Inspiration of the Bible

The subject will be treated in this article under the four heads:

I. Belief in Inspired books;

II. Nature of Inspiration;

III. Extent of Inspiration;

IV. Protestant Views on the Inspiration of the Bible.

I. BELIEF IN INSPIRED BOOKS

A. Among the Jews

The belief in the sacred character of certain books is as old as the Hebrew

literature. Moses and the prophets had committed to writing a part of the

message they were to deliver to Israel from God. Now the naby (prophet),

whether he spoke or wrote, was considered by the Hebrews thw authorized

interpreter of the thoughts and wishes of Yahweh. He was called, likewise, "the

man of God," "the man of the Spirit" (Osee, ix,7). It was around the Temple and

the Book that the religious and national restoratiion of the Jewish people was

effected after their exile (see II Mach., ii, 13, 14, and the prologue of

Ecclesiasticus in the Septuagint). Philo (from 20 B.C. to A.D. 40) speaks of the

"sacred books", "sacred word", and of "most holy scripture" (De vita Moysis, iii,

no. 23). The testimony of Flavius Josephus (A.D. 37-95) is still more

characteristic; it is in his writings that the word inspiration (epipnoia) is met for

the first time. He speaks of twenty-two books which the Jews with good reason

consider Divine, and for which, in case of need, they are ready to die (Contra

Apion., I, 8). The belief of the Jews is the inspiration of the Scriptures did not

diminsh from the time in which they were dispersed throughout the world, without

temple, without altar, without priests; on the contrary this faith increased so

much that it took the place of everything else.

B. Among the Christians

The gospel contains no express declaration about the origin and value of the

Scriptures, but in it we see that Jesus Christ used them in conformity with the

general belief, i.e. as the Word of God. The most decisive texts in this respect

are found in the Fourth Gospel, v, 39; x, 35. The words scripture, Word of God,

Spirit of God, God, in the sayings and writings of the Apostles are used

indifferently (Rom.,iv, 3; ix, 17). St. Paul alone appeals expressly more than

eighty times to those Divine oracles of which Israel was made the guardian (cf.

Rom., iii, 2). This persuasion of the early Christians was not merely the effect of

a Jewish tradition blindly accepted and never understood. St. Peter and St. Paul

give the reason why it was accepted: it is that all Scripture is inspired of God

(theopneustos) (II Tim., ii, 16; cf. II Pet., i, 20 21). It would be superfluous to

spend any time in proving that Tradition has faithfully kept the Apostolic belief in

the inspiratiion of Scripture. Moreover, this demonstaration forms the

subject-matter of a great number of works (see especially Chr. pesch, "De

inspiratione Sacrae Scripturae", 1906, p. 40-379). It is enough for us to add that

on several occasions the Church has defined the inspiration of the canonical

books as an article of faith (see Denzinger, Enchiridion, 10th ed., n. 1787, 1809).

Every Christian sect still deserving that name believes in the inspiration of the

Scriptures, although several have more or less altered the idea of inspiration.

C. Value of this Belief

History alone allows us to establish the fact that Jews and Christians have

always believed in the inspiration of the Bible. But what is this belief worth?

Proofs of the rational as well as of the dogmatic order unite in justifying it. Those

who first recognized in the Bible a superhuman work had as foundation of thier

opinion the testimony of the Prophets, of Christ, and of the Apostles, whose

Divine mission was sufficiently established by immediate experience or by

history. To this purely rational argument can be added the authentic teaching of

the Church. A Catholic may claim this additional certitude without falling into a

vicious circle, because the infallibility of the Church in its teaching is proved

independently of the inspiration of Scripture; the historical value, belonging to

Scripture in common with every other authentic and truthful writing, is enough to

prove this.

II. NATURE OF INSPIRATION

A. Method to be followed

(1) To determine the nature of Biblical inspiration the theologian has at his

disposal a three fold source of information: the data of tradition, the concept of

inspiration, and the concrete state of the inspired text. If he wishes to obtain

acceptable results he will take into account all of these elements of solution.

Pure speculation might easily end in a theory incompatible with the texts. On the

other hand, the literary or historical analysis of these same texts, if left to its own

resources, ignores their Divine origin. Finally, if the data of tradition attest the fact

of inspiration, they do not furnish us with a complete analysis of its nature.

