In his book, The Nature of Historical Explanation, Patrick Gardiner asked a worthwhile question:
“In what sense can I be said to know an event which is in principle unobservable, having vanished behind the mysterious frontier which divides the present from the past? And how can we be sure that anything really happened in the past at all, that the whole story is not an elaborate fabrication, as untrustworthy as a dream or a work of fiction?”
Until recently, I always wondered why Thomas would not believe. Here was Jesus, the Son of God. Thomas spent over three years listening to Jesus explain truths concerning His Father, His death, and His resurrection. Thomas watched as five loaves and two fish feed five thousand men plus women and children. Was he not the one in John 11 who was willing to die with Christ, proving a level of commitment to Him and to His word.
The Protestant Reformation is rightly viewed as a reaction against the theological, doctrinal and moral abuses of the Roman Catholic Church. Many educated members of the Latin church applied reason and scripture to what they witnessed in the common European religion of the day and saw that not only was the papacy and the bishopric corrupt, but it was also unscriptural.
In the ancient world, humanity often concluded that matter is eternal, that divine beings took of what already existed and fashioned the world around us. Epicurus wrote, “the sum total of things was always such as it is now, and such it will ever remain,”. This idea persists today in beliefs like the “Big Bang Theory” which propose that what we observe is the product of what has always existed. Hebrews’ author clearly refutes such ideas by reiterating the Bible’s.
“All but four of the major world religions are based on mere philosophical propositions. Of the four that are based on personalities rather than on a philosophical system, only Christianity claims an empty tomb for its founder” (McDowell, p. 205). Followers of Judaism agree that Abraham died about 1900 B.C. The earliest accounts of Buddha’s death declare that he died “with that utter passing away in which nothing whatever remains behind,” (Smith, p. 385) and make no mention of a resurrection.