Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 543

Chap.

The is

THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION

§ 83.

II]

519

third factor which claims our attention in inspiration

that which is inspired

:

— Id quod inspiratur.

This content

It does not consist of not accidental. of inspiration enigmatical communications nor of yet magic sentences, concerning secret powers or incidental events. The whole is

is inspired is taken from the counsel of God, and is dominated by the supreme thought of how the profaned majesty of God, both in man and in the We have purcosmos, may again come to its theodicy.

content of what

posely taken pains to state the case in these definite terms, because the limitation of that content to the salvation of

man's psychical the

Holy

both

life

so far as the first

latter

concerned,

is

and

irrational

is

The

Scripture.

contradicted by

is

needs no explanation, and it

would be

irrational to

intend exclusively the salvation of our psychical life, since the conditions of our somatical Irrational, to fix the eye

man

since

is

life

are

equally disabled.

upon the salvation

an organic part of the cosmos.

man

of

And

alone,

would be man, since

it

equally irrational to find the end of inspiration in

God must be abandoned, or all things end in Him. At this very point the effort falls away to seek the content of what was inspired excluThis ethical-religious sively in what is ethical-religious. either the confession of

must

find their

does not exist in isolation. person

it

touches his

In the case of the individual

body and circumstances

case of a people, its earthly existence, future.

Separation, therefore,

is

its

as well history,

here impossible.

in the

;

and

its

Even

as

you cannot find a man except in his body, you cannot expect to find what is inspired except it is alike psychical, somatical and cosmical. However, it may and must be granted that the content of what is inspired does not lend itself to this cosmical, except in so far as tion with the is indifferent,

it

stands in central connec-

Not because the rest but because inspiration has a purpose of its

work

of the

Holy

Spirit.

own viz. to introduce into the consciousness of the Church of God that world of thought which belongs to palingenesis. ;

What

lies

outside of this

such, but by the

members

is

not received by the Church as

of the Church, as

"men and

citi-

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