Why Should We Bother? (Part 1)
In Search for Jesus: Uncovering the Historical Evidence for the Lord and Savior that Catholics and Evangelicals have in Common
Why should Catholics and Evangelicals bother about the quest for what historical research can tell us about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? After all, we believe in Jesus Christ as a matter of faith, and because he has touched our hearts in living personal experience, right? — not as the result of a long and complicated process of sifting through historical evidence!
To be sure, ultimately our saving relationship with Jesus Christ is a matter of faith, a matter of personal trust in him. But our faith is not meant to be “blind faith.” Mature faith always seeks deeper understanding of the one whom we call our Savior, so that we can “sing [his] praises with understanding” (Ps 47:7; I Cor 14:15, 20), rather than remain in ignorance of important aspects of the truth about him. After all, Jesus told us that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, “mind” and strength (Mk 12:30), which surely must mean: according to our various intellectual abilities and life circumstances, as time and energy permit. Of course, this does not mean that we all have to become experts in New Testament history, but each of us can read and study to know more about what Jesus said and did in the historical context in which he lived — and studying the best historical research into the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one good way to do that.
Besides, it can also be a way to fulfill the command that Jesus gave to us in the gospels: “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:18). Many people are deeply drawn to the person of Jesus, but they sincerely believe that the gospel stories about him are mere legends and fairy tales. Putting on display the historical evidence for Jesus Christ is one way to remove intellectual obstacles to their relationship with him; it is simply using apologetics as an aid to evangelism.
I wrote about the importance of such “evidential apologetics” some years ago in a long essay titled “The Place of Reason in Theology: A Primer for Catholics and Evangelicals.” Here are some excerpts from it that I hope will explain more fully why I believe that finding and utilizing historical evidence is a very important apostolate for Christians to undertake [this will make our opening article in this web series longer than usual, but please bear with me]:
As Evangelical philosopher E.J. Carnell once wrote in his classic work An Introduction to Christian Apologetics (1948): “Apologetics is that branch of Christian theology which answers the question, Is Christianity rationally defensible?” Making the case for Christianity by “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) is a task enjoined upon us by Holy Scripture itself, for example, in I Peter 3:15 (“Always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence”), and Jude, verse 3 (“contend for the faith which was once and for all delivered to the saints”). The Evangelical apologist Dan Story provided a clear and persuasive account of this scriptural duty in his book Defending Your Faith (1997):
“The term apologetics is derived from the Greek word apologia, which is found seven times in the New Testament (Acts 22:1; 25:16; I Cor. 9:3; Phil. 1:7, 16; II Tim. 4:16; I Pet. 3:15). The English equivalent of apologia is “defense” (literally, “a speech for the defense”), and it is translated that way in I Peter 3:15 in the New American Standard and New King James versions of the Bible. In the original Greek language, apologia had a definite legal connotation. It was a technical term in ancient Greek law. When apologia is used in the New Testament it describes a public defense of the gospel, as illustrated in Acts 22:1. Sometimes, in fact, this defense was carried out in a court of law (Acts 22:16; II Tim. 4:16). …
“Paul’s custom was to ‘reason’ with the Jews in the synagogues of the various cities he visited. In Acts 19:8, for example, Paul ‘went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God.’ In Acts 26:1, Paul stood before Agrippa and ‘proceeded to make his defense’ (NASV; see Phil. 1:16). Perhaps the best example of New Testament apologetics is Paul’s defense of Jesus’ resurrection before the Greek philosophers at the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-31). Paul builds his case for Christ by appealing to the Greek sense of reasoning, to empirical evidences, and even to their own poets (v. 28).
“The apostles used many other apologetic techniques as well to make their case. They referred to eyewitness accounts (I Jn. 1:1), well-known historical data (Lk. 3:1-2), the common knowledge of their audience (Acts 26:26), fulfilled Old Testament prophecy (v. 22), and legal reasoning (25:16). The apostles also instructed their followers to defend the gospel as they did (see II Tim. 2:24-26; 4:2-5; Titus 1:9-14).”
To be sure, the Bible does not say that every non-believer will need an elaborate rational “preamble” to come to believe in God’s revelation through Jesus Christ, nor does Scripture imply that the rational pathways to belief are always easy ones to tread. Nevertheless, “reasons to believe” are obviously of great value to non-believers and believers alike. Story explains:
“The apologetic job description is no mystery: communicate Christian truths to non-Christians in such a way that they will listen; the goal is always evangelistic — to lead non-Christians to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Apologetics is not preaching. But apologetics does clear the way for the proclamation of the Christian message. You might say, if Jesus is the message, apologetics is the John the Baptist to Jesus; it rids the path of [intellectual] obstacles to the Savior as it points to Him as the only way. …
“Likewise, many of us [who are believers] desire the affirmation of apologetics to strengthen our faith. Much of the world rejects Jesus Christ as God and all the major tenets of the Christian Faith. Believers are confronted with non-Christian ideologies that contradict or attempt to refute our sacred beliefs. God can and does use apologetics to help believers whose faith is wavering and to ease the suffering caused by doubt. Apologetics can be especially reassuring to new believers seeking to rationally justify their step of faith. It is a wonderful and joyful experience to discover that our faith is firmly grounded on objective truths that are confirmed by sensible, verifiable evidence.”…
Contemporary Christian apologetics usually includes a collation of historical evidence for the general reliability of the New Testament accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and then attempts to show that classical Christian belief in Jesus as God incarnate, crucified and risen from the dead, better explains and accounts for all the available facts about him than other attempts to do so.
