George Smeaton on the mode of biblical inspiration

[Reformed Covenanter]

... It is not necessary to define the MODE OF INSPIRATION, but only to assert the divine fact. We take the historic fact; but we decline every attempt to explain the inscrutable mode. That the theopneustic gift was imparted, is evident from the explicit statement that all Scripture is Godinspired (2 Tim. 3.16), and that holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Pet. 1.21). But no finite mind can venture, without presumption, to say how the human faculties concurred and acted with the Spirit’s activity in the expression of a divine oracle.

So various, in fact, was the mode of His divine communications, that it is impossible to frame a theory which either takes in all the facts or exhibits the manifold variety of ways in which the Almighty Spirit, who alone has the key to the human heart and to all its powers, was pleased to communicate His will. We repudiate all attempts to explain the mode in which revelation was conveyed to the human mind, or by inspired men to the mind of others. We conserve the miracle and the mystery. ...

For more, see George Smeaton on the mode of biblical inspiration.

 

[RamistThomist]

Very true. I've seen some super inerrantists die on the hill that every sentence was audibly spoken by God into the writer's ear. Luke tells us that is exactly what didn't happen to him.

 

[jwithnell]

The mode is sometimes revealed such as John seeing and experiencing Revelations or God speaking to Moses from the burning bush or writing the tablets of the law. I'm fascinated by the way God created the personality and life experiences of the instruments through whom he would reveal his word.