God Said It, And That Begins It

I remember driving down the road once, and maybe you have had this experience. Right in front of me was a car that was one of "those Christians". It was painted with bumper stickers. Some of them were uplifting and had a good message to share, like "My God is NOT dead", "Prince of Peace", and "My God love you 'this' much (there is a picture of a crucified Jesus stretching out his hands)". But for the most part the bumper stickers were bigoted, narrow-minded, and argumentative. And in the center peice of this ideological collage was perhaps the most concise and to the point bumper sticker I have ever read. Obviously, the maker of the sticker did a very good job, because after all these years I still remember it, but it is too bad he so entirely missed the point. I find that what this bumper sticker represents has become the standard stock and trade approach to the Bible in our modern Evangelical church.

God said it, and that ends it.

If there was ever a bastardization of the Christian faith. It is that statement, right there. Okay, maybe I'm being dramatic. Christianity has existed for thousands of years now, and I am sure it has experienced much greater bastardizations then this, but in our modern world, I think this ranks up there, pretty high. I never quite understood the need to display my ideological positions on my gas guzzling symbol of economic oppression and consumeristic mania. You expect to find Socrates in the public square, but not in the gutter. I kinda think the best representation a Christian can give of Christ when it concerns their cars is to simply obey the laws of the road and drive safely. But perhaps that can be the subject of my next book.

Rick Warren says something similar in Purpose Driven Life, "surrendered people obey God's word, even

when it doesn't make sense". There comes a point in a Christians life when they have to make a very important decision. What happens when the Bible doesn't make sense? Christian fundamentalists are in a fight for their life to make sure that at all costs the Bible wins when this question is asked. In their zeal to defend the Bible they completely miss the point. I remember one of my old fundamentalists pastors, who was a pretty cool guy, said, "People will fight like the devil for the things of God." It was a rather uncharacteristic moment for him, but this was a pretty wise statement, unfortunately I think it applied to him a couple of times when it came to understanding the Bible.

The problem comes when we loose sight of the power of inspiration. God gives us new life. This means that God is never the "end" of anything. God doesn't end debates. He begins conversation. He doesn't end doubt. He begins wonder. The literalist/fundamentalist would remove everything inspiring about the Bible in order to preserve their convoluted idea of authority that must exist in a sacred text, but their objections are certainly not historically founded, nor are they textually grounded, and we know that they were not authored with this intention as well. So where do the fundamentalists get this idea that what God says is the final authority on everything?

Now, for the most part this might not be that bad of an idea, but when we get into the realm of anti-intellectualism it becomes a very serious problem. When major Christian leaders are getting in front of people and telling millions of readers, ten thousand member congregations, and hundreds of thousands more through blogs, books, and viral videos that when it comes to conflicts between obeying God's word or obeying one's conscience the Bible must always win.

Of course, how is any of this different from what the CSBI has to say. In the late seventies Christian fundamentalists gathered to enact a document that would prescribe for them the norms of how Biblical authority would be handled. We saw already how futile their attempt was to define inerrancy without the ability to measure error. Fundamentalists do the same to define the Bible without the ability to measure "inspiration".

Some will hear this teaching and they will fall in line. Fear will grip them, like it did to me, when I used to question the Bible. The loss of fellowship, the disapproval of a pastor, or the potential loss of a spouse will always keep Christians good boys and girls when it comes to reading the Bible. But many, (and I mean, MANY) Christians are simply falling away. The cost is too much. Why violate our minds and intellect in order to understand the Bible the way fundamentalists do?

So what is my solution? Unfortunately, it is not one that accommodates the anti-intellectualism of many believers in the church today. And truthfully, my response is no different then no solution at all. I do not believe one needs to defend what the Bible says in order to prove that God speaks to them through the Bible, nor do I think that the Bible needs to be proven to come from a divine source, as though the Bible were exceptional or unique in a literary context in order for it to be effective as coming from God. The Bible doesn't need to be moral, historically accurate, or practical in order to be a living voice speaking to our hearts. As Christians there is nothing in the Bible, or in our history, demanding us to read our Bible's literally. If we read that God told ancient people to enact genocide against a neighboring nation. We have every right and responsibility to feel discomfort and even doubt concerning the meaning of this pericope, and just because one doubts the Bible it does not mean that one cannot hear from God.

To take a side that says we ought to betray our conscience in order to obey God's word is tantamount to spiritual tyranny. It is the death of faith, according to Paul (1 Tim 1:19). Should the Christian submit to the Bible? Yes. Does this mean that everything the Bible says literally applies to the Christian life? No. If a Christian chooses in good conscience to symbolize certain passage that betray one's conscience in order to maintain faith are they being rebellious, proud, or hard hearted? Absolutely not!

Christian, realize this. If I wanted to live a sinful life, I would simply stop being a Christian. There is nothing to gain from giving myself excuses in the Bible to do what I really wanted. If a person is going to apply the Bible to their life in a symbolic manner then they would simply be taking part in a long history of Christians who have done the exact same thing. It's not picking and choosing, either, because there is no prima facie reason why symbolism has to be rejected. In fact the symbolist is able to apply the Bible more completely for the very reason that he is NOT picking and choosing. It is only the literalist who has to pick and choose.

So in the end, I cannot defend the Bible. I can only defend the Christian need to be devoted to the Bible. I can offer no reason why literalism cannot be true, and I have good reasons to hope for it to be true. And symbolism offers no definitive standard to measure what the meaning of God's Word is in an objective setting. Symbolism appears to be the only hope a Christian has for interpreting the Bible in good conscience, at the very least we have to include it as an equal partner with literalism in Biblical interpretation, which means that literalism still cannot hold a prima facie or exclusive claim to interpretation. Thus, the Bible fails at a very critical juncture. It cannot purify our faith.

This has to be acknowledge in the depths of your soul. The Bible even if it is inspired in the highest order to the heavens, it still is powerless to create or assist in causing a pure faith. For faith is involved in our understanding of it. Your Christian background and upbringing will rebel against this idea, but it has to be accepted. Your faith is in jeopardy if you cannot understand this crucial argument. If you are not willing to completely rid yourself of the Bible in order to maintain faith then the Bible can never truly be inspiring to you. For God's words to be new every morning we must grasp that they die every night. The "newness" of God's message is entirely contingent upon the life that God offers. The message is not equivalent to the life itself. We have to unpack this in our core of what it means to be a Christian. The Bible demonstrates no characteristics that compel a person to accept faith. It is a tool for the faithful. It is not a detached message that can be examined objectively to discover what God's truth must be. 