Hence, theology, philosophy, and exegesis have each a word to say on this

subject. Positive theology furnishes a starting point in its traditional formulae:

viz., God is the author of Scripture, the inspired writer is the organ of the Holy

Ghost, Scripture is the Word of God. Speculative theology takes these formula,

analyses their contents and from them draws its conclusions. In this way St.

Thomas, starting from the traditional concept which makes the sacred writer an

organ of the Holy Ghost, explains the subordination of his faculties to the action

of the Inspirer by the philosophical theory of the instrumental cause (Quodl., VII,

Q. vi, a. 14, ad 5um). However, to avoid all risk of going astray, speculation must

pay constant attention to the indications furnished by exegesis.

(2) The Catholic who wishes to make a correct analysis of Biblical inspiration

maust have before his eyes the following ecclesiastical documents: (a) "These

books are held by the Church as sacred and canonical, not as having been

composed by merely human labour and afterwards approved by her authority, nor

merely because they contain revelation without error, but because, written under

the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author, and have been

transmitted to the Church as such." (Concil. Vatic., Sess. III, const. dogm, de

Fide, cap. ii, in Denz., 1787). (b) "The Holy Ghost Himself, by His supernatural

power, stirred up and impelled the Biblical writers to write, and assisted them

while writing in such a manner that they conceived in their minds exactly, and

determined to commit to writing faithfully, and render in exact language, with

infallible truth, all that God commanded and nothing else; without that, God

would not be the author of Scripture in its entirety" (Encycl. Provid. Deus, in

Dena., 1952).

B. Catholic View

Inspiration can be considered in God, who produces it; in man, who is its object;

and in the text, which is its term.

(1) In God inspiration is one of those actions which are ad extra as theologians

say; and thus it is common to the three Divine Persons. However, it is attributed

by appropriation to the Holy Ghost. it is not one of those graces which have for

their immediate and essential object the sanctification of the man who received

them, but one of those called antonomastically charismata, or gratis datae,

because they are given primarily for the good of thers. Besides, inspiration has

this in common with every actual grace, that it si a transitory participation of the

Divine power; the inspired wirter finding himself invested with it only at the very

moment of writing or when thinking about writing.

(2) Considered in the man on whom is bestowed this favour, inspiration affects

the will, the intelligence and all the executive faculties of the writer. (a) Without

an impulsion given to the will of the writer, it cannot be conceived how God could

still remain the principal cause of Scripture, for, in that case, the man would have

taken the initiative. Besides that the text of St. Peter is peremptory: "For

prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God

spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost" (II Pet., i, 21). The context shows that there

is question of all Scripture, which is a prophecy in the broad sense of the the

word (pasa propheteia graphes). According to the Encyclical Prov. Deus, "God

stirred up and impelled the sacred writers to determine to write all that God

meant them to write" (Denz., 1952). Theologians discuss the question whether,

in order to impart this motion, God moves the will of the writer directly or decides

it by proposing maotvies of an intellectual order. At any rate, everybody admits

that the Holy Ghost can arouse or simply utilize external influences capable of

acting on the will of the sacred writer. According to an ancient tradition, St. Mark

and St. John wrote their Gospels at the instance of the faithful.

What becomes of human liberty under the influence of Divine inspiration? In

principle, it is agreed that the Inspirer can take away from man the power of

refusal. In point of fact, it is commonly admitted that the Inspirer, Who does not

lack means of obtaining our consent, has respected the freedom of His

instruments. An inspiration which is not accompanied by a revelation, which is

adapted to the normal play of the faculties of the human soul, which can

determine the will of the inspired writer by motives of a human order, does not

necessarily suppose that he who is its object is himself conscious of it. If the

prophet and the author of the Apcoalypse know and say that their pen is guided

by the Spirit of God, other Biblical authors seem rather to have been led by

"some mysterious influence whose origin was either unknown or not clearly

discerned by them." (St. Aug., De Gen. ad litt. , II, xvii, 37; St. Thomas II-II, Q.

clxxi, a. 5; Q. cixxiii, a.4). However, most theologians admit that ordinarily the

writer was conscious of his ow inspiration. From waht we have just said it follows

that inspiration does not necessarily imply exstasy, as Philo and, later, the

Montanists thought. It is true that some of the orthodox apologists of the second

century (Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, St. Justin) have, in the description

which they give of Biblical inspiration, been somehat influenced by the ideas of

divination then current amongst the pagans. They are too prone to represent the

Biblical writer as a purely passive intermediary, something after the style of the

Pythia. Nevertheless, they did not make him out to be an energumen for all that.

