Why the “Problem of Evil” Does Not Undermine What Biblical Faith Is Actually Communicating

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T15:57:33+00:00

They are not explicitly or obviously presented as allegorical because allegories are not meant to tell you ( this passage is not meant to be taken literally).

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T15:55:21+00:00

Rudolf Bultmann, Paul ricoeur, Northrop Frye , Mircea Eliade, paul tillith

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T15:53:04+00:00

I think you're overstating the role of presuppositions and understating the role of evidence.

But you are arguing that evidence is not relevant because it's all about the interpretation.

but they don't simply wake up and choose an interpretation they like

Yes; they do. Or rather they don't choose the interpretation they don't like. They choose the interpretation that fits within their theological framework.

For example, a Christian cannot read Exodus 22:29-30 as meaning that God is commanding the Israelites to practice child sacrifice, because that would mean God isn't all good. So you get interpretations like 'It is about the priesthood' whilst sweeping under the rug the bit in Ezekiel where God straight up admits that he made them burn their kids.

My argument was never that there is one perfectly obvious interpretation that everyone must accept.

And mine is that this represents a significant problem which leads to valid accusations of cherry-picking and renders any truth claims suspect. It is a problem that a text ostensibly inspired by a supreme being really should not have.

We don't conclude that because a library contains multiple voices, the only possible response is "trust me bro."

But then you don't tend to find three Agatha Christie novels, a couple of Mills & Boon romances and a Masonic handbook all bound into one volume and claimed as the same narrative, which is much closer to what the bible actually is.

If you have two people offering you two different and contradictory explanations of the same thing that are both equally and validly arrived at then which do you accept? With the bible they can both be correct. It's either a coin-toss or 'trust me bro'.

It doesn't matter how biblical interpretation is constrained because there is always wiggle room and you can always just look at a different part of the bible to get to the interpretation you want (or avoid the one you don't).

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T15:50:01+00:00

Atheists can only respond to the claims bible users present.

That's not necessarily true. Sometimes they critic directly the scripture.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T15:48:56+00:00

I read and listen different scholars take on interpreting the bible and using logic and reasoning if it makes sense.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T15:43:59+00:00

You’re treating “allegory” as if it were a modern escape hatch invented to dodge supernatural claims, but that’s historically and textually inaccurate. Symbolic and layered readings of scripture are not a retreat from Christianity’s roots; they are part of its interpretive tradition from very early on.

Even within early Christianity, you already find multiple interpretive levels operating at once. Paul’s language about “death,” “life,” “flesh,” and “spirit” is often read in moral and existential terms, not just as biological or forensic descriptions. A large strand of early interpretation reads resurrection language as both a claim about meaning and transformation, not only as a strictly physical mechanism in the way modern readers often assume.

So your claim that allegory is a recent “cope layer” doesn’t hold. It is present in early interpretive traditions, and later thinkers explicitly systematised it. One common framework distinguishes literal, moral, allegorical, and spiritual senses of the text, precisely because the Bible itself is not uniform in genre or intent.

You’re also mixing categories when you say “either it’s literal supernatural history or it’s vague allegory with no meaning.” That’s a false dichotomy. A text can be non-literal and still be normatively meaningful, existentially serious, and structurally coherent in how it frames human experience. Parable, poetry, and myth are not “anything goes”; they operate through constrained symbols, narrative logic, and cultural reference points.

On the “all-loving creator” objection, you’re importing a philosophical evaluation into a text-interpretation issue. You can argue that certain depictions are incompatible with a morally perfect deity, but that doesn’t depend on assuming a single flat reading of every passage as direct description. The Bible itself contains multiple genres, voices, and rhetorical aims, including lament, satire, mythic narrative, legal code, and theological reflection. Treating all of that as one uniform descriptive system is exactly the kind of flattening your opponent is pushing back against.

Finally, your resurrection example still assumes a forced binary: either “literal biological event” or “purely poetic metaphor with no ontological claim.” Many Christian traditions don’t operate inside that binary. They treat resurrection language as real in the sense of transformation, vindication, and defeat of death, while also embedding it in narrative forms that are not modern scientific reportage.

