Literature and Dogma

Literature and Dogma: An Essay towards a better Apprehension of the Bible is a work of religious and literary criticism by Matthew Arnold, first published in February 1873. Summary Introduction, Chapter I Arnold begins with noting the difference between literary and scientific terms as they are employed in the Bible, illustrating his position by the different ways in which the term God is understood. "People use it", he says, "as if it stood for a perfectly definite and ascertained idea, from which we might … extract propositions and draw inferences, just as we should from any other definite and ascertained idea. … But, in truth, the word 'God' is used in most cases—not by the Bishops of Winchester and Gloucester, but by mankind in general—as by no means a term of science or exact knowledge, but a term of poetry and eloquence, a term thrown out, so to speak, at a not fully grasped object of the speaker's consciousness,—a literary term, in short; and mankind mean different things by it as their consciousness differs." Chapter II