-- E. Objections to inspiration.
the vocal signs in our Hebrew manuscripts come from the writers themselves. Nor does it follow that everything is full of divine wisdom, that every iota and every tittle has an infinite content.
Everything has its meaning and significance, certainly, but on the spot and in the context in which it occurs. Scripture must not be viewed atomistically, as if each word and each letter, in isolation and as such, had been inspired by God with its own purpose and its own divine, infinite content. This leads to the foolish hermeneutical rules of the Jewish Scriptures and does not honor but dishonors Scripture.
But inspiration must be conceived organically, so that even the most peripheral part has its place and significance and yet is at a much greater distance from the center than other parts. In the human organism nothing is accidental, neither the length nor the width, nor the color nor the hue; but therefore not everything is in the same close connection with the center of life. The head and heart have a much more important place in the body than the hand and foot, and these in turn have a much higher value than nails and hair. In Scripture, too, not everything is arranged equally close to the center; there is a periphery which moves widely around the center, but it too belongs to the circle of God's thoughts. Thus there are no types or degrees of inspiration itself. The hair of the head shares the same life as the heart and hand. It is one anima, which is tota est in toto corpore et in omnibus partibus. It is one Spirit, from which all
Scripture has proceeded through the consciousness of the writers.
But there is a difference in the way the same life is immanent and active in the different parts of the body. There is a variety of gifts, also in Scripture, but it is the same Spirit.
E. Objections to inspiration.
17. Against this inspiration of Scripture many and very serious objections are raised. They are derived from historical criticism, which disputes the authenticity and credibility of many books of the Bible; from the internal contradictions which are repeatedly found in Scripture; from the manner in which the Old Test is quoted and explained in the New; from unconsecrated history, with which the
narratives of Scripture are often inconsistent; The present form of Scripture, which, according to textual criticism, is lost in its autographs, corrupt in its apographs, and deficient in its translations, etc. It is a vain attempt to ignore these objections and to pretend that they do not exist. But in the first place the ethical significance of the struggle which has been waged against Scripture throughout the ages must be pointed out. If Scripture is the word of God, this battle is not accidental but necessary and perfectly understandable. Because they describe God's revelation in Christ, they must arouse the same opposition as Christ himself. He came into the world as a κρισις and is the fall and the resurrection of many. He separates light from darkness and reveals the thoughts of many hearts. And so the Scriptures are a living and powerful word, a judge of the thoughts and deliberations of the heart. It was not only inspired, it is still theopneist. As much goes before the act of inspiration, the whole activity of the Holy Spirit in nature, history, revelation, regeneration, so much follows after it. Inspiration does not stand alone. The Holy Spirit, after the act of inspiration, does not withdraw from the Scriptures and does not leave them to their fate, but He carries them and animates them, and brings their contents, in all kinds of forms, to mankind, to its heart and conscience. Through Scripture as the Word of God, the Holy Spirit continually wrestles with the thoughts and deliberations of the ψυχικός άνθρωπος. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Scriptures have always been opposed and contested. Christ bore a cross, and a servant is no more than his lord. Scripture is the handmaiden of Christ. She shares in His reproach. It awakens the enmity of sinful man.
From this, it is true, not all the opposition to Scripture can be explained. But still the attacks to which Scripture is exposed in this century cannot be considered in isolation. They are undoubtedly connected with the whole spirit of this century. It is not for us to judge of persons and intentions; but it would be superficial to assert that the struggle against Scripture in this century was entirely separate, was governed by quite different and far purer motives than in earlier centuries, that now only the head would speak and the
heart would remain entirely out of it. Every believer experiences that in the best moments of his life he is also strongest in his belief in Scripture; his confidence in Scripture increases with his belief in Christ, and conversely, ignoratio Scripturarum is of itself and to the same extent an ignoratio Christi (Hieronymus). The relationship between sin and error often lies deep under the surface of the conscious life. In another person it is almost impossible to detect, but sometimes it is discovered by the eyes of one's own soul. The struggle against Scripture is first and foremost a revelation of the enmity of the human heart. But that enmity can express itself in various ways.
It is by no means only, and perhaps not even most strongly, expressed in the criticism to which Scripture is subjected in our time.