The first Christians did not have a Bible. For the first three hundred years of Christianity there was no canon. For the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity there was no Bible study. The idea that the Bible is necessary for personal spiritual growth is an entirely modern invention. Participating in the life that God has to offer is the foundation of all spiritual development. The Bible gets to participate in this same process, but the process itself is not contingent upon the Bible, and the Bible can even participate to a privileged degree, but as Christians we have to stop being Biblicists and start being Christ-centered. It's not about what God said in the past, it is about what he is saying to you now. It is not about what can end our debates, our strife, our conflicts, our suffering. It is about what can begin our journey, our adventure, our quest. God is calling us forth. He is offering us new life. This is Christianity, not the Bible.

A New Testament With The Same Old Story (CH4PTII-III)

It is now widely known that the New Testament misuses the Old Testament. The literal account that Jesus was simply following a script laid out for him in prophecy and foreshadowing is just about incomprehensible to anyone interested in a coherent and unified account. What this means is that we can either conclude that the writers of the New Testament were incompetent, they simply did realize that they were reading the Old Testament wrong. They were corrupt, they were intentionally twisting scripture to suit their needs at the time. Or they already believed as they were writing that literalism was not the correct interpretation for understanding something that comes from God. They felt justified in symbolically reinterpreting the prophets to align with what they rightly believed "came from God". 

Here are a few examples that are pretty conclusive. Isaiah 7:14 says how a virgin will be with child. Christians love to cite this verse because it proves how Jesus' birth was prophetically foretold, but it is known that this claim cannot be made. Here's why.

In Hebrew there is a specific word for "virgin". The word is, bethoolaw, and it is translated to virgin almost

fifty times in the Old Testament. The word in Isaiah 7:14 is not bethoolaw. It is almah which could mean virgin, but is only translated that way exclusively for the Isaiah passage. In every other instance of the Bible the word is translated as maiden, or girl. So why does Isaiah say "virgin"? A few hundred years before the New Testament was written the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew to Greek. The Greek word "parthenos" was inserted into the Isaiah passage. This word means virgin, but it is more accurately translated as a girl who qualifies for marriage. Thus, this word was put into the Isaiah narrative because of the inherent tension that would be seen as God's presence existing with a girl who's innocence has been lost, or possibly violated.

The idea of Immaculate Conception was completely contrived when it comes to what the Old Testament says. Even if Jesus was born of a virgin, this passage in the Old Testament is not a prophetic prediction of it.

There's more. By just examining the portion of Matthew which refers to the birth of Jesus we can see more examples like the Isaiah 7:14 one. In Matthew 2:6 the author quotes Micah 5:2 to show how the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. But the Messiah in Micah is not the Messiah Matthew writes about. It is generally accepted that even in the Old Testament there are various "messiahs" depicted that are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but are nonetheless unique to themselves. Micah depicts an avenger for Israel who will lead a successful military campaign to rid the land of its enemies. Was Jesus this military leader? No. Then why did Matthew use this verse?

In Matthew 2:18 Herod kills all the boys in Bethlehem, and the author uses a verse from Jeremiah 31:15 to show the prophetic connection between the two events, but we know that this allusion could not be literally predictive. In Jeremiah 31:15 it laments how Rachel is weeping for her children. This verse is referring to the lost children of the exile, not to a massacre that would occur hundreds of years later. Why, then, did Matthew use this verse?

Just the same, in Matthew 2:15 Joseph takes Jesus and Mary to Egypt to live in peace while Herod hunts for them. Once Herod dies they are able to return, and then the author makes an allusion to Hosea 11:1 to show how Jesus' life correlates to Old Testament prophecy. But there is no prediction in Hosea 11:1 of a messiah coming from Egypt. Israel is called "God's son" in this passage. It is an allegory to Israel's apostasy and God's faithfulness. Knowing this, why did Matthew use this verse?

Fundamentalists have come up with an interesting idea. It is called double prophecy. Double prophecy is just like it sounds it is one prophetic utterance which can be applied to two different scenarios. This enables the sense of literalism in scripture (which conforms to my previous examples of using symbolism to maintain literalism). But this is no different then dispensations, harmonies, or Oral Torah. It is the same inevitable outcome of trying to apply a literal understanding to the Word of God; extra-biblical tools must be developed to buffer or mediate the interpretation of scripture. At no point does any prophet claim that his "predictions" will come to pass twice! Such an idea undermines prophecy, instead of bolstering it. Imagine a prophet who's predictions will come to pass an infinite number of times? If we can increase the power of prophecy by multiplying the number of times it can be applied to certain events then it would make sense that the ultimate or best prophecy would be one that applies to everything, at all times, and in all circumstances. Thus, the difference between the best prophecy and no prophecy is indistinguishable. When we go down the road of multiplying our difficulties instead of simplifying them.

Clearly, the author of Matthew was not transcribing dual prophecy in the Old Testament. But if he was not reciting what was literal, then what was he doing? Why was he doing it? I highly doubt that the author of Matthew believed that Jesus was simply following a script that was laid out for him in Old Testament prophecy. Considering that every prophecy was misinterpreted in Matthew to apply to Jesus we can either conclude that the author of Matthew was twisting scripture or that the early view of scripture was so different from literalism that it allowed for a certain elasticity to exist in how it was applied.

But if we allow for this elasticity to exist in our understanding of the Bible and how it was formed then we have no certainty that it was actually faithfully compiled. If the author of Matthew was not recording literal prophecies that applied to Jesus then the distinction between Matthew twisting scripture and Matthew reinterpreting scripture cannot be found in the text itself. Thus the problem of the Bible does not seem to be solved in the Bible, or in the formation of the Bible.

Literalism offers no key, or any help in solving its own problems. It only serves to multiply difficulties in order to preserve and maintain its existence. Such a phenomenon is expected to exist for any system seeking to gain power and control, which is not a negative or blameworthy attribute. All thriving organisms must survive through the acquisition of power and control. Thus, it is not unexpected for a religious system to want to promote and adhere to a literalism within its dogmatic ranks. So while literalism has an advantage on an organizational level, the problems with literalism cannot be avoided on a personal level. The intellectual merits of literalism are dismal, and it's service is to increase cognitive dissonance in its adherents rather then eliminate it.

The fact that ancient believers accommodated to their environment to protect their literalism indicates that their belief in literalism was simply taken for granted. They were not being literal for the sake of being literal. If they were they would not need to make accommodations. All such accommodations would be seen as a compromise. But they worked through their literalism as though it were something that could change at any moment.  If our religious faith was the result of the literal events described in our Bible then it would be impossible to hold to such a faith in good conscience. The Bible in its Jewish heritage, in its New Testament formation, and it its canonization stands opposed to literalism in all its stages. But yet the phenomenon persists.