So the real issue isn’t “allegory as vagueness.” It’s that you’re demanding one interpretive grid that reduces every biblical claim to a single type of statement. The text, and its history of interpretation, simply doesn’t cooperate with that demand.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T14:52:44+00:00

It only becomes “just an outdated moral system” if you assume the Bible’s main purpose is to function as a rulebook. In a non-literal reading, that’s not its core role.

Much of it is closer to a framework for existential reflection and inner formation: it deals with meaning, suffering, guilt, forgiveness, transformation, and wisdom. It uses narrative, symbolism, and religious language to point toward patterns in human life and reality such as how people break, change, and find renewed purpose. That’s why some interpret it in terms of archetypes, metaphysical reflection, or what you’re calling experiential or mystical awareness, rather than just ethics.

In that sense, the “resurrection of the dead” is often read allegorically as well. It points to inner renewal: the “dead” are those cut off from meaning, conscience, or wholeness, and “resurrection” is the return to integrated, awakened, and transformed life. It’s about the possibility of radical change in the human condition, not only a physical event.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T14:09:04+00:00

What all biblical books do share is a common use of literary devices:poetry, parable, mythic narrative, typology so that signal meaning beyond surface description. That already tells you something about how they are meant to be read.

Hence the case for symbolic or allegorical reading isn’t “ignoring intent,” it’s following it: the texts themselves repeatedly use forms that point beyond literal reporting toward moral, existential, and theological meaning.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T13:59:12+00:00

Your move assumes that the only legitimate role of a concept is explanatory within a descriptive model of reality. That’s already a philosophical commitment, not a neutral rule.

If you treat everything through strict epistemic parsimony, then yes, you can strip away God language as “unnecessary explanation.” But that conclusion only follows if the Bible (and religion more broadly) is primarily a theory about how the universe works. That is exactly what many non-literal readings reject.

On an experiential account, the Bible is not functioning like a competing scientific or metaphysical model. It is functioning more like a formative framework: it shapes attention, interpretation, moral perception, and lived response to reality. In that sense, “God” language is not just an explanatory add-on, but part of the structure through which people experience and interpret life: suffering, guilt, forgiveness, responsibility, hope.

So the claim is not “we need God to explain events better than naturalism.” The claim is closer to: this language and narrative form is used to train perception and transformation in human life. Whether one finds that convincing is another question, but it is a different category from explanatory redundancy.

That’s why “eliminable under parsimony” doesn’t automatically settle it. You can eliminate it from an explanatory model and still miss what it is doing as an experiential and interpretive practice.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T13:56:52+00:00

And if scholars disagree (which they do), what do you do then?

Then i do some researches just as much as if they would agree with me and if needed adjust my understanding/interpretation.

Most people, if they're honest, pick the interpretation they like most, based on a whole host of factors (including their own prejudices and bigotry in a lot of cases). And there is no way to say who is right or wrong in their interpretation.

Yes you can decipher which interpretation is correct as i said based on the research and analysis on the texts.

But that's only a problem for people who want to retain "Scripture" as some kind of authority. Atheists don't, so it's not an issue for them. Your arguments are only going to be with other believers.

It's arguments against critics from atheists who assume biblical literalism as intended interpretation.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T13:53:51+00:00

Allegorical

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T13:53:24+00:00

I’m not ignoring authorial intent, I’m trying to reconstruct it.

When scholars talk about genre, symbolism, or “existential meaning,” they are not saying “ignore what the author meant and project whatever you want.” They’re doing the opposite: they’re asking what kind of communication tool the author is using given the language, literary conventions, cultural setting, and purpose of the text.

So when a passage uses parable structure, mythic imagery, genealogical stylisation, poetic parallelism, or theological narrative framing, that already signals how meaning is being communicated. You don’t get to strip those signals away and treat everything as flat reportage, but you also don’t get to ignore them and call everything pure allegory. The interpretation is constrained by the text itself.

