The dynamic theory is the first step outside this bulwark enforced impossibility of maintaining verbal inspiration and relegates the divine agency to an indirect function. In place of its dictating the exact phraseology and the precise facts, the writers are so filled with divine force that for all purposes of conveying the essential divine purpose, that of showing the truths of sin and danger and the path of salvation, they are a portion of the divine and incapable of error. Under this theory the writers are left a free hand, according to their own limitations and those of their age, in deal ing with narrative facts or their own guesses at them; but are guided explicitly in all matters of faith and morals. In order to be received, the revelation had to be• accommodated to the mental conditions of different ages; and men of each received guidance from God to present it so that it was true in relation to them, and mained so for all ages under all conditions. The warrant of the Bible is its incomparable and superhuman system of ethics, and its proof of divine origin is that evident superiority to all human devices.
The girradiantx' theory is a recent one, and a step farther from the old claim of entire divinity. In this view the record as such has no divinity, nor infallibility of any kind. There is a divine revelation, but it acts by generating moral ideas in certain great selected men, and which, once generated, are left to fight their way and take their chance like the other useful ideas of the world, and undergo disbelief and mutilation, with the certainty that according to God's purpose truth will prevail at last. The
proof of divinity in Christianity lies in the fact that its moral truths are the greatest in the world, and were original with it Another theory is based on evolution, in this both revelation and inspiration are dis pensed with, and there is retained only that enlightenment which comes with all develop ment through environment and the laws of variation. In human progress lies the real di vine revelation. The. Bible is a purely human book, but the greatest of all books, and as such should retain its place as the foundation of our religious structure.
Briggs, 'The Bible, the Church, and Reason' (New York 1892); Delitzsch, Inspiratione Scripturae Sacra( quid Statuerint Patres Apostolici et Apologetae Secundi Saculi) (Leipzig 1872) • Dodds, 'The Bible: Its Origin and Nature' (New York 1905) ; De Witt, 'What is Inspiration?' (ib. 1893); Gibson, 'Inspiration and Authority of Holy Scripture' (ib. 1912) ; Ladd, 'Doctrine of Sacred Scripture' (2 vols., ib. 1883) ; Orr, James, 'Revelation and (ib. 1910); Ray mond, G. L., 'Psychology of Inspiration' (ib. 1908); Rohnert, 'Die Inspiration der heiligen Schrift and ihre Bestreiter' (Leipzig 1889); Row, Its Mode and Extent' (London 1864); Sanday, (Inspiration' (ib. 1893); Schultz, 'Old Testament Theology' (Edinburgh 1892) ; Seeberg, 'Revelation and Inspiration' (New York 1909) ; Simon, (The Bible an Outgrowth of Theocratic Life' Edinburgh 1886).