One cannot help but see how far some Catholics have departed from the idea that the Holy Spirit has resided and still resides in the Church. Even the teaching on infallibility points to the truth that the Holy Spirit illuminates the Church daily in teaching and in preaching.
Revelation, of course, came to an end with the last book of the Bible. Tradition is the interpretation, again inspired by the Holy Spirit, of the Scriptures, which cannot be done by an individual, but only by the Church.
Today's moral chaos partly has derived from the Protestant liberal interpretation of Scripture.
One such amazingly irrational interpretation has been one I have actually heard from a Catholic pulpit, that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed not because of sodomy, but because of inhospitality.
Every word of Scripture, quotes Manning from an old statement from the once orthodox men at the Louvain and Douai, is like a mystery like the sacraments.
Recently, I heard a priest from Chicago state, that the evangelists listed in the Canon are not the real authors of the Gospels. Sadly, this cleric is seriously leading his students astray.
One must be careful in referring to form and matter, an idea first discussed by Luther.
All Scripture is inspired, all. But, the Scriptures are not "dictation" like "automatic writing" which is of the occult only.
As rational creatures, God inspires our intellects, and especially the saints who wrote the Bible, all in the Illuminative and most in the Unitive State, one can trust that their words are from God. The truth that all the words are inspired cannot be changed simply to those which deal with morals or doctrine.
One thing which both science and archaeology have discovered are the more mundane truths of Scripture-like the existence of Jericho and the order of creation in Genesis.
Manning defines his terms so that his readers are clear on the point of inspiration.
"Inspiration, in its first intention, signifies the action of the Divine Spirit upon the human, that is upon the intelligence and upon the will. It is an intelligent and vital action of God upon the soul of man' and 'inspired' is to be predicated, not of books or truths, but of living agents."
"In its second intention, it signifies the action of the Spirit of Go upon the intelligence and will of man, whereby any one is impelled and enabled to act, or to speak, or to write, in some special way designed by the Spirit of God."
"In its still more special and technical intention, it signifies an action of the Spirit upon men, impelling them to write what God reveals, suggests, or wills that they should write. But, inspiration does not necessarily signify revelation, or suggestion of the matter to be written."
Do not, therefore, confuse inspiration with Revelation, which I shall cover in a later post today.
To be continued....
