| Part 1 The Theory of Faith | Hirohumi Hoshika |
Let's move on to the issue of "Historical fact and Faith", which is one of the central themes of this treatise. This issue has several issues that need to be resolved.
(1) Is it possible to gain knowledge of Jesus correctly?
(2) If the quest of the Historical Jesus provides knowledge of Jesus, then Christian faith would be based on a reliance on scholarship, but is this acceptable?
(3) Even if we were to obtain a situation in which we were not dissatisfied with Jesus' acquisition of knowledge, would that be enough for faith to be established? Suppose Jesus was right there in front of us, but then why could we believe him?
(4) In the first place, why is the historical fact of Jesus necessary for the Christian faith? Bruce's answer that we saw in Chapter 1, "Because that's what orthodox Christianity is", is not the answer here again. In the final scene of the "Historical fact and Faith" issue, the very question of "why an unorthodox faith, which is non-fact-dependent and which is established without the historical facts of Jesus, should not be considered a Christian faith" is questioned.
The issue of "Historical fact and Faith" is a complex one involving many points of contention. Because of this complexity, there is a tendency to be advocated easy solutions that kill two birds with one stone, such as "not knowing the historical facts of Jesus is actually advantageous for one's faith" or "Blessed are those who believe without seeing."
However, each of the points raised above is an extremely serious question, and unless a precise solution is given to each one, Christianity will bring upon itself a flaw, and the Christian faith will be unable to avoid becoming arbitrary in order to compensate for it. Faith that is maintained at the expense of knowledge, such as "I really believe because I can't understand", cannot be said to capture the original form of faith that is known from the circumstances in which the apostle's faith was established.
In order to find solutions to all the issues, it is first necessary to accurately grasp these mutually adjacent issues. In this chapter, we will start by separating and extracting issue (3) from the other issues, and after resolving it, we will find an answer to (4).
This chapter deals with what is thought to be the deepest area of Christian faith, excluding aspects of spirituality such as "prayer," "God's presence," and "Holy Spirit," and is useful for people who are not Christians as well.
Reading Difficulty Level ★★☆☆☆ Word count 48,000 words