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Charismatic graces [1311] are given chiefly for the good of
others, to instruct them in revelation (by the word of knowledge, by
the word of wisdom): or to confirm that revelation (by miracles,
prophecies, discernment of spirits, etc. ). Here we restrict
ourselves to underlining the Thomistic doctrine regarding prophecy,
revelation, and biblical inspiration.
1. Prophetic Revelation
Prophecy has degrees. [1312] On the lower level the prophet
(Caiphas, for example) may not know that he is prophesying. On the
higher level, in perfect prophecy, the prophet needs first the
supernatural proposition of a truth so far hidden, secondly a
supernatural knowledge that that proposition is divine in its origin,
thirdly an infused light by which he judges infallibly regarding the
truth itself and its divine origin. In giving the prophet this
revelation, God may use as intermediary the prophet's external sense
power, or his internal sense power, or his intellect. [1313]
As to his physical state, the prophet can be either awake or in
ecstasy or in dream. [1314] The object revealed may be either
a truth in itself essentially supernatural, or a future contingent
event, which, when it comes to pass, can be naturally known. In
either of these cases the prophecy thus becomes, like miracles, a
supernatural proof of divine revelation. [1315] .
2. Biblical Inspiration [1316]
Under the name "prophecy," St. Thomas includes all charismatic
intellectual graces. Hence biblical inspiration is a special kind of
prophecy, which, in the words of St. Augustine, he defines thus:
"a hidden and divine inspiration which human minds receive
unknowingly." [1317] Thus inspiration differs from
revelation. In receiving revelation the mind receives new ideas,
whereas in simple inspiration, unaccompanied by revelation, no new
ideas are infused, but only a divine judgment on the ideas which the
inspired writer has already acquired, from experience, say, or from
human testimony, as the Evangelists, for example, knew before
inspiration the facts of our Lord's life which they report. And
since it is in judgment that truth or falsity resides, the infused
judgment of the inspired writer is divinely and infallibly certain.
[1318] .
Biblical inspiration, then, is a divine light which makes the
judgment of the inspired writer divine, and consequently infallible.
Yet this scriptural inspiration, which has as its object a written
book, is not only a divine light for the writer's spirit, but also a
divine motion, which energizes the writer's will, and through his
will all his other faculties which cooperate in producing the inspired
book. But his charismatic grace of inspiration is not a permanent and
habitual grace, but is transient and intermittent. [1319] .
Thus Scripture has two authors, one divine and principal, the other
human and instrumental. [1320] This doctrine, generally held
both in medieval times and in our own, is clearly expounded in the
Providentissimus of Leo XIII. As instrumental cause, the
inspired writer attains the goal intended by the principal cause, and
yet retains his own character and style, and adopts any literary genus
he finds suited to his purpose.
Inspiration, then, to repeat, is a divine causality, physical and
supernatural, which elevates and moves the human writer in such fashion
that he writes, for the benefit of the Church, all that God wills
and in the way God wills. [1321] Hence God's causality
enters not only into the truth conceived by the human writer, but into
the very words employed by the human writer to express those truths, as
is seen by the very terms Holy Scripture, the Holy Books, the
Holy Bible, which faith, according to Jewish and to Christian
tradition, employs to express the results of inspiration. These terms
imply that the human author's decision to use this set of words rather
than another is also an effect of inspiration.
Hence we are not to conceive inspiration as a mere material dictation,
whereby the human author would have no freedom in the choice of words.
Verbal inspiration, as here defended, leaves the inspired authors
even more free and personal than authors who are not inspired, since
God moves all second causes in conformity with their individual
natures. Hence, although verbal inspiration is necessarily implied if
the book is to be God's book, we must, if we are to understand the
literal meaning of that book, be fully aware of the personal
characteristics of the human writer, in whom, as in every writer,
style is subordinated to thought. [1322] .
Lastly, let us notice that statements may be infallible without being
inspired. Thus the definitions of the Church, although they express
divine truth infallibly, are not spoken of as inspired. Infallibility
is indeed the work of the Holy Ghost, but not in the form of biblical
inspiration. [1323] .
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