What are the different theories of biblical inspiration?

Inspiration. — We have spoken in the preceding pages of the inspiration of the sacred writers. Some remarks ere closing on this important subject may not be out of place. Theories about it have been propounded, degrees of it have been advocated, and what is commonly understood by verbal inspiration has been mentioned by some only to be rejected as a dogma which no reasonable person could for one moment accept. Now the very propounding of theories about it is a confession of its reality, though the divergent views of its character and fulness indicate that no one now from his own experience can speak authoritatively about it. If then we would desire a definite conception about it, we must seek it from those who were themselves vessels of it. This is a course consistent with the daily actions of prudent men, who, if wanting reliable information on any matter of real importance, turn to those who are competent to furnish it. Theories in such circumstances will not satisfy the inquirer. Facts, reliable facts, or trustworthy information is desired. So with inspiration.

Here, too, we may see how far inspiration extends; concerning which many have vague thoughts. Some have taught that the doctrines of Scripture are inspired of God, but that the writers were allowed to express them in their own language; others, as Burnet, that the reasoning so often found, particularly in the epistles, was left to the writer; and yet others, as Paley, think them to have used their own illustrations, and to have selected their own O.T. references to confirm their words.

All such thoughts are below the truth, and the Scriptures are injured thus by those who sincerely desire to be its friends. The fact is, nothing was left to the vessel — the words, not merely the truths or doctrines, were given by the Holy Ghost. Were it otherwise, we could have no divine certainty. Where should we draw the line between the human and divine? And is it likely that all would agree as to the line to be drawn? Not that a human element is altogether denied. Paul has his style, and Peter his; for the Spirit took up the men as He found them; nevertheless, every word thus written was from Himself.

The Spirit of God in recording does not limit Himself to the bare words that Jesus spoke. This I hold to be a matter of no little importance in forming a sound judgment of the Scriptures. The notion to which orthodox men sometimes shut themselves up, in zeal for plenary inspiration, is to my mind altogether mechanical; they think that inspiration necessarily and only gives the exact words that Christ uttered. There seems to me not the slightest necessity for this. Assuredly the Holy Spirit gives the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The differences are owing to no infirmity, but to His design, and what He has given us is incomparably better than a bare report by so many hands, all meaning to give the same words and facts. … Matthew and Luke alike give us the parable of the sower, but Matthew calls it the word of the kingdom, while Luke calls it the word of God. The Lord Jesus may have employed both in His discourse at this time. … The Spirit of God did not give us to have both in the same Gospel, but acts with Divine sovereignty. He does not lower the Evangelists into mere literal reporters. … The mere mechanical system can never explain inspiration. It finds itself entirely baffled by the fact that the same words are not given in all the Gospels. Take Matthew "Blessed are the poor" (verse 3), and Luke (verse 20) "Blessed are ye poor." This is at once an embarrassing difficulty for the mechanical scheme of inspiration; it is none at all for those who hold to the Holy Spirit's supremacy in employing different men as the vessels of His various objects. The last paragraph has been drawn from "Lectures on the Gospels," pp. 287-289. See further note 13 in Appendix.

Then, it is often urged, how can God allow the writers of the Scriptures to maintain their individuality, yet their writings be free from human defects and errors? Some have affirmed the mechanical theory of inspiration, that is, the writers wrote down the very words given them, and had no opportunity of expressing themselves in a style natural to them. We believe the mechanical theory is not upheld by Scripture, and yet, whilst the personality of the writers is expressed in their writings, the truth so expressed is God-breathed, and inerrant, and free from human imperfections.

