God, if He is responsible for the morality of these writings.
So, from our study of the Bible we deduce another canon by which we may
judge of inspiration:
"Inspiration does not prevent moral error." There is a fourth class of
inspirationists, the last which clings to the skirts of orthodoxy, which
is always endeavouring to plant one foot on the rocks of science, while
it balances the other over the quicksands of orthodox super-naturalism.
The Broad Church school here takes one wide step away from orthodoxy,
by allowing that the inspiration of the Bible differs only in degree and
not in kind from the inspiration common to all mankind. They recognise
the great fact that the inspiring Spirit of God is the source whence
flow all good and noble deeds, and they point out that the Bible itself
refers all good and all knowledge to that one Spirit, and that He
breathes mechanical skill into Bezaleel and Aholiab, strength into
Samson's arms, wisdom into Solomon, as much as He breathes the ecstacy
of the prophet into Isaiah, faith into Paul, and love into John. They
recognise the old legends as authentic, but would maintain as stoutly
that He spoke to Newton through the falling of an apple, as that He
spoke of old to Elijah by fire, or to the wise men by a star. This
school try and remove the moral difficulties of the Old Testament by
regarding the history recorded in it as a history which is specially
intended to unveil the working of God through all history, and so to
gradually reveal God as He makes Himself known to the world; thus the
grosser parts are regarded as wholly attributable to the ignorance of
men, and they delight to see the divine light breaking slowly through
the thick clouds of human error and prejudice, and to trace in the
Bible the gradual evolution of a nobler faith and a purer morality.
They regard the miracles of Jesus as a manifestation that God underlies
Nature and works ever therein: they believe God to be specially
manifested in Jewish history, in order that men may understand that He
presides over all nations and rules over all peoples. To Maurice the
Bible is the explainer of all earth's problems, the unveiler of God, the
Bread of Life. There is, on the whole, little to object to in the Broad
Church view of inspiration, although liberal thinkers regret that, as a
party, they stop half way, and are still trammelled by the half-broken
chains of orthodoxy. For instance, they usually regard the direct
revelation of morality as closed by Jesus and His immediate followers,
although they allow that God has not deserted His world, nor confined
His inspiration within the covers of a book. To them, however, the Bible
is still _the_ inspired book, standing apart by itself, differing from
all other sacred books. From their views of inspiration, which contains
so much that is true, we deduce a fourth rule:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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