Essays on the Doctrine of Inspiration

The word

“inspire” and its derivatives seem to have come into Middle English from the

French, and have been employed from the first (early in the 14th century) in a

considerable number of significations, physical and metaphorical, secular and

religious. The derivatives have been multiplied and their applications extended

during the procession of the years, until they have acquired a very wide and

varied use. Underlying all their use, however, is the constant implication of an

influence from without, producing in its object movements and effects beyond

its native, or at least its ordinary powers. The noun “inspiration,” although

already in use in the 14th century, seems not to occur in any but a theological

sense until late in the 16th century. The specifically theological sense of all

these terms is governed, of course, by their usage in Latin theology; and this

rests ultimately on their employment in the Latin Bible. In the Vulgate Latin

Bible the verb inspiro (Gen. 2:7;

Wisdom of Solomon 15:11; Ecclesiasticus 4:12; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21) and the

noun inspiratio (2 Sam. 22:16; Job

32:8; Psalm 18:15; Acts 17:25) both occur 4 or 5 times in somewhat diverse

applications. In the development of a theological nomenclature, however, they

have acquired (along with other less frequent applications) a technical sense

with reference to the Biblical writers or the Biblical books. The Biblical

books are called inspired as the Divinely determined products of inspired men; the

Biblical writers are called inspired as breathed into by the Holy Spirit, so

that the product of their activities transcends human powers and becomes

Divinely authoritative. Inspiration is, therefore, usually defined as a

supernatural influence exerted on the sacred writers by the Spirit of God, by

virtue of which their writings are given Divine trustworthiness.