Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 377

THE OPERATION OF THIS PRINCIPIUM

CiiAP. II]

US that

God

the Lord has also revealed His divine knowledge

for the sinner in an organic

way.

shining of God's Spirit in the

Hence inspiration

human

no

is

in-

spirit that endlessly

but an action from the side of God which limited to a definite period and bound to definite condi-

repeats is

353

tions.

itself,

That which

is

revealed of the knowledge of

God

within this given period of time and in connection with those conditions forms one ivhole ; not by the addition of one revelation to the other, but in virtue of the fact that the

one rich thought of God develops itself ever more richly from one germ. And since now this process has been ended, so that this revealed knowledge of God has been brought within the reach of our race, there can of course be no more real inspiration, and the individual and organic working of

Holy Spirit which follows after, can have no other tendency than to lead and to enlighten the Church in the spirThis itual labor which it must expend upon this revelation. organic interpretation, then, brings with it that whatever you the

confess concerning the

Holy Scriptures

is

when

only valid

they are completed, so that during the ages which intervened

between Paradise and Patmos, the self-revelation of God From to His people bore in part a different character. this point of view distinction is made between the first period in which the tree begins its growth, and that other period, when year by year the tree casts its fruit into your Thus inspiration appears as a temporal activity, which lap. effects a result, organic in nature, and of an organic signifiIt has had a beginning, and also cance for our entire race. benefit we derive is no longer a con; and the ending an tinuous inspiration, but the fruit of the finished inspiration. Not as though this fruit is simply cast at the sinner's feet, On the contrary, there for him to do with as he pleases. are operations of the Holy Spirit, by which He renders the use of this fruit possible for the sinner.

witness of the Holy Spirit, the sacred

of the Chureli, etc., all exert an influence

sphere of the

new

life all

Illumination, the

the leadership

office,

on

this.

these operations of the

are no longer abnormal, but normal.,

Holy

In the Spirit

and therefore may never

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