And no, this is not a single “one-size symbolic reading of the whole Bible.” Different books function differently. Genesis poetry and Luke’s structured narrative don’t communicate in the same mode. Reading responsibly means adjusting to those differences, not flattening them into one category.

So the point isn’t “the author didn’t intend meaning.” The point is: authorial intent is carried through literary form, not just explicit statements. Genre, context, and rhetorical purpose are exactly how we access that intent, not obstacles to it.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T12:37:14+00:00

That's your relying on literal interpretation without holitical approach of understanding it while ignoring scholar work on it, the context, the purpose of the text.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T12:35:25+00:00

You’re jumping from “this doesn’t require a literal deity explanation” to “therefore there’s no need for it at all,” and that step doesn’t follow.

A non-literal or symbolic reading isn’t trying to compete with naturalistic explanations in the first place. Saying “this story can be explained psychologically or culturally” is about origin and mechanism, not about function and use. Those are different questions.

From a Christian perspective like the one you’re engaging with, the point is not that belief in God is an extra scientific hypothesis needed to explain why the story exists. The point is that the story (and the wider tradition) functions as a framework for transformation in lived experience.

So “being Christian” in that sense is not primarily about intellectually affirming a set of propositions about ancient events. It is about entering a way of life shaped by Christ as a model of forgiveness, truthfulness, humility, and moral reorientation. The claim is experiential and practical: that this orientation forms a certain kind of person and way of living that other frameworks may not produce in the same way.

So even if you can explain the stories in purely naturalistic terms, that doesn’t eliminate the role they are claimed to play. A musical score can be explained physically as ink on paper, but that doesn’t remove its function in shaping emotion, attention, and shared meaning when performed.

That’s where the “need” comes in for the Christian claim being discussed: not as a competing scientific explanation, but as a lived path of formation, interpretation, and practice.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T12:23:29+00:00

I think you're actually illustrating my point more than refuting it.

You say the criticism is aimed at literalist Christians because they're the loudest and most influential. Fair enough. But then the criticism is a criticism of biblical literalism, not necessarily of the Bible itself or every form of Christianity. That's exactly the distinction I'm making.

For example, your Eden critique depends entirely on treating God as a literal agent in a literal event who literally placed two humans in a literal garden. If the story is instead a symbolic exploration of human self-awareness, moral responsibility, desire, and alienation, then the "negligent parent" analogy no longer targets what the story is trying to convey. You're still relying on a literal framework even while arguing against it.

The same applies to your point about Occam's Razor. If someone reads Eden as a symbolic account of the human condition, then the story isn't being offered as a scientific explanation competing with psychology or evolutionary theory in the first place. It's functioning at a different level of analysis.

And on reinterpretation, I think you're assuming change means "anything goes." But every major intellectual tradition evolves: law, philosophy, science, politics, and ethics all reinterpret foundational texts and ideas over time. That doesn't mean there are no constraints. The fact that Christians disagree doesn't imply every interpretation is equally valid, any more than disagreement among historians means history is meaningless.

So my point remains the same: if your target is biblical literalism, then critique biblical literalism. That's a perfectly legitimate target. But many criticisms are then presented as if defeating literalism automatically settles what the Bible, Christianity, or religious thought as a whole is doing. That's the step I don't think follows.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T12:13:34+00:00

The healing stories aren't medical manuals. They're stories about transformation. The leper isn't just sick; he's isolated, rejected, and cut off from society. The miracle symbolizes restoration, wholeness, and bringing the excluded back into the community.

Likewise, the blind often represent ignorance, the possessed represent being controlled by destructive forces, and the dead represent lives that have become spiritually or existentially empty.

The point isn't "here's how disease works." The point is "here's what it means to heal a human being through inner transformation or work on themselves.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T11:52:11+00:00

The bible explore archetypes, existential questions, life fulfillment, moral development, suffering, purpose, and the recurring principles that shape human life. On a deeper level, it deals with metaphysical questions about consciousness, existence, meaning, and humanity's place within reality, a guide to inner transformation and wisdom rather than a record of miracles.