Scripture as the word of God meets with opposition and unbelief on the part of every psychic. In the days of dead orthodoxy, disbelief in Scripture was as powerful in principle as it is in our historical and critical age. The forms change, but the essence remains one. Whether the enmity against Scripture is expressed in a criticism such as that of Celsus and Porphyrius, or whether it manifests itself in a dead faith, the enmity is fundamentally the same. For it is not the hearers, but the doers of the word, who are spoken into salvation. The servant who has known the will of his master and has not prepared himself nor done according to his will, he will be beaten with many blows.
That is why it remains the duty of every human being, first of all, to renounce this enmity against the word of God and to lead all thoughts to the obedience of Christ. Scripture itself makes this demand everywhere. Only the pure in heart will see God. Rebirth makes one see the kingdom of God. Self-denial is the condition for being Jesus' disciple. The wisdom of the world is foolishness before God. Scripture has such a high place with every man that, instead of submitting to his criticism, it rather judges him in all his thoughts and desires. And this has been the position of the Christian Church toward Scripture at all times. Humility, according to Chrysostomus, was the foundation of philosophy. Augustine said: quemadmodum rhetor ille rogatus, quid primum esset in eloquentiae praeceptis, respondit: pronuntiationem; quid secundum, pronuntiationem; quid
tertium, pronuntiationem; ita si me interroges de religionis Christianae, primo, secundo et tertio semper respondere liberet: humilitatem. Galvin, Inst. II 2, 11, quotes this with approval. And Pascal, Pensées, Art. 8, calls out to mankind: humiliez-vous, raison impuissante, taisez-vous, nature imbécile écoutez Dieu!
This is how the church has stood against Scripture in every century.
And the Christian dogmatist may not take any other position. For a dogma does not rest on the results of any historical-critical research, but rests solely on the testimony of God, on the self-explanatory nature of Scripture. A Christian does not believe because everything reveals God's love, but despite everything that raises doubt. Even in Scripture there remains much that gives rise to doubt. All believers know from experience how to speak from it. The men of Scripture criticism often present it as if the simple congregation knew nothing of the objections raised against Scripture and felt nothing of the difficulty of continuing to believe in Scripture. But that is an inaccurate representation. Certainly, simple Christians do not know the obstacles which science puts in the way of belief in Scripture. But they are more or less aware of the battle which is fought against Scripture in both mind and heart. There is not a single believer who has not learned in his own way to know the opposition between the σοφία του κοσμου and the μωρία του !)tov. It is the same and it is an everlasting battle that must be fought by all Christians, learned or unlearned, to keep their minds under the obedience of Christ. No one here on earth can overcome this struggle. There remain cruces throughout the whole field of faith that must be overcome. There is no faith without a struggle. Believing is fighting, fighting against the appearance of things. As long as someone still believes something, his faith is challenged from all sides. Even the modern believer is not freed from this. Concessions weaken but do not liberate. Thus enough objections remain, even for those who submit childishly to the Scriptures. These need not be glossed over. There are cruces in Scripture which cannot be dismissed, and which will probably never be solved. But these difficulties, which Scripture itself offers us in relation to its inspiration, have for the most part not been newly
discovered in this century; they have always been noticed, and nevertheless Jesus and the Apostles, Athanasius and Augustine,
Thomas and Bonaventure, Luther and Calvin, all Christians of all churches and through all ages have confessed and recognized
Scripture as the word of God. Whoever wants to wait with believing the Scriptures, until all objections have been removed and all contradictions have been reconciled, will never come to faith. What a man sees, why should he hope for it? Jesus says blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. But moreover, in every science there are objections and difficulties. Whoever does not want to start believing will never come to know. The theory of knowledge is the principle of philosophy; but it is a mystery from beginning to end. Anyone who is unwilling to embark on scientific research before he sees the way opened up for us to attain knowledge will never get started. He who will not eat until he understands the process by which food comes to him dies of hunger; and he who will not believe the word of God until he sees all the difficulties resolved dies of spiritual want. It will not do to understand, but to grasp the misunderstood (Beets). Nature, history and every science offer as many cruces as the Holy Scriptures. Nature contains so many riddles that it can make us doubt menignlally the existence of a wise and just
God. There are εναττιοφανη in multitude on every page of the book of nature. There is an inexplicable remainder (Schelling), which mocks all explanation. Who, therefore, gives up faith in the providence of God, which governs all things? Mohammedanism, the life and destiny of uncivilized peoples is a crux in the history of mankind, as great and as difficult as the composition of the Pentateuch and the Synoptics. Who therefore doubts that God also writes that book of nature and history with His almighty hand? Of course, here, as with Scripture, one can fall into the arms of agnosticism and pessimism. But despair is a salto mortale also in the scientific field. With unbelief, the mysteries of his being do not diminish but increase. And the discontent of the heart becomes greater.