III - Lonely Scriptura

Christianity has taken many forms. It is an ever changing system. How can such a dynamic system maintain itself under a uniform dogma. The Bible has endured through the ages as the normative standard for Christian belief. This much is true. So if we are unable to see Christian fundamentalism as essential to the Christian faith, then perhaps it is simply one of the adaptable forms to which Christianity has taken in its environment through the ages. This seems counter-intuitive since what would appear to be the most fundamental to Christianity would be the essence of fundamentalism, but try as we might and this conclusion cannot be backed.

Whether or not fundamentalism can tie its roots to the history and principles of the Christian faith is still to be seen. I think it has been well established how difficult that would be, but one thing is almost unanimously agreed upon by both fundamentalists and progressives and that is the pivotal significance of the Reformation.

Two things happened during the renaissance and Enlightenment that would forever change the face of Christianity and make it something that could never go back to the way it used to be. The first is the printing press and the second is the democratic system. The Reformation in many ways came to capitalize on both.

Only educated people used to be able to read the Bible, and among those only those in authority were permitted to do so. The Bible was a communal or tribal book. It existed for the betterment of the Christian faith, and that was it. It was not subject to criticism or debate. Its words were taught in a church, and its meaning derived from a uniform magesterium. A person could not hear a message in church feel uncomfortable about it and go do his own study in the Bible about it.

The Church, or to put more aptly, the authorities in the Church had no accountability, and this is not to say that this meant they were rotten or corrupt, but rather that no intellectual accountability existed for the Church as to what it was teaching or on how it was interpreting the Bible. The Church has always had some variety as to how interpreting the Bible played out. But there was always conformity to an established authority.

This all changed when one man began reading the Bible for what it actually said (supposedly). Whether or not we can ask the question if the Bible was ever meant to be read by individuals who had the right and desire to choose for themselves what the correct interpretation of Scripture was is pointless to consider. We cannot go back. What was once interpreted to be a liturgical book for a conclave of believers that submitted themselves to an established authority, was now and forever after going to be a book interpreted by individuals who would believe that no authority was established in itself.

If literalism is to be the correct interpretation of the Bible then it cannot be on the basis of why it was ever accepted in the past, before the Reformation. Literalism in a liturgical context served many ends that edified the church as a whole without any of them necessarily being the critical interpretation to edify an individuals intellect. The preservation of tradition, the communal narrative, or the solidarity of man were all reasons in a liturgical context to promote and represent literalism in a pre-critical society.

But as we have seen both literalism and symbolism can serve the needs of a corrupt power base. And this seems to have been the condition of things just before the Reformation. It cannot be considered a strength for the case of literalism that Martin Luther read the Bible and discovered the corruption of the Church. For Martin Luther was not a proponent of literalism when it came to Biblical interpretation. Luther picked and choose just as much as any other power system put in place of interpreting the Bible. He most certainly preferred the Pauline Epistles and in his own soteriology ignored many passages in the Gospels, like Jesus' teachings on works, and wanted to remove the book of James from the New Testament, all together.

Thus, the Reformation was consistent with the age before it that a theological principle was required to guide biblical interpretation. It was not a movement to put literalism back in its rightful place, it was a revival of what the correct theological orientation was for a Christians life. It was a revitalization of Biblical thought and study, and it was an empowering vision that gave the individual Christian the ability to hear from God through his private reading of scripture. The last thing it was, was proof that literalism is the correct and authentic interpretation of the Bible.

In many ways the Reformation led to the near debasement of all religious and spiritual interpretations of the Bible through the establishment of liberal Protestantism. Sola Scriptura had a monumental impact on the Christian world, and it was not entirely considered what the fallout of this belief might bring about. Using the Bible as the only normative authority for Christian belief and practice is in many ways a good thing, but it is not without its side effects. In extremists circles sola scriptura has the effect of creating isolated and narrow minded communities. In academic circles sola scriptura removes the authority of the Bible from the Church and breeds an ideological distortion of the religious life. This is exactly what happened during the Enlightenment in Europe.

When Protestantism took root in Europe the academy took after the study of the Bible apart from any church authority, like Luther himself had done, and the layman became more easily drawn to literal extremism. This divide grew and became too disparate to reconcile. When this happened a clear tension occurred between the Church and the College. In 1860 a monumental work was written called "Essays and Reviews" which encapsulated the modern Biblical critique. In this work such things as miracles were rejected and revelation was seen in an evolutionary perspective. The work itself was very intriguing, but as you can imagine it flew in the face of what had become the common understanding of what Christianity represented. Over time this tension spread to America, and in the beginning of the twentieth century a series of some 90 essays were written in response to the spread of liberal Protestantism and higher criticism in Biblical interpretation. These volumes of essays were called, "The Fundamentals", and it is ground zero for fundamentalism as we know it today.

In these essays such ideas like evolution and socialism were deemed sinful and wrong. But what is most important to understand that despite it's claim in its namesake there was nothing "fundamental" about fundamentalism. The spirituality which has now taken root in American culture was nothing but a byproduct of religious development in the West. Their ideas and systems are just as contrived and invented as their liberal counter-parts. Thus, fundamentalism without liberal Protestantism is senseless. It is a reactionary belief system that only exists to ensure that another more "dangerous" system isn't allowed to exist.

This is one of the most important things to understand about Christian fundamentalism. Read very carefully these next few lines. Christian fundamentalism needs an opponent in order to exist. It did not arise in itself to exist in the landscape of faith. Spiritual men did not receive a revelation that fundamentalism is the right orientation of faith. In no religion did this ever happen. Fundamentalism only arose to protect or preserve that sense of faith that some in power felt was threatened. Without the threat, fundamentalism is not needed.

Consider what this might mean. Whether or not fundamentalism arose out of a genuine threat to the faith the reality is that as a collective organism fundamentalism now relies on the existence of threats in order to maintain its own survival. Whether or not the conditions which brought about fundamentalism were worthy of such a reaction the fact of its existence cannot be denied. If one's survival is only guaranteed through threats then such an organism will ensure that threats exist, even if they must be manufactured or contrived.

