whole typology thing, right?
Speaker 1:So, going back then to this whole idea of typology, one can say and understand that the first community of believers was struggling with what to make of the scriptures as they knew them, because now they had been fulfilled in the coming of the Messiah. Like, okay, now, since we've been waiting, these hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years we've been anticipating, we've been praying that the Messiah come, that the Messiah come, the Messiah come, and all of a sudden the Messiah is here and you're like okay, so now, what do we do? Now? What is the purpose of Scripture? Now, what is the value of Scripture? Right? So then you know, as the community is struggling with the role and the purpose of Scripture, this is how we have Jesus opening the mind of the apostles to the Scripture and that they are necessary for us to understand exactly who Jesus is as Messiah, that he is the fulfillment of all these promises. Right, the early church saw that the scripture was that prophesied the coming of the Christ and his paschal mystery. Now they understand.
Speaker 2:Oh, so, okay, now I see there's different areas in this scripture that touch upon that right, that understanding and they from the from in the bible and extra biblical sources from the early christians, you can tell how highly regarded um scripture was still right and, like paul says it's, it's uh, of course I'll butcher it um, it's good for teaching and, yes, reproof and all that kind of stuff right like this. So, but only because there's now, as they go through and read this sacred scripture, this inspired word, they're seeing how it is all being fulfilled in Jesus. So I guess that man, I bet the allegory of it all was probably so exciting to them as they got together and they would kind of open up the word and everyone's little minds would just right and we take it for granted, probably.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's unfortunate, but, yes, that's very true. So we could say, then, that typology can also be seen as a theory of history of the Judeo-Christian community is shaped by God, with symbolic events occurring that act as types of later events like, as I said before, is the journey. We could say that the journey of Israel through the desert, then, can be very much a type of the journey of the church, the believing church today, as we wander through the desert of the world that does not believe, right? So just as Israel struggled in the desert, so we're struggling in the desert, right? So just as Israel was tempted, we're tempted. Just as Israel rebelled, sometimes we tend to rebel. So those are sort of that paradigm that has been set before us of that typology of salvation history.
Speaker 1:So this whole approach to scriptures and understanding salvation history, it developed all through the early church and well into the 1300s. There came about even a system during the medieval times and the system that was attempting to understand what seemed to be discontinuities between the Old and the New Testament. So what about the holocausts? What about the high priest and what about this and what about that? All those different things, the rituals and the sin offerings and the ark and all those things, right? So how does this make sense, right? So there's a whole system that was trying to bring these things to conciliation with each other, to conciliation with each other. So the church revered and reveres both the Old Testament and the New as inspired.
Speaker 1:And in the Middle Ages, the theologians began to discern allegories in the Old Testament that foreshadowed the events of the New Testament, for example the sacrifice of Isaac as a type of the crucifixion of Jesus. So you have these typologies, right, these signs, and Jesus being the antitype or the fulfillment of that type. And Paul himself speaks of the existence of allegory and types, right? Which then goes back to this whole idea. That goes contrary to this whole fundamentalist, literalist interpretation of Scripture, because Paul himself, in his letter to the Colossians, says in chapter two of the Colossians, verses 16 and 17,. Paul says, therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, referring to the purity laws, right, the food purity laws or with regard to a religious festival.
Speaker 1:So why aren't you keeping the Jewish festivals right A new moon celebration or a Sabbath day? These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ.
Speaker 2:So something that pops in my head is how exciting intellectually all these little kind of connections are are. But I can see like a bit of a trap here is, or a danger is, if you get caught up in step two, the allegory, and you start there, you start just looking at the allegories, then you're passing up all of the literal meaning of the Old Testament scripture and the New Testament scripture, the Old Testament scripture and the New Testament scripture, Right, right and then again so, for example, one of the things that I always get into a discussion with literalists, where the scripture says if your right hand is the cause of sin, cut it off.
Speaker 1:If it's your left hand, pluck it out right. Left eye, pluck it out right. So that's the literal. And then again, another literal is John says if you say you have no sin, then you're a liar. It's like, okay, so if you're a fundamentalist and you're a literalist, you are a sinner. But then so why? You know, you have both your hands, you have both your eyes. So what? Explain to me, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're either. Well, yeah, because you're stuck you're lying.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly Because you can't be without sin. So you're lying. Exactly so you're a liar.
Speaker 1:So okay, so then, what? So again, and so this is part of the problem that can happen is that we can misinterpret something that the Lord is bringing to us. Something might strike me, something might inspire me, and so then it's a matter of okay. So what is this? Is this the Spirit wants me to ponder this? Is this something here for me as an individual in my own journey? Do I see how this is connected to Christ and the Christ event, and do I see how this is asking of me? Then you know what is the moral challenge, the challenge to virtue, the challenge to moral life, and then how does this help me to move towards my end goal, which is life in communion with the Trinity in the next life? Right, so all this is again something that has to be balanced, right, it's about balance in understanding the literal, the allegorical, the moral, the anagogical. Right, this is part of the process, and in the typology, you have to be careful about getting—it's about looking for types that don't exist. Right, or looking for types under every rock. Right, like you have to be careful. Right, use discretion.
