Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 533

Chap.

II]

THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION

§ 88.

inspiration from an ethical basis,

and

509

to understand

it

The

natural fruit of sanctification, must be resisted.

as a

possi-

not depend upon the normal or abnormal condition of the nature of man, but lies in his nature as a pneumatic being, "which as such is open to the central inworking of the Spirit of God. Hence, with ins piration we deal with three factors;* (1) with the spirit that inspires (spiritus inspirans), (2) with the spirit of man that is inspired (spiritus hominis cui inspiratur), and (3) with the content of what is inspired. In God who inspires, inspiration assumes thought and will. bility of inspiration does

He who

pantheistically

denies consciousness

in

God

or

merely darkens it, abandons every idea of inspiration. P'or this very reason God is ever revealed unto us in the Holy Scripture as the

lights

and

this light in

God

is

pictured as

the brightness from which the light of self-consciousness is

"In thy light

ignited in our spirit.

shall

we

see light."

Nothing, therefore, can be present in our consciousness but God knows it. "• For there is not a word in my tongue, but, That this does not lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether." refer to our words luerely, appears sufficiently clearl}- from the statement, that " the righteous reins " (Ps. vii. 9)

;

for

God

by that word

trieth the heart

and

" reins " the deej)est root

indicated in the subsoil of our conscious soul-life. The most complete transparency of pure, clear consciousness is likewise a characteristic of the being of God, by which His theis

istic

existence stands or

falls.

The

ethical

representation

must, therefore, be dismissed, that inspiration gives rise to certain perceptions in us, which only afterwards produce

thoughts in our human consciousness. At heart, this is nothing but the pantheistic representation of a deep (/Sy^d?) out of which the thought separates itself in us only. If it is asked whether consciousness in God is anthropomorphic,

and whether our to the finite,

truth. is

we

Avorld of thought

readily reply

:

is

not limited by and bound

that the question contains

The apostle himself acknowledges

a knowledge "in part," and that

pass away, in order to

all

make room

some

that our knowledge

our gnosis will sometime for a higher "seeing."

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