Chapter 5: Jesus
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- - Contents
- - Preface
- - Introduction
- - 1) The Physical Universe
- - 2) The Human Mind:
Cognition and Conscience - - 3) Love
- - 4) Tackling Arguments
Against a Designing God - - 5) Jesus
- - 6) The Resurrection
- - 7) Suffering
- - 8) Christianity and Politics
- - 9) Other Religions
- - 10) Heaven and Hell
- More Praise for God, Actually
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In Chapter 5, Williams examines the evidence for the historical Jesus, including
evidence of His divinity and of the reality of His miracles.
So far in this book I have postulated the existence of a loving God who conceived and created the Universe, in all its splendid intricacy, with a special place in it for Man. In short, I believe that there exists, in Hamlet's phrase, a divinity that shapes our ends.
It is now necessary to analyse the more particular claims of Christianity. These are the beliefs that distinguish Christians from people of other faiths. Some of these beliefs have already been touched upon; as I noted in the Introduction, there is a substantial degree of overlap between each of the issues under discussion. In the chapter about love I drew upon several of Jesus's teachings. What I have not done so far is to grapple with the specifics of Jesus's life on Earth and, in particular, the evidence for His divinity.
This is an unavoidable challenge for any Christian. To this point, there may have been at least a few arguments that would elicit qualified agreement from educated secular humanists. But the task now becomes more challenging. A good number of Christ's teachings are not exclusive to Christianity, and it may readily be conceded that the world would be a better place than it is today if more people acted consistently upon of the tenets of Buddhism or Hinduism, or the teachings of Confucius, or the ideas of the best atheistic thinkers. There have been, after all, a considerable number of great moral philosophers throughout human history. Why should the teachings of Jesus be accorded any higher status than theirs? This chapter and the next represent my answer to this entirely valid question.
For a start, it is important to acknowledge the difficulties inherent in any serious consideration of theology. My conception of God is as the explanation of everything: everything that Man understands and everything that Man does not understand. The majority of the human race through the ages, and still today, has likewise had some roughly similar conception - an invisible, all-powerful supernatural force, or multitude of forces, that made and monitors the Universe. Indeed, until the nineteenth century, traditional Christian teaching had always taken as its starting point the concept of God the Creator. That is how the Bible begins, and I have done so myself in this book.
However, any attempt to articulate the basis for religious belief in such abstract terms tends to be problematic - and often seems less than convincing to the unbeliever or the sceptic. As Robert Winston has observed, the seminal passage in the Old Testament in which God responds to Moses (Exodus 3:14) reads more like a rebuke than an explanation, an expression of God's 'essential beyondness, His separateness from the world, the inability of men to know Him'.
On the other hand, the notion of 'the perfect man' is something that everyone can understand. Surprisingly, to me, it was not until the nineteenth century that defenders of Christianity began to study the New Testament as an historical text, to seek to demonstrate the central tenets of Christianity primarily by reference to actual events in the life of Jesus, and from those events to argue for His divinity. This 'quest for the historical Jesus' - a phrase coined by Albert Schweitzer - had its roots in the Reformation. Protestants acquired a motive to search for evidence that might be used to undermine the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. But there were unintended consequences. The quest (which continues apace to this day) became increasingly rigorous and sophisticated, and doubts began to be raised in the public mind about the objective truth of key aspects of the New Testament, not all of them easily dismissable. This led, in turn, to 'redoubled effort' by Christians to 'create or, as I would argue, to discover a religiously usable history'.
Some have argued - both believers and unbelievers among them - that this quest is futile and/or mendacious. I am unable to agree. There is no doubt that it is difficult, and will probably never produce definitive answers. But Jesus - the real Jesus, not merely the 'character' - was and is the linchpin of Christian faith. The twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth went so far as to say that it is impossible for human beings to come to God any other way than through the words and example of Christ as recorded in the Gospels. By reason of the 'wholly otherness' of God, Barth argued, it is beyond mere human beings to arrive at any proper sense of His nature by metaphysical speculation, of the kind attempted so far in this book. The only hope for Man is that God has condescended to reach us.