18. But the organic conception of inspiration offers many ways of meeting the objections raised against it. It implies, however, that the Holy Spirit, in describing the word of God, has not forsaken anything human in order to serve as the organ of the divine. The revelation of God is not abstract-supranational, but has entered into the human, into persons and situations, into forms and customs, into history and life. It does not float high above us, but has descended into our situation; it is flesh and blood and has become like us in everything except sin. It is now an ineradicable part of this cosmos in which we live, and continues its work of renewal and restoration. The human has become the organ of the divine, the natural the revelation of the supernatural, the visible the sign and seal of the unseen. In inspiration, use has been made of all the gifts and powers that lie within human nature. This explains, first of all, the difference in language and style, in character and individuality, which can be seen in the books of the Bible. Formerly this difference was explained by the will of the Holy Spirit, and no deeper consideration was required.
But with organic inspiration this difference is perfectly natural. The use of sources, the writers' familiarity with earlier writings, their own research, memory, reflection and life experience are not excluded but included by the organic view. The Holy Spirit himself has prepared his scriptors in this way; he has not suddenly descended upon them from above, but has made use of their whole personality as his instrument. Here, too, the word applies that gratia non tollit sed perficit naturam. The personality of the writers is not erased but maintained and sanctified. Inspiration, therefore, in no way demands that we equate the style of Amos with that of Isaiah, either literarily or aesthetically, or that we deny all barbarism and soliloquy in the language of the N. T. In the second place, the organic concept of revelation and inspiration implies that ordinary human and natural life is not excluded but is also made subservient to the thoughts of God. Scripture is the word of God; it not only contains it but it is it. But the formal and material elements must not be separated in this expression. Inspiration alone would not make a scripture the word of God in the scriptural sense. For example, even if a book of geography were entirely inspired and dictated word for
word in the most literal sense, that would not make it theological in the sense of 2 Tim. 3:16. Scripture is the word of God, because the Holy Spirit testifies of Christ in it, because it has the Λογος ένσαρκος as its substance and content. Form and content permeate each other, and cannot be separated. But in order to paint this full-length picture of Christ as if it were before our eyes, it is necessary that human sin and the satanic lie are also depicted in all their horror. In the painting, the shadow is necessary in order to make the light stand out more clearly. Sin must also be called sin in Bible saints, and error must not be condoned in them either. And while the revelation of God in Christ thus takes in iniquity as its antithesis, it also does not disregard the human, weak and natural. Christ has not considered anything human alien, and the Scriptures do not forget the smallest concerns of daily life (2 Tim 4:13). Thirdly, the intention and purpose of Scripture are closely related to its content. Everything that has been written before has been written for our instruction. It serves to teach, to refute, to correct, to instruct, which is in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, perfectly equipped for every good work. It serves to make us wise unto salvation. Scripture has a thoroughly religious and ethical purpose. It does not want to be a manual for the different sciences. It is the principium alone of theology and demands that we read and examine it theologically. In all the disciplines that are grouped around Scripture, we must be concerned with the beatific knowledge of God. For this the Scriptures offer us all the data. In this sense it is entirely sufficient and perfect.
But whoever wants to derive from Scripture a history of Israel, a biography of Jesus, a history of Israels or Old Christian literature, etc., will always find himself disappointed. Then there are gaps which can only be filled by guesswork. Historical criticism has completely forgotten this purpose of Scripture. It tries to give a history of the people of Israel, of their religion and literature, and it immediately makes demands on Scripture which it cannot meet. She encounters contradictions that cannot be solved, endlessly shifts sources and books, arranges and orders them in a completely different way, only to create hopeless confusion. No life of Jesus can be constructed from the four Gospels and no history of Israel from
the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit did not intend this. Notarial notation has not been the inspiration. The harmonistics of the Gospel narratives have failed, cf. Dieckhoff, Die Inspiration und
Irrthumslosigkeit der H. Schrift, Leipzig 1891. Id. Noch einmal über die Insp. u. Irrth. der H. S. Rostock 1893. Herzog2 art.