The problem with the "Solas" is that their arrangement sets ones up for ultimate disappointment, and for the existence of the liberal and conservative extremes on either side. Of the five solas four of them exist in the abstract. Sola fide, sole gratia, sola Christus, and sola Deo gloria are all abstract ideas that have no real concrete reality in the here and now. A person can affirm all these "solas" with ease, but sola scriptura is something we can measure, investigate, and even replace should another come along. The first four are theological propositions, but the fifth is a hermenuetical one. Sola scriptura is categorically different then the other solas, but it is treated as though it were not. In this sense the Bible is truly alone. But what happens in "sola scriptura" is rather the opposite of what is supposed to happen for an inspired text. Inspiration should move us to accept the authority that God gives His Church and it should move us to develop the needed theological ideas which underpin it, sola scripture taken concretely bypasses this altogether.

The Bible is an invitation to relate to God. It's exclusivity is not a tenet of faith, but rather a demonstration of its own inspired message. A Christian does not rely only the Bible because he must, by obligation of tradition, but because he could possibly think of no other book to relate to God with. When we reify the inspiration of the Bible, through sola scriptura, we turn God's invitation into a Law, and what was once a mode of relationship becomes a cause for estrangement. The Bible ends up all alone.

A Brief Historical Interlude (CH4PT1)

When Galileo was on trial it was because the Church had read portions of the Bible which suggested that the earth was the center of the universe. The story of Joshua and the sun standing still is one such example. The church has read the Bible literally for pretty much through all of its existence. Literalism is perhaps the easiest of all meanings to derive from the text of the Bible. And as was argued earlier, it is really easy to understand something literally, supposedly. So for an organization which promotes itself to be a universal community of faith it has to be willing to appeal to the common man. So it makes sense that the literal meaning of Scripture has been the de facto method of interpretation throughout the ages, but this only makes sense practically. When we look into the essentials of inspiration we find that this has no grounding.

It is along these lines that I feel a historical survey is important to consider when it comes to understanding the Biblical narrative. Through this chapter we will see how important it is to have a wide open view of the Scriptures instead of a rigid narrow one. Before we can engage ourselves into this journey it is important to recognize that a real potential threat exists, and it is one that I cannot guarantee the outcome of. As I mentioned in the last chapter that once we abandon literalism any certainty of faith becomes nearly impossible, but it is even more dangerous then that. Once we accept symbolism into our faith narrative we also run a much higher risk of delusion. This may seem counter-intuitive to my goal. When I set out to explore Christianity, as a Christian, my goal was to follow the Biblical directive to keep a clear conscience, so that my faith would not be betrayed.

Literalism offered an intellectual escape clause to this end, and it provided perhaps the best means to obtain a religion, but as we looked deeper into its implications we had to abandon it. Literalism can only set up a false deity and a law which does not come by faith (Gal. 3:12). Thus, it does not mean that my conscience is betrayed by having to abandon literalism, in fact it is all the more cleared. By realizing the connections which existed between paganism and the literalists of the Biblical times I was more able to recognize how my own faith turned against me.

But I could not wrestle myself free from the impending doubt that had to be assuaged. The Bible was literally just like any other book. This fact had to be accepted, or else the idolatry of the Bible would take root once again. But to accept this threatened the very faith and experience I found in the Bible. How could the Bible remain Holy, if there was nothing special about it compared to other sacred texts? Suffice it to say, abandoning literalism was not necessarily a victory for me, nor was it a special insight. It gave me a sense of foreboding that faith just very well may be a completely contrived aspect of man's mental life. Literalism offered the chance to prove faith, in a sense. It was the best chance for faith, and it failed. This reality has to be accepted, because many fall away from the faith because of the inconsistencies, irregularities, and errors found in the Bible.

Now we can see why religion for the most part has advocated a literalist interpretation of their sacred texts. It gives the believers a kind of certainty that absolves the church of any real responsibility to educate their constituents, and it makes for a servile congregation. And the most important part of literalism is that it secures the power structure of religious authority that is currently in control. Pastors of churches feel a responsibility to tend and care for their flock, and this responsibility is an all too easy excuse to misuse one's power to ensure that the flock remains strong. It is natural for the shepherd to think that the success of the flock entails his control and power over the flock. For this reason, we might even consider the absence of literalism in an inspired text to be the very sign of its authenticity rather then the reverse.

Because of this tension between literalism and symbolism I think it is important to consider some historical narratives in the progression of faith to see how believers have connected and related to their holy texts. Do we have cause to consider that the absence of literalism is a sign of inspiration, rather then it being a sign for despair?

I - From The Jews To The Pews

The first part of the Christian Bible, which comprises about two thirds of our Bible, was written by Jews who lived hundreds and hundreds of years before the Jesus was born. They wrote their Bible and then had to live it out and interpret it in drastic changing cultural environment. The books written during times of prosperity and peace had to be interpreted in times of exile and war. Commands given to a people who ruled a land had to be interpreted by a people who had no land. Considering that Christians share such an essential aspect of their faith with another religion it seems pertinent to ask how this other religion interprets their Bible?

Surprisingly, Jews approach their Old Testament (*cough* I mean, "Torah") in quite a different way then just about all Christians. Does it not seem strange that two religions who share the same book as a sacred text have two completely different ways of interpreting this it? Granted Christians have a New Testament, or New Torah, and this ought to be factored in how Christians interpret the Bible as a whole, but the majority of the Christian Bible is technically Jewish, and from a perspective of the first century an argument could be made that the entire Bible is Jewish.

With literalism deconstructed we now have to take up the task of putting the pieces back together. As a cursory analog it seems beneficial to look into the Jewish religion to see how they interpret their Bible so that we might find possible collieries to build on. When we do this though we find a completely different method of interpretation then we would think from being exposed to how Christian interpret their Bible.

First off, I am being extremely liberal when I use terms like "bible", "testament", and "Torah". Technically, these terms are exclusive to their particular faiths, and they all have different meanings. A Jew would never consider his Torah a testament. Nor, can we as Christians call each testament of the Bible, a Torah. Christians have pretty much claimed exclusivity on the term "Bible", but I have used it to simply refer to a sacred text. These definitions are just as important for Jews as they are for Christians. So when we undertake as Christians to explore how Jews interpret the Old Testament, we have to realize that our first mistake is calling it the Old Testament.

The Torah is the first five books of the Bible. But the word "Torah" can be used dynamically. It can refer to the Law AND the Prophets. It can refer to the first five books of the Bible, or it can refer to the Torah AND the Oral Torah.... Wait. What is the Oral Torah, again? That's right, fundamentalist Christians have little to no idea about the Oral Torah.

