When it came time, in the course of our kaleidoscopic look at the notion of God speaking, to consider issues of interpretation, I greatly narrowed the focus of my attention. Suppose, I said, that one considered the human discourse of the Christian Bible to be an instrument of divine discourse; how would one go about interpreting it so as to discern that divine discourse? To forestall the objection that this was a purely fanciful supposition, with no tie to reality, I observed that for centuries the Christian Bible was thought of in exactly this way; God speaks by way of these writings.

Is there good reason to believe that the Bible is a medium of divine discourse?

But is there good reason for supposing that the Christian Bible is in fact a medium of divine discourse – and thus for preferring, over all its competitors, the interpretative practice which operates on that assumption? That question will have been on the mind of all my readers; I have said nothing at all by way of answering it. When it came time to reflect on epistemological issues, I concentrated on entitlement rather than justification, posing the question whether normal, well-educated human beings of the twentieth century are ever entitled to believe that God speaks; and I answered the question by focusing on a case in which extraneous issues – such as that of entitlement to believe human testimony – were reduced to a minimum.