"Interestingly,
he [Augustine] says that because true knowledge of God is held internally in the human
person, the scripture is only a tool that God uses to stir up that truth within
individual human beings and scripture is, therefore, theoretically unnecessary
if God decides to reveal Godself directly to a person’s ‘heart’.
Book 3
suggests strategies for interpreting ambiguous passages in scripture: it’s not
rocket science really, but it’s surprising how much we need to be reminded of
these simple strategies when we encounter confusion in our understanding of the
bible. First and foremost, Augustine argues, we must work out what is
figurative and what is literal. Common sense says that if the text is
nonsense when taken literally, then it must be figurative. The rule of
faith suggests that if all knowledge helps us to love God and our neighbour –
if a text taken literally cannot lead us into love, then it must be
figurative! If the text still doesn’t make sense, then we look at
context, including the immediate context of the passage within it’s text, the
whole canonical context, and the context of ourselves as reader.
Ultimately, there is nothing in scripture which does not lead towards the
double love of God and neighbour, so that is the ultimate standard by which all
interpretations must abide, for love is the telos, the goal of scripture, just as love is the goal of
everything God does, is and communicates to God’s creation!"
