For many centuries the Roman Catholic Church was opposed to translating the Holy Scriptures into the “vulgar tongue.” To this day, you can still get rid of a Bible salesman by saying, “But we are Catholics and, of course, don’t read the Bible.” The Catholic hierarchy included subtle theologians and scholars who knew very well that such a diverse and difficult collection of ancient writings, taken as the literal Word of God, would be wildly and dangerously interpreted if put into the hands of ignorant and uneducated peasants. Likewise, when a missionary boasted to George Bernard Shaw of the numerous converts he had made, Shaw asked, “Can these people use rifles?” “Oh, indeed, yes,” said the missionary. “Some of them are very good shots.” Whereupon Shaw scolded him for putting us all in peril—in the day when those converts waged holy war against us for not following the Bible in the literal sense they gave to it. For the Bible says, “What a good thing it is when the Lord putteth into the hands of the righteous invincible might.” But today, especially in the United States, there is a taboo against admitting that there are enormous numbers of stupid and ignorant people, in the bookish and literate sense of these words. They may be highly intelligent in the arts of farming, manufacture, engineering and finance, and even in physics, chemistry or medicine. But this intelligence does not automatically flow over to the fields of history, archaeology, linguistics, theology, philosophy and mythology—which are what one needs to know in order to make any sense out of such archaic literature as the books of the Bible.

This may sound snobbish, for there is an assumption that, in the Bible, God gave His message in Plain words for plain people. Once, when I had given a radio broadcast in Canada, the announcer took me aside and said, “Don’t you think that if there is a truly loving God, He would have given us a plain and specific guidebook as to how to live our lives?” “On the contrary,” I replied, “a truly loving God would not stultify our minds. He would encourage us to think for ourselves.” I tried, then, to show him that his belief in the divine authority of the Bible rested on nothing more than his own personal opinion. To which, of course, he was entitled. This is basic. The authority of the Bible, the church, the state, or of any spiritual or political leader, is derived from the individual followers and believers, since it is the believers’ judgment that such leaders and institutions speak with a greater wisdom than their own. This is, obviously, a paradox, for only the wise can recognize wisdom. Thus, Catholics criticize Protestants for following their own opinions in understanding the Bible, as distinct from the interpretations of the Church, which originally issued and authorized the Bible. But Catholics seldom realize that the authority of the Church rests, likewise, on the opinion of its individual members; that the Papacy and the councils of the Church are authoritative. The same is true of the state, for, as a French statesman said, people get the government they deserve.

Why does one come to the opinion that the Bible, literally understood, is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Usually because one’s “elders and betters,” or an impressively large group of one’s peers, have this opinion, But this is to go along with the Bandar-log, or monkey tribe, in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books, who periodically get together and shout, “We all say so, so it must be true!” Having been a grandfather for a number for years, I am not particularly impressed with patriarchal authority. I am of an age with my own formerly impressive grandfathers (one of whom was a fervent fundamentalist, or literal believer in the Bible) and I realize that my opinions are as fallible as theirs.

But many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for external authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment, willy-nilly, that there exists some authority greater that their own. The fervent fundamentalist—whether Protestant or Catholic, Jew or Moslem—is closed to reason and even communication for fear of losing the security of childish dependence. He would suffer extreme emotional heebie jeebies if he didn’t have the feeling that there was some external and infallible guide in which he could trust absolutely and without which his very identity would dissolve.