1. Why Questioning the Bible Makes People Anxious: The Underlying Big Question A poetic statement of the Big Question: We who must die demand a miracle. How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become finite fact? Nothing can save us that is possible: We who must die demand a miracle. —W. H. Auden, “For the Time Being,” in Collected Poems, ed. by Edward Mendelson ( New York: Vintage International, 1991), p. 353 (originally published in 1942).

2. We are finite, fallible and conflicted. And yet simply to know this is to imagine more than just this. And so we wonder: Can we be involved with any reality that is not finite, not fallible, not conflicted?

3. Most religious/spiritual/faithful people all over the globe say we can be and are so involved (though you never know how a Buddhist might answer). In fact, this is one way we recognize people as religious, spiritual, faithful, etc. They affirm, in other words, that: the finite can be, and is, involved with the infinite, the fallible can be, and is, involved with the infallible, the conflicted can be, and is, involved with the unconflicted. Ezekiel’s Vision (Ezekiel 1:4-28)

4. If they are right, then the next question is, “Where and how”? This is where things get perplexing. But what else can we expect? People are trying to affirm their involvement with a reality that: is exceedingly different from anything else we know, even if known, remains beyond our, or their, control (and in that sense incomprehensible).

5. Most religious (etc.) people affirm that we are in some way involved with this reality everywhere, at any time. Most religious (etc.) people affirm that certain places, times, people, utterances and things are more helpful to our involvement than others. They do not agree on exactly which of these is most helpful, except that they usually say, “Well, ours, of course.” Some say, “Ours, and no others can even come close.” Others say, “Ours, though at least some others can come close.” Still others say, “Ours, though at least some others might even overlap.”

6. These places, times, people, utterances or things are then considered holy or, if you remember Dana Carvey’s Church Lady, “special.” Does their being special mean that they are no longer finite, fallible or conflicted? Mt. Sinai: Holy Ground or Tourist Attraction? You be the judge.

7. This is where things can get perplexing again. This is where people try to answer the question, “How”? There is even less agreement about the How than there is about the Where. Some people insist that, at least sometimes, this “specialness” cancels out finitude, fallibility and “conflictedness” (or at least the last two), because otherwise, they believe, it would leave us as we are. Others insist that it cannot do this, as that would make it inaccessible to us, and thus of no help, as long as we remain finite, fallible and conflicted ourselves.

8. Christians who insist on the inerrancy or infallibility of some person or council or book belong to the former group. Christians who deny any or all of this belong to the latter group—but they most definitely do not see themselves as “secular humanists.” Either side finds it difficult to comprehend the other, or to take it seriously, as to do so would seem unfaithful. Where one comes down on this question may be related to another How question, namely, of where the responsibility for our involvement lies—if we are not solely responsible, then maybe our finitude, etc., does not have to be canceled out. “… They were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Although everyone is a liar, let God be proved true” (Romans 3:2b-4a). Issues like these are probably too big to be settled by a college course, or by a neatly arranged argument. But it may be possible to gain a better appreciation of why questions like these (Where and How) can be so perplexing. What else can we expect?

9. Remember Auden’s question: “How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become finite fact?” We are neither eternal nor infinite, but we wonder about both anyway. In fact, it’s a bit of a “miracle” that we can even wonder about that: How could the temporal even imagine the eternal, the finite the infinite? (If we know we are finite, fallible and confused, aren’t we in some way already “beyond” that condition?) If these questions make any sense at all, it’s not the kind of “controllable” sense we prefer to make. If that’s not a miracle, it’s at least a mystery. And that goes double for any proposed answers: maybe some of them make some sense, but it won’t be the kind of “controllable” sense we prefer to make—another mystery. So thinking about this honestly is bound to make people anxious, especially if they have control issues. We who must die demand a miracle. How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become finite fact? Nothing can save us that is possible: We who must die demand a miracle.