The mildest Catholic
doctrine as to inspiration will not allow one to admit that there is
any marked error in the sacred text, or any contradiction in matters
which do not relate either to faith or morality. Well, let us allow
that out of the thousand disputes between critique and orthodox
apologetics as to the details of the so-called sacred text there are
some in which by accident and contrary to appearances the latter
are in the right. It is impossible that it can be right in all the
thousand cases and it has only to be wrong once for all the theory
as to its inspiration to be reduced to nothing. This theory of
inspiration, implying a supernatural fact, becomes impossible to
uphold in the presence of the decided ideas of our modern common
sense. An inspired book is a miracle. It should present itself to
us under conditions totally different from any other book. It may be
said: "You are not so exacting in respect to Herodotus and the poems
of Homer." This is quite true, but then Herodotus and the Homeric
poems do not profess to be inspired books.
With regard to contradictions, for instance, no one whose mind is
free from theological preoccupations can do other than admit the
irreconcilable divergences between the synoptists and the author
of the Fourth Gospel, and between the synoptists Compared with one
another. For us rationalists this is not of much importance; but the
orthodox reasoner, compelled to be of opinion that his book is right
in every particular, finds himself involved in endless subtleties.
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