They say that genius is one per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration. And when we consider major works of genius — say Milton's 'Paradise Lost' or Dante's 'Divine Comedy' — we have to conclude that there is something beyond ordinary understanding in the process that brought these works to fruition. It seems that inspiration may work by a flash of insight or a laborious process. Inspiration runs in many channels. Sometimes the author does not fully understand what he is about. As Blake said of Milton, 'He was of the devil's party without knowing it.' We can hardly say that Milton knew what he was doing when he effectively made Satan the hero of ‘Paradise Lost’.
If we wish to grapple with inspiration, then, we are plunging into deep waters. We have to ask how far Coleridge knew the entirety of the perspectives he was calling into play when he composed ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. If inspiration wells up from the unconscious, we may find we have a tiger by the tail. The apocalyptic tradition is similar. Symbols and mysteries tumble over each other in a way that goes beyond rational explanation. We also have to think about the final stage of writing a clerihew or an epic. The first draft or the first edition is not always the end of the matter. This was true of Coleridge’s poem.
Which leads us to think of the inspiration of the Scriptures. Prophets and Gospel-writers were human beings engaged in a human enterprise. They spoke or put pen to paper as it were. They and their reporters and editors were part of a process or transaction that coupled inspiration with dedicated and methodical activity. It was not an instantaneous open-and-shut matter. Nor was it a full-time job. We cannot avoid such questions as 'Did the prophets know that what they were saying would become part of an anthology that we call the Word of God?'
We can hardly think that Haggai and Obadiah consciously thought of themselves as authors sweating over a manuscript to meet a deadline or as messengers pushing an envelope through a letter-box. We have to recognise that when Elijah spoke there is some process of reporting taking place. It was not only the named speech-makers or writers who were involved. We have to consider their reporters, editors and publishers. This is the only way in which manuscripts or typescripts or scrolls come into being.
To turn to the Gospels, we have to remember that Luke, for example, went diligently about the task of collecting people's recollections and putting them together in a coherent form. Presumably that task was uppermost in his mind but there was a further aspect to his work of which he may not have been entirely aware. For that we should be grateful. And there was material that was circulating before it was written down. That oral period is mysterious but no more mysterious than the process that brought the Gospels and Epistles into being.
To recognise the mystery is not to discount the inspiration. What makes the Scriptures different is not a process that produced the written text. It is the nature of the content and the recognition, not unlike our respect for other great literature, that we are handling something of supreme quality, something that opens the door on a world otherwise unknown.
CAMERA-SHY? NO
Happily, Thame parish church, Oxfordshire is not camera-shy. Its website shows an interior to be proud of, There is space. There are furnishings tastefully designed and placed as a result of a 1991-2 refurbishment. A series of photographs gives a visitor to the website an inkling of what to expect. It adds up to a calm and unhurried interior that says a discreet ‘Welcome’.
MUG-SHOTS
In a class of its own is St Catherine’s church centre, Wakefield, when it comes to putting the team on parade. Quite the best portraits I have seen on a church website are accompanied by these words of welcome: ‘We offer a welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, can’t spell or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.’ The handsome and well-furnished interior of the modern building underlines the welcome. So does the day centre that any grandma would be proud to patronise. David Gerrard leads the ministry team at St Andrew’s and St Catherine’s.
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