A recent post at Credo House mentioned the importance of being able to separate the essentials of the Christian faith from the non-essentials, especially when sharing the Gospel, and it reminded me of some experiences I had while finishing my undergrad. These experiences were challenging to my faith, I believe, because at that time my faith was resting on some things that were not essential. So by illuminating this it helped me to recognize those things that were essential and to rest my faith on them.

At the time my faith was overly dependent on Inerrancy (and not only this, but at the time I didn’t even have a correct understanding of what Inerrancy actually was, which made things even worse). Well one of the courses I took during my undergrad was Bible as Literature, and in this course the professor advocated for the Documentary Hypothesis (DH, or JEDP theory) for the composition of the Torah (the first 5 books of the Old Testament). The basic idea behind the DH is that the Torah was originally 4 independent sources that were later combined, probably during the Babylonian Exile, into the Torah that we know today. In the end the Torah and the rest of the OT were presented as just another human book with nothing unique or Divine about it. At the time I was woefully unprepared to refute such arguments, but I did ultimately reject his argument because in the end it was highly complex and therefore highly unlikely in my view (as a consequence of this I have come to value simple theories).

However in the intervening period between first hearing about the DH and rejecting it there was a definite shaking of my faith because it was a direct attack on the main support for my faith. On the one hand his arguments seemed logical and made the Bible look like an all too human book, and thus the Christian faith as but one valid choice among many other valid choices. However on the other hand I had my experience of God, and denying this experience would be rather difficult. Who had I been praying to all these years if not the Christian God? Who had been answering my prayers? Who had I felt guiding me and with me through the tough and lonely periods of my life?

As I wrestled with this problem I began to realize that in the end Christianity didn’t rest on a book, but on the historical reality of God becoming incarnate, uniting human nature to His divine nature in the person of Jesus Christ, who redeemed us from our sin through his death and resurrection. Even the Bible itself says this:

“But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” 1 Corinthians 15:13–14.

At the time this was a revolutionary shift in my thinking because it showed me that in the end Christianity stood or fell on a historical reality, not on some particular view of the composition of the Bible. And looking back on this 6 or so years later this shift has been one of the most beneficial things I have done because it has given me a certain freedom to operate in my thinking because my faith is based on an event rather than a theory.

Theories are easily disproven because they describe or define something about reality and there is much about reality that we don’t know or can’t know. Events however are the reality, and while they can be disbelieved, they cannot be disproven. The resurrection is the event, the reality, on which Christianity stands or falls and is what separates it from all other religions. A faith that is built or rested on something other than the resurrection is on unstable ground and will easily be shaken or destroyed.