The Divine intervention, if one is conscious of it, can certainly fill the human soul

with a certain awe; but it does not throw it into a state of delirum.

(b) To induce a person to write is not to take on oneself the responsibility of that

writing, more especially it is not to become the author of that writing. If God can

claim the Scripture as His own work, it is because He has brought even the

intellect of the inspired writer under His command. However, we must not

represent the Inspirer as putting a ready amde book in the mind of the inspired

person. Nor has He necessarily to reveal the contens of the work to be produced.

No matter where the knowledge of the writer on this point comes from, whether it

be acquired naturally or due to Divine revelation, inspiration has not essentially

for its object to teach somethin new to the sacred writer, but to render him

capable of writing with Divine authority. Thus the author of the Acts of the

Apostles narrates events in which he himself took part, or which were related to

him. It is highly probable that most of the sayings of the Book of Proverbs were

familiar to the sages of the East, before being set down in an inspired writing.

God, inasmuch as he is the principal cause, when he inspires a writer,

subordinates all that writer's cognitive faculties so as to make him accomplish

the different actions which would be naturally gone through by a man who, first of

all, has the design of composing a book, then gets together his materials,

subjects them to a critical examination, arranges them, makes them enter into

his plan, and finally brands them with the mark of his personality -- i.e. his own

pecualiar style. The grace of inspiration does not exempt the writer from personal

effort, nor does it insure the perfection of his work from an artistic point of view.

The author of the the Second Book of Machabeees and St. Luke tell the reader of

the pains they took to document their work (II mach., ii, 24-33; Luke, i, 1-4). The

imperfections of the work are to be attributed to the instrument. God can, of

course, prepare this instrument beforehand, but, a the time of using it, He does

not ordinarily make any change in its conditions. When the Creator applies His

power to the faculties of a creature outside of the ordinary way, he does so in a

manner in keeping with the natural activity of these faculties. Now, in all

languages recourse is had to the comparison of light to explain the nature of the

human intelligence. That is why St. Thomas (II-II, Q. clxxi, a. 2; Q. clxxiv, a. 2,

ad 3um) gives the name of light or illumination to the intellectual motion

communicated by God to the sacred wirter. After him, then, we may say that this

motion is a pecualir supernatural participation of the Divine light, in virtue of which

the writer conceives exactly the work that the Holy Ghost wants him to write.

Thanks to this help given to his intellect, the inspired writer judges, with a

certitude of Divene order, not only of the opportuneness of the book to be written,

but also of the truth of the details and of the whole. However, all theologians do

not analyse exactly in the same manner the influence of this light of inspiration.

(c) The influence of the Holy Ghost had to extend also to all the executive

faculties of the sacred writer -- to his memory, his imagination, and even to the

hand with which he formed the letters. Whether this influence proceed

immediatley from the action of the Inspirer or be a simple assistance, and, again,

whether this assistance be positive or merely negative, in any case everyone

admits that its object is to remove all error from the inspired text. Those who hold

that even the words are inspired believe that it also forms an integral part of the

grace of inspiration itself. However that may be, there is no denying that the

inspiration extends, in one way or aother, and as far as needful, to all those who

have really cooperated in the composition of the sacred test, especially to the

secretaries, if the inspired person had any. Seen in this light, the hagiographer

no longer appears a passive and inert instrument, abased as it were, by an

exterior impulsion; on the contrary, his faculties are elevated to the service of a

superior power, whihc, although distinct, is none the less intimately present and

interior. Without losing anything of his personal life, or of his liberty, or even of his

spontaneity (since it may happen that he is not conscious of the power which

leads him on), man becomes thus the interpreter of God. Such, then is the most

comprehensive notion of Divine inspiration. St. Thomas (II-II, Q., cixxi) reduces it

to the grace of prophecy, in the broad sense of the word.

(3) Considered in its term, inspiration is nothing else but the biblical text itself.

