Getting back to an old post of mine, let’s assume:
- The Bible is exactly as God wanted it to be
- God is omniscient
- God had/has perfect foreknowledge
What does this mean?
I think it’s an obvious fact that there are many, many different interpretations of the Bible. Whether you think any particular interpretation is right or wrong does not change the fact that it exists and someone believes it. But God, in his perfect foreknowledge and omniscience must have known that each interpretation that exists would exist. God knew that we’d be confused. And yet the Bible is exactly as he wanted it to be. Now, I’m not talking about a few fringe ideas that go against an overwhelming consensus. If you’re reading, say, The Scarlett Letter in every high school (which still reads this book) I would guess that there would be a lot of agreement on meaning and interpretation with, perhaps, a few radical ideas. Not so with the Bible!
God may be just but he doesn’t seem quite fair. He gives us this book, knowing that some of us will interpret it differently and then (according to some) punishes us when we do. Kinda like the ol’ apple in the garden, heh? Isn’t that entrapment?
So, God must have had a purpose for the ambiguity, the confusion causing verbiage. Was it to test us? Was it to weed out some of us? What possible reason could there be? Furthermore, how can any of us even pretend to have the “right” answer? So many options, so many ideas, so many opinions and the one that appeals to me just happens to be the one and only correct interpretation?
But, hey … just a thought.
I think you’re absolutely on the ball with this one. To add to this, I would postulate that perhaps God’s purpose in making the Bible fairly vague and interpretive is to keep us as humans from getting hung up on the details of the faith and religion and instead keep us questioning, open to options, and constantly evaluating answers that are presented.
I fully believe that it is one of my charges as a human to question the world around me and to develop a worldview of my own scrutiny. If I had hard-and-fast rules laid out for me in the Bible, that weren’t subject to interpretation, I very well may (if my faith was strong) use it as a rock-solid ruler against life, never varying from the guidelines presented there, never questioning the ideas.
Whereas there are many fundamentalist groups that believe making interpretations and inquiries into the, “laws of God”, is akin to spitting in the holy water, I think it only enhances our lives to have the many options and avenues open for us.
That is…as long as you don’t get hung up on the details.