With such language as that of the Swiss synod in his mind, Thirlwall, afterwards Bishop of St. Davids, speaking of "that doctrine of inspiration once [i.e., for about 100 years, to the time of Lessing] universally prevalent — the sacred writers were merely passive organs or instruments of the Holy Spirit — abandoned by the learned, still a generally received notion … this doctrine of literal inspiration, etc.," admitted that all the hypotheses as to the composition of the Gospels were irreconcilable with a theory, which no intelligent Bible student seems any longer to hold: see W. Kelly's "Introduction to the Study of the Gospels" (1866), p. 288; cf. his chapter on The Human Element in "God's Inspiration, etc." At the present day no representative writer can be charged with maintaining that the inspiration of the Bible was on a plane with the Moslems', idea of the Koran — dictated word for word to a Prophet (see Margoliouth, "Mohammed and the Rise of Islam," p. 91 f.). It is, however, precisely that absurd system which Archbishop Temple ("what can be a grosser superstition"), Dean Farrar, Canon Wilson, and Mr. Gladstone (on Butler, iii. p. 17) have in turn criticised. What the meaning was of the reaffirmation of "plenary" inspiration by such Papal encyclicals as the document of 1893 may be left to writers of that communion to determine. We are concerned mainly with the sentiment of those not subject to the Roman obedience. That there is room for criticism of statements by Gaussen, Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, Dean Burgon, and Archdeacon Lee is not questioned. Some of them have not allowed that the personality of a scripture writer could influence at all what he wrote; but words of Paul dispose of such ill-advised ideas: "I speak as a fool" (2 Cor. 11:23). Tregelles, the eminent textual critic who held a healthy form of plenary inspiration, had weighed well what he wrote: "It is the thing and not the expression which I would maintain. The expression has been represented as if it implied some mere mechanical operation, while the thing really is that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, so that everything in it — narratives, prophecies, citations — are such as He saw fit to be there; and the whole — ideas, phrases, expressions, and words — was given forth exactly as was according to His mind and will" ("Remarks on the Prophecies of Daniel," p. 275). Cf. his "Hope of Christ's Coming" p. 94. This was but another way of stating the proposition of Carson: "It is of the words as containing the meaning, and not of the meaning as distinguished from the words, that inspiration is directly and expressly asserted."

I quote from one of these critics, it is of no importance from whom, as I have not the writings of any special person under examination. “The Christian (?) critic starts with the belief that the Bible contains a revelation of God, and that its writers are inspired, his object is not to deny the revelation or the inspiration, but to ascertain, as far as possible, the conditions under which the revelation was made, the stages through which it passed, and the character and limits of the inspiration which guided the human agents through whom the revelation is made, or who recorded its successive stages. By inspiration I suppose we may understand a divine afflatus which, without superseding or suppressing the human faculties, but rather using them as its instruments, and so conferring upon Scripture its remarkable manifoldness and variety, enabled holy men of old to apprehend, and declare in different degrees, and in accordance with the needs and circumstances of particular ages or occasions, the mind and purpose of God.”

This suffices to prove without further ado the egregious error of the late D. Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, in his Evidences of Christianity (i. 508). "By the inspiration of suggestion is meant such communications of the Holy Spirit, as suggested and detailed minutely every part of the truths delivered. The inspiration of direction is meant of such assistance as left the writers to describe revealed truth in their own way, directing only the mind in the exercise of its power. The inspiration of elevation added a greater strength and vigour to the efforts of the mind than the writer could otherwise have attained. The inspiration of superintendency was that watchful care which preserved generally from anything being put down derogatory to the revelation with which it was connected." There are no such kinds of inspiration taught in the Bible, which speaks of God's inspiration pure and simple, and predicates it of "every scripture" alike. Dr. W.'s first kind is the only real inspiration, though even it is not fully stated. The other three are not the inspiration of any scripture, but such direction, elevation, and superintendency as His servants look for, and not in vain, day by day. But none of these is true inspiration, which conveys God's mind or will as perfectly as it excludes every error of man.

Doctors Dick (Essay on Inspiration), Pye Smith (Ser. Test. to the Messiah i.), Henderson (Lect. on Inspir. 36 sec.), and others have put forth a similar hypothesis of different degrees in inspiration, influenced partly by the free thinking of modern Germans, partly by a name so respectable as that of Dr. Doddridge (Works v.) of older date. There is modification; for Henderson makes five degrees, while Doddridge states no more than three. But all agree in the hypothesis of differences which oppose the authoritative declaration of the apostle, without the semblance of warrant from any other scripture.

The exact meaning is: Inspiration of such fulness that it extends to the control of the very words of the utterance or writing. Verbal is an adjective derived from the Latin verbum = a word. There are those who will allow a modified inspiration, extending as far as the thoughts are concerned; an inspiration differing in degree but hardly in kind from that state of mental exaltation and rapture which produced the finest passages from Shakespeare, Milton, or Dante.

When we speak of Inspiration we refer to that second work of the Spirit of God by, which those men were enabled to set forth the revealed truth in words divinely chosen and therefore of divine fulness and precision, whether they spoke or whether they wrote them.

The distinction between revelation and inspiration is seen in David's last words (2 Sam. 23). In verse 2 David said, "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me". This is inspiration. God's word was in his tongue. Then David said in verse 3, "The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me". This is revelation, God revealing His mind to His servant. David was both the vessel of revelation and the instrument of inspiration.

Inspiration is not necessarily the conveyance of divine revelation. For example, we have by inspiration the very words that the rebellious Cain spoke to God, words of falsehood and insolence. The inspiration consists in the control of the instrument chosen by the Spirit of God in the communication of that which God desires to convey to His people. Because of this divine control we can rely on all that God has given to us in the Holy Scriptures.