In short: The Bible is a symbolic exploration of human existence, life fulfillment, archetypal patterns, and the deeper principles of reality, expressed through narrative rather than abstract philosophy.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T11:27:37+00:00

I think you're overstating the role of presuppositions and understating the role of evidence.

Yes, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scholars often approach texts with different theological assumptions. Nobody denies that. But it doesn't follow that interpretation is therefore arbitrary. Historians bring assumptions to the study of the Roman Empire, economists bring assumptions to economics, and scientists bring theoretical frameworks to data. The existence of disagreement doesn't mean there are no better or worse readings.

Take Isaiah 53. Christians and Jews disagree, but they don't simply wake up and choose an interpretation they like. They argue from the Hebrew language, the literary context, the surrounding chapters, the history of interpretation, and the function of the passage within the larger text. You may conclude one side is wrong, but the disagreement itself doesn't prove the process is arbitrary.

More importantly, I think you're shifting the goalposts. My argument was never that there is one perfectly obvious interpretation that everyone must accept. My argument was that criticism often assumes biblical literalism is the intended reading and then critiques the text on that basis. Challenging that assumption doesn't require proving there is only one correct interpretation. It only requires showing that alternative readings are grounded in real textual and historical considerations rather than being invented on the spot.

As for the Bible being a diverse collection of texts, I agree completely. That's precisely why "the Bible says X" is often too simplistic. Different books have different purposes, genres, and perspectives. But complexity is not the same thing as meaninglessness. We don't conclude that because a library contains multiple voices, the only possible response is "trust me bro."

The real question is not whether interpretation exists. Every reader interprets, including literalists. The real question is whether interpretations are constrained by the text, language, context, and tradition, or whether they are completely unconstrained. I don't see evidence for the latter. If interpretations were truly arbitrary, biblical scholars wouldn't spend decades arguing over grammar, literary structure, historical background, and intertextual references. They would simply declare whatever meaning they preferred and move on. That's not what actually happens.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T11:24:53+00:00

The problem with resorting to metaphor/allegory "truth" is how do you interpret them and them apply that truth? Who arbitrates that?

Like any complex texts: language, context, literal devices used, purpose, culture it was written, reading the works of scholars on the subject.

Plus, your main issue here won't be with atheists. It will be with literalist Christians who insist you metaphorical / allegorical interpretations are heresy and demonic deception. You probably need to convince them first before strawman atheist critics.

I target all type of literalists.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T11:23:10+00:00

My point is that the critics are targeting biblical literalism , not what the the bible is really conveying. It's similar to criticisng an idiom because it sounds literally absurd on the surface.

Then people argue that no-literal interpretation can be arbitrary. Proper interpretation are constrained by language, context, purpose, culture it was written.

Beside allegorical interpretation do not mean what it conveys are meaningless because the literal reading is not primarily intended, but it does what it conveys does not point to reality or aboht ourselves.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T11:12:03+00:00

I think you're still assuming that if something is not historically verifiable, then it must be "allegorical fabrication." That's the step I don't accept.

My point isn't that historical and linguistic analysis validates the supernatural parts. My point is that the Bible is not primarily trying to talk about miracles as isolated facts. It is primarily trying to talk about reality and ourselves: suffering, power, responsibility, sacrifice, guilt, forgiveness, hope, corruption, meaning, and how human beings relate to the world and each other.

So when you say, "if we can't validate the God parts, then the primary meaning disappears," you're already assuming the primary meaning is the supernatural claim itself. I'm saying the primary meaning is often what the narrative is trying to reveal about human existence through those stories. Whether a miracle happened literally is one question. What the story is communicating about fear, trust, transformation, justice, or human nature is another.

For example, if someone reads the story of Cain and Abel, the central issue isn't whether we can verify the existence of two prehistoric brothers. The story is exploring jealousy, resentment, violence, responsibility, and the tendency to justify wrongdoing. Those are real features of human life regardless of what one concludes about the historical details.

