ARTICLE III.
THE BIBLE

§ 9. Unitarian Christians regard the Bible as a sacred book because it brings us near to God by placing us in communion with the deepest and loftiest experiences of other humans who searched for God. Many of its authors were successful in their search and, on occasions of divine inspiration, discovered and revealed divine truths. Inspired writings are not merely the result of pure thinking, but come from a region higher than the human experience. Thus the Bible, in many ways, may be seen as a form of Divine self-disclosure. It is not the only such work, but Unitarians hold it in high esteem because it is the foundation of the Abrahamic tradition from which come Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the three great monotheistic religions.

§ 10. The Bible was inspired, not to be perfectly accurate in matters of science and history, but to teach, to reprove, to correct, and to train in righteousness. In other words, the purpose of its instruction and training is to equip us for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The Bible accomplishes this purpose perfectly. With this in mind, Unitarian Christians are keen to pay attention in the Scriptures to whatever admonitions are directed toward a universal audience and to learn from principles governing admonitions directed toward a limited or circumscribed audience.

§ 11. The respect that Unitarian Christians give to the Scriptures is a reason, they believe, for studying them with particular care and for understanding the principles of interpretation by which God’s messages, embedded within, may be uncovered. We ought to expect occasional obscurity in such a book as the Bible, which was written for past and future ages, as well as for the present. But God's wisdom is a pledge that whatever is necessary for us, and necessary for salvation, is revealed too plainly to be mistaken, and too consistently to be questioned, by a sound and upright mind.

§ 12. Although considering it, on the whole, an inspired book, Unitarians also regard the Bible as coming not only from God, but also from humans. It is full of human experience, sorrow, joy, temptation, sin, repentance, trust, hope, and love. Coming from the deepest places in the human heart, it goes to the deepest places. Written by many people and at different times, it is of various application and value. We find that many portions of the Bible, instead of being concerned with universal truths, refer specifically to the times when they were written, to the cultures, people, concerns, states of society, and patterns of thought that have passed away, and without the knowledge of which we are constantly in danger of assigning to all times and places what was of local (and temporary) application. These documents often strongly bear the mark of the persons who wrote them. That an individual’s genius and character show themselves clearly in such writings tells us that they did not compose by Divine dictation. Therefore, acquaintance with their feelings and influences is a vital preparation for understanding their works. Human language is subject to various interpretations, and every word and every sentence must be understood and explained according to the subject under discussion, according to the intentions, beliefs, circumstances, principles, and idiosyncrasies of the writer, and according to the idioms and capabilities of the language that he uses. With these views of the Bible, we feel it is our duty to exercise our reason upon it constantly, to compare, to infer, and to look beyond the words themselves to the spirit of the message itself.

§ 13. Unitarians see some variation and discrepancy in the Bible’s theology and morality, which are affected by the times and circumstances of the various writers. Beginning with the Hebrew Scriptures and progressing to and through the New Testament, the truth has unfolded itself gradually to human eyes and continues to do so. Unitarians give due regard to this phenomenon. The apostle Paul refers to the growth and development of knowledge about divine things and compares it to his own personal experience: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child; now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things” (1 Cor. 13:11). Unitarians likewise put away the childish things of former days.

§ 14. Unitarians therefore do not believe in the infallibility of the Bible, as some other Christians do. Objections to the doctrine of plenary or infallible inspiration of the Scripture are such as these:

(a) The Scriptures nowhere claim or assume infallibility. The texts usually relied on (2 Tim. 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:21) teach that the prophets and apostles were inspired, but do not assert that their inspiration made them infallible.

(b) The Bible contains errors and contradictions that are fatal to the theory of its infallibility. But if its authority consists in its being more full of truth and goodness than any other book, then its errors of detail cannot shake its divine power over the mind and heart.

(c) The apostle Paul distinctly declares the partial, provisional, and temporary nature of that which he teaches. Having said that he is inspired and led by the Spirit to know and to speak Christian truth (1 Cor. 2:10-16), he adds, in the same epistle, that all knowledge, so far as we are able to state it, is partial, relative, and incomplete, and will be done away with (1 Cor. 13:8-12). Accurate knowledge is something of the future—both for Paul and for us.

Inspiration leads to the sight of truth and reality, but not necessarily to a perfectly accurate description of what is seen. But these errors of expression do not detract from the authority of the Bible as a teacher of the best moral and spiritual truth.