Imagine that you are a Jew living in exile. You want to be true to your God and your faith, but you are separated from the land you live in, and you must live and work with others who do not share the same faith as you. Clearly, a strict or literal adherence to the Torah is impossible. How could Jews be faithful if the Torah became meaningless? The Jews thousands of years ago faced in many ways the same problems we face today. They held in their hands an out-dated holy book that had no relevance to their current environment. They felt like many ancient spiritual followers that if their sacred scriptures were not literal then what good were they.

Thus, a brilliant idea was born. God gave to Moses two Torah's. A written Torah, and an Oral Torah. Moses wrote the Torah down to serve as a constant reference point, and he passed down a tradition orally on how to read it and interpret it for changing times. The Oral Torah was passed down from generation to generation preserving the accurate reading and application of the Torah, and each generation added its own unique and authoritative contribution. The priests and the scribes became the bearers of this tradition in the times of restoration. And it gave the Jewish people the means to hold unto their cherished belief in the Torah.

Thus, a literalist belief in the Torah was preserved in a rather symbolic manner. By the time of the first century it was the Pharisees who were responsible for carrying on the tradition of the Torah. And this irony had not gone unnoticed. By the time of Christ there were various strands of interpretation representing the Torah. In many ways first century Palestine was a hot bed of pluralism. Philo (though Philo was from Egypt) and Hillel had interpreted the Torah to be kind and beneficial to humanity. Hillel the Elder is a first century Pharisee who coined the phrase that the Law is summed up in love. Then there was Shammai who preferred a more traditionalist approach that favored the Torah as an authority and rule over man's actions. The Sadducees were commissioned by the Romans to tend to and be the administrators of the Temple cult. They were the strict literalists of the first century. They only held to the written Torah, as the first five books of the Bible. Then there were the apocalyptic communities like the Qumran. All these people co-existed in the same territory with little conflict. Of these groups it is the Pharisaical ones that are the most important, and in the first century the schools of Shammai and the schools of Hillel were the two competing houses. What becomes clear is that the New Testament clearly favors the school of Hillel. In particular Jesus' teachings almost exactly resemble the teachings of Hillel.

In a pre-critical society religious literalism is to be expected. In the pressures of extinction the Jews formulated a system to preserve their religious heritage, and that heritage included a literal interpretation of the Torah, and when that became impossible a method of integrating tradition into the literalism of the Torah became mainstream and widely accepted. By the time of Shammai, who was the stricter and more literal Pharisee the thesis of the Pharisaical movement had been accepted, namely that Oral Torah was given to Moses at the same time as the written Torah. What is important to note is that when literalism failed in reconstructionist Palestine it was symbolism that allowed the literal interpretation of the Torah to exist.

As we already have seen, in early Christianity it was realized how difficult a literal interpretation of the Gospels would be as coming from God. By the time the Gospels were canonized they had been harmonized and literalized to an extreme, and these efforts had failed. Origen provided a method of symbolic interpretation that allowed readers to see characters, events, and plots as spiritual narratives involving God and his Church. Regardless of which method was right, Origen provided a method that would stretch into the next millennium. Origen had no problem accepting that ever word of the Bible was literally put there by God, as long as the meaning of those words could be spiritually or symbolically interpreted. And regardless of which method was right, the Bible was cannonized nonetheless.

Hence, the problems with literalism were already known by the time of canonization and it did not hinder the process at all. The canonizers knew that the Bible contained unique and exclusive propositions to each narrative that did not provide a consistent and coherently unified whole, intellectually speaking, but the Bible was canonized nonetheless. This leads to a few historical conclusions.

The first is that the Bible was merely canonized as a political move in order to give power to the Church that was having to compete for power with ever new and changing government powers. The second is that this happened because the canonizers were symbolists. They saw no threat to their religion or to their Bible by solidifying "literalism" as long as it could be partnered with symbolism. Or there is a third possibility where they believed that the literalness of each piece added to the canon did not conflict with what the spiritual interpretation of what "a book from God" renders. Thus, literalism could never encapsulate something truly inspiring.

It does not seem likely that we ought to abandon literalism, simply because the Bible was canonized with that it in mind. It also does not seem likely to think that God's people were simply pawns of a social and cultural system. Perhaps, canonization could be traced to political factors, but that does not seem to negate any belief that this book came from God. Thus, it seems that the best and most comprehensive historical evaluation of the Bible is to accept that symbolism and literalism were equally important to the earliest believers in the Bible. The relationship between these two is hard to define for us two thousand years later, because we live in an entirely different world. It does not seem sufficient to simply disregard literalism for our own day.

The Curse of The Bible (CH3PT4/5)

The first Christians were Jews. This is a historical fact. At one point a small sect within Judaism wanted to separate itself from the exclusivity of the Jewish religion and have table fellowship with Gentiles. They wanted to practice their faith in clear violation of the Jewish Law. At that point they could no longer be Jewish. What we call the Bible, was pretty much the same for the first century Jews as well. They had the Old Testament, but by then it was canonized and it was a norm for all Jews. It was called, "The Law".

Just as the word "bible" is widely diverse today, the term "the Law" was widely diverse in the first century. Today we put our hand on the Bible, when we swear an oath in court. Why do we do this? I can't say completely, but I am sure that it has nothing to do with any belief that the church has on the Bible. In some homes the Bible is displayed prominently as though it were a decoration. And that is all it really is. I'm not sure why we use the Bible as living decor, but I am sure that it has nothing to do with what the church believes about the Bible. When we want to express the seriousness of our claim we will call it the "gospel truth". Of course, there is no mention of "gospel truth" in the Bible, and it is unclear how this phrase relates to the Bible. But it certainly adds to the diversity in which we think about our Bible in culture.

Jews believed that the Law was given by God. The mechanism of inspiration can be debated over, but the property of inspiration remains the same for both Jews and Christians when it comes to their Bibles, and the Jews believed that their Bible was inspired. The Law was given by God. So it seems a very pertinent question to consider, especially in the review of literalism and symbolism. How were first century Jews, who believed in an inspired text, able to literally defy their Bible in order to develop their spirituality in a new direction and yet retain that Bible in their belief system?

Christians of the first century could have easily just abandoned the Bible. It was clear that they did not believe that they had to follow the Law. (Acts 15:28,29 Gal. 2:25). But what was the reason to keep the Old Testament in the corpus of Christian scripture? After all, had not Christians of the first century heard the argument that if you are not going to follow all the Bible then why follow any of it? The only reason that these Christians were able to retain their belief and devotion to the Old Testament is because they saw their scriptures symbolically, and not literally. If the first century Christians were literalists then we would simply not have a Christianity today.

