Evidentialist and non-evidentialist accounts of historical religious knowledge

Abstract

Jesus. The Apostle's Creed signals the importance of history for the Christian faith by affirming that Jesus 'suffered under Pontius Pilate', an actual historical figure, though doubtless one who would have little importance were it not for his connection with Jesus. The Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians that if the resurrection did not occur (and I believe it is clear that Paul conceives of the resurrection as an historical event), then 'your faith is futile and you are still in your sins'.1 It is not surprising then that Christians have usually followed the writer of the fourth gospel in affirming the importance of knowing about the life of Jesus. There, after recounting the 'many signs' that Jesus did that were performed 'in the presence of his disciples', and affirming that Jesus did many others, the author tells his readers that these were written 'that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name'.2 Though Christians have traditionally affirmed the importance of this historical knowledge (or rational belief),3 they have not been in agreement as to how this knowledge is obtained. In this paper I propose to describe in some detail two accounts of how this knowledge is supposed to be obtained, looking at both classical and contemporary versions of each. I shall term these two approaches the evidentialist and non-evidentialist accounts. These two accounts have often been taken to be rivals, but I