This text was destined by God, Who inspired it, for the universal Church, in order

that it might be authentically recognized as His written word. This destination is

essential. Without it a book, even if it had been inspired by God, could not

become canonical; it would have no more value than a private revelation. That is

why any writing dated from a later period than the Apostolical age is condemned

ipso facto to be excluded from the canon. The reason of this is that the deposit

of the public revelation was complete in the time of the Apostles. they alone had

the mission to give to the teaching of Christ the development which was to be

opportunely suggested to them by the Paraclete, John xiv, 26 (see Franzelin, De

divina Traditione et Scriptura (Rome, 1870), thesis xxii). Since the Bible is the

Word of God, it can be said that every canonical text is for us a Divine lesson, a

revelation, even though it may have been written with the aid of inspiration only,

and without a revelation properly so called. For this cause, also, it is clear that

an inspired text cannot err. That the Bible is free from error is beyond all doubt,

the the teaching of Tradition. The whole of Scriptural apologetics consists

precisley in accounting for this exceptional prerogative. Exegetes and apologists

have recourse here to considerations which may be reduced to the following

heads:

the original unchanged text, as it left the pen of the sacred writers, is

alone in question.

As truth and error are properties of judgment, only the assertiions of the

sacred writer have to be dealt with. If he makes any affirmation, it is the

exegete s duty to discover its meaning and extent; whether he expresses

his own views or those of others; whether in quoting another he approves,

disapproves, or keeps a silent reserve, etc.

The intention of the writer is to be found out according to the laws of the

language in which he writes, and consequently we must take into account

the style of literatur he wished to use. All styles are compatible with

inspiration, because they are all legitimate expressions of human thought,

and also, as St. Augustine says (De Trinitate, I, 12), "God, getting books

written by men, did not wish them to be composed in a form differing from

that used by them." Therefore, a distinciton is to be made between the

assertion and the expression; it is by means of the latter that we arrive at

the former.

These general principles are to be applied to the different books of the

Bible, mutatis mutandis, according to the nature of the matter contained

in them,the special purpose for which their author wrote them, the

traditional explanation which is given of them, the traditional explanation

which is given of them, and also according to the decisions of the Church.

C. Erroneous Views Proposed by Catholic Authors

(1) Those which are wrong because insufficient.

(a) The approbation given by the Church to a merely human writing cannot, by

itself, make it inspired Scripture. The contrary opinion hazarded by Sixtus of

Siena (1566), renewed by Movers and Haneberg, in the nineteenth centruy, was

condemned by the Vatican Council. (See Denz., 1787).

(b) Biblical inspiration even where it seems to be at its minimum -- e.g., in the

historical books -- is not a simple assistance given to the inspired writers to

prevent him from erring, as was thought by Jahn (1793), who followed Holden and

perhaps Richard Simon. In order that a text may be Scripture, it is not enough

"that it contain revelation without error" (Conc. Vatic., Denz., 1787).

(c) A book composed from merely human resources would not become an

inspired text, even if approved of, afterwards, by the Holy Ghost. This subsequent

approbation might make the truth contained in the book as credible as if it were

an article of the Divine Faith, but it would not give a Divine origin to the book

itself. Every inspiration properly so called is antecedent, so much so that it is a

contradiciton in terms to speak of a subsequent inspiration. This truth seems to

have been lost sight of by those moderns who thought they could revive-at the

same time making it still less acceptable -- a vague hypothesis of Lessius (1585)

and of his disciple Bonfrère.

(1) Those which err by excess

A view which errs by excess confounds inspiration with revelation. We have just

said that these two Divine operations are not only distinct but may take place

separately, although they may also be found together. As a matter of fact, this is

what happens whenever God moves the sacred writer to express thoughts or

sentiments of which he cannot have acquired knowledge in the ordinary way.

There has been some exaggeration in the accusation brought against early

writers of having confounded inspiration with revelation; however, it must be

admitted that the explicit distinction between these two graces has become

more and more emphasized since the time of St. Thomas. This is a very real

progress and allows us to make a more exact psychological analysis of

inspiration.

III. EXTENT OF INSPIRATION

The question now is not whether all the Biblical books are inspired in every part,

even in the fragments called deuterocanonical: this point, which concerns the

integrity of the Canon, has been solved by the Council of Tent (Denz., 784). but

are we bound to admit that, in the books or parts of books which are canonical,

there is absolutely nothing, either as regards the matter or the form, which does

not fall under the Divine inspiration?