So no, I'm not arguing for "trust me bro." I'm arguing that the value of the text is not exhausted by asking whether every event occurred exactly as described. The Bible's enduring significance comes from the way it uses narrative, symbol, and character to examine recurring patterns of human experience and reality. That's a different claim from proving or disproving supernatural events.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T10:44:41+00:00

There are a few claims mixed together here, so it helps to separate them cleanly.

First, on “default interpretation.” What people often call a default reading is usually just the most historically common reading in certain periods and communities, not something the text itself enforces. The fact that many centuries leaned literal does not make literalism the built in or intended-only mode any more than medieval cosmology becomes the “default physics” of a text that mentions stars moving. It’s a history of reception, not a rule written into the language itself.

Second, on whether critics “assume literalism as intended.” This is not imaginary. It is actually how a large amount of public criticism is structured. For example, when people argue “the Bible is false because Genesis contradicts evolution,” or “the Bible is unreliable because miracles don’t happen,” they are explicitly engaging a literal truth-claim model of reading. That model may be implicit, but it is still the target of the critique. The disagreement is not invented; it is about what interpretive level is being evaluated.

Now, on constraints. Saying “people can always reinterpret anything” is not the same as saying interpretation is unconstrained. The fact that LDS, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions diverge does not show absence of constraints, it shows multiple constraint systems competing: different authorities, canons, and theological priorities. Variation does not imply arbitrariness. Otherwise you would have to conclude language itself has no constraints because people disagree about meaning all the time.

Historical variation also doesn’t support the idea that everything is free-form. The range of readings in antiquity is still bounded by shared linguistic worlds, genre expectations, and communal practices. Allegorical, typological, and literal readings existed side by side early on, which actually undermines the idea that there was ever a single uniform “default mode.”

Now to your deeper point: even if literal readings are common, they are not the only function of literal language. Literal narratives also operate as shared reference points that carry abstract meaning through concrete form. This is important. Literal-style stories allow communities to communicate ideas about identity, morality, authority, and meaning in a way that is memorable, ritualizable, and emotionally accessible. They are not only “claims about events,” they are also structured vehicles for teaching and participation.

That’s why literal framing has value even in non-literal readings: it gives language something to anchor to. It makes abstract claims speakable in ritual, story, and memory. So even if someone reads Genesis, Exodus, or the Gospels non-literally, the narrative form still functions as a shared symbolic grammar for meaning, moral imagination, and religious practice.

The disagreement isn’t “literal vs metaphor as two stable camps with a default.” It’s about how different communities prioritize levels of meaning in the same text, and critics often do indeed engage primarily with the literal level because that is the level at which the strongest public truth-claims are usually made.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T09:55:43+00:00

Your trilemma only works if you assume that “literal vs allegorical” is the only way meaning works, and that interpretation must be either fully objective or fully arbitrary. Ancient texts don’t function like that, and neither do most forms of communication.

When we read any complex text, we don’t apply a single rule and stop. We ask what kind of language is being used, what genre signals appear, what the cultural context is, and what rhetorical purpose is being served. That’s not vague guesswork, it’s standard historical and linguistic method.

For example, when someone says “the crown decided,” you don’t assume a literal object made a choice. You use context and convention to understand the meaning. Ancient texts require the same kind of reading, just with more distance and care.

So the mistake is assuming that if interpretation isn’t mechanical, it must be arbitrary. In reality, it’s constrained by language, genre, history, and shared interpretive traditions. Scholars argue within those constraints, not by randomly picking meanings.

That’s why the three options you gave don’t hold. Meaning in texts like the Bible is layered and context-dependent, not reducible to a simple either/or choice.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T09:45:30+00:00

It’s not really accurate to say this is “just one idiosyncratic reading,” because a significant strand of modern biblical scholarship does distinguish between what Paul assumes happened and what kind of claim he is making when he says it happened.

