The Authority of Mark

What do Christians mean when they say that the Bible is the ‘Word of God’?

All Christians believe the Bible is important. They call it ‘the word of God’, but they understand this in different ways.

Fundamentalists believe the Bible is the literal word of God. Extreme Fundamentalists believe, for example, that Adam and Eve were historical people. Fundamentalists are Protestant and often very anti-Catholic.

Liberal Protestants believe that much of the Bible is symbolic, and is not meant to be taken literally. Extreme liberals would say even the resurrection is a symbolic event.

Most non-Catholics take a point of view between these extremes. They believe that the Bible is the way God has spoken to his people, but some passages should be understood symbolically. How they understand the Bible is very important because all their religious ideas are based upon it.

The Catholic Church teaches that Christ is the Word of God, and this word is found in the Bible and in the life of the Church. This means that they understand the Bible alongside the traditions of the Church. For this reason, the argument between ‘Liberal’ and ‘Fundamentalist’ is not so important for Catholics.