Experience and Doctrinal Development: A Redaction History and Analysis of Dei Verbum 8

Abstract

This article is a critical examination of the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on doctrinal development contained in Dei Verbum 8. Through a survey of preconciliar theological appeals to experience, and by an examination of the conciliar Acta, the article argues that the council’s inclusion of the category of experience was based on a well-trodden Scholastic theological tradition on connatural experience linked to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and that the textual amendments sought to eliminate a Modernist understanding of experience and revelation. The article seeks to contribute constructively to ongoing fundamental-theological discourse on revelation and doctrinal development.