“Assessing… [the historical worth of the gospels] can be done, if at all, only by the kind of painstaking historical work which I and others have attempted… I simply record it as my conviction that the four canonical gospels, broadly speaking, present a portrait of Jesus of Nazareth which is firmly grounded in real history.”

N.T. Wright in Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: HarperOne, 2006), 98.

Let’s return to Bob’s challenging question from Part 1: “Why do you believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life?”

In 1985, as I wrestled with his question over the next several months, I realized that my answer– in synch with the New Testament’s primary way of handling Bob’s question– was based largely on secondary empiricism or second-hand witnesses. In other words, I didn’t believe that Jesus was who he claimed to be just because “that’s what the Bible says” or that’s what my parents taught me. Nor were my beliefs just some blind “leap of faith.” Rather, I believed because I had come to trust what the gospel writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and the apostle Paul said. I had come to believe the writers of the New Testament were credible witnesses. Indeed, I placed a lot of weight on the confession of “Doubting Thomas” along with a few other similarly minded passages (words in bold mine):

• “So the other disciples told him [“Doubting Thomas], ‘We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.’” (John 20:25, ESV)
• We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.” (1 John 1:1-4, NLT)
• “Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught. (Luke 1:1-4, NLT)
• “Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it. It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place. I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I’m not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God’s church.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-9, NLT)

Again, secondary empiricism or second-hand witness was the primary way I answered Bob’s question. And it still is. In the last 30 years, however, I’ve come to place a greater value on intuition as a primary way of knowing, and next week I’ll explain why.

Note: The painting above is called The Incredulity of Saint Thomas and is by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio, c. 1601–1602. It is housed in the Sanssouci Picture Gallery, now a museum, in Potsdam, Germany. (Wikipedia)