The Inspiration of the Bible: 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 formulæ, 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. 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."
(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".
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" (2 Peter 1:21). The context shows that there is question of all Scripture, which is a prophecy in the broad sense of 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". 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." 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 Second Book of Machabeees and St. Luke tell the reader of the pains they took to document their work (2 Maccabees 2:24-33; Luke 1:1-4). 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 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 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 14, 26. 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 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, "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
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.
(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".
(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.
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.