Aletheia

Throughout human history there have been many worldviews, religions, and philosophies that have claimed truth above all others. Some have depended on their history of numbers of believers. Others claim truth by recentness and originality by claiming that they have finally 'figured it out.' Hinduism and Buddhism claim that this present world is not reality and one must let go of one's logic and reason in order to understand truths such as "my hands are empty but the spade is in my hands." Humanists and Atheists claim that the universe is an accident, that evolution is true, and that there is no god or if there is that he is benign. Christianity claims that God is real, personal, the Creator of all, and that He loved man so much that He became on of them and sacrificed His life so that the barrier that was created by sin would be broken down completely for all that would believe. Which one is true depends on which doctrine has the most evidence. This evidence can come in three ways: history, reason, and reality.

The essential history of Christianity is contained in the Bible. The Bible begins with the beginning, ends with the end, and contains all that anyone would ever need to know in between. The Bible in its original texts is the most reliable group of historical documents ever to have existed. This is demonstrated in the amount of archaeological evidence supporting its claims. Archaeology is the uncovering of art, documents, manuscripts, coins, and other remains of ancient culture. Archaeology cannot prove or disprove spiritual truth. It can only increase or decrease the credibility of ancient historians. Archaeologists have thus far only found artifacts that support Biblical accuracy. In fact, Luke in the gospel of Luke and that book of Acts has accurately referenced thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, and nine islands without making a single mistake.

Not only is the substance accurate, but the Bible is accurate by historian's standards as well. Historians hold that in order for a copy of an ancient document to be considered accurate, it must have been copied within one thousand years of the original document and it also must have four other copies minimum with which to cross-reference. Exceptions have been made, though. Tacitus is considered to be a great Roman historian whose accuracy is undisputed. However, historians presently have only one copy from seven hundred years after the original document. Of the New Testament alone, historians have over twenty-four thousand copies of the original documents and all of them within one thousand years. Not only so, but many are in the original language, hence, no meaning was lost in translating. The accuracy of the copies is attested for in that when a priest or rabbi copied a document, the process was long and labourious. They would also check the copy against the oldest possible copy or the original document, if it were available, to prevent loss of accuracy. It is also postulated that some of the original documents could have been written within two to ten years of the resurrection.
The external evidence is astounding as well. There are dozens of outside historical sources that tell of the events that convey the same message as the New Testament. Josephus, Tacitus, Talmud, Lucian, and Phelgon, to reference a few, recorded many events and character descriptions of Jesus. From their writings, one receives the message that Jesus was a Jewish teacher from Nazareth who lived a wise and virtuous life. He was believed to be Messiah but was rejected by Jewish leaders. Pontius Pilate crucified Him under the reign of Tiberius Caesar on the eve of Passover and it was believed by multitudes that He rose from the dead three days later. His enemies called Him a sorcerer (could not deny His miracles), despite a shameful death, multitudes followed Him, and all different sorts of people worshipped Him as God.

Because of time, the picture one gets of Jesus today is misleading. He is usually pictured as a white man with long hair, a long beard, and wearing white. These characteristics are a result of indulgence of the imagination. According to the New Testament and historical evidence from the period, scholars have concluded that Jesus looked just like everyone else. He wore coarse linen, never brushed His teeth, had short hair, and smelled pretty bad. He was a poor man from a poor family. His name was common, His look was common, His job was common and everything about Him was common except His personality and intellect. At the age of twelve He astounded the Pharisees in the temple. The Pharisees were hard to impress. Most had sixty to one hundred percent of the Old Testament memorized, among other writings. They followed the Levitical Laws to the letter.