It is sometimes argued that the whole enterprise of such “evidential” apologetics is not in accord with Christian tradition. Some say it is merely an Enlightenment-era, “historicist” effort by conservative and fundamentalist Christians to respond to the radical, Enlightenment critique of the reliability of the New Testament in general, and the miracles of the virginal conception and resurrection of Jesus in particular. It would not be difficult to show, however, that among the early Christian Fathers, it was simply assumed, taken for granted, that the gospels give the reader an accurate record of the words and deeds of Jesus, and that the Fathers based their case for the Christian Faith largely on evidence grounded in this assumption. For example, the fact that he fulfilled the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, performed many miracles and exorcisms, and actually rose to new life on Easter morning — these facts were part of the “standard fare” of the early Christian apologists in making their case for the divinity and saving work of Jesus Christ.
In fact, the New Testament makes it abundantly clear that the whole Christian Faith is grounded in public, historical events: “the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” (Lk. 1:1-2). Saint John bases his gospel on “things which Jesus did” (Jn. 21:25), and on the fact that “He who saw it bore witness — his testimony is true … that you also may believe” (19:35, cf. 20:31).
Not only the gospels, but the New Testament epistles are full of confidence in the reliability of the eyewitness and ear-witness testimony to the words and deeds of Jesus, upon which the whole apostolic Faith was founded: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died … was buried … was raised on the third day … and that he appeared … [and] appeared also to me” (I Cor. 15:3-11); “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life — the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it” (I Jn. 1:1-2); “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty…[and] we heard his voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain” (I Peter 1:16-18).
According to the Acts of the Apostles, the appeal to incontrovertible eyewitness testimony concerning the words and deeds of Jesus — and especially concerning his resurrection appearances — formed an essential part of the earliest evangelistic preaching of the apostles themselves. St. Luke reports: “To them [Jesus] presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking to them of the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). After the apostles were empowered by the Holy Spirit, these “proofs” form the impetus and justification for their whole mission:
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know … This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:22, 36).
“But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Author of Life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are all witnesses” (Acts 3:15-16).
“You know the word which he sent to Israel, preaching the good news of peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), the word which was proclaimed throughout Judea. … How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses to all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and made him manifest: not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. … to him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of his sins through his name” (Acts 10:36-43).
This evangelistic appeal to empirical evidence for the truth about Jesus Christ stretches right back to the public preaching of Jesus himself. Early in his Galilean ministry, when questions arose concerning the source of his authority for his ministry of preaching and absolution, Jesus pointed to his healing power as public evidence of his divine authority: “Why do you question thus in your hearts? … But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins [he said to the paralytic]—I say to you rise, take up your pallet and go home” (Mk. 2:8-10). Again, Jesus pointed to his ministry of exorcism as a sign that the kingdom of God was dawning through his ministry: “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom has come upon you” (Lk. 11:20). When the messengers of John the Baptist were sent to ask Jesus if he really was the long-expected Messiah, Jesus pointed to the evidence of his publicly observable words and deeds as signs of his true identity and mission: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offence at me” (Mt. 11:2-6).
These last words are a reminder that Jesus held no illusion that these evidential signs of his true identity and mission would be enough to convert the multitudes. The unsanctified human mind has a remarkable capacity to suppress inconvenient truth (Rom. 1:18). Thus, Jesus knew very well that some would not be convinced, but “offended” by his messianic words and deeds (Mt. 11:6), given their hope and expectation for an altogether different kind of Messiah. Some would interpret his exorcisms not as a manifestation of his kingdom-power, but as signs that he was in league with Beelzebub, the Devil (Lk. 11:15). Some would interpret his healings not as signs of his divine authority to preach and to forgive sins, but as “blasphemy,” and as an excuse to seek to destroy him (Mk. 2:7; 3:6). Even the resurrection of the Son of God, the very linchpin of the Christian Faith (cf. I Cor. 15:14), would not succeed in converting the masses: “neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (Lk. 16:31).
In short, neither Jesus nor his disciples were naïve enough to think that public evidence, all by itself, would be sufficient to convert the lost. That evidence and testimony must be accompanied by the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who receive the testimony (Jn. 6:44; 10:25-30; Acts 10:44, I Cor. 12:3), and there must be an openness to that invisible work of the Spirit (Mt. 13:18-24), if it is to bear the fruit of repentance and conversion, and new life in Christ. Moreover, the evidence of Jesus’ words and deeds, like all empirical evidence, requires an interpretive framework in order to be adequately understood. The facts do not completely “speak for themselves.” To understand the meaning and importance of Jesus’ words and deeds, therefore, the New Testament uses primarily the interpretive lens of the Old Testament Scriptures (for the mission to the Jews), and a common capacity for rational belief in a creator God and the natural moral law (for the mission to the Gentiles: Rom. 1:18-21; 2:14-15; Acts 17:27-28).
Finally, the ultimate goal of evidential apologetics is not merely to convince unbelievers of the truth about Jesus Christ: rather, the goal is to invite people to move in the direction to which the evidence points: into an intimate, personal, and saving relationship with Jesus Christ, a relationship made possible precisely because he is truly risen and alive in our midst (Mt. 28:20). As Evangelical writer Gregory Boyd put it:
“To have a relationship with Jesus Christ goes beyond just knowing the historical facts about him, yet it’s rooted in the historical facts about him. I believe in Jesus on the basis of the historical evidence, but my relationship with Jesus goes way beyond the evidence. I have put my trust in him and walk with him on a daily basis.”
The irony here is that “going way beyond the evidence” leads one to experience the strongest “evidence” of all. Coming to know Jesus “personally” — indeed, with a depth and intimacy that surpasses any personal relationship we can have in this life (Jn. 15: 4-11) — becomes for the believer the principal corroborating “evidence” of the truth of the Christian Faith.
Next time: Answers to Common Objections to Evidential Apologetics
Robert Stackpole, STD
©The Mere Christian Fellowship, 2017
