Dale Allison on the Bible

"The inexplicable divine mystery still speaks through the old pages and through my hermeneutical confusion; and in the end I must pursue the book because it has always pursued me. It has made me feel like a worm and no man, and it has made me sing the song of Simeon. It has made known my transgressions so that they are ever before me, and it has freed me from my past so that I am free indeed. It has so shaped my intellect that, even when I do not end with it, I always begin with it. And what little good deed doing I have done has come from memory of the Good Samaritan and of the Son of Man's words to the sheep and the goats.

I have come to live and move and have my being in the Bible [...] and in the Christian traditions it has brought forth. I want this book read to me on my deathbed. Despite my modernity and my cynical nature, despite my dissection of it and my quarrels with it, the Bible remains profitable for teaching, for correction, and for training in righteousness. It comforts. It inspires. It commands. When I push its pages apart, I lay my finger on God's heart. I hate to see people not reading it."

Taken from The Luminous Dusk .

Why I bother reading scripture

I am a Christian. And as a Christian it is no secret that I read the literature that grounds Christianity itself, which would be the Bible (among other things). I try to read the Bible as often as I can, sometimes with my wife, and other times by myself. However, this seems to puzzle non-believers for the very reason that I adhere to and accept most of what the scholarly consensus says about the Bible. That is, I believe certain parts of scripture to be legend, myth, fiction, and fabrication. More than this, I recognize that certain parts of scripture are barbaric, primitive, misogynist, and downright immoral. Hence, some wonder why I would waste my time with a piece of writing that should be considered nothing but the result of primitive superstition and historical fabrication. Why not pair such writings with other primitive myths like The Odyssey, and call it a day?

 I maintain that such a mindset is just as wrong-headed as the Christian fundamentalism that regards these same writings as the inerrant and infallible Word of God. It’s not as if the only two alternatives with regards to scripture are to uphold it as the inerrant Word of God, or else delegate it to the trash—and only those still stuck in such a fundamentalist mindset would think otherwise. I, and many others, can cherish the Bible without needing to view it as having been handed down by God, and I can criticize it without needing to view it as nothing but superstitious sophistry. So, let me articulate exactly why I still give the Bible the time of day.

 First, let it be known that, Bible or no Bible, I believe and hope in the existence of God. I believe in God for many different reasons, some philosophical and others not. With that in mind I believe it is man’s highest duty to submit himself to the divine; that is, to submit one’s being to the source of being; to submit one’s love to love itself. Therefore I find it quite rational to pay attention to and take note of those who have done this very thing. This includes, but is obviously not limited to, most of the tradition of Christianity and the Bible. For while I don’t agree with all that is affirmed in these traditions, such disagreement is hardly warrant for ignoring them. Thom Stark articulates my point:

[To ignore the parts we disagree with in scripture] is to hide from ourselves a potent reminder of the worst part of ourselves. Scripture is a mirror. It mirrors humanity, because it is as much the product of human beings as it is the product of the divine. When we peer into the looking glass and see the many faces of God, we see ourselves among them. The mirror reflects our doubt and our mediocrity. It mirrors our best and worst possible selves. It shows us who we can be, both good and evil, and everything in between.

Therefore, as a believer in God, I identify with those who took up the task of writing scripture. I identify with their struggle to comprehend and interpret the divine. This struggle is my own, and all of ours. The Bible is a dialogue, made up of many different perspectives and voices. There is the pessimism of Ecclesiastes, the accusations leveled against God in the book of Job, the prayers of the Psalmists, the hope of restoration in Isaiah, the selflessness of Jesus, etc. Many forget that these dialogues are some of the same dialogues that we continue to have today: Is life meaningless? What is God doing about suffering? Is there a life beyond this life? Etc.

 Now some might claim that such speculations are themselves a waste of time and subsequently meaningless. We have, they might say, no reason to believe in God or the afterlife any more than we have reason to believe in fairies, or the flying spaghetti monster. Yet, the one who claims such things is, I believe, making the same mistake that the Christian fundamentalist makes: assuming that we have certainty of such a position one way or another. I don’t believe that we have the certainty one way or another to say God does or does not exist, or that life continues after death, or that suffering is part of God’s plan. Existence is too ambiguous; life is too obscure. Now don’t get me wrong, I do believe there is positive evidence in favor of many of my beliefs, but I would not claim that this evidence is irresistibly overwhelming.