Not only did He astound Pharisees, but He also performed many miracles including raising two people from the dead. Today, some call Him a good teacher, but they forget the miracles, and that He claimed to be God. This fact leaves mankind with three options. Either He lied, was insane, or is God. If He lied, then one would have to explain not only the miracles, but also the motivations. Jesus life was full of persecution toward an end of ultimate suffering with no visible reward. If He were insane, then one would have to explain why He spoke such truth with such lucidity, why He remained emotionally stable even through the beating, scourging and crucifixion, and why His character was the antithesis of a person who has a divinity complex. He showed Himself to be God by many proofs. He performed amazing miracles, redefined Jewish law at will, spoke on His own authority, and above all, rose from death to life after being crucified just as He prophesied. All except the last are possible on one's own strength, but He also fulfilled many prophesies that no one could will into happening. He was born of a virgin in Bethlehem, was a descendant of David, and suffered the exact death during the exact time of year as was prophesied four hundred years earlier.

Some may question the resurrection. Being the singular most important and central tenet held in Christianity, the question must be addressed. Some claim that He did not really die. The evidence is to the contrary. Starting in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus went through the most pain ever experienced by any person. It started with Him sweating drops of blood as it says in Luke 22:44. This condition is Hematidrosis. It is caused by extreme stress. The blood capillaries rupture and go through the sweat glands. This causes dehydration and makes the skin become extremely sensitive and fragile like tissue paper. The guards arrested Him and beat him so badly that His eyes were swollen shut and His fact was unrecognizable as human. They blindfolded Him so that He could not brace Himself for the hits. Then He was taken to an illegal trial and tried for crimes He was innocent of. This happened somewhere between one and three in the morning.

After the trial, they scourged Him. A scourge is a two-foot long whip (to get the most torque) with small metal balls on the ends for weight with pieces of bone, metal, glass, or pottery in the rope. This caused it to act like Velcro and rip His oversensitive, tissue paper fragile back to shreds. The whipping ranged from the shoulders down to the calves and was only thirty-nine hits because it was believed forty would kill, though it usually took much less. The scourging would expose his spinal cord and ribs and cause extreme dehydration and hypovolemic shock. Hypovolemic shock is when the body has lost so much blood and fluid that the heart rate skyrockets to pump blood that is not there which would cause the body temperature to rise. Also the blood pressure would drop causing fainting and the kidneys would shut down to maintain fluid. It is doubtful that even modern day medicine could have saved Him at this point.

They made Simon from Cyrene carry His cross, or at least part of it, when Jesus could not carry it any longer. It weighed somewhere between seventy-five and three hundred pounds. The executioners threw Jesus on His scourged back and drove a seven to nine inch spike through the carpal tunnel severing the median nerve. Doctors call the severing of the median nerve catastrophic. This would send unrelenting fiery pain shooting from His fingertips to he base of His neck. It was so bad that the executioners even offered a numbing drug, though He refused it. His knees were then bent at ninety degrees with one foot on top of the other and hammered another spike through both feet between the second and third metatarsal bone severing the median nerve here as well causing fiery pain through His legs.
At this point, they raise him. Within a few minutes, every joint from His shoulders to His wrists are disjointed because the ten-degree angle of the arms pus two thousand pounds of pressure on His arms. The weight is then transferred to the chest, which makes it impossible to exhale. He would then have to push on the spike in his feet, causing the bones to separate and the spike to be shoved through all tissue until it hit the ankle, and pull with His disjointed arms until he could exhale and then fall forward again. This went on for six hours.

After the six hours, Jesus went through respiratory acidosis because of too much carbon dioxide in His blood. The heart would beat frantically as the lungs filled with fluid because of bursting arteries and therefore would cause the lungs to collapse. Finally, the heart explodes and melts. The process took eighteen hours. Needless to say, Jesus was dead.

The next argument is that He did not really rise from the dead. It is recorded in the gospels that Joseph was the man who buried Jesus. This is the most undisputed fact in the New Testament because it is unlikely that someone would make it up and also that there are no other competing stories. Once He was in the tomb, the next witnesses saw the tomb empty three days later. These witnesses were women. This is important because women were not credible witnesses in Jewish culture so if the story were fabricated, the writers would have used men. The tomb was also in a public place that was known by the apostles, the Pharisees and the Romans. It was literally just down the street. If someone stole the body, why would the unwrap three hundred pounds of linen and spice and fold it neatly in the corner of the tomb. If the disciples stole the body, then one must explain why eleven of the twelve apostles were martyrs and the twelfth lived a life of great persecution. There were over six hundred recorded appearances of Jesus after His death. Even the opponents of Jesus began with the assumption that the tomb was empty.

