Do we have a choice? It's one thing to accept natural disasters and "fate" as Providence of God, no matter how "unfair" they seem; it's an altogether different thing to accept without inquiry the writings of an ancient biblical author as speaking God's words!
We are mixing apples and oranges here, Zero Sum. We are confusing everything that is not subject to our free will, with the presumption that everything in the Bible is indeed the word of God.
We are making here a giant leap of faith that the individuals who wrote the books that eventually make up different canons are truly and unquestionably inspired, and that whatever seems unfair in the Bible is like questioning the 'fairness' of an earthquake or, indeed, our own mortality!
This is no different than Muslims making a leap of faith that whatever is in the Koran was dictated to Mohammad word-by-word by Allah. What makes our right and their wrong if not a leap of faith? Because we find their writings unjust and cruel and detestable, but things detestable in our Bible, such as dashing babies to pieces, are dismissed because we have decided that they are Providential truth? Where is objective proof of that?
The burden of proof is not on those who doubt extraordinary claims, but rather on those who are making them. So, I am asking you to provide unquestionable proof that everything in the Bible is indeed a Providential word of God, as claimed, and that questioning the fairness or even the veracity of its stories is on the same level as questioning the 'fairness' and veracity of earthquakes or any cataclysmic event we see in the universe.
“We are mixing apples and oranges here, Zero Sum. We are confusing everything that is not subject to our free will, with the presumption that everything in the Bible is indeed the word of God.”
Kosta, who is “we”? The Church doesn’t confuse these things, though individuals certainly do. And who, among those in The Church, presume that everything in the OT and the NT is the inerrant word of God? Are bats really birds because “The Bible tells me so”? In the Christian era, that is an idea which only gained currency after the Reformation and then only because, I am convinced, the Reformers thought that would allow them to frame arguments against the ecclesiology of the Roman Church.
What +John of Damascus wrote, as quoted by ZS, is exactly within the consensus patrum. There is nothing confused or confusing in it. You ask, “Do we have a choice?” Of course we do. We have more options than either of us could imagine, as the Fathers well knew.
So far as I know, bibliolatry has never been a sin of The Church. I am surprised you insist that it is or has been.
I can't prove that. All I can say is that in the OT, I do see shades of that which is completed in Christ. As you said, a lot of it is allegorical, and some of it is just downright cryptic. But if it really is just a "shadow" of the fullness to come, then that shouldn't be too surprising.