Why Should Anyone Believe Anything at All? by James W. Sire

Author:James W. Sire
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Philosophy
ISBN: 0851111475
Publisher: IVP Academic
Published: 1994-06-14T22:00:00+00:00

It also follows that Christianity is not first and foremost a theological or philosophical system. It is primarily a way of life centering on a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. If Jesus is who he thought he was, then our proper response is not just to believe him but also to obey him: to confess who we are, people broken and in need of forgiveness, to place our trust in him as our Savior and to follow him as our Lord. The truth of Christianity requires no less.

But what of the other horn of the dilemma: that Jesus is not who he thought he was or who he pretended to be? That horn leads to another dilemma and two more horns. Jesus would then be either a liar or so deluded about himself as to be insane.

Could Jesus have been a liar? To this (if the Gospels are giving us an accurate picture of who Jesus was) it is easy to say no. There is simply no evidence that Jesus did not think he was telling the truth. He taught with a sense of great personal authority; everyone, even those who did not believe him, noticed that. He presented a consistent picture of God, himself and others. When liars elaborate or answer the same kinds of questions repeatedly, they are easily caught in inconsistencies. There is in Jesus a unity of teaching: the stories, the clever sayings, the constant compassion for people, the obvious wisdom of his teaching, the ethical depth of both his teaching and his character. No fault could be found in him. At his trial, his accusers contradicted themselves, but Jesus stood at his trial with the same integrity as he did on city streets.

The most telling reason for Jesus' not being a liar is that if he was lying, he was lying about the most important issues of life: how to please God, how to inherit eternal life, how to be blessed, how to live well among both your friends and your enemies. If he was lying, he would be selling a salvation he knew to be fake. In fact, he would be no better than the worst religious huckster we know of today, no better than Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh or Jim Jones or David Koresh. No one can call the Jesus of the Gospels that kind of bad man. It fits with none of the evidence whatsoever.

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