The Subjective Theory of Inspiration [pp. 192-204]

SBJE CTI VE THEOR Y OF INASPIR ATIOVN.
consciousness;" but it constituted the man who possessed it an
organ of God in what he said. His words were the words of
God (I Thess. i. I3); yet he did not speak as a machine, but as
a conscious, voluntary agent.
This doctrine is in harmony with the belief of all nations.
In every age and in every country the idea has obtained that
God has access to the human mind, that he can control it, and
that he has occasionally chosen particular men to be his organs
in communicating his will to mankind. The Greeks called such
persons OeoiOppoz (bearers of God). The term I'0,o; (God
within) was also applied to one gifted of heaven with prophecy
(Asch. Eumenides, I7).
In Palestine, in Greece, and in other countries there were
many men who possessed a high illumination of the rational consciousness, e.g. some of the kings of Judah and of Israel, Philo
Judeus, Hillel, Gamaliel, Plato, Aristotle, Carneades, and many
others, who were never considered inspired. The term inspiration was limited to the sayings and writings of those who were
believed to be the chosen organs for the communication of the
Divine Will. This is the historical sense of the word.
2. The "illumination of the rational consciousness" does not
and cannot account for objective revelations. The theory of
naturalism denies them; but they nevertheless exist as Bible
facts, which the most ingenious criticism has been unable to explain on naturalistic principles. The Messianic predictions-that
the Messiah was to be of the seed of Abraham, of the house of
David; that he was to be born of a virgin, in Bethlehem; that
he was to suffer a violent death and be buried-and the apocalypses of Daniel and John could not proceed from the illumination of the rational consciousness however exalted. Such
truths owe their origin to supernatural revelation, not to intuition or the operation of the mental faculties. They lie without
the sphere of the natural intelligence, and cannot become the
subjects of it by the ordinary laws of its exercise. They must
be made known by revelation. Genius may carry its possessor
to lofty heights; but it cannot unveil the future. It may make
a man god-like, but it cannot reveal the divine counsels.
These remarks proceed, of course, upon the assumption of
the supernatural, which naturalists deny. But on the principles
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