The Significance of the Bible for Christian Theology Essay

The Significance of the countersign for Christian Theology - Essay Example in that location are several undertakees to the authority of the Scripture, with most of them being inadequate. One supposition states that every word in the Scripture is inspired by God. That is a very rigid view that leads to many mistakes and claims of Scripture being inerrant at all instances. This doctrine of the authority of Scripture receives much criticism in this modern day and ultimately turns Scriptures authority into authoritarianism. Another approach to the Bible as to the historical source also proves to be faulty as, alongside with the benefits it yields it also diverts the attention to factuality and separates the literary form from the reckoning of the text. There is also an approach to the Bible as a literary classic. It might be beneficial to have this approach to introduce Bible to otherwise lascivious group of students, but it hardly generates deep interest in it or, what more, introd uces spiritual principle to abide by. Approach to the Bible as to a private pious text helps to have a personal application of the Scripture, but it tends to put less emphasis on the common and universal. Other theological approach to the Bible is studying it from a viewpoint of it being the enunciate of God, which also puts certain limitation. God does not have limitations, but the language always has nearly limitations of expression. Also, language evolves with time and words meaning change too, thus proving that language itself cannot be attributed to God, Who is infinite and full of possibilities. (Schneider, 1991, p. 205). Approaching the sacred scripture of God only as metaphoric expression, although it is a root and a complex metaphor, includes many meanings such as Gods symbolic self-disclosure, sharing of life and His divine renunciative (Schneider, 1991, p. 216). God has to use symbols for the metaphor. Sneider argues that even from the very ancient times God used sym bolic self-disclosure through nature. For Israelites Gods Word became a mean of communication between them and God, and made a highly original advance in symbolic interpretation by understanding their own history as the story of the relationship between themselves and God (Schneider, 1991, p. 215). They viewed Jesus as full and divine revelation of God (Schneider, 1991, p. 216). From the point of view of Gods Word being metaphoric, the Bible is a symbolic witness of the divine self-gift, and is potentially revelatory. When referring to the Word of God, the reference is usually made to the written word in the Bible, which is dumb as the physical object (the book) as well as the text and the message contained therein. The Bible is considered a sacramental object, which at times, leads to distortions such as a temptation to view such objects as magic, taking it out of context or a temptation is to create an idol out it. In actuality, the Word of God is only sacramental when the biblic al text is read and interpreted, and that creates the possibility of revelation (Schneider, 1991, p. 220). The Scripture is the unique and sacred book. Another author argues that Gospels assort us about nature of Scriptures authority and means by which God exerts it, which is the word. The authority of the Scripture therefore equals to the authority of God himself. Its break is didactic - to give the knowledge about God and to lead readers and those who will