A. Inspiration of the Whole Subject Matter

For the last three centuries there have been author-theologians, exegetes, and

especially aplogists -- such as Holden, Rohling, Lenormant, di Bartolo, and

others -- who maintained, with more or less confidence, that inspiration was

limited to moral and dogmatic teaching, excluding everything in the Bible relating

to history and the natural sciences. They think that, in this way, a whole mass of

difficulties against the inerrancy of the bible would be removed. but the Church

has never ceased to protest against this attempt to restrict the inspiration of the

sacred books. This is what took place when Mgr d Hulst, Rector of the Institut

Catholique of paris, gave a sympathetic account of this opinion in "Le

Correspondant" of 25 Jan., 1893. The reply was quickly forthcoming in the

Encyclical Providentissimus Deus of the same year. In that Encyclical Leo XIII

said:

It will never be lawful to restrict inspiration merely to certain parts of

the Holy Scriptures, or to grant that the sacred writer could have

made a mistake. Nor may the opinion of those be tolerated, who, in

order to get out of these difficulties, do not hesitate to suppose that

Divine inspiration extends only to what touches faith and morals,

on the false plea that the true meaning is sought for less in what

God has said than in the motive for which He has said it. (Denz.,

1950)

In fact, a limited inspiration contradicts Christian tradition and theological

teaching.

B. Verbal Inspiration

Theologians discuss the question, whether inspiration controlled the choice of

the words used or operated only in what concerned the sense of the assertions

made in the Bible. In the sixteenth century verbal inspiratiion was the current

teaching. The Jesuits of Louvain were the first to react against this opinion. They

held "that it is not necessary in order that a text be Holy Scripture, for the Holy

Ghost to have inspired the very material words used." The protests against this

new opinion were so violent that Bellarmine and Suarez thought it their duty to

tone down the formula by declaring "that all the words of the text have been

dictated by the Holy Ghost in what concerns the substance, but differently

according to the diverse conditiions of the instruments." This opinion went on

gaining in precision, and little by little it disentangled itself from the terminology

which it had borrowed from the the adverse opinion, notably from the word

"dictation." Its progress was so rapid that at the beginning of the nineteenth

century it was more commonly taught than the theory of verbal inspiration.

Cardinal Franzelin seems to have given it its definite form. During the last quarter

of a century verbal inspiration has again found partisans, and they become more

numerous every day. However, the theologians of today, whilst retaining the

terminology of the older school, have profoundly modified the theory itself. They

no longer speak of a material dictation of words to the ear of the writer, nor of an

interior revelation of the term to be employed, but of a Divine motion extending to

every faculty and even to the powers of execution to the writer, and in

consequence influencing the whole work, even its editing. Thus the sacred text is

wholly the work of God and wholly the work of man, of the latter, by way of

instrument, of the former by way of principal cause. Under this rejuvenated form

the theory of verbal inspiration shows a marked advance towards reconcilation

with the rival opinion. From an exegetical and apologetical point of view it is

indifferent which of these two opinions we adopt. All agree that the

characteristics of style as well as the imperfections affecting the subject matter

itself, belong to the inspired writer. As for the inerrancy of the inspired text it is to

the Inspirer that it must be finally attributed, and it matters little if God has

insured the truth of His Scripture by the grace of inspiration itself, as the

adherents of verbal inspiration teach, rather than by a providential assistance.

IV. PROTESTANT VIEWS ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE

A. At the Beginning of the Reformation

(1) As a necessary consequence of their attitude towards the Bible, which they

had taken as their only rule of Faith, the Protestants were led at the very outset

to go beyond the ideas of a merely passive inspiration, which was commonly

received in the first half of the sixteenth century. Not only did they make no

distinction between inspiration and revelation, but Scripture, both in its matter

and style, was considered as revelation itself. In it God spoke to the reader just

as He did to the Israelites of old from the mercy-seat. Hence that kind of cult

which some protestants of today call "Bibliolatry." In the midst of the incertitude,

vagueness, and antinomies of those early times, when the Reformation like

Luther himself, was trying to find a way and a symbol, one can discern a

constant preoccupation, that of indissolubly joining religious belief to the very

truth of God by means of His written Word. The Lutherans who devoted

themselves to composing the Protestant theory of inspiration were Melanchthon,

Chemzitz, Quenstedt, Calov. Soon, to the inspiration of the words was added

that of the vowel points of the present Hebrew text. This was not a mere opinion

held by the two Buxtorfs, but a doctrine defined, and imposed under pain of

imprisonment, and exile, by the Confession of the Swiss Churches, promulgated

in 1675. These dispositions were abrogated in 1724. The Purists held that in the

Bible there are neither barbarisms nor solecisms; that the Greek of the New

Testament is as pure as that of the classical authors. It was said, with a certain

amount of truth, that the Bible had become a sacrament for the Reformers.

