Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

On the necessity of the testimony by which inspiration becomes known.

« From the very nature of the thing, the fact of inspiration cannot become known to others besides the inspired man except by testimony; but this testimony, as regards the Scriptures which are received and believed in the Church as the inspired word of God, can be none but a divine testimony. »

I. Inspiration is a supernatural psychological fact in the mind of man which, like other internal facts, is immediately known to God, and to the inspired man himself alone; although not even to him is it necessarily known under the formal character of inspiration and insofar as it is supernatural (see th. III. Coroll. 3.). « For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him? » 1 Cor. II. 11. Inspiration, therefore, cannot become known to other men except either from its external effects or from trustworthy testimony. The external effect of the inspiration of which we speak is none other than the writing itself and the book written. But in these there is no inherent mark which of itself manifests inspiration as its necessary cause, as was demonstrated a little above. Therefore the fact of inspiration can become known to other men only by trustworthy testimony.

This testimony is either merely human or divine. If it is merely human testimony, then necessarily in the series of witnesses, whatever it be supposed to be, the first witness on whom the authority of the rest depends is the inspired man himself, because to him alone immediately, and to the rest, apart from divine testimony, it can become known only from his testimony.

Although human testimony concerning an internal supernatural fact, such as inspiration is, deserves belief with far greater difficulty than testification concerning external facts subject to the senses, and although such an internal fact, in nearly the same way as speculative truth, is not the proper object of human testimony, on account of the facility of illusion in the witness and the difficulty for others of certainly knowing the exclusion of illusion; I would not, however, affirm that, absolutely speaking, there could not be such authority in the witness as to deserve human faith.

II. But whatever be the case concerning this matter, the fact of inspiration is under the hypothesis proposed not by God, whether immediately through Himself or mediately through a divine legate, but is proposed by merely human testimony¹; hence not on account of the authority of God revealing (who is supposed to have nowise revealed this fact) but solely on account of the authority of the attesting man, and thus with not divine but human and fallible faith, is it believed that the things written in the book are the word of God. Wherefore if a book is to be so received that this sole reason, that some sentence is written in that book, must suffice and induce the obligation of believing with divine faith that that sentence is the word of God, and much more if in this manner and as of such authority the book be proposed to the universal Church; then indeed human testimony concerning the fact of inspiration does not suffice², but divine testimony is altogether required.

Now a) the Sacred Scriptures are received and must be received by the universal Church, indeed by all who by any right are called Christians, as inspired in such a way that, for this sole reason that some sentence is contained in these books, it is believed and must be believed with divine faith to be the word of God revealed through the writing itself. Therefore the fact of inspiration also, containing the reason why what is comprehended in the book is to be believed with divine faith to be the word of God, must be believed with divine faith; and consequently it must be established not by merely human but by divine testification. For if it were established by merely human authority that a book is inspired by God, not only would the existence of the word of God in that book be established by merely human faith on account of the authority of man alone; but also faith in the truth of the things written in the book would ultimately be resolved into assent on account of the authority of man. For even if one were to say that he believes those things to be true because he believes them to be in the book the word inspired by God, and thus that he believes on account of the authority of God speaking through the book; yet since this very thing, that God speaks in that book, he neither knows nor believes from any other source than solely from the authority and testimony of man, it is evident that the ultimate foundation of such faith in the truth of the things written in the book would be merely human authority³. b) If the question is considered polemically in controversy with those Protestants who still admit revelation, the reasoning is not less evident. For they require proposition through an inspired book as a necessary condition for rendering divine faith to the truth proposed, because through an inspired book the Holy Spirit speaks to us. If, therefore, it were believed on merely human testimony that the book is inspired, by that very fact the truths contained in the book could not be believed as the inspired words of the Holy Spirit except on human testimony; the whole faith would therefore rest upon the authority of the man testifying to the inspiration of the book, and not upon divine authority. This they themselves confess, and therefore they seek other reasons besides human testimony from which to receive the books as inspired. But those reasons are null; they are either gratuitous assumptions or at most conjectures, as was demonstrated in the preceding thesis. Since, therefore, from what has been said in this thesis the inspiration of the books cannot become known except through testimony, and this testimony, in relation to the Scriptures as the foundation of divine faith, cannot be merely human; it remains that all confess that the fact of the inspiration of the Scriptures cannot, as it ought, become known except by divine testimony.

It is evident per se that there is no question of the necessity of an immediate divine testimony, but that a divine testimony mediated through a divine legate accredited by God with motives of credibility suffices, whether the first promulgator of the divine attestation be the inspired man himself or another to whom God has immediately revealed the inspiration of the book.

It is likewise evident that, where the question concerns the criterion for knowing not now the essence but the existence of inspiration, there is no question of inspiration considered abstractly, what it is, of which we spoke above, but in concreto of the inspired books themselves, which they are. Concerning the individual inspired books, therefore, holds all that we have said of the manner in which inspiration becomes known; nor otherwise than from divine testimony can the number of the books and the individual books of inspired Scripture, as it ought, become known.