Holy Spirit and Holy Scripture

[Soutane]

If the Holy Spirit "dictated"the gospel to It’s writers then why do Matthew,Mark,Luke and John differ slightly or omit certain things when they are describing the same event.I personally feel the writers were inspired and not used as Automatic writers.Thoughts?

 

[JeanneH]

I agree with you. I have never heard that the scriptures were dictated. They were inspired by God and left to the personalities of the individual writers to write accordingly. I think that is why there are differences and not discrepancies.

Just my thoughts
Jeanne

 

[DavidFilmer]

If the Holy Spirit "dictated"the gospel to It’s writers then why do Matthew,Mark,Luke and John differ slightly or omit certain things when they are describing the same event.I personally feel the writers were inspired and not used as Automatic writers.Thoughts?

The Catechism says:

God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."

“For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself.”

God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. “To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more.”

The inspired books teach the truth. “Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.”

CCC 105-107, emphasis mine
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[MarcoPolo]

Word-for-word dictation is not taught by the Catholic Church. In the Church’s document “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” it is critical of Biblical fundamentalism in that it “tends to treat the biblical text as if it had been dictated word for word by the Spirit. It fails to recognize that the word of God has been formulated in language and expression conditioned by various periods.”

For example:

1 Corinthians 7:12 But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.Did the Holy Spirit tell Paul to tell his audience that he was not speaking for the Lord?1 Corinthians 1:15 And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other.
Did the Holy Spirit forget to jog Paul’s memory?

You see?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

If the Holy Spirit "dictated"the gospel to It’s writers then why do Matthew,Mark,Luke and John differ slightly or omit certain things when they are describing the same event.I personally feel the writers were inspired and not used as Automatic writers.Thoughts?

The dictation theory is an old one, & held by certain Fathers - but it is not adequate to the character of the Bible, & is not taught by the Church. It reduces the Bible to automatic writing, as though the composers were holy robots. This would mean the grace of inspiration, instead of elevating nature, de-humanised it - that consequence alone should be enough to show that a theory of dictation, despite its attractiveness in some respects, is invalid & inadequate.​

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**A more fruitful way of thinking of inspiration is to see it as an expression of the Incarnational principle. **

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[MarcoPolo]

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A more fruitful way of thinking of inspiration is to see it as an expression of the Incarnational principle.

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Allow me to second this point. When one grasps the Incarnational Principle, so much of Catholicism will unfold and be understood.