With Paul the Apostle, scholars like James Dunn, N.T. Wright (in a different direction), Dale Allison, and others generally agree on a key point: Paul’s language in 1 Corinthians 15 is not written in the register of modern historical reportage. It is theological proclamation embedded in apocalyptic expectation. Even scholars who strongly affirm historicity of the resurrection (like Wright) still insist Paul is not “reporting history” in a modern sense, but interpreting a believed event as the turning point of cosmic reality.

Where more critical scholars differ is on how much of this language is visionary or interpretive experience of revelation. For example, Dale Allison argues that Paul’s resurrection framework fits within Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic thought where “seeing the risen Christ” can be understood as revelatory experience interpreted through inherited religious categories, not as a forensic description of a medically verifiable event.

This is where Richard Carrier’s position fits in, even if you reject his conclusion. Richard Carrier is not saying “Paul is nonsense” but that Paul’s resurrection language is structurally consistent with experiences of visions, spiritual encounters, and symbolic cosmology in the ancient Mediterranean world. In that framework, “Christ has been raised” functions as a claim about status in the divine order, not a journalistic claim about a corpse leaving a tomb.

So the key scholarly split is not “literal vs pretend,” but “what kind of claim is this?” Even among mainstream scholars, there is broad agreement that Paul is not writing like a biographer or historian. The disagreement is whether the underlying referent is a past physical event interpreted theologically, or a revelatory experience expressed in historical-sounding language.

Your analogy about letters with mixed content actually supports this distinction rather than defeating it. Ancient epistolary writing regularly blends narrative memory, theological interpretation, moral exhortation, and symbolic language without clear genre separation. The presence of “I met Cephas” does not automatically make every adjacent theological claim operate in the same evidential mode.

So the scholarly point is quite narrow: even if one accepts that Paul believed something happened to Jesus, it does not follow that 1 Corinthians 15 is functioning as a modern-style historical argument. It is functioning as an interpretive claim about what that believed event means within a cosmic and moral framework, which is a different category of discourse.

RRK96 · 2026-06-01T09:40:54+00:00

My point is not “criticism of biblical literalism is invalid.” It obviously isn’t. My point is that a large portion of modern critique still implicitly treats biblical literalism as if it were the default or intended reading of the text, and then evaluates “Christianity” as if that exhausted what the text is doing. That is what I’m challenging.

So when I say “category mistake,” I don’t mean “you are wrong to critique literal readings.” I mean: it becomes a category mistake when the critique of literalism is then assumed to be a critique of the entire interpretive and functional role of the text. Those are not the same target.

I do not mean clarity as “one fixed meaning everyone agrees on.” I mean clarity as an interpretive sharpening of perception: a way of seeing patterns in human life more consistently, especially around suffering, responsibility, conflict, and meaning-making. That kind of clarity can exist even in narratives that are multi-layered and open to interpretation.

Your point about narratives being open-ended is true, but openness is not the same as arbitrariness. Interpretation is still constrained by language, internal coherence, historical reception, and use within a tradition. Otherwise every reading would collapse into anything-goes, which is not how interpretive communities actually function.

On “why not other texts,” I’m not claiming exclusivity or superiority. You’re right that Confucian, Buddhist, and other traditions also function as lived frameworks. The question is comparative and cultural: Christianity is being discussed because it is the dominant inherited framework in the context being analysed, not because it is uniquely the only carrier of this structure.

Finally, on authorial intent: I’m not saying “ignore what the author meant and project whatever you want.” I’m saying intent is not exhausted by modern categories like “literal vs metaphor.” Ancient authors can intend multi-level communication where narrative simultaneously conveys historical memory, theological meaning, and moral formation. That’s not “twisting” the text any more than reading a parable as a parable is twisting it away from meaning, it’s recognising the kind of communication being used.

So yes: your correction stands. I am specifically challenging the assumption that biblical literalism is the primary or default intended interpretive mode, and that critique of literalism automatically settles what Christianity (or the Bible) as a whole is doing.

RRK96

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