In our previous post “Inspiration and the Kite”, we described inspiration of the Bible as God breathing out the very words of the Bible. The words of the Bible are His words as if we had seen Him write them or heard Him say them. Yet at the same time, each human writer was writing his own thoughts, using his own words and putting them down in his own style.
This view of inspiration is called the Synergistic Verbal Plenary Theory of Inspiration. Now that’s a mouth full! This is actually three theories, the Synergistic, the Verbal, and Plenary. They are closely related yet all three are needed to complete the picture of inspiration. This long-named theory also addresses two questions related to inspiration. The first part answers the question of how did the inspiration work: in what manner did God inspire the writers of Scriptures? The second answers the question of to what extent is the Bible inspired. These two questions are so closely tied together some theories would seem to answer both.
The Synergistic part of our theory stresses the first question: how did the inspiration work? It emphasizes the working of both God and man in the process of creating the written Word. It is the idea the writers were free to be themselves as they wrote under the moving of the Holy Spirit not simply taking dictation. This is what we covered in the first post without giving the technical name.
To one side of the Synergistic view would be the Intuition Theory which espouses the sense the writers were no more inspired than the normal inspiration a poet, song writer or other authors might experience. In this view, the writers of Scripture are seen as very gifted people, but they have not been given special insight from God. The Illumination Theory would add that only in areas of certain doctrinal teaching were the biblical writers directly influenced by God, thus giving the Bible infallibility only in particular areas of teachings but not the historical events or any scientific observations, such as the manner of creation. The Illumination Theory would also put limits on what areas were influenced by God, such as not including when Paul speaks about women in the church; he was speaking of his own view not God’s.
On the other side is the Dictation Theory which advocates for a view God directly controlled what the writers wrote as if telling them the words to write down. This makes the writers more of a court reporter than authors; simply writing out everything they heard from God thus not active participants in the process. There were times, especially with the OT prophets, God directly tells the prophets what to tell the people or what to write down (e.g., Jeremiah 30:2), but this goes against the normal reading of the majority of the Bible. As we read Scripture, it comes across as being written by different people from different places and times. The various books of the Bible tell of one unified message, yet they do not reflect a singular voice or personality, but each carries the unique tone of its writer. Paul is very different from Peter who is quite different from John and so on. Thus, clearly, we are seeing the personality of each writer obviously refuting the idea of them just being robotic in writing via dictation from God. Yet, God was right there moving the author to say just what He wanted them to say. God worked in the personal life of the authors: their experiences, education and relationships. Then in the moment of writing through the influence of the Holy Spirit, they wrote what they felt needed to be said and at the same time, as only God could do, they wrote what God would have them say.
The second part of our theory is the Verbal and Plenary. These two terms are related but give different emphasis. 2 Timothy 3:16 starts with the phrase “All Scripture is inspired…”. Not a part or portions but all of it. Nowhere in the Bible is it ever stated or implied a portion of it may be dismissed or is of lesser value. This is the Plenary view: meaning full, complete or entire.
The Verbal Theory says inspiration goes down to the very words used. Even the number of a noun matters. In Galatians 3:16 Paul used the distinction between “seed” and “seeds” from a passage in Genesis to prove his point of Christ alone being that seed. The use of the singular was critical to Paul. Jesus went so far as to emphasize the tense of a verb from Exodus to correct the Sadducees about the resurrection in Matthew 22:32, pointing out the verb is present tense “I am” instead of past; “I was”.
Jesus also makes the case for the Plenary Verbal theory even clearer in Matthew 5:18 (ESV)
For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
In other words, even the smallest letter or stroke of the pen are God’s!
While the concept of inspiration may not be completely grasped by us and “God-breathed” is an unusual phrase, the clear message is when we say the “inspired Word of God” we are saying all these words are God’s. They are His words as if we had seen Him write them or heard Him say them. Yet at the same time, each writer was writing his own thoughts, using his own words and putting them down in his own style.
Now, I know there are still a lot of questions. What does it mean for us that the Bible is inspired? what do I do with it? What do we mean by “inerrant and infallible”? How do we know which materials are His Word? How did His Word get to us today and how can we be sure we can trust what we do have is the same as was originally written? Great questions! Our goal is to cover all these questions and more.
Until the next time we see you here at CultivatingFaith.org, God Bless! #CultivatingFaithOrg
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