Christians consider the Bible to be the authoritative textual basis of their faith, a collection of writings that contain divine revelations. We agree with this view of the Bible. We encourage all people to study the Bible in a prayerful and meditative spirit, and to seek a correct, scholarly understanding of how the Bible was put together by the early church, as well as the cultural context and background of the individual books and authors. Neglecting such study tends to lead to grossly inaccurate views of scripture.
As Universalists, we also recognize that the revelation of divine truth is not limited to the pages of the Bible. For one thing, many great Christian thinkers, such as church fathers, saints and mystics, have written texts which are very inspirational and valuable. Looking beyond the confines of Christianity, people throughout history have been able to seek and find God in nature (Rom. 1:20), as well as through the rational discourse of philosophy (Isa. 1:18, Acts 17:22-28). Some have attained great levels of understanding in these ways. Furthermore, there have been various holy persons and prophetic figures who have lived within the context of a wide variety of cultures and spiritual and philosophical traditions, whose explorations led them to gain and share important ideas related to God reaching out to all of humankind in love, and humanity’s search for the Divine.
We believe that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is the way that God is accessible to every individual. People who do not have the opportunity to know God through the Bible or other texts of spiritual and moral wisdom nonetheless are able to seek God through prayer, meditation, praise and worship, through which they might receive inspiration from God’s Spirit. The reason the Spirit is always accessible to us is because we all have God’s Spirit within us (Eph. 4:4, 6).
God has given each and every one of us the opportunity to seek truth by connecting with God’s Spirit. Truth is to be found both in great spiritual writings of the past and in our own hearts and minds today. When we discover truth, we are not to keep it to ourselves, but we are called to share the wisdom, the light, with others (Mat. 5:14-16).