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2. Thus it is because a Christian believes on the ground of this witness in what this witness attests that the Christian believes whatever she or he believes – -- namely, that Jesus is the Christ, and hence that the ultimate truth about our existence as human beings is the truth as it is in Jesus.

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4. Of course, it is also true, as Paul argues elsewhere, that "if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised" (1 Cor 15:13, 16), That is, unless the truth of human existence is as the Christian witness to Jesus discloses it to be – -- unless our lives as human beings really are ended, not in death, but in God's boundless love – -- Jesus is not and cannot be that truth. But the ground and object of Christian faith is not such beliefs as Christians may have about the human future independently of Jesus Christ, not even true beliefs about our future (although they may certainly serve to express Christian faith), but rather the other way around: Jesus Christ is the object of Christian faith even as the Christian witness to him as such is its ground.

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