" Yet the answers religion provides are more significant that simple doctrine or a philosophy. Religion presents itself "in moments when one's soul is shaken . . . in moments when all forgone conclusions, all life-stifling trivialities are suspended." Similarly we may think of this as Kierkegaard did, and note that, "Faith begins precisely where thinking leaves off." Reasoning, however, should not be seen as a hindrance to our spiritual development. Heschel states that when we are oblivious to ultimate questions, when we cease to think about the meaning of our lives, religion becomes meaningless. Thus we are obligated to employ our faculty of mind as we approach the understanding and worship of God. "Without reason faith becomes blind. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.".
Now that we know the nature of religion, perhaps we should examine the Bible to discover its nature and how it is useful to us. Heschel warns us that "ultimate ideas can never be expressed." Our experiences with God and Her word can never be expressed in language or placed in rational thought categories. Thus, the words of the Bible may lead us to error if we insist upon accepting them through our "literal mindedness." We must remember that all language is inaccurate when employed to describe the glory of God. Also important to understanding the Bible is knowing that words themselves can never be disconnected from the concrete, historic situation in which they were written. Yet we can still hope to acquire knowledge through a sort of hermeneutical analysis through which we assess both the historical and psychological conditions in which the text was written. We cannot, however, hope to attain the final goal of Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics - "to understand the discourse . . . better than its creator." Yet we may still find the method useful to our understanding as "the meaning of history is our profound concern.