Modus Revelatio: Aquinas on Revelation and Scripture

Aquinas notes a particular hierarchy in the manner in which Scripture comes to man. The Word came from God, being in essence God, to the prophets and apostles. Aquinas further notes that Christ illumined the hearts and minds of the apostles during His earthly ministry. Through this time, the more they came to perceive and grasp divine revelation the more their minds and hearts were wed into one. When Christ ascended into Heaven, it became the role of the Holy Spirit to ensure the acquisition of revelation and knowledge in the apostolic tradition. Bonino summarizes that God the Father authors the revelation of doctrine, Christ the Son transmits the doctrine, and the Spirit assures its interior assimilation. God is the primary cause of Scripture whereby man is the instrumental or secondary cause. Thus the Scriptures are rooted and inseparable from the work and mission of the apostolic foundation, which enjoys its continuation in the Roman Catholic Church.
While Aquinas affirms the supremacy and sufficiency of Scripture, he relegates its perspicuity and illumination to the apostolic tradition. He argues that the Scriptures must never be separated from the traditions of the church fathers. As successors of the apostles, the episcopacy of the Church receives illumination to the meaning of Scripture. Nichols summarizes, “illumined by the Holy Spirit, the Fathers explained infallibly the meaning of the sacred text,” making the Church the “authentic transmitters of Scripture.” As noted, the revelation of God dwells in the apostolic tradition, and it has thus been given to the Pope as Peter’s successor, and subsequently delivered down through the hierarchy of the Church for communication to the laity. In this view, God bestows revelation and illumination only to the episcopacy, and this necessitates the elevation of Church tradition to equality with Scripture. Only the Church, as the sole recipient of God’s illumination of Scripture, can make the necessary adjustments and interpretations for instruction to the laity. Kaczor writes, “Revelation is intended to save singular, distinct persons living in diverse contexts, with various intellectual presuppositions. The expression of sacred doctrine must therefore change so that it can save people in contexts that differ from the context of the apostles.”