Inspiration

It would be difficult to find a better short statement on the inspiration of Scripture than this:

“Those things revealed by God, which are contained and presented in the texts of Holy Scripture, were written under the influence of the Holy Spirit . . . . In the process of composition of the sacred books, God chose and employed human agents, using their own faculties and powers, in such a way that while he was acting in them and through them, they committed to writing, as genuine authors, everything which he willed – but only what he willed. Since, then, everything that the inspired authors or ‘sacred writers’ affirm should be considered to be affirmed by the Holy Spirit, the books of Scripture should be confessed as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wished to be sealed in the sacred books for the sake of our salvation . . . . But since God, in Sacred Scripture, has spoken in a human way through human beings, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture – in order to grasp what God has wished to communicate to us – must carefully investigate what the sacred writers really intended to signify, and what it has pleased God to reveal to us in their words.”

It’s all there: The emphasis is on what’s contained “in the texts”; the writing is done under the influence of the Spirit but without cancelling the human faculties and powers; the texts contain “everything” God willed and “only what He willed”; what Scripture affirms, the Spirit affirms; and thus, Scripture teaches “firmly, faithfully, and without error” whatever God wanted to place in these books. And the hermeneutical conclusions are sound too.

The quotation is from Dei Verbum , Vatican II’s Constitution on Divine Revelation.