I believe in inerrancy, which sometimes means literalism, but sometimes doesn't, because it comes down to intent. The Bible isn't a science textbook, so there's room for allegory and hyperbole, but it can only go so far, so some issues, like "was there a real Adam and Eve", or "was there a flood that wiped out all of humanity except Noah and friends" would, in my view, cross that boundary, and so I do believe they happened.
Underneath this worldview are presuppositions about the nature of reality. Christians believe in a natural order - that the world works in a certain way - and that God created it that way and sustains it. But that doesn't rule out God's ability to interfere with his creation. Since, in the Christian understanding, such events are unusual, they aren't discoverable via Science.
So Christianity is anti-scientific only if you believe the only real knowledge is scientific knowledge (logical positivism). There are serious philosophical problems when it comes to this worldview, even if you're not religious. (It doesn't do a particularly good job of explaining science itself for example)
I highly recommend "Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism" by Alvin Plantinga for a serious philosophical approach to this problem.
As to your second point about morality. I actually agree with you. In my view the Bible is not really about morality, in the sense of a bunch of rules and guidance for life, but rather the Bible presents a grand narrative about the nature of the world we live in:
- We were born good and free but Adam and Eve through their sin brought ruin and death to all creation and drove a wedge between us and God.
- Not satisfied to see us destroyed, God came up with a plan to save us instead.
- That plan starts with Abraham and the nation of Israel, but is all intended as a foretaste of the ultimate fulfillment to be found in Christ.
- Christ, as the second Adam, pays the penalty for Sin, thus allowing the severed relationship with God to be re-established, and freeing humanity from the power of sin and death
- Christians live near the end of this story, in the "already" and "not yet" before Christ comes again
So morality is important, but not so much for the rules, but for what it tells us about God. In the Protestant tradition, the purpose of the law is in 3 parts: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_Gospel)
1. "[W]hile it shows God's righteousness . . . , it warns, informs, convicts, and lastly condemns, every man of his own unrighteousness" (2.7.6).
2. It functions "by fear of punishment to restrain certain men who are untouched by any care for what is just and right unless compelled by hearing the dire threats in the law" (2.7.10).
3. "It admonishes believers and urges them on in well-doing" (2.7.12-13).
And its that first part which is so vital. The laws exist to show how sinful we are and why we need a savior.
I have a much more liberal style, I suppose. I don't really look at Adam and Eve or the Flood as stories which are literally historical events. A question for you: the Bible contains multiple, divergent descriptions of the same events in places (or at least that's how I would see them). How do you reconcile these? Or is that not a problem for the framework you're describing?
Yes it could present a problem. It really depends on the what's being discussed... I have found that there's often much more going on in a text than there might at first appear. A list of things that often trip up interpretation:
- subtleties in language that don't translate well
- not catching hyperbole or idioms (like know=sex or foot=penis)
- genre confusion (is revelation apocalyptic poetry or literal history)
- expecting too much precision from a text (is 40 days actually 40 days?)
- similar, bringing my cultural assumptions about the nature of the text... graphocentrism applied to an oral culture, reading into it guilt instead of seeing honor and shame, expecting word-for-word quotes, when in the ancient world historians had different standards, etc
- not paying close attention to the literary quality of the text (information is carefully chosen and presented by the author, not haphazardly thrown together, and to really understand the text you have to dig deep)
- one that's really hit home for me recently: there are typological dimensions to the text... events are shaped by what the author is trying to tell you. For example the beginning of John is full of temple imagery and language which is arguing for a deeper meaning to the purpose of the Old Testament and how its fulfilled in Christ. Events would likely look very different from how they're presented if you were a casual observer.
It might look like adding all these things together doesn't look an awful lot like inerrancy, but at least my goal is to try and find out what the text is really saying, and once I feel like I figured that out, then I'll take it quite seriously, even if its hard...
I believe in inerrancy, which sometimes means literalism, but sometimes doesn't, because it comes down to intent. The Bible isn't a science textbook, so there's room for allegory and hyperbole, but it can only go so far, so some issues, like "was there a real Adam and Eve", or "was there a flood that wiped out all of humanity except Noah and friends" would, in my view, cross that boundary, and so I do believe they happened.
Underneath this worldview are presuppositions about the nature of reality. Christians believe in a natural order - that the world works in a certain way - and that God created it that way and sustains it. But that doesn't rule out God's ability to interfere with his creation. Since, in the Christian understanding, such events are unusual, they aren't discoverable via Science.
So Christianity is anti-scientific only if you believe the only real knowledge is scientific knowledge (logical positivism). There are serious philosophical problems when it comes to this worldview, even if you're not religious. (It doesn't do a particularly good job of explaining science itself for example)
I highly recommend "Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism" by Alvin Plantinga for a serious philosophical approach to this problem.
As to your second point about morality. I actually agree with you. In my view the Bible is not really about morality, in the sense of a bunch of rules and guidance for life, but rather the Bible presents a grand narrative about the nature of the world we live in:
- We were born good and free but Adam and Eve through their sin brought ruin and death to all creation and drove a wedge between us and God. - Not satisfied to see us destroyed, God came up with a plan to save us instead. - That plan starts with Abraham and the nation of Israel, but is all intended as a foretaste of the ultimate fulfillment to be found in Christ. - Christ, as the second Adam, pays the penalty for Sin, thus allowing the severed relationship with God to be re-established, and freeing humanity from the power of sin and death - Christians live near the end of this story, in the "already" and "not yet" before Christ comes again
So morality is important, but not so much for the rules, but for what it tells us about God. In the Protestant tradition, the purpose of the law is in 3 parts: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_Gospel)
1. "[W]hile it shows God's righteousness . . . , it warns, informs, convicts, and lastly condemns, every man of his own unrighteousness" (2.7.6). 2. It functions "by fear of punishment to restrain certain men who are untouched by any care for what is just and right unless compelled by hearing the dire threats in the law" (2.7.10). 3. "It admonishes believers and urges them on in well-doing" (2.7.12-13).
And its that first part which is so vital. The laws exist to show how sinful we are and why we need a savior.