the writer. Sentences and even single words written under Divine direction have, in some circumstances, a significance beyond that which they would convey if they were of merely human origin. An historical fact, an institution, a precept, may stand isolated in the mind of the writer, whereas in the mind of God it may be related to other facts and truths, as a type, a confirmation, or an illustration. These relations are the basis of the Spiritual Sense of Scripture. We derive our knowledge of them from the things expressed by the words, and from the words themselves. Thus, to us the spiritual sense is mediate, but to the Holy Ghost it is immediate.
From these different senses of Holy Scripture it follows that a text is capable of many interpretations. All of them, however, must be based upon the Literal Sense. A text may have several spiritual or mediate meanings, but usually only one Literal Sense. Many applications of the Sacred Text commonly adopted by the Church may be regarded as belonging to the Mediate Sense, i.e. as being foreseen by the Holy Ghost, although in purely human writings such interpretations would appear to be distortions. Familiar instances are the passages Prov. 8 and Ecclus. 24 as applied to the Blessed Virgin.
A demonstrative argument that a certain doctrine is revealed can be obtained from any sense demonstrably intended by the Holy Ghost, whether literal, or logically inferred from the literal, or purely spiritual. The Literal Sense affords the most obvious proof. Where, however the language is figurative, the meaning of the figure must be ascertained before an argument can be drawn from it. The Inferential Sense is equal in demonstrative force to the Literal Sense, but in dignity it is inferior because only intended, and not directly expressed by the Holy Ghost The Spiritual Sense likewise offers a cogent argument, provided that the relation between the type and the thing typified be either directly stated in the Literal Sense or contained in it as an evident consequence. Indirectly, the Spiritual Sense acquires demonstrative force from explanations given in Scripture itself or handed down by Apostolical Tradition. Such explanations are often insufficient
