Is the Bible a comprehensive moral guide?
Those who read Bible with a propositional hermeneutic, would agree that it is a comprehensive
moral guide. These Christians, typically Traditional Protestants such as Evangelical Christians, treat
scripture as the divine word of God, as suggested in Timothy “All scripture is inspired by God.” The
words come directly from the divine, In Jeremiah “The Lord said to me I have put the words in your
mouth”, and therefore cannot be questioned. This makes the Bible an infallible source of supreme
authority, in all matters of doctrine and practice. The Bible is self-authenticating and needs no
further interpretation, as emphasised in Peter, and therefore scripture alone ‘Sola scriptura’ is
required as a comprehensive moral guide. The inerrancy of this divinely written scripture means it
can be trusted to always provide the right answer, no matter the situation.
This viewpoint suggests that every word of the Bible comes directly from God. However, within Bible
there are many different styles of writing, for example the Greek in Mark’s Gospel is not very
accomplished compared to the other Gospels which appear fluent. Richard B. Hays argues that ‘sola
scriptura’ is practically untenable as interpretation of scripture can never occur in a vacuum. We
must consider the context, any possible inaccuracies or mistranslations, alternate interpretations or
contradictions elsewhere in the scripture. We must read the Bible suspiciously. He points out that
even Christians who take the Bible absolutely literally, are most likely being selective with their
passages to fit an agenda or viewpoint. If you are going to treat the Bible as a comprehensive moral
guide then you cannot ignore other sections. Deuteronomy commands us to stone to death any non-
virgins on their wedding day, and St Paul tells us that no women should have authority over a man;
so no more female bosses or political leaders. Jesus tells us to sell our possessions and give to the
poor, but as many fundamentalists still live with wealth then even the greatest believers do not want
to accept the Bible as a comprehensive moral guide.
The Bible cannot be accepted at face value and treated as entirely propositional revelation. One
passage suggests tearing out and throwing away your eye if it causes you to sin. Many of Jesus’
teachings came in the form of parables; symbolic stories with a hidden meaning, and should not be
taken as literal fact. For example, taking the Parable of the Lost Son as propositional revelation and a
real life event offers us very little moral or ethical benefit. However, when the story is interpreted
and the deeper meaning is found, treating it as non-propositional revelation, the parable offers an
important moral message of forgiveness and inner purity. This suggests that, whilst the Bible is
certainly an incredibly important moral guide, it should not be the only source of moral authority.
Roman Catholics believe that Church holds equal authority to the Bible, as the Pope and the
Magisterium are needed to interpret the true meanings within the scripture and make sense of the
teachings for our modern society. ‘Sola scriptura’, scripture alone, offers a limited moral guide
unable to reflect on modern-day ethical issues and challenges. The Bible is therefore not
comprehensive, and scripture has to be used in conjunction with other sources of authority, such as
the Catechism for Catholics, or even our God-given faculty of reason ‘ratio’ as suggested in Thomas
Aquinas’ natural law. On its own, the Bible is not enough.
Theologists such as Calvin or Augustine would worry about such alternate sources of moral
authority. In this post-lapserian age human reason is corrupted and cannot be used to make moral
decisions. We must therefore trust solely theonomous sources and use the only true, inerrable
moral guide coming directly from God in the Bible.
One could argue that the Bible fails to provide a comprehensive moral guide due to its many
contradictions and omissions. A moral guide should provide clarity but certain issues in the Bible are
unclear and conflicting. St Paul writes in his epistle to the Galatians “There is neither slave nor free,
, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.” However, Leviticus in the Old Testament clearly
explains a number of slavery laws, suggesting that there is a distinction between slave and free.
Similarly, Paul contradicts himself in his letter to the Corinthians, declaring that “Women should
remain silent”, and therefore making a clear distinction between male and female. The Bible cannot
be a comprehensive moral guide when it provides multiple viewpoints on the same issue. Another
example is Jesus Christ - commonly agreed to be divine and born from a virgin - but described clearly
as be the blood child of Joseph, in the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel. Furthermore, there are
alternate Biblical canons - such as the Muratorian canon - as well as many other Biblical texts.
Gospels of Mary, Thomas, Phillip and Judas have all been discovered in Egypt over the last few
centuries and contain previously hidden sayings and teachings from Jesus, as well as further
information about his life. However, the Church has rejected all of these texts as non-canonical and
some - such as the Gospel of Judas - were bought by the Church and their contents never released.
There would be no reason for the Roman Catholics to hide a new gospel unless it was contradictory
or changed our idea of Jesus, you would think that new information about Jesus’ ministry would be
celebrated instead of locked up. Through the exclusion of alternate Biblical texts, whose authority
has no reason to be doubted, the Bible we use fails therefore to be comprehensive as many crucial
teachings or instructions have been omitted.
The text within the UK’s King James Bible has been translated from Greek to Latin, to German, to
English. Mistranslations could explain the supposed contradictions within the Bible, so they don’t
detract from the divine nature. Furthermore, St Paul’s letters need to be read within their context -
as letters to individual communities. Perhaps Paul visited the Corinthians and a group of unruly
women chattered throughout the service, causing him to write what he did. This is not convincing to
defend a fully propositional view of the Bible, but maintains a degree of authority if you appreciate
these letters in context. Furthermore, any additional biblical texts may well be fraudulent or
irrelevant. Even if they were true, this shouldn’t detract from the authority of the main canon. A film
or book can tell a whole story, even if you ignore its prequels or sequels.
One could question if the Bible holds any moral authority at all. The earliest gospel, Mark, was
written around 70 AD, 40 years after Jesus’ death when life-expectancy was only 30 at the time. The
final Gospel, John, was written around 100 AD, around three generations after Jesus was alive. The
Bible cannot hold divine authority when the authors never encountered the divine in their lifetimes.
The Book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible, was written on an island off the coast of Turkey
in around 95 AD. Not only did the author have no first-hand experience of Jesus, but also lived in an
entirely different part of the world to where Jesus’ ministry took place. The legitimacy of such a
script is therefore put into question. Even if the key ideas did come from Jesus, they would likely
have been elaborated or distorted as they were passed down through the centuries. The formation
of the Biblical canon as we know it is attributed to the First Council of Nicaea in the 3 rd century, and
it was not until the 5th century that a basic agreement on biblical canon was made by all churches.
For hundreds of years key ideas about Jesus’ life were debated and changed and it was only in
Nicaea, in the third century, that contentious issues such as Jesus’ divinity and Mary’s virgin nature
were determined. Pessimistically, but logically, there seems too far of a disconnect between Jesus’
life and the completion of the Biblical Canon to give the scripture weight; it is unlikely that any
passage accurately captures Jesus verbatim. It seems the moral authority of the Bible was created by
numerous writers over hundreds of years, rather than coming directly from God.
Karl Barth agrees that literalism is dangerous as it falsely gives the Bible divine status; the words of
the Bible have gone through many types of writers and translations. However, one could argue that
these secondary sources, the Gospels for example, are collections of thousands of other smaller
