a sublime message... it moves
Most Christians would say that the Bible is inspired because it has a sublime message that attracts people to God--it moves them. But this is not sufficient to prove inspiration. For one, most non-Christians can't make much sense of Scripture when they read it. More importantly, if this is the case, then your favorite book that influenced your life--other than the Bible--can easily pass as divinely inspired.
the Holy Spirit tells me
The immediate question is "how do you know it is the Holy Spirit?" Remember that even the devil can deceive you as it does to well-meaning people who joined cults. The growing wealth of interpretations of the Bible supposedly also guided by the Holy Spirit but are completely in disagreement with one another makes you realize that this argument easily translates to "this is how I feel about it." Without any clear criteria, anyone can also claim inspiration about any book, misusing the "Holy Spirit" as their justification. The Holy Spirit is not confused to say different things opposed with each other.
God's men and their pen
Others will claim that the Bible is inspired because they were written by Apostles and prophets chosen by God. This would be good, but we must realize that not all books in the Old Testament were written by prophets, and not all books in the New Testament are from Apostles. There are even books whose authorship is uncertain for both Testaments.
This argument still fails if we pertain to God's men as His disciples. Why aren't other books of that time not included in the list? The epistle of Barnabas is one example. How about the works of St. Augustine? He was a bishop and one of the Early Fathers responsible for confirming the New Testament Canon, yet his works--as inspiring as they are--were not considered divinely inspired as we see Sacred Scripture.
Scripture says so
Most Christians will say that the Bible is inspired because the Bible itself says so. "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16).
But the New Testament didn't even exist completely during the time this verse was written, and no writer claimed that what they were writing were inspired by God. More than that, any book can have a text in it that says "this is the divinely inspired word of God" and that won't automatically make it so.
Scripture is historically reliable
One thing we can all be certain of is that the Bible is historically reliable. Homer's Odyssey and Illiad, as well as works by Plato and Aristotle have manuscripts that never exceed one thousand. The Bible has over 6,000 manuscripts of the original Greek and Hebrew, and has over 40,000 of its early versions (Latin, Aramaic, etc.).
Modern geographical discoveries prove that the historical events mentioned in the Bible did occur. Even the chariots and bones of the Pharaoh's men who died in the Red Sea while pursuing Joseph are now discovered. In addition, manuscripts of that time that support the Bible's historical authenticity have also been discovered.
What all of these say is that we can be assured that apart from divine inspiration, the Bible is a document that contains historically sound information.
Jesus founded a Church
Looking at the Bible in purely historical terms, we see the figure of Jesus in it. This Jesus claims He was God. He can either be mental or a good man who devised a plan to trick men into believing He is God. But all of His words were true. His wit and intelligence does not fit a description of a crazy man. Above everything else, He rose from the dead, and no strategist can ever do that. The only logical rationale we can arrive at is that what Jesus claimed is true. He is God.
What did Jesus do when He was still on earth? He established a Church. The Bible and written works of that time attest to this. The overwhelming witness of the early Fathers leaves no doubt to this. This Church was given teaching authority and was promised protection from inerrancy in matters of doctrines and morals.
the Church tells us so
At this point, we have still considered the Bible as a purely reliable historical book that shows Jesus as divine, and as establishing a visible Church--the Catholic Church--that is protected from errors.
How do we know the Bible is the inspired Word of God? Because the Church tells us so. With the grace of God bestowed upon her, she teaches with full authority and infallibility that the Bible is divinely inspired. It is God's Word. There is no spiral argument since we started with a purely historical book that cannot be contested.
Thus, outside the Catholic Church, there is no real or definitive assurance that the Bible is inspired. Does this give us a reason to boast? No, it rather gives us more reasons to dive even deeper into Scripture as our non-Catholics do. Remember, to one more is given, more is expected.
Next in this series...
Now that we have sufficient background, how do we read the Bible? What methods and principles are required to be able to interpret it?
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