The Lust for Certainty

by Richard Wheatcroft

In his recent book, When Religion Becomes Evil, Richard Kimball states that the first sign to look for is "absolute truth claims." This sign can be seen clearly in what he calls, "the abuse of sacred texts." Texts are abused when they are read selectively and interpreted by authority figures as literal and therefore as absolute truths. Judged by such criteria, biblical literalism can be evil.

A distinction has been made between "natural literalism" and "conscious literalism." For centuries, the Bible was read and accepted literally without effort. There was no other way to read it. Every reader of the Bible was a natural literalist. Marcus Borg writes, "In a state of natural literalism, it is taken for granted that what the Bible says happened, really happened."

For example, the story of Creation in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis describes an historical event. With the advent of modernity beginning with the Enlightenment of the 17th century, natural literalism became problematic. The scientific paradigm of truth increasingly dominated the intellectual climate. In that climate, biblical scholarship began to use a historical critical approach to scripture. These two movements threatened the natural literalism reading of the Bible.

Subsequently, in the 20th century, in reaction to the threat, we saw the rise of a "conscious literalism" which has been described as "a modern form of literalism that has become aware of problems posed by a literal reading of the Bible, but insists upon it nevertheless."

Ironically, to choose to read the Bible with a conscious literalism requires one to accept the scientific paradigm of truth and to reject 200 years of biblical scholarship. Theologian Paul Tillich has described conscious literalism as "an attempt to cram the figurative language of the Bible into a narrow framework of interpretation appropriate only to the literal usage of modern science."

To decide to be a biblical literalist involves accepting three assumed truths about the Bible.

1) The Bible is a "divine product." Biblical literalists speak of the Bible as the Word of God. Non-literalists mean that the Bible contains and embodies the Word. Biblical literalists mean that the Bible is the Word of God in the sense that the words of the Bible are the very words of God. 2) As the Bible is a divine product understood as containing the words of God, it is not only inspired and sacred scripture, as all Christians would acknowledge, but inerrant and infallible. 3) It follows, then, that the Bible is historically and factually true.

Therefore, as every word of the Bible is of equal value, selected verses can be accepted as theological absolutes and moral laws. Biblical literalism leads to the idolatry of making the Bible God. One can see a sign of this by observing the way pastors who are biblical literalists hold and refer to the Bible during services. Theologian Douglas John Hall suggests that observing this leads one to believe that the Bible is a "veritable extension of their persons -- and that is precisely what is intended."

Biblical literalism infects all the major faith traditions and is fueled by what has been called one of the temptations of religion, the "lust for certainty." Lust has been defined as "the seeking of the certitude of love by someone who is loveless."

[COVENANT, Number 16, December 2003]

The Revd Richard Wheatcroft, rector emeritus of St Francis Church, Houston, lives and writes in Irving, TX