This is because Protestants lack a Patristic understanding of the Scriptures. That is, they do not understand the Scriptures spiritually, ascetically, allegorically, poetically, but only literally. We call such an understanding 'fundamentalist'. This explains why Darwin's theories have posed far fewer problems in both Roman Catholic and Orthodox societies than in Protestant societies.
What Protestants only understand the Text literally? I think you are talking about Protestant churches (ie. their leadership) not Protestants in general. I also think the proper term should be "fundamentalist Protestants," not just "Protestants."
Protestant culture is overwhelmingly literary and verbal, it is weak in terms of symbols and allegories, just as it is weak in its development of art, painting and music. It must be said, therefore, that many of the Protestant struggles to interpret the Scriptures are irrelevant outside Protestant societies and their cultural and mental conditioning. Just as Protestants struggle with the issue of 'women-priests', they also struggle with the issue of interpreting the Book of Genesis. Other Christians often feel totally unconcerned by either question, because they have other values. Indeed, the Protestant questions seem to us to be false problems. Below we go through a list of classic misunderstandings, which arise from a literalist understanding of the first chapters of the Book of Genesis."
People learn by example. These "examples" when passed on from member to member and generation to generation produce
habits and
patterns of behaviour in people belonging to a particular church or denomination.
A lot of the problems in Protestant churches have been caused by these habits. Protestant churches may vary in dogma and doctrine, but the way many of them formulate dogma and doctrine is very similar. That's because when one church splits in two, the two child churches inherit the
way of formulating doctrine and
way of interpreting the Text that was employed in the original. My personal view on this is that the two child churches ultimately don't solve the problem because the real problem is the
way of approaching Christianity, not what you specifically believe about Christianity. It's method, not doctrine. Many Protestant churches, particularly the fundamentalist ones, employ flawed methods and approaches to their Christian spirituality. (I am not a Catholic or Orthodox, I don't agree entirely with their methods, but I agree that their methods are often better than those employed in Protestant churches.)
These problems come from the fact that many of the leaders of Protestant churches lack proper education. Many of them are grass-roots leaders, who have not studied science, politics, different cultures and history. Many of them believe their own ignorance is a virtue. They like to think they are wise without education and knowledge. It seems to a lot of them that education and knowledge compromises faith. I just don't agree with that, even though I am "one of their kind."
People's beliefs depend on their personal life experiences. The fundamentalist bases his/her beliefs on his/her limited knowledge and experience of life and of the world, but mistakenly assumes that that knowledge and experience is sufficient to form an
objective view of the world. The mistake is not forming beliefs on our limited experience, but in assuming that our limited experience can lead to an
objective view of the world. The person who is not fundamentalist knows that his/her limited experience is unlikely (perhaps never) going to lead to an objective view of the world and thus either remains quiet about his/her beliefs or just says, "this is just my view at this present moment in time."
Fundamentalism is rampant in Protestant churches not because they are poorly educated in the traditions of Christianity, nor because of their leaders' poor education in the faith, but because the culture of fundamentalism is so strong in many of its churches.
Nobody really teaches people to "interpret Scripture literally." People just do it. Even when people mention the word "literal," they don't question the validity of interpreting literally and even when they do, they lack the knowledge and life experience to not interpret what they regard as "literal."
This is, actually what leads to the phenomenon of "literal interpretation." There is really no such thing as a
consistent literal interpretation that is common to all people. That is because the Bible is a piece of literature, and all literature contains subjectivities and ambiguities. A person reading literature uses his/her personal life experiences and accumulated knowledge to extract meaning from it, contemplate its purpose, its uses, its implications, its usefulness, etc.
Ultimately, what a person calls his own "literal interpretation" is really just his own view based on the best and sum total of his limited knowledge and life experience. It is based on a person's assessment that "hey, I've got the big picture," and that seeing the big picture means that the person was able to come up with an answer to the problems in his religion. The reason why there is still a problem is because the method he employs fails to eliminate all the problems and simply creates a new one. ie. a new denomination, school of thought, etc.
The
sola scriptura doctrine is strong in many Protestant churches, particularly the fundamentalist ones. It's an issue even among non-fundamentalist Protestant churches because Protestant churches don't recognise Catholic and Orthodox churches (ie. the belief that no wisdom can ever come from the Catholic church because it's considered authoritarian, elitist, etc. and therefore not taken into consideration) because they compare themselves to other Protestant churches. Even when they compare themselves to Catholic and Orthodox, they apply the
same method of deciding between literal and non-literal, sola scriptura or non-sola-scriptura.
People often do what they do without regard for whether they know enough to decide, once and for all, what's right. What people have to realise is that the lack of one-single-answer is inherent in politics and the Bible and Christianity is full of politics. Maybe it's the same with Judaism as well. You tell me (if you're Jewish).
The problem is caused by the folly of assuming one's own objectivity, and of overestimating the value of one's own opinions.
(and lol, how ironic, but I hope I have contributed something useful here.)
