Divinely Dictated or Divinely Inspired?
By Anna Laughery
How many times have you heard “The Bible is a divinely inspired book.” or “Everything the Bible says is true because the Holy Spirit inspired it.”? I know for myself growing up in a Catholic household these were commonly heard statements. For some, this might be a new realization and for others it is old news; either way, the Catholic doctrine of the divine inspiration of the Bible isn’t just an abstract theological concept but is actually a beautiful reality that has the power to change the way we read the Scriptures and maybe even change our lives.
The doctrine of Divine Inspiration has officially been around since 1536, but it can be found in the Bible and in the understanding of the very first Christians. Peter and Paul saw their letters, and the Hebrew Old Testament, as inspired by the Holy Spirit. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” showing us his own understanding of his writings, and the writings of Old Testament.The early Christians also held Peter and Paul’s letters in high esteem and we should too. These trustworthy sources show us that we should take this powerful doctrine seriously. We should learn about what it actually means and how it applies to our lives today, over two thousand years after the words were written.
For most of my life, when I imagined the divine inspiration of Sacred Scripture, I pictured God whispering into the ear of the Gospel writers, the apostles, and the ancient Jews who wrote the Scriptures. I pictured those scenes in movies where a powerful business woman or man dictates to their secretary. In these scenes, the secretaries are always frantically trying to capture every word, fearful that they will get the message of their boss wrong. Though we can’t know for certain that something like this didn’t happen, this isn’t exactly what the Church teaches.
The beautiful thing about the doctrine of divine inspiration is the human freedom found within it. The Church teaches that the Holy Spirit worked with the Scripture writers to give us the Bible. God didn’t turn the authors into robot secretaries, dictating his every word, rather he gave them “apostolic liberty of speech” (Providentissimus Deus) to write the Truth. The doctrine of dual-authorship reminds us that there is a divine author and a human author who worked together to give us divine truth. Because of this, we have to remember that the writers were humans – humans who were influenced by their cultures and their personalities. For example, look at Paul! In his letters he is full of passion: angry, sad, and joyful at the spiritual journey of his flock. This emotion is human and tangible. It doesn’t come from robotically dictated revelation, but from an imperfect human, inspired by a perfect God, writing words that have the power to touch our equally human hearts.
You might be thinking “Okay, this is a little bit interesting, but why does this matter to me? I don’t particularly enjoy theological things.” Whether you love theology or it bores you to death, this doctrine should change the way we read the Scriptures and can bring them to life in a new way. For example, when you read the Psalms, the human emotion is smoldering under the surface. This emotion invites us to enter into and see how God responds to the emotions of the Psalmist, in turn teaching us how God is present in those emotions in our own lives. The first Letter of John is full of brotherly love, the book of Job is full of deep suffering, and the book of Judith is full of fierce passion. The list goes on and on and being able to see the personality of the human author in the Scriptures can teach us how to enter into their experiences and struggles in a new way, so as to illuminate our own lives. Just as Christ became man to teach us how to be fully human, the Holy Spirit gave guidance, inspiration, and freedom to the authors of Scripture so that we can learn from them what it means to live a life that is a movement towards God.
