The vexed question of biblical inspiration will certainly not be settled by Aaron Pidel’s book any more than Josef Ratzinger’s work, as Pidel acknowledges multiple times, but he makes an excellent attempt and significant inroads.  He argues that Ratzinger has provided a “preliminary synthesis” that is the most adequate theology of Scripture to date.

Pidel proceeds in two main parts.  The first summarizes the theologies of Scripture of three representative figures of the 20th century: Pierre Benoit, Karl Rahner, and David Tracy (chapter 1) and compares Ratzinger’s thought to theirs (chapter 2).  He characterizes their theologies by their primary influencer and model (ala Dulles), so Benoit is Thomistic-instrumental, Rahner Molinist-predefinitive, and Tracy Heideggerian-disclosive.  Ratzinger is labeled Bonaventurian-ecclesial.  Pidel’s treatment of each is thoughtful, fair, and incisive, worth the price of the book all on its own.  His evaluation finds strengths and weaknesses in each in relation to both literary criticism (reason) and Dei Verbum (faith), as well as interpretative power. 

Benoit’s more traditional view of individual human authors being used by God (with their own faculties intact) is straightforward and conforms most fully and clearly to DV 11, but it struggles with an overly propositional view of revelation that also limits understanding to the intentions of an original human author and applies psychological gymnastics to the human author in order to avoid error in seemingly clear statements.  Rahner’s approach which essentially places the Church rather than individuals as the subject of inspiration, better incorporates the roles of the community than Benoit’s and allows greater flexibility to deal with problems of truth that arise over time, but struggles to explain the inspiration of the Old Testament, the definitive role of the Apostles, and some of the statements of DV 11.  Tracy even more loosely ties inspiration to individuals or even the Church, seeing the text itself as a “classic” with meaning in itself that unfolds over time through the reading and re-reading of communities, so that problems of biblical truth virtually melt away since the meaning of the text is by its nature always evolving, but he loses almost completely the importance for interpretation of original historical context or authorial intent, and no text can have definitive meanings that can be expressed in doctrinal judgments.

Ratzinger’s model is presented by Pidel as drawing important truths from each of the other three, and his comparative evaluation finds Ratzinger’s to be most adequate.  He draws upon Bonaventure to develop a more historically grounded view of inspiration (and many other aspects of theology) that is holistic and organic in which God perfects an already existing, natural human process.  An individual author of any text and that author’s community are already deeply intertwined in the very nature of language and the meanings of words, such that the community can rule authoritatively on an author’s proper use of words.  God, by working continuously through history within the community in which the individuals operated and which gave birth to them, is an author of the Bible not (only) as working through individuals, but in the transhistorical unity of His People, culminating in Christ and His Body.  Like culture, “reason and religion live within a collective subject” (73), not isolated, but mutually intertwined.  Therefore, both original context and authorial intention, on the one hand, and tradition and doctrine, on the other, are essential elements of correct interpretation and support the fundamental criteria of interpretation, which are theological and Christological.

The second main part of Pidel’s book puts Ratzinger’s theology to the test in biblical interpretation to see how it plays out and holds up.  He looks first (chapter 3) at the criteria Ratzinger develops as he explains why geocentrism is not a true intention or meaning of Scripture whereas the existence of the devil is.  Here note that for Ratzinger the teaching subject is not any individual author, but Scripture, which is to say God and God’s People as a whole through time.  Part of this interpretive process involves sorting out the authentic faith that is being expressed from an individual author’s worldview that is a sort of substrate for the faith but not authentically revelation itself.  The criteria he uses, though they are admittedly more rules of thumb than exact or decisive, focus on the unity of the Testaments, the relationship to Christ, reasonableness, and reception history.  Ratzinger’s theology is thus able to account for what he considers to be genuine errors on the part of some human authors, without attributing those errors to God, because the assertions of an individual author are not the assertions of the community as it has grown through time, and inspiration, for Ratzinger, properly applies to the community.  It sometimes takes a lot of time and effort to discern what is part of the worldview substrate or even a simple mistake on the part of a human author, but that process is well-grounded rationally and emerges very organically.

Pidel then also applies Ratzinger’s approach to the question of the Matthean exception clause regarding divorce and possibly remarriage (chapter 4) and the Last Supper narratives (chapter 5).  Both are worthwhile studies in their own right and help immensely to flesh out the theology of Scripture that had been presented in the first three chapters.

The epilogue offers some alternative ways of explaining Ratzinger’s achievement that readers will find helpful.  And Pidel’s explanation of Ratzinger’s approach to the traditional spiritual senses of the Bible and typology, with a Marian example to illustrate it, was insightful.  Though not for undergraduates or even many graduate students, Pidel’s book is a case of first-rate theology that uses the work of one of the greatest theologian-popes to advance understanding of the soul of theology itself.