Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/757

* INSPIRATION. 669 INSPIRATION. of the supernatural life, whether it treat of a dogma or of the details of a narrative. Those who liokl tliis view do so on the d priori ground of necessity; such infallibility is held to be 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 liis- tory. or with other parts of the Bil)le 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 be 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 wliat 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 He 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 weal-cuess, ignorance, or defect of the recipient mind. It therefore becomes necessary to ask, not what the Bible must or should be, but what it is. (2) The theory of dynamic inspiration is that the writers of the Bible were so filled with the divine power that, while perfectly free in the employment of all their faculties, they were pre- served from all error in conveying the truth which the Bible was written to convey, viz. that pertaining to the way of salvation. This theory has numerous forms, and any statement of it will fail to satisfy many who adopt its general conception of inspiration. Its most important form may be summarized in the definition, the inworking power of God preserved the writers of the Bible in writing it from all error in matters of faith and morals. This theory has its origin in the study of the facts, according to the sug- gestion made at the close of the last head. It is found that the Gospels in their accounts of the same event dift'er in various points, in much the same way as other purely human accounts of ccnmion events differ. Xot only is there an en- tire ignoring of scientific truth, but often state- ments which are inconsistent with it. The use of the Old Testament in the New is inaccvirate. and often violates principles of exegesis which mod- ern scholars would feel compelled to observe. Xone of these errors, however, affect the main current of the biblical doctrine. They show that men wrote the Bible acting naturally as men act, and under human limitations, but they do not imp'iir the value of the Bible for its great purpose. There is in it a system of truth, which is incomparably higher than any human system which has ever been prepared. That system is set forth in faultless perfection; and to the se- curing of that inspiration was directed. Men needed such a book as the Bible. It could not have been prepared, in the perfection with which we find it clothed, WTitteu, as it was, by difTerent men in different ages and at long intervals, with- out the special help of God. This is its inspira- tion. In consequence of it, by the answering operation of the Spirit in the heart of the be- liever, the Scripture shines by its own light and is recognized as the Word of God. (3) A third theory may be called that of the school of Ritschl. It is not very distinctly for- mulated, but may be said to deny inspiration in the distinctive sense of the word, and lay all the emphasis upon revelation. We must maintain the supernatural communication of divine knowl- edge to men, it is said, but after they have got this knowledge, they are left to communicate it according to their natural abilities, and the books they write are committed to the stream of history to be borne where the providence of God may guide them, as all other books are. Thus the human element in the books is large, and no infallibility of any sort, even in matters of faith and morals, is to be affirmed, but the truth of God is there and is conveyed to the minds of men, producing and maintaining a holy people of God in the earth, as by no other book in the world. The evidence for the element of revela- tion in the Scriptures lies in the actual priority of the Bible in the production of the highest ideas which the mind of man has conceived. No one is more emphatic in maintaining this prior- ity than Ritschl himself. The Christian idea of God was never developed outside of the single circle of .Jewish and Christian revelation. The love of God and the basal religious idea of for- giveness, in their Christian forms, were never anticipated by religions or philosophers. Chris- tianity is unique, and therefore divine. But the phenomena of the text of Scripture, the fact that books have been compiled, edited and reedited, that misconceptions of the course of history have crept in, that biblical books have been lost, and others interpolated, and that cruel and treacher- ous actions, like the murder of Sisera, are lauded in some parts of the book, effectually dispose of the idea of infallibility, and equally of the idea of any special supen-ision of the transmission, and hence of the original production, of the biblical books. We have here the effective reli- gious book of the world ; it is a supernatural book ; but it is not miraculously written or pre- sented. (4) By an application of what is called theistic evolution to this subject, in which, however, the categories of materialistic evolution are given a very considerable scope, there has arisen a theory, which has as yet scarcely found articulate ex- pression, but which must be reckoned with, by which not only inspiration, but even revelation is dispensed with. The causes operating in religion are, like all the causes recognized by evolution, immanent. It is not the special enlightenment of chosen minds which we find here, but that enlightenment which comes in the course of all develoi)ment under the operation of the laws of variation and the operation of environment, and which has given us the steam-engine and other instruments of progressive civilization. Thus the Bible is a purely human book, but it is the greatest of all human books, and should retain its place at the foundation of our religious structure. Consult: Henderson, Divine Inspiration (Lon- don, 1852) ; Hannah, Divine and Human Ele-