Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus II (Pars Altera): Demonstratio Catholica

It is evident that we take no account of the opinions of those who, having inspiration on their lips, expressly deny that God is the author of the sacred books. Among these are the modernists together with the Protestant rationalists, affirming: "They betray excessive simplicity or ignorance who believe that God is truly the author of sacred Scripture."¹ But several most meritorious Catholic theologians as well, who since the Council of Trent have disputed more distinctly about the nature of inspiration, did not sufficiently weigh that God is the true author of sacred Scripture. Hence arose the twofold error of those who placed inspiration either in a mere approval or in a mere inerrancy of the sacred books. Let us speak briefly of both errors.

1. Mere approval of the sacred books. Some Catholic theologians, among whom chiefly Iac. Bonfrère S. I.² and Daniel Haneberg O. S. B.³ contended that the Holy Spirit can stand in three ways with regard to the hagiographers: by inspiring antecedently, by assisting concomitantly, by approving consequently, and that all three ways suffice of themselves for something to be sacred Scripture. But whereas Bonfrère judged that the canonical books which we have were inspired only in the third way, Haneberg thought that the historical books of sacred Scripture were inspired in this way of mere consequent approval.⁴

But for the notion of inspiration it does not suffice that a book written by human labor be marked with the approval of the Church or of God Himself and be recognized as a canonical book. For:

a) Only those books are inspired whose efficient cause or principal author is God. But before approval a book produced by human labor already pre-exists. Therefore God is not its efficient cause or author.

b) Nor can it come about by any subsequent approval that a book produced by human labor alone should thereafter have God as its efficient cause or principal author. Daily usage illustrates a matter clear in itself. However much bishops and censors approve the books offered to them, by force of the approval they do not themselves become the authors, but the books remain the authors' by whom they were composed. Thus neither would God ever become by force of subsequent approval the author of books composed by human study. Therefore the inspiration of the sacred books cannot consist in a mere subsequent approval.

2. Mere inerrancy of the sacred books. The already mentioned Bonfrère was of the opinion that the Holy Spirit in inspiration could have related, and perhaps sometimes actually did relate, only concomitantly, i. e., by so directing the hagiographer that He would not permit him to err or be deceived in anything.⁵ More boldly Phil. Ner. Chrismann O. F. M. writes: "The sacred authors therefore did not have revelation in all things, but truly they had that divine inspiration by which, being interiorly moved to write, they are directed by the peculiar assistance or presence of the Holy Spirit, lest they slip, lest they mingle anything false or erroneous, and lest they anywhere deviate from the truth."⁶ This opinion Io. Iahn, professor at Vienna, embraces and expounds thus: "That these books may have divine authority, it is necessary that their authors have been preserved by God free from errors in writing; this divine assistance, by which errors are warded off, we call inspiration."⁷

That this notion of inspiration is also false is evident. For:

a) God inspired the sacred books in this sense, that He Himself is their principal author, who used the hagiographer as His instrument. But if the hagiographers wrote the sacred books with their own mind and will, God only looking on and warding off error, then not God but the hagiographers are the principal authors of the sacred books.

b) According to Scripture and Tradition the word θεόπνευστος, or inspiration, is a technical term for signifying the proper manner in which God conducted Himself in composing the sacred books. But this term, as Iahn observes, does not indicate a mere negative assistance by which errors are warded off from a book, but a positive influx by which the book is divinely instilled into the hagiographer.⁸

c) The solemn definitions of the ecumenical councils and of the Roman pontiffs are by virtue of the assisting God themselves also immune from error, without however ever having been numbered or being able to be numbered among the inspired writings. Therefore mere inerrancy conferred upon the sacred books through a concomitant divine direction does not suffice for the notion of inspiration.

Therefore the Vatican Council justly decreed: "But the Church holds them (the books of the New and Old Testament) as sacred and canonical, not because, having been composed by human industry alone, they were afterwards approved by her authority, nor only because they contain revelation without error; but because, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author."