(2) In the seventeenth century began the controversies which, in course of time,

were to end in the theory of inspiration now generally accepted by Protestants.

The two principles which brought about the Reformation were precisely the

instruments of this revolution; on the one side, the claim for every human soul of

a teaching of the the Holy Ghost, which was immediate and independent of of

every exterior rule; on the other, the right of private judgment, or autonomy of

individual reasoning, in reading and studying the Bible. In the name of the first

principle, on which Zwingli had insisted more than Luther and Calvin, the Pietists

thought to free themselves from the letter of the Bible which fettered the action of

the Spirit. A French Huguenot, Seb. Castellion (d. 1563), had already been bold

enough to distinguish between the letter and the spirit; according to him the spirit

only came from God, the letter was no more than a "case, husk, or shell of the

spirit."

The Quakers, the followers of Swedenborg, and the Irvingites were to force this

theory to its utmost limits; real revealation -- the only one which instructs and

sanctifies -- was that produced under the immediate influence of the Holy Ghost.

While the Pietists read their Bible with the help of interior illumination alone,

others, in even greater numbers, tried to get some light from philological and

historical researches which had received their decisive impulse from the

Renaissance. Every facility was assured to their investigations by the principle of

freedom of private judgment; and of this they took advantage. The conclusions

obtained by this method could not be fatal to the theory of inspiration by

revelation. In vain did its partisans say that God's will had been to reveal to the

Evangelists in four different ways the words which, in reality, Christ had uattered

only once; that the Holy Ghost varied His style accoring as he was dictation to

Isaias or to Amos -- such an explanation was nothing short of an avowal of the

ability to meet the facts alleged against them. As a matter of fact, Faustus

Socinus (d. 1562) had already held that the words and, in general, the style of

Scripture were not inspired. Soon afterwards, George Calixtus, Episcopius, and

Grotinus made a clear distinction between inspiration and revelation. According

to the last-named, nothing was revealed but the prophecies and the words of

Jesus Christ, everything else was only inspired. Still further, he reduces

inspiration to a pious motion of the sould {see "Votum pro pace Ecclesiae" in his

complete works, III (1679), 672}. The Dutch Arminian school then represented by

J. LeClerc, and, in France, by L. Capelle, Daillé, Blondel, and other, followed the

same course. Although they kept current terminology, they made it apparent,

nevertheless, that the formula, "The Bible is the Word of God," was already about

to be replaced by "The Bible contains the Word of God." Morever, the term word

was to be taken in an equivocal sense.

B. Biblical Rationalism

In spite of all, the Bible was still held as the criterion of religious belief. To rob it

of this prerogative was the work which the eighteenth century set itself to

accomplish. In the attack then made on the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures

three classes of assailants are to be distinguished.

(1) The Naturalist philosophers, who were the forerunners of modern unbelief

(Hobbes, Spinoza, Wolf); the English Deists (Toland, Collins, Woolston, Tindal,

Morgan); the German Rationalists (Reimarus, Lessing); the French

Encyclopedists (Voltaire, Bayle) strove by every means, not forgetting abuse and

sarcasm, to prove how absurd it was to claim a Divine origin for a book in which

all the blemishes and errors of human writings are to be found.

(2) The critics applied to the Bible, the methods adopted for the study of profane

authors. They, from the literary and historic point of view, reached the same

conclusion as the infidel philosophers; but they thought they could remain

believers by distinguishing in the Bible between the religious and the profane

element. The latter they gave up to the free judgment of historical criticism; the

former they pretended to uphold, but not without restrictions, which profoundly

changed its import. According to Semler, the father of Biblical Rationalism,

Christ and the Apostles accommodated themselves to the false opinions of their

contemporaries; according to Kant and Eichborn, everything which does not

agree with sane reason must be regarded as Jewish invention. Religion restricted

within the limits of reason -- that was the point which the critical movement

initiated by Grotius and LeClerc had in common with the philosophy of Kant and

the theology of Wegscheider. The dogma of plenary inspiration dragged down

with it, in its final ruin, the very notion of revelation (A. Sabatier, Les religions

d'autorité et la religion de l'espirit, 2nd ed., 1904, p. 331).

