'God as author' and other considerations

Recently I've read two intriguing articles concerning the 'God as author' simile.

The first, by World magazine columnist Gene Edward Veith, refutes the popular comparisons to God as watchmaker or carpenter. Veith calls to attention to the metaphors of God as writer throughout the Bible - see John 1:1-14, Hebrews 11:3, and Revelation 20:12-15, for example - and contends that the God-as-writer metaphor is most appropriate. He bases his argument, essentially, on this concept: "While a watchmaker is detached from the mechanism he crafts, an author is both outside his creation and his characters and intimately involved with them." According to Veith, then, authorship is wrapped up, fully engaged, an integral part of a work.

The second article, Theology is Stranger Than Fiction: The best film you didn't see this year, by Messiah professors Sharon Baker and Crystal Downing, essentially agrees with Veith. Baker and Downing analyze the theology in Will Ferrell's movie "Stranger Than Fiction," calling attention to the blurred control relationship between author/narrator Kay Eifel and her protagonist Harold Crick (Ferrell). Baker and Downing write, "Not too far into this provocative film, however, we begin to wonder who exactly controls Harold's life: Harold, who programs his watch and obsessively counts all his footsteps, or the narrator, who tells his story?"

I affirm the metaphors asserted in these articles. The connections are easy for me to see when they relate to God's involvement in my life - the "yes, he's writing my story" type of affirmation. But, if God's authorship of the Bible - even of our very lives - can be considered so integral, can secular authors be considered similarly connected to their work? Even in today's literary criticism class we noted a definite shift in thinking as we transferred 'tried and true' literary principles to the Bible. Why don't the same principles - of analysis, of interpretation, etc. - apply? Some argue the Bible's divinely inspired nature requires different readings. Yet Emerson believed his writing - his very nature as Poet? - evidence of inspired existence. Why do we react so strongly against Emerson? If we argue, as we often do, that the Bible can be studied as literature, are we essentially asserting that it also cannot be studied as literature? Is literary criticism the only way to approach Biblical interpretation?