“Three hundred years before Christ the Greek philosopher Aristotle made an observation about you and me that I think has stood the test of time. . . Aristotle said that people form their beliefs on the basis of a combination of three factors: what he called logos, pathos and ethos. Logos is the intellectual dimension. It is the part in us (or in the argument we are listening to) that corresponds to logic and commonsense. . . . pathos.

This is the personal or emotional dimension of belief and it is just as real as the rational part. An argument with pathos is one with a beauty and poignancy that resonates with our deepest self. . . ethos. This is the social dimension of persuasion. What we believe is hugely influenced by our upbringing, our education and the circle of friends we find ourselves in. . . For better or worse, Christian Scripture is fundamentally different from other holy books. In the events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection believers claim to observe a tangible, testable sign directing us to the “kingdom of God.” Christians are therefore claiming to possess not just a “dogma” – a set of divine truths – but a verifiable history. As a result, the beliefs and texts of Christianity become uniquely open to public scrutiny. It is as if Christianity places its neck on the chopping block of academic scrutiny and invites anyone who wishes to come and take a swing. . . I am not just excited but confident that Jesus is God’s tangible disclosure. He is exactly what interested observers need in order to confidently move from a vague acknowledgement of the divine to a sincere trust in a personal God. What follows in Life of Jesus, then, carries somewhat more significance than if this were a Life of Alexander (as interesting as that would be). In the events of Jesus we find God himself publicly at work in the world. That is the basic claim of Christianity. Once we get going in our historical analysis, the God-question will fade into the background a little. But this cannot obscure the fact that whenever one investigates the figure of Jesus, life’s most profound questions sit invitingly in the corner.

John Dickson, Jesus: God’s Tangible Sign

http://www.rzim.org/justthinkingfv/tabid/602/articleid/10746/cbmoduleid/881/default.aspx