(3) These philosophical historical controversiers about Scriptural authority caused

great anxiety in religious minds. There were many who then sought their

salvation in one of the principles put forward by the earlly Reformers, notably by

Calvin: to wit, that truly Christian certitude came from the testimony of the Holy

Spirit. Man had but to sound his own soul in order to find the essence of religion,

which was not a science, but a life, a sentiment. Such was the verdict of the

Kantian philosophy then in vogue. It was useless, from the religious point of view,

to discuss the extrinsic claims of the Bible; far better was the moral experience

of its intrinisc worth. The Bible itself was nothing but a hostory of the religious

experiences of the Prophets, of Christ and His Apostles, of the Synagogue and

of the Church. Truth and Faith came not from without, but sprang from the

Christian conscience as their source. Now this conscience was awakened and

sustained by the narration of the religious experiences of those who had gone

before. What mattered, then, the judgment passed by criticism on the historical

truth of this narration, if it only evoked a salutary emotion in the soul? Here the

useful alone was true. Not the text, but the reader was inspired. Such, in its

broad outlines, was the final stage of a movement which Spener, Wesley, the

Moravian Brethren, and, generally, the Pietists initiated, but of which

Schleiermacher (1768-1834) was to be the theologian and the propagator in the

nineteenth century.

C. Present Conditions

(1) The traditional views, however, were not abandoned without resistance. A

movement back to the old idea of the theopneustia, including verbal inspiration,

set in nearly everywhere in the first half of the nineteenth century. This reaction

was called the Réveil. Among its principal promoters must be mentioned the

Swiss L. Gaussen, W. Lee, in England, A. Dlorner in Germany, and, more

recently, W. Rohnert. their labours at first evoked interest and sympathy, but

were destined to fail before the efforts of a counter-reaction which sought to

complete the work of Schleiermacher. it was led by Alex, Vinet, Edm. Scherer,

and E. Rabaud in France; Rich. Rothe and especially Ritschl in Germany; S.T.

Coleridge, F.D. Maurice, and Matthew Arnold in England. According to them, the

ancient dogma of the theopneustia is not to be reformed, but given up altogether.

In the heat of the struggle, however, university professors like E. Reuss, freely

used the historical method; without denying inspiration they ignored it.

(2) Abstracting from accidental differences, the present opinion of the so-called

progressive Protestants (who profess, nevertheless, to remain sufficiently

orthodox), as represented in Germany by B. Weiss, R.F. Grau, and H Cremer, in

England by W. Sanday, C. Gore, and most Anglican scholars, may be reduced

to the following heads: (a) the purely passive, mechanical theopneustia,

extending to the very words, is no longer tenable. (b) Inspiration had degrees:

suggestion, direction, elevation, and superintendency. All the sacred writers have

not been equally inspired. (c) Inspiration is personal that is, given directly to the

sacred writer to enlighten, stimulate, and purify his faculties. This religious

enthusiasm, like every great passion, exalts the powers of the soul; it belongs,

therefore, to the spiritual order, and is not merely a help given immediately to the

intellect. Biblical inspiration, being a seizure of the ntire man by the Divine virtue,

does not differ essentially from the gift of the Holy Spirit imparted to all the

faithful. (d) It is, to say the least, an improper use of language to call the sacred

text itself inspired. At any rate, this text can, and actually does, err not only in

profane matters, but also in those appertaining more or less to religion, since the

Prophets and Christ Himself, notwithstanding His Divinity, did not possess

absolute infallibility. (Cf. Denney, A Dict. of Christ and the Gospels, I, 148-49.)

The Bible is a historical document which taken in its entirety contains the

authentic narrative of revelation, the tidings of salvation. (c) Revealed truth, and,

consequently, the Faith we derive from it are not founded on the Bible, but on

Christ himself; it is from Him and through Him that the written text acquires

definitely all its worth. But how are we to reach the historical reality of Jesus --

His teaching, His institutions -- if Scripture, as well as Tradition, offers us no

faithful picture? The question is a painful one. To establish the inspiration and

Divine authority of the Bible the early Reformers had substituted for the teaching

of the Church internal criteria, notably the interior testimony of the Holy Spirit and

the spiritual efficacy of the text. Most Protestant theologians of the present day

agree in declaring these criteria neither scientific nor traditional; and at any rate

they consider them insufficient. (On the true criterion of inspiration see CANON

OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.) They profess, consequently, to supplement

them, if not to replace them altogether, by a rational demonstration of the

autheticity and substantial trustworthiness of the Biblical text. The new method

may well provide a starting-point for the fundamental theology of Revelation, but it

cannot supply a complete justification of the Canon, as it has been so far

maintained in the Churches of the Reformation. Anglican theologians, too, like

Gore and Sanday, gladly appeal tot he dogmatic testimony of the collective

conscience of the universal Church; but, in so doing, they break with one of the

first principles of the Reformation, the autonomy of the individual conscience.

