T
Tomster
Guest
Inspiration is a direct divine charismatic influence on the mind, will and executive faculties of the human writer by which he mentally conceives, freely wills to write, and actually writes correctly all that God intends him to write and nothing else, so that God is truly author of the book produced. This divine influence does not demand awareness in its recipient and is of necessity hidden from other persons. It is only known through divine revelation given to the Church, which is the sole guanantor of the fact. It carries with it absolute absence of error, God’s infinite veracity being incompatible with error of any kind. This does not necessarily involve revelation or the bestowal of truths hitherto unknown, therefore facts of natural science and history can be expressed subject to the limitations of human knowledge, so long as such expression excludes all statements of error. Inspiration does not vary in degree; it is equal in all books and in all parts thereof, and it guarantees absolute inerrancy and divine authorship throughout. As inspiration is no mechanical force but acts through the mind and will of the human writer in a human way, the human author’s style, diction and mental outlook naturally remain in the book produced, though God is the author of all that is written and man only the instrument of his hand.