But there is more then just this simple fact. For all intents and purposes it seems that the writings of the New Testament hold in contempt those who would attempt to claim that literal interpretations of the Old Testament applied to this New Testament Church. In Galatians Paul instructs Christians who feel that they have to read the Old Testament literally that we are free because of faith (Gal. 5:6). The conflict arose that Christians should be circumcised. This makes sense, of course, because it is what the Old Testament says, but Paul makes sure to put the kibosh of this line of thinking and even calls it sin to think this way, "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough" (Gal. 5:9). He even tells those who would read the Bible literally to emasculate themselves (Gal. 5:12)! What does Paul do? He interprets the Old Testament symbolically, "The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'." (Gal. 5:14).

Opposed to what most fundamentalists think it was this literalism pattern that the author of 1 Timothy says is "contrary to sound doctrine" (1 Tim. 1:10). Later in 1 Timothy the author expounds further and lists some other things contrary to "sound doctrine". They are an overemphasis on "words" and "controversy" and those who use "godliness" as a means for profit (6:4-5). 2 Timothy tells us that sound doctrine is encapsulated in "faith and love" and that it conforms to the teaching of Jesus (2 Tim. 1:13). But Titus gives us the greatest insight into "sound doctrine" when it says that those who oppose it are of the "circumcision group" (Titus 1:9-10). The Circumcision group here are the group of pharisaic Jews who in Acts 15 were trying to get Gentile Christians to be circumcised and follow the Mosaic Law. They were the literalists of that time.

But that is not all Paul has to say against those who read the Bible literally. He actually curses those who obey the law, "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse" (Gal. 3:10). Observing the law means reading the Bible of the first century literally. Imagine if a pastor went up to a pulpit in any Evangelical church and said, "All who rely on reading the Bible literally are under a curse!" Why would Paul use such drastic language?

Paul sees something in Biblical literalism that I do not think the Church has fully realized in its two thousand years of existence. It is embodied in the book of Colossians, "Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 'Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!'?" (Col. 2:20-21). In this pericope, the author of Colossians is grouping the Jewish law with all other pagan rituals, "having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross" (Col. 2:14). And it is here that the true danger of Biblical literalism is exposed.

When we read the Bible literally what ends up happening is that the Bible takes the place of God in our lives. The Bible becomes an idol! This was seen above when we saw some of the hermeneutical absurdities of literalism, and how in every case the Bible was elevated to a point of near absolute un-interpretative-ability. The only possible way to interpret the Bible in such a way would be to establish some mediating devices, like dispensationalism, harmonies, or authorial intent. And though we can see how ridiculous it is to engage in these activities as an expression of faith, what becomes terrifying is when we see how we are elevating something to divine status.

V - The Errancy of Inerrancy

But shouldn't God's word be elevated to divine status, if we claim that the Bible is inspired? This is

definitely a valid claim, but is it one that necessitates literalism? Hence, do we elevate the Bible as divine by reading every word as though it were grammatically represented by the words or God, or do we elevate the Bible as divine by making it the center of our lives? I think we have come far enough in this book to suggest that the former is but a mere superficial representation of inspiration, while the latter is a truer representation of what it means for a text to be inspired. Now, these two are not mutually exclusive, but they are different from one another. It could be, and most likely is, the case that people who have made the Bible the center of their lives feel that this means that the Bible is grammatically representative of the words of God. This being the case, from all the information we have studied thus far, it is prudent and wise to consider that there is a very real possibility for the Bible to be the center of a persons life, and for there to be no grammatical representation of the words in the Bible as the Word of God.

Thus, there is no de facto mode of interpreting inspired texts as literal. It is doubtful if there is any de facto method to interpret an inspired text, that will have to be explored later. What is important to realize is that because this is so, the claim of inerrancy is utterly devoid of meaning. Whether or not the Bible has errors, is erroneous, because our belief in an inspired text should not compel us to make assertions concerning what the literal meaning of a text is as it concerns our faith. It should not compel us to make any literal assertions what-so-ever. Even in the CSBI itself, this is realized when they say how inerrancy is not disproven by any errors believed to exist in the Bible. This is what is says in article 13, "We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations". It says it right there, "Inerrancy is not negated by falsehoods". 

The fact of the matter is that the Bible has errors. Scholars have known this since the dawn of reading the Bible began. They harmonized and synthesized as many combinations as possible to form whatever structure they could to eliminate those errors, but their process only revealed the existence of the errors, it did not eliminate anything. If our belief in inerrancy allows for these errors to exist, then what is the point of inerrancy, except to create cognitive dissonance?

With literalism out of the way, it now seems like Christianity is open to a very serious attack. And rightly so. If we remove the privileged status of a literal word of God from our devotion of faith then what is left of our faith that is any different than any other religion? Here's where the bricks fall on our head...

When a literalist considers the religions of the world he figures that the founders of that particular faith could not have possibly been writing the words of God, because only the God of the Bible did that. So this means that the founders would have had to of written down their own thoughts on a piece of paper thinking that this would be something God would say. It is then to the advantage of such founders to say that the words of this "holy book" were symbolic. He would want his message to be understood "spiritually" so that any burden of consistency and unity could be displaced unto the foundations of faith that the founder established through his own narrative.

Thus, when we remove literalism out of the way we open Christianity up to being just another religion open to the same criticisms that all other religions are open to. And we invalidate our own doubt concerning the authority of other spiritual beliefs on the lives of the believers of those separate faiths. When we can't hide behind the walls of spiritual certainty we have to admit that the source of our faith very well may be just like everyone else.

What is a testimony for our faith is not how certain we are of the literalness of our sacred text, but of how devoted we remain to our own particular faith while claiming no unique advantage to our beliefs over others. When we have every reason to be a Christian it seems that faith only means the obedience of the commands which is clearly outlined, but when every reason to be a Christian is no different then the reason to be anything else then faith becomes a means of spiritual identity and significance. Literalism is so dangerous because it distorts faith, our God, and our Bible which invites us to experience the Gospel. The threat of a wide open Christianity is that it is wide open for attack, but the great hope for this is that it is also wide open for reconciling.

Quakers: Just Like Ever Other Christian

… But maybe that is a good thing?