Buy God, Actually and read more...
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to
be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being
made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!
History as we know it now began with Christ, and ... Christ's gospel is its foundation.
History as we know it now began with Christ, and ... Christ's gospel is its foundation.
So far in this book I have postulated the existence of a loving God who conceived and created the Universe, in all its splendid intricacy, with a special place in it for Man. In short, I believe that there exists, in Hamlet's phrase, a divinity that shapes our ends.
It is now necessary to analyse the more particular claims of Christianity. These are the beliefs that distinguish Christians from people of other faiths. Some of these beliefs have already been touched upon; as I noted in the Introduction, there is a substantial degree of overlap between each of the issues under discussion. In the chapter about love I drew upon several of Jesus's teachings. What I have not done so far is to grapple with the specifics of Jesus's life on Earth and, in particular, the evidence for His divinity.
This is an unavoidable challenge for any Christian. To this point, there may have been at least a few arguments that would elicit qualified agreement from educated secular humanists. But the task now becomes more challenging. A good number of Christ's teachings are not exclusive to Christianity, and it may readily be conceded that the world would be a better place than it is today if more people acted consistently upon of the tenets of Buddhism or Hinduism, or the teachings of Confucius, or the ideas of the best atheistic thinkers. There have been, after all, a considerable number of great moral philosophers throughout human history. Why should the teachings of Jesus be accorded any higher status than theirs? This chapter and the next represent my answer to this entirely valid question.
For a start, it is important to acknowledge the difficulties inherent in any serious consideration of theology. My conception of God is as the explanation of everything: everything that Man understands and everything that Man does not understand. The majority of the human race through the ages, and still today, has likewise had some roughly similar conception - an invisible, all-powerful supernatural force, or multitude of forces, that made and monitors the Universe. Indeed, until the nineteenth century, traditional Christian teaching had always taken as its starting point the concept of God the Creator. That is how the Bible begins, and I have done so myself in this book.
However, any attempt to articulate the basis for religious belief in such abstract terms tends to be problematic - and often seems less than convincing to the unbeliever or the sceptic. As Robert Winston has observed, the seminal passage in the Old Testament in which God responds to Moses (Exodus 3:14) reads more like a rebuke than an explanation, an expression of God's 'essential beyondness, His separateness from the world, the inability of men to know Him'.
On the other hand, the notion of 'the perfect man' is something that everyone can understand. Surprisingly, to me, it was not until the nineteenth century that defenders of Christianity began to study the New Testament as an historical text, to seek to demonstrate the central tenets of Christianity primarily by reference to actual events in the life of Jesus, and from those events to argue for His divinity. This 'quest for the historical Jesus' - a phrase coined by Albert Schweitzer - had its roots in the Reformation. Protestants acquired a motive to search for evidence that might be used to undermine the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. But there were unintended consequences. The quest (which continues apace to this day) became increasingly rigorous and sophisticated, and doubts began to be raised in the public mind about the objective truth of key aspects of the New Testament, not all of them easily dismissable. This led, in turn, to 'redoubled effort' by Christians to 'create or, as I would argue, to discover a religiously usable history'.
Some have argued - both believers and unbelievers among them - that this quest is futile and/or mendacious. I am unable to agree. There is no doubt that it is difficult, and will probably never produce definitive answers. But Jesus - the real Jesus, not merely the 'character' - was and is the linchpin of Christian faith. The twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth went so far as to say that it is impossible for human beings to come to God any other way than through the words and example of Christ as recorded in the Gospels. By reason of the 'wholly otherness' of God, Barth argued, it is beyond mere human beings to arrive at any proper sense of His nature by metaphysical speculation, of the kind attempted so far in this book. The only hope for Man is that God has condescended to reach us.
Buy God, Actually and read more...
