The issue: What is the role and nature of scripture?

Fundamentalist view

Also known as the ‘literalist view’, this is the idea that the bible is the direct word of God. If the bible is the direct word of God, then it must be free from error because God cannot be in error. The bible, then, is the only authority; sola scriptora.

Inconsistencies within the bible
As you can imagine, this view has many problems stemming from the nature of the bible itself. It is easy to imagine that the bible is one book but it is not, it is a collection of books that were written over a number of years for different audiences and in different languages. Indeed, bible is from the Greek word biblos, meaning library (hence bibliothèque in French). These books have have gone through many translations and, on top of that, a lot of the stories that were written about were most likely passed on by oral tradition (word of mouth) until they got to someone that could write. Like a game of Chinese whispers, little details are added, removed and changed. These details, whilst small individually, could add up to be something that is potentially major.

Moreover, there seem to be inconsistencies within the bible. The best example of this is right at the very start of the bible, in Genesis.

Genesis 1
27 God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them, saying to them, 'Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that move on earth.'
29 God also said, 'Look, to you I give all the seed-bearing plants everywhere on the surface of the earth, and all the trees with seed-bearing fruit; this will be your food.
30 And to all the wild animals, all the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that creep along the ground, I give all the foliage of the plants as their food.' And so it was.
31 God saw all he had made, and indeed it was very good. Evening came and morning came: the sixth day.

Genesis 2
1 Thus heaven and earth were completed with all their array.
2 On the seventh day God had completed the work he had been doing. He rested on the seventh day after all the work he had been doing.
3 God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day he rested after all his work of creating.
4 Such was the story of heaven and earth as they were created. At the time when Yahweh God made earth and heaven
5 there was as yet no wild bush on the earth nor had any wild plant yet sprung up, for Yahweh God had not sent rain on the earth, nor was there any man to till the soil.
6 Instead, water flowed out of the ground and watered all the surface of the soil.
7 Yahweh God shaped man from the soil of the ground and blew the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living being.
8 Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden, which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned.
9 From the soil, Yahweh God caused to grow every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The start of Genesis 2 says that, basically, God was done. He’d created heaven and earth & everything in them in Genesis 1 and now he was finished. Yet, in Genesis 2 God creates again. Genesis 2:7 shows God creating man, yet God had just created a man and a woman in Genesis 1:27. Moreover, Genesis 2:9 tells us that God created vegetation, but he’d already done that in Genesis 1:30. These are clearly contradictory, but fundamentalists must accept all of the bible.

Wilful ignorance?
In addition, modern science poses a significant challenge to a literal interpretation of the bible because some things are clearly wrong. Take, for example, Ecclesiastes 1:5:

The sun rises, the sun sets; then to its place it speeds and there it rises.

We know that we live in a heliocentric solar system, i.e. the planets move around the sun rather than the earth staying still and the sun and planets moving around us. The inability to accept something like this on the basis that a book written thousands of years ago says contrariwise is wilful ignorance.

The Golden Rule
The final problem I’ll mention is that fundamentalism overlooks Jesus’ fundamental teaching: the ethic of reciprocity from Matthew 7:12…

'So always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the Law and the Prophets.'

Because fundamentalists accept the whole bible, they’re negating the fact that Jesus came along to reform Judaism (which is based upon the Old Testament). Jesus wanted to overhaul all of the ‘DO NOTs’ of the Old Testament and replace them with simple, more positive rules that could be followed by all. Fundamentalists are compelled to accept that homosexuality is wrong based upon Leveticus 18:22…

"You will not have intercourse with a man as you would with a woman. This is a hateful thing."

…and, as such, many will condemn gays and claim that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice. Jesus taught we should love all, yet some fundamentalists go as far as to hate homosexuals. One particular church in the United States of America pickets at soldiers’ funerals with placards reading ‘God hates America’, ‘God hates fags’ and ‘Thank God for 9/11’. They believe that God hates the USA because the USA does not punish homosexuality. For obvious reasons I shan’t link to them. All this hatred stemming from a man who just wanted to love!

The conservative view

This is the view that the Holy Roman Catholic Church herself takes. It’s the idea that the bible is of great importance but is not the sole authority. It was inspired by the Holy Spirit, but written by fallible humans therefore may contain errors. Not only that, but a great many scholars (saints, Popes) have come along since the time the bible was written and we should incorporate their insight into teaching. The Catholic Church argues that the bible can’t reasonably be taken literally because it contains allegorical, symbolic, poetic and historical passages that must be interpreted. It is Holy Mother Church who has the authority to interpret the bible because of Apostolic Succession.

A circular argument?
Now, whilst this solves the problem of inconsistency posed by fundamentalism, it creates another. The Church argues that they have the right to interpret the bible because of apostolic succession. The potential problem here is that apostolic succession is based upon a bible passage where Jesus tells Peter (the first Pope) that he has the keys to the kingdom, what is bound on earth will also be bound in heaven. This is a circular argument; the church argues for the interpretation of the bible based upon a literal acceptance of parts of the text.

The Golden Rule
In addition, we’re also guilty of being too legalistic. Whilst we don’t go to the extremities of some fundamentalists, the Catholic Church has built a doctrine around a man who was opposed to doctrine.

The liberal view

The liberal view, normally adopted by more modern Christians, is the view that the bible is just a tool for finding God. Its authors were products of their society and time, so passages were written for different audiences – not us. Passages may be accepted, rejected or altered to fit modern society. There is evidence to support the idea that different books were written for different audiences; Matthew appeals to a Jewish audience by tracing Jesus’ linage to David of Abraham, whilst Luke, a Greek surgeon, writes substantially about Jesus’ miracles to appeal to a Greek audience.

Cafeteria Christianity
Of course, the problem here is the opposite of the problem faced by fundamentalists. Individuals can ‘pick and mix’ the parts of their faith to suit their lives, which goes contrary to the idea of living your life through your faith. It seems that there are no standards by which parts of the bible should be judged to determine their value to our society; it is self-interpreting and self-authenticating.

Lack of cohesion
By accepting the liberal view, Christianity becomes more fragmented as different people derive different things from the bible. Indeed, there could be potentially millions of faith combinations under the umbrella of Christianity! It could all get a bit silly, with the beliefs of one Christian denomination barely relating to those of another, which only harms Christianity as there’s no cohesion amongst us.

Propositional versus non-propositional

It’s worth bringing in the non-propositional versus propositional debate here. The liberal view generally takes a non-propositional approach, where the bible is viewed as heilsgeschichte, German for salvation history. It is a record of God’s personal relationship with creation, not a book of rules we must follow. When God came to Earth as Jesus, he didn’t dish out rules as you might expect… he interacted with us on a human level. On other other hand, the propositional view is the idea that revelation is the extraction of truths (or propositions) from scripture. E.g. the Catholic Church has interpreted the bible and formed dogma.

The hybrid view
Contemporary scholars argue that the distinction between the two isn’t black and white. Some suggest that before non-propositional revelation can be understood, we must have propositional. The message of revelation extracted from the bible plays an important part of our relationship with God (propositional) but it cannot be separated from the human need for God (non-propositional).

Final thoughts

If I had to pick one issue that divides Christianity above all others it would be the authority of the bible. It’s been a problem since the reformation and will continue to be a divider in the future. Honestly, I find the Catholic Church’s response to be the best because it’s more moderate, but that’s not to say it’s without it’s problems (as mentioned above).

Catholicism versus Christianity: this post is part of a feature discussing what divides and unifies Christianity. Get more information or view other posts in the series…

Labels: bible, cvc, ecumenism, feature, protestants