(3) The position of liberal Protestants (i.e. those who are independent of all

dogma) may be easily defined. The Bible is just like other texts, neither inspired

nor the rule of Faith. Religious belief is quite subjective. So far is it from

depending on the dogmatic or even historical authority of a book that it gives to it,

itself, its real worth. When religious texts, the Bible included, are in question,

history -- or, at least, what people generally believe to historical -- is largely a

product of faith, whcih has transfigured the facts. The authors of the Bible may be

called inspired, that is endowed with a superior perception of religious matters;

but this religious enthusiasm does not differ essentially from that which animated

Homer and Plato. This is the denial of everything supernatural, in the ordinary

sense of the word, as well in the Bible as in religion in general. Nevertheless,

those who hold this theory defend themselves from the charge of infidelity,

especially repudiating the cold Rationalism of the last century, which was made

up exclusively of negations. They think that they remain sufficiently Christian by

adhering to the religious sentiment to which Christ ahs given the most perfect

expression yet known. Following Kant, Schleiermacher, and Ritschl, they

profess a religion freed from all philosophical intellectualism and from every

historical proof. Facts and formulae of the past have, in their eyes, only a

symbolic and a transient value. Such is the new theology spread by the

best-known professors and writers especially in Germany -- historians, exegetes,

philologists, or even pastors of souls. We need only mention Harnack, H.J.

Holtzmann, Fried. Delitzsch, Cheyne, Campbell, A. Sabatier, Albert and John

Réville. it is to this transformation of Christianity that "Modernism," condemned

by the Encyclical Pascendi Gregis, owes its origin.

In modern Protestantism the Bible has decidely fallen from the primacy which the

Reformation had so loudly conferred upon it. The fall is a fatal one, becoming

deeper from day to day; and without remedy, since it is the logical consequence

of the fundamental principle put forward by Luther and Calvin. Freedom of

examination was destined sooner or later to produce freedom of thought. (Cf. A.

Sabatier, Les religions d'autorite et la religion de l'espirité, 2nd ed., 1904, pp.

399-403.)

CATHOLIC WORKS.-FRANZELIN, Tractatus de divina traditione et scriptura (2nd ed., Rome, 1875),

321-405; SCHMID, De inspirationis bibliorum vi et ratione (Louvain, 1886); ZANECCHIA, Divina

inspiratio Sacrae Scripturae (Rome, 1898); Scriptor Sacer (Rome, 1903); BILLOT, De inspiratione

Sacrae Scripturae (Rome, 1903); CH. PESCH, De inspiratione Sacrae Scripturae (Freiburg im Br.,

1906); LAGRANGE in Revue Biblique (Paris, 1895), p. (London,6 Nov., 1897, to 5 Feb., 1898);

HUMMELAUER, Exegetisches zur Inspirationsfrage (Freiburg im Br., 1904); FONCK, Der Kampf um

die Warheit der heil. Schrift seit 25 Jahren (Innsburck, 1905); DAUSCH, Die Schrifitnspiration

(Freiburg im Br., 1891); HOLZHEY, Die Inspiration de heil. Schrift in der Anschauung des Mittelaters

(Munich, 1895); CH. PESCH, Zur neuesten Geschichte der Katholischen Inspirationslehre (Freiburg

im Br., 1902)

PROTESTANT WORKS.-GUSSEN, Theopneustic (2nd ed., Paris, 1842), tr. Pleanry Inspiration of

Holy Scripture; LEE, Inspiration of Holy Scripture (Dublin, 1854); ROHNERT, Die Inspiration, der

heil, Schrift und ihre Bestreiter (Leipzig, 1889); SANDAY, The oracles of God (London, 1891);

FARRAR, The Bible, Its meaning and Supremacy (London, 1897); History of Interpretation (London

1886); A Clerical Symposium on Inspiration (London, 1884); RABAUD, Histoire de la doctrine de l

inspriaation dans les pays de langue francaise depuis la Reforme jusqu a nos jours (Paris, 1883).

ALFRED DURAND

Transcribed by Beth Ste-Marie

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: newadvent.org