INSPIRATION (1..nt. inspiral io, from in spirarc, to inspire, from in. in spirare, to breathe). A theological term used to denote the divine action upon men by which the Bible has been produced. In its most general use, it desig• riates the whole of this process; lint often a distinethm is made betwei n revelation and in spiration, according to which re r lution denotes that divine netivity by which the knowledge of the truth is supernaturally and personally con veyed to the minds of (Mosel] men, and inspiration that divine assistance by which the same men are qualified to write the existing Bible. Em ployed in the latter sense, the inspiration of the Scriptures signiffi s a supernatural qualification or special divine authority in the books of Scripture as depositories of truth. When the theologian asserts any hook of the Bible to be inspired, he means that it possesses an author ity different from any other book, that it con tains truth not merely as any ordinary hook may do. but by a special divine impress. All orthodox theologians may be said to agree in ascribing this sin eial divine character to Holy Scripture; but further there is no agreement. The mode of inspiration, the degree and extent of it, are all subjects of dispute.
The Boman Catholic Church. whose position in regard to this question is attracting more and noire attention as modern criticism deals more radically with theories once firmly held, differ entiates between the fact and the method of in spiration. While the former un changeably, she has never imposed upon her Men]. hers any theory as to the latter. She has never felt obliged to do so, since the Bible has never been considered the exclusive source of her doc trine. Claiming for herself a perpetual living power which can always concentrate the inspired element. be it never so diffused, she has never declared anything on the subject of the method that is to be held as of faith, no matter how rigidly one theory or another may have been held by individuals at various times.
(I ) The theory of ph nary inspiration is that the whole letter of Scripture is inspired, that the words were immediately dictated by the holy Spirit, and are literally the words of God, and not of man. The several writers of Scripture were nothing more than the penmen of the Divine Spirit. Those who maintain this theory speak, indeed, of the individuality and diverse •har acteristics of the writers of the Scriptures. but
the differences are not so much in the moral or intellectual individuality of the writers them selves as in the diverse aims and uses with which the holy Spirit employs them. The words of Scripture are no less the words of God than if he were heard to utter them from heaven. The authority of the Scripture is absolute. The in spired document is throughout faultless, as the sole work of the Divine Spirit. faultless equally in its form and in its essence, in its spirit and its letter. It admits of no gradation; all is equally divine. and therefore equally accurate, whether it relate to some ordinary fact or to some truth of the supernatural life, whether it treat of a dogma or of the details of a narrative. Those who hold this view do so on the 0 priori ground of necessity; such infallibility is held to he im plied in the very idea of a revelation of the divine will; while those passages which seem inconsistent with the facts of science or of his tory, or with other parts of the Bible itself, admit, it is maintained, of satisfactory explana tion. Those theologians, again, who deny the necessity of infallibility, and hold that the in consistencies referred to never have been and never can he satisfactorily explained away, argue in the following way: First of all, and especially, the question is not one to be settled according to any preconception, but according to the evidence of the facts given in Scripture. The question of inspiration is to be solved not by speculating what the Bible ought to be, but by examining what it actually is. Furthermore, if it be neces sary to the preservation of faith to hold that God has not only revealed the truth to man, but that lie has deposited that truth in an infallible record. the infallibility of the canon is no less indispensable; for all would be lost if any doubt was allowed to rest upon any portion of the Word of God. But if an infallible text and an infalli ble canon be necessary. the idea of verbal in spiration cannot stop short of the conclusion of an infallible interpretation; and even such a conclusion does not save it: for an infallible in terpretation does not necessarily insure infallible instruction—all may still be lost by the weakness. ignorance, or defect of the recipient mind. Tt therefore becomes necessary to ask, not what the Bible must or should he, but what it is.