Sunday
My friend Robin Collins, a Religious Studies professor at Messiah College, has co-authored a very interesting article arguing that the truth of Christianity is best found, not in eye witness or second hand accounts (which sometimes contradict each other) but in the story as a story. The article is entitled “The Greatest Story Ever Told: How Theism Predicts the Light of Christ,” and the co-author is Joshua Rasmussen, Baylor professor of philosophy. It recently appeared in a collection of essays, Moral Arguments for God’s Existence: Navigating the Terrain, edited by David Baggett and John E. Hare and published by Oxford University Press.
For those who believe that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good, Collins and Rasmussen contend that it was inevitable that a man like Jesus would come into the world and that his life would unfold as it did.
This theory begs the question why God waited for as long as God did to bring this story about. Their answer involves the wide reach of the Roman empire, which provided an unprecedented opportunity for the rapid spread of the gospel. I’ll touch on that shortly.
First of all, let’s note how the article reverses the normal way we think about truth claims. Normally, when we encounter a story, we look for verification outside the story. “The search for the historical Jesus” takes this approach, looking at the Gospels, Paul’s letters, and Joseph of Arimathea to test whether Jesus was real and whether events transpired as The New Testament says they did.
According to Collins and Rasmussen, however, such evidence only confirms the story. The existence of the story itself is the main proof of its authenticity. Collins explains:
God’s ultimate goal is to give us the greatest possible gift (God’s self) to us in the greatest possible way—specifically by providing a way for ourselves to be united with God so that our identity as a person is a finite expression of God’s self while we still retain our own individuality. Since giving us the greatest possible gift in the greatest possible way would constitute our greatest good, it follows that God’s ultimate goal is to give us the greatest human good.
To achieve this goal, God, who is infinite, would first of all have to become incarnate in a finite human being. Through the model of Jesus, humans get a glimpse of what it means for a human to be unified with God. By creating a new human/divine vision—a pattern of perfect faith, hope and love—Jesus created a way to for divine virtues “to become dynamically present in our own lives.” We don’t only hear the story of Christ but are invited to participate in it.
Can we still do so when the going gets tough? To fully appreciate what God is offering, that authors note, God must enact these virtues “in the most extreme type of circumstances; otherwise, they would not be strong enough for the most difficult life situations people face.” The most difficult trial involves unjust persecution, extreme suffering, humiliation, a sense of abandonment, and death. In Roman times, no execution was more humiliating than crucifixion.
By sharing in God’s virtues, the authors go on to say, we “are freed from the forces that hinder moral and spiritual growth (i.e., are “saved from sin”), since living in alignment with the highest virtues is incompatible with destructive tendencies.” This transformation, they add, “restores our connection with the divine and brings us into deeper harmony with ultimate reality.”
Adding to the power of Jesus’s actions is the narrative arc of the story. The authors note that the hero’s journey is one of the world’s most compelling stories and that people, when they encounter Jesus’s story, become caught up in the transformation. Nothing is more powerful than a good story, Tyrion says in Game of Thrones, and this is the greatest story. As the authors put it,
The human experience of suffering and vulnerability is not arbitrary; rather, it provides a unique opportunity for forming profound connections with others and deepening our participation in the good and the divine life. The transformation we undergo here through unity with God is imprinted upon us, leading to fruits of virtue and connection with God and others that we can enjoy after this life on earth.
If each of us becomes “a unique expression of God’s infinite being within the constraints of [our] finite life,” then we continue to grow, both in relationship with others and in our participation in God’s life. Thus,
like a great story, this vision of the afterlife is not static but endlessly dynamic. Rather than a mere continuation of earthly existence, it is an eternal deepening of divine participation. Each person, reflecting an inexhaustible aspect of God, will continue to manifest and experience divine beauty in ever-greater ways. This view aligns with C. S. Lewis’s conception of the heavenly state, in which each person will eternally know and praise God, communicating some infinite aspect of divine beauty that no other creature can fully express. Since divine beauty is infinite, this process of knowing, praising, and participating in God’s life will never be exhausted.
Jesus sought to awaken humanity to this vision/reality, not only through his teaching but through his death and resurrection.
Joseph Campbell tells us that the hero’s journey may be the most universal of all stories, featuring a central figure who overcomes great challenges to achieve or experience something of immense worth. Jesus’s journey has all the elements of that journey, which is one reason why so many people over the centuries have embraced it. “By viewing Christian doctrines through the lens of a story,” the authors point out, “we see how Christianity offers not just static moral goodness but a development of characters, purposes, and grand discoveries.”
This story, they point out, provides hope “that suffering and struggle have meaning.”
If God exists, they conclude,
we have reason to expect reality to reflect the greatest kind of story—one rich in meaning, transformation, and ultimate resolution. A great story involves struggle, character development, and the triumph of good over evil. We can see Christianity as a dynamic display of these elements in their highest form, including the Incarnation and Atonement, where the highest being enters history and overcomes the greatest kind of human suffering to provide the greatest kind of good (unity with God) in a dynamic way.
As to why this story was so late in coming, the authors point to the historical context. Because of the extensive infrastructure of the Roman world—the Pax Romana, widespread roads, and a common trade language—the gospel message could spread rapidly and extensively. If there had been divine incarnations previously, they had remained isolated.
Since “the greatest story” can sound like Christian chauvinism, the authors are careful to note that other traditions “provide meaningful elements to the master story, whether as foreshadows, echoes, contrasts, or alternative pathways of discovery”:
Although non-Abrahamic religions and philosophies, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, have a cyclical or timeless—and therefore non-narrative—view of ultimate reality, nonetheless all cultures have valued stories, with their most prized stories having a universal narrative structure. Whether in ancient myths, religious texts, or modern literature, great stories consistently contain themes of transformation, sacrifice, redemption, and the struggle between good and evil. Accordingly, if God wished to relate to humanity in a meaningful way, it would be natural to do so in a format that resonates with universal human experience.
Of course, if one doesn’t believe that God is omnipotent, omnipotent, and perfectly good—or believe in God at all—then Jesus’s story would not be the inevitable narrative that Collins and Rasmussen believe it to be. That’s why they subtitle their article, “How Theism Predicts the Light of Christ.”
Then again, maybe the story itself works as an indirect proof of God, more so than any historical record. How would such a story emerge, an improbable account dealing with origins, purpose, and what happens to us after we die, if not for such a force blowing through the universe? There’s a deep wisdom in stories that no one can fully account for.
In any case, thinking of Jesus’s story in this way can help Christians understand why it is so compelling while giving them a clearer sense of what is meant by the incarnation and the atonement. We see not only why God manifested God’s self in Jesus but also what it means to participate in God’s never-ending story.
