Nourishing Our Lenten Journey of Faith through God’s Word

The belief that the Holy Bible is truly the Word of God is an obvious difference between it and any other books.

 

Inspiration of the Word of God

 

The belief that the Holy Bible is truly the Word of God is an obvious difference between it and any other books. Inspiration makes the Bible unique among all other books. When Christians speak of the Holy Bible as inspired, they are referring to the fact that God divinely influenced the human authors of it in such a way. So that they what they authored was the very Word of God. The word “inspire” spiritually means to influence by divine or supernatural inspiration. Then, the word, “inspiration” that comes from the Latin, inspirare means “to breathe upon.” Hence, in Christian understanding, the Holy Spirit enlightened and assisted the authors of the Bible in some ways that they wrote only what the Holy Spirit intended them to write. In the New Testament, the term, “inspiration” is found only once in writings of St. Paul; “Every Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for proof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2Tim 3:16)

 

Here, the Greek word, theopneustos is significant and it is a compound term of two parts; theos and pneustos. It literally means, “God-breathed” or “breathing out by God.” Therefore, in the context of the Holy Scriptures, the word “inspiration” simply means “God-breathed.” St. Paul tells us that God inspired all Scripture and that it is profitable to us. By using the phrase, “every Scripture” does not mean that just the parts of the Bible that deal with religious doctrines are inspired. It refers to the each and every word from the book of Genesis to Revelation is inspired.

 

In general sense, the term, “inspires’ means influencing someone with the ability to do or feel something, especially creative. Hence, the word “inspiration” challenges a better life by the actions, words, and example. But, this is not what is meant by biblical inspiration. Some describe biblical inspiration as something that takes place when God or an angel communicates or whispers words into the ears of the authors in telling them what they should document. And that is not inspiration either. Inspiration is not a verbal dictation or mechanical dictation or something that comes under a “divine dictation theory,” which refers to angels whispering in the ears of the writers. This way of understanding reduces the biblical writers to robots or machines who simply recorded what was dictated to them. It also reduces the cooperation of humans in writing the Scriptures. It is also not a “Mere assistance” and “subsequent approbation,” where the biblical authors submit written material for divine approval. According to this approach, the Spirit of God simply intervened and protected the human authors when they were on the verge of making mistakes. Here, it reduces the Spirit of God to a divine watchdog who keeps the biblical authors from making any errors, rather than its active role through all the stages of the biblical texts.

 

In actual fact, Biblical inspiration is something that cannot be fully explained. Theologians call biblical inspiration a “mystery,” something that cannot be fully explained. Even if we cannot fully describe or define biblical inspiration, at least, we can describe what it is in a general sense. The understanding of the Church of the mystery of inspiration can be called “positive assistance theory.” It affirms that the Spirit of God (Holy Spirit) enlightened and assisted the biblical authors in a positive and a divine way.

 

The Church does not describe the exact nature of the contribution of the Holy Spirit. It is not clear in the writings of the Church Fathers how these human authors of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures understood inspiration and how it actually took place. That is why it is truly mysterious just ask many doctrines that we believe is mysterious. Whatever, the positive contribution of the Holy Spirit was, it gave the biblical authors liberty to use their personalities, resources, linguistic skills, and talents in the process of writing. This does not mean that the Holy Spirit protected the biblical authors from the scientific and historical error as there was insufficient understanding of geography, history, and science at that time. And the salvation history written in the Bible is not a record of history and science. Hence, the Holy Bible is the Word of God in the words of human beings. Inspiration of the Bible holds that in some way the Spirit of God guided the human authors of the Scriptures that the original documents communicate what god intended. The document, Dei Verbum of the Second Vatican Council states that we must never stop marveling at how far God “has gone in adapting his language with thoughtful concern for our weak human nature” (DV 13).

 

— Fr. Niranjan Rodrigo, Ph.D.