Evangelienharmonien and Synopse. Exact knowledge, as we demand in mathesis, astronomy, chemistry, etc., is not met by Scripture. Such a standard may not be applied to it. That is why the auto-grapha are lost. That is why the text, to whatever small degree, is corrupt; that is why the congregation and indeed the laity possess the Scriptures only in a faulty and fallible translation. These are facts that cannot be denied. And they teach us that Scripture has its own standard, is of its own interpretation and has its own destiny. That purpose is none other than to make us wise unto salvation. The Old Testament is not a source for a history of Israel's people and religion, but it is a source for a historia revelationis. The Gospels are not a source for a life of Jesus but for a dogmatic knowledge of his person and work.
Scripture is the book of Christian religion and Christian theology. It is given for that purpose. It is suited to that purpose. And therefore it is the word of God, given to us by the Holy Spirit.
19. From this the relationship between Scripture and the other sciences becomes clear at last. Much abuse has been made of the word of Baronius: Scripture does not say how heaven goes, but how we go to heaven. As the book of God's knowledge, Scripture has much to say, also to the other sciences. It is a light on the path and a lamp for the feet, also for science and art. It claims authority in all areas of life. Christ has all power in heaven and on earth. The limitation of inspiration to the religious-ethical part of Scripture is objectively untenable, and subjectively the separation between religious and other areas of human life cannot be maintained.
Inspiration extends to all parts of Scripture, and religion is a matter for man as a whole. Much of what is mentioned in the Schritt is also of fundamental importance for the other sciences. The creation and fall of mankind, the unity of the human race, the Flood, the origin of peoples and languages, etc. are facts of the highest importance for
the other sciences as well. Every moment science and art come into contact with Scripture, the principles of all life are given in Scripture.
Nothing can be done about this. Yet on the other hand there is also a great truth in the word of the cardinal Baronius. All those facts too are not communicated in Scripture in and of themselves, but with a theological purpose, so that we may know God for salvation.
Scripture never intentionally interferes with science as such. Christ Himself, though free from all error and sin, nevertheless never moved in a narrow sense in the fields of science and art, of commerce and industry, of jurisprudence and politics. His was another greatness; the glory of the Unborn of the Father, full of grace and truth. But precisely because of that He has been a blessing for science and art, for society and state. Jesus is Saviour, that alone, but also completely. He did not come only to restore mankind's religious and ethical life and to leave everything else untouched, as if it had not been corrupted by sin and did not need restoration. No, the grace of Christ extends as far as sin. And so it is with the Scriptures. It too is thoroughly religious, the word of God for salvation, but for that very reason it is also a word for family and society, for science and art.
Scripture is a book for all mankind, in all its ranks and classes, in all its generations and peoples. But for that reason it is not a scientific book in the narrow sense. Wisdom, not scholarship, is speaking in it.
It does not speak the exact language of science and learning, but that of perception and daily life. She does not judge and describe things by the results of scientific research, but by intuition, by the first, living impression that phenomena make on man. That is why she speaks of the approach of the land, of the rising and setting of the sun, of the blood as the soul of the animal, of the kidneys as the seat of afflictions, of the heart as the source of thoughts, etc., and is completely unconcerned with the scientifically precise language of astronomy, physiology, psychology, etc. She speaks of the earth as the center of all things. She speaks about the earth as the center of God's creation and does not choose between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican world view. It does not decide between Neptunism and Plutonism, nor between allopathy and homoeopathy. The scriptors of the Holy Scriptures probably knew nothing more in all these
sciences, geology, zoology, physiology, medicine, etc. than all their contemporaries. Nor did they need to. For the Scriptures use the language of daily experience, which is always true and always remains true. If Scripture had instead used the language of the school and had spoken scientifically-exactly, it would have interfered with its own authority. If it had decided in favor of the Ptolemaic world view, it would have been implausible in a century which held the Copernican system. Nor could it have been a book for life, for humanity. But now she speaks in general human language, understandable for the simplest, clear for both learned and unlearned. She uses the language of observation, which will always exist alongside that of science and of the school. That is why it can last until the end of time. That is why it is old, without ever becoming old. It is always young and fresh; it is the talk of life. Verbum Dei manet in aeternum.