 So, for the most part, I hope in the existence of God and the afterlife etc. (Some might retort that this is simply wishful thinking. But, this might only be the case if I claimed that my hopes made it so, of which I do not claim.) Hence my hope in the aforementioned warrants interaction with the literature and traditions that also employ and discuss the same hope. That is to say, I continue to interact with scripture because the hope that resonates with me was also expounded and wrestled with in scripture. And this is why I identify with scripture, and read it.

Thom Stark on faith

Christian Thom Stark--upon answering atheist John Loftus a few years back regarding a review of his great book The Human Faces of God--perfectly articulated what faith is, in a very profound and intriguing manner:


To me, if a Christian is certain that God exists and that everything Christianity teaches (whatever brand of Christianity they think is truest) accurately describes metaphysical and physical reality, then they don’t have faith. To think that you can “know” that these things are true is by my definition of faith precisely to reject faith. What faith is by my definition is action based on hope, and hope is a direct response to profound uncertainty. Let’s put it this way. Loftus and I both agree on what resources we should utilize to figure out what the moral thing to do is in a given situation. But for me (and maybe Loftus doesn’t have this problem, and if not, more power to him), what I’m not sure about is whether being moral is itself morally significant. I see people suffering, I want to try and alleviate their suffering, but I struggle with the question of whether my doing so has any point, beyond the obvious one of the immediate alleviation of their suffering. Why is the alleviation of human suffering the right thing to do? If the universe is a cosmic accident (and it may very well be just that), I can’t figure out why human beings should have impetus to behave morally, other than when it helps us to preserve ourselves or our species or to make us happier in some way. When morality conflicts with self-preservation or self-gratification, I just don’t know why morality should win out.


I really don’t know. This isn’t a hypothetical or an argument for the existence of God from the undesirability of a morally absurd universe. The universe may well be completely amoral. I’m afraid it might be. And because I’m human, that troubles me. (I doubt it troubles raccoons.) That doesn’t mean I believe because I’m emotionally weak. Anyone who’s read my book will know, so it’s really no surprise, that I don’t by a longshot believe everything Christianity says is true. But the question is, when I am faced with human suffering, and I set out to alleviate that suffering, is there a point to it? Does it matter, not just in that moment, but in the long run? Does it ultimately matter whether human beings continue to exist or not? I don’t believe that it does. I don’t believe that it doesn’t. I really don’t know whether it does or not. But here’s the point: I earnestly hope that it matters; and when I act on that hope, that is, when I act as if human suffering matters, I am acting in faith. That to me is what faith is. It is action based on hope, which in turn is a direct response to profound uncertainty. If I weren’t profoundly uncertain, I couldn’t hope that our existence has a profound meaning; and if I didn’t have that hope, then I couldn’t have faith (which is action, not assent to metaphysical propositions).


So, I have faith because I really don’t know if any of this has any meaning. But I act like it does, because I hope that it does. I can’t be “wrong” (about this) because I haven’t made a claim one way or the other. And this isn’t Pascal’s Wager. Another thing I really don’t know about: I don’t know if there is a God that sends unbelievers to hell, but I hope that there isn’t. Not because I don’t want to go to hell, but because it would really suck if God turned out to be less just than most humans. I’m not talking about Pascal’s Wager. I’m simply saying that my uncertainty about the meaning of our existence goes so deep that any time I try to do what is right for right’s sake is an act of faith on my part. Maybe others (maybe Loftus) aren’t as profoundly uncertain as I am. Like I said, that’s great for them.


If somebody could show me beyond doubt that the universe is a cosmic accident and everything is ultimately meaningless, then I’ll accept that and find some way to go on, but it’ll be a different way, most likely. I’m not talking about needing a reason to live by rules. I’m not saying that if the cosmos has no meaning then I’d rather blow off my family and party till I’m dead. I’m not talking about that kind of morality. I’m talking about the very core of human endeavor itself.


It may well be that there is no meaning and that we can only create meaning for ourselves. But if that’s the case, then the best I can do is try to create the best meaning, and that’s what I’m already doing. I’m trying to find out what’s good and true and to pursue that. And I think that when it comes to such truths, the processes of “discovery” and the processes of “creativity” are virtually the same processes. All human beings can do is create their own meaning, and hope they got it right. The Bible is the product of such efforts, as are all cultural artifacts. To create meaning and believe in it is, I am convinced, what it means to be human. It’s when we refuse to acknowledge that our creativity is a response to profound uncertainty that it loses its human quality—that’s when we’re trying to be more than what we are, or rather, other than what we are. To be human is to have faith—to act on our hopes which arise consciously in response to our own ignorance and uncertainty.