The appearances of Jesus attest to His resurrection in a physical body. He ate food, drank wine, and touched people and "showed Himself alive after His passion (His suffering in the garden and on the cross) by [a series of] many convincing demonstrations" (Amplified Bible Acts 1:3). He appeared to over five hundred people at one time eliminating the chance of a mass hallucination. And if it were an imposter, the question must be asked, what other living man bears the marks of crucifixion? All the effects afterward on the disciples and followers of Jesus attest to the spiritual affects of Jesus death. Would over six hundred attest to seeing Jesus alive even to the point of death if they knew it to not be true? Through these evidences, it is reasonable to say that when Jesus claimed to be God, He backed up His claims with many proofs and evidences.

The greatest proof of the existence of God is Jesus. The odds of one single man fulfilling all the prophecies that Jesus did are on in ten to seventeenth power. The facts about His life, His crucifixion, His resurrection and the reality of the effect of His life on millions proveds more than enough evidence to declare the existence of the Christian God who is just as He in the Bible says He is. But outside of Jesus, there are other ways of giving evidence of God's existence. Humans have the ability to reason and the Christian would say that mankind has that ability in order that God may reveal Himself more fully in our attempt at comprehending Him. One of the greatest arguments from reason is the argument from moral law.
The argument from moral law makes four assumed statements. The statements are assumed based on observation of the past and present condition for man and reasoning out the next logical step of the assumption. The first statement is that "human beings all over the earth have this curious idea that they ought to behave a certain way and cannot get rid of that idea." This states that a standard is set that all men know about and cannot cease knowing about. Second, "although they know this moral law, they do not in fact behave in this way, rather, they break it or 'do not behave as they ought to.'" This means that despite being conscious of the standard, humans do not meet it in the least. Thirdly, "the very idea of something being imperfect, of its not being what it ought to be has certain consequences." There is a great implication made by these two statements of assumption. This implication is that "therefore there must be something above and beyond the ordinary facts of human behavior and yet quite definitely real. A real law which none of us has made, but which we find pressing on us." If one reasons these statements to their final conclusion, they would find them to be true. If man created the standard then men would be able to achieve it. If there is no God, then where does the standard come from? If there is a moral law, which it has been shown that there is, then there is a moral LawMaker.

When those who have heard all the arguments thus far and still do not believe, there are usually two reasons. One, they simply choose not to believe or two, they present the problem of pain. C.S. Lewis defines the problem of pain by saying, "if God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power or both." This is the largest objection that the wold has to present against Christianity and Christian theology. However, if properly understood, the problem is no longer a problem, but an evidence for the Christian God.

The main misunderstanding in the statement of theology is a misconception of the words used. By goodness, the accuser actually means kindness. And by almighty, the accuser usually doesn't understand that there are things that are impossible for everyone including God. "His omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible." God cannot create a one-ended stick.

The difference between goodness and kindness is love. Love and goodness go hand in hand. But what goes hand in hand with kindness is apathy. Goodness and love are not emotions but actions that are for the ultimate happiness, goodness, and lovability of the beloved. Kindness only cares about the present happiness and enjoyment of its object. Many people simply want a benevolent grandfather in heaven who cares nothing for our ultimate glory but only for our present happiness and well being. The God that does exist, however, loves His creations so much that He will put them through pain and suffering in order that their joy may be complete. "what we would here and now call our 'happiness' is not the end God chiefly has in view: but when we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy." In wishing life or existence to be something other than what it presently is, is asking for less love, not more. Mankind has the loving God it demands, but by His standard of love.

The Evidence demands a verdict. It is clearly shown through many evidences of thought, history, and basic reali8ty that it is the Christian God who exists in all His wonderful aspects. It is He who sacrificed Himself because He loved mankind so much that He wanted to offer them an escape route from His righteous wrath. Nothing can ever be proven in a final sense, but only to a reasonable certainty. Christianity is proven to a reasonable certainty.

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