In the same work Kropatscheck rightly sums up the teaching on the inspiration of the canonical books, of St. Thomas Aquinas, the principal exponent of the mediæval biblical teaching, doing so in a couple of sentences the clearness and conclusiveness of which contrast strangely with the new doctrine: “The effect of inspiration,” according to this Doctor of the Church, implies, negatively, preservation from error, positively, an enlightenment, both for the perception of supernatural truth and for the right judging of natural verities. Beyond this, a certain impulse from on high was needed to move the sacred scribes to write the burden of their message.[1484]
That in the past the doctrine of interpretation was bound up with the doctrine of inspiration, is, according to the statements of another Protestant writer, P. Drews,[1485] expressed as follows by the Catholic voice of Willibald Pirkheimer: “We should have to look on ourselves as reprobate were we to despise even one syllable of Holy Scripture, for we know and firmly believe that our salvation rests solely and entirely on the Gospel. Hence we have it daily in our hands and read it and regard it as the guide of our lives. But no one can blame us if we place greater reliance on the interpretation of the holy, ancient Fathers than on some garbled account of Holy Scripture, since it is, alas, daily evident that there are as many different readings of the Word of God as there are men. Herein lies the source of all the evils and disorders, viz. that every fool would expound Scripture, needless to say, to his own advantage.”[1486]
Protestant theologians have recently been diligent in studying Luther’s teaching on the Bible. The conclusions arrived at by O. Scheel, who severely criticises Luther, have several times been quoted in this work. K. Thimme, in a scholarly work entitled “Luthers Stellung zur Heiligen Schrift,”[1487] has pointed out that Luther, who “affirms the existence of real inaccuracies in Holy Scripture,” nevertheless, in the very year that he expressed contempt for certain books of the New Testament, loudly demanded “the firmest belief (‘firmissime credatur’), that nothing erroneous is contained in the canonical books.”[1488]
A. Galley, a theologian to whom it fell to review the book, declared, that, unfortunately, in spite of this and other essays on the subject, no sure and decisive judgment on Luther’s attitude towards Holy Scripture had yet been arrived at.[1489]—Does this not, perhaps, amount to saying that any ultimate verdict of harmony, truth and absence of contradictions is out of the question?
R. Seeberg in one work emphasises “Luther’s independent and critical attitude towards the books of the Old and New Testament Canon.” “Scripture is to be believed not on the external authority of the Church but because it is revelation tested by experience.... Scripture was to him the standard, test and measure of all ecclesiastical doctrine, but this it was as the expression of the experienced revelation of God.”[1490]
This statement Seeberg further explains elsewhere: “Though, in his controversies, Luther pits Scripture as the ‘Divine law’ against all mere ecclesiastical law [viz. the Church’s dogma], yet he regarded it as authoritative simply in so far as it was the original, vigorous witness to Christ and His salvation. Considered in this light, Scripture, however, cannot be put side by side with justifying faith as the second principle of Protestantism. The essential and fundamental thought is faith.”—What Seeberg here says is quietly aimed at the later, orthodox, Lutheran theologians who took from Luther the so-called formal principle of Protestantism, viz. the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Bible. “How is it possible, in view of Luther’s reprobation of certain things in the Bible ... and his admission that it contained mistakes, to imagine any verbal inspiration?”[1491]
Seeberg has also a remarkable account of Luther’s views on the relation to Scripture of that faith which in reality is based on inward experience: “The specific content of Scripture” is “Christ, His office and kingdom.” To this content it is that faith bears witness by inward experience (see above, p. 404 f.). For faith is “the recognition by the heart of the Almighty love revealed to us in God.... This recognition involves also the certainty that I am in the Grace of God.” “The truth of Scripture is something demonstrated inwardly,” etc. “The external, legal founding of doctrine upon dogma is thus set aside, and an end is made of the ancient canon of Vincent of Lerins. Even the legal [dogmatic] application of Scripture is in principle done away with.” Of the extent to which Luther carried out these principles the author says in conclusion: “That his practice was not always exemplary and devoid of contradiction can merely be hinted at here.”[1492]
It would have been better to say straight away that no non-contradictory use of contradictory principles was possible.
Dealing with a work by K. Eger (“Luthers Auslegung des Alten Testamentes”), W. Köhler said: “Any interpretation not limited by practical considerations ... was quite unknown to Luther, hence we must not seek such a thing in him.... Our best plan is to break with Luther’s principle of interpretation.” And, before this: “Luther’s principle of interpretation is everywhere the ‘fides,’ and what Luther has to offer in the way of sober, ‘historical’ interpretation is no growth of his own garden but a fruit of Humanism.... Just as the Schoolmen found their theology in the Old Testament, so he did his.”[1493]