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Traditionally, there have been two basic ways of asserting Jesus' decisive existential significance: mythological and legendary.

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Arguably, the two assertions constituting Christian witness explicitly as such have each involved a necessary presupposition – -- these being, accordingly, the constitutive presuppositions of Christian witness. These are
(1) the theological presupposition that God as conceived by radical monotheism is (formally) strictly ultimate reality in its meaning for us, and, conversely, that strictly ultimate reality in its meaning for us is (materially) God as conceived by radical monotheism; and (2) the christological presupposition that the fully real human being Jesus is (formally) the decisive re-presentation of the meaning of God for us, God being as conceived by radical monotheism, and, conversely, that the decisive re-presentation of the meaning of God for us as so conceived is (materially) the fully real human being Jesus.

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According to the a priori christology presupposed by traditional revisionary christology, x, for any possible value of x, can be truly asserted to be of decisive significance for human existence if, and only if, x is not only a fully real human being, but also actualizes her or his possibility of attaining a perfect human existence in relation to God – -- "a perfect human existence" being the ideal or unsurpassable actualization of the authentic existence that God at least implicitly authorizes in the case of every human (and understanding) being.

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