Divine Inspiration of Scripture

Authority level: Dogma
This article contains claims at more than one doctrinal grade. The summary shows the highest represented grade.
GuideDivine inspiration is revealed Catholic doctrine; the relation of divine and human authors is authoritatively explained by the Magisterium.
Contents

Divine Inspiration of Scripture is the Catholic doctrine that the canonical books were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, with God and human writers as true authors.[1]

Divine and human authorship

God chose and employed human authors who used their own faculties, languages, sources, literary conventions, and historical circumstances. Inspiration therefore concerns the resulting sacred writings without reducing the authors to passive instruments of word-for-word dictation.

Because the books are genuinely human compositions, grammar, genre, redaction, historical setting, and authorial intention matter. Because they are divinely inspired, the Church receives them canonically as the word of God in human words.

A doctrine, not a literary theory

The Church definitively confesses inspiration but does not canonize one exhaustive psychological theory of how it operated in every author. Catholic scholarship may investigate composition and sources provided it does not deny God's authorship or the sacred writers' real agency.

This focused entry complements the existing Biblical Inspiration and Truth article rather than repeating its combined treatment of inspiration and scriptural truth.[2]

References

  1. 1.Dei Verbum — Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation
  2. 2.The Inspiration and Truth of Sacred Scripture — Pontifical Biblical Commission study of biblical witness to inspiration and truth