Speaker 1:And so then this leads to one of the problems that came with this as it entered deeper into the church. And then what happened was, after the Protestant revolution, all of a sudden everybody was seeing all types of typologies everywhere and interpreting things and da-da-da-da, and so, you know, it all became crazy. So, again, this was a very prominent teaching or catechizing tool typologies up until the 13th and other Protestant leaders, especially the Puritans, in a very radical way dove headfirst into these typological interpretations. And so what happened was, in the church, the Catholic church, like okay, let's just step back from this a little bit and let them this has been co-opted by the Protestants, right. And so the church says let's just step back a little bit from this, right. And so we still have a lot of the teachings from the old church fathers, the early church fathers, in terms of typologies, and even nowadays we're regaining this sense of typology and re-entering into this idea of the paradigm that has been set for us in Jesus Christ and His paschal mystery.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, that's an interesting. That last little bit is interesting to me because I know that there are a lot of Protestant denominations, if you want to call them that, or you know what's the phrase you use instead of church.
Speaker 1:Communities, faith, traditions.
Speaker 2:Communities. There you go, Communities. Yeah, so there's different non-Catholic faith communities, right, who don't even read from the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Like everything's just New Testament, Right. But then and I've back in the day, I tried to attend a bunch of different churches, right, because I was searching, and something that I kind of noticed is that it seemed very interesting how the preaching can a lot of times feel like it was very tailored for me somehow, lot of times feel like it was very tailored for me somehow. And then I'm like, wow, how is it that it always seems to have some kind of application to me? Now, part of that is because sacred scripture is good stuff, right, but it's also because it's all allegory, but it's starting with the New Testament and it's trying to connect to my life instead of connecting to Jesus.
Speaker 1:So, instead of the literal connecting to Jesus, connecting to moral, so it was going from literal to moral and skipping the allegory.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or it was just allegory between what could be going on in my life, so it's very generalized, that kind of like you're casting a really broad net here so that anybody who's listening can find some way to allegorically connect to it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But you're missing the literal part Right. You're missing the literal part Right, and so I wonder is it helpful or is it not worth it I don't want to say dangerous, but not worth it when you're talking with one of our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters, is it helpful to try to use typology when you're trying to find common ground with them you know what I mean or is it something that you should try to use sparingly?
Speaker 1:Well, I think, first, it would depend upon what faith community or what faith tradition they come from, right, what is their basis? Right, what is their basic, fundamental understanding of salvation history? And secondly, which is something that I've always stated and will state until I stand before the throne, is the radical difference between us and Protestants is Protestants hold to personal interpretation, and so then that means that, even though I speak to a Protestant about what the church teaches, according to their understanding of scripture, it's like, no, okay, that's a good idea, but it's what I make it to be, it's my understanding. That is essential, right, and there's where the problem comes, right.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, there's that huge, it's a huge chasm between us and them, because there is a difference between the interpretation of Scripture as has been handed on to us by apostolic tradition and oral tradition. Right Versus no. This is what I interpret it to be. One of the big abusers of that that I just mentioned earlier was Koresh, david Koresh, his interpretation of the Psalms, his interpretation of this he claimed himself to be the Messiah, he claimed himself to be the new Christ, he used scripture and because, again, there is no guardrails I mean, it's what I say, it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so maybe it's a good way to try to understand what someone else is.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think it's great if you could just explain this is the way we see it, this is the way we understand it. There are these four senses of scripture and there's also this typology, and this is the way we interpret it and, however you do, it is the way you do it, but this is the way that we have since the very beginning. And you can even quote Paul, right? It's in Scripture. So even Paul himself talks about types, right?
Speaker 1:So I think that's a good place to start and it might start some thinking in the other person and their approach to Scripture.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, this has been helpful and I want to. It makes you. It makes me want to go and reread a lot of the parables or pay attention in at mass slightly differently, right, just again using this formula, trying to understand. You know what's been going on, and maybe even not in a judging way, but see how the homily is constructed right Because. I think it's probably a helpful way for the priests and deacons to reach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so are they focusing on all four senses, or the other scripture, or just one sense of the scripture? And so I mean, yeah, it's their, their, their approach to to how to present that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, super cool.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for this. You're welcome. You're the one that's going to spark this. I go like I better do something about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'm going to go run amok then and see what else I can inspire you to teach on. All right, everyone thanks for joining us. Father thanks for playing. Thank you, god bless, I love you. Love you and everyone. We'll see you later. Hasta later, Bye.