Last week I attended the North West Yearly Meeting for Friends which is an

Evangelical division of the Quaker/Friends denomination. Recently, I have been persuaded by Quakers and have been thinking that they are a different breed of Christian, a more humble and a more willing kind of Christian to discuss and dialogue. Do not get me wrong, I am not looking for a perfect Church, a perfect denomination, or a perfect representation of Jesus. I get that we are all flawed and are all poor examples in one way or another. I had hoped that Quakers might be a bit different then what my general experience of Christianity has been, but at the end of the day Quakers are really just like ever other Christian. Here’s why…

The issue before the NWYM was the issue of human sexuality. This is an issue that all Evangelical Churches are facing, and it is one that will not go away until we get it right. There is a right outcome for this issue which is just, moral, and faithful to a God who creates us as His children, and this outcome is to affirm LGBT persons and to see them as no different then the traditional heterosexual persons whom

Christianity currently favors. This is a difficult conclusion for Christians to accept as many people relate to their faith differently, and many “feel” threatened or “attacked” if this issue is to be given a platform for consideration. Progress happens slowly when you have to appeal to the consensus of lesser minds. And I do say that rather matter of fact-ly, because in their hearts they have a big and deep love for their God. They are simply used to a certain way things ought to be. Unity of spirit means being able to find a way for issues of conscience and issues of authority to coexist with one another, and for mutual dialogue to occur between those who have placed their stake.

A year ago, or so, one of the churches involved in the NWYM came out as affirming LGBT persons. This clashed with the current Faith and Practice language which prohibits it as sexually immoral. Some called for this church to leave the NWYM. Some called for a revision of the Faith and Practice. Since Quakers tend to err on the side of grace it was believed that the best course would be to see if a revision could be made to the Faith and Practice that was more tempered with grace.

A year passes and this year the revision is presented to the NWYM and in my personal opinion it was a great example of creativity and integrity. It preserved the old way of still presenting homosexuality as a distortion of God’s creation (which it is in a matter of fact sense), and it did away with language that overtly suggested condemnation, like sin and immorality. Thus it was neither affirming for LGBT or condemning. It was in a sense, neutral and matter of fact. Its positive contribution was to promote sexual wholeness in Christ. So in a sense, it was perfect because diplomatically neither side was getting what they wanted, and both sides could be happy that the other side was unhappy.

The revision failed miserably. And it is unclear why. This is the problem I have with

most Christians. They are simply not smart enough to understand the mechanisms in play. In a zero sum game either those who oppose LGBT or those who affirm LGBT will be left at the end making the decisions and deciding the policy. It is clear that there is a zero sum game between LGBT inclusion and exclusion. Those who want to include feel threatened by those who want to exclude, and those who want to exclude also feel threatened by those who want to include. Thus, to avoid a zero sum game, a non-zero sum solution must present itself.

This revision was a non-zero sum solution. The only reason to dismiss it would be to

prefer a zero sum game as opposed to a non-zero sum game. Or, the solution provided to achieve non-zero sumness seems less beneficial then the outcome which could happen from remaining in a zero sum game. Typically, if a person thinks he can win he is less likely to compromise. But the problem now is that no one has won. And the non-zero sum solution was shot down. Here is the rub. There is no chance for a zero sum game to actually happen, or the zero sum game that will play out cannot possibly meet the expectations of any single party. Those on one side who want to simply cut themselves off from the other side will not ever convince the controlling members that a zero sum game is more profitable. And the controlling members will not apply the rules in a zero sum fashion. Thus, we are in a disastrous stalemate. The only way to achieve non-zero sumness is through dishonesty.

Those who complained that the proposed revision was too unclear were being dishonest in that what they really wanted was something clear enough to cut out people from their group, and those who are now entrusted with “enforcing” the Faith and Practice must now be dishonest in not doing anything about what Faith and Practice is telling them. Both sides have to now be mutually dishonest in order to achieve their goals.

This lack of strategy on the part of all parties involved is disheartening, but it is not entirely without precedent. It simply means that Quakers are like every other Christian group who cannot maintain a vision for who they are supposed to be. The leadership should have never let the old statement stand as a possible outcome if the revision was rejected. It should have been an either-or outcome where either the revision is accepted, or the statement “we are not united on this” is added to the current statement. It is incredibly unwise to move forward with a revision if it is not agreed upon that the current statement is insufficient.

It was a strategic error for the conservatives who want to cut out members from

the group to hide behind a seeming “unclarity” for the revision, because now they are unhappy participants on all fronts. They were not happy with the revision, and now they are not happy that the revision was rejected. This error was shared with the liberals who wanted to pass the revision. They equally protested the revision arguing that it did not affirm LGBT persons, and they protested when the revision was rejected knowing that no official LGBT discrimination would happen to them.

It is unfortunate that a church has to sit in limbo because no agreement could be reached on this matter. It is unfortunate that the leadership now has to accept the burden of being dishonest, and that the conservatives and liberals now have to be dishonest as well. This is the kind of Christianity that made me become an atheist. This is the kind of faith that turns good people into supporters of dishonesty and manipulation. The revision may not have been the ideal of good and honest behavior, but it was a hope. It was a hope that people were willing to lay down their arms and begin building once again.

But this is what Christianity has become on an institutional level. I wish it was the other way around, but the God’s honest truth is that good faithful people have become sucked into a culture war that is controlled by political and corporate powers. This issue has been high-jacked by a cult of personality and all the while those truly benefiting are those in power. When a Christian ministry that helps children announced that they were changing their policy on hiring homosexuals they lost tons of money in pledges. This is not simply an issue of how to read the Bible. This is an issue with dollar signs.

So Quakers are just like every other Christian, but is that such a bad thing? We would like some “hedge” of protection upon the namesake of Christianity to show some kind of protection from beyond. But the reality is that when put in a corner we respond just the same. I only hope that we find out who and how we got here before it is too late. I have good reasons to think that this hope is well suited.

I did see things that gave me hope. The superintendent said that Jesus did not have a conventional Father and that we should open up the Gospel to as many people as possible. I saw conservatives desiring unity so much that they were willing to keep discussing the issue until unity could be reached. I saw liberals desiring unity so much that they wanted to do the same. I saw people listening to each other. I saw people talking about this issue that I have not seen in an Evangelical setting. I saw a leadership that was open and honest. I saw a willingness to take time and be patient as long as needed to stand together.

I did not see the right answers, the right attitudes, or the right strategies. There was nothing right about it. All parties involved essentially messed up, made essential mistakes that basically ruined the success for the proposed initiative, or for any future resolution to this problem. But in the midst of this, I still saw a basic commitment to one another. It was wrong, but maybe it was the right kind of wrong. The kind of wrong you want to be, if you must be wrong.

There is a modern drive to make religion into this ideological institution, and this goes both ways. But there is wisdom, humility, and courage in a devotion to

something which is at times silly, futile, weak, or dumb. There becomes this overriding desire to stick it out with one another. It is not because we have such a great rationale or system of belief that makes all others pale in comparison to ours. It is that we have decided to stay together regardless of the circumstances. It is perhaps the highest Christian ideal that should stand above all others, and it is what I saw at this Yearly Meeting. It is called Brotherhood. It may not make sense, and it may cause us to look dumb from time to time, but Quakers have it. And I do not see that as a bad thing. 

The Worse Extreme (CH3PT3)

Thus far, we have considered two extremes, or poles, that exist in the realm of Biblical interpretation the literal and the symbolic. Currently it is the position of this book that the literal pole is preferred by most Christians and churches. Though I have not advocated the other pole as a valid form of Biblical interpretation it has been my position in this chapter to show the problems which exist for clinging to the pole of literalism. I find that this is particularly important in today's environment because for all intents and purposes both Christians and atheists claim that if the Bible cannot be read literally then why read any of it.

It is under these two poles that we come to navigate our journey through Biblical interpretation, and it is reminiscent of an old tale of Odysseus who is sailing his ship through troubled waters. One one side there is a mighty storm and on the other there are rocky cliffs. Aristotle references this work in his Nichomandean Ethics, "Hold the ship out beyond that surf and spray." This advice is telling Odysseus to keep away from the storm for that is the worse extreme.

Thus, in navigating our own murky waters it is important to recognize the worse extreme. For the Christian the worse extreme is hypocrisy. Specifically, the yeast of the Pharisees is identified as legalism (Luke 12:1 Mat. 23:23-33). In Jesus' day it was the Sadducees who mostly opposed Jesus. They were the fundamentalists of his day. They only adhered to the first five books of the Bible and claimed that the Prophets were later additions and because of this were not inspired by God. They also ran the Temple. When Jesus overturned the money changing tables he was overturning the whole Sadducean system. In the New Testament Jesus often refers to the Pharisees as being the ones worthy of his ire, but the reality is that it was truly the Sadducees who were the enemy of Jesus.

Here is why. When you follow the opposite pole of literalism and interpret the Bible symbolically the threat which needs managed is the danger of delusion. You can trick yourself or be tricked very easily when you loose sight of the constants or norms of interpretation. No one simple reads the Bible for what they want. Everyone, even those who adhere to a spiritual interpretation follow some guideline on how this is done. Thus, it is unfair to claim that if the Bible is not read literally then the reader is simply picking and choosing arbitrarily what they want. Thus, the symbolist is guilty of an honest mistake, if he be guilty.

But the literalist is making a far bigger mistake. He is a hypocrite. He is trying to defend and promote the holiness and authority of God's Word by creating mediators between man and the Word. Thus, in making God Holy, they separate God from man, which is exactly the opposite of what the Bible is supposed to do. This is Neo-Platonism applied to the Biblical narrative. In Neo-Platonic thinking the Idea was so far removed from human understanding that demigods and partial deities had to stand between us as God in order for us to even attempt to know God. Thus, in knowing the demigods we can come to know God. Though, fundamentalists do not claim such a status of holiness for their sacred text, in that it is far removed from human understanding, their behavior suggests that this does not matter, the results are the same.

So in order to avoid the greater risk to my faith, I think it is wiser to avoid literalism rather then embrace it until this is proved false. The danger of literalism to me seems far more dangerous then the danger of symbolism.

So if we are going to propose that an accurate interpretation of the Bible is possibly not literal then we need to account for why God would inspire a sacred text, but make it difficult to understand. A symbolic text takes greater interpretive effort to apply to the text. And a symbolic interpretation does not remove some of the same threats that apply to many of the ones we saw in a literal paradigm. For instance, when we read the Bible symbolically we are still tied to a mediator in some degree, but the mediator does not stand above the Scripture, between God and man, such as the pastor of a Church or a well-educated theologian or Biblical scholar. The mediator stands below scripture between the Bible and every other book ever written, and to all of God's general revelation found in Creation. A symbolic reading typically focuses on a matrix or principle congruent to the establishment and flourishing of faith that guides the interpretive process.

So when we considered the ease of a literal Bible it became easy to understand why God would want a literal Bible to exist. The task of discovering the matrix which accurately applied to the Bible to produce a correct interpretation, seems an impossible task, but the God of a literal Bible seemed to be such a God who expected people to follow his will. The God of a symbolic Bible might have a different disposition toward his followers. I have to say that just as much as I desire to know the will of God, I also desire the freedom and peace of God. To have the freedom to interpret the Bible according to my own life and to have the peace that God is with me as I search for Him is a satisfying and rewarding spirituality. The Literalness of the Bible may make it easier to understand the will of God, but the Symbolic-ness of the Bible makes it easier to rest in the freedom and peace that God offers us 

So in the poles between literalism and symbolism we have two very different paradigms. We have a God who has a will and whose will is perfect. Thus, God always gets what he wants. So if God wants something a certain way, then we must provide it. And we have a God who is free, and as such his freedom is perfect. Thus, God cannot be bound to one single representation, which is why freedom is not a positive description. So God's freedom is honored only in the act of honesty, integrity, responsibility, and our own autonomy. Being true to ourselves is being true to our God.

Between these poles, the God which exists on the extreme of one pole does not exclude the God which exists on the other, but not visa versa. Thus, a person can be completely on the extreme of the symbolic pole, and still believe God has a will for us to follow. But when a person is at the other pole they cannot grant man the freedom he finds in the essence of God. So even if both poles are wrong, and we grant that symbolic interpretations are dangerous to understanding the Bible, we still have to say that literalism is more dangerous then symbolism.

I remember when I was first saved and I was so eager to learn what the will of God was for my life. But what I was eager for was an abdication of responsibility. I wanted a sure thing. I wanted a contract that I could levy against my God in order to control the outcome of my life. It is such an easy deception, because our hearts can never admit it. I truly loved my God and I was truly a devote and passionate Christian. I read my Bible vigorously and studied it as a plan for my life. I sought God in prayer and believed that I could intuit his will for me through these divine communications. I remember looking for the literal in the Bible. I remember the harmonizing I would have to do and all the mental gymnastics that would have to be preformed in order to read the Bible literally so I could simply understand what God's will for me was.

If I was going to be honest with myself, when I decided to come back to the Lord I could not let my desire to know the will of God cause me to loose sight of my faith. I had to accept that literalism was not the de facto method of interpretation when it came to understanding what the Bible meant. This was a necessary concession of faith, because as an inspired work preference could not be given to either one, since both could be represented as coming from God.